Kinda rushed to get my first tattoo years ago. I wanted to get a black rose because I saw that it symbolized death of someone. I want to make it more personal because when people ask about it’s meaning I get embarrassed that it’s not more than it is in its current state. Thanks in advance

Scott Masterson had first met Scarlett at a rooftop party in downtown Dallas. Their age and the time of year were both in late springtime, them in their mid twenties and the date in early May. He had on a sharp yet breezy blazer and she astonished in a thigh length sleeveless blue dress.
“Oh hey Scott I don’t believe you two have met…” his then happily married friend had remarked with a slow swinging open hand toward her.
“Scott Masterson…reluctant friend to this knucklehead” he said with a tight lipped grin, trying not to be so obvious with his instant rapture.
“Scarlett…a pleasure…”
Her hand was so delicate to Scott’s touch. They locked eyes. It was like looking back through centuries of connection, endless days of laying in the sun next to the Seine River, or rising to Hollywood fame in the 1940’s and only having each other who would understand the glory and the pain of it all, or generations of quiet, simple country love that would bear such beautiful, happy children that would go on to raise beautiful, happy children, all with their dark blue eyes. Yes, the memories of every love story since the beginning of time was swirling right there in Scarlett’s irises. Scott had to catch himself before he stared embarrassingly too long.
“Sorry Scottie here doesn’t get out often” his friend quipped, which Scott appreciated actually, it helped him snap back to professionalism.
“Well I don’t either…at least I prefer not to.” Scarlett’s words flowed through the air like a flock of rose petals.
“Hey, kindred spirits.” Scott was really sensing a rising energy out of her, they had barely broken eye contact.
“Well, I’ll let you two have at it, I got a wife around here somewhere. Hey…Scott and Scarlett…not bad, not bad.” His friend exited stage right with a sly chuckle.
“Nice guy…so…what are you drinking, Scarlett?” Scott looked around for the emptiest corner of the rooftop bar, hoping to find a nice place for them to be able to hear each other. This night had just become something.
“That depends, Scott…what do you like?”
Oh man.
Well, as you can expect, the evening blossomed into a beautiful, long winded conversation that etched a long list of similarities between the two. They both lived in the city, had never married, and had dreamed of stable, simpler lives far away from tall buildings and busy streets. The next morning Scott awoke in her arms, which warmed much deeper than just his skin. He could feel her soothing his very identity, his future, everything. Her arms were tailor made to fit his very soul, and he had never felt more safe and at home.
“Mmm…you can stay right here…” she whispered, eyes still closed.
“I will…I will”
They both fell back asleep, into a dream that wouldn’t end upon waking.
Two years passed and suddenly they lived that simple backwoods life, way out where acres of land far out-populated the few and far between people. They took a lovely home, which happily looked over a long backyard, right up to a lively yet mostly undisturbed river. Their only neighbor within a mile was an older ranch worker named Charles, who rarely made himself perceivable. Days were spent way on into town where they both had offices. They didn’t mind the commute. Nights were spent mostly like this night, cuddled outside near a lovely little fire, with a slowly shrinking amount of wine sitting between them. Enjoying their Kingdom. Tonight, however, would prove to be a special night, for many reasons, all unexpected.
“Honey, I’ve been thinking…” Scott began, sitting up and opening his hands to the warmth of the fire.
“Oh?” Scarlett also sat up, eyes widening.
“So look, Scarlett, the last two years have been the best of my life. An absolute dream…”
She held her breath, her focus darting between his eyes and mouth.
“Yeah?”
“We have everything we ever want out here. But…what if there’s more?”
“More?” She had envisioned this very conversation hundreds of times.
“Our dreams have come true, but what if we…made some new dreams?” Scott turned and embedded his eyes into hers. He burst into a big smile.
“Scott…I thought…”
“Nevermind what I said” he cut her off, which he always made a point to never do, but this was a good exception.
“I’m ready, Scarlett…let’s have a family.”
“Ohhhh Scott, oh Scott”
They hugged tight enough to where it hurt.
“Well, in that case, we may need to open another bottle.” She said playfully, bouncing her eyebrows twice.
“Excellent. I’ll be right up. I’ll put this fire out and then start yours up.”
“Oh stop!” She bounded away girlishly, up the snowy back steps and into the house.
Scott let out a big sigh that he could see in the cold air and sat back in his chair, taking in his decision. He really was ready. He had secretly been keeping a long list of names that he liked and that he thought would work in front of Masterson. Especially little girl names. He stared into the campfire flames, getting lost imagining the three of them sitting right here, a little girl resting securely in Scarlett’s arms, as Scott had found himself, and stayed within these past two years.
Suddenly his trance was broken when, from the road in front of their house, came the sound of a vehicle approaching at high speed. Scott snapped his head back toward the house to get a better listen. He could see, around the house and through the trees, a large truck barreling down the country road, its headlights racing and bouncing with intensity. In an instant, it had passed up the road and out of sight.
“Huh?”
Soon, after a moment of silence, another sound echoed into the night. This sound rattled Scott to the bone and tore all that was right in his world into pieces. A sharp, bellowing squeal. His eyes shot over to his neighbors house, which was about a tenth of a mile to his right but still had a couple dim lights on that he could see. The shriek seemed to come from there.
Then, more squeals. It was hellish. More than animal but not quite human. Scott stood up. He heard crashing and tearing and further destruction coming from Charles’ house.
“Scarlett!! Scarlett!” He yelled toward his house, where he looked and could see her silhouette behind the curtains at the kitchen window. She didn’t seem to hear him.
He turned back toward his neighbors. The chaos had gone quiet. Not a half a moment after, though, he heard something big barreling through the trees as fast as that truck had been sprinting. Running, running furiously between the two houses. Searching, hunting. Scott was taken aback so hard that his heel had caught the edge of the fire pit, throwing him down only inches away from severe burns. He had knocked his head in the whiplash, making him groan and take a moment to regain his bearings.
“SCARLETT!!!!”
He screamed out toward his home as he sat up, rubbing a quickly rising bump on the back of his head. He heard a loud breaching on the side of his house. The patio door. No. No. Then, all hell broke loose. Scarlett started wailing and crying and he could hear crashes of plates and glasses and deep guttural roars coming from the kitchen inside. Shadows danced in a frenzy from the curtained windows. Sounds of instinctual survival seemed to be thrown from Scarlett inside. Sounds of defeat. Sounds of agony. Sounds of insanity. Scott sprang to his feet, his equilibrium being more damaged than he realized after his fall. He had to catch his hand on a chair to stabilize himself. Scarlett’s symphony of pain had gone quiet. Soon after something burst back out the patio door again and off in the same direction as that truck before.
Scott struggled back up to the house, slowly climbing the wintered, crunching stairs that led to the patio. He no longer yelled for Scarlett. In fact, the only thing that came to his senses was the sound of his own heavy breathing. Everything else had been turned off, save for a heavy and sudden dread that he had prayed he would never feel. He came to the side of his house where indeed the patio door had been busted and forced open. It laid inside the kitchen, its hinges snapped like toothpicks. Scott, with eyes wide and twitching, slowly entered his home and looked into the kitchen.
He didn’t scream. He didn’t even change his breathing. He didn’t blink. He just got a good long look at what laid before him.
Everything was broken. The fridge was on its side, the door hanging open and food and drink scattered all over the floor. The table was upended, its legs to the ceiling. A chair was resting on the counter, possibly having been thrown in defense. And Scarlett. Oh Scarlett. She…was…everywhere. She was all over the floor. She was sprayed against the walls. She was stuck to the window. She was in the sink.
Scott gently walked through the carnal mess and sabotage of his world. Long ago he had known exactly what he would do if something anywhere near this bad were to happen to him. He politely stumbled through the kitchen, down the hall, and into the bedroom. He opened his closet door and lowered a fire safe from the top rack. He unlocked it with a passcode. 511, after that warm May date when he had first met Scarlett. In the safe was a Sig Sauer P320 handgun. Scott took it out, along with a box of bullets, loaded one into the gun, put the safe back on its rack, and walked out of the closet, sitting on his bed. Their bed. Where they should’ve been laying right at this very moment, working toward a happy future. Where he would’ve kissed her forehead and put a hand on her growing midsection. Where they would have awoken on Christmas morning to the sound of children who were way too excited to remain asleep. Where they would’ve grown old. Where they would’ve smiled at each other through wrinkles, satisfied with all the love they shared and passed on to the next generations. Where they would’ve held each other in deep peace as they finally fell asleep to this world.
“I will…I will”
In one quick motion Scott pulled back the hammer and stuck the barrel of that pistol right up against his Governor and blew himself away, far away, right back into Scarlett’s loving arms.
Jeremy “Smallmouth” Bassett quickly yet stealthily made his way back to his Uncle’s house. He hugged the sides of the dark country road, keeping his eyes and ears wide open as to notice any sounds pertaining to the event that he had just witnessed there in the field next to the huge blaze. His only thought was Uncle Chuck. His house was right on the warpath of that horrible thing and Smallmouth had to go to him and make sure he was safe. He dared not go back to his truck, which would bring a lot of unwanted attention. No, Smallmouth walked and walked and finally saw the lights of his Uncle’s house. He carefully approached the front door from the shadowed driveway. Suddenly it occurred to Smallmouth that something was very wrong here. The door was busted in, having been plowed through by something very large and very strong.
“No…no…no”
Smallmouth slowly entered the house. The kitchen and living room were a disaster, chairs and tables and bottles strewn about and shattered. Bloody hoof-prints covered the floors, each of them the size of dinner plates. Smallmouth heard no noise. He felt himself well with tears, his nose a faucet that he began to sniff up as he worked his way through to his Uncle’s room, the door there also being broken in. A small whine growing in his throat, Smallmouth peaked into his uncles bedroom.
It was all in tatters. The bed had been attacked and shredded, the mattress being ripped up and thrown about as if it were made of cotton candy. More bloody hoof-prints were painted all over the brown carpet. Smallmouth trembled and put a hand up to his wet face. He didn’t see a way that his Uncle was anywhere near alive, knowing what he knew about the monster that had been in this house.
Smallmouth slowly walked to the living room, to the only little table that had been untouched in the attack. It was almost as if the bottle of whiskey teleported into his hand from the overturned cabinet, unopened. He fixed that real quick.
Soon he was several pulls deep of the only thing in the world that he knew would make him feel better, even if only for a few hours. He found his pack of cigarettes in his coat pocket and lit one up, although he was indoors. What did it matter? He sat in a chair that he had turned right side up and set the bottle on the table and looked out the back window into the pitch black. He cried for his Uncle and he cried for the world. He cried for himself. He cried for broken promises and his own weakness. He drank and drank until his vision shook from right to left everywhere he looked. At first he didn’t even notice the figures on the back porch. Then his vibrating focus did pick up on them, but by then it was too late. It was so dark out there but in their outlines he could see they wore long robes and hoods.
“HA!! COME AND GET ME! HAHA!! YOU COME AND YOU GET ME!!” Smallmouth boasted with a delusional amount of courage.
A creak escaped from the kitchen and he drunkenly slung his head over toward it. Three more figures stood there. Or was it just one? Smallmouth was none the wiser. All at once the hooded intruders from both inside and outside began to chant a strange, twisted rhyme in strikingly low and dissonant harmony:
“A sliver…of liver…goes down…with a shiver… …and gives…your gullet…to gall… …but drink…the Cider…that drowns…the Spider… …and you…will be free…of it all… …so tighten the grip…that loosens your lips… …O raise…the bottle…of brown… …and wake tomorrow…to find…in sorrow… …ANOTHER…SPIDER…TO…DROWN”
Smallmouth groaned at them in dissatisfaction and turned his bottle up again and began to chug the whiskey. As he did they repeated the chant except this time it was louder and closer. By the time Smallmouth had finished his bottle he was quickly losing consciousness. This wasn’t just whiskey. As he closed his eyes he felt hands grabbing him from all sides.
Smallmouth pulled open his sticky eyelids. His head felt like someone had bowled a strike into it. Wind froze his face. The smell of sickly, wet iron stung his nostrils. His vantage was higher than usual. Way higher. He was looking out into another field, but from easily ten feet up. He saw an old church, formerly painted white but now a flaky pale-beige. He heard the friction of a quick pull of rope below him, matched with a slight, tight pain at his feet. He looked down. A red-robed figure was fastening him against a wooden structure of some kind. His feet sat on a small flat platform perpendicular to a post that went from the ground up past smallmouths head. He couldn’t move his arms, so he quickly shot his eyes side to side. They were also tied to another horizontal post. A cross. He was being tied to a crude wooden cross. His shirt had been removed, exposing a hairy, overweight belly. Smallmouth tried to speak, but all that came out was a slow, unintelligible grumble. He was still drunk. No, this was more than that. He was under the influence of something strong and absolutely inhibitive. He wallowed again, and took in a deep breath. The smell of iron once again hit his nose. He looked down at himself. He was covered in a thick, red liquid. That wasn’t just the smell of iron. He had been splashed full body with blood.
“Now now, young servant…” the figure at his feet had finished his task and took a couple of steps out to admire his own handiwork.
“Ahh…perfect. The picture of martyrdom. Yes, you will always be remembered, Brother Bassett. You are to be the first Saint of The New Bible.” He opened his arms in his declaration.
Smallmouth looked up into the cold night sky. The moon shown down, giving everything a midnight spotlight. It was a gorgeous waxing gibbous, big and bright but not quite full. Yes, he was in a great big snowy field that housed an old worn down church. From the windows of the church he saw candles glowing, showing dark heads and shoulders looking out to him, also covered in loose hoods, hiding faces. He was hanging on a cross about one hundred feet from the old church. In front of the cross was a partially covered pit, a couple of two by fours supporting double armfuls of branches and dead leaves.
The figure at the base of the cross put his arms back to his side. He was still looking right at the drugged Smallmouth’s dumbstruck face. Even with a veiled mouth you could hear the twisted smile in his voice.
“Tonight you will help us finally defeat this legion, Smallmouth. You see, it may have the evil spirits within it, but at its core, it is still an owned animal. An animal that knows its Master very well. An animal that will remember the smell of its Master. You, my friend, are covered in its Master right now. And you are hanging on a cross, the symbol of this brute’s most hated enemy. But take heart, young Brother. Before you is our pit of spears. Yes you will attract the beast, but our Divine plan will intercept it and the beast will fall and be pierced. And then, oh dear brother, you will forever be immortalized. You will be purified in fire by the hands of your church brethren. Out of your screams and into the smoke the iniquities of all will be released. We will go on to preach your good example and your sainthood forever and ever.”
Smallmouth began to drool and hum pathetically. He could hear and understand the words of the robed man but he couldn’t fight back. His body was useless, limp inside its rope confines. All he could do now is think, and watch, and wait, and dread his fate.
The figure turned away from him, walking over near the pit and gathering up a bundle of brambles and throwing them over the last open area, covering it completely. He then crunched through the snow over to the front door of the old church, groaning open the door. He stood at the dark doorway for a few seconds in silence, and then began to make a noise. An over exaggerated pig squealing noise, high pitched and infuriating. Soon after other voices from inside the church began to do the same, their wailing echoing out of the building and all across the field, loudly signaling, calling out. It may as well have been a dinner bell. Not a half minute after they began the distress signal it was loudly answered by a distant squall. A furious squall.
This was it. Either way it happened Smallmouth was about to die. Experience terror, and then die, and not even have the ability to put up any kind of defense. It wasn’t fair. He just slowly lifted up his head and watched out far into the moonlit, white field. He then raised his heavy head further and took a good gander at the moon and stars for the last time.
“God,” he thought to himself, still having full inner monologue yet no outer motor function, “I am so sorry. I am so sorry for being what I am. I am so sorry for ending up in this place. It’s only my own fault. If it wasn’t for me being so stupid and messy and drunk and terrible then this wouldnt be happening to me.”
He began to shed tears that washed lines into the blood on his face.
“Please forgive me God. Please, please, please forgive me for all of my sins. This is it. I’m gonna die. I’m gonna die. PLEASE FORGIVE ME!!!!” He yelled inside his own mind, hoping and trying to send his silent words as far up into heaven as they could go.
He lowered his eyes back to the ground. He looked over at the church again. The windows were empty, the candles were extinguished. Those hooded cowards were hiding from their own handmade sacrificial service. All was quiet for a long pause until a much louder, closer bleating began at the edge of the forest not even three hundred feet away from Smallmouth’s glazed over eyes. It was time, and it was too late for a miracle.
Out of the woods, slowly and heavily, stomped the massive hog. As it marched closer and closer Smallmouth could see its white, boiled over eyes and black-burnt skin. Its jaws were flying open and snapping its sharp, pocket knife-sized teeth together in an intimidating “clack”. It was now less than a hundred feet away, the dark old church to its right shoulder. It stopped, its pale glowing eyes fixed right on Smallmouth on the crude cross. It truly was a monster. It stood as tall as a man and as long as a canoe. Around its murderous mouth were stains of red, the remnants of all that it had taken from the world on this unholy night. In its clanging jaws were bits of flesh. It snorted and scowled.
Then, in a fury, it wailed that horrible squeal and started off into a dead sprint. It galloped and galloped toward Smallmouth at a high, blistering speed. It kept yawping and howling as it cut the distance from the cross down to fifty feet, forty feet, thirty, twenty. All at once it passed over the covered pit and plunged in. In his doomed, dead eyed stupor Smallmouth could hear what sounded like paint being dumped from a rooftop onto concrete. Trails of black liquid squirted and splashed up from the pit, which had been uncovered in the fall of the beast. Unbelieving, Smallmouth saw dozens of steel spear tips standing up from the dug-in ground. Right in the middle of them the beast was stuck. The sheer weight of the animal had caused the spears to pierce through its tough skin, sticking out of its back, soaked in black blood. One spear had stabbed right under the hogs chin, passing up through its jaws and out its black snout. It made agonized sounds. It roared and roared and shook the spears inside it, beginning furiously, then growing weaker and weaker within seconds. Finally, it let out one last weak little squeal, before it went still and quiet.
Smallmouth was frozen both physically by drugs and constraints and mentally by shock. His mouth hung open toward the pit of spears, his vision blurry. He took in a deep, troubled breath and let out a moan of disbelief and relief. The old church doors sprang open, and the sound of jubilation within flowed out into the night. The red robed figures flocked out of the building toward the pit, arms raised in celebration. They surrounded the hole, getting a good look at their success and their enemies defeat. Some held additional spears and began further stabbing the dead animal, causing more black blood to be shed up at them. They all yelled loudly and triumphantly. Some danced around the pit. Some skipped over to Smallmouth on the cross and danced around him, slapping his legs and spinning in circles.
Smallmouth looked on at the raucous celebration, both in utter disbelief of their trap actually working and also in turmoil. How long now until they fully execute their plan.
A taller robed man, whose voice matched the same one who spoke to Smallmouth as he tied his feet, spoke up, sounding almost happily intoxicated.
“Ahh yes my Brothers!! It is done!! We have won!!!”
They all whooped and cheered.
“Brother Norman, go into the church and bring me the small tank of fuel. Let us send our dear Saint Bassett to the Holy lands, where he will be adored for all eternity!”
They all clapped and hollered. One figure began childishly skipping away from the pit and over toward the front door of the church.
Then, it happened.
From the pit all of a sudden a great blaze erupted instantly. It stood as tall as the cross, and it burned a furious red and blue. It raged and raged, blinding Smallmouth and making him clumsily turn his face away from the heat.
All of the figures panicked, screaming and scattering away toward the church. They didn’t get far. Up from the fiery pit, dozens of long, long, black arms, adorned with six hooking claws emerged and stretched out of the flames and latched on to the legs of those trying to escape. Smallmouth heard crying and wailing from the men as the black, razor clawed-hands of the legion grabbed them and began pulling them back, into the blazes. One by one the red robed people were dragged into the flames, their clothes catching instantly. Smallmouth could see violently shaking bodies in the evil furnace. Oh, the screams. Above the tortured howling, the sound of laughing broke out. Deep, menacing laughter, hundreds of voices, echoed up into the air from the burning hole. Then, in one extinguishing squeeze, the ground swallowed the entirety of the fiery pit, leaving it completely covered in dirt, still and quiet. Soon after, and just like the pit of spears, the old church building caught in an instant and raging fire, quickly toppling the walls and dropping the steeple into its ruins. The smoke towered high in the night sky, which had just began to hint at a pale morning blue. Smallmouth hung on his cross in utter horror and surprise.
As the late evening hours glowed into early morning the smoke eventually tapered off, as Smallmouth’s drugs finally began to wear off as well. The fires of the church did garner long distance attention, though. Just as Smallmouth was able to regain control of his muscles and voice he heard emergency sirens call out into the cold morning air. Not long after, two fire trucks, an ambulance and a sheriffs truck tore into the field and toward Smallmouth on the cross. Not long after Smallmouth could feel the tied ropes being cut loose by firemen, their uniforms easily the best red clothes he had seen all night.
“What on God’s green Earth happened here son?” A bearded man with a dark hat and brown shirt and pants asked Smallmouth once he had been lowered down from the cross and sat on the ground with a shock blanket around his shoulders. The Sheriff, no doubt.
“God’s green Earth. It really is God’s, isn’t it?” Smallmouth whispered, staring out across the cold field. Then, at the very place he was staring, an old, familiar truck came barreling out of the gravel road in the woods and through the field in the steadily growing morning light. It was Uncle Chuck’s truck. It hurried over toward the other emergency vehicles, parked, the driver’s side door burst open, and Uncle Chuck came bounding out over to Smallmouth, his eyes wide and his mouth a wonderfully shocked “O”.
“JEREMY! JEREMY!!!” He basically fell on Smallmouth in a tight, warm hug. Smallmouth was caught off guard by Chuck using his real name.
His Uncle held him for several seconds and then let up, but kept his hands on Smallmouth’s shoulders.
“I thought you were dead.” Both of them said at almost the exact same time.
“I came back and your house was a mess and there was blood everywhere. I thought you were dead.” Smallmouth weakly spat out.
“Well, I woke up and you were gone, son, so I walked to the ranch to get my truck. I was worried bout ya son. I came back home and the whole place had been turned upside down. Blood on the carpet. I just thought the worst. Then I tried my neighbors house. Buddy, they’re dead. Looks like some wacko murder-suicide if I ever saw one. Scott probably tried to come kill us too and wrecked the place when he found it empty. I don’t know. But what I DO know is that you are right here! You are okay Jeremy!! Ahhh Praise Jesus!!”
“It’s not that, Uncle. That isn’t what happened out here. It’s..it was a..a, uh…”
Smallmouth’s fried brain couldn’t even comprehend what he had witnessed over the past few hours. It was all a violent blur.
“Dont worry bout it son, you can tell me everything on the way to the hospital. We gotta go get you checked out and cleaned up. C’mon.” He helped Smallmouth up and they walked over to the ambulance, his Uncle’s arm thrown around his shoulder.
Smallmouth would be sent home later that afternoon. It would take him and his Uncle a long time to sort through the chaos of that deadly night and rebuild their lives. But life kept on. Smallmouth would remain living with his Uncle, and would begin a job working with him down at the ranch. Together they started to attend a local church. Smallmouth never touched a drink or a drug or even a cigarette ever again, and remained steadfast in his newly revitalized faith.

