Making inferences in reading for 2rd grade

Hey there! 👋
I have to admit, I'm not the best at starting conversations or socializing first 😅, but I'm hoping to meet some new people and make connections. If you're up for some friendly chats, I'd love to get to know you better!
I'm open to talking to anyone, no matter your age, gender, or where you're from. I think it would be amazing to exchange cultural thoughts and maybe even learn a new language or two! 🌍
Here are a few things I love and some I'm not too fond of:
Likes: - Animes, Cartoons, Webtoons, Mangas: I've read and watched a ton and can recommend some great ones! - Games: Currently into Valorant and CS:GO, but I've also played Apex, COD, Rocket League, GTA, and I adore campaign-themed games like Assassin's Creed. - Movies and Series: I've seen a lot, so I'd love to discuss or judge a movie together! 🎬 - Kpop/Jpop/Cpop (and dramas): I'm a fan of their plots, songs, and crisp writing. - Arts: I appreciate all forms of art – painting, music, dance – and want to learn more. - Technology: Interested in AI/ML, product management, and industrial electrical sector. I'm working on a few projects, and I love discussing cosmos, quantum physics, psychology, and more.
Hobbies: - Cooking: I’m pretty good at it! 🍳 - Photography: Love taking photos, whether it's human portraits, nature shots, or adorable dogs! - Painting: Learning digital portraits and would be thrilled to make one for you! - Trekking and Camping: Prefer the forest over the beach, sorry! 🌲 - Reading and Music: My taste isn't too vibrant, so I'd appreciate some recommendations.
Let's start a new friendship! 😊

Hey there! 👋
I have to admit, I'm not the best at starting conversations or socializing first 😅, but I'm hoping to meet some new people and make connections. If you're up for some friendly chats, I'd love to get to know you better!
I'm open to talking to anyone, no matter your age, gender, or where you're from. I think it would be amazing to exchange cultural thoughts and maybe even learn a new language or two! 🌍
Here are a few things I love and some I'm not too fond of:
Likes: - Animes, Cartoons, Webtoons, Mangas: I've read and watched a ton and can recommend some great ones! - Games: Currently into Valorant and CS:GO, but I've also played Apex, COD, Rocket League, GTA, and I adore campaign-themed games like Assassin's Creed. - Movies and Series: I've seen a lot, so I'd love to discuss or judge a movie together! 🎬 - Kpop/Jpop/Cpop (and dramas): I'm a fan of their plots, songs, and crisp writing. - Arts: I appreciate all forms of art – painting, music, dance – and want to learn more. - Technology: Interested in AI/ML, product management, and industrial electrical sector. I'm working on a few projects, and I love discussing cosmos, quantum physics, psychology, and more.
Hobbies: - Cooking: I’m pretty good at it! 🍳 - Photography: Love taking photos, whether it's human portraits, nature shots, or adorable dogs! - Painting: Learning digital portraits and would be thrilled to make one for you! - Trekking and Camping: Prefer the forest over the beach, sorry! 🌲 - Reading and Music: My taste isn't too vibrant, so I'd appreciate some recommendations.
Let's start a new friendship! 😊

Intro: For your distinguished service to the crown, you’ve been assigned the difficult and dangerous job of slaying a dragon purported to have slaughtered a village on the outskirts of the kingdom. It’s a job you should be able to handle, and you’re not too scared… now, if only the whole thing felt less wrong…
Summary: Listener meets a new acquaintance who befriends him, and offers to guide him where he needs to go. They face a danger together, and he learns that she is not what she seems.
Go ahead and monetize, it's fine. Word count is about 3800.
If you fill this or plan to fill this, please notify me. Please don't make edits without asking first.
TWs: Running deception, combat, discussion of mass murder (dragon burning places to the ground), possessiveness, forced sleep
Line breaks represent the listener talking or space where no one talks and should be short pauses, words within {brackets} represent the speaker’s tone or sfx. At ellipses, the speaker trails off, and at dashes, she is either cut off abruptly by the listener or by herself.
Author’s Note: God, this took way too long to write. A couple months, if you count when I had the idea and when I wrote the first few sentences. Well, it’s here now, and I hope it’s not too disappointing. Prequel series go!
If you want to read this somewhere other than Reddit, it's also here.
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{internal monologue} {disgusted} Ugh, those damn livestock merchants charge more every time. Gouging bastards, {rationalization} but I do need them to stay silent. If the town finds out how much food I have to purchase every month, it’ll only end badly. Besides, it’s not like even this much bribery makes a dent in my hoard. I should really just be glad I haven’t met any merchants with integrity, that wouldn’t end well. Good thing it’s a vanishingly rare trait these days… {annoyance} wait, no, that’s not a good thing, what am I saying? It’s sad… but it does make my life easier. Well, that’s a hell of a conundrum. {sigh} {bored} Not one I haven’t dealt with before, though. Have this conversation with myself every time. Oh, well. What matters is the food’ll be delivered soon, I don’t have to go into hibernation, and the merchants won’t talk. Anything else I wanted to do before heading home? Hmm… I think I wanted to stop at the spice merchant, see how much- {interest} HELlo. Who is that?
{curiosity} What would a knight be doing here? I mean, I suppose the goblin raids have been getting more brazen, but the town guards seem to have it handled, I haven’t even needed to get involved yet. I guess he could be here about that, but it doesn’t feel right. Maybe he’s just passing through? Well, best way to find out is to go talk to-
{quiet} Oh, damn. That’s- oh, damn. Fuck, he’s hot. {forced calm} Okay, composure. You are an all-powerful dragon. You will not be thrown off your game by one mortal, no matter how shiny his armor is. And it’s only his armor you’ll be looking at, right? Right. Ignore that beautiful face, you just need to find out what he’s doing here, not-
{suspicious} Wait. Who’s he talking to? {upset} The spice merchant? And she’s BLUSHING? Uh-uh. No. Not gonna fly.
{out loud} {sickly sweet} Hiiiii, hello! It’s me again, I’m here to pick up some- Oh? Who’s this? A new friend?
Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you were having a conversation. Please, continue. I can wait.
{cough}
Oh, no, don’t mind me, just looking at… cumin. My, this smells awfully strong.
So sorry to barge in again, uh, I would like to buy these.
Are you leaving? Well, it was lovely to meet you.
{internal monologue} Okay, let me just finish up here, and I can go talk to him.
{pleased} Hah! Look frustrated, spice skank. Serves you right. {confused} Wait, do I know your name? Have I ever asked your name? Eh, doesn’t matter right now, I don’t need to know everyone in the village. {disgust} Especially not someone who flirts with- {confusion} Wait, what am I doing? I don’t have any claim over some random knight, why am I acting like this?
{frustrated noise} Figure out internal dilemma later, find human now. Where’d he go?
Agh! Curse this mortal form’s short legs, I can’t see- wait! Shiny!
{out loud} Hey! Hey! Wait up!
{out of breath} Whew… Thought I was gonna… gonna lose you… for a minute.
Thanks. Only need… a few seconds…
{composed} Hi. I’m Tiamat. Sorry to chase after you like that, but I realized I didn’t catch your name?
Oh, that’s a lovely name. It suits you.
{pleased} Oh, flatterer. {internal monologue} He’s smooth, isn’t he? I was expecting all muscle, no brain. I understand why the spice merchant was blushing now, I guess. {out loud} I just wanted to ask you… uh, I wanted to ask you what you were doing at the spice merchant’s? Usually passers-through don’t stop there when they can get their salt cheaper elsewhere.
Oh, that’s interesting! I didn’t know you could find that here.
Oh, no, I don’t spend very much time there. I mostly go in, buy what I need for my next few weeks of meals, and leave. Other places to be. More important places.
{laugh} Well. You certainly know the way to a woman’s heart. {internal monologue} A knight with both manners and a sense of humor… who’d have thought?
{out loud} Wonderful. So, what brings you to Wylgrith? It’s not a large settlement by any means, and well out of the way of… everything, really. What reason would a mighty royal knight have for stopping by? Were you sent to handle the goblins that-
{stunned} …Say what now?
The dragon? You were sent to kill the DRAGON?
Can you… not?
{off-balance} I mean- uh- Well, I don’t see why you would, do I? After all, the dragon hasn’t been seen or heard from in years, right? And even before that she didn’t harm any humans for decades. She-
I- uhhh… I guess I’m guessing she’s a ‘she?’ I did see her once, flying overhead, though, and she looked like a girl dragon. Kind of slender.
I… suppose ‘it’ works as well, yeah. {quiet, sad} A little hurtful, though…
{back on track} Nothing, nothing. So, why are you killing the dragon, again? I don’t think… it… has even harmed a human in living memory.
{sputtering} What? No it didn’t!
I- I think I would know if it burned down a village. I mean, this place is still standing, right?
A different- Well, I’m sure she wouldn’t have done anything like-
{quickly} No, no, I don’t know. It’s not like I’ve met the thing, right? But it hasn’t burned down this village, so why would-
{tentative} Oh. They said that?
Right to the king?
Right in the middle of court, where everyone could hear it?
{sad} I guess that settles that, then. The dragon needs to die.
{internal monologue} Damn. What a waste of such a handsome knight. There’s no chance he could possibly beat me on his own, so he’s going to end up- wait, on his own?
{out loud} {confused} And the king sent you? Alone, I mean? No army, or squad of knights, or cadre of mages? Why would he do that?
{awed} Oh. Oh, that is a very magic sword.
Well, no, I haven’t. But- but you can just tell, can’t you? It’s glowing! And it’s covered in some kind of weird letters, those have to be magical, right?
{internal monologue} {hesitant} Okay. That’s somewhat worrying. Even with all the useless sigils and that pointless glow siphoning its energy, I can feel the power rippling off that thing. Where did he ever find- No, that doesn’t matter. Could it level the playing field? Give him a chance? Hard to tell, I think, my senses in this form aren’t as-
{out loud} I’m sorry, what? I was distracted. Uh- it’s a very pretty sword.
{taken aback} That’s- that’s a good name for it. Very dangerous-sounding.
{internal monologue}{stressed} ARE YOU KIDDING ME? FANGBANE? HE FOUND FANGBANE? HOW IN THE- {forced composure} no, I’m calm, I’m calm, it’s fine. It’s not worrying at all that he has the most dangerous dragon-slaying sword ever forged. Wow, this very quickly went from “I don’t want to fight him, I don’t want to kill him” to “I don’t want to fight him, I don’t want to die.” Okay, time to nip this in the bud.
{out loud} Wow, it’s done that much? I never would’ve guessed that, it looks much too fancy for that. So… you can actually kill the dragon?
{hesitant} You’re right, I suppose. If it burned a village, it does deserve that. Well… {resolve}Do you know how to find its lair?
No, it’s not. If it was, everyone would be constantly in there robbing the hoard, wouldn’t we? Everyone knows that the lair is somewhere on the mountain, but no one knows where.
{triumph} Yes. Except me. And I’ll guide you there.
{reasonable} We already agreed, right? If it burned down a village, killed that many people, it needs to be put down. I want to help with that, and besides, you need someone to take you there. You’ll never find it on your own, so you can’t be too choosy about who you bring, can you?
I like hiking, and the mountain isn’t dangerous if you’ve known what you were doing since you were a child. I found it once, but I ran immediately, because I didn’t want to risk angering the dragon. I think I can find it again, but it’ll be a long trip. Three days at minimum.
{internal monologue} {satisfied} Perfect. A few days wandering in the forest should discourage him, maybe I can even convince him I didn’t burn any village. {confused} Why would he have been told… {moving on} Doesn’t matter right now. What matters is getting him off my trail, and maybe getting to know him in the meantime… {upset} No! Stop that! Bad Tiamat! He’s literally trying to kill you. He is not a prospective mate, he isn’t even another dragon!
{sigh} {wistful} He is handsome, though, especially when the light catches his armor like that… No! Stop!
{out loud} {serious} We should set out soon, then. Do you have enough provisions for the trip?
Good, good. No time to waste, come on.
You’re hunting a dragon. A dragon. Don’t you think it might be wise to move before she- it catches wind of your presence?
Let’s go, then.
{some indicator of a time skip}
{amused} What, don’t tell me you’re getting tired? We’ve only been hiking for a couple hours today, aren’t you supposed to be a big, strong knight?
You could take off the armor, if it’s that hot.
{concession} All right, your decision. And I suppose wearing the armor was helpful when the tangler tree tried to grab you. Fine, we’ll stop for a bit.
How much is left in your waterskin?
Good, good. Mine’s pretty full, I haven’t felt thirsty in a while.
No, we’re definitely going in the right direction. {grasping at straws} I recognize… uh, that rock! Yeah. See how it kinda looks like a bear, if you tilt your head?
Really? Well, I see it. Anyway, I remember seeing that before. We’re about a day’s walk away from the lair, I’m almost certain.
You know, you never asked why I decided to hike in a random direction for three days. {internal monologue} {pleased} I have such a good story for it, too. It’ll leave you crying, and then maybe I can-
{out loud} {taken aback} You do?
What? You’re a royal knight, one of the most honored positions in the land. Why would you feel the need to escape?
{internal monologue} What? What was that? There for a second and then gone, was that… a crack in the charming exterior?
{out loud} No, no, I understand the feeling. I just… didn’t expect it from this quarter. Is something wrong at court? Are you-
{inner monologue} {protective} Oh… Oh his eyes… So sad… What did they do to you, my knight?
{out loud} Please, anything you can-
{confused} What? What’s wrong?
No, I’m not going to shush, we’re talking, and-
{muffled} Mmph! MMMMPH!
{inner monologue} {angy} This presumptuous human dares lay his hand on ME? I don’t care what might be inside him, I’m going to make it outside- {considering} Wait. What’s that noise?
That doesn’t sound like- oh. Oh, those are goblins. And he wanted me to be quiet, and now they heard us, and- oops. Why did I not sense them coming? Goblins wouldn’t know stealth if it snuck up behind them and ripped their legs off, I should’ve heard them from miles away. This doesn’t make any sense… Oh, well. I suppose it doesn’t matter, in the grand scheme of things. Just a few more goblins to kill. If he’d just let go of me… wait, but I don’t want to reveal myself. That makes this much more difficult. Can I kill all these green idiots in my human form? {concerned} Oh, wow, that’s… a worrying amount. Where are they all coming from? All right, I think I can take- wait, what? Human? What are you doing?
{out loud} Why are you getting in front of me? That is far too many goblins for any human to handle, we need to run!
{internal monologue} {flustered} Wha? What does he mean by that? And why does he have to be this handsome as he says it? That’s unfair!
{out loud} No- you can’t-
{internal monologue} {upset} Oh, the stupid, brave, self-sacrificial idiot! He’s gonna get himself killed if I don’t help him- wait, what?
{taken aback} He’s- oh, wow, that’s quite impressive. That’s- wow. I’ve never seen a human fight like that.
{confused} Huh? Why’s he looking back… Is he angry? What?
He’s yelling something… He wants me to run? Wha- {realization} OHHHHH- He thinks I’m in danger, and he’s trying to protect me! He wants to- {touched} aw. That’s the sweetest thing… My heart- {serious} I need to keep this knight alive.
{realization} Oh! I have to pretend to be running, yes. I can’t help him here, much as I want to. Besides, it looks like he has it handled. Those goblins aren’t laying a claw on him, somehow. Guess it was a good decision to wear the armor.
{planning} I’ll come back for him later, and he can be happy that he kept me safe, and maybe I can use that to find out what’s wrong with him, oh, looks like he’s just about finished with those- {shock} wut.
What is that.
That’s a- that’s a freaking hellhound! What in the Low Realms is a hellhound doing here?
{protective} Okay, no, unacceptable. I am not risking my treasure- {concerned} the human. The human! Why did I just think of him as- never mind, time for that later.
{whoosh sfx}
{roar}
{desperate} Oh no, please don’t let me be too late…
{out loud} {furious} Stay away from my human!
{crunch sfx}
{triumph} Hah. That’ll teach you.
Did you get the last of the goblins, sir kni- {wary} What are you doing.
Put that sword down, please, I’m not your enemy.
Okay, no, no, calm down, there’s no need to get worked up.
This isn’t helping anything, can we just talk?
{upset} OW! All right, this has gone far enough
{magically resonant} Sleep.
{sigh} {fading out} What am I going to do with you?
{some indicator of a time skip}
{cordial} Good morning, sir knight. As promised, I brought you to my lair.
Oh, yes, you must be confused.
{whoosh sfx}
There, is that better?
{resigned} Yes. It was me the whole time.
No, it wasn’t. If it had been a game, you would be dead right now. Instead you’re alive, unharmed, even unrestrained, in the middle of my hoard.
Or didn’t you notice?
{amused} Yes, I thought that might get your attention. Being surrounded by enough gold to fill a palace ten times over generally does the trick where humans are involved, or so I am informed.
{annoyed} Fangbane? The sword that slew more of my kind in two years than any other managed in thousands? You want it back?
Tch, no, but I would’ve if I could. That butcher’s blade should’ve been melted down long ago. Alas, it was impervious even to my fire.
I thought that was clear: no, you can’t have it back. You can have another sword, even a magic one, but not that atrocity forged in steel.
{considering} That would seem to be the question of the hour, yes. “What are you doing here.” Well… why don’t you tell me? You were sent to kill me, that much is clear. But much more isn’t. I would like… an explanation.
{annoyed} Oh, come on. You’ve been interacting with me for days now. Do I really seem like the type of person who burns down villages at random? That excuse is worthless… and… {suspicious} I think we both know it. You were sent here for some other reason. What was it? Tell me, before I grow cross.
Oh, I believe they didn’t tell you. But, though I think you like to pretend otherwise, dumb is one thing you are not. You know more than you’re saying, so answer me. Please. Why does the king want me dead?
{stunned} That’s- that’s it? Of all the petty, arrogant, stupid- I’m not even going to bother trying with that. {snort} And humans use dragons as symbols of greed.
{explaining something obvious} Yes. Because I like gold, its color, its luster. And because I enjoy living comfortably. {disgust} Not just… to have more than others.
Even if you don’t want to concede the difference, surely it does not escape you that I earned all of this, not just killed its old owner and stole it.
{offended} Of course I did! The very idea of taking something unearned… ugh.
{considering} You really know so little of my kind…
All of this, though… brings us back to you. You were sent here, presumably because you’re the kingdom’s best knight, the one with the highest chance of victory. You weren’t given any backup because there’s only one Fangbane. And you were fed a lie about me slaughtering innocents to make the job go down easier, but something in you knew that it was a lie. Tell me, am I hitting the mark with these?
So, my question becomes… why didn’t you? You had me at the point of your blade, and with a sword like that and skills like yours, you could’ve done it. If you wanted me dead, I would be, draconic magic and might notwithstanding. Instead, all I have is a scratch on my snout- {venomous} yes, that is the scar on my nose. Injuries do carry over, thank you so much for noticing.
{curious} And now you’re sorry. I don’t think I understand you at all, no matter how hard I try. Please, answer me. I want to.
Wha- {sigh} {exasperated} Well, if you were so certain it was a lie, why come here in the first place? If you felt you were given unjust orders, you could’ve just left the kingdom. Plenty of other places need knights, and there’s always work to be found as a sellsword. You risked much to gain… nothing, as best as I can see.
{dangerous} He… he what?
The king threatened to…
{cold} No. No, that is unacceptable.
No one threatens my human.
Yes, my human. I- {sigh} {warmer} I believe an explanation is in order. You see, I finally figured out what I’ve been feeling these past few days. At first, I thought it might be love, and, well, I suppose it is, of a kind: hoarding instinct. I feel hoarding instinct when I look at you. I saw you for the first time, and something in me just knew. You are the most precious treasure in this entire cavern, and I need to protect and keep you until the end of time, like the work of art you are.
{worried} Ohh, that’s not a good expression. Did I say something wrong? Come on too strong? I promise, living here won’t be bad at all, it’s quite a comfortable lair, whether I’m in human form or dragon. I maintain a good relationship with the villagers, too, so we can even go down to Wylgrith on day trips, as long as you don’t try to leave. You understand the importance of that, I trust.
{calming} No, no, don’t get all worked up. There’s no need to do something we’ll both regret.
Please, calm down. We’re both rational people, let’s discuss this as such.
{harder} Human, I don’t want to put you to sleep again. Don’t make me.
{pleased} Good, that’s much better. Now, what are your objections?
Mhm, mhm… {logical} Well, in point of fact, no, you don’t have a home anymore. If you go back without proof of my demise, the king will have you executed, will he not?
As I thought. So there’s nowhere else for you to be. As to your next point, of course I won’t keep you as a pet, you’re a sentient human. You have your own free will, thoughts, ideas, desires, the whole package. You would never be a pet. You will be my treasure. Very different thing, and it means I will want to keep you close, keep you safe, and stare at your radiance for as long as draconically possible.
{considering} Well, no, I haven’t heard of this. A living part of a dragon’s hoard? I believe it’s unprecedented, since nothing but gold lasts forever. Nevertheless, we’ll figure something out, we can make it work. And this doesn’t reflect strangely on me, you needn’t worry. I am one of the eldest dragons of this age, the young are used to my… peculiarities by now.
{pleased} Ah, yes, I wondered when we would get to that point. No, as a matter of fact, the king will not be sending other knights, or mages, or armies after me. I will not be killed like that, and you will not be reclaimed by them. And do you wish to know why?
{colder than ice} Because I am going to burn this kingdom to the ground. {amused} Naturally. I could overlook the attempt on my life - it brought me the most precious treasure I have ever known, after all, - I could forgive the use of Fangbane, since now I can make sure it never harms one of my kind again, I could even somewhat tolerate the blatant lies spread about me as flimsy justification. {angry} What I cannot accept, however, is what they have done to you. Threats on your life, on your body, on those you protect, promises of execution, forcing you to stain your soul against your will… no. No one is permitted to harm my human and live. This will, I admit, be something of a first for dragonkind, actually killing humans instead of protecting them is practically unheard of. I may even face repercussions from my kind for this. I find it hard to care, though, these ones are only getting what they deserve, for their actions or their complacence.
Now you’re getting upset again. {soothing} Don’t worry, this isn’t a sign of my outlook changing. I still have no desire to harm humans, and the village is perfectly safe.
We were communicating so well a second ago, if we could return to that, I would be grateful.
I promise you, this shouting and carrying on is nothing but counterproductive.
{tired} Sir knight, if you are not capable of being objective, I will be forced to- oh, forget it.
{magically resonant} Sleep.
{gentle} {slowly fading out} I truly am sorry to do this to you, but I can’t have you fighting me on this. I don’t want you to be upset at me, treasure, so, by the time you wake, the cause of this contention will be gone.
Shh, shh. It’s okay. It’s just a simple sleep spell, you’ll wake up comfortable and well-rested.
There. It will all be fixed before you awaken. Don’t worry, my treasure, nothing will ever harm you again.

