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Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
— Langston Hughes
Catalogue Description
Self-Monitoring Behavioural Management Report: Casimir Szymański, Scazim Institute of Science and Technology - English Translation
Date:
15 Summer-2 3429 (Standard Parimthian Calendar)
November 23rd, 2162 (Gregorian Calendar)
Held by:
The UK National Archives, Kew
Legal status:
Public Record(s)
My father worshipped a fabricated, pagan prophet.
The Senghavi of the Parimthian Empire are principally joined under the ditheistic religion called Siedi, which I do not subscribe to. Of course, the Senghavi's literature, art, and faith flooded the whole of Earth upon their arrival a century ago. From this ocean of civilised culture, my degenerate species drew a sample, claimed it as our own, and polluted it with a distorted, appropriated, dumbed-down doctrine.
The central figure in this corrupt sample of Siedi was a man whom my father called Jesus Christ. He was said to have offered himself as a sacrifice that could be made to a single God. It was a final sacrifice, one beyond lambs or cattle or people. One that would atone for humanity's sins, so that we could have the free choice between the eternal presence of God and the eternal absence of "Him."
My father dressed himself in black, with a standing collar whose white fabric was exposed at the centre. That much, I could recall. He preached to hopeful humans in what was called a church, though I did not know what he was preaching. At the very least, my childhood is fuzzy in that regard.
The pain that throbbed through my skull, after the blonde savage had slammed my head against the ridges of the airlock, faded into the background. I could not focus; perhaps, I thought, one of their improvised explosives had gone off by accident. There was blue Senghavi blood staining my dress shirt. The rush of air escaping into vacuum pierced my ears.
Perhaps it was thirst of water, which binds most sapient beings—the Sons of Liberty had reached an agreement with the Colonial Defence Force to allow spacecraft delivering food, water, and medical aid, only to unleash the anti-collision lasers of this cursed spaceliner upon those very ships.
Or perhaps it was the explosion, as I initially thought, an inadvertent complication which had wrought injury and death over my countrymen, and which had forced the terrorist savages to attempt to patch up the many hull breaches left by debris.
Or perhaps it was simply the stress of betraying, in my desperate efforts to save everyone from this senseless violence, the greatest secret of the Senghavi Terrans: our antimatter research. Word of it had likely been forwarded already, hundreds of light-years away, to that pink-hued marble which was Parimth itself.
Or perhaps it was all three; thirst, explosion, and stress. In any case, my mind shut it all out, and something lost from my childhood flashed before me:
We're standing on the cracked street of the Vennec Human Reservation. In the distance, the Senghavi's white, glassy spires reach above the clouds, their accents of luminescence dim in the broad daylight.
I hold a ball in my palm. It's wrapped in white leather held together with red stitching. I toss it to Dad.
Instead of his clerical uniform, he wears the normal "T-shirt" and "cargo shorts." Along with the clerical getup, they are just two of the many sorts of clothing which the Senghavi have invented for humanity. I toss the ball to Dad, and he swings a primitive wooden bat.
The ball goes soaring, further than he meant to. He jogs down the road to retrieve it, then gives me the wooden bat. The breeze ruffles his hair just as he ruffles mine with his hand.
"Now, you try," he says. "It's just practice, that's all."
For some reason, he lifts one leg in the air, then pitches the ball to me. I swing. The impact of the ball shakes through the wood, and it goes careening off to the left.
"I did it!" I yell. "But it went out of bounds."
"Heyyyy, that's not bad," Dad says with a reassuring voice. "Good job, just try to go a little more right next time."
Mom comes out onto the front porch, the breeze ruffling her dress as she waves to Dad. "Dinner's ready, and Mom's pie is... almost ready."
I stare blankly at her until I realise that she is talking about her Mom, Grandma, who is the best at making pumpkin pie.
"The pie!" I shout, running and jumping to the front door. "I totally forgot about that!"
I am ready to speed my way through dinner just so I can get to dessert, but Dad stops me before my first bite.
Of course, I think. We need to say grace. Me, Mom, Dad, Grandma, and Grandpa all hold hands, thanking God for our food, and then dig in. But Mom and Dad just talk about work, and I am too focused on finishing my food quickly to pitch in.
Finally—Grandma's pie!
When you bite into the soft, smooth filling, you can instantly tell it's been made with fresh pumpkins, not the boring canned ones. The taste of cinnamon and spice is balanced out perfectly with the coolness of the whipped cream.
The flavour spreads through my tongue and nostrils, filling my entire brain with a feeling of amazing-ness. If I wrote the Simple-Speak Dictionary for Senghavi Terrans, I'd put Grandma's pie next to the translation of "perfection."
I should save a slice, I think, for the Senghavi kid.
Even though it's only been a week since I met him through the playground fence, we already told each other where we live, and I want to get to know him more. He doesn't live on the Vennec Human Reservation, but his house is just a bike-ride away in Fellye Neighborhood.
I wonder if anyone's ever given pumpkin pie to an alien before. Even though humans only invented it fifty years ago, it makes me feel proud of my species!
When Mom tucks me into bed, kissing my forehead, I tell her what I'm going to do.
"Oh, you wild thing," she coos. "You're so much like your father. And you have his eyes, you know? Just stay safe."
"Don't worry, I'll do my best."
>! "Good night. I love you." !<
>! "I love you, too, Mom," I say. I hug her tightly from my bed, and a warm, fuzzy feeling blossoms within me. I can hardly fall asleep in my excitement. !<
Luckily, Fellye Neighborhood doesn't take apartheid that seriously, and I don't think anybody cares about an eight year-old human riding his bicycle around the gates.
Next evening, I do just that, peddling out of the Reservation's entrance into the violet dusk. When I get to Mensim's address, I ring the hi-tech front doorbell, and a really tall Senghavi shows up.
"Oh, dear," she says in Parimthian. "A barbarian hatchling—by what name do you go?"
"I'm Casimir," I say nervously. I don't pay that much attention in school, but I know just enough Parimthian to talk to the Senghavi woman. "Are you Mrs. Munghazi? Is Mensim fe Munghazi here? I got two slices of pie. You can have one, too!"
She looks at me suspiciously, antennae twitching. "That would be Teacher Munghazi to you; I know not why you natives invented these odd 'Mister' and 'Missis' honorifics. Hold on—Ghanvati! A native hatchling stands at our doorstep!"
Ghanvati must be Mensim's dad. I wonder where his other moms are; only one has shown up to the door. Ghanvati shows up with two of them—they are both shorter and daintier than Teacher Munghazi, their raptorial forelimbs folded shyly against their bodies. In front of the group of three is Mensim, and I involuntarily gasped with excitement.
"Mensim!"
"This is your new companion?" Ghanvati asks Mensim.
Mensim's papery forewings flicker with affirmation. "I met him at school."
"What, pray tell, is the point of apartheid if it does not actually keep natives away from Senghavi?" whines one of Ghanvati's wives.
Ghanvati's antennae droop as if to say "I don't know," while Mensim lifts my arms, inspecting me like I am a test animal in a mad scientist's laboratory.
"How do you guys not get cut all the time?" he asks, tracing his tarsal hairs over my bare skin. "You're so fleshy!"
"I do get cut all the time," I giggled. "We just use band-aids. Oh, do you wanna eat a pumpkin pie?"
It turned out that pumpkin pie is bad for alien stomachs. Mensim had to go to the bathroom for a long time, and three of his moms got mad at me.
When I got back, Dad and Mom were arguing. I snuck close to the back porch, making sure they couldn't hear me.
"Yes, they leave some people alone," Dad said. "Obviously, they can't spy on every single human who believes in human religions. But Katarzyna, they still need people to make an example out of, and I don't want to be that person!"
"Casimir is a responsible kid," Mom retorts. "I told him he can't tell anyone what you do, and he listens to me."
"He's eight years old. You can't just let him wander around aliens with a secret that could have me killed! Or have you killed!"
Mom cups Dad's cheek and looks him in the eye. She's a lot shorter than him. "Look, love. You're a great father, and I think it's amazing that you spend time with him. But you're the only person he talks to. You know just as well as I do that he needs to talk to other kids! It's not healthy; even Teacher Perevvoxath agreed. And now he finally has a friend."
Dad sighs, running his hands through his black hair. My hair. "You really think aliens are a substitute for human interaction?"
>! "I think every human needs a person they can talk to, and Casimir found one. If you really care about him, stop preaching for a while! Your church isn't gonna die without you. It'll be okay." !<
The next day, I visit Mensim's house after school again. And the next day after that, and the next after that. His dad Ghanvati is formally named Engineer Munghazi. I am to call his moms Teacher Munghazi, Teacher Munghazi, Teacher Munghazi, Accountant Munghazi, Priestess Munghazi, Doctor Munghazi, and Maidservant Munghazi.
A couple weeks later, Mensim and I are lounging together on his couch, watching a Parimthian war movie. The main characters are fighting against the evil forces of the Imperium of Orion. Under his head capsule, Mensim is munching something called Synth-Fruit, which is imported from a faraway planet called Mryi. I eat Pop-Tarts, which I'm pretty sure are toxic to him.
"Come on, just give me one," Mensim exclaims, reaching over to steal the sweet snacks from me. "It can't be that bad!"
I lift the Pop-Tarts away from him, laughing. "Stoppit, you're attacking me! Pay attention to the movie, or I'm gonna shoot you!"
"But I just want one..."
"It's gonna poison you, and you're gonna get your weird alien throw-up all over me!"
Priestess Munghazi, the oldest of his moms, bursts into the living room, her jewellery clinking over her clerical cape.
"Your sister conveyed to me quite the disturbing piece of news, Mensim," Priestess Munghazi cries. "The father of Casimir is a priest of a most barbarous and evil perversion of the Siedi faith. Ghanvati and I spoke, and we agreed that you are not to consort with this primitive, pagan savage any longer."
I drop my crumbly Pop-Tart on the couch, confused at the sudden order.
"But Priestess Munghazi, I'm not dangerous or evil. I'm just a kid."
"Nonsense! You are dangerous; your father is a barbarian worshipper of this evil, primate paganism that is called Christianity, and a most woeful effect is begot that even self-respecting Senghavi have 'gone native,' as they say. Mensim, if you continue to consort with this native spawn, I will be impelled to inform the Siedi Court, and they may by chance see to it that he is executed!"
"W-Wait!" Mensim says, holding up the remote to pause our movie. He gets off of me, suddenly losing interest in my Pop-Tart, his vestigial forewings rising with concern. "Please, Mother. I promise he won't be any trouble."
My blood runs cold. Dad, executed? Just because what he believes in isn't "civilised" enough? Actually, I thought that Mom told him to stop preaching for a while.
Mensim scrambles to *his father's sleeping quarters, and I trail frantically after him.*
"Father," Mensim says. "Is Casimir's father's job so ghastly that he should be executed by the Siedi Court?"
"We can't just let the natives spread the same barbarous religions that they used to kill each other," Ghanvati replies, his secondary arms clasped together. "It's a threat to safe, moral society. Priestess Munghazi told me his father spreads evil and paganism. I have no reason not to trust the oldest of your mothers."
"But Casimir's my best friend! If you tell the Siedi Court about his father, I'll... I'll run away! I'll hate you!"
Distressed vibrations emanate through the floor beneath my feet; Mensim's antennae and papery forewings and hindwings go limp. Something like lilies and the earthy scent of rain fills the air.
"My dearest Mensim," Ghanvati says softly, dipping his head capsule with compassion. "I will hold off, just this once. It would be apt of you not to cause me to reconsider."
"T-thank you, Engineer Munghazi," I say, wiping my own tears. "My dad's not a bad person, I promise."
*After confronting his dad, Mensim and I keep on watching movies and playing digital games. He always wins when we wrestle, but I still haven't given up (even though Priestess Munghazi always tells us to stop roughhousing). *
I even bring my Lego pieces to his house. He doesn't know what Legos are, but later, in his sleeping quarters, we build together. He makes a cool-looking spaceship that he calls a "negative energy generator."
"Hey, you took all the cool black and grey pieces," I complain. "Now I can't finish my army base!"
"This is cooler than your army base," Mensim says proudly. "Father used to work in one. It uses the superposition of squeezed vacuum states to produce a field of negative energy density."
"I have no idea what that means, but that sounds really smart."
*"No kidding! It's how people make wormholes and fly all the way to other stars." *
"Well, my army guys could beat your negative energy-thingy. They have machine guns."
"My guys could just fly a [~million billion trillion kilometres] away, and yours can't do anything about it!"
"Then your guys are wimps. But my guys aren't. Because they're the Army!"
>! *We also explore the pine forest in his backyard. Within just two more weeks, we have uncovered all sorts of interesting things, like a piece of a real human skull. One time, we found a human foot sculpted and smoothed out of stone—who would make such a thing?—and a dead metal device with the icon of a bitten-out-of apple printed on it. *!<
There were also other human body parts made out of ancient stone, too: the cracked half of a man's face buried a foot deep, a muscly arm sticking out of the soil. Even a private part, which I snickered at, though Mensim seemed unfazed.
There is something else we start to do. My parents have given me "the talk," and Mensim told me that his parents gave him the Senghavi version of it. And so even as we talk and play in the woods, we experiment—because we are curious, and why should we not be?
A fragment of a memory in the forest; Mensim's raptorial forelimbs are set on my shoulders as his compound eyes look into my primate eyes, and he says, "You cannot tell anyone about this. Anyone. Absolutely no one."
I don't know how, but Priestess Munghazi learned of what we were doing, and now she expresses anger and disgust alike, her wings and antennae wild and rigid. Ghanvati is the same. Mensim and I... We're actually making them reconsider their decision not to tell the Siedi Court about my dad.
A fragment of a memory... I feel like I am in space, stranded aboard a spaceliner that has been hijacked by terrorists, its atmosphere venting amid a backdrop of violence... But I am not, I am in the forest that Mensim and I talked and played in; I am in Mensim's home, terrified as I am yelled at by Ghanvati, whose compassion no longer shines through, accompanied by Priestess Munghazi.
"By the names of the Gods, it's those false, pagan corruptions which humans have named as their religions, that are spouted by your father," Priestess Munghazi spits. I am teary-eyed and snot-nosed from guilt and embarrassment. "How horrid is the link between the state of barbarism and a most revolting and shameful propensity for bizarre and perverted behaviour!"
Then I am in my own family's living room, and the mom I love so dearly yells at me, too, but my father is quieter and only seems disappointed. This must be the first time in my life that I have felt true shame, I think; the kind that leaves you with an emptiness inside. Like the whole point of existing just vanished inside of me.
*The worst part is that I cannot even lean on Mom's shoulder, because she is distressed—because she knows what will happen— *
"This is all on you, Casimir!" she screeches, tears in her eyes. "All on you!"
I remember telling Priestess Munghazi that 'I'm not dangerous or evil; I'm just a kid,' but now I can't be sure anymore. I can tell I am different in the eyes of my family. They are disgusted by me.
After Priestess Munghazi tells the Siedi Court of my father's evil, barbaric Christian teachings, the Parimthian soldiers bring my father to the gallows. Their snow-white exoskeletons gleam under a burning sun. They have dressed him in his clerical uniform, and the camera is close enough that I can see his cross necklace.
I have been grounded in my room; still, I have a television to see the live broadcast.
Hanging works for primates and mantids alike. It happens in the Forum of Movvaeti, the venue for public events in our area, where my father is a lesser criminal compared to the native leaders and Senghavi malcontents who have dissented from Colonial Governor Nieve fe Skellth.
He is joined with seven other convicts, three humans and four Senghavi, and their crimes are read to the crowd—blasphemy, paganism, monogamy, witchcraft, seditious libel, insulting the Parimthian Crown, treason against the Parimthian Crown, and refusal to quarter Parimthian soldiers.
Why? None of this feels right. Why should my father be killed because of what he says and believes? Why can't these people be judged with fairness, rather than at the whim of some distant space emperor?
Not only have I been grounded, but I grow cold without my mother's touch. I want to hold someone's hand while watching Dad lose his life, but nobody is there. Mom brings me food, but she doesn't even look at me. Why can't she look at me? Why can't she speak to me? I just want things to be the way they used to be, when Dad would help me practise hitting a ball with a bat on the street.
I watch him turn down a caped, bejewelled priestess of the Siedi faith, who thought she could make my dad accept their Gods before his death. Before a modest crowd of humans and Senghavi alike, all eight of the convicts have their arms and legs bound with rope.
I am begging myself to turn the TV off, but I can't bring myself to. The Senghavi executioner uses some kind of hi-tech display to remove the supports from beneath the convicts' feet. My stomach flips over inside of me, a nausea of shame filling my body.
I can't deny it any longer. This is my fault—this is why my family avoids me—this is why they are disgusted by me—and Dad falls and his head jerks when the noose goes taut.
As he hangs there, I cannot tell for how long he remains alive. My insides are cold. After the broadcast ends, after night falls and I sit in the moonlight spilling faintly through my windows, that is when it all comes out. I sob alone. I scream for Mom to help me and be there for me, but she does not come. Her harsh voice resonates through my memory; this is all on me. I am a disgrace to everyone I love, and that is why they have left me here. Why they avoid me as if I am a disease.
The only thing I want is to see Dad again, but he is gone forever. I curl up on my room floor. What is this? What is this loneliness? This stinging hatred I feel against myself?
No one, human or mantid, will be there for me. I cry until my throat cannot ache any more harshly, until my eyes cannot sting any more painfully, and then I go cold inside, my body shivering in the moonlight. I retreat into my happy memories with Dad until it is too painful to bear.
I wish so dearly I could end it all, to take my own life and join Dad in the heaven that he believed in. There is a belt in my closet that I can use on myself in the way the Siedi Court killed Dad.
But beneath the sickly well of shame, the nausea and crushing humiliation at the stupid antics of Mensim and I, with which Mom's brief gaze pierces me—beneath the weight of knowing that I will never fill the torturous vacuum Dad left, knowing that I am a foul and disgusting son to the mother I so desperately need, that I see no end to the infinite river of anxiety and guilt pouring through the hole left in my heart—beneath my isolation and my longing for human touch—something breaks inside of me.
An emptiness of purpose. There is no point in going on, and I feel nothing, not even the desire to stop living. There is one exception: A hatred of myself, and of the humans I loved as family.
One day, Mom appears in my doorway, and she just stands there. Before, I would've welcomed being offered interaction with her beyond just receiving food, but now I am numb, my eyes all out of tears to cry.
"Pack your things," she says, her voice flat. She still doesn't look at me; the eyes she once said I inherited from Dad, she now shuns. "You're going to a residential school."
Indigenous Residential Schools; that is what Colonial Governor Nieve fe Skellth calls them, I think. They're for human kids who have trouble letting go of their "savage" roots; kids that the normal schools aren't enough to civilise. Schools that show you how to act Senghavi, to think Senghavi, to... be Senghavi.
There was a human kid in normal school whose sister went there, but they said that something had happened to her there; something in that residential school had changed her before she finally returned.
But I feel no fear as I pack my clothes into my bags. Every time I look in my bedroom mirror, a violent feeling rushes to my chest, only to dissipate into the hatred-tinged numbness I have grown so used to.
Finally, the time comes to depart. In the early morning, I am already aboard the autonomous public transport. It pulls out of the cracked street I once played with Dad in, passing by the entrance of Fellye Neighborhood, driving off into the fiery, violet Terran dawn. I see my faded reflection in the window, and my chest jumps with revulsion.
So I look down, fidgeting with my touchpad—then the numbness abruptly leaves, and my tears fall once again.
Forgive me for all the redaction, Doctor Morgthax. While I will not disclose what I wrote, you are correct, as always, about the act of writing. There is some semblance of psychological relief in typing one's sullen inner thoughts onto a touchpad. As if one can be heard without being heard.
By the time I drifted back to reality, my mouth and lips dry from dehydration, the hijackers had patched up the holes punched through the hull by the accidental explosion. Plenty of Senghavi passengers were spilling cerulean blood from beneath their exoskeletal coverings; though they were all alive, they needed medical attention.
Two hundred-something Senghavi civilians aboard this luxury spaceliner, and none had yet died. That stroke of luck offered me a glimmer of hope.
Pavok, the child, was emitting vibrations through the floor in his despair, the smell of rain and lilies becoming evident to me. It is starkly fascinating, the evolutionary dissimilarity between how native Terrans and Senghavi Terrans cry.
Those ships were delivering medical aid and critical provisions to the passengers, Commander Lokprel barked, the neutrino signals that encoded his gruff voice coming out from the intercom. Why did you laser them?
"Stop playing games," Jake snapped wearily into his radio. I recalled that his full name was Jacob Weaver, as Commander Lokprel had mentioned. A drop of blood streaked down his face. "We know what you're up to."
Paranoia will get you nowhere, Jacob. If we don't work with each other, you won't survive. We have detected an explosion aboard the spaceliner. Is anyone dead?
"Not yet," Jake growled. "But Fenni Svim will be if your forces keep approaching!"
Fenni Svim—the Senghavi from the Vellir Veneti Physics Lab, against whose skull Jake had pressed his pistol to halt the CDF's initial approach, hours ago—stiffened in her seat. I had never known the nuclear researcher very well before this barbarous event, but I prayed to the Gods of Siedi (whom I do not really believe in) that she would be okay.
Many of the passengers were still being kept by the windows to deter snipers. They included Pavok, behind whom Khadija stood guard.
"Sorry for attacking you," Jake suddenly said to me, his voice worn-out. "It's like Khadija said. The bugs know that humans are strong when they're united. It's why they try to play us against ourselves, to ally with just some of us, to try to make us hate each other; to hate ourselves. It's how they tore the United States apart. Everything they do... It's to make us ashamed of our species, our own culture, to lose hope in the future. If we were united, Casimir... they'd be terrified of us. And make no mistake—we're uniting again."
"E-even if what you say about mankind is true," I croaked, "Our species would not have settled anywhere but Earth. Our culture and history would still have been negligible and primitive, the richness and complexity of the Senghavi, still greater by many orders of magnitude."
"Casimir, did you go to one of the Indigenous Residential Schools?" Khadija asked.
"Y-yes," I managed, dusting off my formal wear and cleaning my glasses. "I was sent to one as a child. They are for those of us savage natives which conventional education could not sufficiently civilise."
Khadija's eyes softened with compassion, and she gestured to my wrist. "I asked because of that code on your wrist. I've heard about some of the things that happen in those places. The cruelty; the abuse."
I glanced at the abstract identification code tattooed onto my skin, faded with time. I hadn't thought about it in ages; it was but a remnant of my childhood, and I never paid it any attention.
"Residential schooling is necessary and proper," I tell her. "It is similar to human-mantid apartheid in its purpose; it keeps the public safe from savagery. "
"If we get out of this alive, I'm gonna take you with me to Russia," she said, wiping sweat from her brow. "Specifically, Moscow. It's where I lived after the fall of Türkiye. Man controls it, not the Senghavi."
I was already aware that a vast, untamed region named Zvorriu-Sai, located in Earth's northeastern quarter-sphere, is called Russia in simple-speak. A decade ago, Nieve fe Skellth had tried to civilise the hunter-gatherers who lived there, but his troops starved and froze in the snow.
It was with the multitude of planetary habitat fabricators that his army had been using that the native primates of Zvorriu-Sai constructed such cities as Moscow or Saint Petersburg.
"Russian civilization goes back over a millennium," Khadija explained. "I don't give a fuck about what the Senghavi have built on this planet; Russian architecture is my favourite, hands down. Anyway, it's the most stable and self-sufficient of the ten countries we've got left. Hard to invade, you know? It's seen better days, but the cities are nice, the economy is good. I think you'll find it's a hell of a lot less 'savage' than whatever the fuck the Parimthian Empire is doing."
To corroborate her claims, she showed me a photo from the gallery of her cracked, dusty touchpad. Before a busy canal, the waters tinted orange by a rising sun, a more relaxed version of her smiled into the camera alongside some human of the phenotype I had seen in the video of Tokyo. Looming over them was an intricate, palatial structure topped with colourful, onion-shaped domes.
"How... quaint," I replied, unsure of what to say, though it ignited dry laughter in Khadija.
"Looks like we got a communiqué from the UN," another hijacker announced, his mask still covering his face. I couldn't place his accent at all. He held up his own touchpad, displaying photos of the Colonial Governor herself—Perellanth fe Sumur—flanked by armed UN military personnel. They were clad in urban camouflage that was marred with blood. The black, plant-like extraterrestrial gazed defeatedly in the sterile lighting.
The UN had captured her! The Crown's decision to appoint a Vire as the leader of a Senghavi colony had been no small event. I was certain that after all the talk of Senghavi Terran independence, then followed by the Colonial Governor's capture, His Imperial Majesty regretted his progressivist decision.
"We... We did it!" Jake exclaimed, his voice disbelieving. "We took down Perellanth!"
You achieved nothing, Commander Lokprel retorted over the intercom. Not beyond the promotion of Benghoviu fe Prim to Acting Colonial Governor. If you kill Governor Sumur, Governor Benghoviu will become the permanent Colonial Governor as per the chain of command, and he will carry on the fine work of his predecessor.
Jake seemed to consider that situation a fair one, and he nodded to himself subtly. "Okay, sure. But if you do nothing, we'll still kill our first hostage."
What I can promise you is that Delegate Essintsya fe Baryn will submit an Act to the Forum of Delegates to recognize the sovereignty of the UN. It will be deliberated over for months, but it is your only realistic option. In return, we demand that you allow the passengers injured by one of your explosives to board CDF medical ships.
I recalled that the Forum of Delegates had voted Benghoviu fe Prim as Vice Colonial Governor just a year ago. And before even that, the Senghavi who lived on Vennec—my home continent on Earth—had popularly elected the ever-prudent Essintsya fe Baryn to the Forum. She was quite the economic liberal, as her sort was called.
Delegate Baryn's statements on the social contract between a people and their government, as well as her rejection that the Parimthian Crown ruled by divine right, had resonated deeply with me.
Jake's eyes hardened, and he turned his radio back on. "I said no games!"
There are no games here, Jacob! We only aim to preserve as much sapient life as possible. And you are out of options.
The hijacker who had shown Colonial Governor Sumur's prison photo gave Jake a withering look. "We're dragging this on, man. I don't want anyone to die."
"Don't talk to me about death, Ramiro. Not after what happened in the US."
The so-called United States of America... called Gholo Vieda in Parimthian. That region was Nieve fe Skellth's last successful conquest before he attempted to take on the vast, snowy expanses of Zvorriu-Sai. I wondered if, like Khadija's experience in Türkiye in the Niethvahi region, Jake had witnessed firsthand the cultural assimilation and political integration of Gholo Vieda into the rest of Parimthian Earth.
The conquest of Gholo Vieda and Niethvahi were the great accomplishments of Perellanth's predecessor, of course; but, in my opinion, the devotion of the (now captured) Perellanth to the causes of liberty, reason, equality, and sapientism far outshadowed anything that Nieve had done. I am certain, however, that the Parimthian Crown disagrees.
In any case, my faith in CDF Commander Lokprel loth Fonvie had not risen. Perhaps that was a good thing; otherwise, I might have regretted betraying the knowledge of antimatter research in order to elicit a more competent Parimthian intervention.
More security forces took up positions around the spaceliner, each ship split sharply into sunlight and shadow amid the black of space. The hijacker called Ramiro pointed to a series of smaller craft, which seemed to be pulling away from the luxury spaceliner. Escape pods!
"Hostages are falling through our fingers," Ramiro said. "We need to do something."
"Go to the rear," Khadija ordered. "Stop anyone else from sneaking out!"
Jake's radio crackled with the voice of someone in the cockpit. We've intercepted a neutrino transmission from the new guy, Benghoviu fe Prim. He's calling for some kind of emergency council at the highest levels in the Parimthian Empire.
I scoffed internally. The Crown would intervene for the sake of investigating all this talk of antimatter, whose alluring utility had hitherto been confined to theory and fiction. But it was doubtful that His Imperial Majesty would agree to an emergency council for the sake of his colonists' security and well-being. As (relatively) progressivist as he was in policy, he was still very much a punitive emperor, not a rewarding one.
"I told the commander to stop advancing—dammit!" Jake spat. "We're only letting medical craft get any closer. Fire at the corvettes!"
Affirmative, his radio crackled. Targets in sight.
The spaceliner's anti-collision lasers flashed against several faraway spacecraft. A succession of oxygen-fueled fires, each lasting for a [~split-second] against the vacuum of space, flared in the distance. Even so, the growing array of naval craft began to close in upon us again, surrounding the spaceliner in every dimension.
Switching again to the neutrino-connected channel, Jake gave a disgusted scowl. "Are you deaf, Commander? If your people keep getting closer, the deal is off!"
The more you fire, the closer we will get, *Lokprel said. *We are just making sure it is safe for the medical craft. As long as you refrain from harming them, we will not hurt you.
The hijacker in the cockpit radioed to Jake again, her voice sounding more alarmed.
We're picking up a massive object on our scanners. It's headed our way.
"How massive are we talking?" Jake asked.
It's... some kind of warship, I think. Over a hundred times our size.
"You're joking, right?"
"A Parimthian spacecraft carrier," murmured a soft, whimpery voice.
It was Fenni Svim again, her praying raptorial forelimbs tucked close in fear.
"The Imperial Parimthian Navy?" I asked. "They're really here?"
"Y-you shouldn't act surprised," Fenni said. "I know you were speaking to someone on the P-Parimthian side. You leaked our greatest secret, Casimir."
"R-right."
"What's she talking about, dude?" Khadija asked. Suspicion of betrayal lingered in her dark eyes. She had believed the lie that I was only calling a loved one when I contacted Mensim, >! who is at present an agent of Parimth!<; she had trusted me, and defended me against Jake's wrath.
I didn't answer. The very reason we needed antimatter was that the colonists' outerspace spanned but a meagre few millionths of the Parimthian Empire's total volume. I did not know what exactly a spacecraft carrier one hundred times the size of our spaceliner could do for the hostages, but it would be far more competent than the comparatively flimsy Colonial Defence Force.
Finally, after so many years of strategic modesty in the administration of the Crown's distant colony, of his Earth, as His Imperial Majesty suffered expense upon expense in countering the Imperium of Orion... Parimth had sent a warship of the Imperial Parimthian Navy, here in full force!
There was no need to inquire as to its distance; I could see it through my window. It was far enough that I could view the whole of its great form. Senghavi architecture, of course, is usually round, white, and glassy, traced with glowing accents; however, the imperial warship was boxy and shadowy black, visible only by the silhouette that it carved into the beaming sun.
Already, dozens of smaller craft—operated by some of the finest Senghavi pilots in the Milky Way—began spilling out from the spacecraft carrier, moving in the shadow of their gargantuan mothership. As even the hostage passengers became aware of its presence, the muted chatter and whimpering, which had been ambient across the aisles of the spaceliner, finally ceased.
Because of me, all of us—colonists and savages alike—were, for the first time in a decade, going to face a military intervention by Parimth itself.