5/15/24 co CEO Fortress announces closure of Fortress Mgt buyback from Softbank. Now Fortress is ready to roll at Novation Co NOVCQ a public company hidden by SEC Rule 15c2-11 with partners co investors Mass Mutual & sub Barings aka Babson Capital, Jefferies $JEF & White Mountain’s Capital $WTM & NOVCQ Board of Directors Barry Igdaloff’s Howard Amster & Whitney Tilson, Chuck Gillman, Jeffrey Eberwein, David Pointer, Tim Eriksen, Lee Keddie & Robert Pearse. These people are all connected and their 3 NOVCQ restructuring are all connected and advised by 3 third party professionals TPP Boulay Group, Olshan Law, Shapiro Sher. These TPP are no different then Sullivan Cromwell aiding the FTX scheme.
https://www.pionline.com/alternatives/fortress-mubadala-complete-acquisition-fortress-investment-group
World Leading Investors Fortress, EJF Capital aka FBR, MassMutual Barings, Jefferies, White Mountains Capital $WTM are about to create BILLIONS in Capital plus Hundreds of Millions in Cash Flow every year. This is how Whitney Tilson's pals Chuck Gillman, Jeff Eberwein and their co-investors siege control of Novation Companies $NOVC. Use SEC Rule 15C(2)-11 to drive share price down, while taking 16M or 10% of stock at pennies as partial board compensation. Equipped with 40M common shares of NOVCQ they are ready to make Billions plus Create $100Ms every year in cash flow in dividends/Mgt Fees. They have a world class roster of investors supporting them including; MassMutual Barings/Jefferies 40M and Fortress/EJF Capital 31.3M NOVCQ common shares (EJF formerly FBR is owned by White Mountains Capital $WTM). Fortress/EJF Capital also own $NOVCQ only Sr Debt to exit their 1st Ch 11 MD and was used in 2nd Ch 11 in DE filed 8/13/2024. Fortress/EJF invested a few thousand dollars in Off Balance Sheet entities Taberna Trups CDOs I & II/Kodiak CDO I, that hold NOVCQ only Sr Debt. After the 1st Ch 11 NOVCQ Board of Director Barry Igdaloff, Howard Amster hands Fortress/EJF Capital 31M shares allocated by Board at zero basis. This proves NOVCQ Board of Directors was not independent from Sr Debt Holders Fortress/EJF Capital. Sr Debt was a ruse including its use in DE Ch 11. DE Ch 11 was carefully crafted to provide short sellers a way to take tax free gains. The Board with little cash invested holds control of this former NYSE MREIT Novastar Financial Inc. traded under MREIT NYSE Exemption $NFI now Novation $NOVCQ.
Per WSJ Wesley Edens of Fortress is the new MREIT Subprime KING after restructuring Mr. Cooper $COOP and OMF One Main aka LEAF AIG and Citi Bank Subprime CaPersonal Lending unit, and RITM/NRZ and Dynex Capital DX. Manny Friedman Founder of EJF Capital formerly FBR Friedman, Billings Ramsey, is regarded as a leading MREIT expert. They control Novation Companies Inc. NOVCQ thanks to $NOVCQ Board of Directors who they have a past relationship. They renamed Novastar Financial Inc. former traded NSYE as $NFI to Novation Companies, which owns MREIT Novastar Financial Inc., renamed Novastar Mortgage inside 2nd Ch 11 in DE. A new 8-Member Board is waiting in the wings with new name/symbol. I have been told they have big plans for NOVCQ only operating unit http://healthcare-staffing.com HCS which owns and conceals Medmasa http://medmasa.com
I believe they will merge HCS/Medmasa with Jeff Eberwein Hudson Global $HSON to create quarter billion tax free BPO public company. Jeffrey Eberwein is the former NOVCQ COB/CEO that managed 1st Ch 11 in MD with Shapiro Sher. Eberwein is now COB/CEO of Hudson Global $HSON. This merger will monetize NOVCQ $730M NOLs just like both CH 11 the 1st in Maryland, MD & 2nd or last in Delaware, DE. Both used Sr Debt as ruse to execute both Ch 11s which have gone to great length to save NOVCQ $730M NOLs. 2022 NOVCQ triggered SEC Rule 15c(2)-11 which allows NOVCQ to remain public but conceals who is buying NOVCQ as only Expert Investors can accumulate NOVCQ like Putnam Inv. Goldman Sachs, Blackrock & David Dreman of Dreman Value Mgt. and Thomas Akin Talkot Capital fund owns 1.9M common. This SEC Rule is postured as way for small public company to remain public and not have the cost burden of SEC filings. What it really does is stops Retail bid/ask and allows Expert Investors in the know to front run a public company before rolling out true reorganization plans.
They are ready to change Novation Co $NOVCQ name and brand so as to eliminate any reference to the prior board or brand. This is how they roll. I believe they will present the new name/symbol and 8-Member Board comprised of Fortress, EJF Capital aka FBR people once Fortress Management close Softbank SALE of Fortress (DONE See Top 5/15/24 Announcement) to them and Mubadala Investment Company ex Fortress executive Rajeev Misra. Whitney Tilson close small cap co-investors Chuck Gillman, Jeff Eberwein are at the center. I’ve been told they do nothing but sure things. Former George Soros Investments Portfolio Mgr. Jeff Eberwein Wharton MBA, is ready to take $NOVC http://medmasa.com conceal behind http://healthcare-staffing.com & $730M NOLs. This 8-Member Board connected to past Board Members Jeff Eberwein, Chuck Gillman, Barry Igdaloff, Howard Amster I believe will merge Medmasa/HCS with Hudson Global $HSON (see Jefferey Eberwein Form 4s at $HSON & Form 4s filed at NOVCQ between April-Oct 2015 via his fund Lone Star Value Mgt.). Jeff Eberwein & his clan including Whitney Tilson/Chuck Gillman were introduced to the present day NOVCQ Board Barry Igdaloff, Howard Amster. Wes Edens, Founder of Fortress hide their identity behind Off Balance Sheet OBE Entities Taberna Trups CDOs I and II and former FBR Friedman, Billings, Ramsey now called http://EJFCap.com also hide their identity behind OBE Kodiak CDO I.
Fortress/EJF own at the same time both the only Sr Debt to exit 1st Ch 11 MD and months afterward 31M NOVCQ common (9M NOVCQ common shares plus 22.250M Ten Year Warrants. There are co-conspirators with NOVCQ board of directors that own 40M NOVCQ Common & MassMutual & Jefferies own 40M NOVCQ common shares. Novation Companies Inc. $NOVCQ submerged shareholder plans and value under SEC Rule 15c(2)-11 to sub penny stock that can only be traded today by Expert Investors defined by this SEC Rule. Fortress/EJF Capital paid almost nothing for OBEs yet they have spent at least $2M cash in the last Ch 11 in DE. They have every reason to do something big.
I believe that something will be splitting NOVCQ into two tax free public companies worth BILLIONS plus Hundreds of Millions in annual cash flow in MREIT Dividends & Lucrative Mgt Fees just like Fortress did a LEAF/One Main OMF, Newcastle that is New Residential $NRZ now Rithm Capital $RITM and $GCI formerly New Media NEWM and New Senior $SNR sold for over $2B. $RITM aka $NRZ in 2019 10K documented that shareholders paid Fortress over $250M in Mgt Fees annually, plus dividends. Fortress terminated the NRZ/RITM Mgt Deal for cool $400M (simultaneously changing Name/Symbol to Rithm Capital $RITM). NOVCQ Dark Horse are their plans for NOVCQ only operating unit HCS aka Medmasa http://medmasa.com concealed by CH 11 in DE. Medmasa NOVCQ only operating unit is http://healthcare-staffing.com NOVCQ former MREIT NYSE $NFI now named Novastar Mortgage is the Board, EJF Capital and Fortress ticket to monetizing rights (see Exhibit 2.1 of Q3 2007 10Q Service Rights Transfer Agreement Sec 5.04 that defines these rights as Cleanup Call Rights CCR well know to these MREIT experts) that control billions of rich, seasoned collateral assets ideal to be leveraged and securitized into MREIT dividend & like RITM aka NRZ another external management fee for Fortress and/or EJF. Fortress/EJF Capital then FBR did this with NOVCQ Board Barry Igdaloff, Howard Amster 2000-03 at Dynex Capital NYSE $DX. Ask Igdaloff helpers Thomas Akin former CEO/COB of DX he holds 1.9M of NOVCQ in his fund Talkot Capital. Thomas Bruce Akin sat on DX Board for years with NOVCQ Chairman Igdaloff. Igdaloff served 20 years on DX Board per DX 8K 9/3/2020.This is your chance to do what is right. ====================================== ALTERNATIVES
May 15, 2024 12:04 PM

Fortress, Mubadala complete acquisition of Fortress Investment Group

LYDIA TOMKIWERIN ARVEDLUND

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Drew McKnight and Joshua Pack
Fortress Investment Group, an alternatives manager, and Mubadala Investment Co., the investment arm of Abu Dhabi’s $276 billion sovereign wealth fund, completed their acquisition deal May 15, and as part of the close, Fortress management now owns a 32% equity interest.
Mubadala owns the remaining 68%. The acquisition, through Mubadala Capital, is for the 90.01% of Fortress equity that was held by SoftBank Group Corp., according to a news release. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

RELATED ARTICLE

Mubadala seeks co-investors for Fortress in effort to clear U.S. security review SoftBank-Fortress deal turns attention to future arrangements with private equity firms
Fortress’s sale of majority equity was approved by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States after concessions were made to let Fortress keep data and technology in the U.S., the Financial Times first reported last week.
Fortress, which had $48 billion in assets under management at the end of 2023, said it expects the new joint venture to help it further establish itself in credit and real estate in both public and private markets. Fortress pointed to Mubadala Capital’s global network to help expand client relationships.
“This is a true landmark event for Fortress, for our employees and for the clients we serve,” said Fortress co-CEOs Drew McKnight and Joshua Pack, adding, “We have strengthened alignments of interest, put significant management skin in the game, and deepened our long-term partnership with Mubadala, one of the world’s most highly regarded investors.”
As part of Fortress management now owning a 32% equity interest, its management is entitled to appointment of a majority of board seats. McKnight, Pack and managing partner Jack Neumark were the largest individual investors in the buyout and were joined by about 150 members of the firm.
Mubadala Capital’s CEO and managing director, Hani Barhoush, continues to serve on the Fortress board, a position he has held since 2019 when Mubadala initially invested.
Fortress will continue to operate as an independent investment manager under its own brand and with full autonomy over its investment process and personnel.