Tried to cram as much exposition as I could into the title there so I ran out of ideas for my original post 😂 (half joking)
Yesterday I had some success in the DMs if anything I almost had too many messages to respond to. It's simmered down a bit since then but I've made at least 1 new friend and I'm looking for more!
So as you can tell I am in a better mood today, I mean I'm still having problems but at the very least I slept amazing. Maybe it has to do with me caffeine fasting because I didn't drink any soda or energy drinks yesterday and the withdrawals are surprisingly low. For context I'm trying to cut down on my sugar and caffeine for my health.
My interest is art, and animation. I like to draw stuff and make things look like they're moving basically. I haven't been making a lot of progress lately due to my mental troubles, but I hope to get back to making masterpieces soon.
Why don't you tell me about yourself? If you're doing good or bad, I wanna hear it. This is a safe space. I'm gonna sit here and eat my hotpockets until it's time to work. We can still talk at work though.
Bonus Round: If you read this post, comment down below or send me a chat saying you did not read this post.

👥 W̳e̳l̳c̳o̳m̳e̳ t̳o̳ D̳e̳c̳’s̳ D̳I̳m̳e̳n̳s̳I̳o̳n̳s̳. 👋🏻
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🌎 𝐑ealm 𝐂ode: HYBb7TYVQrA
👥 𝐃iscord 𝐒erver: jB3wmGu6

I (29M) was seeing this girl (27F) since around January. We matched on Hinge back in October 2023 and hit it off pretty well, but she ghosted me for a few months and I thought that was it. In January she got back in touch with me, and we started talking again and she explained that she went into a mental health break for that time. I forgave her and we started officially seeing each other.
She was amazing, beautiful, super funny and I ended up falling in love. We were dating and everything was going well. I was doing everything I could to make her happy (Dates, order food while she was a work sometimes, take/drive her home from work, etc.)
Fast forward to the middle of March and my mother passes away suddenly while on a trip in Tampa, FL. It was an extremely painful time. I took a month of my military leave until mid-April to mourn the loss of my Mom and to attend her funeral in Georgia. After I came back I was a mess, but my gf did her best to check on me and be there for me. I realized this and wanted to make sure I was still putting effort into our relationship.
At the beginning of May, I find out she is moving back to New York at the end of the month and I was absolutely crushed. I asked her if we could spend time together and she says yes. Unfortunately, she started to cancel the times we set to see each other due to her feeling “stressed out and avoidant”. I try to respect her time, but was wandering if she was still interested in me.
A couple of days ago, I call her because she canceled plans to see each other on Friday. She then tells me she found she is leaving this Sunday. We agree that if she gets everything done, we’ll see each other a few hours before she goes to the airport. Fast forward to Sunday, I call her a few times and text her, but she leaves me on read for a few hours. I’m out running errands and a get a really bad feeling of dread in my stomach so, I did something rash and went to the place she was staying to check on her. I’m told she was out taking care of things. I leave then call her. To be honest I was blowing up her phone at this point. After a while a dude picks up and I ask who this is and he treats it as a joke and hangs up. At this point, I don’t know what got into me but I lost it and went back to her place. When I got there, I was told by her best friend that she moved back to NY this morning. I go back home to realize that I am blocked on everything. She reaches out on final time on Discord to tell me that I had no place to go to the place that she was staying unannounced and that she was blocking me. I tried everything to convince her but it was over.
All the emotions over the past few months caught up with me and the dam breaks: I had a severe mental breakdown and cried like I never cried before.
I feel so fucking ashamed for giving into impulse and acting like a creep. I really loved her and I wanted to make sure she was okay, but I went too far and disrespected the boundaries of people who were not even involved. I should have just left it alone and minded my business.
The last two nights, I’ve had nightmares about it, woke up in cold sweats and just started sobbing. I’ve never felt so alone and stupid in my entire life.
I plan to go see a Chaplain tomorrow to talk and get some help because I feel like I’ve lost everything.