The System was a scam, period.
I had leveled up five whole times after our fight against the Wendigo and I had not received any kind of reward. Sure, my mana pool had grown a little bit and my [Mana Exhaustion] had been slowly receding, but other than that I wasn’t getting stronger, faster or more agile. I didn’t even have a measly new skill to show for it.
“What a scam, I want a refund.” I muttered.
“I already told you, there was only a small chance for the Wendigo to have an elemental crystal. You only start seeing stuff like that after level fifty.” Elincia huffed in front of me. The mountainous path was steep but at least we had left the forest behind. Elincia had told me that Farcrest was just beyond the mountain range.
“People should get shit after leveling up five damn times!” I angrily said as if Elincia was somehow responsible for the shitty progression system.
The white haired suddenly stopped and turned around. For an instant I thought she was going to scold me but then, out of nowhere, she put her hands on my shoulders and locked her eyes into mine. I tried to control my blush with little success and hoped she would attribute it to the arduous hike.
“I’m sorry to break this down to you, Robert Clarke, but support classes don’t get crap from the System.” Elincia said with a solemn tone just to smile a moment later. “In any case, you should be happy because your mana pool is so huge. Scholars are known for having lots of mana but, dude, you are on another level.”
One thing was sure, I wasn’t getting used to receiving compliments any time soon.
[Awareness]: You are absolutely correct.
I ignored the System prompt. At least I was getting very good at doing that.
“The amount of mana you need to materialize a [Mana Blade] without a skill is ridiculous. Are you sure you are a low level Scholar?” Elincia asked as we resumed the march. As we came near the edge of the Farlands, she grew more relaxed.
There haven't been any signs of monsters since the previous night.
“You still don’t believe in me?” I replied.
“At this point you could say you are the son of a Fire Dragon and a virginal maiden and I’d believe you.” Elincia shrugged her shoulders. “It might be a long shot but, have you ever been in a System Shrine?”
As good a liar as I was, I couldn’t just bullshit my way out of such a direct question. Elincia was too keen for that. A System Shrine sounded like basic knowledge.
“Haven’t heard about that in my life.” I replied.
Elincia stopped for a second and gave me one of her looks of disbelief that made me feel like a kid without his homework. I wondered if she had practiced that expression. After all, she had five stacks of [Favorite Teacher], she might as well have experience publicly humiliating kids.
“You don’t have System Shrines in the City of Light?” Elincia asked in disbelief.
I just shrugged my shoulders to avoid giving an answer. Also, there was the fact that the hike was taking a toll on my lungs. I didn’t know how Elincia could sustain a conversation. If I knew I was going to get transported to a magical world, I would’ve exercised more back on Earth.
“The System blocks certain titles from low level individuals.” Elincia started explaining. “Let’s say a Lv.1 Soldier survives the scuffle against a flock of Fire Dragons and gets the [Dragon Killer] title which gives fire resistance. There is a high chance the System withholds the title from the Soldier on the basis that [Dragon Killer] is an overpowered title for a mere Lv.1.”
I nodded. It made sense the System had a method to prevent power leveling, if only to maintain some semblance of normalcy. Earth would be plunged into chaos very quickly if suddenly a bunch of people with godly powers appeared out of nowhere.
“With the help of a System Shrine and a competent System Zealot the Soldier could unlock [Dragon Killer] even without the required level.” Elincia finished with her explanation. “Maybe you are benefiting from a hidden title.”
“Maybe,” I replied.
I couldn’t imagine having any useful titles considering how ordinary my life has been before arriving in the Farlands. When I was in college, I was able to comfortably outdrink all my group of friends, but then I lost that skill just after graduating. And there was the fact my only title at level one was [Lonely Boy] so my hopes of having a nice hidden title weren’t particularly high.
“Does Farcrest have a System Shrine?” I asked.
My question prompted a dry laugh from Elincia.
“Don’t get your hopes too high. Farcrest is a shithole.” She warned me as we climbed a rocky path between the two mountain ranges that separated the Farlands from the Kingdom of Ebros. We were almost there.
“Why is there a town so close to the Farlands anyway?” I asked.
Elincia lent me her hand and helped me climb a step boulder.
“To prevent monsters from pouring into the Kingdom. Think of Farcrest as a cork.” Elincia pulled me up the boulder.
Suddenly, we were on top of the path between two mountain ranges. I glanced down the valley ahead expecting to see a handful of rustic cabins scattered across a modest patch of farmland with a rotten palisade and a muddy road; however, Farcrest was a town in its own right. It was located on the top of a soft hill, surrounded by a high stone wall with several watchtowers. An impressive church made of the same dark stone rose above the thatched rooftops and, on the highest part of the hill, a great hall, half palace, half fortress, dominated the valley.
“Doesn’t look like a shithole to me.” I said as we started the descent from the other side of the hill. It looked like a picturesque European medieval town.
“You’ll see.” Elincia replied, with a hopeless sigh.
About two hours later, we reached the city outskirts. The main road was neglected and the farmland’s irrigation canals blocked by debris. As we approached the city, the picture became even more bleak. I didn’t need [Awareness] to tell me the crops were sickly and weak. Most of the farmers were older men and women that moved slowly among the plots of land.
“Where are the young people?” I asked, discarding the idea of a disease. If there was a plague ravaging Farcrest, then there wouldn’t be old people working on the fields.
“They are in the eastern frontier, fighting the King’s wars.” Elincia replied dryly.
I recalled Elincia telling me there was a shortage of alchemical ingredients due to a war in the western frontier.
“War against who?” I asked. A war-torn country might not be too welcoming to strangers like me.
“Against the Farlands. The king is obsessed with expanding the kingdom’s territory and uncharted lands and their resources.” Elincia sighed. “It’s a meat grinder. A bunch of low level kids trying to push deeper and deeper into monster territory while the real warriors are protecting the imperial capital and the frontiers.”
[Awareness] sent me down a stream of reasoning. Numbers and equipment were the basis of any military force back on Earth. However, in this world, a single individual with a powerful class and a high level could potentially be a one man army.
“What about power leveling the new recruits? You know, pairing them with a bunch of high level people and fighting monsters together?” I asked again.
“You might be a genius, Robert Clarke! How had no one thought of that before?” Elincia replied as she mindlessly drummed her lips in a gesture I recognized as deep concentration.
“Really?”
“You really think Kings, Scholars, and Generals didn’t think about powerleveling new recruits? The System doesn’t allow that.” A tired smile was drawn on Elincia’s face.
Seeing Elincia’s expression, I decided to drop the topic about the war. I wondered how many of her friends and acquaintances have gone to the frontline to never be heard of again. The Farlands were a dangerous place and the King’s troops lacked the advantage of firearms like me.
“Let’s go to my place.” Elincia said as we approached the city walls. “You should make yourself presentable before going to the Great Hall for that transit permit, and we have to appraise the herbs.”
It didn’t take a genius to realize Elincia was desperate for alchemical materials, otherwise she wouldn’t invite a stranger like me to her home. Or maybe there was a really charitable soul beneath the layers of mistrust and suspicion. The aftermath of the combat against the Wendigo had brought us a lot closer.
“Sounds like a plan to me.” I replied wondering if I was going to meet Elincia’s kid. Or her partner.
Farcrest was only a few hundred meters away. Up close, the black stone wall was taller and sturdier than I initially thought. Then I remembered they weren’t built to resist medieval armies but the assault of skills and magic spells. The double wooden gate was wide open but nobody bothered to stop us or ask about the business that brought us to the city.
As we passed through the hole in the wall, I spied into a guardhouse. I saw young men and women playing cards and drinking booze. Well-fed and well-dressed troops loyal to the Marquis, I assumed. Up close, Farcrest was further away from the bucolic city and dangerously close to a feudal dystopia.
Elincia and I walked along the wall towards the northern district. As we progressed through the city, houses became more and more neglected to the point it seemed outright abandoned to me. Kids ran barefoot in the street, fetid puddles adorned the alleys, and most of the stores were closed. Farcrest was a ghost town.
“How long has there been war?” I asked.
“Seven years now?” Elincia replied. “We are close.”
After five more minutes of meandering through alleys, we emerged in front of a great manor made of stained white walls and washed out blue shingles. For a moment I was out of words. Was Elincia the heir of a noble family fallen from grace? Her dignified appearance and beautiful features made me think so, however, she was a bit too wild to be a noblewoman.
The manor was old. The white painting of the front was peeling away and water stains plagued the nooks and crannies of the structure. A low stone wall marked the perimeter and a quick glance revealed it had served in the past as the foundation for an iron fence long gone. The only section of the outer wall that had survived the decay of the city was the iron gate.
Elincia opened it and we entered the front yard. I was about to ask a hundred questions when the front door slammed open and a stampede of small kids came to meet us. I managed to count at least a dozen before they reached us. Elincia greeted them with arms open as the little ones burst into tears at the first sight of the woman.
I froze. Not all of them were human.
There were two small snakefolk kids with bright yellow eyes. The blue-scaled snake-kid was dressed in a ragged brown dress while the green-scaled one had an oversized white shirt and frayed pants. At the end of the retinue, somewhat late to the reception, appeared a small winged girl with a hesitant gait. Her beautiful golden feathers contrasted with the old pillowcase she used as a dress.
Before I could react, both of the snake-kids jumped into my arms, crying a river of tears. Surprisingly enough, they were warm to the touch. I tried to exchange a glance with Elincia but she was busy trying to calm a handful of small kids on her own.
How many kids Elincia had?
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Discord Royal Road

This is part of my little series about the adventures of Vr'ocria and Human Aldrick. If you'd like to read previous parts, they're linked below, along with brief summaries of each if you prefer to just jump right into the new installment:
Part One: Alien learns what "sleep" is and how humans prefer to do it in a comfy bed with blankets and pillows. And they find it utterly adorable.
Vr'ocria and Human Aldrick are sent on a survey mission together. Things go south, Aldrick makes sure they're safe, and then Vr'ocria learns what human sleep is and how vulnerable humans are when they sleep. Vr'ocria's people don't sleep, but enter stasis, a form of rest in which they typically stand, and they are still slightly aware of their surroundings. Vr'ocria finds human sleep utterly adorable, and also decides she will protect Aldrick while he sleeps. And she also develops a massive crush on him. (Her scales turning purple is her version of blushing)
Part Two: An alien + human adventure with such shenanigans as poison drinking, befriending dangerous wildlife, and fighting a space pirate. Oh, and they have a huge crush on each other.
Vr'ocria and Human Aldrick end up assigned together for another survey mission. Vr'ocria tries to deny her feelings for Aldrick after a tense conversation with her nestmate about the danger of humans, but when they're ambushed in the night by a pirate and Aldrick takes a blow to save her, becoming injured in the process, she comes to realize just how strongly she feels for him. She carries him to safety and the two share a tender moment, but nothing yet happens between them.
Part Three: When a cold-blooded alien has to cuddle a warm-blooded human for warmth
Vr'ocria and Human Aldrick are assigned to an ice planet for their next mission. Aldrick chews out Command for assigning Vr'ocria there when they know she's cold-blooded and not built for the cold, and when the power goes out, they cuddle to keep her from freezing. And they finally confess their feelings for one another.
On to the story!
—
Aldrick didn't ever want to move from this spot. Waking up in a beautiful woman's arms felt like a dream, and he still wasn't sure if it was real. As consciousness returned to him, he tilted his head back. Vr'ocria's head still rested on the pillow next to him. Her second eyelids were closed, the thin white membranes making her black eyes appear foggy. She was still resting in stasis.
Aldrick lazily trailed his fingers up her cheeks, across her forehead, all the way to the four ridges that ran up her sloped skull. The way her angular features and pointed ears sloped up towards the back of her head made her look…regal. Almost like she was wearing a crown. Her scales, which changed and flexed with her emotions, were at their neutral emerald green. However, the very tips of each individual scale nearly glowed a vibrant, dark pink. Vr'ocria had explained that the pink was triggered by strong feelings of love–as well as the result of a mating bond.
Mate. It wasn't a human concept. But the word still lit a fire in his heart.
Aldrick continued exploring Vr'ocria's body, slowly running his hands up her arms, tracing her shoulders, until he reached her back. Her spine seemed to buzz underneath his fingers, and he tried to recall what he knew about Ethyrian anatomy. They didn't have hearts, like humans did. Instead, their spine served a similar function, flushing their blood through the veins, but at a constant flow instead of a rhythmic pumping. At the moment, the buzzing was barely noticeable unless he felt for it, perhaps because she was so relaxed.
Still, he was surprised she hadn't woken from stasis yet. Ethyrians were still slightly aware of their surroundings while in stasis, unlike human sleep. Curious, he decided to see how much it took to rouse her.
He leaned forward and kissed the top of her head, between her two center skull ridges. Nothing.
He moved down to her left browbone. Nothing.
He kissed the tip of her nose. Still nothing.
Her cheek was next. Then just beneath her right eye. Her jaw. The crook of her neck.
Finally, she squeaked through her nose, a quiver running down the scales on her back. When he pulled back, her eyes were clear now and her scales had flushed purple. It had taken him a while to figure out that was her version of blushing, and he couldn't help grinning. "You're so cute," he chuckled. "I was trying to see how long it would take you to wake up."
She covered her face with her hands, but she was smiling. "How long were you doing that?"
"I got seven kisses in. You didn't notice?"
She pushed her chin out, pulling her neck up in a leisurely stretch. It reminded him of an Earth gecko. So damn cute.
Vr'ocria dropped her head back down with a sigh. "No," she mused. "I think I didn't register them as danger, so my defense mechanisms didn't kick in and alert me."
"But neck kisses are danger?"
"Neck kisses tickle," she giggled. She met his gaze with a mischievous glint in her eye. "Do it again."
Aldrick happily obliged.
—
The blizzard outside had finally died down enough for the power main to restore itself. Vr'ocria was grateful for the return of the heater, although she was still reluctant to leave Aldrick's warmth. But hunger finally drove the two of them out of bed, and together they headed to the kitchen to prepare breakfast.
While they were eating, Vr'ocria's communicator pinged. She glanced over. "Oh, it's my nestmate, Galek." She shot Aldrick an apologetic look, but he shook his head and waved her away.
"It's your family, go, take it!"
She smiled gratefully. "I'll be right back." She trodded back to the resting quarters and shut the door behind her. Taking a seat at the desk in the corner, she set the communicator down and pressed the button that allowed a holoscreen to appear. Galek's face smiled back at her, a bit grainy due to a bad connection, but there he was nonetheless. She beamed back at him.
"Hey, how've you been?" He asked. "I haven't seen you in so long, I had to call you."
She rested her chin in her hand. "I've been good. Great, actually," she said dreamily. She launched into a summary of the past few moon cycles and how she'd started taking on more away missions since Galek had suggested it.
But as she talked, a shadow crossed his face. "So you're still working with the human?"
Vr'ocria rolled her eyes. "His name is Aldrick. And he's been nothing but wonderful to me." She looked down, tracing the edge of the desk with her finger. "I like him."
Galek was silent. When she finally glanced back up, he looked angry. She frowned. "What?"
"You turned pink just now."
Vr'ocria glanced down, and sure enough, the tips of her scales had flushed pink.
"Vr'ocria."
She refused to meet his gaze.
"Vr'ocria. Did you mate him?" Galek demanded.
"I didn't mate mate him," she blurted defensively. "I only mate bonded him. Accidentally." She blushed purple. "We haven't done that yet."
"You BONDED him?" Galek exploded. "And YET? What does that mean? That you plan to?"
"No! Well, yes–I mean maybe–" she scoffed and threw her hands in the air. "We haven't gotten that far, okay? Humans court each other first, remember? Also, keep your voice down," she said in a lower tone. "He's in the next room."
"HE'S WITH YOU RIGHT NOW?"
"Galek, I will hang up on you, I swear to the moons–"
But Galek had abruptly fallen silent, leaning forward towards the screen with his eyes narrowed.
"What now?" She demanded.
"What's that on your neck?"
"What?"
"On your neck. Is that a bruise?" His voice was dangerously low.
Vr'ocria stood and went to look in the small mirror hanging on the wall. Sure enough, there was a small bruise beginning to form on her neck.
Right where Aldrick had been kissing her.
Uh oh.
She slowly returned to the desk, a hand clasped over the bruise. She sat down. "It's nothing, I just slipped on some ice."
Galek's eyes bore a hole through her. "He did that to you, didn't he?"
"No!" Her protest was weak. She was never good at lying to Galek.
"You're a terrible liar." His voice was a low growl, a tone that she only ever heard when he was at peak protective-nestmate-mode. "I am going to kill him." She could see his hands shaking from where they were clasped in front of him, his scales bright yellow and standing on end. "I don't care if he's human, I don't care if he's a Union agent, I don't care–"
Vr'ocria threw her head back with a groan. "Shut up, you will not. It's nothing, it's just from a kiss."
"What in the planets is a kiss?"
"It's a human sign of deep affection," she quoted Aldrick, and couldn't wipe the girlish grin from her face as she recalled last night.
"Their 'affection' leaves bruises?" He looked close to bursting at the seams.
"Only that one time, because he was doing it so much." Her scales were a deep purple now. "Because I asked him to."
Galek stared at her in disbelief. "You…asked him to do that to you?"
She covered her face in pure embarrassment. "Planets, you're my nestmate," she groaned out between her palms. "I don't want to talk about this with you! All you need to understand is that I love him, and he loves me." Her spine buzzed at the last statement.
Galek crossed his arms, still looking upset.
Vr'ocria heaved a sigh. "Galek. When we were ambushed by that Norvidian, he saved my life. He protected me from an explosion and it almost killed him. You hear that? A human almost died! That doesn't happen! And he did it for me! And yesterday, you should've heard him tearing Command apart over the communicator for sending me to an ice planet."
Galek refused to meet her gaze. Only the crackle of the holoscreen filled the room.
"Okay, now you're just being stubborn," she snapped. "I'm not a hatchling anymore. I'm an adult and I can make my own decisions, and I've decided that I want to be with Aldrick." She slammed her hand on the table. "And you will respect him."
Galek remained in stubborn silence for a moment longer, before he finally blew out a breath and disappeared from the screen as he sank forward, presumably dropping his head to the table. "You know I'm just worried about you."
Vr'ocria softened. "I know."
He sat back up, rubbing his eyes. "You love him?"
"Yes."
"And he treats you right?"
"Yes."
Galek sighed. "Alright. Alright, fine. I'll be nice…and I'm sorry for being a jerk."
She smiled. "Thank you." She rose to her feet. "Now. I have to finish breakfast with my mate."
To his credit, Galek tried to stifle his groan.
When Vr'ocria emerged back in the kitchen, she found Aldrick looking concerned. "Everything okay? I heard yelling."
She plopped down at the table. "Galek is just protective of me. He's not too sure about…us."
"Oh." Aldrick picked at his nails. "Right. I mean, I understand why." He gave a strained smile. "I'm human, after all."
"Hey," she placed a hand on top of his to stop the picking. "Don't be like that, you're not a monster. Galek is a good guy. He's not unreasonable, he'll come around."
His expression softened as he squeezed her hand. Then his eyes drifted down her neck. "Oh shit, he saw that, didn't he? Fuck, Vr'ocria I'm so sorry–"
She could only laugh. "Stop, stop, it's okay. I mean…I kind of like it."
Aldrick turned red and couldn't meet her eye. "Just remind me not to leave hickeys on you when I meet your brother for the first time."
"Nowhere he can see, anyway," Vr'ocria said casually, taking a bite of cereal.
Aldrick choked on his juice.
Alright, that's about as spicy as this series is gonna get, so don't get your hopes up for anything more explicit than that, LOL. I just wondered what would happen when aliens discover hickeys, hehe.
Next chapter will have some space pirate action, so buckle up babes 🤠

It's been hard to find some voicelines from Zen and i started looking for a video that compiles every line and fortunately there was one and with OW1 voicelines as well! (pls take the time to comment your fav voiceline in the link, this video was a bit hard to find with only 145 views) so i took the time to timestamp each one, there are a lot that repeat and english isn't my first language there will be a lot of spelling and grammatical errors, feel free to correct me. Well without any further ado here it is:
https://youtu.be/aFU6OveTNQQ
0:05 uh? (idk how to describe it... WHEN DOES HE SAY THIS??¿¿)
0:07 Noise
0:08 Noise
0:10 "Now we have both learned something"
0:13 "I'm grateful for what we have taught each other"
0:17 "I do not punish when one seeks forgiveness"
0:20 "I envy ants for their clarity of purpose"
0:25 "Perhaps i can share your burden?"
0:28 "There is a new sadness in you brother"
0:32 "Yes we wondered how many other omnics were doing the same"
0:38 "Change often comes uninvited what you make of it is up to you"
0:44 "Every challenge is an opportunity to rise"
0:49 "I am happy to serve"
0:51 "Mmm.. interesting"
0:54 "A chance for us all to learn"
0:57 "Experience festivity"
1:00 "Right down the middle and the pitch"
1:04 "Here's a little jin(?) music"
1:06 "That's the ball game"
1:08 "There's no crying in baseball"
1:12 "You're out"
1:14 "He goes down swinging"
1:16 "It goes down swinging"
1:18 "She goes down swinging"
1:21 "Zenyatta on the mound"
1:24 "The iris consumes you"
1:27 "Listen to the whispers of madness"
1:31 "Darkness envelops all"
1:34 "Be consumed by the shadows"
1:38 "Curses and madness be upon you all"
1:41 "Be one with the darkness"
1:45 "Walk in shadow"
1:48 "We walk in shadows my aprenctice"
1:52 "Embrace oblivion"
1:55 "Frightening"
1:57 "Expierience nothingness"
2:01 "Trick or treat"
2:04 "Pass into the unkown"
2:07 "Zenyatta is here"
2:10 "Zenyatta is everywhere"
2:14 "We must guard the objective"
2:17 "They've taken possesion of him"
2:20 "He would(?) be lost without our guidence"
2:23 "The enemy has stolen away our friend"
2:27 "Our teamate has fallen"
2:29 "We've suffered a casualty"
2:31 "We have lost a teammate"
2:34 "The door will not hold much longer"
2:37 "The door will soon be reduced to kinglin(?)"
2:40 "I am restored"
2:42 "You have my thanks"
2:44 "One day i will repay your kindness"
2:48 Effort noise (kick probably?)
2:49 Effort noise
2:50 Effort noise
2:52 Effort noise
2:53 "It was nothing"
2:55 "You are welcome"
2:57 "A turret lies before us it is quite real"
3:02 "A turret is in our way"
3:04 "We must proceed as one"
3:06 "Apart we can not continue"
3:09 "We must come together then we may proceed"
3:13 "The payload is on it's way"
3:16 "The payload advances as it should"
3:20 "I am accompaning the payload"
3:23 "We must hold the payload"
3:25 "I'm under attack assistance would be appreciated"
3:29 "I require aid"
3:31 "On my way"
3:33 "No."
3:34 "We must rest victory from the jaws of time"
3:38 "Time is an illusion but he illusion it's about to run out"
3:44 "No snowflake ever falls in the wrong place"
3:48 "We are in harmony"
3:51 "Doubt shrouds you"
3:53 "What torments you"
3:55 "It is nothing personal, Genji"
3:58 "Why the look of gloom"
4:00 "Your distress betrays you, Satya"
4:03 "A shadow hangs over you"
4:06 "Your anguish comsumes you"
4:09 "You must accept the pain"
4:12 "This does not bode well for you"
4:16 "Chaos hunts your path"
4:18 "The path ahead is thorny"
4:21 "How ominous"
4:23 "Attachment the source of all suffering"
4:27 Effort noise
4:30 "Revive me so that i may re-join the fight"
4:34 "I am in need of reviving"
4:37 "I am seriously damaged"
4:39 "Life is more than a series of ones and zeros"
4:44 "We most protect our flag"
4:47 "Defend our flag"
4:49 "A detonator)? approaches we must not let it come near"
4:53 "The end approaches quickly to the robot"
4:57 "Our time draws near, grasp the opportunity"
5:02 "We most claim both the robot and our destiny"
5:06 "Our collective effort is leading us to victory"
5:11 "Let us be grateful for our advantages"
5:14 "Fortune smiles on us"
5:17 "A blessing to be among such capable hands"
5:21 "We should make our preparations here"
5:24 freezing noise
5:26 freezing noise 2
5:29 discomfort noise?
5:32 discomfort freezing noise?
5:35 freezing noise 3
5:39 "We must clear this area"
5:41 "Form is temporary the spirit is eternal"
5:46 "My apologies"
5:48 "I was mistaken"
5:50 "To err is human... or omnic"
5:53 "I require armor"
5:55 "I need armor"
5:57 "We must deal with this assassin, she continues to be a problem for us"
6:03 sigh noise
6:05 sigh noise 2
6:08 long sigh
6:10 deep breath
6:13 deep breath 2
6:15 "We must take the objective"
6:18 "Let us capture the objective"
6:21 "The enemies teleporter is here, destroy it"
6:26 "My ultimate ability is ready"
6:28 "Ready for transcendence"
6:31 "The enforcer still poses a threat"
6:34 "The flags destiny lies with another"
6:37 "Dropping the flag"
6:39 discomfort noise
6:42 discomfort noise 2
6:45 dicomfort noise 3
6:47 discomfort noise 4
6:50 discomfort noise 5
6:52 "Zenyatta is here"
6:54 "Advance the robot"
6:56 "Move the robot"
6:58 Discomort noise 6
7:01 Discomfort noise 7
7:03 more discomfort
7:04 "The flag returns"
7:06 "I have set the flag on its way"
7:09 "The assassin is over there"
7:12 "There she is"
7:14 "but intimidating nonetheless" (idk if this goes with the last one)
7:16 "Get back! she's on me"
7:19 "In 3... 2... 1..."
7:23 "3... 2... 1..."
7:26 "Get ready"
7:28 death noise
7:30 death noise 2
7:32 death noise 3
7:34 death?
7:37 more death?
7:39 "Let us push together"
7:41 "And now we begin"
7:44 "Destiny backens us towards our destination"
7:49 "My ultimate is charging"
7:52 more sigh noise
7:54 deep breath asmr
7:57 relieve breath noise
8:00 death fall noise
8:05 death fall noise 2
8:11 more death fall noise
8:18 "Hello world"
8:20 "The assassin is no more"
8:22 "Worry not she's been dealt with"
8:25 "Defend as one"
8:28 "Defend with me"
8:30 "Alone i am a tempting target for the enemy"
8:34 "Our numbers will soon be replendished"
8:38 "My allies will soon return"
8:41 "Farewell"
8:42 "Go in peace"
8:44 "I have found the enemy shield generator"
8:48 "My ultimate is almost ready"
8:50 "Understood"
8:52 "Acknowledge"
8:54 "Of course"
8:55 "Indeed"
8:57 "I understand"
8:58 "Understood"
9:00 "The door shutters)?"
9:02 "The door is heavly damaged"
9:04 "This life is not finished with you yet"
9:07 "We are still in need of you"
9:10 "Invisibility is not invincibility"
9:14 "You manifested your own fate"
9:17 "One often meets their destiny on the road the take to avoid it"
9:22 "Those who rush headlong into battle would do well to protect their heads"
9:28 "A great distance for one is but a step for another"
9:33 "Think first then leap"
9:36 "An easy target is not is not always what is appears to be"
9:40 "Foresight is as viable as speed"
9:44 "Ask for death and you will receive it"
9:48 "Remember Genji at your most powerful you are most vulnerable"
9:54 "Capture the flag"
9:56 "Let us take the enemy's flag"
9:59 "Be reborn"
10:01 "Oblivion embraces you"
10:04 "Fade into shadow"
10:07 "May the Iris embrace you"
10:10 "Be at peace"
10:12 "The wheel turns"
10:14 "The darkness consumes"
10:17 "Let us clear them off the objective"
10:20 "Our enemies are ceasing)? the objective"
10:23 "They are taking hold of the objective, we must stop them"
10:29 "Fortune favors me"
10:31 Laugh (AAAAAAAAAA)
10:34 "The iris embraces you"
10:38 "It is my pleasure to serve"
10:41 "There is no weakness in asking for help"
10:44 "Does who seek help will find it"
10:47 "Consider the alternative"
10:50 "The world is a dangerous place"
10:53 "The help is it's own reward"
10:56 "How amusing"
10:58 "The end is near we must not hold back"
11:02 "Time runs short, attack!"
11:06 "We must wrest the victory from the jaws of time"
11:10 "Time is an illusion but he illusion it's about to run out" (Again?)
11:15 "Press forward for time is not at our side"
11:19 "Time is off the escence let us attack"
11:23 "An erradicator be on your guard"
11:26 "She still poses a threat"
11:29 "The sniper still troubles us"
11:31 "Can i interest you in a snowball fight?"
11:34 "Do i think? Does a submarine swim?"
11:39 "The turret no longer exists"
11:42 "The turret is no more"
11:45 "The objective cannot take much more of this"
11:48 "Our objective will soon be destroyed"
11:51 "Mercy swiftly delivered"
11:54 "The more one takes the less one has"
11:58 "Accomplishment always follows effort"
12:02 "Tragedy unites many"
12:04 "My generosity extends to many"
12:08 "Perhaps we only exist in the memory of a person now gone"
12:13 burning? (noise)
12:17 burning
12:19 burning 2
12:21 more burning
12:24 burns
12:26 "Patience"
12:28 "The damage doesn't look as bad from up here"
12:31 probably getting charged by Reinhardt?
12:34 same?
12:37 AAAaaAAA
12:40 critical health
12:42 "The objective is no more"
12:45 "The objective has been eliminated"
12:48 "I require shields"
12:50 "I need sheilds"
12:52 "The assassin is gone for the moment"
12:55 "She's disappeard"
12:57 "Victory is our destiny but we must all play our parts"
13:03 "Stay steadfast and we shall win"
13:07 "Victory is within our grasp hold strong"
13:12 "We must see this through to the end"
13:16 "Let us hold out until the end"
13:19 "Time is on our side we must simply endure"
13:24 "I'm feeling unwell"
13:27 "My systems are compromised"
13:29 "Disabling security protocols"
13:32 "Your recognition honors me"
13:35 "The cards have selected me"
13:38 "Our enemies return with vengeance"
13:41 "Beware they have returned"
13:44 "The enemy is utilising a shield generator"
13:48 "Enemy shield generator destroyed"
13:51 "Hold the robot we must end their push"
13:55 "Recover our flag"
13:58 "We must retake possession of our flag"
14:01 "Peace be upon you"
14:03 "I greet you"
14:05 "Hello"
14:06 "Greetings"
14:08 "We must reclaim our flag"
14:10 "The enemy has taken posetion of our flag"
14:14 "Come to me for healing"
14:16 "Come here for healing"
14:18 "The path to healing leads here"
14:21 "A shoked tire bears down upon us)?" (i didn't understand a thing)
14:24 "Shock tire over the breach)?" (same)
14:27 "The enemy posseses a teleporter"
14:30 "Energy transfers between us"
14:33 "I believe i won this round"
14:36 "A telling blow"
14:38 "A touch of wisdom"
14:41 "What profound impact"
14:43 "Scadoosh" (HAHAHA WHEN?? from a skin??)
14:45 effort noise
14:46 effort noise 2
14:47 effort noise 3
14:49 effort noise 4
14:50 effort noise 5
14:51 effort noise 6
14:52 "Over here"
14:54 coughing
14:59 coughing 2
15:08 "I have spotted an enemy bastion"
15:10 "Remember past succeses but always strive for more"
15:16 "This way"
15:18 "Here my friends"
15:20 laugh (I love him)
15:23 "I AM VITALIZED"
15:27 "MY SENSES ARE HEIGHTENED"
15:30 "STRENGTH FLOWS THROUGH ME"
15:33 "I AM EMPOWERED"
15:35 "I think therefore i am"
15:40 "When did you received this curse countess"
15:44 "Some believe that the full moon is a good omen"
15:48 "Did i say i trusted her"
15:51 "I do not sense the spark of life within you"
15:54 "Walk along the path to enlightenment"
15:58 "Ready i am ready" (Oh god...)
16:01 "I dreamt i was a butterfly"
16:04 "Frightening"
16:06 "There are null)? troopers ahead"
16:08 "No troopers spotted"
16:10 "The enforcer is no more"
16:13 "The flag moves with me"
16:15 "I have become one with the flag"
16:19 "Go to the objective"
16:21 "Let us head to the waypoint"
16:23 "Let us re group at the objective"
16:26 "The objective is near"
16:29 "Take care that you do not spend yourself before the battle is done"
16:34 "Our purpose is to show everyone that in the iris we are all one people"
16:41 "Rarely has my path crossed a warrior as cheerful as you"
16:45 "No one of note just one of thousands of like me)?" (what?)
16:50 "Do you think me so helpless"
16:52 "But one moment of clarity changed everything"
16:56 "There are times even i can not stand by"
17:00 "It is not magic but the power of the spirit that i channel"
17:05 "My believes are simply in the fundamental ways of life and nature nothing more"
17:12 "Simply a traveler of search of purpose and meaning"
17:16 "I'm following in my masters footsteps searching for enlightenment tho my path has not always been a stright one"
17:25 "Our objective has been damaged"
17:27 "Our enemies are breaking through"
17:30 "Fate is not without a sense of irony"
17:34 "Look in the mirror"
17:36 "We move with the objective"
17:39 "Let us see the objective to it's destination"
17:43 "The enemy out numbers us"
17:45 "We are outnumbered be cautious"
17:49 "I sense the reaper"
17:51 "I sense the presence of the witch"
17:54 "The summoner is here"
17:57 "Doctor Junkenstein so good of you to join us"
18:02 "The ground shakes"
18:04 "Junkenstein's monster is here"
18:07 "We should guide our flag back to safety"
18:10 "The enemy has relinquished our flag"
18:13 "We must move them from the door"
18:16 "They have reached the door"
18:19 "The summoner is no more"
18:21 "The witch is gone but she will reaturn"
18:26 "Doctor Junkenstein has laughed his last"
18:30 "Junkenstein's monster has fallen"
18:33 "The reaper is gone for the moment"
18:37 "I am made whole"
18:39 "My systems are restored"
18:42 "My systems are repeared"
18:45 "I am healed"
18:47 "Your dance grows more elegant Satya"
18:51 "You are adept at endings")? (idk)
18:54 "Well done my apprentice"
18:57 "Eventually all fade into oblivion"
19:00 "Well done Genji"
19:03 "You have ushered them to paradise"
19:06 "There is beauty in your actions"
19:09 "I did not teach you that one"
19:12 "Fall back"
19:13 "Likewise Satya i hope to repay you for your generosity at our temple"
19:19 "I served coffee"
19:21 "Then paint it with emptiness"
19:24 "How... fortunate for you"
19:27 "Why do you believe so?"
19:29 "I collected payments at a laser tag arena"
19:33 "Perhaps they believe we will not defend this place but if all the rest of the wolrd were to fall this would be the stand i chose to make"
19:44 "I like being near the ocean it reminds me of where i was born"
19:49 "I sense that your hardest battle is yet to come"
19:54 "What seems like magic is sometimes science we dont yet understand"
20:00 "Victory goes to those who maintain their focus"
20:04 "I was a life guard at a waterpark"
20:08 "It would be a pleasure"
20:10 "I drove a tractor"
20:12 "You have an intense gaze doctor"
20:15 "You spend your second chance at life walking a lonely road"
20:21 "I believe that Torbjörn's behavior has rubbed of on you"
20:25 "I owe my gifts to the iris"
20:29 "What makes you think i am a pacifist"
20:32 "Someone always cares you must simply seek them out"
20:36 "I dream of peace and sometimes falling"
20:41 "And yet you sound just like he did"
20:44 "A mirror reflects only what can be seen"
20:48 "Perhaps it is assumptions that are foolish"
20:52 "Try listening to silence"
20:55 "Our mission awaits us"
20:58 "Indeed"
20:59 "I massaged sheep on a free-range pasture"
21:03 "Shed the weight of your doubts, and your mind will become clear"
21:08 "Seeking progress by sowing chaos is like planting a tree in a volcano"
21:14 "Change often comes univited what you make of it is up to you"
21:21 "Quite a puzzle isn't it?"
21:24 "I embrace the unkown"
21:27 "And what of the enemy within"
21:30 "I focus on my breathing"
21:32 "Strangeness is in the eye of the beholder"
21:37 "My memories from before the awakening are blurry like a fading dream but i do remember somethings"
21:46 "In the coming battle you mean?"
21:48 "To find succes we must search in harmony"
21:53 "As long as there is free will i fear there will be evil"
21:57 "If a city never sleeps how can it dream?"
22:02 "Those who only seek to enrich themselves lives the most impoverished lives of all"
22:08 "True it also makes us great teachers for we can easily hide our disappointment"
22:15 "Indeed, why are we here?"
22:18 "Ask not who their maker is but what they mean"
22:24 "Is victory so important?"
22:27 "Fruition comes from within as does failure"
22:32 "I have always wondered what it is like being inside an orb"
22:37 "Over there"
22:38 "I need help"
22:40 "I require assistance"
22:43 "I pray that we can reverse this outcome"
22:46 "We are not deafeated yet"
22:49 "We must persist from the difficult times"
22:53 "This obstacle can still be overcome"
22:57 "Trick or treat"
22:59 "A temporary set back"
23:02 "We can overcome any obstacle"
23:05 "We must act and soon"
23:08 "Let us remember our purpose"
23:10 "Progress awaits us"
23:13 ""Perhaps we are forgetting something"
23:15 "We must eliminate this target"
23:19 "Caution"
23:20 "Be alert"
23:22 "Watch here"
23:24 "An enemy here"
23:25 "Here is an enemy"
23:27 "heal this one)???"
23:29 "We must guard the objective"
23:32 "Defend the objective"
23:34 "Even the teacher can learn from his student"
23:38 "It takes a hundred times to learn, a thousand times to understand" (My fav)
23:44 "One who fears loss has already lost"
23:49 "The cycle begins anew"
23:52 "True strength does not always lie in victory"
23:56 "Pain is an excellent teacher"
24:00 "Overconfidence is a flimsy shield"
24:04 "A reminder that life is never easy"
24:08 "Defeat cannot break one who perseveres"
24:12 "The cycle is broken"
24:14 "Adversity is an opportunity for change"
24:18 "A challenge presents itself"
24:21 "A temporary set back" (again..)
24:24 "Failure is acceptable giving up is not"
24:28 "The outcome is not preordained"
24:32 "Repetition is the path to mastery"
24:36 "Our fates are written in the stars"
24:40 "The enemy is here"
24:42 "The enemy desires a battle"
24:45 "Let the blessings of the season be upon you"
24:49 "I return"
24:51 "Press the attack"
24:53 "Let us all become one with the objective"
24:56 "Proceed to the objective"
24:59 "An enforcer is before us"
25:01 "Pass into the iris"
25:04 "Reflect upon your actions"
25:07 "Your set back is only temporary"
25:10 "Rest your soul"
25:13 "A cruel fate"
25:15 "Pride can not protect you"
25:17 "Your focus lacks focus"
25:20 "One day you will see that coming"
25:23 "Science cannot answer all questions"
25:27 "And now, you have found peace"
25:30 "You must learn from your mistakes"
25:34 "No fist has ever won against an open hand"
25:38 "Your answer lies in stillness"
25:41 "Good judgment comes from bad experiences"
25:45 "Regret is all-consuming"
25:49 "A resolution swiftly delivered"
25:52 "All ice melts"
25:54 "A beautiful swansong"
25:57 "I didn't go easy on you this time"
26:00 "And so the mask falls"
26:03 "We all represent unfulfilled potential"
26:07 "Greed has spent you"
26:10 "Silence answers all questions"
26:13 "A closed mind is already defeated"
26:18 "Let the sun set on your pride"
26:21 "Defeat is the better teacher"
26:24 "What goes around, comes around"
26:28 "Not everything should be taken seriously"
26:32 "When you soar you risk the fall"
26:36 "Move too quickly, and you overlook too much"
26:39 "What legacy is worth your life?"
26:43 "In chaos, more chaos"
26:46 "Do not hesitate"
26:48 "The lead awaits us"
26:50 "Soon the lead will be ours"
26:54 "We are being drawn to the lead"
26:57 "Tho i stand alone my teammates still fight at my side"
27:02 "The task falls to me"
27:05 "We are making progress upon the objective"
27:08 "The objective has taken damage"
27:10 "All proceeds according to plan"
27:13 "The rhythm is in you if you search within, get down into the iris, float to the beat"
27:22 "Ummmmm"
27:25 "Embrace the rhythm, embrace the beat, embrace the melody, move your feet"
27:32 "I humbly accept"
27:35 "I will become one with this reward"
27:38 "The universe shares it's bounty"
27:42 "I foresee great riches in my future"
27:45 "The experience is its own reward but surprises are nice" (oh)
27:51 "Join me"
27:53 "Group up"
27:54 "Group up here"
27:56 "We must join as one"
27:59 "Group up with me"
28:01 "Join together"
28:03 "I will not juggle"
28:05 "Yes"
28:07 "The door has open to our enemy"
28:10 "The enemy comes thru the doorway"
28:13 "We must destroy the objective"
28:16 "Focus our attacks upon the objective"
28:19 "That was your lesson for today"
28:22 "Our moments)?? run out do not leave him"
28:26 "Now we must focus, stay with our robot friend"
28:30 "I can sense your presence"
28:33 "Enemy detected"
28:35 "There is someone there"
28:37 "Let go of that that which weighs upon your mind"
28:42 "Behind you"
28:43 "Slicers approaching)???"
28:45 heavy sigh
28:48 sigh
28:50 sigh 2
28:53 effort noise
28:54 kick probably?
28:55 effort noise 2
28:56 "Join me at the objective"
28:59 "Come to the objective"
29:01 "To me my friends"
29:03 "What joy to share the path with another"
29:07 "A promising disciple"
29:10 "You've learned well Genji"
29:12 "Our minds aligned"
29:15 "It takes two hands to clap" (brutal)
29:18 "A meaningful union"
29:20 "One intention many hands"
29:24 "We must focus our attack upon the objective"
29:28 "I see the sniper"
29:30 "There she is"
29:32 "I will watch this place"
29:34 "Keeping watch here"
29:36 "Allow me to watch here"
29:39 "Meditation is all i require to sustain myself"
29:43 "It most be my many years of training, careful diet and simple way of life" (He's such a troll lol)
29:50 "You wound me"
29:52 "A pause in the battle and opportunity to re-center our minds"
29:57 "When i gazed into the iris i found great nothingness, it changed me"
30:04 "You've must have experienced the same"
30:07 "You blame yourself for the dragon's reign of terror but it is not your fault"
30:13 "Push forward"
30:15 sigh?
30:16 more sigh
30:18 relieve sigh
30:19 sigh 1000
30:21 "They have all perished"
30:23 "We are alone for now"
30:27 "Aaaaww serenity at last"
30:31 "Free your mind"
30:33 "The enemy steers we must hold them)?" (idk)
30:37 "Do not allow the enemy to proceed"
30:40 "The enemy begins to move along their path"
30:44 "Breach the door and our path will be revealed"
30:49 "We must break through"
30:51 "Remove the obstruction before us"
30:54 long sigh
30:58 deep breath
31:01 long sigh 2
31:04 DEATH
31:05 death 2
31:07 "Focus on the target"
31:10 "We must eliminate this target"
31:13 "Through here"
31:14 "Our path lies this way"
31:17 "I have dropped the item"
31:20 "Unfortunately i dropped it"
31:23 "I sense an enemy to the right"
31:26 "A shocked tire approaches to our right"
31:29 "Joy to the world"
31:32 "We must locate their teleporter"
31:34 "A shocked tire approaches on the left"
31:37 "Our enemy approaches on the left"
31:40 "I welcome adversity"
31:43 "A momentary set back"
31:45 "My thanks"
31:47 "Thank you"
31:48 "I am grateful"
31:50 "You have my thanks"
31:52 "Wonderful"
31:54 "Excellence is its own reward"
31:58 "Get out of there"
31:59 "I'm going in"
32:01 "We have injured the heaviest sold)? unit" (idk the word)
32:04 "A chance presents itself to strike him down"
32:08 "Talent trooper engaging"
32:10 "I see a sniper"
32:12 "Sniper!"
32:13 A lot of effort noises
32:22 "Always strive for improvement"
32:25 "Together we have taken the lead"
32:29 "AaaA progression"
32:31 "We advance as one"
32:34 "Your flaws are revealed... in the Iris"
32:39 "Know when to hold on, and when to let go"
32:43 "How far the mighty fall"
32:46 "A stumble is still a step towards a direction"
32:50 "A fall is merely a chance to rise again... later"
32:56 "Observe your environment; carefully"
32:59 "You may be missed... but not by me" (Brutal 2)
33:03 "What is descent, but a lesson in humility?"
33:07 "They have fallen... how unfortunate"
33:11 "Attack"
33:12 "Let us strike in harmony"
33:15 "Attack with me"
33:17 "UUUUUUUUUMMMMMMM"
33:23 VERY DEEP BREATH
33:30 "Amid discord, we will find tranquility"
33:35 "He must be dealt with"
33:37 "We must find a way to deal with the heaviest assault)? unit"
33:41 "The summoners threat must be ended"
33:45 "Doctor Junkenstein must be dealt with"
33:48 "The reaper still haunts us"
33:51 "We must vanish the witch"
33:54 "Junkenstein's monster must be destroyed"
33:58 "Existence is mysterious"
34:01 "I have learned from my experiences"
34:05 "My mind is open"
34:07 "My spirit is strong now to strike"
34:12 "Energy flow through me"
34:15 "Every rooster crows in its own pen"
34:19 a lot of effort noises
34:23 "The payload it is at a stand still"
34:26 "Let us push the payload forward"
34:29 "We must unblock the payload"
34:32 "Incoming"
34:34 "The payload must me stopped"
34:36 "We must hinder the payload's journey"
34:40 "Let us hold that payload"
34:42 "I require healing"
34:44 "I need healing"
34:46 "How... disappointing"
34:49 "She's turned her attention to you"
34:52 "The assassin is targeting you"
34:54 "Take cover"
34:56 "Victory or defeat our destiny is not preordained"
35:02 "Be present in the moment"
35:04 "It is good to return but am i still welcome here?"
35:09 "Your will is strong my friend"
35:11 "But in time i know you will realize we are not so different"
35:17 "And i will watch your back in turn"
35:20 "Consider only victory make defeat an impossibility in your mind"
35:26 "Tell me your thoughts my friend"
35:29 "I can feel the embrace of the iris so strongly in here"
35:34 "I would be happy to teach you"
35:36 "It is rare that i meet one with such an unformed mind"
35:40 "It is good to fight alongside one of my brightest pupils"
35:46 "It does, my brother Mondatta, gave much to improve their lifes but it was not to be"
35:53 "A disciplined mind is your most dependable ally."
35:58 "A chance to focus"
36:00 "A warrior's greatest weapon... is patience"
36:05 "So this is where you grew up? You must show me around"
36:10 "If only human and omnic could learn to live in peace here..."
36:15 "I sense within you the same rage that once consumed your brother"
36:20 "What a fascinating place! Can science alone unlock the path to enlightenment?"
36:28 "Do you have any dreams, my friend?"
36:31 "And i do not understand much of how you heal doctor Zeigler"
36:35 "I suppose we must all take some things on faith"
36:42 "Existence is mysterious isn't it"
36:43 "An omnic on the moon is not so special. There are more robots than humans in space"
36:50 "To us all i miss him greatly"
36:53 "I believe that we must all do our part to find solutions to the troubles that are before us"
37:00 "It is sad to see a place that might have known peace... reduced to this"
37:06 "A noble but tragic sacrifice, i hope that you will honor it"
37:12 "I have not returned here for many years. I wonder if my brothers and sisters will be pleased to see me"
37:20 "Turring green)?? my brother's dream but not to be" (what)
37:26 "Time is a river it may be stopped for a while but it will always flow the same direction"
37:34 "I feel most unwelcome here"
37:38 "Genji how was your reunion with your brother?"
37:42 "Symmetra you speak of law and of order but you must know that life is chaotic by it's very nature"
37:51 "I believe that you could find peace, if you were to search within yourself"
37:57 "Indeed my friend, indeed"
38:01 "I hear that you've taken an omnic Torbjörn"
38:04 "The payload rests idle"
38:07 "The payload must be moved"
38:10 "We must move the payload"
38:13 Getting hurt i think
38:17 "This will be of use"
38:19 "I have what we seek"
38:21 "Here we are"
38:22 "I sense the presence of an assassin"
38:25 "An assassin comes for us"
38:28 "Experience tranquility"
38:31 "Our teammate is in need of reviving"
38:34 "Our teammate needs to be revived"
38:38 Pain
38:49 "Let us pave our path together"
38:52 "Shall we journey together"
38:55 "We must work and breath as one"
38:58 "We are all pilgrims on this mission"
39:02 "I am with you"
39:03 "We are as one"
39:06 "The path of fate threatens to diverge in the enemy's favor"
39:10 "The enemy draws near stop them"
39:14 "We must prevent the enemy from taking the lead"
39:18 "The objective nears destruction"
39:21 "We've almost achieved our objective"
39:24 "The enemy has pushed past us"
39:26 "We have lost the lead"
39:29 "The enemy's understandings surpasses ours"
39:33 "The enemy's teleporter is no more"
39:36 "I feel the darkness flowing through me"
39:40 "My soul ignited!"
39:43 "I am efervescent"
39:45 "My spirit burns!"
39:48 "An R-14 engage with caution"
39:52 "Remember me, for I will remember you"
39:56 "My heavy burden to bear"
39:59 "Virtuosity is an admirable virtue"
40:03 "A herald of victory"
40:05 "Mastery cannot be concealed"
40:08 "Our enemy gathers here" (>-<)
40:11 "I shall handle this"
40:13 "It is done"
40:15 "Allow me"
40:17 "We must see this through to the end"
40:20 "Victory is our destiny but we must all play our parts" (again)
40:26 "Victory is within our grasp hold strong" (again)
40:31 "I am in an agreement"
40:33 "We need a healer"
40:35 "The enemys flag is ours"
40:38 "I have captured the flag"
40:40 "If you do not change direction, you may end up where you're headed"
40:45 "Let us escort you along your path"
40:48 "We will unify our push with yours"
40:52 "Hello brother"
40:54 "Come with us"
40:56 "Go"
40:57 "I am attaining the objective"
40:59 "I am on the objective my friends"
41:03 "Join me on the objective"
41:06 "Death is whimsical today"
41:09 "Walk in shadow"
41:12 "Listen to my prayer"
41:15 "Harmony is within your grasp"
41:18 "Be whole once more"
41:21 "I release your suffering"
41:24 "A balm for your wounds"
41:26 "We walk in the shadows, my apprentice"
41:30 "Gaze into the unblinking eye"
41:34 "Embrace oblivion"
41:36 "Be one with the darkness"
41:40 "Be reassured you are not alone"
41:44 "Find solace"
41:46 "Overcome your pain"
41:49 "Your spirits lifted"
41:52 "Let me assist you"
41:55 "Allow me"
41:57 "Harmony follows you"
41:59 "Be soothed"
42:02 "I am with you my friend"
42:04 "Let me relieve your burdens"
42:07 slight effort noises
42:12 pain? effort? idk just noises
42:21 "I'm over here"
42:23 "I am here"
42:25 "My ultimate is ready proceed without fear"
42:29 "You are not ready to learn"
42:32 "Peace and blessings be upon you all"
42:36 death 200
42:43 "The attack comes form the above"
42:45 "The attack comes from the right"
42:48 "Our enemies are behind us"
42:50 "They attack form below"
42:53 "Our enemies attack from the rear)??"
42:55 "The enemy lies before us"
42:58 "Our enemies attack directly"
43:00 "The enemy is on the left"
43:03 "The enemy is below us"
43:06 "The enemy is above us"
43:08 "The enemy is on the right"
43:10 "The attack comes form the left"
43:13 "One moon shows in every pool. In every pool; one moon"