1. ALTERNATIVES

I just realised in the opening scene of wine and roses, behind the mirror is a dirty closet and a toilet, obviously you'll only see the mirror and closer when you stand Infront of it, is it a metaphor to how behind all the flair, is just a miserable sadness

Maggie Rose - No One Gets Out Alive @ $10.79 direct

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Continuing on from this post, this information also comes from Helen Hardacre's book Kurozumikyō and the New Religions of Japan, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 1986 - "Chapter Seven: The Unity of the New Religions" (pp. 188-193):

This study has identified a vitalist, spiritualist world view as the most fundamental factor unifying the new religions. Whereas prior studies have recognized a rather standardized list of traits as shared by a number of the new religions, this study has tried to show how those traits are unified in originating from a particular conceptualization of self in relation to other levels of existence coupled with regular patterns of thought, actuion, and meotion. The kingpin of the system is the idea that the self-cultivation of the individual determines destiny.

You can see this clearly expressed in this SGI saying:

"A great human revolution in just a single individual will help achieve a change in the destiny of a nation and, further, can even enable a change in the destiny of all humankind."

That's the belief, at least. We don't see SGI members having anything close to this kind of impact on society or the world at large, and they've had over 80 years to show us all, almost 65 years here in the US. Nothing.

The religious life consists of such cultivation and of repaying the benefice of deity.

Before anyone tries to say, "There's no 'god' in SGI!", remember that Ikeda HIMSELF defined the Soka Gakkai/SGI as a "monotheism". Considering that Ikeda is defined as "the world’s foremost authority on Nichiren Buddhism" and "the supreme theoretician" (with the only qualification apparently being the all-controlling leader of the Soka Gakkai/SGI), so whatever Icky says, goes.
And don't forget the SGI's emphasis on YOUR eternal gratitude.

Textual erudition, esoteric ritual, and the observance of abstinences will not serve as a basis for elevating the religious status of priests above that of the laity. The laity therefore tend to be central.

Hence the inherent tension in the relationship between the Soka Gakkai and Nichiren Shoshu, ultimately showing that the "new religions" and the "old religions" simply don't mix.

Since individual self-cultivation is the primary determiner of all affairs, fatalistic notions and ideas of pollution must be recast. Unhindered (or less hindered) by notions of pollution, women play key roles.

The "new religions" are so much better positioned to exploit this huge source of donations and free work! The Ikeda cult certainly has.

Because all problems can be traced to insufficient cultivation of the self, one cannot expect fundamental social change to occur through political action.

Even though, ironically, this attitude simply entrenches the status quo and creates no change at ALL. As explained here, this belief simply produces a conservative attitude that rejects society's efforts to collectively help those in need. How many times did you hear in SGI that such-and-so needy person didn't need actual help; they "just need to chant to change their karma!"?? The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. put it succinctly:

Now the other myth that gets around is the idea that legislation cannot really solve the problem and that it has no great role to play in this period of social change because you’ve got to change the heart and you can’t change the heart through legislation. You can’t legislate morals. The job must be done through education and religion. Well, there’s half-truth involved here. Certainly, if the problem is to be solved then in the final sense, hearts must be changed. Religion and education must play a great role in changing the heart. But we must go on to say that while it may be true that morality cannot be legislated, behavior can be regulated. It may be true that the law cannot change the heart but it can restrain the heartless. It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me but it can keep him from lynching me and I think that is pretty important, also. So there is a need for executive orders. There is a need for judicial decrees. There is a need for civil rights legislation on the local scale within states and on the national scale from the federal government. Source

And civil rights legislation has done far MORE to advance the causes of equality and justice than ANY religion ever has. For example, the SGI still clings to its anachronistic, old-fashioned "4 divisional system" based in traditional Japanese patriarchal family norms, even though this is ill-fitting and inappropriate, even offensive, in Western cultures.

Similarly, attempting to cure disease through medical therapies alone can produce only a shallow healing.

As discussed here, this kind of selling point might've flown in the 1800s, even in the early 1900s, and in the chaos of post-WWII defeated/occupied Japan, when people didn't really have access to medical treatment that worked, but now? GTFO. There are very few who will go for this, and they tend to be uneducated. You'll notice this "faith-healing" is hardly a major selling point any more.
Keeping in mind that the focus of this book is on one of the oldest of Japan's "new religions", Kurozumikyō, to illustrate how very similar ALL Japan's "new religions" are to each other, with only minor differences, and this includes Soka Gakkai:

The code of ethics seen in Kurozumikyō is not solely its own invention but is generally shared by both new and established religions. It rests in principles of family solidarity, authority of elders, and a clear-cut division of labor between the sexes.

Is it still required in Japan that female Soka Gakkai employees retire as soon as they marry?
From the March 2022 paper, "‘Genderism vs. Humanism’: The Generational Shift and Push for Implementing Gender Equality within Soka Gakkai-Japan":

This paper investigates how young Japanese women in contemporary Soka Gakkai (SG) navigate Japan’s continuous gender stratified society that remains culturally rooted in the ‘salaryman-housewife’ ideology. How are young SG members reproducing or contesting these hegemonic gender norms that few seek to emulate? While SG has long proclaimed that it stands for gender equality, its employment structure and organization in Japan until recently reflected the typical male breadwinner ideology that came to underpin the post-war Japanese nation-state and systemic gender division of labor.
As an organization that has long claimed to support an internationalist/global ‘humanist’ agenda, driven by Daisaku Ikeda’s interpretation of Nichiren Buddhism, SG in Japan also rose to prominence in a society that culturally and ‘legally’ stratified men and women through a systematic gender division of labor.
According to the global gender gap index reported by the World Economic Forum, Iceland followed by Finland stood at the top of 156 countries as the most gender equal societies in 2021; Japan was ranked at 120 as one of the most unequal societies; the closest other OECD country was Italy, ranked as number 633. Even though the rate of female employment now mirrors other OECD countries, no significant change in women’s employment status and position in Japan has occurred. Women in management positions, economic participation and opportunity ranked 117, while their educational attainment stood as number 92, and political empowerment was close to the bottom, at number 147. Why would Japan, as an affluent, post-industrial society, find it so difficult to achieve gender equity on par with other OECD countries?

The Soka Gakkai (SG) certainly is not at ALL "progressive" on this issue! Ikeda blathered endlessly about "the century of women" and "empowering women", yet the organization HE CONTROLLED completely subjugates and exploits women! There ARE no female Soka Gakkai vice presidents.

Even if SG may be one of the biggest private organizations in Japan, the core work force by comparison is much smaller than the SG organization as a whole. Core regional or national male leaders were typically employed and remain employed as core workers on the general track, while until more recently the equivalent female leaders employed by the SGHQ would retire from paid employment upon marriage, and continue ‘unpaid’ leadership positions in the local area. ... SGHQ consists of the central leadership of the organization, but as an employer was built on the model of a typical Japanese company. This meant male employees were stratified as the core labor force and female employees as periphery, disposable labor. This thinking, on the one hand, reflected assumptions about women’s role as homemakers and mothers, which meant that SG female staff upon marriage would stop paid employment. In reality, this did not mean ‘retirement’ to become homemakers, but rather that married women continued ‘working’ for SG as leaders in the local voluntary organization. The vast majority of female and male members of SG never work for the organization as employees, including most of its women leaders. The organization throughout its post-war period relied heavily on the women’s division or fujinbu 婦人部 (see also McLaughlin 2019 who translates this more narrowly to refer to married women). However, particularly those women trained through working for the SGHQ moved onto become effectively unpaid staff and leaders in local areas once they had married and were economically supported by a husband. Women in SG, both those who were employed at the SGHQ and those that were in employment in other places before marriage—a much larger number—could be said to have been and still today remain the key driving force behind SG’s development in Japan: women organize, execute and lead a range of activities that involve the majority of members in the voluntary organization.

Yes, Soka Gakkai women work hard - just without pay. It's utterly exploitative. You can imagine how utterly dependent women are within this system and how vulnerable in cases of divorce. It's NOT AT ALL "humanistic" OR consistent with any "century of women"!

This family-centered ethic is found in established Buddhism and Shrine Shintō, and no new religion denies it. Some in fact go much further than Kurozumikyō to articulate it plainly and to implement it with a vengeance. The main difference in the familistic ethic between the established religions and the new lies in the sustained attention, systematic socialization, and organizational support available to the follower in the new religions. Specifically, counseling helps followers implement the world view's patterns of thought, action, and emotion, and rewards them for doing so.

Within the SGI, this is the whole "guidance" framework buttressing the (non)discussion meetings as a consistent source of indoctrination, I mean "support".

The question why this world view of the new religions arose as a pervasive orientation at the end of the Tokugawa period (1603–1867) is quite remarkable. In large part the new religions themselves are responsible for its propagation. In addition, however, it harmonized well with social institutions and mores prevalent before 1945. ... The family system as codified in the Meiji Civil Code of 1898 embodied a familistic ethic closely resembling that of the new religions. No doubt these religions were greatly supported by the promulgation of this ethic by the pre-1945 educational system. Even when compulsory education dropped morality courses from the curriculum, the new religions continued to preach much the same content, shorn of chauvinistic rhetoric about the divinity of the emperor and the sacrality of the Japanese nation.
In all the new religions, persons over about fifty years of age occupy most positions of leadership, and the consequences of this fact are weighty.

Indeed. In 1986, when this book was published, Icky was 58 years old. While the Soka Gakkai started out as a "young" movement, the fact that Ikeda held onto power as he aged and never ever "passed the baton" to a younger successor or "turned the reins over to the youth" meant that the Soka Gakkai was doomed to become old and stale. Perhaps it was only the fact of Toda's death at this same age (58) that enabled the Soka Gakkai new religion to ever gain a reputation as a "young movement"; Toda held onto all the power and control until his own death, though it seems more a function of his leadership and less akin to Ikeda's pathological grasping, and it was a lucky break for Icky that Toda cacked it so early. Otherwise, he'd have been left like poor Harada, who only became President of the Soka Gakkai when he was already retirement age, 65 years old. Soka Gakkai is now an elderly, declining organization, and that's because Ikeda chose to gather ALL power and control to himself and KEEP it until his own death. Hardly "progressive" or "visionary"!

These individuals were educated under the prewar system, and they have received as part of their primary education a view of the family as a microcosm of the nation, of its roles as pervaded with a sacred character, paralleling a view of Japan as a divine nation. They tend to see the family in terms of the ie rather than in terms of the nuclear family, and to regard its organizational principles as sharing the quality of sacredness.

This "ie" concept is unfamiliar; in the West, it is most closely approximated by Britain's noble families, such as the "House of Windsor".

when the ie or household system dominated in Japan. According to this system, the eldest son was responsible for the social and economic well-being of everyone living under his household, including parents, spouses, children, and siblings. This was considered particularly important in the years leading up and during World War II when “the government re-emphasized the virtue of the ie system by claiming strong family unions to be the basis of a nation ruled by the emperor, the head of all families.” During this time, almost all marriages were either arranged or approved of by the head of household. Source

This is an interesting angle, because perhaps you may recall the incident, immortalized in whatever form in the original "The Human Revolution" novel series, when Toda approached Ikeda's father and asked him to "give" Ikeda to him - Ikeda's father sounded quite overjoyed to be rid of Ikeda. It was Toda who arranged Ikeda's marriage. Toda was clearly acting as "the head of household" here.
Similarly, Ikeda claimed to be "father" of everyone in the Soka Gakkai/SGI, quite possibly in preparation for replacing Japan's Emperor with himself.
Here is a bit more on the "ie" system - you'll be able to see some of the aspects of SGI that seemed odd while you were "in", I think:

Thus it is not simply efficient or proprietous to obey elders, for women to defer to men, or to maintain clear role distinctions between men and women. It is sacred; failure to uphold these principles is immoral and worthy of censure.

This mentality is behind former SGI-USA national women's leader Akemi Bailey-Haynie's statements about the "ironclad" (as she put it) four divisional system. She knew which side her bread was buttered on, so naturally she was going to lean all the way in.

the SGI’s attempts to feign social progressivism.
SGI attracts many progressive leaning people, because the teachings appear to be democratic and universal. (How many of you heard that Nichiren Buddhism was the only school of Buddhism that held women could also attain enlightenment? I did, too many times to count.) Large gatherings in my area were notably diverse - racially, socioeconomically, and country of origin. The SGI also positions itself as an egalitarian organization without an elite Priesthood class. Everyone is a Buddha - and therefore a spiritual equal. The never-ending propagation focus is inclusive - much in the way of the Borg. Prepare to be assimilated!
All of this masks an utterly authoritarian, patriarchal, Japanese-controlled, socially regressive organization that says one thing and does quite another.

It's the Ikeda way...and of course Ikeda is THE "elite", the BETTER "Buddha" than any of YOU losers. No one will ever equal the "eternal mentor", and don't even fantasize about surpassing him, because you can't. That's SGI DOCTRINE. It's Ikeda's game and no one else gets to play, even when he isn't here any more.

That the SGI would have an affinity group for LBGTQ members that simulates inclusion - and simultaneously maintain the divisional structure that is by definition exclusionary - is as dysfunctional as it gets. Source
For SGI to devise a special group for LBGTQNAA members ("Courageous Freedom", whatever THAT means) that is supposed to represent inclusion, while simultaneously maintaining a divisional structure that BY DEFINITION excludes them - proves that this show of "inclusion" is nothing more than a façade, window-dressing to promote itself and conceal its rotten core, while the "ironclad" dysfunction of the SGI remains unchanged. Source

Regarding the "ie" structure of Japan's hundreds-of-years-old family businesses:

The logic of the “ie” system can be described with the following points:

1. The primary objective of the parties in the “ie” relationship is to survive and prosper. The “ie” is neither a contractual venture whose objective is to maximize profit nor is it a venture which can be liquidated after squeezing it dry.
   