Hello everyone, I need experts' advice on this matter. I was a GS-12 employee for over 90 days before I resigned due to a death in the family. My SF-50 shows that I moved back to the family. However, it has been difficult to get back on the same series. I was in series 1035, so I decided to try other series like 0343. I took the OPM exam and was referred to all grades 9-12. But, because this is a field I haven't been in for a long while, I decided to decline the last offer for GS-11 because I do not want to make any mistakes. I recently accepted a GS position in the 0343 group and was placed on step 9 / 1. I want to negotiate the offer based on my previous federal job experience, completing a GS-11 to the last GS-12 with over 90 days on that grade. Can I get sincere assistance on how to word my negotiation letter? I already have my TJO.

hi! i’ve been doing some research in a few places and i just can’t find an answer.
i have been considering an autism SD. i am an adult and it seems that owner training may be the best route.
i currently have an elderly mini schnauzer, and i know i love them, so i thought that perhaps another schnauzer would be good for me. i’ve read that great schnauzers don’t make good SDs, but do standard schnauzers have the same issue?

Thank you for stopping by....
Me:

• Loves being outdoors and anything physical, introvert in person, but extroverted in chat and occasionally funny and loves some good banter

-Reading is one of my passions well listening /reading I like audio books too. Love a good dystopian book.
-I have the goofiest white lab pup you were evenever meet lol
-Binges music and sports like it's my job ( been binging some J Cole and a lot of older house music ) Favorite teams are Saints and Lakers and Manchester United
-Have an not so boring desk job and WFH ( Data analyst)
-Loves playing guitar and and drawing and sketching. Can solve a rubiks cube in a min in a half. If you bribe me I'll teach you
-Can teach you how to make my world famous brisket nachos
You:
-Funny & kind
-Loves music (bonus if you're into hip hop and electronic or anything I love it all, can send my Tons of your favs)
-Has interests you're into to tell me about
-Can carry your end of a Convo and bonus points if you can hang with some good banter
Looking to share my day to day so if I grabbed your attention, shoot me a chat. Have a awesome day

Hello, first-time poster here but long-time reader of this community. (Also, posted this to the Tarot community. Hopefully, doing this isn't considered spam. Just excited to share.)
I am a 40-year student of Tarot and a college professor in videogame development and animation. I have created a free, multi-user virtual reality experience called Tarot Workshop for collaborating on Tarot readings and general Tarot education/discussion.
I came up with this idea after I had a remote reading done over Zoom and couldn't see the full spread and was never sent a complete and clear picture of the full spread--something that happens naturally in an in-person reading. The end goal of the virtual reality app is to make remote reading a better experience.
Currently, the in-headset experience is basic. You can draw cards in 3D, add them to a 3D spread, and show and hide card meanings in a shared space where you and another person can chat via 3D avatars. Upcoming features are to customize card meanings/images and save/ load spreads. These new features require more development, so I'd like to gauge interest and see if folks would find something like this useful before adding more features. I want to create a free and useful resource for the Tarot community, and your genuine feedback on how useful this tool is before publishing it to a wider audience is important.
So, if this sounds interesting, you have a VR headset and a fast internet connection, and you would like to take it for a spin, please PM for the password/link to the application and instructions on connecting.
Note, at the moment, the app requires a Windows PC tethered to a headset such as a Meta Quest.

I noticed that key details for setting up a Micro SD card for the Everdrive GB X7 were scattered all over so I wanted to summarize them in one place. This post also has more info on finding low-power Micro SD cards beyond just "pick a small size from a good brand".

Error F6: FAT Error

Usually indicates that either (1) the Micro SD card draws too much power, or (2) the Micro SD card is formatted with a GPT partition table when it must be MBR.

Finding low-power Micro SD cards

TL;DR, look for SD cards specifically labeled MLC or SLC.
Flash memory works by storing different voltage levels in flash "cells". Older chips would use "SLC" (Single Level Cell) tech, storing 1 bit per cell. Later came "MLC" (Multi Level Cell), which stores 2 bits per cell. Most newer Micro SD cards use QLC, or 4 bits per cell.
Storing more bits per cell has the benefit of making larger, cheaper storage, but at the cost of reliability and higher power draw. This page goes into more detail as it pertains to aerospace, but the same tradeoffs apply here.
So, to find a lower-power SD card, you should specifically look for MLC or SLC cards. Expect MLC to cost 3-4x more per GB vs what you'd pay for a typical Micro SD card, which will be QLC. I just recently got an 8 GB "SanDisk Industrial MLC" card for $10 and 16 GB MLC card for $14 and confirmed they both read/write without issue, while a different 16 GB SanDisk card that was not specifically labeled MLC does not work.

Using the right partition table (MBR)

Like the heading says, if you use a partition table, it must be MBR and not GPT.
I side-stepped this by not using a partition table at all, and just writing the FAT filesystem directly to the sd card itself, rather than in a partition. I've seen some people have issues with partition tables "automatically" converting to GPT. No partition table = nothing to accidentally convert.
On Linux, to make the filesystem, I ran
sudo mkfs.fat -I -F 32 /dev/sdd -n 'EverdriveGB'
Notice that I specified sdd and NOT sdd1, because I'm not using any partitions at all. You can find the right device on your system with lsblk.

Data-Miner Gego stared at the results of the analysis, still in disbelief that this wild theory had borne fruit and stood up to scrutiny again and again. But now, here before him in data as clear as even the youngest apprentice could see, was evidence, clear and unshakable:
Humans were not what they promised themselves to be.
Feeling slightly nauseous with anxiety, he keyed in a request to meet with the diplomat’s office as soon as possible.
As the diplomat looked over his latest treaty proposal, there was a faint sound of horns in harmonious blaring, signifying someone had requested permission to enter. Glad for any distraction from the monotonous paperwork, he activated the intercom, saying “You are recognized and accepted. Please enter.”
As the crouched and scrabbling shape stepped into the doorway, diplomat Hale-he mused again how interesting it would be if the if their ancestors could have heard such a magnificent call for a mere diplomat. Previously, such a grand instrumentation would have been reserved for a high chieftain or king, and yet here was Hale-he, a diplomat to be sure, but certainly no ruler of any stripe, heralded by a song that would bring envy even to high lords and minor rulers in ages past.
The individual sat before him, and Hale-he could tell by their coloration and the shape of their antenna they were a scientist or engineer, someone likely far more familiar with numbers than he was. Hale-he, while now taking on the rich purple hues of a diplomat, had the underlying color of brilliant crimson, a mark of his near-decade of study as a historical scholar and graduate before his appointment into diplomacy.
“What do you have for me? Gego, I believe?”
The other individual nodded, crossing his pinchers in a sign of deference and respect. “I am sorry to disturb your appointment, but I have important information regarding humans.”
“Ah yes, humans,” said Hale-he, feeling a degree of relaxation and comfort at the mention of the gregarious and affable people.
Humans had taken quite some time in venturing out to the stars, but their planet was located such that a number of major trade routes passed quite near to their system. Several species had reported contact with them before humans had in turn reached out and started to make contact of their own. But from all reports, they were kind, clever, and selfless to a fault, with no recent instances of conflict despite a very violent early history. They were renowned for having an impeccable record of interspecies relations.
“I'm actually in the process of framing a new trade treaty with some of their inner-system human colonies. I believe the primary planet in question is called Mars, but they also have gas refineries and extractors above their gas giants, and several mining operations set up on a number of moons and their asteroid belt.”
“Yes, I have seen the newscast about how much this treaty is expected to aid both species,” said Gego. There was an odd note of apprehension Hale-he could detect in their chittering voice. “There is some invaluable context that I believe needs to be put to light.”
“Context? What do you mean, ‘context?’”
“Well, you are aware that we, the Civicor, first met humanity when a trade ship fell off course and crashed upon Earth?”
“It is a well-known accident. Some manner of navigational mishap; Thankfully, our propulsion systems are far more accurate today.”
“This is true, but are you also aware the Bayons have a remarkably-similar story related to their first contact with humanity as well? A military scout vessel, intending to regroup with the bulk of their fleet and engaging the Dendite menace, and they were likewise drawn off course, spiraling to crash onto Earth as well.”
“I remember the stories that time hypothesized that it was Dendite sabotage, even though it was unlikely for such a minor and inconsequential vessel,” said Hale-he. “Other than that, I’m unfortunately not familiar with their own reports on it.”
“But our two species are but a few from over a dozen first-contact reports with humanity. All stemming from engine failures, navigation failures, and crashes or forced landings of ships that lost control and arrived on Earth.”
“Well,” said the diplomat, starting to see the shape of the data-miner’s point, “Warpspace travel.has always been an inexact science at times, and was even less accurate decades ago. It's possible you are reading too much into a handful of coincidences.”
The data-miner rubbed their eyestalks, feeling exhaustion creeping in for how much frantic effort they had put in over the past three-day cycle. “Yes, but to borrow an idiom for the humans, ‘Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, but three times is a pattern,’ let alone a solid dozen instances within barely a fifty-year timespan. Even the most heavily-trafficked routes past the most dense or erratic planetoids have only achieved a third of that number.”
“You're asking me to disrupt peaceful and productive diplomatic ties with humans by suggesting they were responsible for these instances. Are you truly suggesting that this was intentional from humanity's part?”
“I am.”
“That may be, but we will require more proof than mere happenstance, unlikely though it may be.”
“I have additional data as well.” Gego was the most proud of this next part, and he carefully pulled up the diagrams and charting maps. A vibrant animation appeared onscreen of what appeared to be a rainbow-colored and spiked disc, surging and shaking on the screen. “This is the analysis of the gravitational field irregularities within a quarter of a solar year of Earth's primary star.”
The diplomat looked nonplussed at the diagram. “I would assume the fluctuations here are not ideal?”
“No indeed. They could be likened to a reef within a shallow sea, permitting transit in the calm regions but damaging and disrupting ships passing through a rough space. I have reached out to several of the shipping guilds for more details, but initial reports back support this theory, with several commenting that the route passing near to Earth is highly undesirable amongst experienced pilots due to the rough effects it has on engine stability and wear and tear.”
The diplomat looked over the diagram further before attempting to wave it away dismissively. “But who’s to say that this isn't a natural phenomena of Earth’s system? There are many regions of space that are disruptive or dangerous to travel through in warpspace, so what would make Earth's patch of turbulence unique?”
“The fact that they can turn it on and off at will.”
The diplomat coughed violently as the surprise dislodged the piece of fruit pulp he was eating out of his primary digestion sack and instead into the top of his gas exchange organ. “What in the three spheres do you mean they can turn it off?”
Gego grimaced this time as he keyed in some commands to the report. This time the disc figure that was pulled was much grainier and blocky, fine measurements now showing as wide swaths. “This was reverse-calculated from a series of gravimetric scans done across that entire arm of the galaxy.”
Even with the poor resolution, the diplomat could still see that this was a wildly chaotic and dangerous gravitational field. “It looks the same.”
The data-miner nodded. “Yes, but watch here: It's hard to tell, but this readout is actually playing in reverse, stepping backwards through time. We're about to hit 76 years ago.”
“What's so important about 76-” The diplomat cut off, words caught like fruit pulp in his throat as the image abruptly stilled. The disc depicting the gravitational field was now still and smooth as a windless pond.
“So it just started one day?”
“Indeed, Diplomat Hale-he. And furthermore, this beginning of the turbulence was a mere month before the first vessel lost controlI and was forced to make an emergency landing on Earth.”
The possibilities were rapidly narrowing, but Hale-he was still in favor of exploring whatever possible shred he could find to avoid confronting the dawning reality about humans.
“Well, while things of this nature are highly irregular, I presume, I'm still not convinced that this shows they can activate it at will.”
“I know, Gego said, “Which is why I wanted to show you that data before I show you this.”
The gravitational field display became the ragged tumultuous ocean of currents and surges, and this time in the higher detail that told Hale-he this was more recent readings. “I'm sure you saw the announcements a fortnight ago that humanity had tested their first faster than light engine they had made themselves, rather than trading for, and successfully made a jaunt out to the furthest planetoid in their star system and back without incident?”
“Yes?” the diplomat said cautiously.
“I received this data from a colleague, who was concerned there may have been an instrument malfunction to produce such data as I’m about to show you. She checked and validated it herself. It was fully accurate and reliable, which makes it all the more troubling. I don't think she realized the cause of what she was seeing, but unfortunately the timing of it adds up too perfectly.”
The data-miner continued quietly recalling “I believe at this point we're at 30 seconds to launch the human’s test flight.”
Hale-he let out an involuntary gasp of breath as the gravity field abruptly stilled again, perfectly smooth simultaneously across the entire spread of it.
Grimly, the data-miner said “Here we had the jump,” and after a short pause continued “-and the return.” A few seconds later and the field abruptly resumed its turbulence.
The diplomat was still in shock, staring at the gravimetric readout, when Gego said “That's also not the most concerning part, either. This was supposed to be humanity's first faster-than-light capability of their own they were testing here; Isn't that right?”
“Well of course,” replied Hale-he. “It was on all the new stations. A great achievement for a species that had been slow to achieve that milestone.”
“I would remind you then that the readout here is half a light-year in diameter.”
The diplomat scrunched his eyestalks in confused concentration, trying to understand what the other alien was implying, when suddenly it hit him. “Yet they were able to disrupt such a large region simultaneously, and stop it equally quickly?”
Gego nodded. “Whatever means they have at causing such a disruption is certainly faster-than-light, and immensely wide-ranging. If it was slower and confined to a small area, I might have some theories as to how it could be accomplished, but this size, this scale and the speed? I have no idea. It is beyond anything our sciences and technology can produce, or that of any other known species.”
The diplomat sat back, stunned. “By the Spheres.” He glanced up at Gego. “What do you propose we do with this information?”
The data-miner waved an arm. “Perhaps we can get to the bottom of this: Go to humanity with the information we have. Tell them we want the secrets of this technology and the power sources that feed it, as it far eclipses anything we can currently achieve. Tell them that we will expose these findings to the rest of the space-faring civilizations of the galaxy if they continue to hold back.”
The diplomat’s eyes widened, before after a long moment he said “I see. Well, I still need to get to my duties and figure out how to handle this. You are excused, and a reminder to keep the strictly confidential while I inform the appropriate other parties.”
Gego bowed in deference before leaving the office. After he left, Hale-he leaned back in his saddle chair and groaned. The idiot had uncovered humanity possessed the capability of affecting a wide chunk of space at a power and complexity unheard of among any other known species, and his first suggestion was to blackmail them? The diplomat rubbed his head trying to make the sudden headache go away.
A few thoughts were coming to mind, snippets that had been dismissed in the moment, but now he couldn't shake them as he was reminded of the first species that had ever encountered humanity, and the comments by their scientists. They had said that humans were curiously disinterested in their warpspace drivers, despite not having faster-than-light capabilities already.
Then the second species that encountered humanity had mentioned that a child of one of the diplomatic party had become separated from the group, and accidentally come in contact with and ingested some Earth flora. It wasn't something toxic or dangerous to humans, but the physiological makeup of that species reacted poorly with alkaloids in the flora and would have resulted in a swift and painful death if left untreated. But instead, the humans had administered a series of emetics and alkaloid-binding treatments, something they said was common in the case of an accidental poison ingestion, The diplomat remembered reading a footnote from the inhuman physician at the time that this particular blend of neutralizing agents was not something commonly found in human medical kits, and in fact was uniquely suited to their own species’ biology.
Both had been written off as flukes, interesting anecdotes at most, but now the diplomat began to see the greater shape of it, as a species that cared not for faster-than-light travel, for they'd doubtless already achieved it, mastered it, and discarded it as uninteresting at some point before. A species, who upon supposed first contact, had comprehensive medical and anatomical knowledge of their guests sufficient enough to save a child in mere minutes from otherwise certain death.
All this from a species that had befriended and gregariously hosted every alien ship that had come astray upon their planet, and offered nothing but support and friendship to both waylaid travelers and their subsequent diplomatic summits, despite seeming to lack the ability to travel outside of their own star system. A species that was confident, at a basal level that Hale-he was only just now beginning to truly understand.
He opened a communications missive, addressed to all the other diplomats of similar station amongst the other species humanity had made contact with.
”Greetings to my fellow ambassadors. * *I come bearing difficult news regarding humanity: * *They are not what they appear to be. * *Yet, I believe it is of the utmost importance that we continue to pretend that they are, * *For fear that otherwise, we will learn who, or what, they truly are…”
Enjoy this tale? Check out DarkPrinceLibrary for more of my stories like it!