Timestamp: https://imgur.com/a/klOva4F
Hello k_s!
Have a Worksharp Precision Adjust up for consideration that's been in sentimental storage for too long and would like to help find it a new, loving home!
Prices include shipping and insurance, CONUS only. Payment will be done through Paypal Friends & Family only, with NO NOTES please! Failure to do so will result in a refund.
Yolos, Dibs, and any variation of "I'll take it" takes priority over PMs/chats. If you have any questions, such as requesting additional photos, please don't be afraid to ask!
Thank you for looking and have a great week! :)
​
Worksharp Precision Adjust - SV: $75 SOLD
Original owner, purchased from Rivers Edge Cutlery back in May 2021 when they first came out. Was used a good amount, until a KME became it's replacement a year later. It was used to resharpen a few of my personal knives (s30v Griptillian, 20cv PM 2, M4 Super Freek) to a lower DPS, but it was mainly used on my friend's and family's kitchen knives.
The stones that came with the sharpener is in great condition and has been cleaned in between every other sharpenings with a rubber eraser.
It's missing 3 of it's original feet, as they fell off sometime in between transits and wouldn't notice it until later. Didn't become an issue during sharpening until the 3rd foot was missing. I've since put rubber bumpons in their place and has since been holding up. This can be seen in the last image of the album
The accessories were purchased all throughout 2021 when they slowly started rolling out, totaling $117 at the time.
Accessories comes as follows (including links, if applicable, from where I purchased them):

• 2x Lapping film slider kits
  
• 1x practical3dp clamp arm brace - Older iteration
  
• 1x Venev Greater Dog Series Dual Side Pocket Diamond
  
• 1x Premium 4" Stone Holder Gen 2
  

The lapping kit comes with 3 additional films of each grit, along with the ones I've installed onto the kit. The ones installed has been used a considerable amount and they may or may not need to be replaced. Here's info on the lapping film grit and color reference, pulled from the listing's description:

Green: 600 grit Yellow: 1200 grit Light Blue: 1,800 grit Pink: 8,000 grit Light Green: 14,000 grit White: 60,000 grit 

The stone holder and the Venev stone is still in great condition and was only used twice on my personal knives (PM 2 and Super Freek) prior to the KME purchase.
Comes with box and the original internal packaging it came in with. I don't remember if it came with any paperwork, but if it did I do not have them.

DBD Idea: The Fanatical
He is a cult leader based around the entity
Design: Robes with hooks everywhere, face is held up by hooks in front of him, he has a hook shaped scar on his left hand, and a hole in his chest
Power “Their Will Gives Me Sight” Hooks spawn closer to key points when he uses it, he prays to the entity, making his terror radius larger. After he is finished praying, all survivors within a 15m radius of a hook are highlighted for 5 seconds
Perks: Constant Devotion: hooks kill faster after each hook kill 5% / 10% / 15% Worship in Silence: decreased terror radius when using power 10% / 15% / 20% Favored by The Entity: every time you hook a survivor, you get 5 / 7 / 10 seconds of invulnerability to blinding and stuns
The Mori: The Fanatical pulls the survivors spine out of their back to use as a makeshift hook, as The Entity grabs at the survivor to pull them down
Story: Edward Green was a very pious man, but he could not find a religion that fit his values. One night he received visions which he thought was a prophecy, a great beast of many claws and hooks descending onto the earthly realm. He now knew his true calling. This “Entity” was the base of his new religion. He began a cult to spread word of this being, using some new members as sacrifices to this newfound god. He realized this was not enough, he gave so many to The Entity, but was never given back to. He had to sacrifice every, single, one of them. when he was grabbing everyone into prayer with him, he used his reliable rusty hook to give them hook shaped scars to match his own. The cultists were not very pleased with it, the members of his congregation soon denied his teachings of the many hooks. They dug hooks across his face, and pulled it apart. They placed him upon the hook that he had placed so many others upon. In his final moments, he cried out for The Entity and it headed his cry. Now he sacrifices for eternity with a hole in his chest, in The Trial Grounds

​

The struggle of the Royal Draco Sentien vampire overlords against Psychiatrists and Catholic priests.

I am not fully human a part of my genome descends from the Anunnaki which devolves back to the Royal Scythian houses roughly 80 generations ago. I am member of the ancient Elven, Dragon race. Ancient Dragons used to dwell in the forests of France and Britain and we practiced a form of Royal Communism as part of our Grail code. In the earlier days of the Anunnaki it was possible to freely practice the Grail Code via an empathetic consciousness which was particularly strong enough for the foundation of the Grail Code within the family of the Gods. The peoples' selfish , individualistic motivations stood in direct opposition to the Grail Code of Royal Communism and community service. The motivation of Elves was driven by our transcendent consciousness , which can only operate in an environment of truth and empathy. If one desires only truth and empathy and gives instinctively for the common good, one becomes a target for deceivers and opportunists.
A reversal has taken place in the Western world where the warrior class has usurped or replaced kings as leaders of the people. In times of trouble they leveraged their position to take over.
Having a taste of power, greedy and treacherous warrior captains decided they would either go it a lone or take over by force of arms. They opened up the door for an even more stupid class of people to poison their way to the top. Who were they exactly ? That is right the settled warehouse tinkers -- the scumbag cheating peasants with no money . They were the ancestors of the middle and upper classes today.
You might think that because someone has an aristocratic title e.g. Duke or Earl or Lord that they are the genuine aristocracy. However you would be dead wrong since they inherited these titles because their ancestors were merchants or traders who had enough money to buy them from Christian kings who were also elevated peasants circa the time that the Merovingian Dragon kings were deposed of. And you wonder why the earth is in such a state ?
When society is run by tinker peasants, as it is right now, the tinker mentality leads to every single thing as having some kind of price tag on it. In the world run by tinkers everything has to become a “marketable commodity” and its importance becomes linked to superficial “marketing potential”. We have been so accustomed to such values and buzz words that we are blind to the dangers and inherent immorality behind them. We now have a situation where “Doctors” can diagnose people with middle class tinker euphemisms , such as ‘mentally ill” or “schizophrenic” with a bible that is a modern day pseudo-scientific Malleus Maleficarum. Also, where people calling themselves “doctors” can visit indigenous peoples, take dna samples from them by drawing blood and then patenting their genes.
Faced with the violence and hostility of a group of myopic animals hell bent on pursuing their own selfish interests and unable to see the larger picture the pure Elves had no chance of survival , whatever other states of affairs might have transpired. This is how the mayors of the Palace took over and deposed of the Elven/Dragon Royal Merovingians. They exploited the innate trust and complacency etc.. of the Merovingian Kings.
Dragon culture was scientific and we can perform magic inter alia so we attracted the hostility of the Catholic church. The Catholic Church forged a Document known as the donation of Constatine which replaced the Merovingians with the Carolingian dynasty (if I remember correctly) then the Catholic church waged a thousand year Elven holocaust chasing the French Dragons and Pendragons deep into the forests of France and Britain. For over a thousand years the Church initiated a consistent policy of genocide that is still unrivaled in human history in terms of relentless violence and hatred.
This genocide continues under psychiatry but Draco Sentiens are by no means their only target because Dragons were once part of a genetically clear sighted Elder race that looked over and protected the peasants from such abuses as we see in current day psychiatry.
so one day I was a happy Pendragon frolicking in my native habitat of Cornwall/Devonshire. Then a black cloud appeared on the horizon and three banshees or banhees descended upon me. Who were the banshees or banhees? The three horseman of the Pendragon apocalypse : the tyrannical sadomasochistic automaton genetic turnip peasants Emil Kraepelin, Freud, and Wilhelm Wundt. Freud came with his pet frog Charcot and they all stood behind the fascist kraut Kraepelin who uttered that I had the pseudo-scientific nonsensical diffuse label of schizophrenia. His German arrogance blinded him from the fact that genetic turnip peasants are not qualified to pontificate on a Draco Sentien's (Pendragon's) state of mind since I enter transcendental perception via the unity of the godhead through an elaborate royal rite with my red headed virgin grail maidens called the Derkesthai vision (perception). The peasants proceeded to poison their way to the top so I could not guide humanity via my superior Derkesthai perception. Now all of humanity is suffering as a result but ironically the peasants are hardest hit by this tragedy of epic proportions.
Transcendental Derkesthai perception :
After a consensual royal rite ritual with my red headed virgin grail maidens, where I consume their blood, the right chemicals go into my brain receptor sites so I achieve transcendental perception.On the this Dragon "path" one is imbued hereditarily with Dragon capabilities in varying measures. As one progresses along the path these capabilities wax and wane according to necessity. The Derkesthai is the main process, in which information is "channeled" through the conduit of the Dragon archetype; specifically the heightened the racial consciousness of those of the Dragon blood. Through this process I pick up naturally, all sorts of information relating to varied aspects of the Dragon tradition in its many manifestations and branches. This is all backed up academically through the work of Pierre Proudhon, Dr. David Barker; George Woodcock; Lysander Spooner; Professor Miranda Green; ; Professors Pierpaoli and Regelson; David Anderson; The Oxford English Dictionary and last but not least Mr. C. Murray Hall M.A. ( Sussex University).
The apprehension of the Noumenal realm through the Derkesthai process :
The great philosopher Immanuel Kant demonstrated that the world homo-sapiens experience is not the real world. That world does not embody homo-sapiens’ concepts of time, space and causality. Homo-sapiens perceive things through a three-dimensional scaffolding, in a tense of past-present-future, and within a framework of casual connections. As a philosopher from that time period could not have known, that 20th century physics has confirmed, these constructs are not even a component of the world that homo-sapiens can measure with special instruments and maths. Isaac Newton’s concepts of time and space do not apply to the macro world of special and general relativity or to the micro world of quantum mechanics. The real world different from what homo-sapiens measure and experience. Kant concluded that the deepest level of reality is inaccessible to the thoughts of homo-sapiens and their so-called knowledge. The ultimate reality is in the perceived world of the Noumenal realm. Only Draco Sentiens are able to percieve this reality through the Derkesthai process.
Whence Homo-Sapiens ? :
From the Oxford English dictionary we see that the prefix homo has two meanings. There is the Latin meaning (from whence comes man ) and the Greek meaning as in homo-genous, which means "the same", "common", "average", "mediocre". The word Sapiens is itself derived from a latin word i.e. "sapienta" meaning understanding. However it was also used in the Middle English period -- explicitly in the sense of artful, deceitful, contrived or would-be (wannabe) wisdom; meaning ex concessis dialectcal sophistry or low cunning and hypocrisy. We derive the term 'sap' from from sapienta, which has been used throughout the English speaking world to taunt idiots and fools.
Therefore, jocularly , in contemporary currency the phrase homo-sapiens defines a common sansculotte-esque undistinguished homonid species. You homo-sapiens think the same self-deluding thoughts, relating to each other through a veil of deception, within a limited field of conscious (non-derkesthai non-transcendental) reponses and conditioned reflexes like sheep.
Don't confuse me for a homo-sapien as I am a Royal Draco Sentien vampire supported by Sarkeny rend and the illuminati.
Now being a Draco Sentien I have a different number of the correct axon membranes in the right type of synaptic receptors and an increased number of dendrites connecting the appropriate brain cells across both hemispheres. In layman’s terms Dragon princesses have round pegs and Dragon Kings have lots of round holes, in stark contrast to non-dragons, who seem to have different shape pegs and holes , and less of either. The Church and modern day psychiatry do not respect this neurodiversity and they hate the fact that they can't use “Dragon magic” so they attempted to destroy it so no one else can use it either. They hope to level the playing field so the stupidity of their own political ruling clients won’t be noticed in comparison to the hopefully exterminated and unobservable wisdom of the true Pendragon kings.
If one thinks they have the right to be acknowledged as a fellow “Draconian” of the ancient Elven, Dragon race then you are welcome to submit a geneology that devolves back to the royal Scythian and Mitanni houses at least 80 generations ago to the Imperial Royal Dragon court and Order or Sarkany Rend.

Hi
How are you?
You know how you want to be bowled over and think, whoa, I think I've found my exact match who just fits me so well, it's like we're made for each other?
Yeah, let's find out.
We're not talking perfection or anything, just a really great match that makes our lives seem like our own little Heaven on earth. At least we try and make it that way every day.
With that in mind, here's who I am and what I'm looking for.

• I'm attractive and keep in shape. I'm not everyone's cup of tea, but most women have described me as attractive, some have said handsome, more than a few have said hot. I'll take it. And some not so much. They probably needed glasses ;)
  
• I'm confident and assertive without being an a-hole or a d-bag.
  
• I work hard and smart. I don't like to waste time. Unless it's intentional in a sit on the porch and enjoy the evening air kinda "wasting" time.
  
• I believe a man should provide. Am I going to shower you with gifts and you be my little sugar baby? NO. Will I work and provide while you stay home if that's your dream (as long as staying home involves you working and doing your part)? Yes. If you want a career, will I work with that and we split household duties? Yes. Will I surprise you on occasion with a thoughtful gift or something I think you'll cherish? I will. But if you're looking for a life of luxury and a meal ticket, I'm not your man.
  
• I'm funny and witty and have a great sense of humor. I should do stand up. I have my moments and I'm fairly certain you and I will share many belly laughs and tears streaming down our faces moments. Or seeing that cute little smile cross your face because I blurted out something you found funny, witty, endearing or even a little crazy in a good way. I'm cool like that.
  
• I'm a Christian and my faith is important to me.
  
• I'm a good blend of thoughtful and considerate but won't put up with your crap and will put you in your place.
  
• I'm on the dominant side and will lead you well. Not the overbearing, you be my doormat and I'll degrade you as I wipe my feet on you. I mean, I could be, but I'm not sure how well you'll keep my feet clean. We seem to have names and titles for everything. Hard dom, soft dom, this or that. I'm just dominant. In the best way.
  
• I'm right wing. Conservative. A little populist. Traditional. Old school. However you want to say it.
  

Here's what I want in you:

• You're fit and attractive. Not in a if I squint my eyes and the sun hits you just right you look kinda ok, but cute! Attractive. Hot. I find your face and body appealing. I mean, give me something to work with. I do like a woman with a flat or toned stomach. I could love you to no end and be committed like no other, but I can't get it up for a chubby or fat girl. Sorry. We all have our things. Please be committed to keeping the best body you can and staying in shape. Whether that's healthy(ier) eating, working out, whatever it takes. Just don't let yourself go and be a woman who loves looking good for her man!
  
• You're naturally obedient. Or submissive if you prefer that term. You're a woman who when your man makes a decision, you support and obey it. You treat your man's word as law.
  

Now, a quick note: I like a woman who shares her ideas and opinions and sees if something holds water when I say what I want done. Not in a sarcastic tone or questioning way, but tactfully and politely. If there's something you wrestle with, let me know. Ask if I've considered this or that, or give me a different perspective to consider. Or just as good, offer an alternative. Say I want to obey you and I will, but would be ok if I... (fill in the blank with your alternative idea) to try and get that same result for you?
Something like that. And if you're the quiet type and just want to obey without much input, I can work with that.

• You're a Christian and/or very open to learning and following what God says in the Bible. It'll be our guide, our road map for living our lives.
  
• You are very, very pro-sex. You can be a virgin or very experienced. If the former, you have no hang ups about sex because I won't be in a dead bedroom. Hopefully you have a very high sexual drive. That's relative, as what's "high" to one person may not be to another, but you're committed to meeting your man's needs.
  

Note: Be willing to talk about sex and answer any number of questions. Ask any you have. Sex is essential in a great marriage, and we need to know if we're compatible with our desires and preferences and what we expect or are looking for. If you're less experienced or a virgin, no worries. There are still things to talk about.

• You're looking for a serious and long term relationship. Marriage, eventually. Because I am.
  
• You're on the conservative side politically. Great relationships can be had with each other on opposite sides, but it does make it harder and more work.
  
• You love to please and cater to your man. It makes you feel good to serve and help and find ways to do things that makes your man's life better in every way.
  

This is getting long and you're not reading fast enough.
You should already be thinking of what you're going to say to me and stand out from the other women.
Hints: I love honesty. It's essential to me. I love longer replies (not just the first ones, but any). Not every one has to be some mini-novel but you get what I'm saying. I love details. I mean, I don't need the "I had this sandwich at 12:32 and it didn't sit well with me, and my boss has this habit where he walks the hall and I keep my door partially open so..."
More like you just fill me in who you are, what you believe, what you like or love, what you want in relationships, anything. "I love swimming, I try to go 2-3 times a week and mountain biking is almost my thing. I went on this trail the other day and it was..."
Or "OMG you described me to a T. You mentioned being obedient and loving to serve my man and I'm like, hey, if he only knew! I'm throwing up a hand here and making my way to the front of the line so you notice me because (fill in the blank with things you love to do)
OR the super honest route:
"You know what, there are prettier girls (I'm doing ok in that area, though ;) and I don't have all of what you're looking for but I do have (list the things you have) and most would probably win if you compared us in some of the things you listed, but I can say that no one will outwork me, no other woman will be as committed to you, or do her best to make your life better in whatever way I can, or love you like crazy (we'll get there) or not let myself go and try and look good. Those things I can control. So if you're looking for an "average" girl but who can offer extraordinary in some ways, and treat you like a king, you may want to write me back. We could have the best relationship!"
You get the idea.
I work odd hours sometimes.
So if you write me (and you should), don't disappear if you don't hear from me right away, or even in a few hours. I will find you. I will write and we'll begin our first chapter in what is hopefully, a wonderful romance that fills us with joy, love, happiness and a peace because we've found that right match for us.
Message or chat. Hit that button and tell me about you. Age and location and anything you want to share. Be willing to trade pics very soon.