2. Ideally, the “ie” must last forever, and as the “ie” prospers so does the family. Therefore, if the “ie” does not exist, neither can the family.
   
3. It is the parents’ responsibility according to the “ie” to continue to have it prosper for the welfare of the family. In a certain sense, it is feudalistic, whereby the parents give children unconditional orders, and the children receive unconditional support.
   
4. The “ie” is an organization in which members will give their all for the benefit of the “ie” by sacrificing their own personal benefits.
   
5. Each “ie” has its specific precepts, habits, and culture. Members are brought up under the same philosophy, or religion, to create a strong team.
   

With regard to that last point, that was apparently the basis for counting all new converts as "households" - they were expected to convert everyone in their family to Soka Gakkai. The Ikeda cult took that as a given, which actually makes some sense, given the pre-war school indoctrination the leaders of the Soka Gakkai had all experienced; as stated above, it harmonized well with social institutions and mores prevalent before 1945.
Unfortunately for Ikeda and the Soka Gakkai, the appeal of this kind of structure was losing strength post-WWII; it's easy to see Toda's wisdom in declaring in the 1950s that, "If we don't achieve 𝘬𝘰̄𝘴𝘦𝘯-𝘳𝘶𝘧𝘶 within Japan within the next 25 or 26 years, it's game over." The Soka Gakkai's success in taking over Japan ("kosen-rufu") depended upon that conditioning that was no longer happening in the schools or in the family. Ikeda believed he was great enough that he'd be able to overcome the fading of that all-important cultural conditioning within the population after 1945, and somehow "win" against the odds. He didn't.

The new religions continue to think of the ie as the model for family relations. That is, the idea of a corporate body passed from generation to generation, engaged in a common means of subsistence, its eternality symbolically manifest in the cult of ancestors, continues to be the conceptual norm.
Conversion is almost entirely limited to urban areas.
Large corporations in Japan typically screen prospective employees to eliminate members of the new religions. There is an inherent conflict between these two types of organizaitions, based upon a paradoxical similarity. The company at its largest and most elaborate seeks to accommodate nearly every need of its employees until the time of retirement, with a corresponding claim upon their loyalties and to a lesser extent, those of their families. Thus individuals already committed to a creed and to an organization over which the company has no control are suspect and probably unable to commit themselves to the extent of someone who has no such commitment. But it is necessary to recall that only a small proportion of the work force is employed by large corporations. The new religions provide ladders of prestige and reward for achievement, and this is a potent source of their appeal. ... Much as a man rises through the ranks in a company, members of the new religions can win reward and recognition that might well be beyond their reach in secular society. Since secular success so often depends heavily upon education and personal connections, persons lacking these may find themselves barred from many opportunities.

And there you have it!

Yesterday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose above 40,000 but then dropped back below it; today it closed above 40,000 for the first time in history, ending the day at 40,003.59. This extraordinary performance means investors have confidence the Federal Reserve will get inflation under control without throwing the country into a recession. It is a triumphant vindication of the financial policies advanced by President Joe Biden and Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen.
In comparison to the breathless coverage of the stock market during Trump’s administration, this milestone is getting very little coverage. Under Trump, the stock market had the highest annualized gain of any Republican president since Calvin Coolidge in the 1920s, but at 11.8%, that annualized gain was lower than the annualized return under Democratic presidents Barack Obama (12.1%) and Bill Clinton (15.9%). Biden’s annualized return passed Trump’s in April 2024, as well.
The stock market’s performance is being ignored partly because Democrats tend to underplay the role of the stock market as an indication of economic health because they recognize it is not the only important way to think about the economy. But since he took office, Biden has also had to contend with the constant stream of outrageous news coming from the radical right.
Today is no exception. Indeed, today’s news is among the most shocking that we’ve had since Biden took office.
Yesterday evening, Jodi Kantor of the New York Times reported that in the days before Biden’s inauguration, an upside-down American flag flew in front of Supreme Court justice Samuel Alito’s home. A U.S. flag flown upside down is a universal symbol of distress. In the days after the January 6, 2021, insurrection, Trump loyalists flew the upside-down flag as a symbol of “the impending death of the nation and a call to arms,” according to American studies professor Matthew Guterl.
Leading scholar of the American right Kathleen Belew explained on social media that the upside-down flag was “not just signifying that the election was ‘stolen.’ The inverted flag means the country has been overthrown (to many, if not most, on the right). This is a profound act of symbolism and appalling at the home of a Supreme Court Justice.”
For Alito to fly it was an indication that he was part of the insurrection.
In September 2021, Trump loyalist lawyer Sidney Powell, who was part of the team trying to get the results of the 2020 presidential election overturned, told a right-wing talk show host that while rioters were attacking the Capitol, she and her team were trying to get an emergency injunction to prevent Congress from certifying Biden’s victory.
“We were filing a 12th Amendment constitutional challenge to the process that the Congress was about to use under the Electoral Act provisions that simply don’t jive [sic] with the 12th Amendment to the United States Constitution,” she said. “And Justice Alito was our circuit justice for that.”
The plan was thwarted, she said, when then-House speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) reconvened Congress and certified Biden’s win that night. “[S]he really had to speed up reconvening Congress to get the vote going before Justice Alito might have issued an injunction to stop it all, which is what should have happened,” Powell said.
Senate Judiciary Committee chair Dick Durbin (D-IL) said today that “Justice Alito should recuse himself immediately from cases related to the 2020 election and the January 6th insurrection, including the question of the former President's immunity in U.S. v. Donald Trump, which the Supreme Court is currently considering. The Court is in an ethical crisis of its own making, and Justice Alito and the rest of the Court should be doing everything in their power to regain public trust.”
House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) also called for Alito to recuse himself from cases involving the 2020 election and Trump.
The potential for Alito to destroy our country in order to restore Trump to the presidency has continued. Along with Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas, whose wife Ginni was in both sympathy and communication with the others trying to overturn the results of the election, as well as the three extremist justices Trump appointed, Alito has been part of a court that has delayed its decision about whether Trump can be tried on criminal charges for conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election for so long that Trump likely has won his gambit to avoid trial before the 2024 election.
When Trump claimed last October that he could not be prosecuted, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing his trial, rejected the argument in December. Trump appealed, and Special Counsel Jack Smith asked the Supreme Court to decide the case immediately. The Supreme Court refused. Then, after a three-judge panel of a federal appeals court unanimously affirmed Chutkan’s ruling in a February 2024 decision that legal observers praised as “thorough and compelling,” Trump appealed to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court then accepted his appeal and scheduled oral arguments for late April, more than a month after the original trial date set by Judge Chutkan.
The result of all this delay, former federal prosecutor Ankush Khardori wrote in Politico last month, is “that a question whose answer was obvious back in December is unlikely to get that answer from the Supreme Court until its session ends in June.” “If the Court hadn’t intervened, we would already have a verdict in the January 6 case,” political strategist Michael Podhorzer wrote, “and we don’t know whether the Court would have decided to intervene without Thomas and Alito.”
When the story of Alito’s misuse of the flag broke, the justice explained himself to Fox News Sunday host Shannon Bream. He blamed his wife, Martha-Ann Alito, for flying the flag, saying she had hung it up in response to a “F*** Trump” sign that was “within 50 feet of where children await the school bus in Jan[uary] 21.” He said that the neighbors are “very political” and had had “words” with the Alitos that had upset Mrs. Alito.
While Justice Alito blamed his wife for the flag, he could hardly have missed seeing it above his house. Former Chicago Tribune editor Mark Jacob wrote: “When I was an editor at the Chicago Tribune, I would’ve been in trouble if I’d let my wife put a political bumper sticker on our car. But a Supreme Court justice’s home can fly a flag of insurrection and he’s still allowed to rule on whether the head insurrectionist has immunity.”
The deputy chief of staff for Representative Don Beyer (D-VA), who represents the town in which the Alitos live, noted that the local schools were all remote in January 2021 because of the pandemic. “No children were waiting for buses,” he noted. Legal analyst Elie Mystal added: “Sam Alito running to Fox News to explain how…he’s not politically motivated at all…is an under-appreciated part of this ongoing ethical disaster.”
It would be bad enough for a Supreme Court justice to announce a partisan preference. But, as David Kurtz wrote this morning at Talking Points Memo, Alito’s embrace of the insurrectionist flag “was a bold declaration of affinity for and alignment with the smoldering insurrection led by a president of the same party that had just been put down but which still loomed as a threat to civic order, the peaceful transfer of power (which at that point had still not yet happened), and the rule of law.”
The call is coming from inside the house.
—
Notes:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/05/17/dow-jones-average-40000/
https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/stock-market-performance-under-president-donald-trump-dow-jones-sp500-2021-1-1029987163
https://www.usbank.com/investing/financial-perspectives/market-news/stock-market-under-biden.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/16/us/justice-alito-upside-down-flag.html
https://www.newsweek.com/sidney-powell-drags-justice-samuel-alito-supreme-court-january-6-mess-1632896
https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/06/politics/trump-immunity-court-of-appeals/index.html
https://www.scotusblog.com/2024/02/supreme-court-takes-up-trump-immunity-appeal/
https://www.scotusblog.com/2023/12/court-wont-hear-trump-immunity-dispute-now/
https://www.cadc.uscourts.gov/internet/opinions.nsf/1AC5A0E7090A350785258ABB0052D942/$file/23-3228-2039001.pdf
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/04/24/trumps-crazy-argument-for-immunity-heads-to-the-high-court-00153954
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/17/us/upside-down-american-flag-alito.html
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/morning-memo/the-insurrectionists-in-our-midst
(X):
bresreports/status/1791487198182703348
bresreports/status/1791574545754710428
RonFilipkowski/status/1441958869442260994
kathleen_belew/status/1791538901435220063
mike_podhorzestatus/1791568604682391969
ShannonBream/status/1791483561675022624
Fritschnestatus/1791530635502239985
ElieNYC/status/1791616565697241566
markjacob16/status/1791479696661631337

The Beholder of Frost

• The Iwi are instantly thrown into a panic as the roar rings out into the caverns, and for a moment, silence replies when suddenly, the entirety of the Hollow Earth shudders as a deafening, thunderous bellow echoes with such ferocity, that parts of the ground collapsed into the earth from the intensity, the air quickly growing colder around them. Flakes of snow slowly fall from overhead, and the wind shifts instantly, becoming harsher and chillier as the Iwi immediately rush to hide in their temples, some even praying to the crystalline pyramids. Monarch gazes out into the distance behind the Skkar King’s throne, noticing a valley being swallowed by the largest snowstorm they could ever witness, parts of the Hollow Earth, and several smaller Titans being instantly frozen over as thunderous footsteps resonated from within the blizzard.
• Kong is frozen solid with growing panic as he watched an enormous shadow with icy, cerulean eyes peering back with savage hunger and seething rage, standing motionless as from behind Ares stomped out a quadrupedal creature bound in chains composed of ancient spinal cords. With pearlescent white scales, blue crystalline spines jutting down its back, a massive tail with a thagomizer made of the same crystals protruding from its end, and a crown-like formation of those crystal spines on its head, it was nearly as big as Ghidorah on all fours.
• Monarch is utterly speechless, following behind the Iwi as they duck for cover from the mountainous leviathan when Jia signs that she’s heard of the ice Titan once before, from legends told to her when she was a child; the Mother of all Old Gods, a primordial ruler as old as the planet itself and the beast who is said to be one of the first living creatures and the ancestors of all Titans, but legends referred to her simply as Shimo, the Beholder of Frost. The Iwi confirm the identity, remarking how the First God was beaten and whipped into submission by the Skkar King thousands of years ago, who uses the odd crystals around them as control, feeding Shimo fallen Titans in her own territory, an icy valley adorned with massive crystals and ancient, frozen pyramids, and using her frost powers to his bidding. The Skkar King commands Shimo with the large crystal to finish Kong off and discipline the insubordinate apes when he glances over at the edge of his den and notices a strange shimmering sight in the distance, to which he snarls out a menacing, toothed grin. Light. He could see the light from beyond the cavern.
• At the same time, Shimo bellows a thunderous warcry as its iridescent crystalline blades along her back glow and the air surrounding the Titans coalesces into a freezing haze, the ground beneath her cracking as the heat is sucked out of it, freezing instantly until she unleashes a concentrated blast of pure supercooled ice at absolute zero from her mouth right at Kong. Kong quickly dodges the blast as the impact causes jagged ice to splinter from the blast, stabbing right through one of the other apes, causing it to freeze instantly, its atoms slowing until ceasing all activity. Kong quickly escapes the tunnels out of the ape den with the Skkar King leaping onto Shimo and giving chase, riding Shimo like a valiant steed while hoisting Kong's axe in victory and ordering his apes to give chase. Jia, Andrews, and the rest of Monarch can do nothing but watch as the Skkar King rides Shimo through the Hollow Earth chasms, chasing after Kong who frantically tries to escape Ares and Shimo when he slams his fists into the walls of the tunnels, causing them to collapse just before Shimo can snap her jaws at him.
• Kong leaps up the sides of the chasm until he’s out of the caverns leading to the Skkar King’s den, only to feel a stinging pain as he notices a large patch of ice on his arm, resulting in an intense frostbite effect, to which he hobbles weakly back to the Monarch HEAT outpost before eventually passing out due to the pain. At the same time, Skkar returns to the den on Shimo and snatches the axe, raising it into the air and cheering triumphantly as he feels the first rays of light from the Hollow Earth in thousands of years, that they have a way to escape, and that it was time to begin his reign of terror, but Suko secretly sneaks away from the others, trying his best to find Kong.