Lol, I thought this would be funny to write about as a first silly little post as it is the most interesting thing in my life. (Don’t mind any typos)
First of all, to anyone who wants to tell me to stop or get over it or give me any valid reasonable and rational advice,I will not listen so don’t bother.
As these stories go, I 15(f) in love with English teacher 26(f). I’m obsessed with her, and have been for almost msot 2 years, it would have been longer if she had come into my life sooner.
I’m not a love at first sight person, so it took a while for it to come about. And iv always had problems with getting violently obsessed with things, I believe it’s some kind of coping mechanism, you know? If I don’t have something to live for then I fall in love with something, subconsciously of course. First it was cartoon characters then celebrity’s and the for the first time a real person who I know in real life! (Except she’s my teacher and she’s 26) but also the first woman iv ever fallen for (iv always known Im pan so it wasn’t a shock really). I think another HUGE reason I love her is because I don’t have a mother, she was abusive, druggy, alcoholic yadi-yadi-yada, and so I don’t live with her and I don’t like her and she isn’t there for me, and so I meet a kind female adult who I look up to? Obviously I get attached and I see her as a mother figure. I really do, I want to be just like her, I want to make her proud, I seek her validation, i want to fuck her. You know, regular motherly things!
The first day I met her, first day of year 10. From the second she walked into the class I felt her energy and her vibes and I had that feeling where you instantly like someone and want to be friends with them and think they are super cool. Now, she is not hot, like Obviously to me me right now in this moment she’s the most beautiful and pretty person iv ever seen she’s so cute and hot and all that, but Obviously that’s because I’m obsessed with her everything about her is great, but she’s the kind of ugly that when she first walked into the class people snickered.
She has a rash on her chin, a noticeable moustache, she looks at least 30 despite being much younger, her eyes are creepy looking and small, her skin is really red and dry and way too textured, she does weird ugly facial expressions, she has a big nose, her hair is never brushed and always greasy, she has really small eyelashes blah blah blah.. (she obviously has some really nice features as well, but I’m trying to prove i don’t like her for her looks)
Now In her defence I think they were laughing because she has the hugest ass iv seen in my entire life, not cuz of her face. (She wears really tight leggings everyday) But, she is overweight and a lot of people bring her down cuz of it but that has nothing to do with any of it for me obviously, and I obviously didn’t laugh when she walked in.
The point is, I instantly liked her and her personality, she has that school mum vibe, she’s witty she’s confident she’s loud, she’s funny, she’s so weird (like she does and says the weirdest stuff, she’ll start dancing out of no where with no warning, she shortens words all the time and then says them three times like: “fab fab fab” she has just the weirdest tendencies and mannerisms it’s insane), shes always so exited and jolly, she’s like a ball of sunshine yet at the same time she’s so sassy and passive aggressive, when I’m older I wanna be just like her you know!
And that’s how I felt for a long time, I would just enjoy her lessons because of the energy and vibes she’d bring! She makes everything so much fun just by being there, she’s also a drama teacher so she’s great at getting a crowd going and stuff. But it seemed no one else liked her, they either fat shamed her, or said she was a bitch, or found her annoying.
They aren’t wrong she is all of those things, but she’s only a bitch to you if you don’t respect her and then she’s passive aggressive and makes your time in her class hell, and as her favourite student who kissed her ass everyday it was fun for me to watch people get roasted by her and never have to worry about it. She is annoying to a lot of people because she hypes everyone up, and she’s loud and obnoxious and confident, she laughs at her own jokes and she’s giggly and she does stupid accents, she’s the walking talking definition of “QUIRKY” and so 15 year olds find her incredibly cringey and jarring. But as an immature individual my self I found her energy like something I have never seen anyone have so i from the first day thought she was my favourite teacher ever!
I often take the role of like comic relief when it comes to my friends so I often make the joke myself, and once I felt this admiration for my English teacher, and this giddy happy feeling in me when I saw her, I thought it would be a great idea to pretend/ hint to having a crush on her to my friends as a joke so they can make fun of me. It was small things like “oh my english teacher! … oh.. I liiiiikkkee herrrrrrrr~!” Id day when people mention her, no one caught onto the joke for a couple months until one day, after a holiday I had dyed my hair and she walked past me and she complimented it, I thanked her and INSTANTLY MY HEART WAS POUNDING AND I GOT ALL GIGGLING, my friend was next to me and found it funny obviously. And then the more I went to her lessons I couldn’t stop getting all sweaty and nervous around her, and every time she’d do something cute, like squeal when she’s frustrated and make weird noises or do a fake accent, or tell a joke I’d feel so unbelievably happy, and I couldn’t stop talking and thinking about her, but Eveytime I’d think about her or look at her id get a huge ick of like.. but ewww she’s so not hot! I can NOT be in love with THAT.
By summer I was still feeling this Same way, one day she wore a dress and like the dopey idiot she is, she lifted her leg and from where I sat I saw her panties. I WAS DISGUSTED, and looked away. And then looked back.. but then looked away.. and then looked back.. and then looked away.. (and did it a couple more times) but I felt sick in my stomach the whole time! It was not a hot thing at the time.
Then the year ends and it’s the summer holiday, (now up until this point I was quite caught up with my David walliams obsession. yes the 56 year old.. and so I didn’t really care about her all that much. On the first day back, before school started I went to a birthday party and I saw her walking outside of the school, when I saw her my heat was beating so fast, i hadn’t seen her in 6 weeks and I was not expecting to see her then, I said hi to her and i couldn’t stop thinking about that moment so intensely, and every thought I had about her being ugly didn’t matter to me, it’s not like I forgot about it, I know what she looks like, but I just think everything about her is so beautiful, it’s part of her and so its perfect.
That feeling got worse and worse as the year went by, every time i see her I shake, i sweat, I have panic attack like symptoms, but I feel so happy, like manic, I am overwhelmed, I want to punch things, I want to scream.
Then we get to the part where to silence this obsession I did regrettable and wierd things that she will never know about, some of the despicable things iv done in “the name of love” for her include:
Eating her hair Licking her spit of the table Kissing her chair when she leaves the room Following her around school Drawing her Writing poems about her Writing songs about her Making edits of her Taking photos of her Recording her voice when she talks to me Stealing her trash Licking her pens Making AI chat bots with her personality Making a bingo game about her (that one is just funny, and all my friends played it too, during her lessons lol)
And many other things I won’t mention. Obviously I’m not proud of any of this, and I didn’t really need to do it, some of it I did “as a joke” for my friends, some of them I did just because I could.. but the recording her voice one is essential! Anytime we’d have a heart felt convo I’d record it so I can listen to it if I ever loose the will to live (surprisingly frequently).
Now our relationship as student and teacher was/is very good.
We’ve had some lovely moments, she told me she cared about me outside of the classroom.
A personal favourite of mine: One time she was marking my work and it was just us in the classroom and I rested my head on her shoulder as she was going through it with me, and she looked down at me and she smiled and then we stayed like that for ages while she marked my work.
All my friends said I was delusional and that she probably hates me, but she has a huge ego and i believe she likes to keep me around to give it a boost every now and then.
I wore a matching outfit with her once (on accident) and she was very happy about it
Anytime I’d ask her what I can do to improve my grade she’s say to me “oh no! But you’re doing really well! I thought you did great!”
She’d never get mad at me or shout at me for anything, if we are doing a one between two activity she’d give me the only extra sheet in the class
I asked her to sit at the front to her because I “concentrate better at the front” (i only asked cuz i wanted to sit closer to her) she gave me a sly smirk and then the next lesson she moved me to the back of the class, and also moved her self to the back of the class.
We took a selfie together and the whole time she was giggling, I gave her a Christmas card, she lets me follow her around the school, she gave my friends dirty looks when they were being mean to me
I sent her stupid emails of pictures of capybaras (it was an inside joke between us) and she responded with a way to enthusiastic response for such a simple image lol!
I sand “you belong with me” by TS and she stood in the crown and when it got to the “you belong with me” bit I pointed at her and she pointed back! Singing the words back to me
Oh, and let us not forget the amount of eye contact. I never look people in the eye, one of my first exes I barely ever looked into their eyes all the time I knew them, I just suck at eye contact. Until I met her, since I’m so insecure about her forgetting me or loosing me or something I often stare at her when she’s teaching to make sure that she doesn’t forget me. And some how in the last couple of months she stares at me as well.
Anytime she tells a joke she looks straight at me to see how I respond (always with giggles even when it’s the lamest thing iv ever heard. It’s often not funny at all.) and the entire time shes teaching the lessons I will stare at her. IN HER EYES. Like, I’ll often smile calmly, but if she hasn’t looked at me in like 4 minutes then I’ll stare deeper, but she usually looks into my eyes and hold it for a while sometimes she’ll even smile at me and then stutter and forget what she’s saying before looking away and continuing. She’ll stare deeply into my eyes, throughout the lesson, and I also always catch her looking at me first.
Once she was helping me with my work, she got really close to me, and she stared into my eyes and then I see her getting small glances at my lips (with this one I may be a little delusional) she leaned in and she kept getting confused. Like, she yaps a lot, and a lot very loudly. So it was odd for her to be standing there her arm touching mine talking to me and being like “…. Um-.. heh-.. where was i..” and she flicks through my paper and then looks back at me and goes silent and then swallows and then looks down and then flips through it again and then says something small and short followed by more silence.
I also have a theory shes on drugs, for many reasons but one time I needed her to take a photo of my book, and she was acting so weird, tired but like really like dizzy and loopy and breathless. And she went to take a photo of my book, and got behind me and she leaned into my book, and I felt her heavy loud breath on my neck as her stray hairs were tickling the side of my face and her shoulder was touching my back, she she just stood there and stared at my book for ages until i was like “um so.. you can.. take a photo or something..” and then she slowly did it hahahaha!
Obviously it’s now exam time and so school is basically over and I have no more lessons, so I didn’t go into depth about how much she means to me as a person but to sum it up into one sentence; I would want to seriously kill my self with out her in my life.
And so the thing I had been fearing for so long, the last English lesson, the last time seeing my dear beloved. Well obviously it’s life or death so I have to tell her how I feel and get her to stay in contact with me.
The last lesson ends I go up to her after a morning of: pissing my self, shitting my self, throwing up in my mouth, constantly putting on perfume, checking my hair and chewing the mintiest of gums. And I start my speech, I won’t go into it but I told her how I felt about her (minus the being in love bit I played it off as platonic duh, im not fully stupid).
I told her that she means so much to me, and she’s (one of) my favourite people in the world (that’s a white lie she’s my only favourite) I can’t go on with out her, I need her, iv felt this way since the first lesson, your so fun, you mean so much to me! I cant loose you, I don’t know what I would do with out you!!!!
I cried in her arms as she hugged me! And i didnt even need to ask she suggested we could stay in contact, in-fact all i had said was “I’ll miss you so much :(“ and she already suggested we stay in contact, but Obviosuly I still did the whole speech cuz at some point she needed to know. Her response was basically that she already knew, but she was very pleased to hear it, and everything is going to be perfectly okay.
She said we can stay in contact (through email, cuz apparently there is a “legal thing unfortunately” stopping her from giving me her number (yes I did ask for her number, but in a total no homo way.)
She said I can talk to her anytime about anything as much as I like, and that’s good enough for me!
I also gave her a drawing I did of her and me together which was cute, her response to that was “oh very cool! she walks over. she takes it in her hands, very excited to see it. This really throws her confidence off, she’s really not expecting this. OH THIS IS AMAIZING! her voice cracks THANK YOU SOOOO MUCH! this is lovely! thank you, this is soo good! oh-muh-gud it’s SO good! oww I love it! thank you.. I’m wearing the same top as well, how fun~.. HOW FUN!!!! how fun!! … she takes it and puts it in her bag i will prop this up, on my desk! wicked wicked awesome!” (I recorded her reaction so that’s how you know it’s word for word)
In conclusion, im creepily obsessed and its a problem, but I don’t really regret anything cuz it’s all gotten me to this point where I can talk to her when ever I want and that’s all I could ever ask her. Yes I want to fuck her, but that’s not important to me I just need her in my life, she’s my world she’s my reason of living, and I’m so happy things are this way! I’m doing my exams now so I get to see her everyday when I come into school (by see her I mean wait outside the staff room so I can catch a glimpse of her knee). I’m also glad I’m not in her lessons anymore cuz I’d always get so twitchy around her, anytime she’d be near me and I’d be trying my best not to lunge at her, when I see her my mouth waters I just wanna grab her and kiss her all over! Eeek! She’s adorableeeee!
I love herrrrr ❤️❤️❤️