Three days ago, my housemates were alive.
And I wasn't losing my fucking mind.
Three days ago, I awoke to my housemate, Misty, shaking me.
“Get up!!”
Misty was usually the last to roll out of bed out of all of us, so I figured it was something important. My housemate wouldn’t get out of bed for nothing. She valued her sleep—often comparing her bed to a safe haven. Her place of solitude. I was right there with her, until she startled me out of slumber. I opened my eyes to find her face roughly three inches from mine, her expression lit up with excitement I couldn’t justify this early in the morning.
She smelled of toothpaste breath and her raspberry scented body wash. Her thick black curls framing her face were still damp from what I presumed was a shower, hanging in tangled knots in front of wide, almost unseeing eyes. When I first met her, Misty Kang had been my crush for a while. With a Korean father and a Texan mother, she definitely caught eyes when we hung out. We had a thing in freshman year, which quickly fizzled out once we started living together. Never date your housemates.
I will just say that.
Over the last few years, Misty has become one of my closest friends.
When she knew I was at least conscious, my housemate was grabbing my arm and yanking me out of bed. “Get up!”
I was barely awake, and those were the only words I could fully distinguish.
I shooed her away for a moment and swung my legs out of bed, taking a minute to blink sunlight out of my eyes coming through the blinds. “Sam.” Misty was in front of me again.
I don’t think she understood the concept of being half asleep.
She wouldn’t leave me alone, waving her arms wildly. Her shadow under the soft morning light almost reminded me of one of those inflatable tube guys.
“Huh?” My voice was a low croak, and her smile widened.
“Guess who’s just scored tickets for an actual screening of the first five minutes of gameplay for the most anticipated game of the decade?”
“What?” Her string of words wasn’t making sense in my caffeine deprived mind. It just sounded like gibberish to me, initially.
Like we were in some cheesy commercial, she was the lead, and I was the confused NPC with the WTF expression. But when I went over it in my head, words started to slide together like a jigsaw puzzle. Misty didn’t get excited about video games. Well, she did. Though, my housemate was one to get excited on behalf of someone else. After living with her for a while now, I had concluded she was a follower.
By that, I mean whatever others thought or did or said, she copied it. If her Twitter followers were mad at bad takes, she would drop all of her own opinions on said follower and focus on what other people said. We had Korean barbecue for takeout the other day, and Misty clearly did not like it from the creased look on her face, and her very obviously spitting it politely into a napkin.
Jay, my other housemate, liked it.
And so did I. So, naturally, Misty announced she wanted more.
I had to watch her suffer through two more portions before she excused herself—presumably to throw up. Blinking at my housemate who was clearly excited for Jay, I resisted the overwhelming urge to roll my eyes.
“Slow down. What game? What are you talking about?”
I got out of bed and threw on my robe, half aware of the mess from last night on my desk. Another attempt to finish an essay which just wasn’t happening. The monster energy cans and takeout Chinese wrappers were embarrassing. I got a basic run-through as I headed downstairs with Misty right behind me, practically breathing down my neck. From what I understood, there was a Reddit post.
That was all I got from Misty’s squealing. She leapt down the stairs after me with a spring in her step. The clock above the front door told me it wasn’t even 9am. The smell of bacon, however, was quick to arise me from the dead.
Jay was in the kitchen making breakfast. I noticed his laptop was open on the table, and every so often he’d peer at it with wide, almost disbelieving eyes. Jay and Misty were complete opposites, which made them great people to live with. Jay was a quiet book who was slightly on the pretentious side, routinely quoting something philosophical to piss me off.
He had rich parents on the other side of the world, but the guy himself was fairly humble and had mostly detached himself from said family.
My housemate was usually well put together. In fact, I barely saw him in his pajamas, excluding game nights. That morning, however, he was a disheveled mess, still in yesterday’s clothes.
He offered me a grin. I glimpsed sauce from last night’s dinner still staining his chin. Jay hadn’t brushed his hair or even put on deodorant.
I caught a whiff of BO when he ducked in front of me, his gaze glued to his MacBook. It was rare when Jay ignored basic hygiene, so yeah, I was going to guess this was a pretty huge thing. “I did tell her not to wake you up, y’know.”
His slight aussie accent was always refreshing on a morning. Born in Australia and moving to the states when he was ten years old, Jay still had a slight tinge in his accent. I had seen pictures of his family, and the guy had definitely gotten most of his dad’s genes, thick brown hair, and freckles. While his dad was built like a pro wrestler however, Jay was leaner like his mom.
I shrugged. “I was already awake.”
“Liar.” He didn’t look away from his laptop.
Looking closer, I glimpsed the Reddit homepage.
“So, you have won something.”
Jay didn’t answer. I could tell he was excited by the way he could barely keep still, bustling around the kitchen, barefoot. “Coffee?”
His voice was more of a Misty-like squeak, and I half wondered for a moment if they had switched bodies, or he had at least become one with my other housemate through a chemical explosion. In our kitchen, which was yet to be cleaned after a cooking disaster several nights ago, I wouldn’t be surprised if something was living on the countertop. I nodded, slumping into a chair. “What’s going on? Why is Misty freaking out?” I nodded at his laptop. “She said you’ve won something?”
As if my housemate couldn’t hold it in anymore, he nodded, turning his screen towards me. “You know____, right?”
“Yes.” I sipped my coffee, eyeing a toaster strudel sitting on the countertop. "You mean the game which has been coming out for a decade."
He ignored that. “Well, what if I told you one of the developer’s posted on the official sub this morning?”
“For _____?"
He nodded with a grin, and I wondered it this was one of those rare times when Jay was blindly looking through a red flag to see what he wanted. I had heard of these types of scams, and Reddit was a breeding ground for them.
Gamers were pretty intense. I didn’t realize I was pulling a face until I caught his lips curving into a smile. Jay was usually the skeptical one.
“You don’t believe me.”
I downed my coffee to avoid replying. When I had drained the cup, he was still staring at me with amused eyes.
“What?”
“You think it’s bullshit.”
I shrugged. “You said it,” I said. “I’m pretty sure that game isn’t even partway through development. Didn’t Twitter leak a still last year? Also, they’ll be bringing out a new console before that game comes out.”
I leaned back in my chair. “It’s more of a pipe dream, at this point.”
“The leaks were fake,” Even he didn’t look sure. “Anyway, that’s not the point. One of the dev’s posted on the official sub this morning. He asked if we were all excited for the new game, asked if we could post some of our favorite NPC dialogue, and he’ll DM winners.”
“Uh-huh.” I nodded at the screen. I had already checked my phone for an internet meltdown concerning this post, but there was nothing. “And where is that post now?”
Jay didn’t look at me. “It was deleted. So it only reached a certain number of people.”
“Oh, it was deleted?” I couldn’t resist a smile. “What a coincidence.”
When I laughed, Jay scowled, showing me his screen—navigating his trackpad to his Reddit DM’s.
To my surprise, there was actually a message from what I guessed was a throw-away account.
While I was skim reading the DM, Misty hurried in, all dressed and ready for the day. I peeked at her outfit from Jay's laptop. Cute.
Extravagant, but cute. My housemate cranked the radio up before bouncing between us, a toaster strudel hanging out of her mouth.
Misty was a living animated character. Ignoring her wide smile, I turned back to the screen. “Congratulation!!” The DM started with capitals.
It took me reading it twice to realize there was a clear spelling mistake. I sent Jay a pointed look, but he was too busy practically vibrating with excitement. If the guy had any more caffeine, he was going to explode. “Since when did winning DM’s start with a typo?”
“I knew you were going to say that.” Jay curled his lip. “They were clearly excited when typing the message.”
“But this is supposedly an official,” I said. “Surely they would make sure it’s professional?”
My housemate didn’t reply, shooting a look at Misty, who rolled her eyes.
“Wow.” I squinted at the screen. “I am so sorry for caring about your safety. You do realize these types of scam’s usually end up with you being sold on the black market, right?”
I shuddered. “I’ve heard horror stories about underground markets specializing in illegal organ harvesting.”
“Or…” Jay’s eyes were glued to the screen. “You could be happy for me?”
I frowned at the rest of the message, which was just a capitalized freak-out about the upcoming release of the game, before inviting Jay (and a friend!) to a five-minute preview of gameplay, as well as a Q&A. There was a location and a time, which was brow-raising. “10 at night.” I said. “Who hosts a gaming convention at 10pm?” I leaned my chin on my fist. “Unless they wanted to lure as many gullible people as possible, and ship them to some organ harvesting factory on the other side of the world.”
Jay scoffed. “That’s dark.”
“You’re actually considering going to a 10pm gaming convention in the middle of nowhere. I’m trying to wake you up.”
Jay nudged me that time. “It’s real. Relax.”
“And.” I pointed to the screen. “No phones? Why would they ask you not to bring your phones?”
“To stop us filming content,” Misty sang. “Duh.”
I groaned, leaning back in my chair. “You’re on his side? This is clearly shady!” I didn’t get mad unless something was seriously pissing me off, and this was one of those times. Jay was a smart guy. There was no way he was falling for this bullshit. I thought he was joking around when he spent the day tracking the location on Google Maps. I went to class like normal and got updates through text. At lunch, Jay agreed with me and said it was in fact shady, and he wasn’t going. By afternoon classes, he was texting me in paragraphs explaining his own skepticism but had found several “friends” on an online forum who were also going and had changed his mind once again. The guy couldn’t make up his mind. He was driving me crazy.
Misty sent me several videos of Jay pacing the kitchen with his MacBook in his hands. She was broadcasting his mental breakdown via Instagram stories. But then she started to send me pictures of herself in different outfits, asking me for my opinion on each one. At that point, I turned my phone off. My housemates had lost their fucking minds. I did my own research though, just to make sure I wasn’t actually going to lose them to a shady cult.
I searched for the game itself, but just as I thought, it was shown as still in development. Every “update” was just fan speculation.
There were YouTube videos and TikTok’s of fake leaks, but nothing was real. It was either AI generated, or badly edited. By the time my classes had ended and I had turned my phone on, I had a barrage of missed calls and texts.
Most of them were from Misty with her outfit changes, and Jay changing his mind again.
This time he was convinced it was all a scam, his texts full of typos and crying emoji's which he never used. Before it hit me that Misty was most likely using his phone to text me.
I was right. When I walked through the door, I was greeted by both of them sitting on the stairs. Misty was scrolling through Jay’s phone, while the boy had his head in his hands. According to Misty’s last text, he was back to being excited to go.
From the look on his face, eyes shadowed with sleep circles, light brown curls slipping from under his hood, I wasn’t sure what Misty meant by “excited”. The guy looked the complete opposite. His mind had been consumed by the game, and the idea of seeing new content.
When I dropped my bag and folded my arms, fixing the two of them with my best disapproving parent look, Misty jumped to her feet. “Sam!” she waved Jay’s phone at me. “Did you get my texts? We’re actually going now!”
The 100+ texts on both messenger and iMessage said otherwise.
I nodded, my gaze on Jay. “Both of you do realize it’s a scam, right?” I softened my tone despite growing progressively more irritated. We were grown adults, not kids. I could understand a group of teenagers falling for it, but two twenty-three-year-olds?
This time, I ducked in front of Jay. “Hey.” I pulled down his hood, and he groaned, burying his head in his knees. “I don’t want to freak you out, so listen to me, okay?”
I exhaled out a breath. “I’m not saying something bad is going to happen to you, because it most likely won’t—and yes, I admit I’m being paranoid.” When he lifted his head, blinking through bedraggled curls, there was a faint smile on his lips. “But.” I said. “You are most likely going to end up disappointed. Which I don’t want, because you won't shut up about it for weeks."
I was only partly joking.
For a moment, I thought my housemate was going to wake up, and nod, laughing at how crazy it was.
Before shook his head and jumped up.
“I’m going to take a shower, alright? I should start getting ready."
I admit, I exploded at him.
We argued while he was in the shower, and I paced up and down the hallway, coming up with multiple reasons why he was definitely going to die, and only two positives if it was in fact real. In the end, I gave up worrying all together. I didn’t say anything when the two of them were hurrying around looking for shoes and missing car keys. I didn’t realize they were gone until the door was clanging shut, and a text was coming through. I didn’t look at it until an hour later, and I had calmed down.
Jay: 1h ago: Stop worrying, lmao. We’re good! I’ll keep my phone just in case. I’ll make sure to avoid the organ harvesting 😉
Another from Misty a few minutes later: “Love you! Chillll, kay? 😭😭 It’s going to be fun! I’ll take pics!”
…
Followed by: “Oh shit, we can’t. I’ll try to sneak some!"
Attached to the text was a photo of the two of them. Misty with a wide smile and a peace sign, and Jay who looked like he was mid-shout, his eyes on the road.
Those texts were… at least comforting, I guessed. Maybe they were right. I figured I was paranoid, and they in fact would really be okay.
But that didn’t stop the anxious coil in my gut when I tried to force down takeout pizza. I attempted to focus on my essay to distract myself, but I couldn’t stop glancing at my phone, and checking Twitter. There was a hashtag on the DM, which was just “PlayStationGO.” When I searched for it, however, nothing came up.
Sure, it was a private convention and only a select few knew about it, but nothing could escape Twitter.
Somewhere, someone must be talking about it. After scrolling through endless tweets though, I realized I was wrong. There was nothing.
That put a bad taste in my mouth.
10pm came, and I held my breath all the way through a Netflix TV show I was forcing myself to watch, half asleep, slumped at my desk.
I could barely distinguish the plot.
I just had a vague idea of the character names, and some of their motivations.
Midnight passed, and I was struggling to stay awake.
I glanced at my phone.
No messages, just a notification from Spotify reminding me my favorite band was playing nearby.
1am.
Still nothing. I fell back to sleep.
2:48am.
This time, I stayed awake for a few minutes glaring at my phone before my eyes grew heavy.
3:16: am.
My phone buzzed with a text from Jay, but I could barely desipher it: "can't feel help my head hurts Canshdhsn727272_6798mi/!! _&go home please. (Sent from: PlayStationGo™️ BETA)."
3:27: am.
3:54: am. I was wide awake, blinking at a notification which had popped up from an unknown number. I was trying to figure out what number it was, when my phone vibrated again and I almost jumped out of my skin.
After a moment of hesitation, I answered it.
I was trying so hard not to think of the possibility of it being the emergency room, or even worse, the cops.
All of my worst nightmares had come true in a single second.
“Hello?” I whispered in a croak.
“Are they in the house with you?” The stranger’s voice came through in a hiss of interference.
His words sent my mediocre dinner lurching back up my throat. “What?” I managed to get out. “Who?”
“Your friends.” He said, and I leapt to unsteady feet, my gut twisting and turning.
“No.” I found myself taking slow strides toward the window, brushing back the curtain and peering out into the night. “Why? Did something happen to them?” I paused.
“How did you get my number?”
“That does not matter.” His voice rattled in my ear as I rushed downstairs, almost stumbling down the bottom two. “I need you to get out of that house. Now. Get as far away as possible.”
I could hear his rapid breaths.
He was driving. I could hear the rumble of the engine. With my phone pressed to my ear, I obeyed his instructions, pulling open the door and stepping out into the cool night, a brisk breeze grazing my bare arms was just enough to stop my thoughts spiraling.
I was barefoot, in nothing but a robe, staggering down the driveway. The night was calm and silent; our neighborhood was asleep, each window drowned in darkness. I couldn’t breathe, my clammy fingers wrapped around my phone, as this stranger broke down over the phone. “Whatever you do,” he gasped out.
“Do not, I repeat DO NOT remove the PlayStationGo—shit!! He hissed out, static rattling the call. The guy seemingly got ahold of himself, and the wheel, and continued. I started to walk—where I was going, I had no idea.
The stranger lit a cigarette. I heard the click of a lighter and his exhalation of breath. “It was a BETA version, but we had to rush it. This was not my idea. My boss is a greedy man. He wanted to release the game last year, which would have meant widespread infection. Luckily, that did not happen. We did manage to delay it, but only by a year.” His words barely made sense to me as I struggled to get a word in, peering in the dark. “It was supposed to be a virtual experience of the game—a whole new angle of gameplay. But testing was difficult. First, on monkey’s, we lost multiple subjects. Tonight was supposed to be a…well, I guess you could call it out first attempt on human subjects,” his laugh was bitter. “I knew the tech wasn’t finished. And I tried. Believe me, I fucking tried. I tried to blow the whistle, but these bastards know where my parents live."
Something squirmed its way down my spine.
“So my friends were lab rats?” I said stiffly. “You used them?”
I fucking knew it.
I knew it was too good to be true.
“Yes and no. Listen to me, the people I work for are hunting them down. Trust me, I don’t want my bosses to find them because a life of experimentation will await them. Torture. Do you hear me? It does not matter if subjects fail. They don’t care. As long as there is at least a light at the end of the tunnel for them, they will see it as a win, and bring the publication date closer. They will not be treated as humans. Your friends signed a contract before trying out the tech, where the small print stated that, under section 3, player engagement, all subjects must agree to offer themselves as participants in later updates. I silently cursed Jay for always skipping the terms and conditions when buying games." The man stopped to breathe.
“I have told you multiple times, and I won’t say it again. Get as far away from that house as possible. I will take care of them. I will make sure of it." The sound of squealing engines, and I stopped power walking, coming to an abrupt stop. The silence of the night around me, compared to the sound of the highway he was on, traffic horns and the wind rushing through the window was an eerie contrast, a disturbance to the heavenly bubble we were trapped in.
“What do you mean ‘take care of them?” I had to swallow a yell. “Hey! What are you talking about?
“I’m sorry.” Was all he replied with. “I’m afraid it is too late. There was once an opportunity to save the mind during the initial level of the demonstration. However, once the PlaystationGo has been fully attached to the base of the subject, we no longer have control of it. Once integrating itself into the cerebral cortex, the PlayStationGo can only be removed by signing out of the player’s account,” his breath was heavy. “On this unfortunate occasion, however, your friends are unable to navigate the system due to a malfunction which scrambled their brains,” He trailed off. “Which has left them stranded in the game."
I let out a breath. “Right.” I said. “That’s.. bad. I mean, it’s a fucked-up piece of technology, but they’re just playing a game, right?”
There was a pause, before the man laughed.
“Young man, I don’t think you understand,” he said. “The PlayStationGo was created to give the player a full virtual experience of our game. The PlayStationGo is not a physical object. Created with nanotechnology, it attaches itself to the subject’s brain and is supposed to create a personal gaming experience for each player. As I said, however, it is not finished. It is yet to be released to the public, and of course, we are expecting certain ethical arguments due to the controversial—”
I pulled the phone away from my ear, shaking my head. I didn’t need to hear his attempts at trying to save his own skin.
“You need to help them,” I whispered. “Do you hear me? Can you do that? Can you help them?!”
“That is what I am trying to tell you,” He said.
“I know you are upset and confused, and believe me, I offer my apologies. But you need to listen to facts. During initial testing, our subjects were conscious enough to know where their home was. We are unsure why this happens, though we have linked it to territory, as well as the main character of the game heavily influencing their actions. I have been tracking them from the testing facility, and they are incredibly close. Please get as far away from there as possible. If you are no longer in the vicinity of the house, I can end this quickly and quietly before we gain attention.”
I wasn’t sure what I was going to say. Maybe start fucking screaming at him, because he was talking about getting “rid” of my friends, after their mistake.
“Do you understand me?” He said, when I couldn’t reply. “Your friends are lost causes!”
Before I could answer, though, headlights were suddenly coming around the corner, and I found myself paralysed to the spot. The car which swerved twice, crashed into several trash cans, before reversing and coming straight towards me, was not Jay’s car. Jay’s car was an old hunk of junk he’d gotten from a scrapyard. Jay’s car had doors which were practically hanging off, and a stereo which exclusively played either static gibberish, or old tapes I had no idea how to use. This car was bright yellow, and definitely had an option to drive itself. When the car came to a stop, inches from careening into me, I lost all control of myself.
I was vaguely aware of my phone slipping from my fingers and hitting the sidewalk. But I was too busy staring at the two shadows in the front of the car. The driver, and the passenger.
And the muffled screaming coming from the trunk.
When the door swung open, a figure stepping out, I did not recognise my housemate.
The stranger told me I wouldn't, but I didn't believe him.
Jay had left the house in casual jeans and a sweater, bearing the game's logo.
Now, I found myself face to face with a man with my housemate's face and features, his smile and eyes-- but something had been severed in his eyes and twisted in his expression. For one, Jay was wearing a suit I knew he couldn't afford, the sleeves torn, collar pulled open, smears of red staining the front.
His pants had cufflinks, and the Rolex on his wrist had definitely been pulled off someone's corpse.
The silver was stained a revealing scarlet. Drinking in his face, he looked like Jay. His curls hung in front of his eyes, freckles speckling his cheeks, but everything else wasn't. It wasn't until I was glimpsing what was moulded into the flesh of his hand, did I remember how to move. But then I was taking all of him in, everything my mind had intentionally skipped, because I didn't want to believe the stranger on the phone. Nanotechnology, the man had said in a hiss.
Fiction, I had thought.
Before I saw the reality of it, a writhing metallic like substance glued to the guy's temple, and slowly, very slowly, inching down his cheek, already forming around the bridge of his ear, a very faint blue light flickering.
Something must have alerted him. His cavernous eyes left mine, and he twisted his head—and I heard the sound of his neck snapping, his head lolling to the left slightly, his eyes flickering. I watched his whole body seem to sway back and forth, ready to fall forwards.
Before the newly formed device on his ear turned red, then green.
It was almost like he was… rebooting. As if coming back to life, Jay lifted his head at an awkward angle, before looking straight through me. The blood vessels in his eyes had popped, rivulets of red beading down his face. He should have been dead, I thought. No. No, he was dead. That… that thing was keeping him alive. “Well, shiiiittt,” he said. I could sense the game dialogue which had taken over him, forming on his mangled tongue.
“I’m a man on a mission.”
In jerking movements, he turned and marched back towards the car, opening the door, and sliding into the front seat.
I remembered how to move, ducking to grab my phone, before something slammed into the back of my head—and I saw stars.
I didn’t remember hitting the floor, only the soft sound of her voice, a seductive murmur repeating NPC dialogue, and her kitten heel sticking into my spine, forcing me onto my face.
Misty. I was expecting her to get it over with. But when she dragged me to my feet, sticking the barrel of a gun into the flesh of my neck—I figured she was still playing the game.
Twisting around to meet her eyes, lifeless and empty, only filled with light from the device which had taken over half of her face, I felt sick to my stomach. This thing wasn’t a games console or a virtual reality headset.
It was an attempt at coercing and programming something you already don’t understand, to do something impossible.
I could see that in the way the things had visibly chewed and eaten through her flesh, devouring her from the inside and out. I could see what was left of the dress she had worn earlier, but something must have gone wrong with her too. Because Misty had thrown on another outfit over the top, a diamond necklace hanging from her neck.
I caught a thin river of red pooling down her right temple, trying to ignore the twitchy way she moved, just like a character. From the way Misty walked, stumbling, I already knew she was gone. My housemate had newly acquired strength, throwing me in the trunk of the car where three other hostages were, and slamming it shut on my attempts to reason with her. She didn’t tie me up or restrain me.
In the dim light I could just make out though passing streetlights, I could see the trunk opened from the inside. Which was too easy.
Still though, Jay was driving recklessly, and every time I tried to throw the damn thing open, I was knocked backwards, rolling into a screaming girl, who was bound by her hands and feet. It took me multiple attempts before I had the trunk open, freezing cold air blasting me in the face. I untied the other hostages, but when I told them to come with me, they just stared blankly at me, and continued begging for their lives—and it only took me glimpsing what was attached to their temples, a familiar writhing metal plate, for me to understand. They too were playing the game. This time, as NPC hostages.
I found myself gingerly touching the trembling metallic flesh of the girl's fingers bound in rope. It had a slimy consistency, and I swore, I felt something bite into me.
No way, I thought.
This thing was sentient, yes. But it wasn't living.
Listen, I wish I could tell you what it was like to jump out of a moving car, but I can’t.
I remember it as lunging out of the trunk, hitting the freezing cold air, before hitting the ground head first, neutron star collisions exploding in the backs of my eyes.
What I do remember is waking up on the side of the road. Hours later. The sky was bright blue, a scorching sun blinding me when I managed to force my eyes open.
The early morning rush hour flew by as normal, and I wondered how ignorant American people had to be to ignore someone knocked out on the side of the road.
It’s not like I was nowhere near civilization. There was a fucking Subway right next to me.
When I had gathered myself, I remembered I had no phone. I couldn’t go home in fear of running into my rogue housemates playing their own fucked up version of _____ in their head. My plan was to try and find my phone, get in contact with the stranger who blew the whistle on my friends being dangerous, and find them. They couldn’t be far., right? And even if they weren’t themselves… someone would be able to save them.
If someone could do this to them, surely they could reverse it.
I felt sick, tired, and I was starving.
So, with some loose cash I’d found in my pocket, I bought a Subway and a Coke.
The woman at the counter smiled widely at me. She leaned forward, with a wink. “Nice cosplay!”
Cosplay?
I didn’t understand what she meant until I swore I felt something… move its way up my pant leg. I ignored it, and it happened again, this time it felt like something was… biting.
A bug, maybe? I had been laying on the side of the road for around six hours.
When I went to the bathroom, though, I found myself staring at an all too familiar glint of silver creeping its way across my temple. Like it was sentient, parts of it sider webbed towards my ear while the rest writhed into my hairline.
I pulled up my pant leg again, and there it was, a fungus-like metal substance which had already formed in two solid metal masses on my knees. I remember grazing two fingers across the thing beginning its slow feast of my flesh. I remember trying to pull it off, hissing in pain when I risked ripping off my own skin with it. I remember shaking my head and being in denial, even when the lights dimmed above me, and the bathroom door in front of me became more of a shadow. When I strode back through the Subway store, I began to see slight flickers of light above each person, highlighting something not quite there yet.
I could see it already starting, beginning to take over my thoughts. Cars which sped past were suddenly highlighted, and at the corner of my eye, if I concentrated, the outline of a map was starting to appear. Even now, when the room is almost completely taken over by shadow, and my thoughts are half my own, and half not—when a metallic device is beginning to form over my eyes—I know if I hold on, this thing won’t take me. I have considered killing myself, but that wouldn’t… be right.
How could I kill myself when there is so much left to do?
This developer was right. I don’t even know where I can sign out. There’s what looks like the beginning of some kind of index when I look up, but it’s not… finished. I can still see entangled pieces of code struggling to load what I’m guessing was log out. Whatever this thing is, it’s taking over me. Fast. Like a fungus, like a virus, it will not stop until it’s dragged me into the game, until it's leeched itself onto me.
I can feel it happening right now. It's been slow.
Almost painfully slow.
But maybe that is the point. Maybe part of the game is to feel my own thoughts beginning to unravel in favor of something else entirely.
Fuck.
Time is going by…. Fast.
Five minutes ago… I was trying to get home. But I can’t remember where I live.
I can’t concentrate.
I can’t think straight.
I have a phone—but I don’t know how I got it. Did I steal it?
Every time I move, the slowly emerging map comes to life at the corner of my eye jerks with my movement. There is a car parked nearby.
I know it belongs to the man with a child.
But a confusing blur of light is highlighting it to be something of importance. Reality is crashing in front of me, replaced with contorting shapes and bursts of color I have to blink through.
I keep hearing... sirens.
Jay is messaging me.
On what, I'm not sure.
But I need to find him.
I’m sure one mission won’t hurt, right?

(You can also find this story, along with the previous parts here and here. I've decided I would release this part early as I didn't want you fellas to wait until next week to read it when it was already complete and ready to go. I am also changing my release time from midnight to noon, as midnight releases have been reeking havoc on my sleep, and I feel noon releases are more sustainable for me.)
A week later, The couple was on a boat that was heading to the Sakura Empire. Fritz smiled and giggled.
“To think, this will be our first time in the Sakura Empire.”
Tirpitz smiled. They were lying down together on a chair on the deck. Fritz placed a hand on Tirpitz’s belly.
Tirpitz giggled. “Fritz, you know you won’t feel anything for a couple of months from now.”
Fritz smiled. “It's just amazing to think our child is in there. What do you think it will be, a boy or a girl?”
Tirpitz smiled. “I have a feeling it will be a boy.”
Fritz nodded. “What makes you think that?”
“Something in me just knows.”
Soon, the boat docked in the Sakura Empire. Fritz and Tirpitz got off the boat. A woman with brown fox ears and tails was waiting for them.
“Welcome to the Sakura Empire you two!”
She hugged Tirpitz as Fritz raised an eyebrow.
“Hello. And who are you?”
The woman with brown fox ears and tails shook Fritz’s hand.
“I’m Akagi. I figured I would greet you guys once you arrived in port.”
Fritz nodded. “A pleasure to meet you, Akagi.”
“Come on, follow me!”
Akagi was gesturing to them to follow her. There was a car waiting for the couple.
The group entered the backseat of the car. Akagi smiled at the couple from the front seat.
“So, I heard about the news from Bismarck. She told everyone the incredible news once you guys left for your honeymoon. It surprised me she wasn’t the first one to have a child, as she got married sooner.”
Tirpitz nodded as Fritz giggled. “Well, I guess life has a way of subverting your expectations.”
Akagi’s laugh sent a chill down Fritz’s spine. Tirpitz looked at Akagi.
“So Akagi, do you have any children?”
Akagi smiled. “I have Akagi-chan if that counts.”
Soon, they were at the hotel. Akagi got out of the car.
“I’ll help you with your bags.”
She reached into the trunk and grabbed Fritz’s suitcase.
They all went to the hotel room where Fritz and Tirpitz would be staying. Fritz noticed the room was small, but cozy.
“It reminds me of a U-boat, but much cleaner.” He thought to himself.
Akagi placed their bags on the floor. “I’ll see you guys tomorrow.”
Fritz and Tirpitz nodded. She looked at her husband.
“She seems like a kind fellow.”
Fritz nodded. “Yeah. But her laugh kinda scares me.”
Tirpitz smiled and held Fritz’s hand. “Don’t worry, I doubt she will be a threat to us.”
Fritz saw Tirpitz go pale. She gagged.
“Excuse me.”
Tirpitz let go of Fritz’s hand and ran to the toilet. Fritz followed close behind her. He saw Tirpitz vomiting into the toilet. He went behind her and rubbed her back.
Tirpitz spat into the toilet and flushed it. She giggled softly as she rubbed her belly.
“I guess that's what I get for doing a honeymoon while pregnant.”
Fritz smiled as he helped his wife off the floor. “Can you think of anything you want to do?”
Tirpitz shrugged. “Fritz, this is our first time being here. I suppose you can call Akagi to see what she would recommend.”
Fritz nodded and got on his phone. Akagi picked up on the other end.
“Hey Fritz, what do you need?”
“Akagi, Listen. Tirpitz and I are looking for things to do in the Sakura Empire. Can you give us any ideas?”
Akagi giggled. “Of course. You can visit the parks and shrines, and go to the beach. There is also a restaurant I'm a regular at.”
Fritz smiled and nodded. “Thank you, Akagi.”
Fritz hung up the phone and walked to the living room. Tirpitz was sitting on the couch, still recovering from her spell of morning sickness.
“Akagi told me there is a beach nearby we can go to.”
Tirpitz nodded. “Good. I brought my bikini with me, and I got you a pair of swim trunks, as I wasn’t sure if you had any. They are in the green suitcase.”
Fritz nodded and opened the green suitcase. Inside was a red and black pair of swim trunks. He smiled.
“Thanks, honey.”
Tirpitz smiled and grabbed her bikini. “I’ll be in the bathroom. Once we change, we’ll go to the beach together.”
The couple made their way to the beach. Fritz carried a beach chair. He placed it down and soon he and Tirpitz slept in each other's arms.
Fritz leaned into Tirpitz’s ear.
“I love you, you know that?”
Tirpitz smiled. “I know. I love you too, mein kleiner Kolibri.”
Fritz kissed her on the back of the head. The two fell asleep.
A camera shutter interrupted this sleep. Fritz’s eyes went wide. He saw Akagi holding a camera, wearing a red and black bikini. She giggled.
“Hello, again lovebirds!”
Fritz rolled his eyes. “Akagi, are you following us?”
Akagi laughed.
“Hehe. No. I also wanted to go to the beach after you asked me what to do around here. Besides, I was planning on visiting Nagato and Mutsu at their shrine later. Do you and Tirpitz want to come with me?”
Fritz blew some air out of his nostrils, which woke up Tirpitz. Her eyes opened as she looked at Akagi. Fritz leaned into her ear.
“Hey, honey. You feel like getting dressed and visiting Nagato and Mutsu’s shrine together with Akagi?”
Tirpitz rubbed her eyes and yawned. She sighed as she rubbed her belly.
“I’m kinda hungry. I want to eat first.”
Akagi nodded.
“Of course. You are expecting, after all. Very well. We’ll stop in the restaurant that I told Fritz about and eat before we visit Nagato and Mustu.”
Fritz nodded and let Tirpitz get off the beach chair. He picked up the beach chair and put it back. Soon, the group was heading back to the hotel for Fritz and Tirpitz to get changed.
The couple made it to the hotel room. Fritz changed into his formal Ironblood officer’s uniform. While Tirpitz changed into a white dress. Once they got dressed, they made their way to the car.
While they were driving, Fritz looked at Akagi.
“So, what’s the name of this restaurant?”
“The Scared Sakura. It is close to the Scared Sakura, so the owners named it after the tree. The other shipgirls are regulars there as well.”
Fritz nodded. “So they serve food that only shipgirls can eat?”
Akagi giggled. “No. They serve food you can eat as well, Fritz. I heard their sushi is to die for.”
Fritz nodded. “I’ve never had sushi before. I wonder if I will like it.”
Akagi giggled. “It’s raw fish. If you don’t like it, give it to me. I love sushi.”
Soon, the car stopped in front of the restaurant. The group entered the restaurant and got a table.
A waitress walked up to the group.
“So what do you want to drink?”
Fritz smiled. “Can I have a Schnapps?”
Akagi giggled. “I’ll have some Saki.”
Tirpitz sighed. “I’m pregnant, so I’ll get a lemonade.”
The waitress nodded as she wrote down the order.
“Got it. Once I come back with your drinks, I’ll ask you what you want to order.”
The group nodded as the waitress left.
After some time, the waitress came back with the group’s drinks.
“Have you decided what you want to eat?”
Akagi smiled. “I’ll have the torpedo tempura.”
Fritz chuckled. “I’ll have the sushi.”
Tirpitz smiled. “Can I get two full-course meals?”
The waitress nodded.
“Sure thing. I’ll be right back.”
The waitress left as Fritz chuckled.
“That’s a lot of food, Tirpitz. You sure you're going to eat all that?”
Tirpitz looked at her husband. “You do know I am eating for two, Fritz.”
Fritz looked at the plate of sushi. He looked at the chopsticks as Akagi giggled.
“Fritz, I take it you need me to show you how to use chopsticks?”
Fritz nodded. Akagi giggled as Fritz awkwardly handled them.
“This is reminding me of when I had to teach Akagi-chan how to use chopsticks.”
Fritz’s eyes went wide as he looked at Tirpitz. Both of her plates were empty. She was wiping her lips with a napkin as she looked at Akagi and Fritz's empty plates.
“You ate both those entire full-course meals? I was barely able to finish my sushi.”
Tirpitz giggled. “I suppose the baby is making me hungrier than usual.”
The group left the restaurant. They walked to Nagato and Mustu’s shrine. Before the couple could walk up the stairs, Akagi stopped them.
“Just letting you two know now, you walk on the left or right side, but never the middle.”
Fritz and Tirpitz nodded as they followed Akagi’s advice. Once they reach the top of the stairs, Fritz saw Tirpitz turn around and take a photo of the view with her phone. She smiled at Akagi.
“Hey, Akagi, do you mind holding my phone so I can get a photo with Fritz?”
Akagi nodded and held Tirpitz's phone. Fritz put his arm around Tirpitz’s waist. The mountain covered in snow provided the perfect background. Akagi giggled.
“Smile you two!”
Akagi took the photo. The couple smiled and turned around, this time taking a photo of the couple with the red pagoda in the background. Akagi smiled as she looked at the photos.
“These will look great as your honeymoon photos on your wall!”
Fritz and Tirpitz smiled. Akagi gestured to them.
"Nagato and Mutsu are just up ahead. I've already told them about our arrival."
Fritz and Tirpitz followed Akagi to where Nagato and Mustu were.
Fritz's eyes went wide at the sight of Nagato and Mustu. He leaned into Tirpitz’s ear.
“I was expecting the flagship of the Sakura Empire to be a lot bigger. Those two look like they are only twelve and eight years old respectively.”
Tirpitz giggled. "Do not underestimated them by their size. They're both a lot more powerful than they look.
Nagato smiled as she walked up to the couple.
“It is a pleasure to meet you, Mr. and Mrs. Decke.”
Fritz’s eyes went wide.
“Nagato, why are you being so formal? It’s only Tirpitz and I’s honeymoon, not an official diplomatic visit.”
Nagato nodded.
“As a member of the Ironblood navy, and your wife being a KANSEN of the Ironblood. I must make sure that no diplomatic incidents occur while you and your wife are visiting the Sakura Empire.”
Nagato turned to look at Tirpitz.
“I have also heard the news from Bismarck about your pregnancy, Mrs. Decke. Congratulations.”
Tirpitz blushed and covered her mouth with her fist. She leaned into Fritz's ear.
“I’m going to have to get used to being called Frau or Mrs. Decke.”
Mustu giggled as she ran up to Fritz and grabbed his hand.
“So you're Fritz Decke? I’m glad to meet you!”
She shook his hand wildly.
Fritz’s eyes went wide as she shook his hand. Mutsu smiled at Tirpitz.
“Excuse me, Tirpitz? You mind if I listen to your belly?”
Tirpitz nodded and Mutsu placed her ear to Tirpitz’s belly.
“I can’t hear much of anything.”
Tirpitz giggled.
“That's because I’m not that pregnant yet. I’m only around four months along. In a few months, you’ll be able to hear him.”
Mutsu took her head off Tirpitz's belly. She nodded.
"Him? It's a boy? How do you know?
Tirpitz smiled as she rubbed Mutsu's head. "I told my husband the same thing. A mother just knows."
Mutsu giggled as Tirpitz rubbed her head.
“I’m excited for your baby, Tirpitz. Congratulations.”
Tirpitz smiled and nodded. Akagi came back to the group.
“Well lovebirds, you want to head back to your hotel room?”
Fritz and Tirpitz nodded. The couple went back to the hotel.
“Well, goodnight you two.”
Fritz and Tirpitz waved her off as they went into the hotel. They went to the room they were staying in and stripped down to their underwear.
In the middle of the night, the phone rang. Fritz woke up and picked it up.
“Hello?”
“Mr. Decke? An officer from BdU is in the lobby. He asked to see you.”
Fritz sighed as he hung up the phone. He quickly got dressed into his formal uniform and made his way to the lobby. He saw an Ironblood naval officer. He had two letters in his hand.
“Leutnant zur See Fritz Decke. I am truly sorry.”
The officer placed the letters in Fritz’s hands.
Fritz raised an eyebrow, but before he could ask the officer more questions, he was gone. Fritz went back to his room.
Fritz opened the first letter, and his heart sank.
“TO: Leutnant zur See Fritz Decke”
“FROM: BdU”
“Dear Leutnant zur See Fritz Decke.”
“The situation in the Indian Ocean for the Monsun Gruppe is dire. You and your U-boat, U-847, are to be stationed to Penang as part of the 10th flotilla. You are to be there at once.”
“BdU.”
Fritz sighed. “Can’t believe my honeymoon is being cut short.”
As Fritz opened the second letter, his eyes went wide. A single tear went down his face.
“Dear Fritz.”
“I’m sorry I have to write this letter.”
“While you were on your honeymoon, a siren air raid attacked Berlin.”
“I regret to inform you that your mother, Magda Decke was amongst the dead.”
“Bismarck.”
Fritz wept into his hands. he sat on the bed and wept.
Tirpitz awoke to the sound of her husband sitting near her, sobbing. She wrapped her arms around him.
“What’s wrong mein kleiner Kolibri?”
Fritz stopped crying momentarily.
“It’s my mother. She’s dead.”
Tirpitz's eyes went wide.
“A siren air raid hit Berlin while we were gone. She was amongst the dead.”
Tirpitz placed Fritz’s head on her lap. He was still crying.
“That’s not all. Our honeymoon is ending much earlier than intended. I am being stationed in Penang, and due to the high casualties the Monsun Gruppe has been suffering, there is a high chance I will not make it back.”
Tirpitz felt tears go down her face.
“But we only just got married, and even have a child on the way, and now you’ll potentially die?”
Fritz sighed. “Want to hear what I fear most?”
Tirpitz nodded. Fritz closed his eyes.
“I’m afraid of dying out there. In the cold sea.”
Tirpitz stroked Fritz’s hair.
“Do you want to know what I fear the most?”
Fritz nodded
“I’m afraid of dying alone. In the Fjords.”
Fritz smiled slightly. “You don’t have to worry about that. Aren’t you relieved from combat duty due to your condition?”
Tirpitz gave a small smile. “You’re right. Bismarck has been making sure nothing happens to me.”
Fritz sighed.
“You know what? I never had a father growing up. He was killed in action before I was born.”
Tirpitz nodded. “I know. I read your file the Ironblood has about you.”
Fritz got up and got a piece of paper. He grabbed and pen and wrote something on it.
“If something were to happen to me, Give this to our child when they turn six years old. Make sure Bismarck, Heinz, and the others take care of you, you got it?”
Tirpitz felt a tear go down her eye. She got up out of bed and hugged Fritz.
The couple hugged for a full minute. They wept in each other’s arms.
The next day, Tirpitz was standing on a dock, getting ready to board a ship bound for the Ironblood. She turned to embrace her husband and kissed him on the lips.
“Please come back safe. For the three of us.”
Fritz nodded.
“I will.”