The Divinity

• The Iwi in their village cower in fear as Ares and Shimo’s tumultuous roars echo through the caverns while Monarch attempts to understand what just happened, with Jia praying solemnly to the frozen ape Titan in the middle of the Skkar King's den while Ilene converses with Trapper and the Chen twins on what to do and how to escape. That’s when Ling Chen notices that some of the Iwi’s garments bear the same symbol as the Titan forever connected to their family bloodline, Mothra, and speaks to the Iwi Queen. She takes the main group into the crystal pyramids leading into a glowing, crystalline chamber, using a glowing liquid to highlight the cave murals etched into the rock and glowing with a multitude of colors from the Hollow Earth energy.
• They explain, with Jia translating via sign language, Andrews providing narration, and the cave paintings providing the visuals that Ares was once a member of a colony of Great Apes, with strong bonds with many other species, protecting the lands with a warrior's heart. Shimo was originally the alpha Titan inhabiting the Hollow Earth, creating a peaceful, thriving landscape while the Godzillas remained the alphas on the surface, enacting a mutual monster regime that kept many species from conflict. However, with the increasing conflicts between the Godzillas and the Kongs for resources, territory, and personal grudges on the horizon, a rogue Godzilla attacked the Kongs’ temple and ruthlessly killed the Skkar King’s mate and child, devouring the baby in front of Ares. With his entire family dead, Ares searched for anything to turn the tides in his favor against the Godzillas, and to seek vengeance for the loss of his family, eventually stumbling upon strange crystals deep within the Hollow Earth, powerful enough to force other Titans under its influence through unknown radiation signatures. However, there was one catch: The crystals were in a valley guarded by the hibernating Shimo, who had claimed the land as her territory millennia ago, creating an icy landscape for her own. When he tried to steal some of the crystals for himself, Shimo awoke and tried to defend herself with her frostbite blast until Skkar King managed to harness the slight electrical output the crystals gave, allowing him to essentially shock Shimo into submission. That was when she sensed the imbalance on the surface and in the Hollow Earth due to the Great Titan War raging on between the Godzillas and Kongs.
• Shimo could sense that both the Godzillas and the Kongs were becoming a scourge, a blight on the balance of nature for their destruction of the planet and petty conflicts, and wanted to return things to a purer time, agreeing to help Ares win the Titan war by wiping everything out and starting again. Now, the Skkar King and Shimo traversed the Hollow Earth, wiping out swaths of Titans and many tribal villages scattered about, breaking many sacred rules and taboos, and leading to the final conflict outside the Kongs’ ancient temple. However, with the help of Godzilla and a glowing, godly moth-like Titan simply known as “The Divinity,” they were able to lock the Skkar King, Shimo, and the remaining Kongs left in the Hollow Earth, away deep behind the mountains where none dared to venture, leaving them all to rot alone in solitude. The Iwi reveal that the Divinity was, in fact, an ancient member of Mothra’s species, who had sealed itself after the Great Titan War in a cocoon of transparent, near-invisible webbing infused with the radiation from the massive crystals around the village, preparing to awaken one day and restore the planet from the corruption slowly eating away at it.
• Andrews realizes that The Skkar King and Shimo want to make their way up to the surface to start their global invasion and that while Godzilla has been acting erratic for a while now, it’s because he’s preparing for the inevitable war between himself, Ares, and Shimo. She believes that the Skkar King and Shimo legitimately scare Godzilla and that the mere idea of Ares trying to oppose his rule again is enough to drive him into a ruthless, Titan-killing, city-destroying evolving panic. She realizes the Iwi sent the distress call because they, and even Godzilla, anticipated that Kong, searching for his kind, would soon discover the Skkar King's army. The Chens close the Iwi writings with a prophecy: at the end of the world, an Iwi from Skull Island and the blood of the Shobijin, another sect of Iwi originating from Infant Island, will come to save the world by summoning the Divinity, Mothra. They all realize this can only be referring to Jia and the Chens.
• However, Ilene mentions that he won’t be alone and that if they can somehow heal Kong and get him to persuade Godzilla to work together, they might have a chance, and the Chens see that in order for that to happen, they all must begin the ritual to wake up the elder Mothra. The idea alone terrifies Ilene, believing that Jia performing the ritual was too much for one child to handle, and reflects to Trapper that she promised herself to sacrifice whatever was necessary to give Jia a good life. She's realizing now that she may have to give up Jia herself to let her live with the Iwi, watching Jia quickly fit in amongst the Hollow Earth Iwi, but Trapper and the Chen twins remind her that Jia loves her, that she is a wonderful mother, and that Jia would want to stay with her, even if she’s found people like her and her ancestors.

Rapid Evolution

• Meanwhile, on the surface world, Monarch had still been tracking Godzilla as he traveled across the world to counteract the now-weekly Titan attacks, all bearing the mark of the Skkar King, his body slowly evolving due to the sudden intake of immense radiation, essentially hyper-evolving behind the normal state of his species. Now in Greenland after leaving Europe by way of Cádiz, Spain, a Monarch submarine followed Godzilla as he uncharacteristically ventured into the territory of Titanus Tiamat, who’s been resting here due to the largest stockpile of energy on the planet due to the electrically charged solar winds it absorbs. Godzilla fires his atomic breath into Tiamat's icy lair, narrowly missing the submarine, to which she quickly emerges and uses her whirlpools and phosphorus ink to disorient him long enough for her to constrict him but he rips off a chunk of her flesh; she answers by biting his neck and trying to smother him with her cranial fins.
• But the fins fail to stop him from unleashing a blast of atomic breath, driving her, badly injuring her, away from the area, allowing him to claim the radioactive area as his own. Now unopposed, Godzilla entered her lair and began harnessing the electrically charged energy Tiamat had been feeding on, absorbing the radiating into his dorsal blades, turning his bioluminescent to a fluctuating purple and pink, his dorsal plates growing even more, becoming similar to Godzilla 2000’s dorsal designs. Ice had begun to form around Godzilla as he began a rapid hyper-evolutionary state, seemingly growing even more powerful in preparation for what seemed to be an inevitable war on the horizon.
• Atmospheric radiation in the area would decrease dramatically as Godzilla absorbs any radioactive energy around him to fuel his hyper-evolution while Monarch closely watches by, monitoring whatever happens. At the same time, Mark notices that Godzilla has been sending out infrasonic beacons to the Titans still residing on the surface world to move toward entryways to Hollow Earth/Axis Mundi and serve as guards/sentinels in case anything came out, mentioning how it seems that he’s preparing for what could be World War 3. However, Godzilla’s absence has now caused the dynamic of power on the surface to shift, with the rising amount of Titans bearing the Skkar King’s handprint almost every day, and various weather anomalies involving ice storms and blizzards appearing all over the globe.

Iwi Findings

• Simultaneously, down in the Hollow Earth, Kong, and an arriving Suko, rest outside the Monarch HEAT facility with personnel treating the severe frostbite that has overtaken his right hand and forearm, leaving it stiff and red with peeling skin and flesh. After sending out an emergency beacon from the Iwi village, a HEAV arrives in the village with Bernie and Mikael, both of whom are petrified after their trip through the Hollow Earth portals, with the former shakily filming everything he sees, including seeing what looked like a massive skeletal turtle sleeping next to some Iwi children. The Iwi soon opened their barrier to let in an arriving Kong and Suko after following the HEAV, allowing both apes to glimpse the realm of their worshippers before Kong collapses from exhaustion, but manages to sit up to touch a finger to Jia's hand. He signs to her that he lost his home before falling unconscious with Suko tearfully watching over him.
• Monarch reconvenes in one of the temple pyramids to discuss what to do next, with Bernie mentioning that Kong nor Godzilla can’t stop this on their own, and that soon Shimo and the Skkar King will escape their prison and unleash hell in both realms, but Ilene retorts that they won’t be alone, and that they’ll help each other. Bernie is confused as to why Godzilla would help Kong after he tried to kill him back in Hong Kong, but that’s when Jia and the Chen twins point toward the wall of glowing hieroglyphics detailing the ancient story about the Great Titan War. Ares killing several members of both the Godzilla and Kong species as well as capturing Shimo and working with her were only a few of the sacred taboos he had broken, crimes that provoked war between all life in the Hollow Earth. But something happened where the battle ceased, yet only for a moment as something appeared to bring everything together to defeat it, though they couldn’t seem to find out the translation for what it was.
• But they don’t need to find a translation for it, as it was a Titan the entire world had witnessed before, King Ghidorah. But they weren’t alone in the mural, as three other unknown Titans stood beside it; one resembling a Godzilla adorned with crystalline dorsal fins and wings, one similar to a hybridization of Godzilla, a rose, and a Venus flytrap, and the last being what could only be described as an amalgamation of crustacean, insectoid, and draconic traits into an enormous abomination. The Iwi Queen enters the pyramid and notices Monarch talking about the cave paintings, interjecting into the conversation that they represent the “Follies of Nature,” with Ghidorah having been defeated and frozen in Antarctica by Godzilla and a disturbed Shimo, all of that happening before the events of the Great Titan War. Bernie is confused about how Shimo could be the Mother of All Old Gods considering that many of the Titans vary from mammal, insect, reptilian, and even unknown entities like Ghidorah since they’re an extraterrestrial lifeform, but the Iwi clarify that Shimo is the First God because she was the first living being of that immense size to be seen by the first human civilization. Shimo wasn’t the first Titan in existence, but rather the first one to ever be gazed upon by human beings, cementing her as the First God and Mother of All Old Gods.

Evolution of a God

• That’s when the group gets a call from Monarch, where Mark Russell informs the others that G-Team, along with Trapper, had been experimenting with weapons designed to be built onto Titans to assist them in combat called Project Powerhouse, and they had just finished constructing a superweapon that’ll also heal Kong of his extensive injuries. Ling points into the distance where they see a fleet of HEAVs carrying a huge shipping container with the Monarch logo painted onto it along with the word “B.E.A.S.T” in bold black letters. Over their comms systems, Monarch all watch as Suko tries to protect Kong from the HEAVs, growling, and swatting at them, but quickly realizes that they mean to help Kong, eyeing them open the container to reveal a massive yellow gauntlet, a mechanical brace spanning the Titan’s elbow to his fingertips. Trapper calls the glove the “BEAST Glove,” a weapon conceived from the myths and legends of ancient civilizations building weapons to aid the Titans in combat where their abilities aren’t enough, and while Ilene is a bit upset at Trapper for trying to experiment with an innocent creature, one that she has taken care of for several years, Bernie mentions how Kong being healthy should be the only thing that matters, and that he needs help since The Skkar King and Shimo now have a way to escape.
• It isn’t long before Kong suddenly awakens, his eyes dilated, heartbeat pounding, and as the BEAST Glove injects a cocktail of adrenaline-based meds into his bloodstream, giving him a second wind while Suko cheers excitedly, and Monarch waits to see how Kong will be affected by the brace. Slowly rising to his feet, Trapper remarks that either Kong will absolutely love it, or that he’ll rip it off with his teeth, but to Monarch’s surprise, Kong seems to be noticing something else, spotting what looked like the remains of a Kong laying on an open vein of Hollow Earth energy. Kong slowly presses a finger against the flowing pool of energy, quickly roaring in pain as his eyes roll toward the back of his head, his mind flashing with an array of images; the other Great Apes, Jia, Godzilla, Skull Island, the Skkar King, Shimo… and the last thing he could remember of his family - their last moments on Earth.
• Lightning bursts from the crack in the soil, surging up Kong’s arm and throughout his body as the BEAST Glove imbued Kong with the ability to enhance a now unlocked bioelectrical organ in his chest, allowing him to harness the power of electricity like the Skkar King, but supercharge it with the BEAST Glove. Jia quickly signs to Kong that they’re going to need help in defeating Ares and Shimo, and Kong, knowing exactly who to find, makes his way toward the nearest portal to the surface to find Godzilla, telling Suko to stay behind, and watch over his family. Now harnessing the ancestral power of his kind to control electricity, Kong bellows out a mighty warcry, one that’s not only picked up by the Skkar King and Shimo but Godzilla as well, even while he’s evolving in the ice.
• Meanwhile, in his new den in Greenland, Godzilla awakens midway through his hyper-evolution, his body now leaner and muscular, his skin much spikier than before, dorsal plates curved backward and sporting a crystal-like texture, and a thagomizer made of spikes on his tail. At the same time, his radioactive outpost is nearly 20x as much as any other member of his species, and his normal blue energy has now shifted into a magenta-pink hue, spreading all over his body like veins. Hearing the bellowing roar of Kong deep in the Hollow Earth, Godzilla quickly dives into the sea to follow after him, tearing through any Monarch vessel in his path, his new evolved state causing his temperament to reach an almost unhinged degree of anger.
• At the same time, in the Skkar King’s den, he garbs himself in a shawl made of Godzilla’s leathery hide and a mask resembling the skull of Anguirus marred with the red war paint before hopping onto Shimo’s back like a horse, raising Kong’s axe. Ares then bellows out an almost long-forgotten language triumphantly before leading the army of Kongs out of the den, revealing that the Skkar King could actually speak, though spoke in a dead language from a bygone era. Using her frost blast, Shimo creates a massive crater, allowing her, Skarr King, and the other monsters to finally escape their prison into Hollow Earth, Skarr quickly orders Shimo to begin their invasion, to which she begins unleashing her frostbite blast in all directions, freezing everything in their way until they’re marching through an enormous blizzard. Suko watches on from the shadows, worried about their plans for the surface before going off to warn Monarch and Kong, not knowing that one of the Skkar King’s guards had been following him, finding the Iwi village, and returning to Ares to inform him of a way out - a way to the surface world...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRIKRWu0gCI
If anyone doesn't know about general theory about Four Symbols and Wuxing Theory in MSI, pls look at my old post: https://www.reddit.com/leagueoflegends/comments/1ctvqsn/since_tl_beating_fnc_t1_have_to_beat_4_seed_1_in/
Bin Ancient Quote in 2:00 : 青龙得位 十谋九成 与龙为敌毫无胜算
In Sino-Vietnamese vocab:
Thanh Long Đắc Vị Thập Mưu Cửu Thành. Dữ Long Vi Địch, Hào Vô Thắng Toán The exact meaning here is: When the Qinglong (Azure Dragon - BLG) is in the throne, 9/10 everything is as desired. There are no chance to fight against the Dragon.
There are two flaws in this quote. First, the quote figurative meaning is 9/10 BLG will win, also confirm that there are still 1/10 chance that T1 will win.
Second, In Four Symbols theory, BLG is the Azure Dragon. But in Wuxing theory, T1 is also the Qilin - Golden Dragon. Its still dragon vs dragon, so the quote is quite meaningless. But we do accept that Qilin (Earth Elemental) is countered by Azure Dragon (Wood Elemental), the same as GenG White Tiger (Metal) counter BLG wood.
Credit go to https://www.facebook.com/gosuthongminh from Vietnam.

RWBY has alot of faults , such as the botched racism sub-plot, some of the faulty lore and half of volume 5 (season 5) however something that I believe RWBY excels at is colors, designs and iconicity of their characters as if the character's designs can tell you more or less about the character. I believe however Ruby Rose herself fails 2/3 of those standards but for me to explain that I must go over other characters to explain my point.

• Ex 1) Weiss Schnee, Ruby's Partner and Friend has an amazing designs as her beacon outfit uses a combination of red which communicates a almost royal aesthetic and white which is supposed to symbolize her icy, frigid uptight nature that quickly melts overtime.

* Her Volume (4- 6) Design *Her Best IMO* Is an amazing grayish blue that symbolizes (at least imo her complete breaking away from her social up-bringing and becoming a better person) she has let down her walls and while still having an royal or noble aesthetic.
*Her Volume (7 - 9) Design is the representation of her arc of being her own person and choosing what SHE wants to look like, rocking a new hair style and wearing more blue then ever

• Ex 2) Jaune Arc (was going to do the rest of Team RWBY but realized that I already wrote for like 30 minutes and I haven't even gotten to Ruby yet) Jaune is Ruby's other best friend and has an amazing (Beacon) starting design as it already tells us so much without even speaking. Jaune wears basic outdated armor and training gear over casual clothing unlike the (in comparison) more combat efficient peers as it represents his inexperience and almost childishness with his hoodie being a cereal mascot hoodie.

* His Volume ( 4 -6) Design is an amazing upgrade through visual story-telling as it represents a new chapter of his life, haunted by grief and self-hatred. Jaune figuratively carries the ghost of his teammate on his shoulders that he endless blames himself for. He uses his teammates's armor and red ribbon to not only to upgrade his armor but to never forget her sacrifice which causes him to repress his trauma.
* His Volume (7 - 8) Design doesn't change much but he does get that stupid haircut which is similar to his racist bully so....
* Rusted Knight, Jaune looks older, visually tired and mentally weakened from the events of volume 8 with a design of his volume 4 - 8 armor clearly rusted with him looking mature but traumatized from the life choices of others and himself.
FINALLY WE GET TO RUBY ROSE and using two different characters (Weiss for Colors) and Jaune for (Design), Ruby fails on both accounts as her design almost feels like the opposite of her actual character. Ruby is a socially awkward, tad naive, good-natured and semi-impulsive person who is very light-hearted person who tries to do the right thing even if it hurts her. Her Beacon Design however almost seems to clash with her character as she looks extremely gothic, dark and with her hood almost shy which is the closest thing to her actual character. Ruby wears more black then Blake, lmao.
* Her Volume (4 - 6) Design (My Personal Favorite of Hers) still doesn't really reflect her character, her grief or her guilt about Nikos's Death and doesn't really reflect any of her character's concern about the events and dangers of traveling while being hunted by Salem's Men/Women.
*Her Volume (7-9) Design also while looking aesthetically pleasing doesn't convey or well say anything outside of the messier hair implying that she hasn't gotten a chance because of constant fighting and betrayals gotten a chance to focus on her hair which is an admittedly nice touch.
I theorize that she was originally supposed to be less upbeat especially with her main theme Red like Roses II which is a song conveying her feelings of losing her mother Summer Rose and considering that the Red Trailer and that song pre-dates RWBY, I wonder if she was changed between the type gap.
Anyways that's just my rambles lol.