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Chapter 168 – The moment to live and the moment to die
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„Jumping!“ an Ensign announced loudly as the Sun's view-windows very briefly flickered into a dark black only to go back to a full view of the ongoing battle basically instantly, having barely shifted the ship's position at incomprehensible speed. „Shot clear of allied ships.“
Vice-Admiral Kazadi tapped his finger on one of the armrests of the Commander's seat that still felt anything but comfortable for him to sit in as the tight grid of flashing lights reflected in his eyes within the twilight of the bridge.
“Fire,” he then ordered. Not even a blink later, a burst of colorful light broke into his view from the side of his very own ship, lighting up the entirety of the bridge even through the automatically tinting windows that absorbed a lot of the harmful light so the crew wouldn't flashbang themselves with each shot.
The relativity canon fire tore through the enemy ship at an almost literal instant with any travel time barely being conceivable to a mortal mind. In a large unload of energy that left almost the entire stern-side of the zodiatos ship as a molten mass of dispersing slag, the main propulsion was taken out. Simultaneously, the two accompanying cruisers had also taken their shots; with the 'Civil' taking out the engine of one more enemy vessel while the 'of the roses' had instead used its shot to disperse one of the enemy projectiles in order to buy their own hunter ships more freedom of movement. Those huge ones didn't go down easy from one of the hunters' smaller shots, so using one of the large canons to dispatch it took some of the heat off them.
Meanwhile, smaller targets on the enemy vessels, such as their own canons, were gradually taken out by said hunters, whose own fire – while able to be quite destructive if intended no doubt – could be used in a far more precise manner. With more and more of their canons failing, the protective volleys the coreworld terrorists could fire to hide themselves away also became less and less effective.
“Send the fallback-beacon,” Kazadi then ordered, since close quarter attacks became less and less necessary.
It seemed that the zodiatos had a hard time adjusting to the combat style of the human unkindnesses, however that didn't mean they should take any unnecessary risks. Even if a pilot could've been able to avoid all enemy attacks in a perfect world, he knew that his pilots were only human.
Casualties of their own had been comparatively minimal so far, however as if to prove him right about his thoughts, he could see on his surveillance screen how, just in that moment, one of their ships was taken out by an enemy craft.
He grimaced to himself and let out a mild sigh. One more family who would never see one of their own again...
It took a moment before all the ships were reached by the beacon. Due to the nature of their own combat strategies, as well as the particular nature of hyperspace, it was entirely impossible to effectively contact any of their ships directly while they were out in the battle. Therefore, the order to fall back had to be broadcast as a general signal, that each of the pilots could individually pick up as soon as they would keep still for long enough so that it could reach them.
By now, the battle was already won. None of the zodiatos' weapons were able to match the relativity canons in effective range and without the larger ships to back them up, their small hunters wouldn't be able to launch an offensive – shields or not. They could just stay back and fire until surrender now. As the signal was picked up, one of their ships after another disappeared in one last flash of hyperspace as they joined back up with the larger vessels in an enclosing formation.
“Prepare for the retrieval of some of those projectiles,” the Vice-Admiral then ordered as he hoped they would be able to track some of those spent shots their enemies had fired. They would have to figure out what kind of tech that was.
In such a small-scale conflict, it was more than manageable to face it. However, it could offer some difficulties in larger fleets – especially since they didn't know how far this kind of tech could possible be expanded and refined. It was quite possible this was just some form of prototype.
While that order was followed, one of his Lieutenants suddenly spoke up.
“Sir, we have an incoming transmission from the planet. Civilian. Not encrypted, but they seemingly had an access code,” they related quickly.
“Is the earlier interference cleared up?” he immediately asked back, to which the answer was positive. “Put it through then,” he immediately ordered as soon as he heard that.
He rubbed one of his tight braids between his fingers as he waited for contact to be established. Once the line was clear, things remained quiet for a moment.
“What are we best at?” he then asked the silent line, his chest tightening ever so slightly, even if he didn't have to wait long for a reply.
“Topping from the bottom,” a very familiar voice replied from the other end, sounding incredibly strained but most certainly alive.
The code phrase was an old in-joke about something that had been said back during humanity's first contact with the tonamstrosites due to a slightly choppy translation. However, it more than sufficed here to tell Kazadi that the person on the other side of the line was not only genuine, but also not in any immediate distress – at least none that was brought onto her by someone else.
“Good to hear your voice Ma'am,” he greeted the Admiral after taking a brief moment to allow his heart to settle.
“The pleasure is all mine, Celestin,” Admiral Krieger replied in between heavy breaths that sounded like a combination between being ready to collapse and absolutely willing to tear anyone's throat out at a moment's notice. “Excuse me for the unorthodox contact, my own means of communication have all been destroyed. Update me.”
A brief smile played on the Vice-Admiral's lips.
“No problem, Ma'am. Things are under control up here, but multiple allied coluyvoree ships were destroyed and we suffered some casualties of our own which I will take full responsibility for,” he quickly complied. “By now, the enemy crafts have been largely disabled and our fighters are falling back. What's the situation on your end?”
There was a bit of a grunt from the other side of the line that seemed unrelated to the ongoing conversation.
“I'm sure you did everything by the books,” Krieger then replied a moment later. “Down here the situation is precarious but momentarily under control. We have an unconfirmed number of casualties after an attack with an unknown weapon. All squads are either KIA or unresponsive. We took down six enemy combatants but can't confirm if there's more. I'm going to need clean up, rescue teams, as well as pickup for me and two large offworlders asap.”
Celestin nodded.
“We're in a stable position, so we'll jump teams down right away. Hold out just a minute more,” he assured her while already signing in the necessary order to the troops they had on standby. “How bad are your injuries?”
There was another groan of pain from Krieger's side.
“Crushed cranberries,” she replied after a long moment that sounded like she needed to catch her breath.
“Copy that,” Kazadi replied with a grimace. “Sending muti-team with the evac.”
“Copy that,” Krieger confirmed. “Krieger out.”
With that, the call was hung up. On his screen, Celestin could see how the preparations for dispatch of the requested teams was already well underway. Jumping towards a planet at FTL was generally discouraged by the Galactic Community. However, this was an emergency. They couldn't wait for normal re-entry.
After watching the reported progress for just a moment, his eyes returned to the ongoing battle. He watched the enemy ships as they hovered dead in space, unable to maneuver.
They seemed to have recalled their own fighters back in order to form some sort of protective wall around the 'mother ships' with their own small shields. Obviously it wouldn't be very effective, so it seemed like needless cruelty to make their own soldiers get in the way of the incoming fire. Something within Kazadi told the Vice-Admiral they weren't going to stand down.
“Sir, we're getting some strange hyperspace-readings,” his Lieutenant suddenly announced, making him look up.
“Weapon-grade?” he immediately asked, knowing they had less than a moment to react if it was. However, he also figured there would've been more urgency to their voice had it been so.
“No, Sir. Travel-grade,” the Lieutenant quickly replied. “However the readings are unusual. It seems like they are creating a stretch solely around themselves.”
Kazadi's lips shifted a bit as he took that in and he briefly ran a hand over his mouth in thought. “Prepare to collapse,” he ordered. “Maybe they will attempt some sort of running start. We can't let them get away.”
Right then, the light of what was happening had not yet caught up to the spacial distortion that their sensors were detecting, meaning the ships still looked perfectly normal – if damaged – when he looked at them. However, they were planning something. And that made them appear all the more ominous.
His mind quickly went through their own protocols. The U.H.S.D.F. employed hyperspace in nearly all its possible facets in their tactics. If it was even close to sensible, they would have something that was akin to the maneuver their foes were attempting to execute right now.
A bubble of hyperspace solely around their ships...a dodge? Hardly, there was nothing to dodge like that. An attempt to hide away? No, they knew human ships could collapse hyperspace from the outside easily.
Before him, the windows of the ship once again automatically dimmed, protecting the crew's eyes as the colorful light of the created hyperspace-bubble finally reached them.
“Hyperspace collapsed!” the Lieutenant then suddenly announced, causing Kazadi to blink in surprise as his eyes shot up to his screen. He hadn't given any order to collapse it yet. But indeed, it was gone. For a moment, he thought that the stress had caused his officer to use the wrong term in haste, however no, they had been completely right. It had not been dispersed in a controlled manner. It had collapsed.
In a mild 'thud', the Vice-Admiral's fist descended on the armrest, hand firmly clenched into a fist.
“Those cowardly ba-” he began to growl but then bit his tongue and released a low, almost grunting exhale while his fist quivered from momentarily clenching tighter. “Prepare to search for survivors,” he instead said in a much more controlled manner a moment later. “Preserve lives.”
“Yessir,” multiple of his officers echoed back as he looked out of the window, where he could still see the ghostly afterimage of the hyperspace bubble linger for a bit longer. It was always a strange feeling, seeing someone in the distance who was already dead...
–
With her view darkened and her goggles momentarily pulled off her eyes, Shida stared at the glowing bubble of impossible colors. Her sensors had already told her what was about to happen at any moment now, however her eyes still heavily constricted as they finally witnessed what unfolded themselves.
In what could be described as nothing else than a 'snap' , the light of the hyperspace-stretch instantly condensed down into its original size as the universe all at once remembered that the laws of physics were a thing that existed and brutally forced space to conform to them once again – no matter what may have been in between it and its original form.
Anything within the strange, round stretch was mercilessly ripped along with the convulsion, forcing all the injected warships and fighters into the single, small point that the stretch had been generated from. Though not even a faction of a second later, it all exploded outwards again as the megatons of mass realized that they could not all exist in the same place at once, since the energy of the event was not quite potent enough to press it all into a neutron star or singularity.
No longer recognizable blotches of undefined, white-hot matter were instantly scattered in all directions like some sort of micro-supernova that accentuated the sometimes still burning nano-stars that the earlier battle had created from the opposing fighters.
It was almost pretty...but still, Shida couldn't help but let her ears hang as she wondered how many of the enemy combatants had known about the decision to end things this way. Had any of them even been asked?
Even if it was the far more disturbing answer in a way, Shida almost hoped that this had actually been one mutual suicide-pact instead of the decision of one single commander to choose death over dishonor. Especially while sitting in a ship that was technically under the command of someone else herself, that was certainly the less immediately petrifying option – even if it would probably spell far worse things in the long run.
As she said there, the 'shockwave' of the collapsing hyperspace suddenly hit her, spreading out through space even without any medium to carry it and rocking her ship gently while also penetrating all throughout her body. Of course the earlier relativity fire had already caused similar ripples and she was therefore quite used to the feeling, however these ones sure felt a bit more severe than those of the U.H.S.D.F.'s own canons. It was like she felt her own body distort while also remaining perfectly in palace – almost like she was a stiff container full of water that someone had given a heavy smack from the side, riling up the liquid without it actually having any place to plash to.
According to everything they knew, this phenomenon felt incredibly odd but was entirely harmless to living beings – which was instinctively very hard to believe when one felt it on their own body.
However, her dwelling thoughts were, perhaps luckily, interrupted as she – or more precisely one of her scanners - picked up on a peculiar signature that one of the scattered debris pieces was sending out.
Well, it was 'peculiar' to her that there was a signal at all at first, however then she quickly realized what it actually was. This particular signal was hammered into any pilot's head six ways to Sunday, and so she reacted relatively quickly when she glanced at the grid and realized that she was the closest ship to it. Firing up her engines, she turned her ship on the spot in a slight drift before activating her generator and making a jump right behind the flying object.
Once there, she allowed her computer to take aim for a second before firing out a harpoon that quickly struck the flying debris and latched her ship onto it through a long cable, allowing her to pull the thing along with her after slowly using her backwards thrusters to disperse its speed little by little. Pressing the indicator of her communication, she then spoke up.
“Scratches to Sun,” she announced. “I just recovered a black box. Permission to return for inspection?”
The black boxes of modern ships truly were among the most ridiculous pieces of tech out there, in Shida's humble opinion. Built to withstand almost everything that would likely take a ship out through a combination of brilliant engineering and extremely flexible material that only worked in its indented manner on very small scales. Well, very small compared to the ships they were built into. The things were about half the size of Shida in the end. For many years, armies of scientists had attempted their very best to make this same sort of defense useful in ways that could maybe be used to protect actual people from catastrophic events – but to no avail so far. For now, the only thing those little marvels could allow to survive even something as ludicrous as hyperspace collapsing was information.
“Permission granted, Lieutenant-Commander,” the answer came almost immediately. “Return to hangar three.”
“Copy,” Shida replied. “Scratches out.”
With that, she moved her ship around and prepared for her jump back to the Sun. Hopefully this thing would give them some answers on what exactly this whole thing was meant to accomplish...
–
Far away in another part of the galaxy, a pair of mildly glowing red eyes was laser-focused on a large screen that was just one of many that had merged all over Nedstaniot-Station to broadcast the breaking news to anyone willing to lift their eyes at a slight angle to look at them.