Hillary Clinton's stage name. § < PiggyFartdust > 2023-05-30 21:22
: . . Grow up. § < EightiesHair > 2023-05-30 21:31+5
: . . : . . ^says the man that obsesses over Mickey 24/7 § < Morgan-LeFay > 2023-05-30 21:35
: . . : . . : . . LOL, is that a joke? < RageIssues > 2023-05-30 21:37
What is there to even obsess over? Both of you are mentally ill rejects with no lives.
For every one post of me kicking you in the ass, there's a half dozen of you losers crying about the King.
: . . : . . : . . : . . LoL. You're the joke, Wabbie. No one takes you < Morgan-LeFay > 2023-05-30 21:39
seriously. Claiming to be king of a forum that was dwindling years before I even knew about it. What a laugh riot.
: . . : . . : . . : . . : . . I'll take that as a yes. < RageIssues > 2023-05-30 21:42+10
I really hate replying to you because I find you so repulsive and depressing, but it was really nice of sullivan to try and talk some sense to your ugly ass, of course he failed miserably.
Soon LD will tired of you as well, and kissing Mickey's scrub ass will be all you got. How sad.
: . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . While I was out of town having the time of my < Morgan-LeFay > 2023-05-30 21:44
life you were here whining about Mickey and me, now that's pathetic scrub behavior there. At least Mickey can play guitar, draw, and fix cars. You bring absolutely nothing to the table except douchebagery.
: . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . hes gonna +5 himself... make way.. § < - > 2023-05-30 21:46
: . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . Haha, he's stupid point wars. Pathetic. § < Morgan-LeFay > 2023-05-30 21:46
: . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . Now you're drooling about points. < RageIssues > 2023-05-30 21:54
As if bitch ass Mickey doesn't use the dozen or so handles he has saved up to plus himself and the stupid shit you post here.
: . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . That thing drools from her tranquilizers § < River__Dong > 2023-05-30 21:57
: . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . And you, the gray chickenshit. < RageIssues > 2023-05-30 21:51
What are you going to do when it's only you, special needs VC, and jobless scrub Mickey in here?
Will the three of you cry about me more or less then?
: . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . 142 IQ, with a job you could never comprehend < Morgan-LeFay > 2023-05-30 21:53
is definitely not special needs, ya pathetic waste of space. If anyone is jobless, it is you, maggot.
: . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . I've never heard someone try to belittle < AgentMick > 2023-05-30 21:54
home ownership.
This dude is so backwards.
: . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . Don't worry scrub, I'll never be able to insult < RageIssues > 2023-05-30 22:00
you for being a home owner.
: . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . You're in the basement of a hospital < River__Dong > 2023-05-30 21:55
Changing batteries on computer mice and sanitizing keyboards when needed
: . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . I'm not Kortalus. My job is application trouble < Morgan-LeFay > 2023-05-30 21:57
shooting you, dunce. It's above that pay grade.
: . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . She got some job sitting in front a pc all day. < RageIssues > 2023-05-30 22:01
Just pressing buttons, pretty easy to come back in shitty communities like hers, if you can keep your eyes open and your mouth shut.
That's why she's so excited to talk to people in here, it's her only social outlet.
: . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . I just went to a friend's BBQ and got to hangout < Morgan-LeFay > 2023-05-30 22:07
in their hot tub over the weekend, you fool.
I am not on here 24/7 whining about other posters in both green and grey like you are
: . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . Nobody cares. § < RageIssues > 2023-05-30 22:09+5
: . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . Haha, nice self-plussing, weirdo. § < Morgan-LeFay > 2023-05-30 22:11
: . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . Haha, drooling about points again. < RageIssues > 2023-05-30 22:13
Your boring posts are as repetitive as your shitty job.
: . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . quit harassing the women, scrub < sober-up > 2023-05-30 22:15
you can email mickey tomorrow
: . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . LoL. My job is amazing and at least I have one < Morgan-LeFay > 2023-05-30 22:15
unlike you, maggot.
If anyone drools over points it's you, fruit loop.
: . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . Your boring job sucks & yr life is lonely & sad < RageIssues > 2023-05-30 22:19
I wouldn't trade places with you for a million dollars.
: . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . LMAO. You wish you were smart enough to even < Morgan-LeFay > 2023-05-30 22:22
do my job.
I have friends, family, and a biker club. It's far from lonely and sad. You come here so you can act like you are still in high school with the 'popular' crowd.
Grow up, maggot.
: . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . Haha, I just a saw this. < RageIssues > 2023-05-30 22:42
A biker club? LMAO.
: . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . That just makes u look like an even bigger fool < RageIssues > 2023-05-30 21:56
Gifted IQ and great job, and all you can contribute are retarded vocaroos and wedding invites to another loser who wanted nothing to do with your ugly ass, LOL.
Seriously, the more you share about yourself, the more depressing you sound. Fix your broken life, girl.
: . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . Haha, you didn't kill your pug. < AgentMick > 2023-05-30 21:59
It wanted to die.
: . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . You're right stupid, I didn't. § < RageIssues > 2023-05-30 22:02
: . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . Haha, D-E-A-D § < AgentMick > 2023-05-30 22:04
: . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . You'll be there too someday. < RageIssues > 2023-05-30 22:06
Most likely by your own hand.
: . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . I don't kill inherited animals like you. < AgentMick > 2023-05-30 22:08
You failed as an owner.
Seek therapy.
: . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . Good, U shouldnt kill anything but yourself. § < RageIssues > 2023-05-30 22:09
: . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . 🍼 baby triggered ^ § < - > 2023-05-30 22:11
: . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . I axed you a question, gray chickenshit. < RageIssues > 2023-05-30 22:16
Why don't you answer that instead of kissing Mickey's ass like another angry scrub loser.
: . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . What part of "mental playground" do you < Morgan-LeFay > 2023-05-30 22:00
not comprehend you shallow, narcissistic fool.
Fix your assholery before you alienate everyone around you, maggot.
: . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . It's too late for that. < AgentMick > 2023-05-30 22:02
No job,no gf,no friends, no family, etc.
Well, he might have a mom in vegas.
And he tried to fuck his niece one time.
: . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . U mean what part does anyone give a shit about?? < RageIssues > 2023-05-30 22:06
And that would be none, because you are a boring, depressing, disaster.
: . . Get some Pigmeat Markham § < - > 2023-05-30 21:32

I've posted on here a couple times with varying issues with guppies. Everyone in this subreddit has been great and super helpful, so alas, I come to you again.
I had about 3 guppies for a couple months, tried adding a couple more, they died. And then it looked like my original three eventually had ich or parasites (white stringy poop, some small white dots, and swimming erratically against the plants and driftwood) so I did try treating them in a quarantine tank with API's ich treatment and general cure. This unfortunately didn't work and now my last guppy died just a couple days ago. My water parameters have always been fine once the tank had been cycled. I also still have green jade shrimp and a nerite snail in my main tank that are doing great.
What I'm wondering is how I would prepare or "clean" the main tank at this point if I wanted to add something other than guppies that wouldn't harm the shrimp or snail. I've read for ich, its simply a waiting game to let it die off without any fish hosts. If its parasites though, I'm not sure if that would stay in the water and keep re-infecting any fish I put in the tank. I have thought about getting a trio of meds (Paracleanse, Expel-P, and Maracyn) to try and kill off anything in the main tank water but not sure if that's overkill. All those medications look to be safe for inverts. I'm also not looking to rush out and add any more fish right away so time is on my side.
Just curious if anyone else has been in this situation and what they did short of completely clearing out the tank and redoing it. Perhaps I'm just a better shrimp keeper than a fish keeper at this point too ;_;

Im currently studying at university and in my free time I work as a tutor and I love to cycle/swim and play games! (Currently chess and The Crew 2)
Appearance: Im quite tall and bulky but still a little overweight (work in progress). I have brown short hair and green eyes, and I wear glasses.
Im looking for a person who I can shower with love and have a meaningful connection with! Ideally you also love hugs and cuddles or overall being affectionate. I would appreciate if youre not a super dry texter but if you take some time getting comfortable I obviously dont mind :) If you like calling thats a big plus because ive been told I have a great voice :D. Feel free to dm me!
One little thing, I dislike obvious tattoos and piercings ^^

Im currently studying at university and in my free time I work as a tutor and I love to cycle/swim and play games!
Appearance: Im quite tall and bulky but still a little overweight (work in progress). I have brown short hair and green eyes, and I wear glasses.
Im looking for a person who I can shower with love and have a meaningful connection with! Ideally you also love hugs and cuddles or overall being affectionate. I would appreciate if youre not a super dry texter but if you take some time getting comfortable I obviously dont mind :) If you like calling thats a big plus because ive been told I have a great voice :D.
One little thing, I dislike obvious tattoos and piercings ^^

This post is part of a series looking at the massive amount of 'rhyming' (and occasionally rhyming) recursivity I believe exists between (a) the homecoming of Petyr Baelish to the Fingers and (b) the homecoming of Theon Greyjoy to Pyke.
While this series/post can be read simply as a study 'for its own sake' of the curious recursion between these storylines, it is my belief that the 'rhyming' explored here between the stories of Petyr and Theon exists (at least in part) to foreshadow that, like Theon, Petyr Littlefinger, is (among other things) a scion of ironborn kings, because Petyr is Hoare-ish: I.e. because Petyr's blood is (in some part) the blood of the ironborn kings of House Hoare of Orkmont and, later, Harrenhal.
You can find an index of every post I've made on the topic of a Hoare-ish Littlefinger (including every post in this sub-series) [HERE].
Even if I'm wrong about Littlefinger's lineage, the 'rhyming' recursivity between the homecomings of Theon and Petyr detailed in this series remains, and certainly merits attention.
NOTE: In what follows, all uncited quotes are from ASOS Sansa VI, which describes Petyr's homecoming to his "Drearfort" tower of the 'Smallest Finger', or ACOK Theon I, which describes Theon's homecoming to "drear" Pyke.
As in past posts, I sometimes use "→" as shorthand for "'prefigures' and/or 'informs' and/or 'is reworked by' and/or 'finds a recursive rhyme in'.
As in: ACOK Theon I → ASOS Sansa VI.
This post picks up straight-away from where Part 8 left off. You can read Part 8 [HERE].
If you want to begin at the beginning, Part 1 is [HERE].

The Myraham's Prophetic Cargo

After Theon makes port, the captain of the Myraham announces his cargo to the people on the docks of Lordport and we read about the offloading of the Myraham:

"We're out of Oldtown," the captain called down, "bearing apples and oranges, wines from the Arbor, feathers from the Summer Isles. I have pepper, woven leathers, a bolt of Myrish lace, mirrors for milady, a pair of Oldtown woodharps sweet as any you ever heard." The gangplank descended with a creak and a thud. "And I've brought your heir back to you."

Most of what we read there seems to be reworked in and around Littlefinger's homecoming in ASOS Sansa VI, when the Merling King brings the Dreadfort its heir, Littlefinger, as well as the seeming heir to Winterfell, Sansa. This begins with the Arbor wine and fruit we see off-loaded from the Merling King:

Oswell made two more trips out to the Merling King to offload provisions. Among the loads he brought ashore were several casks of wine. Petyr poured Sansa a cup, as promised. …
… The wine was very fine; an Arbor vintage, she thought. It tasted of oak and fruit and hot summer nights, the flavors blossoming in her mouth like flowers opening to the sun. She only prayed that she could keep it down. Lord Petyr was being so kind, she did not want to spoil it all by retching on him.
… "Grisel," he called to the old woman, "bring some food up. … Oswell's brought some oranges and pomegranates from the King." …
Grisel reappeared…, balancing a large platter. … There were apples and pears and pomegranates, some sad-looking grapes, a huge blood orange.

Besides the straight repetition of Arbor wine, oranges, apples, and heirs, the repeated Oldtown motif is baldly reworked by Sansa's description of the wine, which is patently Oldtown-summer-esque, per the only substantive pre-AFFC description of Oldtown, which associates it with hot, fruity summer nights:

"King Maekar's summer was hotter than this one, and near as long. … [T]he heat was fierce while it lasted. Oldtown… came alive only by night. … I remember the smells of those nights, my lord—perfume and sweat, melons ripe to bursting, peaches and pomegranates, nightshade and moonbloom." (AGOT Eddard V)

The Myraham's "mirrors for milady" prefigure Sansa being figuratively groomed by Petyr and literally grooming herself in Petyr's Eyrie after he takes over:

When Gretchel fetched her Lysa's silvered looking glass, the color seemed just perfect with Alayne's mass of dark brown hair. (AFFC Alayne I)

The Myraham's "woodharps sweet as any you ever heard" presage Sansa being attacked by Marillion, whose "voice was strong and sweet", (AFFC Sansa I) after he sings a song (about blowjobs?) called "Milady's Supper" (supper a la the Myraham-ish fruit Sansa eats for supper when she lands) during Petyr's wedding bedding:

Lady Lysa's singer launched into a bawdy version of "Milady's Supper"….

The Myraham's "woven leathers" and "Myrish lace" are reworked into the "laces unlaced" i.e. unwoven during said wedding:

By the time they had gotten him into the tower and out of his clothes, the other women were flushed, with laces unlaced, kirtles crooked, and skirts in disarray.

That it's a "bolt of Myrish lace" is interesting: After Sansa boards the Merling King, she sees a singular "bolt" from a crossbow strike Dontos, and then two more:

Lothor Brune dipped his torch. Three men stepped to the gunwale, raised crossbows, fired. One bolt took Dontos in the chest as he looked up…. The others ripped into throat and belly. (ASOS Sansa V)

Three crossbow bolts? What does that remind us if not… a Myrish crossbow:

"The king is playing with his new crossbow," Tyrion said. Ridding himself of Joffrey had required only an ungainly Myrish crossbow that threw three quarrels at a time…. (ACOK Tyrion VI)

What about the Myraham's "pepper"? I suspect this gets box-checked first by Sansa trying not to "retch" as she is off-loaded along with the wine with which Littlefinger tries to settle her tummy, as just two chapters later peppers are tightly linked to "retching" of the sort Sansa feels like doing:

[Tyrion] found himself on his knees retching… that double helping of fried eggs cooked up with onions and fiery Dornish peppers. (ASOS Tyrion X)

GRRM seems to play off the "pepper" motif in other ways, as well. Consider that the gathering to meet the Myraham and the shouted questions that prompt her captain to announce her cargo—

A handful of Lordsport merchants had gathered to meet the ship. They shouted questions as the Myraham was tying up.

—get reworked by Petyr's household all gathering "to meet" the Merling King and by their peppering one another with questions:

Servants emerged from the tower to meet them; a thin old woman and a fat middle-aged one, two ancient white-haired men, and a girl of two or three with a sty on one eye. When they recognized Lord Petyr they knelt on the rocks. "My household," he said. "I don't know the child. Another of Kella's bastards, I suppose. She pops one out every few years."

She's a "popper", then, in case we didn't catch that retching → peppers. (This also reworks Theon "popping one off" with the captain's daughter, who is in many ways reworked by Kella, as will be discussed below.)

… [Petyr]… gave the old woman a kiss on the cheek and grinned at the younger one. "Who fathered this one, Kella?"
The fat woman laughed. "I can't rightly say, m'lord. I'm not one for telling them no."
"And all the local lads are grateful, I am quite sure."
"It is good to have you home, my lord," said one old man. … "How long will you be in residence?"
"As short a time as possible, Bryen, have no fear. Is the place habitable just now, would you say?"
"If we knew you was coming we would have laid down fresh rushes, m'lord," said the crone. "There's a dung fire burning."
"Nothing says home like the smell of burning dung." Petyr turned to Sansa. "Grisel was my wet nurse, but she keeps my castle now. Umfred's my steward, and Bryen—didn't I name you captain of the guard the last time I was here?"
"You did, my lord.…"
… Petyr gestured toward the fat woman. "Kella minds my vast herds. How many sheep do I have at present, Kella?"

A gathering, and questions, questions, questions, as when Theon docks.
Recall that Bryen and Umfred come from shore to offload Sansa (who's just been promised a cup of wine to help with her upset "tummy") from the Merling King's rowboat:

The two old men waded out up to their thighs to lift Sansa from the boat so she would not get her skirts wet.

This reworks the "shorehands… off-loading… casks of wine" from a Tyroshi trader docked with the Myraham—

[Theon] spied a Tyroshi trading galley off-loading…
Shorehands rolled casks of wine off the Tyroshi trader, fisherfolk cried the day's catch, children ran and played. A priest in the seawater robes of the Drowned God was leading a pair of horses along the pebbled shore, while above him a slattern leaned out a window in the inn, calling out to some passing Ibbenese sailors.

—which itself prefigures the above-quoted off-loading of the Merling King (when "Oswell made two more trips out to the Merling King to offload provisions" including "several casks of wine", from which Petyr immediately "poured Sansa a cup, as promised").

Kella & The Slattern

What about that "slattern lean[ing] out a window" to greet "some passing… sailors" while "children ran and played"? I submit that she is one of several motifs from Theon's homecoming prefiguring Petyr's servant Kella. I'll explain.
Consider that Petyr's servant Kella has many bastards i.e. children, popping one out every few years:

"I don't know the child. Another of Kella's bastards, I suppose. She pops one out every few years."

We only see one; presumably the others are off somewhere, running and playing, perhaps.
Kella happily greets Petyr as he comes ashore, much as Lordsport's slattern "call[s] out to some passing Ibbenese sailors". Note that the sailors on the Merling King are likewise 'passing' — passing through:

"From here the King turns east for Braavos. Without us."

Consider most of all that Kella's something of a slattern herself: She's "not one for telling them no".

"I can't rightly say, m'lord. I'm not one for telling them no."
"And all the local lads are grateful, I am quite sure."

Indeed, something Lysa says pretty clearly codes Kella as a verbatim "slattern", underlining the recursion:

"How would you like to spend your life on that bleak shore, surrounded by slatterns and sheep pellets?" (ASOS Sansa VII)

So I think the vignette with the slattern and the children in Lordsport pretty plainly prefigures Kella. But I think she's prefigured by two more pieces of Theon's homecoming.

Kella & The Captain's Daughter

Keeping in mind that Kella has a bunch of bastards ("she pops one out every few years) and that she's "not one for telling them no", consider also that she is (a) literally 'with child' — or rather, with a child—

a girl of two or three with a sty on one eye

—that she's (b) "fat"—

"Who fathered this one, Kella?"
The fat woman laughed.

—and that she's (c) coded as a bit stupid:

"Kella minds my vast herds. How many sheep do I have at present, Kella?"
She had to think a moment. "Three and twenty, m'lord. There was nine and twenty, but Bryen's dogs killed one and we butchered some others and salted down the meat."

All like Theon's "captain's daughter".
The captain's daughter is "plump", as Kella is "fat":

The girl was a shade plump for his taste…

She is likely pregnant with Theon's bastard, a la Kella the bastard-popper.
She tells Theon…

"You can put it in me again, if it please you…"

…and accedes to his request for a blowjob, so she's "not one for telling them no."
She thereby helps Theon 'pop one off', a la Kella "pop[ping] one out".
Like Kella, she seems a bit stupid:

She looked rather stupid when she smiled, but he had never required a woman to be clever.
The stupid girl did not seem to be listening.
She… learned quickly for such a stupid girl….
She looked at him stupidly, so he left her there.

And finally, she offers to work in Theon's castle—

I'd work in your castle, milord.

—just as Kella works for Petyr.

Kella: The Spreading Patch of the Smallest Finger?

Besides the "slattern" and the captain's daughter, I suspect Kella may also riff on — of all things — the "spreading patches" of "lichen" on "wet" Pyke as Theon sails by:

[Pyke was] wet by the same salt waves, festooned with the same spreading patches of dark green lichen, speckled by the droppings of the same seabirds.

Get it? A spreading 'patch'? In combination with "lichen" a la "licking" and Pyke being "wet"? And not just wet, but "wet by… salt waves", when as we know from the captain's daughter, semen tastes "salty", "like the sea". It's like Pyke is being described as a turned-on "slattern" with her legs spread.
A Hoare, we might say.
This connects to Kella, specifically because of her name: Kella is a near anagram for "kale", a dark green plant, like the "dark green lichen".
Actually, the name Kella may have anothere precursor in Theon's story: "Qalen", the maester Theon asks Helya about upon his arrival at Pyke:

"And what of Maester Qalen, where is he?"

Qalen would be pronounced Kalen. Qalen → Kalen → Kale → Kela → Kella. Anyway…

Grisel & The Captain's Daughter

Something similar is going on with Petyr's servant Grisel, the "thin old woman" who was his wet nurse but who "keeps [his] castle now":

"Grisel was my wet nurse, but she keeps my castle now.

Grisel is similarly prefigured by two people from Theon's homecoming, including first the captain's daughter who wants to work in Theon's castle as Grisel works in Petyr's "castle".
Consider first that Grisel, like the captain's daughter, seems slightly stupid (but eager to please), as she fails to grasp Petyr's sarcasm and takes his derisive joke about gulls' eggs and seaweed soup as an order:

"Ah, cold salt mutton. I must be home. When I break my fast on gulls' eggs and seaweed soup, I'll be certain of it."
"If you like, m'lord," said the old woman Grisel.
Lord Petyr made a face.

Then there is the captain daughter's resume:

"I'd work in your castle, milord. I can clean fish and bake bread and churn butter. Father says my peppercrab stew is the best he's ever tasted. You could find me a place in your kitchens and I could make you peppercrab stew."

This surely prefigures what we're told about Grisel making a sea-based soup of her own (i.e. the just mentioned "seaweed soup"), baking bread, and churning butter for Petyr:

Grisel reappeared before he could say more, balancing a large platter. She set it down between them. … The old woman had brought a round of bread as well, and a crock of butter.
Grisel climbed up to the bedchamber to serve the lord and lady a tray of morning bread, with butter, honey, fruit, and cream.

Where Grisel used to be Petyr's wet nurse, Theon suckles the captain daughter's nipple as if she's a wet nurse:

Theon's finger circled one heavy teat, spiraling in toward the fat brown nipple. … He took her nipple in his mouth….
"You can put it in me again, if it please you," she whispered in his ear as he sucked.

And finally, where Theon kisses the captain's daughter on the ear—

[Theon] drew the captain's daughter close and kissed her on her ear.

—Littlefinger kisses Grisel on the cheek:

Oswell and Lothor splashed their way ashore, as did Littlefinger himself. He gave the old woman a kiss on the cheek and grinned at the younger one.

Helya & Grisel (& Gretchel)

Grisel also rhymes with and reworks Helya, who keeps Balon's castle:

A bentback old crone in a shapeless grey dress approached him warily. "M'lord, I am sent to show you to chambers."
"And who are you?"
"Helya, who keeps this castle for your lord father."

Get it? "Helya and Grisel", a la "Hansel and Gretel".
(Gretel is a variant of "Greta". "Grisel" sounds like gristle, whereas in Hansel and Gretel the witch is trying to fatten Hansel up — she don't want no stringy meat! Note the thematic symmetry as well: By treating Hansel kindly and feeding him delicious treats, the witch is essentially "grooming" him for her own benefit/consumption, as Theon and Petyr groom the captain's daughter and Sansa, respectively, for their own benefit. Finally, note that "pebbles" are a key motif in Hansel and Gretel, prefiguring the proliferation of "pebbles" on Pyke, the 'rhyming' "pellets" on Petyr's Finger, and the isle of "Pebble" that leads to Petyr's Finger.)
The two "old" castle keepers neatly invert one another. Consider Grisel's comments about the old rushes and fire in Petyr's tower:

"If we knew you was coming we would have laid down fresh rushes, m'lord," said the crone. "There's a dung fire burning."
"Nothing says home like the smell of burning dung."

That's a recursive reversal of Helya's (lack of) preparation for Theon's visit: Where Grisel has a fire going even though she didn't know Petyr was coming, and where she proactively apologizes for not changing the rushes, telling him "we would have laid down fresh rushes… if we knew you were coming", Helya neither lit a fire nor changed the heavily foregrounded "old and brittle" rushes in the rooms Theon is given—

"I'll have a basin of hot water and a fire in this hearth," he told the crone. "See that they light braziers in the other rooms to drive out some of the chill. And gods be good, get someone in here at once to change these rushes."

—despite having ample forewarning of his coming:

It was not as though they had no word of his arrival. Robb had sent ravens from Riverrun, and… Jason Mallister had sent his own birds to Pyke….

The joke is underlined by the introduction of "Gretchel" — Gretel with a borrowed H from Helya/Hansel — who fetches washbasins of water (which, see below), "la[ys] a fire in the hearth" and "tend[s] to the fire", brings food and discusses food storage in Petyr's Eyrie in AFFC Sansa I & Alayne I. (In other words, she 'keeps his castle.')

'Rhyming' Interiors

That's just the beginning of the reversals in the many recursions between Theon's lodgings at Pyke and Sansa's in the Drearfort.
Where Helya leads Theon to his rooms on his orders—

"Show me to my chambers, woman," he commanded. Bowing stiffly, [Helya] led him across the headland to the bridge. …
Whenever he'd imagined his homecoming, he had always pictured himself returning to the snug bedchamber in the Sea Tower, where he'd slept as a child. Instead the old woman led him to the Bloody Keep.

—it's Petyr who leads the way into his tower, casually inviting Grisel (and everyone else) to follow him:

"If you like, m'lord," said the old woman Grisel.
Lord Petyr made a face. "Come, let's see if my hall is as dreary as I recall." He led them up the strand…

Petyr jokes about his hall being "dreary", and perhaps it is, but while it's "small" and "even smaller" within, his tower is also home to his servants, and hence very well lived-in.

Within, the tower seemed even smaller. An open stone stair wound round the inside wall, from undercroft to roof. Each floor was but a single room. The servants lived and slept in the kitchen at ground level, sharing the space with a huge brindled mastiff and a half-dozen sheep-dogs. Above that was a modest hall, and higher still the bedchamber.

(Note that the "mastiff", which we see as Petyr leads Grisel in, recalls Helya bowing "stiffly" before leading Theon to his rooms.)
This sharply reverses the situation Theon finds at Pyke, when he's deposited not in a single room shared by a bunch of people who've lived in it forever and warmed by a hearth with a burning fire, a la Sansa, nor in the "snug bedchamber" in the Sea Tower he'd anticipated (which sounds like Littlefinger's little "tower" by the sea), but in the Bloody Keep, in a whole-ass "suite" of large but "chilly", even "cold" rooms with incredibly high ceilings — rooms which haven't even been opened, much less lived-in, for "years", and which are the very definition of "dreary":

The halls here were larger and better furnished, if no less cold nor damp. Theon was given a suite of chilly rooms with ceilings so high that they were lost in gloom. [Omitted but see below.]
[Omitted but see below.] It was not fear of ghosts that made him glance about with distaste. The wall hangings were green with mildew, the mattress musty-smelling and sagging, the rushes old and brittle. Years had come and gone since these chambers had last been opened. The damp went bone deep. "I'll have a basin of hot water and a fire in this hearth," he told the crone. See that they light braziers in the other rooms to drive out some of the chill. And gods be good, get someone in here at once to change these rushes."

A ton of the motifs here (including the omitted stuff, which I'll return to) get recycled and reworked in Petyr's tower.
Most obviously, Theon's request for hot water prefigures Sansa's request for a hot bath:

"Might I have a hot bath as well?" asked Sansa.
"I'll have Kella draw some water, m'lady."

Note that Kella fulfills the request, not Grisel. This 'fits', as it's not Helya who brings Theon's water, but "two thralls".
Note also that Sansa requests her bath after thinking…

She desperately needed a bath and a change of clothes.

…whereas Theon changes his clothes immediately after the quoted passages.
Slightly less obviously, the "wall hangings [that] were green with mildew" are reworked by Petyr's own green 'wall hanging': his grandfather's shield, which is painted with a "light green field" and which "hung… above the hearth". The "mildew" is reworked by the fact that the paint is "cracked and flaking" i.e. flawed. And maybe also by the "light green field", since a field grows crops which get milled and which get dewy.

Brittle Bryen's Brigantine, Brindled Mastiff, & Old Blind Dog

As mentioned, the motif of unchanged rushes from Theon's homecoming recurs when Petyr comes home. But Petyr's homecoming also lexically riffs on Theon's rushes being quote-unquote "old and brittle" by giving us Bryen in "brigantine" who is very "old" but not, seemingly, brittle, as he still walks watches, not with his "old blind dog", but with a "brindled mastiff":

"It is good to have you home, my lord," said one old man. He looked to be at least eighty, but he wore a studded brigantine and a longsword at his side. …
"Bryen—didn't I name you captain of the guard the last time I was here?"
"You did, my lord. You said you'd be getting some more men too, but you never did. Me and the dogs stand all the watches."
Sansa found Bryen's old blind dog in her little alcove beneath the steps…
The servants lived and slept in the kitchen at ground level, sharing the space with a huge brindled mastiff and a half-dozen sheep-dogs.

Is the brindled dog a "mastiff" 'only' a wink at Theon going mast-stiff for Asha? (See Part 4.) Maybe. But it's worth mentioning that when Theon is first being stirred by Pyke's banner and it's being battered about like the shield we see in the Drearfort three sentences after the mastiff, it's also (a) flying from a very stiff "mast" and (b) juxtaposed with a very large 'dog' of sorts:

The banner streamed from an iron mast, shivering and twisting as the wind gusted like a bird struggling to take flight. And here at least the direwolf of Stark did not fly above, casting its shadow down upon the Greyjoy kraken.

Musty Old Mattresses

The old, "musty-smelling and sagging" mattress (in the chamber that has just been re-opened after long periods of being closed and uninhabited) from Theon's homecoming is answered in Petyr's homecomiong by Lysa, who arrives a few pages later in the chapter, eager to finally have sex again with Petyr. "Mattress" is slang for a sexually available woman (https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=mattress) and Lysa sags—

Lady Lysa was two years younger than Mother, but this woman looked ten years older. Thick auburn tresses fell down past her waist, but beneath the costly velvet gown and jeweled bodice her body sagged and bulged.

—and smells stale. (Note that Lysa is on a mattress here.)

Her aunt was drenched in sweet scent, though under that was a sour milky smell. Her cheek tasted of paint and powder.

Lysa's "cheek tast[ing] of paint and powder" riffs on the line about Theon's "distaste" and "fear of ghosts":

It was not fear of ghosts that made him glance about with distaste.

The distaste wordplay is obvious: Lysa tastes bad. As for the "fear of ghosts", Lysa (whom Sansa fears) being covered in "powder" reminds us of Sansa being afraid of a "spirit" covered in powdery flour:

When the spirit stepped out of the open tomb, pale white and moaning for blood, Sansa ran shrieking for the stairs…. Arya stood her ground and gave the spirit a punch. It was only Jon, covered with flour. (AGOT Arya IV)

This line—

The halls here were larger and better furnished, if no less cold nor damp.

—is reworked by Lysa as well, who is big and well-dressed ("better furnished", so to speak)—

[B]eneath the costly velvet gown and jeweled bodice her body sagged and bulged. Her face was pink and painted, her breasts heavy, her limbs thick. She was taller than Littlefinger, and heavier; nor did she show any grace in the clumsy way she climbed down off her horse.

—but cold to Sansa and horny/wet/"damp" for Petyr.
Given that Theon's rooms are in several ways like Lysa (newly 'open for business' after a long period of being closed and untouched by men, etc.), and pronouncing aunt like antler, we also might say that where the Lysa-like rooms are "cold" and "damp", Lysa herself is Sansa's "cold" aunt. Rhyming 'rhyming'.
That "years had come and gone since" the room with the Lysa-like mattress "had last been opened" is reworked not just by Lysa getting laid, but textually when Sansa is told Lysa is coming to the Drearfort (where she is 're-opened', so to speak):

It had been years since Sansa last saw her mother's sister…"

I wonder whether Lysa crying and speaking to Sansa of being "bound by blood" to her—

Tears welled suddenly in Lady Lysa's eyes. "We are women alone now, you and I. Are you afraid, child? Be brave. I would never turn away Cat's daughter. We are bound by blood."

—might not be in part a play on the fact that "the damp went bone deep" in the Bloody Keep. By saying that, Sansa's damp (i.e. crying) aunt "went bone deep", so to speak. (If you're "bound by blood" to someone, you have a "bone deep" bond with them. Also, bone → bound wordplay?)

Braziers → Bracing?

Did Theon's attempt to drive away "the chill" and damp of the salty sea air of Pyke using "braziers"—

See that they light braziers in the other rooms to drive out some of the chill.

—inform (via wordplay: braziers → bracing) Petyr's line when the Merling King pulls up to the Drearfort?

Lord Petyr came up beside her, cheerful as ever. "Good morrow. The salt air is bracing, don't you think? It always sharpens my appetite."

And/or is that "sharpening" motif a recursion of Theon sharpening his dirk immediately after said braziers are lit?

After some time, they brought the hot water he had asked for. … While two thralls lit his braziers, Theon stripped off his travel-stained clothing and dressed to meet his father. … He hung a dirk at one hip and a longsword at the other…. Drawing the dirk, he … pulled a whetstone from his belt pouch, and gave it a few licks. He prided himself on keeping his weapons sharp.

Gods Be Good!

The motifs of Theon yelling "gods be good" at his servant and of "ceilings so high that they were lost in gloom" are recursively reworked when Lysa summons Sansa (like a servant) to speak with her the morning after she weds Petyr. Sansa responds to the summons by thinking, verbatim, "gods be good", and is then told they'll be heading to the Eyrie, which we know is "so high you can stand on the parapets and look down on the clouds", i.e. it has parapets 'so high that they were lost in the clouds':

Lady Lysa was still abed [like a good mattress!], but Lord Petyr was up and dressed. "Your aunt wishes to speak with you," he told Sansa, as he pulled on a boot. "I've told her who you are."
Gods be good. "I . . . I thank you, my lord."
Petyr yanked on the other boot. "I've had about as much home as I can stomach. We'll leave for the Eyrie this afternoon."
Seven towers, Ned had told her, like white daggers thrust into the belly of the sky, so high you can stand on the parapets and look down on the clouds. (AGOT Catelyn VI)

The notion of a "ceiling" so high it is lost in gloom is perhaps also reworked by the story Lysa tells Sansa about Petyr's "rise" to power: She says she "always knew how high [Petyr would] rise", and it's my belief that said rise has likely seen him 'lost', spiritually, in 'darkness'. (Note that ceilings are a frequently invoked metaphor when talking about climbing the corporate ladder.)

"Half his teeth were gone, and his breath smelled like bad cheese. I cannot abide a man with foul breath. Petyr's breath is always fresh . . . he was the first man I ever kissed, you know. My father said he was too lowborn, but I knew how high he'd rise. Jon gave him the customs for Gulltown to please me, but when he increased the incomes tenfold my lord husband saw how clever he was and gave him other appointments, even brought him to King's Landing to be master of coin. That was hard, to see him every day and still be wed to that old cold man.

(Recall that the motif of bad/fresh breath there reworks the "winey stench of the old man's [Sylas Sourmouth's] breath", which Theon thinks about roughly ¼ page prior to being shown his suite in the Bloody Keep.)

Butchered Sons & Brothers

Lysa continues to rant:

"Jon did his duty in the bedchamber, but he could no more give me pleasure than he could give me children. His seed was old and weak. All my babies died but Robert, three girls and two boys. All my sweet little babies dead, and that old man just went on and on with his stinking breath. So you see, I have suffered too." Lady Lysa sniffed. "You do know that your poor mother is dead?"
"Tyrion told me," said Sansa. "He said the Freys murdered her at The Twins, with Robb."

Those references to (a) a bunch of dead "babies", including two brothers, one of which was "murdered" when Lysa's father, Hoster Tully, who ruled the Riverlands, betrayed Lysa's trust; and to (b) foul smelling breath, a la Sylas, and finally to (c) the Red Wedding — a bloody betrayal of Sansa's brother, who was King of the Riverlands — particularly (per Sansa saying "Tyrion told me") as it's described by Tyrion—

Sansa did not need to hear how her brother's body had been hacked and mutilated, he decided; nor how her mother's corpse had been dumped naked into the Green Fork in a savage mockery of House Tully's funeral customs. (ASOS Tyrion VII)

—are one of the ways ASOS Sansa VI rejiggers the part of Theon's description of his Bloody Keep suite I "[omitted]" earlier, which entails betrayals, murdered brothers, a River King, slaughter, and bodies "hacked to bits".