There’s this ad in Facebook it’s and took to that I’ve been trying to find out the actual book to read that says “ wait we forgot protection” I scream. “ your human” he growls as his cock swelled knotting me… panic rose within me. I lied about being a human. I was actually a beta. I’ve Been trying and I can’t seem to find it and the book in the ad is never the actual book, Please help !!!

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1.fc magdeburg spiel heute übertragung
1
Titel: Die Bedeutung von Zahl 1: Eine Zahl mit vielfältiger Symbolik
Die Zahl 1 ist eine der fundamentalsten Zahlen in der Mathematik und hat eine reiche Symbolik in verschiedenen Kulturen und Kontexten. In der Mathematik wird die Zahl 1 als die kleinste natürliche Zahl definiert und fungiert als Identitätselement in vielen mathematischen Operationen. Sie ist die Grundlage für das Zählen und die Basis für das Dezimalsystem.
Darüber hinaus hat die Zahl 1 eine symbolische Bedeutung, die weit über ihre mathematische Definition hinausgeht. In vielen Kulturen wird die Zahl 1 mit Einheit, Vollkommenheit und Einzigartigkeit assoziiert. Sie steht oft für den Anfang, den Ursprung oder den ersten Schritt in eine neue Richtung. In religiösen Kontexten kann die Zahl 1 für die Einheit Gottes stehen oder für die Idee des Göttlichen in allen Dingen.
In der Philosophie wird die Zahl 1 manchmal als Symbol für das Absolute oder das Eine betrachtet, das alles umfasst und durchdringt. Sie kann auch für die Idee der Selbständigkeit und Unabhängigkeit stehen, da sie allein existiert, ohne von anderen Zahlen abhängig zu sein.
In der Populärkultur wird die Zahl 1 oft verwendet, um Exzellenz, Sieg oder Spitzenleistung darzustellen. Sie kann auch verwendet werden, um Individualität und Originalität auszudrücken, wie zum Beispiel in der Phrase "Nummer eins" oder "die erste Wahl".
Insgesamt ist die Zahl 1 eine faszinierende Zahl, die sowohl in der Mathematik als auch in verschiedenen kulturellen und symbolischen Kontexten eine wichtige Rolle spielt. Ihre Bedeutung reicht von der einfachen mathematischen Funktion bis hin zu tiefgreifenden philosophischen und spirituellen Konzepten.
Übertragung heute 1
Die Übertragung von Daten und Informationen hat heute eine immense Bedeutung, besonders in einer digitalisierten Welt. Ob es um den Austausch von Nachrichten, das Streamen von Videos oder das Teilen von Dateien geht, die Übertragungstechnologie spielt eine entscheidende Rolle in unserem täglichen Leben.
Eine der häufigsten Methoden der Datenübertragung ist die Internetverbindung. Mit der zunehmenden Verfügbarkeit von Breitbandverbindungen und der Verbreitung von Mobilfunknetzen ist der Zugang zum Internet heute einfacher als je zuvor. Dies ermöglicht es den Menschen, nahtlos auf Informationen zuzugreifen und miteinander zu kommunizieren, unabhängig von ihrem Standort.
Aber nicht nur das Internet spielt eine Rolle bei der Datenübertragung. Auch lokale Netzwerke, wie zum Beispiel WLAN oder Bluetooth, ermöglichen es uns, Daten zwischen verschiedenen Geräten in unserer unmittelbaren Umgebung auszutauschen. Diese Technologien werden in einer Vielzahl von Anwendungen eingesetzt, von der drahtlosen Verbindung von Peripheriegeräten wie Tastaturen und Mäusen bis hin zum Streaming von Audio und Video zwischen Geräten.
Darüber hinaus hat die Cloud-Technologie die Art und Weise, wie wir Daten speichern und austauschen, revolutioniert. Durch die Speicherung von Dateien in der Cloud können Benutzer von überall auf der Welt darauf zugreifen und sie mit anderen teilen, ohne dass sie physisch auf ihrem Gerät vorhanden sein müssen.
Insgesamt hat die heutige Datenübertragungstechnologie unsere Welt vernetzter und zugänglicher gemacht als je zuvor. Durch die kontinuierliche Weiterentwicklung und Innovation in diesem Bereich können wir sicher sein, dass die Übertragung von Daten auch in Zukunft eine zentrale Rolle in unserem Leben spielen wird.
Wo kann ich 1
"1' ist ein Begriff, der oft im Zusammenhang mit der Suche nach Informationen, Produkten oder Dienstleistungen verwendet wird. Wenn Sie sich fragen, wo Sie 1' finden können, gibt es mehrere Möglichkeiten, dies zu tun.
1' kann an verschiedenen Orten gefunden werden, je nachdem, wonach Sie suchen. Wenn es sich um ein physisches Produkt handelt, wie zum Beispiel ein Buch oder ein Elektronikgerät, können Sie 1' in Fachgeschäften, Kaufhäusern oder Online-Shops finden. Beliebte Online-Plattformen wie Amazon, eBay oder spezialisierte Online-Shops bieten eine große Auswahl an Produkten, die Sie durchsuchen können.
Wenn es sich um Informationen handelt, können Sie 1' auch über Suchmaschinen im Internet finden. Google ist eine der bekanntesten Suchmaschinen, die Ihnen helfen kann, relevante Informationen zu finden. Durch Eingabe von Schlüsselwörtern oder Phrasen in die Suchleiste können Sie schnell und einfach 1' zu einem bestimmten Thema finden.
Darüber hinaus können soziale Netzwerke und Online-Foren auch gute Quellen für 1' sein. Plattformen wie Facebook, Twitter, Reddit oder spezialisierte Foren zu bestimmten Themenbereichen können Ihnen helfen, Informationen, Ratschläge oder Meinungen zu finden.
Wenn Sie nach lokalen Dienstleistungen suchen, wie zum Beispiel einem Restaurant, einem Friseursalon oder einem Handwerker, können Sie 1' auch über lokale Verzeichnisse, Bewertungsseiten oder soziale Netzwerke finden, die auf Ihre Region zugeschnitten sind.
Insgesamt gibt es viele Möglichkeiten, 1' zu finden, und die beste Option hängt von Ihren individuellen Bedürfnissen und Präferenzen ab. Egal wonach Sie suchen, mit den richtigen Ressourcen und Werkzeugen können Sie schnell und einfach 1' finden."
Liveübertragung 1
Liveübertragungen sind eine aufregende Möglichkeit, Ereignisse in Echtzeit zu verfolgen. Eine Liveübertragung kann verschiedene Formen annehmen, von Sportveranstaltungen über Konzerte bis hin zu politischen Debatten. Sie ermöglicht es den Zuschauern, direkt am Geschehen teilzunehmen, auch wenn sie nicht physisch anwesend sein können.
Eine Liveübertragung kann über verschiedene Medien erfolgen, darunter Fernsehen, Radio und vor allem das Internet. Mit den Fortschritten in der Technologie ist es heute einfacher als je zuvor, Ereignisse live zu streamen und einem globalen Publikum zugänglich zu machen. Plattformen wie YouTube, Twitch und Facebook bieten Möglichkeiten für Liveübertragungen, während spezialisierte Dienste wie Netflix und Amazon Prime Video sogar Live-Events wie Sportspiele oder Konzerte übertragen können.
Für Unternehmen und Organisationen bieten Liveübertragungen eine effektive Möglichkeit, mit ihrem Publikum in Kontakt zu treten und ihre Botschaft zu verbreiten. Sie können Produktpräsentationen durchführen, Frage-und-Antwort-Sitzungen abhalten oder wichtige Ankündigungen machen, alles in Echtzeit und direkt mit ihren Kunden oder Followern interagieren.
Auch für Zuschauer hat das Erleben von Liveübertragungen viele Vorteile. Sie können Ereignisse verfolgen, die sie sonst verpassen würden, und sich in Echtzeit mit anderen Zuschauern austauschen, sei es über Social-Media-Kommentare oder Chat-Funktionen auf der Streaming-Plattform. Dadurch entsteht ein Gefühl der Gemeinschaft und des gemeinsamen Erlebens, auch wenn die Zuschauer räumlich voneinander getrennt sind.
Insgesamt bieten Liveübertragungen eine immersive und interaktive Möglichkeit, Ereignisse zu erleben und sich mit anderen zu verbinden. Mit der zunehmenden Verbreitung von Breitbandinternet und der Entwicklung neuer Streaming-Technologien wird die Bedeutung von Liveübertragungen in Zukunft wahrscheinlich weiter zunehmen.
1
Der Begriff "1" kann in verschiedenen Kontexten verwendet werden und hat unterschiedliche Bedeutungen. Im numerischen Sinn repräsentiert "1" die kleinste natürliche Zahl und wird oft als Symbol für Einheit und Anfang betrachtet. In der Mathematik ist die Zahl "1" auch die Identität für die Multiplikation und Division, da jedes Element mit "1" multipliziert oder durch "1" dividiert wird, ohne seine Wertigkeit zu ändern.
Darüber hinaus wird "1" oft symbolisch verwendet, um Exzellenz oder Spitzenleistung auszudrücken. Zum Beispiel wird jemand, der in einem Wettbewerb den ersten Platz belegt, als "Nummer 1" bezeichnet. Diese Konnotation von "1" als Symbol für das Beste oder Höchste ist in vielen Bereichen des Lebens präsent, sei es im Sport, in der Wirtschaft oder in persönlichen Zielen.
In der Informatik kann "1" auch als binäre Ziffer verwendet werden, die ein "An"- oder "Aus"-Zustand darstellt. Diese Darstellung von "1" als Eins oder Aktivierung ist fundamental für digitale Systeme und Algorithmen.
In einigen Fällen kann "1" auch als Abkürzung für "erster" oder "eins" verwendet werden, wie in der Ausdrucksweise "Auf Platz 1 stehen" oder "Punkt 1 auf der Agenda".
Insgesamt ist "1" eine vielseitige Zahl, die in vielen Bereichen des Lebens und der Wissenschaft eine wichtige Rolle spielt. Ihre Bedeutung reicht von grundlegenden mathematischen Konzepten bis hin zu symbolischen Darstellungen von Exzellenz und Führung.

The Fall Least Unexpected
Camp Wapiti was the most competitive summer-camp on the western border of the Allegheny Mountains, titular for the raving children’s testimonies by the end of the season. An influx of young campers had signed up this year to roost in forests of Red Spruce and Eastern Hemlock. The camp had reportedly gone through a series of expansion, including state-of-the-art “lodging enclaves” and an Olympic-sized swimming pool; at least according to the Wapiti parent Facebook Group. Rah-rah Elks!

A slew of bus rentals carries the kids to the gates of the 150-acre property, summer reveries already taking effect on everyone - from the bus drivers to the happy campers. The counselors had done a splendid job in garbing under the theme of Swan Lake, tinges of pastel pink and candlelight establishing the camp’s timbre; all awaited returning and new faces alike.

Once they reached, a horde of children spilled out from vehicles from all directions. The season had started.

“Welcome to Camp Wapiti our future outdoorsmen and adventurers! Plenty of secrets and fun await you this year - but first some rules…” bellowed Hailey Clifton, head counselor of the ensemble and youngest chick among the staff. The other counselors rolled their eyes during Hailey’s yearly pitch about showing a high level of care towards the surrounding wilderness and carrying the Happy Camper’s Guide to Nature: Dynamite Deciduous at all times. Many of the children began fidgeting, a crowd of creepy-crawlers wiggling underneath the heat vortex and swarm of mosquitos.

Finally, a cool breeze could be felt as Hailey finished off, invigorating everybody’s spirits once again. Campers and counselors drifted off into their own respective circles, reuniting with old friends and meeting new ones, breathing life and community into the grounds. Already burnt bodies sticky from chlorine and Sun-Bum were packed like sardine and people of all ages hollered from the tree-tops.

The first afternoon and night had been a success in every sense of the word. Residents were comatose within their cabins before 10 pm, in anticipation for a day at Lake Dimii in the morning. Somebody was dreaming of the unmarred lake and its magical properties according to the Iroquois, at any given moment during the night.

Come morning, camp was bustling with movement in every corner. Louie, an independent, fire-cracker 11-year-old from Brooklyn led a large pack of his well-rested peers to the lake. The other kids couldn’t help but look up to Louie, who was often disinterested in the bull of the others, but who was also the first person someone would ask for help in messing with the counselors or sneaking into the girl’s dorm at night. The children sang Wapiti’s jingle on their trek:

We are the happy herd of elks
Roaming through the fields with stealth!
On our crow’s nest seat,
We are the Camp Wapiti fleet!

The children’s chants could be heard reverberating through the wood, like a canyon wall is to singing birds. The menagerie cannonballed into the lake from all perimeters, the counselors struggling to keep up. But the day swelled with happiness as the surroundings looked effervescent within the sunlight, everything appeared to be cast underneath a yellow, sparkly film. After head-check, Hailey could finally record the potpourri of foreign flowers in her scrapbook.

Michel Barre and his two most loyal pals, Barnett and Sal, were camped away from the others, scoffing at the troupe of wildlings swimming in the waters. Michel, son of hot-shot French socialites, had moved to the North-East just two years ago, and still couldn’t wrap his mind around the hobbies and traditions of American kids his age; especially the dreaded capture the flag. The counselors had attempted to urge the three to join the others in the water, coaxing them with extra pie during dessert, but with no luck.

Traditionally, the first few days of camp were a hedonistic blur with no planned activities or events. Counselors encouraged to introduce themselves with one another and become comfortable with their bunk-mates especially. After a blistering day in the heat at Dimii, the whole lot was absolutely worn-out and immediately returned to their quarters following a hearty meal of chicken fried steak and apple pie fritters. Another day of sunshine and splashing around in the surf awaited everybody tomorrow, with a round of softball and soft serve afterwards. Even Michel felt a knot of excitement grow in his stomach.

Yet at half-past three in the morning, just two remained awake. As the moon’s image was reflected upon the lake’s surface while the others peacefully slept, Michel had been awoken and dragged by his feet out of his bed, across floorboards punctuated with nails, and out into the night. He was dragged for what seemed like hours. Across the gravel, dirt, and bushes, his skin was battered, and his limbs mangled. He contained no mental or physical capacity to identify who on God’s Earth was forcing him through his misery.

After a while, Michel could discern a certain atmospheric change - the air had felt more serene - what could only be Lake Dimii.

SWIM AT YOUR OWN RISK “NO LIFEGUARD”

• Read a wasted sign, torn at its hinges.

“Please, I'm so sorry for whatever I did - please don’t-” Michel’s captor continued on to the edge of the lake and held him there, his face inundated like a trembling leaf caught in a storm. Michel didn’t know how to swim and tried to remember what his camping guide said about situations like this, but his mind went blank, and his lungs burned.

A passerby would be able to make out the two figures easily, even though the humid mist: One submerged and one forcing its grasp on the nape of the other’s neck, calmly watching. Michel was so incapacitated he wasn’t even aware that he was being forcibly held - he only regretted refusing to take swimming lessons as a child. And now his despairing amount of weakness against the dark waters was apparent. He thrashed about like a wild animal, a trail of bubbles circling his head. Gasps and sunken murmurs were the only sounds that could be heard on the lakeside at this hour.

And the other continued to watch, looking almost disinterested in the slump of his shoulders and the swaying of his feet. The moon still stubbornly shone, indiscriminate in its gleam, illuminating the other boy’s poor, sinking body. The scene was now still - a sharp contrast from a mere 8 hours ago.