An attack on a coreworld. And not just any coreworld. Gewelitten itself. Something like this hadn't happened in...well, Curi didn't even know how long.
Details seemed to still be incredibly fuzzy as the battle so close to the coluyvoree homeworld had either just happened or was still happening at the moment of the broadcast, however what few details were known were already repeated on end in an endless scroll of text that was meant to catch as many people up to speed as was at all possible through the medium of television. Obviously the same emerging details could already be looked up on the net as well to find them in a more digestible format than the endlessly moving text next to the not exactly top quality footage of the occurring conflict.
However, despite the speed with which it went by, Curi had no problem following the scroll as they stared at the screen intensely.
“Attack was unannounced. Multiple Gewelitten fleet ships destroyed. Official sources confirm: Humanity NOT the aggressor. Attacking ships presumed to be of zodiatos origin. Unknown weapon technology deployed during the attack. U.H.S.D.F. ships engaged in combat after aggression. Myiat delegation ship confirmed unharmed. Attack on government facility on planet simultaneous to spacial attack. Councilman-Candidate Aldwin confirmed unharmed. Status of U.H.S.D.F. General Krieger unknown. Status of Gewelitten Governor H. Cierrophai unknown. Status of Acting-Councilman Afuéhner unknown. Allied coreworld defense fleets activated and inbound. General alert level raised to 8. Hyperspace-travel shut down around the system.”
“Mother, oh no...” Mueen said with absolute shock in his eyes, both of his hands clasped over this mouth as his wide pupils quivered in fear from what they witnessed.
Curi could understand his worry. Though Moar had supposedly been with James, so she would probably be fine. The cyborg was certainly more than just a little relieved that James was already confirmed to be safe. Though the idea that Admiral Krieger's situation was unknown was more than just a little disconcerting.
Though despite the supposed lack of their commanding officer, it seemed like the humans had decisively won out in the battle outside of the coreworld's atmosphere; unknown technology or not.
Given the sub-par footage that some drone was likely recording from quite far away from the actual conflict, it was very hard to tell just what sort of weapon the unknown but presumed to be zodiatos attackers had unleashed there. It looked like some sort of emanating energy that destroyed what it came into contact with but also interacted with it as if it had a physical presence.
Curi had never seen anything remotely like it before – not even in their wildest theories – and their mind immediately wanted to go wild with speculations and ideas about how such a thing might work now that they knew for a fact that it was possible from seeing it with their own eyes.
However, the cyborg pulled themselves together and successfully forced the briefly almost overwhelming desire to focus on nothing else down as they shifted their gaze slightly away from the screen to look over at their other currently nearby company.
Then again, as much as they knew they couldn't let their guard down around him, Reprig's eyes were just as immovably attached to the large screen as Mueen's were as he witnessed the unfolding battle with quivering horror.
His trunk was wiggling wildly in his face and one of his hands nervously scratched over the plate of the table they were all sitting and standing at and on, right next to a piece of paper with a hastily drawn sketch of a spring-like mechanical leg that was inspired by what humans called 'running blades'. The Warrant Officer's weapon also laid on the table, pushed a but further away from his hand so he wouldn't be able to easily reach it.
Though despite his focus, Curi couldn't quite help but speak up after a moment of watching him. “A coreworld attacking another coreworld,” they said to the man, who they knew either had to know far more than they did about this – or would be far more invested in it unfolding. “This is unprecedented.”
Reprig seemed to notice that they were talking to him, however he still remained silent and stared a good few moments longer before finally pulling his gaze away from the screen.
As his eyes met theirs, he looked a bit sick. It almost reminded the cyborg of one of the first interactions they had with the man, back when they nudged him slightly to hand his spy-device back to him after he tried to hide it in James' cabin. Though this time, the cyborg was quite sure that they were not the reason why the man seemed like most of his blood was currently rushing into his stomach.
Could he actually be shocked about what was happening? Was this not part of the plan?
“Unprecedented doesn't even come close to describing it...” he mumbled and couldn't hold the cyborg's gaze for long, looking down to the table's plate instead. “And these aren't just any coreworlds. Osontjar and Gewelitten have been allied for an unimaginably long time. The thought that they would even think of attacking each other...what sort of madness could've caused something like this?”
Curi was the first to admit to themselves that they were far from the best at reading people. If someone with even a modicum of skill in acting wanted to make them believe something untrue about the person they were talking to, they would never deny that there was a good chance of that person succeeding.
Still, Reprig's reaction felt...genuine to them. As if he had actually never expected something like this to happen. Not in a million years.
Maybe it was just skillful acting. And Curi knew that they should have been suspicious like that. However, despite everything he had done, they couldn't quite bring themselves to suspect that he was lying at that moment.
“I know it is unlikely you will give me an honest answer, but-” Curi began to say, however Reprig was more than able to anticipate what they were going to ask and replied long before they were finished.
“No. No. Never,” the sipusserleng said, shaking his head heavily and standing his trunk up while making a denying gesture with his hand that was so brash that he actually knocked his crutch off the small outcrop in the table it had been laid down on. “This must be some absolutely deranged people, no two ways about it. To attack a coreword...”
Curi noticed Reprig's gaze briefly twitching down, his eyes jumping onto the personal assistant strapped to his lower arm as if he suddenly got the urge to use it for something.
Curi suspected he likely wanted to call someone; question them to make extra sure that they had, in fact, nothing to do with this. Though the sipusserleng suppressed the urge and pulled his eyes away, bringing them back up to the screen.
Just at that moment, the implosion of collapsing hyperspace suddenly lit up the footage moments before the glowing remnants of what once had been the zodiatos ships were scattered across the star-system.
Mueen mumbled something in his home's language as his eyes remained affixed to the screen. Curi couldn't even begin to guess what he was saying. However, his voice sounded pleading.
“Suicide instead of surrender?” Reprig meanwhile mouthed breathlessly as his nervous tick of excessively licking his trunk began to show.
Although he had often been otherwise employed in recent times, Curi could see it in the man's eyes that he was still, in a way, military at heart. He knew the general values and doctrines that were conveyed to the soldiers of the Communal Military, both inside and out. And the idea of someone choosing death like this...it seemed to rock him to his very core.
Slowly, he turned his gaze over to Curi. His eyes were almost pleading with the cyborg, even if they seemed to already know that his next question would be asked in vain.
“Could it maybe have been the humans and their-” he began, but this time, it was Curi's term to cut him off after anticipating what was coming.
“While humans very much employ the collapsing of hyperspace as a tactic in war, the process is not invisible – or even subtle. Had the human ships caused that collapse, it would've been noticeable,” they explained succinctly. “It could've still been a mere unexpected failure of the hyperspace generation, of course. However, with the rarity of such events, the timing seems...unlikely.”
“They weren't even trying to generate a real stretch...” Reprig concurred dejectedly and left his head hanging, his trunk also sinking down limply. “I can't even imagine- Well...I hope they will at least find peace now, away from the madness.”
Curi paused for a long moment, staring at the Warrant Officer some more. Admittedly, the cyborg was a bit confounded at something. They knew for a fact the man had put his own life on the line for his orders, with a very real chance that they would lead to his death, more than just once. And yet the idea of being ordered to die seemed to disturb him. They couldn't quite figure out the difference that led to the results in reaction being so incredibly different, however it was still very clear that there was one.
And it seemed to hit the man hard.
Self-admittedly, Curi didn't exactly pity the man. They didn't quite have the capacity to. They knew about so many horrible things he had done that simply seeing him distressed was far from enough to stir such deep empathy for him within them.
Yet still, they weren't left entirely cold by it either – and if it was only because he seemed to be affected by these events in the ways a, for a lack of a better term, 'normal person' would be. He was shocked at the sudden, seemingly senseless violence, and concerned about the people involved.
Granted, it was likely only because they were people he considered worth being concerned about, yet still, the reaction was so...'normal', in a way they didn't quite expect from someone with such a capability for unceremonious acts of cruelty and violence. Even this person who had tried to kill them, or at least had been entirely comfortable with them getting killed, was capable of such a reaction.
And Curi...wasn't sure if that made things better or worse, if they were being honest.
It felt better because there was the capability for empathy there, however...it felt worse because they felt how they had been and likely still were willingly denied said empathy.
He could have cared...he just didn't want to.
Curi shook their body heavily, causing mild sounds from the engines running their legs' movements from the sudden force as they tried to shoo away emotions that they really didn't want to be feeling at that exact moment.
The thing that mostly kept them from following up on some of their uncomfortably aggressive thoughts at that moment was the fact that Mueen was still with them, the worry for his mother written across his features like a deep engraving in a metal plaque. He did not need anything like that around him right now, that much was clear.
Slowly, they moved over to him and reached up one of their long legs to run it along his arm while he still covered parts of his large face with both hands.
“She will be alright,” Curi then assured the dark-furred rafulite, switching from their usual voice box to their more “melodic” one to put on a gentle, calming tone. “She is stronger than she seems.”
Inhaling deeply as his nostrils flared, Mueen closed his dark eyes and swallowed heavily, taking his gaze off the large screen for the first time in many minutes while slowly hanging his head down.
“Yeah,” he said, seeming to force hopefulness into his tone. “Yes, she'll be fine. She made it his far. This won't get to her.”
Curi nodded with their entire body and continued to run the tip of their leg along his arm.
“She will be,” they repeated, both to the man and themselves as their own eyes moved upwards, their gaze falling back on the battlefield riddled with burning remnants of matter. “I'm sure of it.”
–
Never in his life had James felt so drunk and so sober at the same time. His mind was entirely clear, running a light-year a minute as it desperately tried to simultaneously process all the admittedly little information that he had in his current situation AND to not absolutely freak out while doing so somehow – a task he was ludicrously failing at. And it did NOT help that his body could barely keep itself on his own two feet.
He had avoided completely fainting by a hair earlier after reminding himself that, instead of being terrified for Shida's life, it would be much more fair towards her to simply focus on trusting in her skills to carry her through. However, that was barely a little patch on an enormous crack in his facade as he couldn't help but go over and over and over the fact of how much worse the situation that she needed to jump into here had been for her simply because it was his damn birthday and they wanted to indulge over it. He should've stopped that, but noooo, he just had to go and let himself be swayed so damn easily, as if he was still that little boy following Koko around whenever she visited the compound to try and get some attention.
Of course, a quiet voice in the back of his head tried to politely remind him that Shida had, in fact, not only taken part in the festivities as well but also encouraged him to do so, however it was easily overpowered by the screaming rest of his mind.
He briefly glanced over at the only somewhat conscious Commander. When she said that they should match each other's drinks, that should've been the moment he stopped. She was like half his weight, what the hell was he thinking?
His mechanical hand shot up, heavily gripping a fist full of hair as he tried to force himself to focus. What's done is done. There's no changing it. He should focus on anything else right now.
Though as he painfully pulled on his hair like that, his eyes suddenly went wide as he noticed something. Or, more precisely, didn't notice something.
When had the alarm stopped? Just now? Or had it been out and he just hadn't noticed?
Letting go of his hair, he lifted his face and looked around. If the alarm was over, then that meant...
The uncoordinated movement of soldiers reaching for their phones and radios with different speeds went through the room, and after brief confirmation, the uniformed forces began to move, having seemingly gotten new orders other than guarding the safe-rooms. Apparently, the threat was over.
James quickly fumbled for his own phone, his barely coordinated hands struggling extremely with the simple task of trying to call one of his contacts – much to the frustration of his already cleared mind. His finger trembled as he swiped it across the screen, trying to get it to the right damn place to make a simple god-damn call.
However, he froze in the motion at a quiet sound that was immediately followed by a sudden stir behind him as multiple people seemed to move quickly. And after just a second, James was among them as well.
Nearly tripping over his feet, he damn near threw himself onto the sickbed that didn't stand too far away from him, his phone momentarily forgotten and eyes wide open as they stared over at an endlessly familiar dark face, that however had life in it for the first time in what felt like an eternity at that moment.
Slowly and twitchy, Nia's eyes fluttered open as she let out quiet groans while mildly stirring in place while her doctors and nurses hurried around her and quickly began to take her vitals.
After flinching heavily as a flashlight was quite suddenly shone into her eyes to test her photopupillary reflex, she began to move even more. Meanwhile, James and Tuya were basically pressed shoulder to shoulder close to the foot of her bed, the only thing keeping them from dashing right up to her face being just enough awareness to not get in the doctor's way.
Still, although her movements were very slow, stiff, and groggy, Nia eventually lifted up her head, looking around with still somewhat hazy and half-closed eyes. But that didn't stop her from smiling when her gaze fell onto the two who so nervously stood at her bedside there.
“Hey,” she said in a quiet, croaky, but still very much cheerful voice as her unkempt hair fell down both sides of her face.
Though James didn't see much more than that, because just about at that moment, his vision was entirely taking away by welling-up waters sweeping him along.