[Theon] might have been more impressed if he had not known that these were the very chambers that had given the Bloody Keep its name. A thousand years before, the sons of the River King had been slaughtered here, hacked to bits in their beds so that pieces of their bodies might be sent back to their father on the mainland.
But Greyjoys were not murdered in Pyke except once in a great while by their brothers, and his brothers were both dead.

Lysa's speech with its reference to her abortion and to the Red Wedding (and to stink-breath like Sylas's) isn't the only (or even the main) way Petyr's homecoming chapter refracts those images from Theon's homecoming, though.
Littlefinger is himself a kind of River King (as Lord Paramount of the Trident), right? And note that we read all about his "slaughtered" "sons" just before he enters the tower, wherein we then see the foul betrayers who murdered their 'brothers'. I'm talking, of course, about his sheep and his sheepdogs:

"How many sheep do I have at present, Kella?"
… "Three and twenty, m'lord. There was nine and twenty, but Bryen's dogs killed one and we butchered some others and salted down the meat."
"Ah, cold salt mutton. I must be home.…" … "Come, let's see if my hall is as dreary as I recall." … A handful of sheep were wandering about the base of the flint tower…. …
Within, the tower seemed even smaller. An open stone stair wound round the inside wall, from undercroft to roof. Each floor was but a single room. The servants lived and slept in the kitchen at ground level, sharing the space with a huge brindled mastiff and a half-dozen sheep-dogs.

Note the kitchen, recalling that the Bloody Keep is paired with the Kitchen Keep as Theon first gazes on Pyke:

Farther out were the Kitchen Keep and the Bloody Keep, each on its own island.

Note, too, that the sheep are coded as Petyr's "sons", in a way (a la the "slaughtered… sons of the River King" Theon remembers in his Bloody Tower rooms), and not just because he owns them. He says that Kella has lots of bastards and that she minds his sheep, right? And what else does he say of Kella, in jest? That she 'is' the "mother" of his "daughter," "Alayne Stone":

"Alayne . . . Stone, would it be?" When he nodded, she said, "But who is my mother?"
"Kella?"
"Please no," she said, mortified.
"I was teasing.

The joke foregrounds the notion of Petyr as the father of Kella's children. And while she supposedly has a bunch of bastards, we don't see them. We just see the one girl with the livestock-evoking eye with a sty. It's almost like the sheep she looks after are her children. And thus like Petyr is their father.
(Note the word "mortified". This points straight back to Theon in his Bloody Tower for two reasons: First, greyscale, which mortifies the flesh, killed Balon's brother Harlon, who died "in a windowless tower room" at Pyke. Second: Theon will, in his next chapter, be truly mortified by the realization that "Esgred" is his sister Asha, where that masquerade in turn prefigures Sansa masquerading as Alayne.)
So the "cold" Bloody Keep with its partner the Kitchen Keep and its story of a "slaughter", betrayal, brother killing brother, a River King's sons' bodies "hacked to bits in their beds" — all these motifs are reworked by Kella's account of one of Lord Paramount Petyr's sheep-'sons' being killed by its lexicial 'brothers', the very "sheep-dogs" who were supposed to guard it, and of other sheep-'sons' being verbatim "butchered", i.e. slaughtered on a killing bed and in the process surely hacked into pieces that were then preserved against spoilage for future consumption, such that the resulting "cold salt mutton" could be used as travel rations. Which jibes with Theon's language, creatively interpreted:

[T]he sons of the River King had been slaughtered here, hacked to bits in their beds so that pieces of their bodies might be sent back to their father on the mainland.

(They were slaughtered and hacked to bits only so as to properly preserve them against spoilage during their upcoming journey "back to their father on the mainland", you see!)

Theon's Honor Guard

The conditions in Theon's rooms are consistent with the cold welcome he receives, both from Aeron—

The priest's manner was chilly, most unlike the man Theon remembered.

—and Balon—

Theon pulled off his gloves. "… Why is my father not here to greet me?"
"He awaits you in the Sea Tower, m'lord. When you are rested from your trip."
And I thought Ned Stark cold.

—and they're thus part of a broad yin/yang 'rhyme' with Petyr's initial homecoming, which is warm and welcoming and full of familiar faces, whereas Theon knows no one, such that he thinks:

It is as if I were a stranger here….

The reversal is wryly underlined when Petyr is greeted at the shore by his "captain of the guards", Bryen:

"It is good to have you home, my lord," said one old man.

Thus Petyr ironically gets the "honor guard" welcome Theon hoped he'd get on his arrival 'home':

[Theon] saw… no honor guard waiting to escort him from Lordsport to Pyke, only smallfolk going about their small business.

Notice that where no one stops what they're doing for Theon, everyone stops when Petyr arrives. And of course, everyone in his household recognizes him, whereas no one recognizes Theon. Which is telling, because in a deep sense, that's all Theon really wants, deep down: a little recognition.
Littlefinger has it… but it's not enough.

(SUB)SERIES CONCLUDES IN PART 10: Oswell & Aeron; Lothar & Dagmer; The Closing Twist

This post is part of a series looking at the massive amount of 'rhyming' (and occasionally rhyming) recursivity I believe exists between (a) the homecoming of Petyr Baelish to the Fingers and (b) the homecoming of Theon Greyjoy to Pyke.
While this series/post can be read simply as a study 'for its own sake' of the curious recursion between these storylines, it is my belief that the 'rhyming' explored here between the stories of Petyr and Theon exists (at least in part) to foreshadow that, like Theon, Petyr Littlefinger, is (among other things) a scion of ironborn kings, because Petyr is Hoare-ish: I.e. because Petyr's blood is (in some part) the blood of the ironborn kings of House Hoare of Orkmont and, later, Harrenhal.
You can find an index of every post I've made on the topic of a Hoare-ish Littlefinger (including every post in this sub-series) [HERE].
Even if I'm wrong about Littlefinger's lineage, the 'rhyming' recursivity between the homecomings of Theon and Petyr detailed in this series remains, and certainly merits attention.
NOTE: In what follows, all uncited quotes are from ASOS Sansa VI, which describes Petyr's homecoming to his "Drearfort" tower of the 'Smallest Finger', or ACOK Theon I, which describes Theon's homecoming to "drear" Pyke.
As in past posts, I sometimes use "→" as shorthand for "'prefigures' and/or 'informs' and/or 'is reworked by' and/or 'finds a recursive rhyme in'.
As in: ACOK Theon I → ASOS Sansa VI.
This post picks up straight-away from where Part 8 left off. You can read Part 8 [HERE].
If you want to begin at the beginning, Part 1 is [HERE].

The Myraham's Prophetic Cargo

After Theon makes port, the captain of the Myraham announces his cargo to the people on the docks of Lordport and we read about the offloading of the Myraham:

"We're out of Oldtown," the captain called down, "bearing apples and oranges, wines from the Arbor, feathers from the Summer Isles. I have pepper, woven leathers, a bolt of Myrish lace, mirrors for milady, a pair of Oldtown woodharps sweet as any you ever heard." The gangplank descended with a creak and a thud. "And I've brought your heir back to you."

Most of what we read there seems to be reworked in and around Littlefinger's homecoming in ASOS Sansa VI, when the Merling King brings the Dreadfort its heir, Littlefinger, as well as the seeming heir to Winterfell, Sansa. This begins with the Arbor wine and fruit we see off-loaded from the Merling King:

Oswell made two more trips out to the Merling King to offload provisions. Among the loads he brought ashore were several casks of wine. Petyr poured Sansa a cup, as promised. …
… The wine was very fine; an Arbor vintage, she thought. It tasted of oak and fruit and hot summer nights, the flavors blossoming in her mouth like flowers opening to the sun. She only prayed that she could keep it down. Lord Petyr was being so kind, she did not want to spoil it all by retching on him.
… "Grisel," he called to the old woman, "bring some food up. … Oswell's brought some oranges and pomegranates from the King." …
Grisel reappeared…, balancing a large platter. … There were apples and pears and pomegranates, some sad-looking grapes, a huge blood orange.

Besides the straight repetition of Arbor wine, oranges, apples, and heirs, the repeated Oldtown motif is baldly reworked by Sansa's description of the wine, which is patently Oldtown-summer-esque, per the only substantive pre-AFFC description of Oldtown, which associates it with hot, fruity summer nights:

"King Maekar's summer was hotter than this one, and near as long. … [T]he heat was fierce while it lasted. Oldtown… came alive only by night. … I remember the smells of those nights, my lord—perfume and sweat, melons ripe to bursting, peaches and pomegranates, nightshade and moonbloom." (AGOT Eddard V)

The Myraham's "mirrors for milady" prefigure Sansa being figuratively groomed by Petyr and literally grooming herself in Petyr's Eyrie after he takes over:

When Gretchel fetched her Lysa's silvered looking glass, the color seemed just perfect with Alayne's mass of dark brown hair. (AFFC Alayne I)

The Myraham's "woodharps sweet as any you ever heard" presage Sansa being attacked by Marillion, whose "voice was strong and sweet", (AFFC Sansa I) after he sings a song (about blowjobs?) called "Milady's Supper" (supper a la the Myraham-ish fruit Sansa eats for supper when she lands) during Petyr's wedding bedding:

Lady Lysa's singer launched into a bawdy version of "Milady's Supper"….

The Myraham's "woven leathers" and "Myrish lace" are reworked into the "laces unlaced" i.e. unwoven during said wedding:

By the time they had gotten him into the tower and out of his clothes, the other women were flushed, with laces unlaced, kirtles crooked, and skirts in disarray.

That it's a "bolt of Myrish lace" is interesting: After Sansa boards the Merling King, she sees a singular "bolt" from a crossbow strike Dontos, and then two more:

Lothor Brune dipped his torch. Three men stepped to the gunwale, raised crossbows, fired. One bolt took Dontos in the chest as he looked up…. The others ripped into throat and belly. (ASOS Sansa V)

Three crossbow bolts? What does that remind us if not… a Myrish crossbow:

"The king is playing with his new crossbow," Tyrion said. Ridding himself of Joffrey had required only an ungainly Myrish crossbow that threw three quarrels at a time…. (ACOK Tyrion VI)

What about the Myraham's "pepper"? I suspect this gets box-checked first by Sansa trying not to "retch" as she is off-loaded along with the wine with which Littlefinger tries to settle her tummy, as just two chapters later peppers are tightly linked to "retching" of the sort Sansa feels like doing:

[Tyrion] found himself on his knees retching… that double helping of fried eggs cooked up with onions and fiery Dornish peppers. (ASOS Tyrion X)

GRRM seems to play off the "pepper" motif in other ways, as well. Consider that the gathering to meet the Myraham and the shouted questions that prompt her captain to announce her cargo—

A handful of Lordsport merchants had gathered to meet the ship. They shouted questions as the Myraham was tying up.

—get reworked by Petyr's household all gathering "to meet" the Merling King and by their peppering one another with questions:

Servants emerged from the tower to meet them; a thin old woman and a fat middle-aged one, two ancient white-haired men, and a girl of two or three with a sty on one eye. When they recognized Lord Petyr they knelt on the rocks. "My household," he said. "I don't know the child. Another of Kella's bastards, I suppose. She pops one out every few years."

She's a "popper", then, in case we didn't catch that retching → peppers. (This also reworks Theon "popping one off" with the captain's daughter, who is in many ways reworked by Kella, as will be discussed below.)

… [Petyr]… gave the old woman a kiss on the cheek and grinned at the younger one. "Who fathered this one, Kella?"
The fat woman laughed. "I can't rightly say, m'lord. I'm not one for telling them no."
"And all the local lads are grateful, I am quite sure."
"It is good to have you home, my lord," said one old man. … "How long will you be in residence?"
"As short a time as possible, Bryen, have no fear. Is the place habitable just now, would you say?"
"If we knew you was coming we would have laid down fresh rushes, m'lord," said the crone. "There's a dung fire burning."
"Nothing says home like the smell of burning dung." Petyr turned to Sansa. "Grisel was my wet nurse, but she keeps my castle now. Umfred's my steward, and Bryen—didn't I name you captain of the guard the last time I was here?"
"You did, my lord.…"
… Petyr gestured toward the fat woman. "Kella minds my vast herds. How many sheep do I have at present, Kella?"

A gathering, and questions, questions, questions, as when Theon docks.
Recall that Bryen and Umfred come from shore to offload Sansa (who's just been promised a cup of wine to help with her upset "tummy") from the Merling King's rowboat:

The two old men waded out up to their thighs to lift Sansa from the boat so she would not get her skirts wet.

This reworks the "shorehands… off-loading… casks of wine" from a Tyroshi trader docked with the Myraham—

[Theon] spied a Tyroshi trading galley off-loading…
Shorehands rolled casks of wine off the Tyroshi trader, fisherfolk cried the day's catch, children ran and played. A priest in the seawater robes of the Drowned God was leading a pair of horses along the pebbled shore, while above him a slattern leaned out a window in the inn, calling out to some passing Ibbenese sailors.

—which itself prefigures the above-quoted off-loading of the Merling King (when "Oswell made two more trips out to the Merling King to offload provisions" including "several casks of wine", from which Petyr immediately "poured Sansa a cup, as promised").

Kella & The Slattern

What about that "slattern lean[ing] out a window" to greet "some passing… sailors" while "children ran and played"? I submit that she is one of several motifs from Theon's homecoming prefiguring Petyr's servant Kella. I'll explain.
Consider that Petyr's servant Kella has many bastards i.e. children, popping one out every few years:

"I don't know the child. Another of Kella's bastards, I suppose. She pops one out every few years."

We only see one; presumably the others are off somewhere, running and playing, perhaps.
Kella happily greets Petyr as he comes ashore, much as Lordsport's slattern "call[s] out to some passing Ibbenese sailors". Note that the sailors on the Merling King are likewise 'passing' — passing through:

"From here the King turns east for Braavos. Without us."

Consider most of all that Kella's something of a slattern herself: She's "not one for telling them no".

"I can't rightly say, m'lord. I'm not one for telling them no."
"And all the local lads are grateful, I am quite sure."

Indeed, something Lysa says pretty clearly codes Kella as a verbatim "slattern", underlining the recursion:

"How would you like to spend your life on that bleak shore, surrounded by slatterns and sheep pellets?" (ASOS Sansa VII)

So I think the vignette with the slattern and the children in Lordsport pretty plainly prefigures Kella. But I think she's prefigured by two more pieces of Theon's homecoming.

Kella & The Captain's Daughter

Keeping in mind that Kella has a bunch of bastards ("she pops one out every few years) and that she's "not one for telling them no", consider also that she is (a) literally 'with child' — or rather, with a child—

a girl of two or three with a sty on one eye

—that she's (b) "fat"—

"Who fathered this one, Kella?"
The fat woman laughed.

—and that she's (c) coded as a bit stupid:

"Kella minds my vast herds. How many sheep do I have at present, Kella?"
She had to think a moment. "Three and twenty, m'lord. There was nine and twenty, but Bryen's dogs killed one and we butchered some others and salted down the meat."

All like Theon's "captain's daughter".
The captain's daughter is "plump", as Kella is "fat":

The girl was a shade plump for his taste…

She is likely pregnant with Theon's bastard, a la Kella the bastard-popper.
She tells Theon…

"You can put it in me again, if it please you…"

…and accedes to his request for a blowjob, so she's "not one for telling them no."
She thereby helps Theon 'pop one off', a la Kella "pop[ping] one out".
Like Kella, she seems a bit stupid:

She looked rather stupid when she smiled, but he had never required a woman to be clever.
The stupid girl did not seem to be listening.
She… learned quickly for such a stupid girl….
She looked at him stupidly, so he left her there.

And finally, she offers to work in Theon's castle—

I'd work in your castle, milord.

—just as Kella works for Petyr.

Kella: The Spreading Patch of the Smallest Finger?

Besides the "slattern" and the captain's daughter, I suspect Kella may also riff on — of all things — the "spreading patches" of "lichen" on "wet" Pyke as Theon sails by:

[Pyke was] wet by the same salt waves, festooned with the same spreading patches of dark green lichen, speckled by the droppings of the same seabirds.

Get it? A spreading 'patch'? In combination with "lichen" a la "licking" and Pyke being "wet"? And not just wet, but "wet by… salt waves", when as we know from the captain's daughter, semen tastes "salty", "like the sea". It's like Pyke is being described as a turned-on "slattern" with her legs spread.
A Hoare, we might say.
This connects to Kella, specifically because of her name: Kella is a near anagram for "kale", a dark green plant, like the "dark green lichen".
Actually, the name Kella may have anothere precursor in Theon's story: "Qalen", the maester Theon asks Helya about upon his arrival at Pyke:

"And what of Maester Qalen, where is he?"

Qalen would be pronounced Kalen. Qalen → Kalen → Kale → Kela → Kella. Anyway…

Grisel & The Captain's Daughter

Something similar is going on with Petyr's servant Grisel, the "thin old woman" who was his wet nurse but who "keeps [his] castle now":

"Grisel was my wet nurse, but she keeps my castle now.

Grisel is similarly prefigured by two people from Theon's homecoming, including first the captain's daughter who wants to work in Theon's castle as Grisel works in Petyr's "castle".
Consider first that Grisel, like the captain's daughter, seems slightly stupid (but eager to please), as she fails to grasp Petyr's sarcasm and takes his derisive joke about gulls' eggs and seaweed soup as an order:

"Ah, cold salt mutton. I must be home. When I break my fast on gulls' eggs and seaweed soup, I'll be certain of it."
"If you like, m'lord," said the old woman Grisel.
Lord Petyr made a face.

Then there is the captain daughter's resume:

"I'd work in your castle, milord. I can clean fish and bake bread and churn butter. Father says my peppercrab stew is the best he's ever tasted. You could find me a place in your kitchens and I could make you peppercrab stew."

This surely prefigures what we're told about Grisel making a sea-based soup of her own (i.e. the just mentioned "seaweed soup"), baking bread, and churning butter for Petyr:

Grisel reappeared before he could say more, balancing a large platter. She set it down between them. … The old woman had brought a round of bread as well, and a crock of butter.
Grisel climbed up to the bedchamber to serve the lord and lady a tray of morning bread, with butter, honey, fruit, and cream.

Where Grisel used to be Petyr's wet nurse, Theon suckles the captain daughter's nipple as if she's a wet nurse:

Theon's finger circled one heavy teat, spiraling in toward the fat brown nipple. … He took her nipple in his mouth….
"You can put it in me again, if it please you," she whispered in his ear as he sucked.

And finally, where Theon kisses the captain's daughter on the ear—

[Theon] drew the captain's daughter close and kissed her on her ear.

—Littlefinger kisses Grisel on the cheek:

Oswell and Lothor splashed their way ashore, as did Littlefinger himself. He gave the old woman a kiss on the cheek and grinned at the younger one.

Helya & Grisel (& Gretchel)

Grisel also rhymes with and reworks Helya, who keeps Balon's castle:

A bentback old crone in a shapeless grey dress approached him warily. "M'lord, I am sent to show you to chambers."
"And who are you?"
"Helya, who keeps this castle for your lord father."

Get it? "Helya and Grisel", a la "Hansel and Gretel".
(Gretel is a variant of "Greta". "Grisel" sounds like gristle, whereas in Hansel and Gretel the witch is trying to fatten Hansel up — she don't want no stringy meat! Note the thematic symmetry as well: By treating Hansel kindly and feeding him delicious treats, the witch is essentially "grooming" him for her own benefit/consumption, as Theon and Petyr groom the captain's daughter and Sansa, respectively, for their own benefit. Finally, note that "pebbles" are a key motif in Hansel and Gretel, prefiguring the proliferation of "pebbles" on Pyke, the 'rhyming' "pellets" on Petyr's Finger, and the isle of "Pebble" that leads to Petyr's Finger.)
The two "old" castle keepers neatly invert one another. Consider Grisel's comments about the old rushes and fire in Petyr's tower:

"If we knew you was coming we would have laid down fresh rushes, m'lord," said the crone. "There's a dung fire burning."
"Nothing says home like the smell of burning dung."

That's a recursive reversal of Helya's (lack of) preparation for Theon's visit: Where Grisel has a fire going even though she didn't know Petyr was coming, and where she proactively apologizes for not changing the rushes, telling him "we would have laid down fresh rushes… if we knew you were coming", Helya neither lit a fire nor changed the heavily foregrounded "old and brittle" rushes in the rooms Theon is given—

"I'll have a basin of hot water and a fire in this hearth," he told the crone. "See that they light braziers in the other rooms to drive out some of the chill. And gods be good, get someone in here at once to change these rushes."

—despite having ample forewarning of his coming:

It was not as though they had no word of his arrival. Robb had sent ravens from Riverrun, and… Jason Mallister had sent his own birds to Pyke….

The joke is underlined by the introduction of "Gretchel" — Gretel with a borrowed H from Helya/Hansel — who fetches washbasins of water (which, see below), "la[ys] a fire in the hearth" and "tend[s] to the fire", brings food and discusses food storage in Petyr's Eyrie in AFFC Sansa I & Alayne I. (In other words, she 'keeps his castle.')

'Rhyming' Interiors

That's just the beginning of the reversals in the many recursions between Theon's lodgings at Pyke and Sansa's in the Drearfort.
Where Helya leads Theon to his rooms on his orders—

"Show me to my chambers, woman," he commanded. Bowing stiffly, [Helya] led him across the headland to the bridge. …
Whenever he'd imagined his homecoming, he had always pictured himself returning to the snug bedchamber in the Sea Tower, where he'd slept as a child. Instead the old woman led him to the Bloody Keep.

—it's Petyr who leads the way into his tower, casually inviting Grisel (and everyone else) to follow him:

"If you like, m'lord," said the old woman Grisel.
Lord Petyr made a face. "Come, let's see if my hall is as dreary as I recall." He led them up the strand…

Petyr jokes about his hall being "dreary", and perhaps it is, but while it's "small" and "even smaller" within, his tower is also home to his servants, and hence very well lived-in.

Within, the tower seemed even smaller. An open stone stair wound round the inside wall, from undercroft to roof. Each floor was but a single room. The servants lived and slept in the kitchen at ground level, sharing the space with a huge brindled mastiff and a half-dozen sheep-dogs. Above that was a modest hall, and higher still the bedchamber.

(Note that the "mastiff", which we see as Petyr leads Grisel in, recalls Helya bowing "stiffly" before leading Theon to his rooms.)
This sharply reverses the situation Theon finds at Pyke, when he's deposited not in a single room shared by a bunch of people who've lived in it forever and warmed by a hearth with a burning fire, a la Sansa, nor in the "snug bedchamber" in the Sea Tower he'd anticipated (which sounds like Littlefinger's little "tower" by the sea), but in the Bloody Keep, in a whole-ass "suite" of large but "chilly", even "cold" rooms with incredibly high ceilings — rooms which haven't even been opened, much less lived-in, for "years", and which are the very definition of "dreary":

The halls here were larger and better furnished, if no less cold nor damp. Theon was given a suite of chilly rooms with ceilings so high that they were lost in gloom. [Omitted but see below.]
[Omitted but see below.] It was not fear of ghosts that made him glance about with distaste. The wall hangings were green with mildew, the mattress musty-smelling and sagging, the rushes old and brittle. Years had come and gone since these chambers had last been opened. The damp went bone deep. "I'll have a basin of hot water and a fire in this hearth," he told the crone. See that they light braziers in the other rooms to drive out some of the chill. And gods be good, get someone in here at once to change these rushes."

A ton of the motifs here (including the omitted stuff, which I'll return to) get recycled and reworked in Petyr's tower.
Most obviously, Theon's request for hot water prefigures Sansa's request for a hot bath:

"Might I have a hot bath as well?" asked Sansa.
"I'll have Kella draw some water, m'lady."

Note that Kella fulfills the request, not Grisel. This 'fits', as it's not Helya who brings Theon's water, but "two thralls".
Note also that Sansa requests her bath after thinking…

She desperately needed a bath and a change of clothes.

…whereas Theon changes his clothes immediately after the quoted passages.
Slightly less obviously, the "wall hangings [that] were green with mildew" are reworked by Petyr's own green 'wall hanging': his grandfather's shield, which is painted with a "light green field" and which "hung… above the hearth". The "mildew" is reworked by the fact that the paint is "cracked and flaking" i.e. flawed. And maybe also by the "light green field", since a field grows crops which get milled and which get dewy.

Brittle Bryen's Brigantine, Brindled Mastiff, & Old Blind Dog

As mentioned, the motif of unchanged rushes from Theon's homecoming recurs when Petyr comes home. But Petyr's homecoming also lexically riffs on Theon's rushes being quote-unquote "old and brittle" by giving us Bryen in "brigantine" who is very "old" but not, seemingly, brittle, as he still walks watches, not with his "old blind dog", but with a "brindled mastiff":

"It is good to have you home, my lord," said one old man. He looked to be at least eighty, but he wore a studded brigantine and a longsword at his side. …
"Bryen—didn't I name you captain of the guard the last time I was here?"
"You did, my lord. You said you'd be getting some more men too, but you never did. Me and the dogs stand all the watches."
Sansa found Bryen's old blind dog in her little alcove beneath the steps…
The servants lived and slept in the kitchen at ground level, sharing the space with a huge brindled mastiff and a half-dozen sheep-dogs.

Is the brindled dog a "mastiff" 'only' a wink at Theon going mast-stiff for Asha? (See Part 4.) Maybe. But it's worth mentioning that when Theon is first being stirred by Pyke's banner and it's being battered about like the shield we see in the Drearfort three sentences after the mastiff, it's also (a) flying from a very stiff "mast" and (b) juxtaposed with a very large 'dog' of sorts:

The banner streamed from an iron mast, shivering and twisting as the wind gusted like a bird struggling to take flight. And here at least the direwolf of Stark did not fly above, casting its shadow down upon the Greyjoy kraken.

Musty Old Mattresses

The old, "musty-smelling and sagging" mattress (in the chamber that has just been re-opened after long periods of being closed and uninhabited) from Theon's homecoming is answered in Petyr's homecomiong by Lysa, who arrives a few pages later in the chapter, eager to finally have sex again with Petyr. "Mattress" is slang for a sexually available woman (https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=mattress) and Lysa sags—

Lady Lysa was two years younger than Mother, but this woman looked ten years older. Thick auburn tresses fell down past her waist, but beneath the costly velvet gown and jeweled bodice her body sagged and bulged.

—and smells stale. (Note that Lysa is on a mattress here.)

Her aunt was drenched in sweet scent, though under that was a sour milky smell. Her cheek tasted of paint and powder.

Lysa's "cheek tast[ing] of paint and powder" riffs on the line about Theon's "distaste" and "fear of ghosts":

It was not fear of ghosts that made him glance about with distaste.

The distaste wordplay is obvious: Lysa tastes bad. As for the "fear of ghosts", Lysa (whom Sansa fears) being covered in "powder" reminds us of Sansa being afraid of a "spirit" covered in powdery flour:

When the spirit stepped out of the open tomb, pale white and moaning for blood, Sansa ran shrieking for the stairs…. Arya stood her ground and gave the spirit a punch. It was only Jon, covered with flour. (AGOT Arya IV)

This line—

The halls here were larger and better furnished, if no less cold nor damp.

—is reworked by Lysa as well, who is big and well-dressed ("better furnished", so to speak)—

[B]eneath the costly velvet gown and jeweled bodice her body sagged and bulged. Her face was pink and painted, her breasts heavy, her limbs thick. She was taller than Littlefinger, and heavier; nor did she show any grace in the clumsy way she climbed down off her horse.

—but cold to Sansa and horny/wet/"damp" for Petyr.
Given that Theon's rooms are in several ways like Lysa (newly 'open for business' after a long period of being closed and untouched by men, etc.), and pronouncing aunt like antler, we also might say that where the Lysa-like rooms are "cold" and "damp", Lysa herself is Sansa's "cold" aunt. Rhyming 'rhyming'.
That "years had come and gone since" the room with the Lysa-like mattress "had last been opened" is reworked not just by Lysa getting laid, but textually when Sansa is told Lysa is coming to the Drearfort (where she is 're-opened', so to speak):

It had been years since Sansa last saw her mother's sister…"

I wonder whether Lysa crying and speaking to Sansa of being "bound by blood" to her—

Tears welled suddenly in Lady Lysa's eyes. "We are women alone now, you and I. Are you afraid, child? Be brave. I would never turn away Cat's daughter. We are bound by blood."

—might not be in part a play on the fact that "the damp went bone deep" in the Bloody Keep. By saying that, Sansa's damp (i.e. crying) aunt "went bone deep", so to speak. (If you're "bound by blood" to someone, you have a "bone deep" bond with them. Also, bone → bound wordplay?)

Braziers → Bracing?

Did Theon's attempt to drive away "the chill" and damp of the salty sea air of Pyke using "braziers"—

See that they light braziers in the other rooms to drive out some of the chill.

—inform (via wordplay: braziers → bracing) Petyr's line when the Merling King pulls up to the Drearfort?

Lord Petyr came up beside her, cheerful as ever. "Good morrow. The salt air is bracing, don't you think? It always sharpens my appetite."

And/or is that "sharpening" motif a recursion of Theon sharpening his dirk immediately after said braziers are lit?

After some time, they brought the hot water he had asked for. … While two thralls lit his braziers, Theon stripped off his travel-stained clothing and dressed to meet his father. … He hung a dirk at one hip and a longsword at the other…. Drawing the dirk, he … pulled a whetstone from his belt pouch, and gave it a few licks. He prided himself on keeping his weapons sharp.

Gods Be Good!

The motifs of Theon yelling "gods be good" at his servant and of "ceilings so high that they were lost in gloom" are recursively reworked when Lysa summons Sansa (like a servant) to speak with her the morning after she weds Petyr. Sansa responds to the summons by thinking, verbatim, "gods be good", and is then told they'll be heading to the Eyrie, which we know is "so high you can stand on the parapets and look down on the clouds", i.e. it has parapets 'so high that they were lost in the clouds':

Lady Lysa was still abed [like a good mattress!], but Lord Petyr was up and dressed. "Your aunt wishes to speak with you," he told Sansa, as he pulled on a boot. "I've told her who you are."
Gods be good. "I . . . I thank you, my lord."
Petyr yanked on the other boot. "I've had about as much home as I can stomach. We'll leave for the Eyrie this afternoon."
Seven towers, Ned had told her, like white daggers thrust into the belly of the sky, so high you can stand on the parapets and look down on the clouds. (AGOT Catelyn VI)

The notion of a "ceiling" so high it is lost in gloom is perhaps also reworked by the story Lysa tells Sansa about Petyr's "rise" to power: She says she "always knew how high [Petyr would] rise", and it's my belief that said rise has likely seen him 'lost', spiritually, in 'darkness'. (Note that ceilings are a frequently invoked metaphor when talking about climbing the corporate ladder.)

"Half his teeth were gone, and his breath smelled like bad cheese. I cannot abide a man with foul breath. Petyr's breath is always fresh . . . he was the first man I ever kissed, you know. My father said he was too lowborn, but I knew how high he'd rise. Jon gave him the customs for Gulltown to please me, but when he increased the incomes tenfold my lord husband saw how clever he was and gave him other appointments, even brought him to King's Landing to be master of coin. That was hard, to see him every day and still be wed to that old cold man.

(Recall that the motif of bad/fresh breath there reworks the "winey stench of the old man's [Sylas Sourmouth's] breath", which Theon thinks about roughly ¼ page prior to being shown his suite in the Bloody Keep.)

Butchered Sons & Brothers

Lysa continues to rant:

"Jon did his duty in the bedchamber, but he could no more give me pleasure than he could give me children. His seed was old and weak. All my babies died but Robert, three girls and two boys. All my sweet little babies dead, and that old man just went on and on with his stinking breath. So you see, I have suffered too." Lady Lysa sniffed. "You do know that your poor mother is dead?"
"Tyrion told me," said Sansa. "He said the Freys murdered her at The Twins, with Robb."

Those references to (a) a bunch of dead "babies", including two brothers, one of which was "murdered" when Lysa's father, Hoster Tully, who ruled the Riverlands, betrayed Lysa's trust; and to (b) foul smelling breath, a la Sylas, and finally to (c) the Red Wedding — a bloody betrayal of Sansa's brother, who was King of the Riverlands — particularly (per Sansa saying "Tyrion told me") as it's described by Tyrion—

Sansa did not need to hear how her brother's body had been hacked and mutilated, he decided; nor how her mother's corpse had been dumped naked into the Green Fork in a savage mockery of House Tully's funeral customs. (ASOS Tyrion VII)

—are one of the ways ASOS Sansa VI rejiggers the part of Theon's description of his Bloody Keep suite I "[omitted]" earlier, which entails betrayals, murdered brothers, a River King, slaughter, and bodies "hacked to bits".

[Theon] might have been more impressed if he had not known that these were the very chambers that had given the Bloody Keep its name. A thousand years before, the sons of the River King had been slaughtered here, hacked to bits in their beds so that pieces of their bodies might be sent back to their father on the mainland.
But Greyjoys were not murdered in Pyke except once in a great while by their brothers, and his brothers were both dead.

Lysa's speech with its reference to her abortion and to the Red Wedding (and to stink-breath like Sylas's) isn't the only (or even the main) way Petyr's homecoming chapter refracts those images from Theon's homecoming, though.
Littlefinger is himself a kind of River King (as Lord Paramount of the Trident), right? And note that we read all about his "slaughtered" "sons" just before he enters the tower, wherein we then see the foul betrayers who murdered their 'brothers'. I'm talking, of course, about his sheep and his sheepdogs:

"How many sheep do I have at present, Kella?"
… "Three and twenty, m'lord. There was nine and twenty, but Bryen's dogs killed one and we butchered some others and salted down the meat."
"Ah, cold salt mutton. I must be home.…" … "Come, let's see if my hall is as dreary as I recall." … A handful of sheep were wandering about the base of the flint tower…. …
Within, the tower seemed even smaller. An open stone stair wound round the inside wall, from undercroft to roof. Each floor was but a single room. The servants lived and slept in the kitchen at ground level, sharing the space with a huge brindled mastiff and a half-dozen sheep-dogs.

Note the kitchen, recalling that the Bloody Keep is paired with the Kitchen Keep as Theon first gazes on Pyke:

Farther out were the Kitchen Keep and the Bloody Keep, each on its own island.

Note, too, that the sheep are coded as Petyr's "sons", in a way (a la the "slaughtered… sons of the River King" Theon remembers in his Bloody Tower rooms), and not just because he owns them. He says that Kella has lots of bastards and that she minds his sheep, right? And what else does he say of Kella, in jest? That she 'is' the "mother" of his "daughter," "Alayne Stone":

"Alayne . . . Stone, would it be?" When he nodded, she said, "But who is my mother?"
"Kella?"
"Please no," she said, mortified.
"I was teasing.

The joke foregrounds the notion of Petyr as the father of Kella's children. And while she supposedly has a bunch of bastards, we don't see them. We just see the one girl with the livestock-evoking eye with a sty. It's almost like the sheep she looks after are her children. And thus like Petyr is their father.
(Note the word "mortified". This points straight back to Theon in his Bloody Tower for two reasons: First, greyscale, which mortifies the flesh, killed Balon's brother Harlon, who died "in a windowless tower room" at Pyke. Second: Theon will, in his next chapter, be truly mortified by the realization that "Esgred" is his sister Asha, where that masquerade in turn prefigures Sansa masquerading as Alayne.)
So the "cold" Bloody Keep with its partner the Kitchen Keep and its story of a "slaughter", betrayal, brother killing brother, a River King's sons' bodies "hacked to bits in their beds" — all these motifs are reworked by Kella's account of one of Lord Paramount Petyr's sheep-'sons' being killed by its lexicial 'brothers', the very "sheep-dogs" who were supposed to guard it, and of other sheep-'sons' being verbatim "butchered", i.e. slaughtered on a killing bed and in the process surely hacked into pieces that were then preserved against spoilage for future consumption, such that the resulting "cold salt mutton" could be used as travel rations. Which jibes with Theon's language, creatively interpreted:

[T]he sons of the River King had been slaughtered here, hacked to bits in their beds so that pieces of their bodies might be sent back to their father on the mainland.