The one on the bank turned to leave for the campgrounds, whistling a familiar tune.
The amount of time it takes to notice a person is missing is usually longer than one would think. In the case of Michel Barre, it took nearly 2 hours after the inhabitants of Wapiti rose. Barnett and Sal eventually realized that Michel was nowhere to be found and alerted Hailey before they were blamed for something they didn’t do. All campers were to report back to their bunks immediately for the rest of the day and stay there till instructed otherwise. A wave of confusion and frustration hit the camp – and rumors quickly spread like a nasty bout of lice.

According to the older kids, Barnett and Sal were messing around with Michel in the woods and left him there for inexplicable reasons. Others believed that Michel’s mega-loaded parents airlifted him out of the woods after just a few hours sleeping in the itchy twin sheets.

Meanwhile, in the counselor’s lodge, absolute pandemonium had settled alongside the cabin’s perpetual dust. These ‘designated adults’ were not adults at all, but hormonal, dewy-eyed teenagers who had been looking forward to an unsupervised summer. None of them were prepared for a situation like this.

“How on Earth will we ever explain this to Michel’s parents? The poor boy - he is probably wounded in the middle of the forest somewhere. Who knows, he could already be dead right now,” cried Hailey. The others stared at her blankly, not knowing what to say in response.

Javon Scott, who was only there for the massive paycheck that would hit his bank account at the end of the summer, couldn’t stop concentrating on Hailey's strawberry-blond curls. They smelled like apples.

“Hailey’s right, guys. Michel’s probably dead somewhere in a ditch. Shit, I can’t handle this right now, I need to smoke,” said Javon. He couldn’t keep his legs from bouncing, even with two hands on his thighs. Hailey let out a dry sob.

“You’ve been smoking too much Javon. The kid is probably fine, he couldn’t have made it that far into the woods,” chimed in someone from the back. A few other counselors murmured in agreement.

“We can’t bank on that. We have to tell Michel’s parents and call the authorities,” said Hailey. Javon aggressively nodded his head - the only one out of the bunch to agree.

“Like the cops? No way, I like this gig and my parents would murder me. Let’s all just split up and try to find him first,” said Bryce, one of the older counselors, a local town bum. There seemed to be a consensus already made at that point and all of Hailey's lamentations were paid any further attention.

The teens decided on rounding up the campers towards the center of the ground for the remainder of the day and to keep guard for God-knows-what, while the rest divvied up the surrounding woods in sections to search for the missing boy. Seemingly overnight, Camp Wapiti had transformed into a dire place – a canvas of frantic people and an obscure disappearance coloring the air.
Hailey had volunteered to scale the one of many huge rocks overlooking the eastern corner of the camp, a citadel over the surrounding area. Javon had offered to accompany Hailey, but everyone agreed it would be best if he stayed out at camp and watched over the fidgety kids. Javon grumbled about his role, because the last thing he wanted to do was spend the rest of the day with the snotty-sits, but he was sorely outnumbered. Besides, Hailey wanted to be alone.

The rock sat among the treetops, overlooking miles beyond the peripheries of the camp in each direction. It was a hot spot for late-night hookups, summertime dares, and sunrise viewings. Some of the graffiti that marked the base of the rock was almost two generations old.

It took a good 20 minutes for Hailey to reach the peak. Once she did, she was taken aback at the unstable illusion that was presented - the forest and vegetation seemed to have no end, swallowing all the land in its vastness. She shuddered to think where Michel could be within the thickets, as there was no way she could make out a 9-year-old from this vantage point. Her day had been spent in vain.

She plopped down at the edge of the overlook and began to burst into fitful tears. She couldn’t even begin to imagine how scared Michel was. Her stomach felt like a bowling ball. She decided that she would immediately contact the Allegheny preservative police and Michel’s parents before telling the others. She took in the horizon for a few months, ablaze in a deep mandarin, before heading back to Wapiti.

Except, someone had been watching her and her lovely head full of curls for a while now. It was a quite pleasant evening, and a single sight was more like a shout in the dead silence. And so, when Hailey could hear the heavy breathing of someone behind her, she chose not to stir.

“I know that’s you Javon. Look, I don’t have the time for this right now,” said Hailey, sniffling into her hands. Only silence followed and the breathing now ceased. Hailey looked over her shoulders and saw only rock. She felt as if she were becoming progressively crazier as the day went on.

Hailey turned back to stare at the view. And as she tumbled down the face of the cliff - from a single push or a gust of wind, no one would be able to tell - her last thoughts were of Michel’s ill-fated end instead of hers and how beautiful the sea of green looked when falling. Down, down she went, impaled upon the serrated end of a branch. Dark, gelatinous fluid sprayed from where she was impaled. She writhed in agony for thirty long minutes before her organs failed from the fatal amount of blood that was lost to the forest dirt.
By 10 pm, all of the inhabitants were united, and unlike this morning, there was a noticeable absence in the atmosphere. With the chief counselor nowhere to be found, the modus operandi of the camp had been altered. Campers were ordered to stay in their cabins and to not leave under any circumstances. Most of the counselors themselves hunkered in their bunks, too exhausted to search for yet another missing person or were a little paranoid themselves. Besides, Hailey probably bailed on the rest of them to avoid being complicit in anything that anything might have happened to Michel.

Still, a few agreed it was best to search the immediate vicinity at least once more, including Javon, who hadn’t felt this terrible since his parent’s divorce.

The crag wasn’t too far from the camp and so when five odd teenagers stumbled upon the grisly sight that was the remains of their fellow counselor – with what the forest scavengers had made of the relatively fresh carcass anyways - a wave of nausea and hysteria hit the group. Two immediately ran straight backwards towards the lodges, escaping into the night.

Javon stood within the fetid odor of the body, unable to take his eyes off the ravage in front of him. Tears silently raced down his cheek. The Allegheny Mountains had turned into an inescapable hellscape paradox.

The remaining counselors turned to wake and alert the others, concluding that the only possible explanation was that Hailey had tumbled from a rock. Javon contested this theory, adamant foul play was involved, but like always, he was ignored. Hailey’s body was left alone, and Camp Wapiti was bustling in panic for the second time that day, except everyone knew what had happened to Hailey. And now with the bus rentals back already less than 96 hours, followed by a parade of police forces, the warmth of the season had disappeared just as quickly it had come.

There simply weren’t enough buses available to transport the entire camp’s population in one batch, especially considering the time of night. The kids were priority and were bused off the premises as soon as possible, except for around two dozen. The police rounded everyone else - which included all the counselors – into the canteen, dead-center of the campsite.

By 6 AM, Javon had become sick of his environment and everyone in it. No one had been able to sleep the whole night except the police, who were used to sleeping in their patrol cars. A distinct tenor could be felt in the canteen, not a soul felt safe during those 9 dreadful hours.

Louie – the Brooklyn boy – entertained some of the other kids by reciting gruesome renditions of what could have happened to Michel and Hailey. The kids took morbid interest, looking over their shoulders for the monsters in Louie’s reenactments. A detailed sketch had been made of the killer. The kids described him as like the silent Northern Saw-Whet Owl, camouflaging within the dark envelope of the forest.

Javon snuck off into the sunrise to go smoke a joint in the hammock park behind the canteen, in plain view of the swarm of knocked-out cops. His nerves were in desperate need of soothing and he didn’t need to think twice about using the only medicine at hand.

The sunrise was dim and sullen, casting its gray halo throughout the sky. The hammock swayed slightly from the cool morning breeze and Javon was starting to get a little sick. Images of Hailey had been burned into his subconscious and he wondered how he would ever be able to sleep again. Well, not sober at least.

Javon could care less about the “owl” killer if he were staring at the end of its barrel, he just needed to forget about this place. This was the first time he had regretted not filling out college application forms, because now, he couldn’t escape this town even if he tried.

As he continued to ruminate in his limited prospects, he saw a shadow flit from the corner of his eye. He jolted awake from his existential morning thoughts.

It was a rather small shadow, one that emerged like a premature lightning strike. The figure disappeared into the woods – seemingly spawning from the direction of the cabins. Snuffing his joint, Javon waltzed in the shadow’s path, determined to not let the sly thing get away. The police were starting to stir. Javon dashed into the thicket’s cover.

While the figure had been in full sprint before, Javon had caught up to it within a couple of minutes. From behind a tree, looking onto an unobstructed clearing, there was the silhouette, his back facing Javon.

It was a boy. A shirtless boy. Quiet and unmoving. But Javon could easily recognize the person’s gait – strangely self-assured for just an 11-year-old. No doubt it was Louie, unruly, scraped and bruised, swaggering within late dawn’s mist. Javon observed quietly for a few moments, watching the boy sit in silence in the grass.

Louie knew someone was watching him. Besides, he had been on the other side – the one who was hunting the unsuspecting so many times that his instincts were deceivingly sharp. Louie turned his head around slowly, catching Javon’s direct line of vision and holding it. Javon froze under Louie’s blank expression towards him.

Slowly, Louie made his way towards Javon, carefully maintaining eye contact. Javon was almost in some sort of trance and had been. rendered immobile. Louie started to quicken his pace, opening his mouth to say something before Javon snapped out of his terrifying reverie.

Javon’s paranoia was through the roof, fueled by all that weed he consumed on an empty stomach. He ran towards the cabin for dear life to warn the others, convinced of Louie’s hand in evil. Something about Louie’s vacant eyes, devoid of emotion and almost-artificial like, sent Javon reeling for shelter from that empty expression. Even Hailey’s lifeless face exhibited more human-ness.

He finally had enough courage to look behind him when in view of the canteen, only to be met with a silent wood. Nevertheless, he continued to run, right outside to the main grounds, running right smack into the punchy gut of a cop.

“Do you think you can tell me what you are doing out here, hm,” asked the man in faded blue. Javon relayed his morning, leaving out extraneous details. But what he said fell upon empty ears and a boisterous laugh!

“Hmph, you kids sure aren’t meant to be out here as counselors. Clueless, all of you.”

But the police soon realized that Javon was telling the cold truth. Louie was thought to be on the busses, but the police received word that the boy was nowhere to be found in the vehicles. A small search-party was sent into the woods, but there wasn’t a single trace of an 11-year-old to be found. Only a lumbering 21-year-old, who took embarrassingly long strides.
Louie and his belongings had dematerialized along with warm winds of summer.

As the rest of the kids and counselors were sent away through a second round of buses, Javon looked longingly at the shrinking campgrounds from the back window.

On our crow’s nest seat,
We are the Camp Wapiti fleet!

Javon dreamt of distant heights and killer elks for months after the incidents.

Cheer for her. Fake profile scam. Sex work fulfilled by imposter though not me. She paid for the lookalike who had sex on film while pretending to be me? Vaughn Francis is her friend. She also got closer to my sister in laws because they bonded imagining doing mean stuff to my three kids and I!!! Female Indian version of the Hitler? After all she let people think symbol on Ganapati was White Supremacy symbol but she grew up in India??? In my afterlife, I will be bigger than her. Maybe she'll regret not being fair to me then. Laugh it up. Your actions created your own karma because you went too far!!!!!
Do you cheer because her friends at Facebook Live let her stream violence, murder or porn since March 2011 online without restrictions? If life were fair, she'd have no friends and have no job. Life isn't fair in this realm, but opposite of Justice. Nobody investigates her, but just scapegoating me for her crimes and her sins.
Chinmaye is determined to make me homeless and put all my stuff in the trash. Why? She left her husband in 2000. She never picked up her stuff. She told him she didn't plan to go back to him then. She had a car to pick up her stuff. She blames me for her losing stuff, so she wants me to lose twice as much as she did. She didn't have computer at Raj's house, but she wants mine gone so her friends will help her to ruin me! Her violence towards me is why I know that she was domestic violence batterer of RPM. Her friends encourage her violence and her anger. She left him on Valentine's Day and they were married for years before. I don't understand why she's upset about my kids or me if she left him.

Hey guys, I just wanted to get some feedback on a sweetening spell jar recipe I made to see if I was missing anything.
First, I'm going to meditate, ground, and center myself. Then I'll light incense to cleanse my materials. I bought these love spell tarot incense inspired by The Lovers card, so I thought it could really set the mood and serve an important role.
Steps: 1. Light love incense. 2. Cleanse materials with incense, place it nearby to burn for the duration of the spell. 3. Light white and black candles for protection. 4. Place Lovers tarot card within casting area to channel and support your energy/intentions. 5. Carve names (+/- DOBs) and intentions into red candle and pink candle 6. Light pink and red candles, to symbolize love and romance blooming. 7. Add ingredients to jar intuitively with your intention in mind. 8. Write intentions on bay leaves or petition paper. 9. Add petitions to jar, visualizing them. 10. Add remaining ingredients, whatever feels right. 11. Once all ingredients are added, wrap red/pink twine around the cork of the bottle and seal with pink/red wax. 12. Hide in a safe place and recharge/rework as needed.
Aftercare: Recharge jar as needed by shaking it, meditating on it, or burning a candle every Friday.
Ingredients I will be adding intuitively into the jar: Sugar (sweeten them up, main sweetening agent) rose quartz (symbolize love, crystals also resonate greatly with me), rose petals (romance, passion), cinnamon (lust, sexy stuff), instant coffee (energy/speed booster), lavender (calmness), silver love charm (just for a personal touch, something special), and a spray of my favorite perfume (cotton candy, sugary scent actually called enchanted candy potion lol)
Some questions I had: I was originally going to use a photograph of my target as an extra taglock instead of just their name/DOB and catnip for attraction. I'm considering casting tonight, as I've heard Friday within Venus hour is the strongest for love spells. Should I still cast tonight without these ingredients, or collect them then cast it? I wasn't sure if all the ingredients I had was enough already. Once my jar is made and I've sent out my energy into the universe, can I simply blow out my candles and incense? Also would it be weird to use both a red and pink candle at once, both with intentions and names carved? I just can't decide between the two lol. Also, is it necessary to chant anything?

Hey guys, I just wanted to get some feedback on a sweetening spell jar recipe I made to see if I was missing anything.
First, I'm going to meditate, ground, and center myself. Then I'll light incense to cleanse my materials. I bought these love spell tarot incense inspired by The Lovers card, so I thought it could really set the mood and serve an important role.
Steps: 1. Light love incense. 2. Cleanse materials with incense, place it nearby to burn for the duration of the spell. 3. Light white and black candles for protection. 4. Place Lovers tarot card within casting area to channel and support your energy/intentions. 5. Carve names (+/- DOBs) and intentions into red candle and pink candle 6. Light pink and red candles, to symbolize love and romance blooming. 7. Add ingredients to jar intuitively with your intention in mind. 8. Write intentions on bay leaves or petition paper. 9. Add petitions to jar, visualizing them. 10. Add remaining ingredients, whatever feels right. 11. Once all ingredients are added, wrap red/pink twine around the cork of the bottle and seal with pink/red wax. 12. Hide in a safe place and recharge/rework as needed.
Aftercare: Recharge jar as needed by shaking it, meditating on it, or burning a candle every Friday.
Ingredients I will be adding intuitively into the jar: Sugar (sweeten them up, main sweetening agent) rose quartz (symbolize love, crystals also resonate greatly with me), rose petals (romance, passion), cinnamon (lust, sexy stuff), instant coffee (energy/speed booster), lavender (calmness), silver love charm (just for a personal touch, something special), and a spray of my favorite perfume (cotton candy, sugary scent actually called enchanted candy potion lol)
Some questions I had: I was originally going to use a photograph of my target as an extra taglock instead of just their name/DOB and catnip for attraction. I'm considering casting tonight, as I've heard Friday within Venus hour is the strongest for love spells. Should I still cast tonight without these ingredients, or collect them then cast it? I wasn't sure if all the ingredients I had was enough already. Once my jar is made and I've sent out my energy into the universe, can I simply blow out my candles and incense? Also would it be weird to use both a red and pink candle at once, both with intentions and names carved? I just can't decide between the two lol. Also, is it necessary to chant anything? I'm not too sure what to chant! I mostly focus on my intent with my actions and the petitions, imbue it with my energy, visualize and send it out into the world.