Hey all,
I’m a ‘beginner’ china player with around 40 hours of gametime and only with china. To this point I have watched a lot of guides, a lot of casted and ffa games. Still I think my biggest failure is just not having enough play time with aoe.
I am most confused about what kind of build order I should go with. I would like to get more aggressive in feudal, so Song dynasty to Zhuganu seems like a good idea, but if I play against a MMA civ, my zhuganu are worthless, can’t really counter them only by going into FC and going palace guards+crossbow. So at the moment I only have a build order for song dynasty then I do whatever feels right and usually end up loosing. I have issue with food, I am afraid to go out on the map for food, because I’ll loose my villagers, if I go granary boom, I need to wall off, which is okay, but like 10 units can flame down a wall pretty fast and I am raided.
I am also afraid about going 2tc, because I forget to make villagers with even 1 tc. I usually end up with around 80 villagers by the end of an imperial game. Here I come to my last point, I usually loose my imperial games and I don’t really know why, everywhere I read that if china goes imperial it’s unbeatable, except when I play it. But as in the recent Beasty video, I don’t want to learn imperial, I want to learn feudal fighting.
Any suggestions or even guides would be appreciated. Thank you.

Hey there! I am a 30 year old guy from Upstate New York looking for someone that wants to make an emotional connection.
A bit about me: I'm 6’1". I get height can be a big deal for some women so I think it's best to just put it out there first 😅 I've got black hair, brownish black eyes. Average body, I'm muscular and wanting to start exercising both for health and a little bit for better shape. I like to think I'm fairly attractive but then most of us grew up with a relative always telling us we were not handsome or cute, etc. we can share pictures once we establish some comfort zone. If education is important, I am a college graduate with post-graduation degree as well. Now working as Mechanical engineer.
I have to lead with the fact that I can be pretty sarcastic at times. I also joke and (playfully) tease. I'm pretty easy going/chill and I like to keep things light and fun, but also enjoy getting into the really deep conversations as well. I'm a sucker for the whole good morning and goodnight text thing as well as checking in on those busier days. That doesn’t mean we have to just message good morning and good night for the whole week. Haha. I think most important part of knowing someone via online platform is initial conversations and if you don’t have enough time let me know otherwise that conversation is dead in no time.
I love animals. I've always felt very connected and attached to them and just enjoy interacting with them. While I am more of a dog person pet-wise, cats are still pretty cool in my book. Cats are more complex though I love the mysterious nature.
Anything outdoors is great in my opinion. Just feel like going for a walk? Let's do it. I do kayaking a bit in the summers, fish, hike, go for drives. I have the habit of occasionally stopping and taking pictures of plants and flowers I see around (I'm always down to share!). While sending me message write code - “I4U” so that I know it’s someone who actually read my post. Didn’t write in the end cuz some people might just skip to end. This doesn’t mean that you just send me the code. I am strictly gonna monitor now. I have skimmed through soo many texts and my innocent heart always gives chances, I am gonna try to be little strict this time.
It's not just the outdoors I love. I can also get down with chill days at home binging something on Netflix or playing something on my PC. Let's face it, I'm a bit if a nerd (everyone has something nerd about themselves) and if you like Jurassic park, board games, Any Mafia movies, gaming, etc we will get along great. I'm a sucker for horror movies as well and am always looking for recommendations. I listen to a lot of music. I shouldn’t brag but I listen to english ,german, Spanish, french and Hindi songs. Born and brought up in India. Hence, hindi songs.
A bit about (possibly) you: I'd prefer if you were in some sort of professional environment and ambitious. I'm not extremely picky about things like hair and eye color. Height is also not a big deal. If you're alot smaller than me and worried that it's something you’ll be insecure about, it's not. The big thing for me is personality. I think personality can make us a lot more or a lot less attractive. I want someone that is genuinely kind and sweet, someone that likes to laugh, someone that's not afraid to be goofy.
A final note: I'm a single guy and looking for someone dynamic. Sometimes I can respond immediately and sometimes it takes a minute due to the obvious circumstances. I also don't expect you to respond immediately to every message, I get that we all have lives and can be busy at times. It would be awesome if you are up for a voice chat. And please when responding write something about yourself.
If any if this sounds remotely interesting to you, feel free to reach out via reddit dm or chat!

Hey there! I am a 30 year old guy from Upstate New York looking for someone that wants to make an emotional connection, and would like to put efforts into conversations.
A bit about me: I'm 6’1". I get height can be a big deal for some women so I think it's best to just put it out there first 😅 I've got black hair, brownish black eyes. Average body, I'm muscular and wanting to start exercising both for health and a little bit for better shape. I like to think I'm fairly attractive but then most of us grew up with a relative always telling us we were not handsome or cute, etc. we can share pictures once we establish some comfort zone. If education is important, I am a college graduate with post-graduation degree as well. Now working as an engineer.
I have to lead with the fact that I can be pretty sarcastic at times. I also joke and (playfully) tease. I'm pretty easy going/chill and I like to keep things light and fun, but also enjoy getting into the really deep conversations as well. I'm a sucker for the whole good morning and goodnight text thing as well as checking in on those busier days. That doesn’t mean we have to just message good morning and good night for the whole week. Haha. I think most important part of knowing someone via online platform is initial conversations and if you don’t have enough time let me know otherwise that conversation is dead in no time.
I love animals. I've always felt very connected and attached to them and just enjoy interacting with them. While I am more of a dog person pet-wise, cats are still pretty cool in my book. Cats are more complex though I love the mysterious nature.
Anything outdoors is great in my opinion. Just feel like going for a walk? Let's do it. I do kayaking a bit in the summers, fish, hike, go for drives. I have the habit of occasionally stopping and taking pictures of plants and flowers I see around (I'm always down to share!). While sending me message write code - “I3U” so that I know it’s someone who actually read my post. Didn’t write in the end cuz some people might just skip to end. This doesn’t mean that you just send me the code. I am strictly gonna monitor now. I have skimmed through soo many texts and my innocent heart always gives chances, I am gonna try to be little strict this time.
It's not just the outdoors I love. I can also get down with chill days at home binging something on Netflix or playing something on my PC. Let's face it, I'm a bit if a nerd (everyone has something nerd about themselves) and if you like Jurassic park, board games, Any Mafia movies, gaming, etc we will get along great. I'm a sucker for horror movies as well and am always looking for recommendations. I listen to a lot of music. I shouldn’t brag but I listen to english ,german, Spanish, french and Hindi songs. Born and brought up in India. Hence, hindi songs.
A bit about (possibly) you: I'd prefer if you were in some sort of professional environment and ambitious. I'm not extremely picky about things like hair and eye color. Height is also not a big deal. If you're alot smaller than me and worried that it's something you’ll be insecure about, it's not. The big thing for me is personality. I think personality can make us a lot more or a lot less attractive. I want someone that is genuinely kind and sweet, someone that likes to laugh, someone that's not afraid to be goofy.
A final note: I'm a single guy and looking for someone dynamic. Sometimes I can respond immediately and sometimes it takes a minute due to the obvious circumstances. I also don't expect you to respond immediately to every message, I get that we all have lives and can be busy at times. It would be awesome if you are up for a voice chat. And please please when responding write something about yourself.
If any if this sounds remotely interesting to you, feel free to reach out via reddit dm or chat!

Hey there! I am a 30 year old guy from Upstate New York looking for someone that wants to make an emotional connection.
A bit about me: I'm 6’1". I get height can be a big deal for some women so I think it's best to just put it out there first 😅 I've got black hair, brownish black eyes. Average body, I'm muscular and wanting to start exercising both for health and a little bit for better shape. I like to think I'm fairly attractive but then most of us grew up with a relative always telling us we were not handsome or cute, etc. we can share pictures once we establish some comfort zone. If education is important, I am a college graduate with post-graduation degree as well. Now working as an engineer.
I have to lead with the fact that I can be pretty sarcastic at times. I also joke and (playfully) tease. I'm pretty easy going/chill and I like to keep things light and fun, but also enjoy getting into the really deep conversations as well. I'm a sucker for the whole good morning and goodnight text thing as well as checking in on those busier days. That doesn’t mean we have to just message good morning and good night for the whole week. Haha. I think most important part of knowing someone via online platform is initial conversations and if you don’t have enough time let me know otherwise that conversation is dead in no time.
I love animals. I've always felt very connected and attached to them and just enjoy interacting with them. While I am more of a dog person pet-wise, cats are still pretty cool in my book. Cats are more complex though I love the mysterious nature.
Anything outdoors is great in my opinion. Just feel like going for a walk? Let's do it. I do kayaking a bit in the summers, fish, hike, go for drives. I have the habit of occasionally stopping and taking pictures of plants and flowers I see around (I'm always down to share!). While sending me message write code - “I2U” so that I know it’s someone who actually read my post. Didn’t write in the end cuz some people might just skip to end. This doesn’t mean that you just send me the code. I am strictly gonna monitor now. I have skimmed through soo many texts and my innocent heart always gives chances, I am gonna try to be little strict this time.
It's not just the outdoors I love. I can also get down with chill days at home binging something on Netflix or playing something on my PC. Let's face it, I'm a bit if a nerd (everyone has something nerd about themselves) and if you like Jurassic park, board games, Any Mafia movies, gaming, etc we will get along great. I'm a sucker for horror movies as well and am always looking for recommendations. I listen to a lot of music. I shouldn’t brag but I listen to english ,german, Spanish, french and Hindi songs. Born and brought up in India. Hence, hindi songs.
A bit about (possibly) you: I'd prefer if you were in some sort of professional environment and ambitious. I'm not extremely picky about things like hair and eye color. Height is also not a big deal. If you're alot smaller than me and worried that it's something you’ll be insecure about, it's not. The big thing for me is personality. I think personality can make us a lot more or a lot less attractive. I want someone that is genuinely kind and sweet, someone that likes to laugh, someone that's not afraid to be goofy.
A final note: I'm a single guy and looking for someone dynamic. Sometimes I can respond immediately and sometimes it takes a minute due to the obvious circumstances. I also don't expect you to respond immediately to every message, I get that we all have lives and can be busy at times. It would be awesome if you are up for a voice chat. And please when responding write something about yourself.
If any if this sounds remotely interesting to you, feel free to reach out via reddit dm or chat!

A week ago I joined a Reddit community that is interesting because it is a space for reading lovers, I asked a normal question “do you think academic environments can make us lose or grab interest in books?” and I told how in my university led many to hate and love reading, the reception of the post was well received, all the people commented their experiences in a good way.
Curiously they deleted my post for “insulting other users” which was not the original idea of the post, anyway I corrected the title to upload it again and they banned me from the community for “being an emotional agitator looking for attention”, which made me feel upset because the post was not violent and there were no fights in the comments, I have seen more explicit posts within the community so I decided to appeal the decision with a message explaining why it was unfair... they only answered me: “no”. AITA for appealing the ban?

So I’m playing Far Harbour for the first time and I get to the end of the story. I decide to Divide the Children of Atom. I talk to Dima and Avery about Dimas murder of Avery. I decide to keep it a secret.
But guess what? That doesn’t solve the quests. I can’t talk to Kasume to tell her to go home “until all this is done.” From what I’ve read I missed the part where you can convince her to “go home and pretend to be their daughter” even though she’s not a synth.
So I figure I’ll kill Dima, to make things right.
Nope. Hes essential. For no reason at this point.
Okay, I’ll cheat my charisma level high enough to convince him to turn himself in. And so he does.
I go to the trial, having done every quest for the harbormen. I expect to able to convince the people to spare Acadia. But when it comes to Doc Teddy, he says I’m a monster because Small Bertha and Tony and the Dregs went to the settlement I cleared out and haven’t been heard from since. That’s weird. I built that place up fine.
But wait. When I met Malcolm I took his caps to send the Dregs to be cannibalized by him. And then I blew his head into pieces and told Bertha, correctly, that it was safe. But apparently the game takes this decision to mean Bertha and Tony and the Dregs got eaten by the headless wonder.
So now half the Harbormen including the Mariner who should be your besty by now decides to exterminate Acadia despite Dima being dead and the SS wishing otherwise. And still, I can’t side with the Acadians. I shot Allen in Far Harbour when he called for the massacre, and he was essential then, and even when the attack starts I’m automatically made enemies of all Acadians and all named Harbormen are essential.
Who the fuck came up with this? I had 45 hours into my first FO4 playthrough since 2019 and this has killed my desire to continue. I’d rather play Kingdom Come or The Outer Worlds where most characters aren’t essential than waste my time exploring an interesting world only to get locked into a couple of very specific endings.