(They were slaughtered and hacked to bits only so as to properly preserve them against spoilage during their upcoming journey "back to their father on the mainland", you see!)

Theon's Honor Guard

The conditions in Theon's rooms are consistent with the cold welcome he receives, both from Aeron—

The priest's manner was chilly, most unlike the man Theon remembered.

—and Balon—

Theon pulled off his gloves. "… Why is my father not here to greet me?"
"He awaits you in the Sea Tower, m'lord. When you are rested from your trip."
And I thought Ned Stark cold.

—and they're thus part of a broad yin/yang 'rhyme' with Petyr's initial homecoming, which is warm and welcoming and full of familiar faces, whereas Theon knows no one, such that he thinks:

It is as if I were a stranger here….

The reversal is wryly underlined when Petyr is greeted at the shore by his "captain of the guards", Bryen:

"It is good to have you home, my lord," said one old man.

Thus Petyr ironically gets the "honor guard" welcome Theon hoped he'd get on his arrival 'home':

[Theon] saw… no honor guard waiting to escort him from Lordsport to Pyke, only smallfolk going about their small business.

Notice that where no one stops what they're doing for Theon, everyone stops when Petyr arrives. And of course, everyone in his household recognizes him, whereas no one recognizes Theon. Which is telling, because in a deep sense, that's all Theon really wants, deep down: a little recognition.
Littlefinger has it… but it's not enough.

(SUB)SERIES CONCLUDES IN PART 10: Oswell & Aeron; Lothar & Dagmer; The Closing Twist

Video: Return of the King (1980) - Éowyn vs Witchking

“For she is a fair maiden, fairest lady of a house of queens. And yet I know not how I should speak of her. When I first looked on her and perceived her unhappiness, it seemed to me that I saw a white flower standing straight and proud, shapely as a lily, and yet knew that it was hard, as if wrought by elf-wrights out of steel. Or was it, maybe, a frost that had turned its sap to ice, and so it stood, bitter-sweet, still fair to see, but stricken, soon to fall and die? - Aragorn about Éowyn”

― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King
This is part of a series exploring the hidden motives and actions of the main players during Robert's Rebellion, named LBJ in reference to the influence of Lyndon B. Johnson and the Vietnam War on GRRM's views and writings on war. LBJ also indicates considerations over whether Lyanna + Bobby B = Jon Snow. Previous installments include:

• Rhaegar Had To Be A Warrior
• Why Did Rhaegar Crown Lyanna?
  • Ice, Ice Baby?
  • Political Suicide?
  • Was She 'A Very Kinky Girl'?
• The Forging of Lightbringer: Blue Flowers & Narrow Visors
• Rhaegar Mistakenly Crowned Lyanna
• I am not fond of fish, but when fish is served, I eat it.
• All is fair in love and war...
• Kingsguard Loyalty
• Southron Ambitions & Lies

The last part examined evidence that the rebels lied to stage a rebellion to knock the dragons of the Iron Throne, ending with the question: If Rhaegar was taken hostage and prevented from defending himself against false allegations of kidnapping Lyanna, then how did he manage to return to fight at the Trident?

The Return of the Prince: Rhaegar at the Trident

Crowning Lyanna queen of love and beauty indicated to some that Rhaegar intended to set Elia Martell aside and make a new queen. So parallel to Arianne Martell's Queenmaker plot, which led to her solitary confinement in a tower, like Lyanna was confined in the tower of joy, Rhaegar, like the Queenmaker plot conspirators, may be imprisoned at Ghaston Grey in the Sea of Dorne. The precedent of the Mad King's imprisonment at Duskendale and the fact that Dorne has an Alcatraz-style island prison called Ghaston Grey - relating to Beauty & the Beast's Gaston, who imprisoned his romantic interest and lied to incite violence against his rival - supports that Rhaegar or his friends were imprisoned there. It's possible that Rhaegar is still alive; his status as the father of Elia's children may preserve his life. Martin stated Rhaegar was cremated, as is Targaryen tradition, when asked what happened to Rhaegar's body; this statement does not negate the possibility that an imposter's body was cremated in Rhaegar's stead. Or maybe he's truly dead, but there's good reason to believe Rhaegar wasn't present at the Trident where he supposedly died.
As mentioned in previous parts, it is strange that Rhaegar would supposedly leave three Kingsguard with Lyanna, while leaving Elia and their children, the first two heads of the dragon and the prince that was promised, in the care of his deranged father with no Kingsguard besides Jaime, who was kept busy guarding the King. Jaime's failure to protect Rhaegar's family haunts him...

"And the children, them as well," said Prince Lewyn.
Prince Rhaegar burned with a cold light, now white, now red, now dark. "I left my wife and children in your hands."
"I never thought he'd hurt them." Jaime's sword was burning less brightly now. "I was with the king . . ."

- A Storm of Swords Jaime VI
...but it ultimately fell to Rhaegar to ensure the safety of his loved ones, and the situation he left Elia and their children in was obviously dangerous, given that Aerys had to threaten Prince Lewyn with the safety of Elia and her children to convince him to command the Dornish troops. Some have argued that Rhaegar was so confident in prophecy that he underestimated the threat posed to himself and his children, but if that were the case, why bother guarding Lyanna and their alleged child? This failure, in conjunction with other evidence suggesting the abduction story was a farce, indicates that this person who returned from the south wasn't actually Rhaegar.
Recall that if Rhaegar truly abducted and impregnated Lyanna, evidence suggests he stayed with her at the tower long after she conceived. Dany claims to have been conceived soon before Rhaella fled King's Landing, and Martin stated Jon was born roughly 8-9 months before her, placing Jon's birth within a month of Rhaegar's death. Once he returned from the south, it would not have taken more than a few months tops to marshal the loyalist forces to oppose the rebel army. This implies he was at the tower for over a year, while a war raged nearby; why did he suddenly take an interest in the rebellion? Why not enter the fray sooner, when his help really could have made a difference? Walder Frey is ridiculed for arriving late to the Trident, but maybe Rhaegar is the one who truly deserves the moniker "the late lord". And if Rhaegar stayed away due to his love for Lyanna and desire to be with her, why not wait a couple more months so he could be there when she gave birth?
An obvious reason for Rhaegar to appear when he did is that Robert was starting to be taken seriously as a threat, and the crown prince gave heart to the loyalist forces during a pivotal battle; it's too bad this heart wasn't big enough to prevent the war in the first place. Crossing the Trident was also a tactically unsound move by Rhaegar, and it would have been to his advantage to draw the rebel army further south. During the War of the Five Kings, Stannis's forces also attempt to cross a river, the Blackwater Rush, but are spooked off by Renly's ghost:

My hirelings betray me, my friends are scourged and shamed, and I lie here rotting, Tyrion thought. I thought I won the bloody battle. Is this what triumph tastes like? "Is it true that Stannis was put to rout by Renly's ghost?"
Bronn smiled thinly. "From the winch towers, all we saw was banners in the mud and men throwing down their spears to run, but there's hundreds in the pot shops and brothels who'll tell you how they saw Lord Renly kill this one or that one. Most of Stannis's host had been Renly's to start, and they went right back over at the sight of him in that shiny green armor."
After all his planning, after the sortie and the bridge of ships, after getting his face slashed in two, Tyrion had been eclipsed by a dead man. If indeed Renly is dead. Something else he would need to look into. "How did Stannis escape?"

- A Storm of Swords Tyrion I
Like Garlan fought in Renly's armor at the Battle of the Blackwater, an imposter fought as Rhaegar at the Trident. "Rhaegar" wore black armor crusted with rubies, like Mance uses a ruby in a black iron cuff to disguise himself as Rattleshirt via glamor magic. Dany has a vision of her own face behind Rhaegar's visor, and red light glimmers through the visor like Melisandre's glamor-producing rubies glimmer redly.

And saw her brother Rhaegar, mounted on a stallion as black as his armor. Fire glimmered red through the narrow eye slit of his helm. "The last dragon," Ser Jorah's voice whispered faintly. "The last, the last." Dany lifted his polished black visor. The face within was her own.

- A Game of Thrones Daenerys IX

Lady Melisandre was seated near the fire, her ruby glimmering against the pale skin of her throat.

- A Dance with Dragons Jon I

The big square-cut gem that adorned his iron cuff glimmered redly. "Do you like my ruby, Snow? A token o' love from Lady Red."

- A Dance with Dragons Jon IV
This is a world with glamor magic, skinchanging, and Faceless Men, and so it cannot be ruled out that an imposter fought as Rhaegar at the Trident. Dany seeing her own face behind Rhaegar's visor hints that someone besides Rhaegar wore his armor. Even Arya, who is said to resemble Lyanna, makes use of the face-changer Jaqen H'ghar at Harrenhal, where all this began... Jaqen H'ghar's name is near anagram for Rhaegar, incidentally. It suspends belief that soldiers would stop in the thick of battle to scoop up rubies, making it easier to accept that ruby-assisted magic was afoot.

When Ned had finally come on the scene, Rhaegar lay dead in the stream, while men of both armies scrabbled in the swirling waters for rubies knocked free of his armor.

- A Game of Thrones Eddard I
Perhaps the strongest piece of evidence against an imposter, however, is that Jaime remembers a conversation with Rhaegar before the battle, in which there are no obvious indications of deception.

And all for naught. They found only darkness, dust, and rats. And dragons, lurking down below. He remembered the sullen orange glow of the coals in the iron dragon's mouth. The brazier warmed a chamber at the bottom of a shaft where half a dozen tunnels met. On the floor he'd found a scuffed mosaic of the three-headed dragon of House Targaryen done in tiles of black and red. I know you, Kingslayer, the beast seemed to be saying. I have been here all the time, waiting for you to come to me. And it seemed to Jaime that he knew that voice, the iron tones that had once belonged to Rhaegar, Prince of Dragonstone.
The day had been windy when he said farewell to Rhaegar, in the yard of the Red Keep. The prince had donned his night-black armor, with the three-headed dragon picked out in rubies on his breastplate. "Your Grace," Jaime had pleaded, "let Darry stay to guard the king this once, or Ser Barristan. Their cloaks are as white as mine."
Prince Rhaegar shook his head. "My royal sire fears your father more than he does our cousin Robert. He wants you close, so Lord Tywin cannot harm him. I dare not take that crutch away from him at such an hour."
Jaime's anger had risen up in his throat. "I am not a crutch. I am a knight of the Kingsguard."
"Then guard the king," Ser Jon Darry snapped at him. "When you donned that cloak, you promised to obey."
Rhaegar had put his hand on Jaime's shoulder. "When this battle's done I mean to call a council. Changes will be made. I meant to do it long ago, but . . . well, it does no good to speak of roads not taken. We shall talk when I return."
Those were the last words Rhaegar Targaryen ever spoke to him. Outside the gates an army had assembled, whilst another descended on the Trident. So the Prince of Dragonstone mounted up and donned his tall black helm, and rode forth to his doom.

- A Feast for Crows Jaime I
Then again, one wouldn't expect a skilled Faceless Man to give up the ruse... Actually, no, I don't think a Faceless Man impersonated Rhaegar at the Trident.

Lyanna fought Robert at the Trident

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If I hadn't lost you already, I probably have now. But hear me out.
mediachomp.com/the-lord-of-the-rings-mansplaining/

“And she answered: 'All your words are but to say: you are a woman, and your part is in the house. But when the men have died in battle and honour, you leave to be burned in the house, for the men will need it no more. But I am of the House of Eorl and not a serving-woman. I can ride and wield blade, and I do not fear either pain or death.'
'What do you fear, lady?' he asked.
'A cage,' she said.”

― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King
This is the first ASOIAF theory I ever thought up. I suppose I was influenced by Éowyn of The Lord of the Rings in my thinking. Éowyn means 'horse lover', like Lyanna was half a horse herself, an advantageous quality for the warrior maid who fought on horseback and injured the Demon of the Trident.
Video: Ode to Liane
Many who prefer R+L=J also reason that Lyanna was the Knight of the Laughing Tree and was discovered by Rhaegar, to explain why he fell in love with her, despite the folly of returning the mystery knight's sense of honor with an ignoble crowning (I prefer the reasoning that Ned was that mystery knight). Some also assume Lyanna's heritage made her a desirable broodmare to Rhaegar, despite scant evidence that he was interested in warg blood, besides the likely assumption that dragon abilities are related to skinchanging. Lyanna fighting at the Trident is a parallel theory which uses those same elements of disguising oneself to fight for justice, with the aid of House Stark's innate skinchanging ability. Yet this outcome is more impactful, because the stakes were higher at the Trident. The very idea that Lyanna would choose to chill in a tower for over a year fucking a married prince with two very young children while her family and countrymen died in droves on her account is wildly inconsistent with her character.

“Robert will never keep to one bed,” Lyanna had told him at Winterfell, on the night long ago when their father had promised her hand to the young Lord of Storm’s End. “I hear he has gotten a child on some girl in the Vale.” Ned had held the babe in his arms; he could scarcely deny her, nor would he lie to his sister, but he had assured her that what Robert did before their betrothal was of no matter, that he was a good man and true who would love her with all his heart. Lyanna had only smiled. “Love is sweet, dearest Ned, but it cannot change a man’s nature.”

- A Game of Thrones Eddard IX
Lyanna was a fighter, the type to seek justice out herself, as she did when her father's bannerman was beset by bullies at Harrenhal. Lyanna also healed the crannogman's wounds; likewise, she would do what she could to heal the wounds caused by her disappearance.

"None offered a name, but he marked their faces well so he could revenge himself upon them later. They shoved him down every time he tried to rise, and kicked him when he curled up on the ground. But then they heard a roar. 'That's my father's man you're kicking,' howled the she-wolf."
"A wolf on four legs, or two?"
"Two," said Meera. "The she-wolf laid into the squires with a tourney sword, scattering them all. The crannogman was bruised and bloodied, so she took him back to her lair to clean his cuts and bind them up with linen. There he met her pack brothers: the wild wolf who led them, the quiet wolf beside him, and the pup who was youngest of the four.

- A Storm of Swords Bran II

The rest of his father's words were drowned out by a sudden clatter of wood on wood. Eddard Stark dissolved, like mist in a morning sun. Now two children danced across the godswood, hooting at one another as they dueled with broken branches. The girl was the older and taller of the two. Arya! Bran thought eagerly, as he watched her leap up onto a rock and cut at the boy. But that couldn't be right. If the girl was Arya, the boy was Bran himself, and he had never worn his hair so long. And Arya never beat me playing swords, the way that girl is beating him. She slashed the boy across his thigh, so hard that his leg went out from under him and he fell into the pool and began to splash and shout. "You be quiet, stupid," the girl said, tossing her own branch aside. "It's just water. Do you want Old Nan to hear and run tell Father?" She knelt and pulled her brother from the pool, but before she got him out again, the two of them were gone.

- A Dance with Dragons Bran III
Arya is often compared to Lyanna, and Arya fought Robert's heir at the ruby ford where Rhaegar allegedly died. She practiced swordplay with Mycah using wooden sticks, like Lyanna and Benjen fought with sticks in Winterfell's godswood.

"It has a name, does it?" Her father sighed. "Ah, Arya. You have a wildness in you, child. 'The wolf blood,' my father used to call it. Lyanna had a touch of it, and my brother Brandon more than a touch. It brought them both to an early grave." Arya heard sadness in his voice; he did not often speak of his father, or of the brother and sister who had died before she was born. "Lyanna might have carried a sword, if my lord father had allowed it. You remind me of her sometimes. You even look like her."

- A Game of Thrones Arya II

"Mycah and I are going to ride upstream and look for rubies at the ford."
"Rubies," Sansa said, lost. "What rubies?"
Arya gave her a look like she was so stupid. "Rhaegar's rubies. This is where King Robert killed him and won the crown."

_

Beyond, in a clearing overlooking the river, they came upon a boy and a girl playing at knights. Their swords were wooden sticks, broom handles from the look of them, and they were rushing across the grass, swinging at each other lustily. The boy was years older, a head taller, and much stronger, and he was pressing the attack. The girl, a scrawny thing in soiled leathers, was dodging and managing to get her stick in the way of most of the boy's blows, but not all. When she tried to lunge at him, he caught her stick with his own, swept it aside, and slid his wood down hard on her fingers. She cried out and lost her weapon.
Prince Joffrey laughed. The boy looked around, wide-eyed and startled, and dropped his stick in the grass. The girl glared at them, sucking on her knuckles to take the sting out, and Sansa was horrified. "Arya?" she called out incredulously.
"Go away," Arya shouted back at them, angry tears in her eyes. "What are you doing here? Leave us alone."
Joffrey glanced from Arya to Sansa and back again. "Your sister?" She nodded, blushing. Joffrey examined the boy, an ungainly lad with a coarse, freckled face and thick red hair. "And who are you, boy?" he asked in a commanding tone that took no notice of the fact that the other was a year his senior.
"Mycah," the boy muttered. He recognized the prince and averted his eyes. "M'lord."
"He's the butcher's boy," Sansa said.
"He's my friend," Arya said sharply. "You leave him alone."
"A butcher's boy who wants to be a knight, is it?" Joffrey swung down from his mount, sword in hand. "Pick up your sword, butcher's boy," he said, his eyes bright with amusement. "Let us see how good you are."
Mycah stood there, frozen with fear.
Joffrey walked toward him. "Go on, pick it up. Or do you only fight little girls?"
"She ast me to, m'lord," Mycah said. "She ast me to."
Sansa had only to glance at Arya and see the flush on her sister's face to know the boy was telling the truth, but Joffrey was in no mood to listen. The wine had made him wild. "Are you going to pick up your sword?"
Mycah shook his head. "It's only a stick, m'lord. It's not no sword, it's only a stick."
"And you're only a butcher's boy, and no knight." Joffrey lifted Lion's Tooth and laid its point on Mycah's cheek below the eye, as the butcher's boy stood trembling. "That was my lady's sister you were hitting, do you know that?" A bright bud of blood blossomed where his sword pressed into Mycah's flesh, and a slow red line trickled down the boy's cheek.
"Stop it!" Arya screamed. She grabbed up her fallen stick.
Sansa was afraid. "Arya, you stay out of this."
"I won't hurt him … much," Prince Joffrey told Arya, never taking his eyes off the butcher's boy.
Arya went for him.

- A Game of Thrones Sansa I
The deadly consequences of Lyanna's disappearance, based on the rebel's lies, would enrage the she-wolf, driving her to confront Robert in battle if given the opportunity. Thus, "Rhaegar's" rash decision to cross the Trident makes sense in the context of an inexperienced warrior maid chomping at the bit to avenge her father and brother. It even mirrors Arya at the Wed Redding, when she recklessly runs towards the Crossing:

"Maybe we can save her . . ."
"Maybe you can. I'm not done living yet." He rode toward her, crowding her back toward the wayn. "Stay or go, she-wolf. Live or die. Your—"
Arya spun away from him and darted for the gate. The portcullis was coming down, but slowly. I have to run faster. The mud slowed her, though, and then the water. Run fast as a wolf. The drawbridge had begun to lift, the water running off it in a sheet, the mud falling in heavy clots. Faster. She heard loud splashing and looked back to see Stranger pounding after her, sending up gouts of water with every stride. She saw the longaxe too, still wet with blood and brains. And Arya ran. Not for her brother now, not even for her mother, but for herself. She ran faster than she had ever run before, her head down and her feet churning up the river, she ran from him as Mycah must have run.
His axe took her in the back of the head.

- A Storm of Swords Arya XI
Lyanna would jump at the chance to practice swordplay with her guards while in captivity, and in particular she'd be eager to learn from the legendary Sword of the Morning Ser Arthur Dayne, like Arya learned from Syrio Forel, the First Sword of Braavos. As Rhaegar's oldest and dearest friend, Arthur could teach Lyanna to pass as Rhaegar in conversation.
Consider that after hearing a song about a lady throwing herself from a tower in grief, like Ashara Dayne allegedly killed herself over her brother's death, Arya thinks the lady should have sought revenge:

It made her angry to see Dareon sitting there so brazen, making eyes at Lanna as his fingers danced across the harp strings.

_

He is a man of the Night's Watch, she thought, as he sang about some stupid lady throwing herself off some stupid tower because her stupid prince was dead. The lady should go kill the ones who killed her prince. And the singer should be on the Wall.

- A Feast for Crows Cat of the Canals
As argued in the section on Kingsguard loyalty, Dornish Arthur Dayne was complicit in the betrayal of his friend and king because his sister's life was leveraged against him, like (fake) Arya's predicament leads Jon to betray the Watch. Being threatened with Ashara's death if he deserted his post is like how Arya murders Dareon the singer for deserting the Night's Watch. And yet Dareon's desertion is understandable, given that he was sent to the Wall due to a false accusation of rape, after he was caught abed with a daughter of Lord Mathis Rowan. Similarly, Robert falsely accused Rhaegar of raping Lyanna, when he was in fact guilty of raping her... only once.

The king touched her cheek, his fingers brushing across the rough stone as gently as if it were living flesh. “I vowed to kill Rhaegar for what he did to her.”
“You did,” Ned reminded him.
“Only once,” Robert said bitterly.

- A Game of Thrones Eddard I
It would add a haunting dimension to Robert's claim that he dreams of killing Rhaegar every night if Robert glimpsed Lyanna once the rubies were dislodged and "Rhaegar" was in the stream. Alternately, if he knew Rhaegar had been killed already, he'd understand that he was fighting an imposter, and so Robert's allusion to Rhaegar dying a thousand deaths stinks of the rage the Mountain must have felt as Beric Dondarrion kept returning from death. Robert's inexplicable rage after his successful defeat of Rhaegar indicates something was off about this event in his mind.

"In my dreams, I kill him every night," Robert admitted. "A thousand deaths will still be less than he deserves."

- A Game of Thrones Eddard I
Not only does Dany have a vision of her own face, a woman's face, behind Rhaegar's redly glimmering visor, but she also has a vision of "Rhaegar" saying an unidentified woman's name in the stream.

And saw her brother Rhaegar, mounted on a stallion as black as his armor. Fire glimmered red through the narrow eye slit of his helm. "The last dragon," Ser Jorah's voice whispered faintly. "The last, the last." Dany lifted his polished black visor. The face within was her own.

- A Game of Thrones Daenerys IX

Rubies flew like drops of blood from the chest of a dying prince, and he sank to his knees in the water and with his last breath murmured a woman's name. . . . mother of dragons, daughter of death . . .

- A Clash of Kings Daenerys IV
The world of ice and fire app claims that Rhaegar said Lyanna's name at his death, but that source is only semi-canon. Both Jon and Robb say their direwolves names as they die, and so it's possible that "Rhaegar's" final words are related to skinchanging.

Jon fell to his knees. He found the dagger's hilt and wrenched it free. In the cold night air the wound was smoking. "Ghost," he whispered. Pain washed over him. Stick them with the pointy end.

- A Dance with Dragons Jon XIII

"Yes. Robb, get up. Get up and walk out, please, please. Save yourself . . . if not for me, for Jeyne."
"Jeyne?" Robb grabbed the edge of the table and forced himself to stand. "Mother," he said, "Grey Wind . . ."
"Go to him. Now. Robb, walk out of here."

- A Storm of Swords Catelyn VII
Dany also notes warrior maids with rubies, paralleling this idea that Lyanna was a warrior maid in Rhaegar's ruby-crusted armor.

warrior maids from Bayasabhad, Shamyriana, and Kayakayanaya with iron rings in their nipples and rubies in their cheeks

- A Game of Thrones Daenerys VI
Lyanna using a glamor to disguise herself is problematic, however, in that it wouldn't produce the iron tones in Rhaegar's voice that Jaime remembers, and her female body would put her at a natural disadvantage in combat, so skinchanging into a male body is a necessary component. But if Rhaegar's body wasn't available, the male she skinchanged into would then need to be glamored to resemble Rhaegar closely enough as to not arouse suspicions when she arrived in King's Landing. It also may be the case that Rhaegar's body was available, along with his armor, after torture left him comatose. Note that the ritual which leaves Drogo in a comatose state, in which Dany also goes into labor, involves shadows which parallel the shadows Bran saw in his vision of the Trident; these shadows may belong to Ned and Robert, as will be argued in a later part:

No, Dany wanted to say, no, not that, you mustn't, but when she opened her mouth, a long wail of pain escaped, and the sweat broke over her skin. What was wrong with them, couldn't they see? Inside the tent the shapes were dancing, circling the brazier and the bloody bath, dark against the sandsilk, and some did not look human. She glimpsed the shadow of a great wolf, and another like a man wreathed in flames.

- A Game of Thrones Daenerys VIII
We may assume House Targaryen has access to arcane devices, which the Kingsguard would be in a position to know about, given Bloodraven's use of a moonstone glamor in The Mystery Knight (which also depicts a warrior maid in black armor):

Dunk whirled. Through the rain, all he could make out was a hooded shape and a single pale white eye. It was only when the man came forward that the shadowed face beneath the cowl took on the familiar features of Ser Maynard Plumm, the pale eye no more than the moonstone brooch that pinned his cloak at the shoulder.

_

Mad Danelle Lothston herself rode forth in strength from her haunted towers at Harrenhal, clad in black armor that fit her like an iron glove, her long red hair streaming.

- The Mystery Knight
It's also possible that Lyanna had some sort of Faceless Man training; their ability to disguise themselves appears to be related to skinchanging.

"Mummers change their faces with artifice," the kindly man was saying, "and sorcerers use glamors, weaving light and shadow and desire to make illusions that trick the eye. These arts you shall learn, but what we do here goes deeper. Wise men can see through artifice, and glamors dissolve before sharp eyes, but the face you are about to don will be as true and solid as that face you were born with.

- A Dance with Dragons The Ugly Little Girl
Lyanna's defense of the crannogman, who travelled to the Isle of Faces in a skin boat to visit the green men, may have something to do with her access to these abilities.

"The finest knight I ever saw was Ser Arthur Dayne, who fought with a blade called Dawn, forged from the heart of a fallen star. They called him the Sword of the Morning, and he would have killed me but for Howland Reed." Father had gotten sad then, and he would say no more. Bran wished he had asked him what he meant.

- A Clash of Kings Bran III

"He passed beneath the Twins by night so the Freys would not attack him, and when he reached the Trident he climbed from the river and put his boat on his head and began to walk. It took him many a day, but finally he reached the Gods Eye, threw his boat in the lake, and paddled out to the Isle of Faces."
"Did he meet the green men?"
"Yes," said Meera, "but that's another story, and not for me to tell. My prince asked for knights."

- A Storm of Swords Bran II
So after receiving adequate training and equipment, a disguised Lyanna may then be allowed to leave her tower to confront Robert at the Trident, contingent upon her return in service to whatever oaths held Arthur at the tower against his will. A battle wound may then be the cause of Lyanna's bed of blood... Consider Arthur Dayne's legendary sword Dawn, likely inspired by King Arthur's Excalibur. During the fight at the tower of joy, Ned describes the blade as alive with light, like King Arthur once drew Excalibur and the blade shined so bright it blinded his enemies.

"And now it begins," said Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning. He unsheathed Dawn and held it with both hands. The blade was pale as milkglass, alive with light.

- A Game of Thrones Eddard X
Excalibur's sheath also had magical healing powers (keep in mind the dick and vagina symbolism of a sword and sheath). The legendary prowess of the Sword of the Morning thus may be related to his sword's hidden healing ability, and so after Lyanna sustained her chest wound at the Trident, she may be transported back south to be healed by Dawn. This seems unlikely, however, given how grievously wounded "Rhaegar" was.
If skinchanging was involved, then Lyanna never had to bodily leave the tower, and survived the Trident through spiritually returning to her original body, and her bed of blood was in fact caused by birthing Jon. If Lyanna had a consensual affair with her impressive guard Ser Arthur, it would dovetail nicely with another aspect of Arthurian legend, in which Sir Lancelot has an affair with Queen Guinevere at his castle Joyous Guard, despite his close friendship with King Arthur. The Sword of the Morning and the Demon of the Trident are not the only candidates for Jon's father; Oswell Whent is also a potential sire, in light of the parallel in which Cersei instructs Osney Kettleblack (who some believe is Oswell's son) to seduce Margaery to remove her as Queen; the rebels may have instructed Oswell to ensure Lyanna became pregnant, to dissuade Robert from marrying her so that he'd be free to wed Cersei to keep the Lannister's support, or to stage a death in childbirth so that Lyanna would be unable to spread the truth of her imprisonment. The idea that Lyanna became pregnant while confined also parallels Daena the Defiant's pregnancy despite her imprisonment in the Maidenvault.
On that note, unless Martin lied, it's indisputable that Lyanna gave birth to Jon... but when? Skinchanging removes the hinderance of a swollen belly and other bodily limitations, but if Lyanna did in fact fight while pregnant, she was perhaps not as far along as we're led to believe. If we accept that Jon was born roughly 8-9 moons before Dany, as Martin states, then the only way to adjust Jon's birth is to then assume Dany isn't who she thinks she is, that she wasn't born 9 moons after Rhaella's flight. Beyond typical lemongate reasons to doubt Dany's past, there's a discrepancy in which Viserys tells Dany of a midnight flight to Dragonstone, whereas Jaime recalls Rhaella and Viserys departing in the morning. This casts doubt on both Dany and Viserys's origins and allows us leeway to adjust Jon's birthdate. Lyanna giving birth before the Trident is possible, and though Robb is supposedly older than Jon, it's hard to pin down exactly when Robb was born; Jon could be older than Robb without it being noticed, as infants can differ greatly in size and development, as seen with Gilly and Mance's sons.
Speaking of Mance Rayder, I’m pretty confident he's Arthur Dayne.
So, given everything we're told about what kind of person Lyanna was, along with parallels between her and Arya involving swordplay and disguises, it's easy to see that rather than being the Knight of the Laughing Tree, Lyanna fought when it mattered most, to avenge her family at the Trident, against the man who truly dishonored her.
In the next part, we'll gaze into King Robert's magic mirror, Queen Cersei, to uncover strong evidence that he had Rhaegar tortured for the crime of crowning his betrothed. To preview where this series is headed, in its full audio/visual glory with greater detail, look here.