Sorry for the delay everyone, I had a loss in the family and needed to take some time with loved ones. Decompressed and back in the saddle now to resume regular posting.
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Chapter 22
Ana
The first time she opened her eyes, it was to a soft, pillowy comfort, the kind that made her want to tuck the duvet right up to her chin and go back to sleep no matter what responsibilities awaited. Dull grey light and a plain ceiling. There were sounds too, but they floated in and out of earshot as if on clouds, dulled like a conversation from an adjoining room one moment, then uncomfortably loud, like someone was speaking directly into her ear the next. She closed her eyes and the warmth carried her off again.
The second time she woke, things were sharper. There were edges to the tiles of the ceiling above her head and the comfortable fuzziness had lessened, giving way to the dull aching onset of a vicious headache. Her limbs were heavy, weighted anchors dragging down her swimming skull and pinning her to the seafloor of the bed.
This is… wait, what happened?
She remembered the smell of the barbecue, and arriving at the door to the journalist’s suite, and then… a sharper throb of pain rippled up the front of her skull from her temples and she winced.
Movement. She turned her head slowly so as not to provoke another stab of pain.
A kespan in a white outfit sat some ten feet away to her right. She was perched on a strange metal seat, and when she noticed Ana’s stare she directed it over, gliding across the floor towards the bed with a low humming sound. There was a symbol on her breast pocket, one that Ana recognized from her medical exams. A doctor, then.
The pieces of the puzzle started to click, and Ana propped herself up, the sheets below her crinkling softly. How is it that even with all their advanced technology, hospital beds still feel the same as on Earth?
“Specialist Cardoso?” The kespan peered down at her and Ana squinted back. “I’m Doctor Scytha. You gave us all quite the scare you know.”
“I really don’t…”
“I’ll go over everything that happened with you in just a moment, but first I need to know, are you in any pain? I understand you hit your head on the way down.”
“Just a headache,” Ana flinched as another jab of pain radiated across her skull.
“I can get you something for that if you’d like,” the doctor offered. “We’ve ruled out a concussion, but I daresay you’ll be feeling somewhat delicate anyway.”
She was about to agree but paused before the words could leave her lips. Through the lingering haze of whatever they’d had her on while she was unconscious, a tiny niggling feeling in the back of her mind was making itself known.
“No, I… I’m okay for now,” she rasped instead, her throat like dusty sandpaper. “What happened? How long have I been out? Where am I?” She held up a hand, feeling at the side of her head, where the worst of the ache was coming from. A strange smoothness greeted her probing touches.
“You have a minor contusion,” Doctor Scytha explained. “The dressing should stay on for at least a day, but we’ve treated the injury with…” she trailed off, a conflicted expression flickering across her face. “Well, we’ve treated it with something that should help it close much faster. It will be fully healed before you know it.”
“Come on doc,” Ana raised an eyebrow on the side of her face that wasn’t obscured by the strange bandage. “I’m curious. What did you treat me with?”
The doctor’s lips pursed beneath her muzzle, and her eyes flicked away. “Artificial cells. We can program them to—”
“Nanobots,” Ana deadpanned, and the doctor grimaced. “You treated me with nanobots.”
“While they do share some characteristics, the applications…”
“Whatever,” Ana cut her off. “I’m not in the mood to discuss semantics, and I‘ve got enough of a headache already to unpack that. Just tell me where I am please.”
“You’re still aboard the She-Serves-With-Honor,” the doctor supplied, relaxing visibly at the change of topic. “It’s been roughly eight hours since you were found. I’m told that you were carried here by that cute reporter boy who’s been stealing the hearts of every serving woman aboard. Lucky you.” She pulled a tab in the side of her chair and a small screen sprang out on a moveable arm. “I’m sure you’re also interested in learning what happened, yes?”
“That was going to be my next question,” Ana grunted, pulling herself upright and noticing for the first time as she did the opaque tube that ran from her forearm down under the bed. Sitting up turned out to be a mistake though, as when she did manage to raise her head the room spun and her stomach turned. She begrudgingly lowered herself again.
“Well, we’re not quite sure ourselves,” the doctor said, her eyes glancing between the screen on her chair and a space on the other side of the room. Ana shifted, ignoring the discomfort until she could peer over towards the door to where the doctor’s eyes had gone, taking stock of her surroundings as she did.
Two uniformed guards were standing there, one on either side of the door. They stood stock still, gazing back at her— no, at the doctor, with measured stares. Three blazes of red shone from each of their outfits at the cuffs and collars, sparkling brightly even in the dim overhead lights.
The room itself was on the smaller side, with her cot the middle of three in the room. The other two beds were empty. They were here for her then.
“Pretty tight security for a ship hospital,” she remarked. “I know I’m new to this whole ‘alien army’ thing, but somehow I don’t think the Garrison stands watch over all of your patients.”
“They are here because I am here, Specialist,” a smooth voice sounded out, and Ana turned her head further, towards the back corner of the room. A severe-looking woman sat there, medals softly shining in the dim light, a crisply ironed, angular hat resting on her knees. She stood as Ana gaped at her.
“Vice Admiral Kel’rek, ma’am.” She tried to raise a hand into the chest-high salute of the kespan military, but her head throbbed again, and the niggling feeling in the back of her brain only grew in magnitude, so the result was a sloppy flapping motion. Ana frowned, staring down at her uncooperative limbs.
“At ease, Specialist,” the Admiral waved a hand dismissively. “You’ve had a rough night. What do you remember?”
It might have been the drugs, but something about the way she asked the question made the hairs on the back of Ana’s neck stand on end. By the doorway, the soldier’s attention had shifted. Now they were staring at her.
“Not much ma’am,” she answered, ignoring the insistent tug of her hindbrain. “Just walking down the corridor, arriving at the door to the suite, and then nothing. Did something happen?”
“We were hoping you could tell us,” the doctor chimed in, with a respectful nod to the Admiral, who had sat back to rub at her chin. “Your scans came back clear, your bloodwork was unremarkable and your toxicology report shows you’re clean, no known contaminants. Although,” she hesitated, and the Admiral shot her a sharp look. “It’s possible that we missed something. We don’t know everything there is to know about Ervamir yet. It could be that something specific to humans eluded our scans.”
Well, it wouldn’t be the first time, Ana thought bitterly, something red and hot churning in her gut and threatening to spill over. She quashed it, but barely. Strange, I haven’t been this quick to anger since before… she cut that thought short too. It must be the drugs.
“Failing that though, what is your prognosis doctor?” the Admiral asked— no, seriously, why is she in the room? Has she been here the whole time? “Nothing too dire, I hope? It wouldn’t do to lose our first human soldier to an unknown illness.”
First human soldier. Her. How long had it been since that idea made her blood boil like it did now? She felt it return, the same dark crawling feeling that had curled up to nest inside her when she accepted the alien’s offer some six months prior. Back then it had been hunger that forced her hand. A choice between flinging herself on the mercy of the cartels or working with the invaders. I thought I’d left this feeling behind.
The doctor hummed, head still buried in the tablet. “New species often exhibit psychological distress in response to their first exposure to space,” she said hesitantly. “The media presence and press conference, followed by an interview on the same day may simply have been too much. If there are no further physiological symptoms, then the episode may have been stress-induced.”
Ana’s eyebrow twitched. “Respectfully doc,” she managed a forced smile. “Like most humans, I think I’ve been through things a lot more psychologically challenging than staring out a window and answering some questions. I’ve never seen any of the women back home experience anything like what just happened to me.”
The doctor avoided her eyes. “Compounding trauma could make this kind of event more likely, but again, we don’t know enough about human psychology to make a proper assessment. All I know is the scans are clean.” She looked up, but it was the Admiral whose gaze she met rather than Ana’s. “I’m prescribing plenty of rest. She should be off active duty for at least a week, preferably planetside.”
“I’m sure that can be arranged,” Admiral Kel’rek stood, and her guards moved to flank her. “You heard the doc, Specialist, I’ll make the necessary arrangements. In the meantime, I believe your squadmates are anxious to hear from you.” She raised an eyebrow at the doctor, who nodded. “I’ll have word sent that you’re awake.” She took a step towards the door.
“And the journalist, ma’am?” Ana asked.
The Admiral turned back to her and tilted her head slightly. “What about him, Specialist? I hope you’re not considering giving an interview from your hospital bed. I’m afraid that might give off the wrong impression.” She spoke with a light tone, but the look she directed Ana’s way was firm.
“I just wanted to apologize for not making our appointment,” Ana insisted. “And maybe arrange a new time, once I’m given the all-clear.”
The Admiral hesitated, just for a microsecond, but it was enough to be noticeable. “I’ll have word sent. You should be aware that he’ll be on the next shuttle with the rest of the media. It’s unlikely that you’ll get a chance to see him in person.”
“You could send me with them,” Ana suggested, and the Admiral shot her an incredulous look, her hand poised to open the door. “Ma’am,” she amended, lowering her eyes to the floor in what she hoped passed for submission. “If I’m going to be recovering planetside anyway, it would be an opportunity for us. To show the galaxy how humans and the Imperium can co-exist, I mean. I’m sure that any good reporter would accept.”
She peered up to watch the wheels turn in the Admiral’s head. Finally, the cat woman stepped away from the door to regard her properly.
“You wouldn’t prefer to recuperate in your home country?” she asked, probing. “The media is bound for the largest island in the South, the one we are currently in orbit over. It’s a green zone, but I would have thought you’d be more comfortable in a familiar setting.”
“Australia?” Ana’s eyes widened slightly, and some genuine excitement leaked into her voice. “I’ve always wanted to visit. I hear it’s a great place to relax. And actually,” she let her tone grow rueful, “I have a slightly… checkered history with my home country now. A lot of baggage. It might be better if I didn’t return for a while, especially if I need to stay low-stress.”
The Admiral raised an eyebrow at the doctor, who nodded. When she turned back to Ana though, she still didn’t appear convinced. “That would put me in a difficult position Specialist,” she said. “If I crammed you into a shuttle with two dozen members of the press less than a day after a serious medical emergency I’d be strung up, even more than I already am just for being here.” She shook her head. “I can’t put you on that ship.”
Ana lowered her eyes again. “I understand ma’am. That’s unfortunate. I was hoping that the interview might make a difference. Show people that cooperation is possible.”
The woman hesitated, and her eyes bore holes into Ana’s own. Then she cocked her head. “However…”
“Yes ma’am?”
“I can arrange transport for tomorrow. We’ll be slightly out of shuttle range by then, but a larger ship could make the journey. Specialist,” she maintained the same intense eye contact, and Ana held it. “I don’t think I need to impress on you the importance of your role here. We all want what’s best for humanity, and the sooner we can get your people on board, the sooner Ervamir… the sooner Earth can be made whole again. I’m expecting a good interview, even if it means a prolonged leave period. Are we clear?”
“Clear ma’am,” Ana managed the salute this time. “Thank you, ma’am.”
“Very good. As you were then, get some rest.”
Ana breathed a sigh of relief as the woman exited, the garrison members following her out. To her slight surprise, she noticed the doctor breathe a similar sigh, and filed the information away for later. Maybe she was the sort of commander who rode her troops hard. It was strange; she’d never been given that impression.
An hour went by, and Ana drifted in and out of sleep several times, each time waking up slightly sharper than before, though her headache kept growing. She was offered the painkillers again but declined. Years of soldiering in the South American jungle had taught her to trust her instincts, and hers had been screaming through the fog ever since she’d first awoken that morning. Something didn’t feel right, and she needed to be clear-headed to figure out what. She was feeling less collected now than she had been for months, and somehow, at the same time, more herself.
Maybe the doc is right and I’m just a bit fucked in the head, she thought.
Just as the headache had reached the point where she was beginning to question that decision, a polite rap came from the door. The doctor’s chair hummed across the floor to answer, and a moment later, a fuzzy face peered in overtop two smaller figures.
“You’re awake!” Banta’s voice boomed across the room, and the doctor made a frantic shushing noise. “Oops, sorry.”
The small group piled into the room, and Ana smiled through the throbbing pain as Vrina and Sergeant Rea’ar’s faces also came into view.
“Specialist,” her NCO greeted her. “I trust you’re on the improve?”
“Ma’am,” Ana inclined her head slightly.
“A little bird told me that you’re to be stationed planetside for a time,” she frowned.
“Yes ma’am,” Ana replied. “Sorry for the inconvenience ma’am.”
“It’s no matter,” the sergeant’s expression was unreadable. “The rest of the fire team sends their well wishes.”
“What she means by that is that the duradians don’t think you’ll die,” Banta grinned. “They’ve got some… quirks… regarding illness. Very pragmatic.”
“You can tell them that I appreciate their confidence then,” Ana replied, and what might have been the ghost of a smile graced the sergeant's face before disappearing abruptly.
“You’ve put me in a slightly difficult position here, specialist,” Rea’ar said. “I’ve been asked to leave one of my troops to watch over you in case your condition deteriorates. Normally, that wouldn’t be a problem, but assigning one of the duradians to your care would be a bad fit. I thought to send Singer alone, but…”
Banta stiffened. “Ma’am—” she started before Rea’ar held up a hand.
“Yes, yes, I know Corporal, save it. You’re both going. I’ve arranged for you to be assigned to a posting on the surface, at one of our new consulates. Might as well make use of you while you’re down there.”
Banta relaxed visibly, and Ana looked between the three women in confusion.
“You two aren’t like, married or anything, are you?” she couldn’t help but ask, pointing between Banta and Vrina, and the pair balked. Vrina’s crest puffed out, and she spluttered, a strangled choking sound coming from her beak. Banta sniggered, and the sergeant’s eyebrows rose.
“I— wh— no!” clucked the Ulu, her chest feathers fluffing out like pins from a cushion. “What makes you think that?”
“Well apparently you’re attached at the hip,” Ana defended. “I’m not judging, just curious.
Sergeant Rea’ar held up both hands, absolving herself of the conversation. “I’m glad to hear you’re improving Specialist,” she said, heading for the door, and Ana watched in amazement as the woman who’d kept her cold demeanor throughout months of training and onboarding fled the scene. “I expect regular updates on your condition,” she opened the door and turned to the other two. “Don’t keep her up too long, she needs rest.” Then the door was closing behind her, and she was gone.
“What the fuck was that?” Ana breathed, looking back at Vrina, who was still prickling, and Banta, who was held under the stern glare of the doctor and trying to keep her giggling from devolving into full laughter. “Okay, come on, what is this?”
Banta pulled herself together and glanced over at Vrina, who was still doing her best impression of a taxidermized rooster. “Maybe we should—”
“Shut up,” Vrina tucked her head beneath her feathers, rubbing at her forehead with the ridge of a wing.
“I’m just saying, it’s not like she’ll think any differently of—"
“No.” The ulu held firm. “It’s embarrassing.”
“Hi, invalid here, not exactly in a position to judge,” Ana raised an arm. “I don’t mind if the two of you are—”
“It’s not that,” Vrina hissed, and Banta guffawed again, catching another warning tut from the doctor. “We’re old friends, nothing more.”
Banta stopped laughing, and looked at her askance, her mirth disappearing. “No lies, Vrin,” she said, disapprovingly. “It’s one thing to keep something to yourself, but it’s dishonorable to lie to a comrade. I’m telling her.”
Ana cocked her head. “Wait, so you are—”
“No,” both of them replied together, the ulu still hissing. “Banta, I swear to—"
“She’s more like… my employer?” the ursinian ventured, and Vrina’s eyes bugged out, a sound like a death rattle building in her throat.
“Corporal Banta, you will not say another word,” she spluttered and then recoiled in horror as the bear woman bowed her head low to the ground, saluting her.
“Of course, your majesty,” she replied with a grin, and Ana’s brain short-circuited.
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