Chapter 120 The spectators continued cheering and whistling even minutes after the fight had come to an end. Zaon had caught the crowd by surprise. He was going to be the talk of Farcrest for the rest of the week. The perfect underdog, classless, orphaned, a bit awkward even, coming up victorious against the tyranny of levels. But that was only part of the picture. Zaon had demonstrated the vast difference in skills between him and a combatant nine levels ahead of him.
The victory put us seven points ahead, but what mattered the most going forward was the three points Zaon had lost. Team Nara’s Soldier might not be half as a competent fencer as Zaon but his proficiency with Quick-Step had given him three undisputed points. The Soldier knew when to use the skill to reap the most benefit, and I assumed all our opponents would be the same going forward.
The more skills our opponents had, the harder it would be for the kids.
“Contenders, please enter the arena,” the Master of Ceremonies’ voice echoed over the crowd’s roar. “Ilya the Hunter versus Arel Nara the Warrior!”
Despite Zaon’s victory, I couldn’t help but feel nervous. The Warrior class had a better skill pool than the Soldier class. Ilya grabbed my hand, cutting my musings short.
“Something wrong?”
I examined her face, but she just gave me a nonchalant wink and pulled me to my feet.
“Play along,” Ilya muttered as we walked to the weapons rack holding hands. “Act as if you are choosing a weapon for me. Give me the same sword as Zaon.”
Ilya was trying to fool her opponent even before the match started.
I played along and walked Ilya to the weapons rack like a father dragging his daughter to the dentist. She took the bit about ‘all war is based on deception’ too seriously, but I couldn’t blame her. Ilya had to gather every slight advantage she could if she wanted a chance in a world of average-height people.
Her act worked because Arel Nara seemed to smell her weakness as soon as we reached the weapons rack.
“Have you lost your bravado, little Gnome?” Arel Nara said as he casually grabbed an arming sword with a broad blade from the rack. The boy had the same vulpine expression as Lord Nara, but unlike his lord, his yellow and black fencing uniform revealed his strong arms and legs.
Ilya cowered behind me without letting my hand go. The System should’ve given her the Actress or Spy Class.
“Just what I thought,” Arel Nara laughed. He had grabbed a round shield and an arming sword. “It seems I won’t need this,” he added, leaving the shield back on the weapons rack and strolling into the arena with a carefree demeanor.
Lord Nara, who until that moment was furious due to the first combat, seemed to relax after seeing Ilya cowering behind me.
“Your sword is longer than his, Ilya. Aim for his hands and feet, and don’t let him close the distance. Don’t let him disarm you,” I whispered as I put the slim longsword in Ilya’s hand. “And don’t let him get under your skin.”
Ilya grunted.
“I already know, Mister Clarke! I’m used to having the reach disadvantage and to that sort of comment. I know how to fight against stronger opponents, and he isn’t half of a trash talker as Holst was,” Ilya said with an evil smile. “I got this.”
“Teach him a lesson,” I replied with a smile.
Ilya nodded and gave me her best ‘I’m-on-the-verge-of-tears’ face before turning around and walking to the center of the arena. Despite her tailor-made uniform and the longsword on her shoulder, Ilya looked completely out of place, like a small bird caught in a storm. With a shaky smile, she stood before Arel Nara, raised her chin, and squared her shoulders. I made a mental note telling her to keep her acting shenanigans to combat.
I returned to the bench, avoiding Elincia’s glance. The Fortifier applied the barriers around Ilya’s body. As before, the work wasn’t bad; it was just sloppy on the edges. The difference would be too subtle to catch for anyone without a good grasp of mana detection. Even if I complained now, the Fortifier could brush me off, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t brewing a plan.
“She’s using that technique, uh?” Firana said.
“What technique?” I asked, sitting on the bench and patting Zaon’s shoulder. The boy leaned back with a towel on his face, still trying to control his accelerated heartbeat.
“Shu has been helping Ilya with her acting skills.”
I massaged my temples, worried. The news wasn’t at all surprising. I was already familiar with the little harpy shenanigans. Shu might already be a genius of manipulation at the young age of seven, but I didn’t foresee the little harpy teaching her dark arts to others.
Arel Nara greeted the crowd, his perfect smile reeking of overconfidence. Then, he walked to the Prince’s box with sluggish movements and bowed deeply. Arel Nara might be a braggart, but not a complete fool. He deliberately stalled combat as much as possible while Ilya trembled like a leaf with her longsword tight against her chest.
The Master of Ceremonies let the performance continue for a few seconds, unaware of the fact the battle had already started.
“Combatants, to the center!” He finally announced.
Arel Nara strolled back to the center of the arena, mindlessly swinging his sword and stretching his shoulders. Ilya remained still.
“The fight will end when one of the participants runs out of barriers. There will be no pause between barrier breaks. If you want to give up, raise your hand,” the Master of Ceremonies repeated the rules, looking at Ilya. “On guard!”
Ilya imitated Zaon’s guard, the pflug, not giving her opponent a single hint of the skills she had on her sleeve.
“Fight!”
Ilya stepped forward and swung at Arel Nara’s shin. The boy raised his leg out of the way and countered with a jumping attack that landed on Ilya’s chest. The girl fell on her back, but instead of going for the following attack, Arel Nara turned his back to Ilya and riled up the crowd.
Ilya used her sword to stand up. When she raised her guard, Arel Nara spun around, pushing her sword to the side. Ilya answered with a choreographed thrust, but Arel Nara dodged with enough time to get to Ilya’s side and deal a powerful blow with the pommel of his sword.
Ilya slammed the ground again, her uniform and face covered in dust. The crowd was ruthless, cheering for the strongest warrior. The underdog concept didn’t seem to exist in this world, which wasn’t surprising considering that underdogs, lesser Classes, had marginal opportunities to win against a more powerful opponent.
Ilya was two barriers down.
“You chose the wrong Class, Gnome. Your kind belongs to a workshop, not the battlefield.” Arel Nara taunted Ilya. “I don’t know what lies your Caretaker whispered in your ears, so let me be clear. You are falling short of the mark.”
Ilya separated her feet and adopted the vom tag guard, angering her opponent.
“You asked for it,” Arel Nara grunted as a wave washed over the Warrior’s body, and with a mighty cry, he cast a fortifying spell.
Ilya assessed the situation instantly and channeled her power but didn’t use any skill. She remained vigilant. Arel Nara performed a jumping thrust followed by a quick slash. Ilya parried the first attack and ducked in time to dodge the follow-up.
The crowd yelled for blood, but Ilya used her longer blade to keep Arel Nara at bay, aiming at his hand instead of his body. It was a clever tactic. She not only had the reach advantage, but a longsword packed the power of both arms, unlike the arming sword used with a single hand. Arel Nara burned his mana trying to break Ilya’s defense, but the girl was used to fighting against Wolf and Firana.
Being the ‘worst’ student had its benefits. During sparring, Ilya always fought larger, stronger, or more skillful opponents, and she had developed a system to make up for the difference in body span. Ilya’s defensive style was perfect for zoning out aggressive opponents. Moreover, Ilya was a smart fighter.
Arel Nara burned his mana to get a hit, but Ilya defended like a porcupine. The more Arel Nara approached, the more chances he had of getting stung, and he wasn’t willing to lose a single barrier against Ilya. Not taking a shield was costing him dearly. Longswords had a bad matchup against an arming sword paired with a shield.
Arel Nara attacked once more, unleashing a flurry of strikes. Ilya retreated, dodging and blocking, but the fortifying spell wasn’t in vain. Arel Nara pushed Ilya’s sword aside and seized the opening on the girl’s defense. With a quick step forward, he secured a clean slash across Ilya’s chest. The girl tried to riposte, but he retreated before she could hit.
Ilya was three barriers down and hadn’t broken a single one yet.
Arel Nara’s assault was relentless, and Ilya was starting to breathe heavily; dust and sweat covered her, and even her stance was getting sloppy at times. Ilya was a more skilled fighter, but Arel Nara’s stamina was superior; a prolonged fight would only benefit him.
“Not that good without a bow, are you?” Arel Nara taunted. “What are you going to do? Cast Piercing Shot with a sword?”
“I’m not the one running out of mana,” Ilya spoke for the first time in the combat.
Her words were a slap against Arel Nara’s face, who instantly interrupted the fortifying skill.
“You need four times your mana for that skill to have any effect in this fight,” Ilya taunted him. “You should try something else. Quick-step? Puncture, maybe? No? Even a Level 5 Soldier should have two or three skills at their disposal. Don’t tell me you decided to participate in the tournament with a single skill, please.”
Ilya’s taunt worked. Despite being three barriers down, she had made Arel Nara work hard for them.
“You asked for it,” Arel Nara said, channeling mana around his sword.
Ilya raised his guard, with the hilt of her sword at eye level and the point of the sword aiming forward. Ochs. She braced for the attack, but Arel Nara remained still. Then, he let the sword go, but it didn’t fall. Instead, the sword floated by his side, pointing menacingly at Ilya.
“I’m not a Soldier. I’m a Warrior,” Arel Nara grunted.
The sword flew in a straight line like a bullet, but Ilya blocked it. What she didn’t expect was Arel Nara running forward. The boy channeled mana and cast Iron Skin around his leg as he threw a high kick. Ilya leaned back, dodging by millimeters, but before she could counter against her unarmed opponent, Arel Nara’s sword flew back at her, stabbing her shoulder blade and breaking the fourth barrier.
Arel Nara smirked.
“Your choice, getting kicked or stabbed,” he said. “Forget that. For a Gnome, getting kicked might be more appropriate.”
Ilya smirked back. “That’s it? If you have any hidden skill, I warn you, this might be the moment to use it.”
The arming sword came back to life, spinning and circling Ilya, threatening to attack at any moment. Ilya remained impassive. She had prepared a plan. Mana surged from her chest, and just as the blade launched forward, a thick vine shot from the ground. The sword pierced the vine from side to side, but before Arel Nara could yank it back, the vine coiled around the blade like a boa constrictor.
Arel Nara strengthened his body and made a run for the sword, but Ilya stood in his way.
“Did you lose something, idiot?” She grinned as she thrusted.
Arel Nara cast Iron Skin and blocked Ilya’s blade with his forearm. The skill shrouded his barriers, preventing them from breaking, but the girl didn’t stop. She weaved a series of attacks and feints in a single fluid movement. Arel Nara retreated, casting Iron Skin around his arms and legs to block Ilya’s blows. Each time Ilya swung the sword, a chunk of Arel’s mana was blasted into the air until the signs of Mana Exhaustion started to show. Ilya ran him down, and the boy’s movements became erratic.
In a desperate last attempt to recover his sword, Arel Nara channeled all his remaining mana into the blade and tried to overpower Ilya’s vine; however, the girl effortlessly countered with her much bigger reserves. Sword and vine fought, but in the end, the vine imprisoned the blade against the ground.
“Your choice, surrender or get stabbed by a Gnome,” Ilya mockingly said.
[Awareness] brought Ilya’s words to my ears. A quick lesson in sportsmanship might be needed, but I decided to leave it for later. Ilya was making a statement. Not only was she a competent fencer, but she was also an intelligent fighter. The best part: she only used a fraction of her power.
Arel Nara gestured to raise his hand, but Ilya smacked it down with her sword before he could completely raise it: one barrier down, nine to go. Arel Nara opened her eyes in surprise. Ilya pressed the attack, breaking barrier after barrier until Arel Nara was left with only one. The spectators changed sides the moment the tides turned, roaring every time Ilya penetrated a barrier.
Arel Nara was trapped against the arena wall.
“I care very little about what you say about me, but I will not tolerate any ill comments against Mister Clarke. Idiot.” Ilya said, lowering her sword. “You have two options now. You can surrender or make a further fool of yourself trying to retrieve your sword.”
It had been a while since one of my students made me blush.
Arel Nara unenthusiastically raised his hand and returned to the pavilion with his head down before the Master of Ceremonies could announce his defeat. Ilya retrieved Arel Nara’s sword, or rather made the vine do it for her, and walked to the Prince’s box. She performed a gracious bow and saluted the spectators with an innocent smile. I couldn’t decide if the crowd was happy for Ilya or gloating at Arel Nara’s defeat.
Among the seats of the high nobility, Ginz leaned over the handrail with half of his body outside the box. A member of the royal army frantically grabbed him by the belt to prevent him from falling into the arena. Ginz would’ve made a great English hooligan if he had been born in London or its surroundings. I couldn’t help but share the feeling, but my position required me to maintain a certain level of composure.
Ilya skipped toward Ginz and high-fived him before returning to the pavilion.
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