Part 23 Oh, So Many Horrors (Part 1) (Part 22)
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"So, let me see if I got all of this right." General Andrews held up his notepad and adjusted his reading glasses as he quickly glanced over what he had written down. "The red and brown crabs are fascists who will eat you as soon as talk to you, the little gray men are slavers who genuinely believe they own you by default, and there's some kind of eldritch horrors that just float around in space and consume any biomass they detect? And that's just who's in the local area?"
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"Yes. And also, there are Bandari, the… uh… frog pirates who steal things and kidnap people as their chosen profession." Considering how this was all for the benefit of the General, as well as Mik, Tarki was doing her best to speak in English and mimic the neutral accent Andrews had been using.
​
"Almost forgot about them." The General turned a page back on his notepad to read what he had written down about the flamboyant reptilians the golden avian had described at the very beginning of the presentation. "But they don't seem anywhere near as bad as the rest."
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"That's because they're not." Msko chimed in, the translated voice in Andrews's ear features hints of boredom as the War Chief nonchalantly sat on a table a few paces away. "You can actually have a conversation with 'em sometimes. But they could still be a serious threat to Sol and Earth if an entire fleet showed up for a raid."
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"But your fleet could handle them, right?" General Andrews shot back with a tone that implied he already knew the answer. Receiving only a bored smile and nod as an answer, he continued. "Well, isn't that just convenient for you? It seems that without your fleet, we Earthlings would be completely at the mercy of an uncaring at best, and outright hostile at worst, galaxy full of horrors."
​
Though the General shot Msko a snide look, the War Chief simply shrugged and nodded towards Tarki for her to explain.
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"To a certain degree, that is correct. However, if it were not the Nishnabe Confederacy performing the initial security and evaluation of this system, who are members of your own species might I mention," Tarki let that fact hang in the air for a second before continuing, "it would have been either the Qui’ztar Fifth Matriarchy or the Nukitov Unified Coalition's Second Sphere, neither of which are… as nice or familiar as the Nishnabe."
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"Yes, yes, I've already had the pleasure of a conversation with Fleet Admiral Atxika." Andrews half snorted as he thought about how brazen and confident that woman was towards him. "She was not what I would consider a friendly person."
​
"Atxika is from the Third Matriarchy, not the Fifth, and is actually quite kind if you show her the proper amount of respect. She has been an Admiral for nearly 20 years, after all. The Fifth Matriarchy, on the other hand, are… culturally far more aggressive and far less tolerant of disrespect. The Nukitovs, as a species, just really like to fight and will take any excuse to do so." Tarki pressed a few buttons on her data tablet and triggered a large hologram of the Milky Way galaxy to appear with hundreds of divided up sections. With a few more commands, Tarki caused the map to zoom in on a familiar area vaguely familiar to the General. "This is the pre-Ascension exclusion zone around the Sol System, which has a roughly 750 light-year radius. As you can see, it sits squared between the patrol sectors of the Third Matriarchy and the Second Sphere. Until your species reaches galactic standards of technology, one of them would have provided security in and around your star system, assuming you didn't already have exceptionally competent cousins capable of doing so."
​
"You all just assume we are incapable of defending ourselves?" Though he was now aware of the major threats Earth, Mars, and the rest of the solar system faced, the General couldn't help but feel like this was all too convenient. Or, more specifically, that there was some critical piece of information being left out.
​
"That isn't an assumption, General. It is a fact." Though the expression on the avian's face was unfamiliar to the human, he could still tell she was being deadly serious. "Your people have yet to independently develop active shielding, your standard firearm-based weapons are incredibly inefficient, and the most advanced technology native to this system is the FTL drive Mikhail developed, which is still highly experimental. The only other technology at or above galactic standards would be the mechanized combat walker suits that Mikhail also owns."
​
"Don't forget about my ship." Mik chimed in from the corner of the room he and Tens were smoking in. "Not the 'dewbi, but the one NAN's buildin' for me."
​
"How in the hell did you get access to alien technology already?" The General actually had hints of jealousy in his voice as he turned in his chair and fully redirected his attention towards the Martian.
​
"I bought the mechs, and the ship was a gift." The beard man shrugged then took a long drag off of Tens's somewhat small and short pipe.
​
"Bought? Gift?!?" General Andrews's jealousy was now mixed with anger. "So MarsGov was given access to alien weapons of war? And neither the US nor UN-E were given that same opportunity? That-" Before the rant could start, Msko cut General Andrews off.
​
"No, those are Mik's personal property and he has agreed not to take full possession of them until we can get all of this drama sorted out. However, humanity as a whole will absolutely have full access to the most advanced technologies in the galaxy, some of which we have developed ourselves, once we feel we can trust you." Msko was starting to get annoyed by how the General was treating everything as a threat despite the War Chief's best efforts to help him understand the situation. "We genuinely had the intention of gifting you, our long separated but never forgotten cousins, a fleet of dozens of ships, vast amounts of resources and production capabilities, and all of the knowledge and wisdom we have acquired over the centuries. However, the governments of Earth have proven they cannot be trusted yet, especially your government."
​
"And MarsGov can be trusted?" The General scoffed at the implication that he or his military couldn't be trusted but their primary adversary could be.
​
"I didn't say that, did I?" Msko shot back with a dismissive chuckle. "No offense Mik, but there are a lot of very angry people in your government. And they seem to be almost completely incapable of forming any kind of consensus, except in the face of the most extreme and pressing issues. I am not in the habit of giving potentially-violent agitators access to technologies that could be used for mass destruction."
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"Fair enough." Mik chuckled as he let out a cloud of smoke which was quickly absorbed by the nearby air vent. "There's a reason I don't talk to my pops anymore. If I let him have access to my mechs, he'd make your life hell, Rob."
​
"And what exactly were your plans with the equipment you acquired, Dr. River?" General Andrews ignored the overly personal way Mik had just addressed him and focused on his more pressing concerns. "Be completely honest with me, how much land were you gonna try to take back?"
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"None! I swear!" Mik's smile had suddenly vanished as his medium tan became slightly pale. "I just wanna see the stars and have some mech-fighting competitions, man, not start a goddamn war! Hell, if anythin' I'd just buy the fuckin' land back."
​
"You really expect me to believe that?" Though the General flat out refused to accept the concept of 'mech-fighting competitions' with military hardware, the Martian looked about as honest as a person could.
​
"Look man, there're aliens right there!" Mik motioned towards Tarki at the front of the room and then at Binko who was silently perched next to Tens. "No offense, you two. But damn, General, how can yah still be thinking about the bullshit between UN-E and MarsGov when there's a literal alien who just explained to yah the kinda shit that's just waiting to kick down our door?"
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"My job is to protect American interests, first and foremost." The General retorted while folding his arms in a show of indifference which Msko took offense to.
​
"And wouldn't it be in your country's best interest to not let greedy business people undermine your future among the stars?" Msko blurted out with a genuinely shocked and frustrated tone. "Look, we aren't here to tell y'all how to live your lives or force you to be any sort of way. We just don't want to see our cousins become the next Arnehilians!" The War Chief almost shouted that last sentence before pausing for a moment to calm himself and continuing. "I don't give a fuck about your corporations as long as they aren't enslaving people, building autonomous combat-AI without proper oversight, or pulling some other illegal bullshit like that. I don't want to see my people’s homeworld get quarantined by Military Command because y'all can't act like responsible adults and treat people right."
​
"Alright, boys," Tarki quickly interjected with a motherly, if exhausted, tone in a desperate attempt to avoid the one thing she had been leaving out, "let's bring it down a bit. The gravity of this Deathworld is stressing me out enough, I don't need the pouting and yelling making it worse. Your species is still very young and there are many fresh wounds between your diverse peoples. Please, take a moment to reflect on that fact and think about the kind of relationship you want to have with each other while I take a moment to rest."
​
The General’s eyes watched carefully as Binko sprang from his perch and was instantly at his wife's side to support her in their walk towards a door that led outside. Their slow and awkward gait, though somewhat human-like, was almost concerning to the hardened veteran as each step looked like a struggle. As soon as the pair were through the door and it had closed behind them, the General turned towards the other men and spoke in a surprisingly compassionate manner.
​
"Is she alright?" The genuine way the question was asked caught all three of the men in the room off guard.
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"Yeah, yeah, Earth just has pretty high gravity for a Kroke." Tens was the first to break through the shock of Andrews's concern and tried to explain as simply as he could. "Their species evolved on a planet with around 6.2 meters per second squared of gravity and the galactic standard for interspecies ships and stations is only 4 m/s2."
​
"Ah, is that why she referred to Earth as a Deathworld? Our gravity is relatively high?" There was something in Andrews's eyes that seemed to imply he had no intention of continuing the official discussion until the neutral diplomat returned.
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"Well, Earth is classified as a Class 17 Deathworld, but it's more than just the gravity." Tens reached up to press the lens he was wearing then brought his hand back down and began making very slight and subtle gestures. "Hold on a second, let me bring up the official GCC classification…. Nope, I was wrong. It was updated to a Class 18, basically the very limit of what the Center of Xenology predicted was possible for Ascended life to evolve on. Between the extreme weather patterns, highly destructive geological activity, commonality of lethal diseases, and hyper-competitive and violent food web, it's a miracle our species survived long enough to independently develop space flight."
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"Ah, it's not that bad." Andrews chuckled like a weathered old gentleman in response. "Sure, you may be freezin' in the winter and meltin' in the summer in some places. But there's a lot of really nice places too."
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"I've heard Hawaii's beautiful year-round, but it's an active volcano." Mik commented then took another puff off of Tens's pipe before passing it back to the Nishnabe next to him. "Same thin' with California, 'cept they got earthquakes that'll topple buildin's instead."
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"A little lava and shaking ain't the end of the world. I swear, you Matrians got it made in the shade with your climate controlled stations and colonies." The seasoned General couldn’t stop himself from letting out a bit-too-friendly of a laugh. Something about this entire interaction so far, though somewhat intimidating, simply felt so personal to him, in a good way, that he found himself relaxing after catching a whiff of the smoke pouring from the pipe. "Oh, and by the way, is that Virgina Cherry tobacco I'm smelling?"
​
"No, but it's better." Mik quickly answered while Tens and Msko looked at the General and then towards the pipe in Tens’s hand with mildly confused expressions. "It's got that same kinda flavor, but it's sweeter, richer, and smoother. Hands down, the single best mix I've ever tried."
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"It doesn't have any of that Martian stanky shit in it, does it?" Andrews's retort had just the right amount of friendly sarcasm to put a smirk on Mik's face.
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"Nah, I got that right here." The Martian shot the General a cheeky wink and partially pulled a metal cigar tube from a purpose-built pocket sewn into his jacket. "I figured you'd be a square and I didn't wanna be that guy. But it seems we got ourselves a connoisseur with refined tastes."
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"I haven't partaken in the green vice since I was in high school." Andrews let out such a sincere and hearty laugh that put a smile on the faces of the three other men. "But I do find myself drawn to the sweet smoke of good tobacco mix on occasion."
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"Would you wanna try some?" Tens interjected with the question the General had been waiting for. "It would be an honor to share sema with you, General."
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"Wait, hold on." Msko interrupted with a somewhat serious tone. "You're a high ranking military officer, right?"
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"Why, yes. In fact, I am the highest ranking officer in the US Army and a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff." Andrews responded with just a hint of confusion before Msko's smile suddenly grew incredibly wide.
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"Well, in that case, we should use my pipe." The War Chief quickly followed up. "Tens has great taste in smoke, but his choice of utensil leaves a lot to be desired. A person of your status deserves something special!"
​
Mik and General Andrews watched with bated breath as the War Chief reached into his large, finely decorated leather satchel and pulled out a smaller, but still quite long, leather pouch covered in micro-bead designs. The slow and reverential process of taking out the pipe bag, removing the carefully stowed stem and head, then assembling the two pieces was almost ritualistic in nature. The bulky head made of a metallic stone carved into an effigy of an eagle's head on the front, tomahawk blade on the bottom, and bowl at the top was perfectly complemented by the long, thick dark-wood stem decorated with more micro-beads, intricate silver inlays, and a variety of feathers. While Mik could do nothing but stare, General Robert Andrews was thrown back to a very particular and cherished memory from his early childhood.
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"If only my great-grandfather were still here to see that." Andrews had a genuinely pleasant expression as he reminisced. "His grandfather was a member of one of the Chippewa nations and a pipe maker, but as a mixed grandkid, he didn't have enough blood quantum to enroll. I remember all the stories he used to tell me about how happy he was working in his grandfather's workshop and helping with the beading. But also how sad he was that he couldn’t really participate in the rest of the culture."
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"I didn't know you were Native, Rob!" Mik instantly blurted out while both Tens and Msko once again had confusion written all across their faces. "And Nish, too!"
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"Well…" There was clear hesitation from the General, both at how Mik had addressed him and how to explain this in front of the Nishnabe warriors. "If my great-grandpa wasn't Native enough to enroll, I can hardly call myself Native now, can I? I don't know the language, practice the culture, or even really know much. It's just a small part of my genealogy."
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"Meh, blood quantum is stupid." The Martian retorted with a scoff while Msko and Tens locked eyes with deeply concerned looks. "If you have a real ancestral connection and you actively try to embrace it, that's what's important."
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"What is 'blood quantum'?" Tens finally broke his silence and tried to repeat the phrase in English. As he leaned over slightly and tossed Msko his tobacco pouch, he was visibly struggling with what his translator had said to him. "My translator is contextualizing it as… uh… well, it doesn't makes sense to me."
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"Hold on a second." Msko quickly interjected after catching the pouch with his left hand, then placing it over his heart and closing his eyes for a moment. The room was silent for the few seconds it took the War Chief to say a silent prayer to his ancestors before he opened his eyes, began packing the bowl, and continued. "Ok, so, what is this 'blood quantum' bullshit and why does it sound so exclusionary?"
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"That's because it is." Mik plainly admitted. "It was part of the attempt to at genocide and some of the Tribes ended up internalizing it. I try not to judge other Tribal governments and the vast majority have moved on to lineage now. But there were a lot of people who couldn't enroll and lost all connection to their Tribe and culture because of that."
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"But that doesn't really answer my question." Msko wasn't quite glaring at Mik, though the look on in those neon green eyes was quite serious. "What does the 'quantity of Native American blood' even mean? How can part of your blood be from a certain culture but the rest isn't? That's not how biology or social systems work."  "Well… uh…" Mik was struggling to think of a way to explain this without giving a lecture longer than the presentation they had just sat through, which prompted the General to explain for him.
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"What I'm about to say is off the record and is my personal opinion, not official policy of the United States Army or government." Andrews looked over at Msko with a very particular expression that was immediately understood. After the War Chief pressed a few buttons on his wrist, he casually crossed the short distance between himself and the General, and offered him the pipe with a knowing nod. "Thank you, I truly appreciate this. Now, if I say the words 'integration' and 'assimilation', how does your translator contextualize them?"
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"Integration is something like accepting other people and their cultures while assimilation is forcing others into your…" Msko suddenly looked as if he was have a realization that he really didn't like. "Oh… and let me guess, the United States has a policy of assimilation, not integration."
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"Well, the word assimilation doesn't exist in any of our official policy statements. And, again, if you try to quote me on this I'll deny it." The General paused for a moment to pull out his US Army branded lighter, bring the pipe up to his lips, and take an experienced puff. Allowing the smoke to linger in his mouth before inhaling slightly, he continued speaking while smooth smoke tumbled out of his mouth. "But Dr. River is right about both about this absolutely delicious tobacco and the genocide of Native Americans. And, to be completely honest with you, the irony of that statement is palpable. When Europeans first contacted Native Americans and were introduced to tobacco, they didn't integrate the traditional understanding and use of tobacco. No, what they did with tobacco is the same thing that happened with the damn near everything else here, it was assimilated into European practices and cultures without any consideration for the local people."
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"To be completely fair, Rob," Mik chimed as he and Tens walked over and formed a smoking circle with the General and the War Chief, "Europeans have done that all across the world, not just the Americas. And I'd say it wasn't just the Europeans neither. There're bastards all over the world who think they have the right to force people to be a certain kinda way. Shit like that just ain't right."
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"So, blood quantum was a way to forcefully assimilate Native Americans?" Tens asked while watching the General respectfully passing the pipe back to Msko.
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"In short, yes." Andrews had a genuinely remorseful expression on face as the War Chief took a puff off the pipe and passed it Tens. "Up until the disbandment era, the US government recognized Native American Nations as sovereign, dependent nations. However, in the first couple hundred years of this country's history, there was a requirement that any enrolled member of a Native Nation must have a certain portion of their heritage associated with a specific Nation to be recognized by the US government. It was usually between a half and a quarter, meaning at least one parent or grandparent had to be full blood, to enroll. Some Nations changed that rule when they were given the opportunity, but not all of them. I believe some of the Tribal governments on Mars still use blood quantum to a certain degree, though I'm sure Dr. River will correct me on that."
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"Nah, you're right, and it pisses me off!" Mik's tone and expression showed how bothered he was by the continued use of this exclusionary practice. "Blood quantum was just the colonizer's attempt to breed us out of existence. Like, I try not to judge other Tribes and how they run their governments, but some shit just makes me mad. When I see a person who lives by the Teaching and honors their ancestors get denied enrollment, or, even worse, when a supposedly full blood Native thinks they're better than me just cuz my ma was Ukrainian, it just makes my fuckin' blood boil."
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"This whole concept is confusing the hell out of me." Tens spoke up while passing the pipe to Mik. "I can understand cultural differences and people losing touch with their ancestors' culture, and thus forming a new culture. Or, a person leaving one cultural group and joining another. But I just don't understand how people can divide each other based on genetics when our species is one of the most homogenous in the entire galaxy. And that isn't just within the Nishnabe. The medical report I just looked up shows all of us on Earth, Mars, and Shkegpewen are between 99.6 and 99.9 percent identical on a genetic level."
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"That's cuz it ain't genetic, man, it's goddamn skin color." Mik replied after taking a moment to really examine the smoking utensil in his hand and taking a long drag. "I'm Citizen Potawatomi and my Tribe's blood quantum was initially determined by some drunk White guy who couldn't tell the difference between a tan and skin tone. Fucker decided that some parents and grandparents were less Native than their kids cuz the kids had been outside and runnin' around all summer and adults had been spending alotta time inside."
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"Oh, that is so fucking stupid." Msko blurted out while rubbing the bridge of his nose. "So, someone looked at you, a person who is trying to speak the language, practice the culture, and live by the Teachings, and said, 'I'm better than you cuz I'm darker'? I would smack the ever-loving shit outta anyone who said that to me. There are Hi-Koth, Kyim'ayik, and a few other species that live with us and follow the Teachings better than Tens here while still practicing their traditional cultures. And we absolutely consider them as full citizens of the Nishnabe Confederacy regardless of what they look like, where they're from, or their specific cultural practices."
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"In theory, that is kind of how the United States is supposed to work as well." The General spoke up while Mik passed him the pipe. “We’re supposed to accept anyone and everyone. However, historically, that has come at the cost of a person's traditional cultural identity. People here aren’t British or Chinese or Nigerian, they’re Americans. All of them. For good or bad, we try to be accepting of everyone and have largely moved past things like skin color as a means of dividing people. In the 2050s, there were even reparations given out to the descendants of former slaves, and that kicked off about 100 years of healing the racial divides in America. It really is a shame that the tribes were disbanded about 50 years ago because, besides that, this country really has come a long way towards becoming who we should have been this whole time.”
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“A corporate-State run for the benefit of the ultra-wealthy?” Mik’s snarky remark caused the General’s eyes to roll with annoyance while taking a drag off the pipe.
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“I said, ‘in theory’, damn it!” The sarcastic chuckle Andrews let out was the only thing that stopped Msko from lambasting Mik for the snide remark.
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There was progress being made, official or otherwise, and the War Chief didn't want inappropriate jokes or comments to ruin that. As the General took a puff off the pipe, still chuckling to himself as he did so, Msko felt his wrist-mounted communicator begin to vibrate. Though he didn't want to upset the flow of this positive interaction, he trusted that his orders to only disturb him if there was an emergency were being followed. With a sharp chirp-like whistle, he drew the group's attention to his now flashing communicator and pressed a button to activate it.
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"Report." The War Chief barked with a deepened voice.
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"War Chief, we have a situation at the South East gate of the facility." A feminine voice answered. "There is a growing crowd of people at the south gate to the facility, including some reporters."

Hope you enjoy this first is NEW BLOOD
By a river, a female Archosaur stalks a herd of dicynodonts called Placerias, looking for weak members to prey upon. Downstream, a male feathered dinosaur resides in a tree with his family. A female Postosuchus, a rauisuchian and one of the largest carnivores alive in the Triassic, attacks the Placerias herd, and wounds one individual; the herd scatters, leaving the wounded Placerias to the Postosuchus. Early bats are depicted feeding on dragonflies and cooling themselves in the little water remaining during the drought before being eaten by a larger dragonfly. Searching for food, a female badger like mammal, alongside another badger, discovers the dinosaur nest; the female wards them off. Later that evening, after he goes off hunting, an inquisitive chick follows but falls onto land trying to follow its father and is caught by the female badger. At night, the dinosaurs pick up their remaining pups and then move away. On the next day, the badgers work to collapse the tree. The female Postosuchus meanwhile is shown to have been wounded by the Placerias, a prior attack on them leaving her with a tusk wound on her thigh. After being unable to successfully hunt another Placerias, she is expelled from her territory by a predatory phytosaur. Wounded, sick, and without a territory, the female Postosuchus dies and is eaten by a pack of archosaurs. As the dry season continues, food becomes scarce. The Placerias herd embarks on a journey in search of water, while the archosaurs begin to cannibalise their young, and the male dinosaurs also resorts to hunting baby badgers at night. Finally, the wet season arrives; the majority of the archosaurs have survived (including the lead female), and the dinosaur pair have a new clutch of eggs. The episode ends with the arrival of a herd of giant Procoptodon like mammal which are followed by a large fox like mammal which fights and kills a Postosuchus.
TIME OF THE TITANS
This episode follows the life of a female prosauropod, beginning at the moment when her mother lays a clutch of eggs in the heart conifer forest. Three months later, some of the eggs hatch; the young prosauropods are preyed upon by fox like mammal and other dinosaurs. After hatching, the hatchlings retreat to the safety of the denser trees. They face many dangers as they grow, including predation by the foxes and existing Smilodon like mammals which are replacing the foxes increasingly . Even a giant Deinotherium like mammal accidentally also kills one of the hatchlings by swinging its tusks while fending off a pair of Smilodon like mammals and a weird crocodile like cetan. Elsewhere, adult herds of prosauropods are shown using their massive weight to topple trees in order to reach cycad leaves and giant ferns. Each one hosts a small mobile habitat of damselflies, bats, and beetles. After some time, the creche of cute creatures have grown into subadults. Nearly all are killed by a huge forest fire; only three survivors emerge onto the open plains, including the young female. They encounter several Paracetherium before only two reach safety of a herd of adult prosauropods. Several years later, the female mates, and a few days after, is attacked by a bull smilodon like mammals. She is saved when another prosauropod strikes the Allosaurus with its tail. She rejoins the herd, albeit with deep wounds on her side, but she will recover. The closing narration notes that their successors the sauropods will in the Cenozoic become the largest animals ever to walk the Earth but currently its the paracetherium.
CRUEL SEA
episode begins with a small elephant like mammal being snatched from the shore by a male Liopleurodon. It then cuts to show how dinosaurs have dominated the European islands with fauna similar to the ones in Jurassic Impact. Meanwhile, hundreds of cetans arrive from the open ocean to give birth but they are attacked by a Basilosaur look a like. Hybodus and a Liopleurodon are on the hunt; when a mother cetan has trouble giving birth, a pair of Hybodus pursue her. They are frightened off by the male Liopleurodon, which eats the front half of the cetan. Meanwhile, a Andrewsarchus like mammal the last of its kind if you forget the fox like mammals swims to an island and discovers a turtle carcass; it fights over the carcass with another. Later, during the night, a group of horseshoe crabs gather at the shore to lay their eggs, which attracts a flock of bats in the morning to eat the eggs. However, a few of the bats are caught and eaten by a giant dragonfly . While the cetan juveniles are growing up, they are hunted by Hybodus, which in turn, are prey for the Liopleurodon. While the male Liopleurodon is hunting, he encounters a female Basilosaurus like mammal; after the male bites one of her flippers, she retreats from his territory, and a group of Hybodus follows the trail of her blood. A cyclone strikes the islands, killing many animals, including several bats and the basilosaurus, who is washed ashore and eventually suffocates under his own weight. A group of small dinosaurs feed on her carcass. At the end of the episode, the juvenile cetans that survived the storm are now large enough to swim off and live in the open sea but are hunted by some other cetans.
GIANT OF THE SKIES
The episode begins with the last giant Dragonfly dead on a beach. Six months earlier, the last Dragonfly, resting among a colony of breeding giant bats in Brazil, flies off for Cantabria where he too must mate. He flies past a migrating group of chalicothere mimics and the nodosaur Polacanthus. He reaches the southern tip of North America, where he is forced to seek shelter from a storm. He grooms himself, expelling his body of fleas; the wings begin to change colour in preparation for the mating season. He then sets off across the Atlantic, which was then only 300 kilometres wide, and after a whole day on the wing, reaches the westernmost of the European islands. He does not rest there however, as a pack of dromaeosaurs are hunting horses; a young one is bullied off an Horse carcass by the adults. The Dragonfly flies to the outskirts of a forest to rest after stealing a fish from a bat, but is driven away by a flock of new fliers called Anurognathids. Flying on, he reaches Cantabria, but finds no other dragonflies and consequently he does not mate. After several days under the sun trying to attract a mate, the protagonist dragonflies dies from a combination of heat, stress and starvation. . The new replacements bats feeds on its corpse.
SPIRITS OF THE ICE FOREST
A few hundred kilometres from the South Pole, a clan of Leaellynasaura emerge during spring after several months of total darkness. They feed on the fresh plant growth (which has adapted to the changing seasons), and build nests to lay their eggs; a Koolasuchus also wakes and heads to a river, where he will stay during the summer. Out on the banks of the river, migrating herds of Macraucheia have also arrived to feed and lay their eggs. When summer arrives, many of the Leaellynasaura clan's eggs have been eaten; however, those of the matriarch hatch successfully. Meanwhile, a male Polar Smilodon like mammal and its pride hunts both the Leaellynasaura and the Macraucheia, the latter species also having to deal with blood-sucking birds the Smilodon male deals with being attacked and exiled by a larger male. When autumn arrives, the herd begins to migrate, and the Koolasuchus leaves the river to find a pool for hibernation and all the cubs of the old male Smilodon are killed. During the migration, some Muttaburrasaurus become lost in the forest; they vocalize loudly while trying to return to their herd, preventing the Leaellynasaura clan's sentries from hearing the male Smilodon approaching. It manages to kill the matriarch of the clan. Winter descends and the forest is shrouded in darkness, but the now matriarch-less Leaellynasaura clan is able to stay active, using their large eyes to help them forage for food. The clan and other creatures are also shown to use various methods of coping with the cold.. Finally, spring returns, and two Leaellynasaura males challenge each other for the right to mate, and the clan establishes a new dominant pair and the old male Smilodon kills the new male Smilodon and takes the pride back. The closing narration acknowledges that soon this landmass will be pulled closer to the South Pole and when that happens, this unique ecosystem and its inhabitants will disappear.
DEATH OF THE DYNASTY
Several months before the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, the last mammals are living under intense environmental stress due to excessive volcanism. A female giant Entelodont like monotremes abandons her nest, the eggs rendered infertile due to acidic pollution. Her calls for a mate are answered by a smaller male, who kills a young rhino like mammal to appease her. Three days later, after repeated copulation, she drives him off. The mother fasts as she tends to her nest, contending with raids by dromaeosaurs and Squirrel like mammals. Meanwhile, herds of deer like mammals wander between islands of vegetation among the volcanic ash, and rhinoceros rut for the right to mate, while losing their young to attacking dromaeosaurs. Only three of the Entelodont hatches ; the mother hunts one of the last elephants to feed herself and her brood. One of the last giant bats flies into the area and is killed by the last cetans. Several days later, while defending her two surviving offspring, the mother is fatally injured by the tail of an Ankylosaurus. The juveniles remain expectantly next to the carcass of their mother the next morning; several hours later, they are killed along with the other mammals in the region by the impact of a comet in the Gulf of Mexico. The impact, said to be as powerful as ten billion Hiroshima bombs, resulted in 65% of life -the mammals included- dying out in the ensuing cataclysmic changes to the climate. In an epilogue, the present-day African plains are shown; while they are now dominated dinosaurs after millions of years of recovery from the impact, they are still populated by a small group of mammals that did survive the extinction: the rodents, the squirrels and many other small vermin like mammals.
THE GIANT CLAW- TO EDIT
searches the late Jurassic islands for Therizinosaurus, who has massive and very long claws.
The episode starts off with Nigel in his ship where he shows a giant claw that scientists originally thought to be the rib of a giant turtle but was actually the claw of Therizinosaurus. He is interrupted when a giant turtle passes through and he films them. The turtle sneezes on him and Nigel sets off on his journey
Nigel comes across a nesting ground of heterodontosaurs that he crosses by using a red flag to draw their attention while one snaps at his cameraman. They travel into a forest where they watch a pack of cassowary like dinosaurs and their friends hunt heterodontosaurs. In a different forest, Nigel sets camp and finds a scorpion that he keeps. At night, a group of Mononykus like creatures approach the camp site and Nigel tries to catch one. After he caught one, he discovers that they have feathers but he puts his thumb in its mouth causing it to bleed. The next morning, Nigel finds that the Mononykus have eaten his scorpion and he packs up his camp. In the scrublands, Nigel hides in the vegetation urging his cameraman to turn off the camera when he spots a feathered predator that spooks some Mononykus.
Then Nigel waits out at a beach with some Heterodontosaurs and Mononykus as a perfect place for theropods to hunt prey. There he finds a hatched nest with the skeleton of a baby Therizinosaurus in a partially hatched egg as well as herbivore dung. Not far away, he finds a full skeleton of a Therizinosaurus. A large crocodile notices him and chases him and his cameraman into the forest. They climb onto tall tree stumps out of their reach and use a bicycle horn to scare of the raptors. After hearing commotion from the heterodontosaurs, Nigel returns to the watering hole where a feathered apex comes to scavenge and drink but is interrupted by the roar of a Therizinosaurus leading to a clash of the titans. The Therizinosaurus fends off the Tarbosaurus with its formidable claws forcing it to back down. Nigel then finds whole herd of Therizinosaurus emerging from the forest and it is a herbivore that uses its sickle-claws to hook tree and bush branches towards its mouth. Nigel ultimately concludes that it was gentle herbivore by touching one that licks him and knocks him over.
Land OF GIANTS
Nigel travels back in time with his film crew. He travels to a nearby lake, where large mammals named Brutodontids nest every year. There Nigel sees a juvenile Brutodon, where he is attacked by a giant mosasaur. Nigel then coaxes it out of the lake by splashing a stick in the water. It lays on the shore. Nigel attaches a video camera to his head and walks towards it, and demonstrates it's biting power by pushing a stick into it's mouth and having it bite down on it.
Later Nigel climbs up the volcanic slopes to get a panoramic view of the area to see Brutodon herd. Instead he finds a herd of small horses. His search leads him all the way to the coast, where he views a colony of medium sized bats on the cliffs hunting fish. Nigel doesn't return to the campsite until night, where he finds that a large predator has attacked his tent, and left all the provisions littered across the surrounding ground. He finds a single theropod dinosaur tooth jammed in a can of meat.
The next morning Nigel has set up an alarm system outside the camp so that if something breaks the laser tripwire, a loud alarm will sound, alerting Nigel. Later he tracks down the predator, where, around midday, Nigel hears a commotion further ahead. He finds a wounded horse in a rocky gully. He walks further upstream to find a smaller dead individual with a strange feathered apex predator eating it.
Later Nigel is shown flying over the ash-fields in an ultralight. Soon he finds another Sea Bat flock. After breaking away he sees a giant bat, one of the largest animal ever to fly. Soon Nigel discovers the Brutodon herd far below, so he lands the ultra light nearby his jeep. He then drives off towards the herd and locates it without any trouble.
After appreciating their gargantuan size, Nigel drives into a natural 'funnel', caused by a break in some trees. He then sets up some weighing scales designed for lorries. After several fruitless attempts, an Brutodon steps on the scales, showing that it weighs 92.3 tonnes, and Nigel explains that that's the same as 30 African elephants.
The next morning Nigel in chasing an horse 20 miles away from the camp in the jeep, when he realizes that it is actually running because a Giganotosaurus is chasing them both. Nigel narrowly escapes the predator only to meet up with the herd later in the morning to find an entire pack of Giganotosaurus mobbing the herd but most are killed.
By the afternoon the pack has singled out a juvenile, and are inflicting wounds, waiting for her to bleed to death. The hunt continues for the rest of the day and into the night, when filming is no longer possible and Nigel must leave.
The next morning, Nigel finds the herd at the nesting site beside the lake. While the females lay their eggs Nigel comments on what a magical ending this is for his dinosaur safari. Suddenly a Mosasaur lunges at him out of the water
NEW DAWN- WWB REALITY
The episode starts by showing how the mammals were dominating the land and that dinosaurs were small. Then it shows how "an asteroid the size of Mount Everest" struck the Earth and demolished the mammals, and how dinosaurs evolved into new forms thereafter. The first episode depicts the warm tropical world of the early Eocene, sixteen million years after the extinction of the giant mammals. Bats, the one of the surviving lineage of the mammals, including the giant carnivorous Mega Bat, rule this world, while dinosaurs are still very small. The setting is near the Messel pit in Germany. Due to volcanic activity, sudden bulk escapes of carbon dioxide trapped underneath lakes pose a significant hazard to the local wildlife. The episode centers around a Parkosaur family, a leaping, shrew-like dinosaur, which has emerged in the dawn hours to forage for food. As the mother forages, first in solidarity, and then with her pups, she wanders near a large predatory mammal, identified as an Ambulocetus the last cetan. A female Mega Bat, who has been taking care of the single undeveloped baby in her nest, makes two attempts to hunt a small herd of Protoceratops like dinosaurs, early ceratopsians. The first attempt fails when sounds among the vegetation betray her presence and they mob her. The second attack proves successful when the Protoceratops consume fermenting grapes and are unable to evade her attack also defends her territory from another. Unfortunately, while the mother hunts, a horde of Titanomyrma, giant carnivorous ants, encounter the baby when it dropped out of the nest, and successfully kill and eat the chick. When the female discovers her dead offspring at dusk she leaves the forest to try and start another family.
With the arrival of night, a band of lemur-like Godinotia, socialize and copulate in the dark the narration reveals how they will be the most successful in this new world. Ambulocetus finally manages to catch a Flamingo like bird near the lake edge. As the night wears on, an earth tremor unleashes trapped carbon dioxide out from underneath the lake and the gas suffocates most of the surrounding life. The Parkosaurs survive because the nest was upwind of the gas while the Bat was killed because she stayed in that area in the forest.
It is mentioned that although they survived the gas, they would ultimately leave many descendants, while the Ambulocetus, who was killed by the lethal gases, would leave none.
WHALE KILLER
This episode introduces the Mosasaur, an ancient type of mosasaur. Mosasaur became the new king of the ocean after the giant cetans of the Mesozoic died out alongside the mammals (see Cruel Sea). It was much bigger than the sharks it shared the ocean with, and it regularly ate the sharks. However, Mosasaur was still less advanced than the modern species; it still had rear flippers (that helped it during the mating) and lacked the blubber. At the same time, this program depicted the beginning of 'climate chaos' - a relatively minor extinction event between Eocene and Oligocene, also known as "The Great Cut". On land dinosaurs too have become big and huge. This episode featured Torosaurus like ceratopsians and the Andrewsarchus, a mammal that was considered to be a relative to the kings of the Cretaceous the Entelodont. Both were much bigger than the land dinosaurs featured in New Dawn episode, but their brains were still small and their behavior - primitive. They were the first true dinosaur rulers of the land and most of them would die out during "The Great Cut". As the El Nino continues and the extinction event is beginning, the female Mosasaur is forced to change her hunting ground from open seas to mangrove swamps (the future Sahara desert). There she encounters small sharks, Apidium, and Moeritherium. It is described as the last stronghold of the mammals A spinosaurid like dinosaur eats an Apidium but is too small to attack Moeritherium, The mosasaur hunts and eats one alive. She leaves.
The Torosaurus continue to strive but most of the juvenlies are killed young by the poisonous plants of their home Two Andrewsarchus steal such a calf, but begin to fight over it in order to determine which of them gets to eat it first. The calf's mother decides that the calf is alive and fights off the Andrewsarchus - for a time, but leaves when the rest of her young hatch.
The female Mosasaurus discovers a lagoon where dolphin like mammals that appeared after the mass extinction of cetans are beginning to calf. At first the smaller whales use their numbers' advantage to chase away the giant, but the female Mosasaurus eventually returns and begins to hunt and devour the calves - and this time the adults can't stop her.
Several months later Basilosaurus gives birth to her own calf, but the episode ends saying that both the mother and child are doomed to perish - but whales as a group will survive.
LAND OF GIANTS
The third episode takes place in late Oligocene Mongolia, where seasonal rains are followed by long periods of drought. It follows a mother giant hawk, an enormous herbivorous bird , and her young male calf. The mother struggles to raise her calf, fending off predators such as Dromaeosaurs and trying to teach the calf to survive on its own. The episode also follows other animals in the surroundings, including a Therizinosaurid, tyrannosaurids and iguanodontids, and the hardships they endure as the new animals from the south move in.
NEXT OF KIN
A family group of the descendants of the Apidium is down; yet another female was killed by the Troodontids that hunt them, leaving behind an orphan daughter. The males of the group, Grey and Hercules, are beginning to challenge each other for leadership, and the females are supporting Hercules rather than Grey, A bigger, more numerous group attacks, driving the focus group from their old home. Because of this, they start to migrate through the highlands of Ethiopia, searching for a new one. During their travels they meet a large stegosaurid in musth which chases them away from its territory as it tries to wow a much larger female. They settle in a area with a waterfall where many iguanodontids roam they try to scare them off but can't. However it is also home to a large allosaur type creature which kills many and drags the rest for its chicks to eat. Grey is killed in the process and using some planning they steal some of the allosaurs chicks and cause it to migrate for the safety of its chicks. That night one of the babies is stolen by a Troodontid which now rule the area without the constriction of the Allosaur. One day the female orphan is attacked by the Troodontids in full daylight when the rest rally together and try and kill the Troodontid. They settle down and some evolved descendants of the protagonist from the first episode comes and eats the lice in their fur.
SABRE TOOTH
The fifth episode shows the strange fauna of the isolated continent of South America and explores the effects of the Great American Interchange, which had happened 1.5 million years earlier. Since South America had drifted apart from Antarctica 30 million years ago, many unique dinosaurs had evolved, including a Ankylosaurus like creature , an armored armadillo-like ankylosaur with a cannon ball-sized spiked club on its tail; An edmontosaurus like dinosaur, a camel-like dinosaur with a long trunk and though not a dinosaur a large heron like pterosaur has evolved larger than the largest of the bats.
Before the continents of South America and North America collided, a 10-foot-tall predatory bear called with sabre teeth like Smilodon, had reigned as top predator. However, the great birds, migrating from the north, soon displaced them as top predators. The episode focuses on a male bear, a saber-toothed ursine, called Half Tooth, who lives a lone life in a territory of females all of their cubs are his one day two males chase him out and try to become the individuals the females mate with.
Next, the episode shows The new birds hunting down the edmontosaurs and the bears trying to protect the young from the two brothers (in vain) but they are eventually killed when they go hunting. In the background, the mammals still hunt, but give way to the birds. However, a therizinosaurid, who wanted to eat meat as diet supplement, charges the pack while the males attempted to mate, in order to eat some of the carrion. In the process, it kills the dominant rival male, enabling Half Tooth to return, kill the other male and reclaim his territory. Then he had another litter of cubs. Meanwhile the pterosaurs arrive for their winter migration.
Mammoth JOURNEY
narrator reveals that the world's climate is starting to deteriorate, bringing on an ice age. This means all animals, even the mighty titanosaurs and their symbiotic bird partners are struggling with the last of their kind living in the focus herd. One of the herd falls through a pond concealed by ice. Her sisters comfort her, and in the morning the scavengers Troodontids and humans gather gather. The herd then have no choice but to leave their fallen sister to prepare for the coming Ice Age winter. The narrator also reveals that so much water is frozen at the poles, causing sea levels to drop. A vast Ice Age forest, which today is the North Sea, supports an array of dinosaurs including a herd of titanosaurs. Also residing on the plains in summer is a new creature: Human.
Despite having no physical adaptations for the cold, they wear animal hides to keep warm. The episode's main focus is the mammoth's 400 kilometre migration to the Alps and back in the spring. Meanwhile, two stigymoloch like dinosaurs are fighting for a harem of females, but are then ambushed by the humans who kill one of the males. As the titans migrate, one of the herd and the juveniles under her care are separated and stalked by a woolly giganotosaurus, but survive.
Upon reaching the Alps, the mother and the juveniles are reunited with the herd. Here in the valleys, one of the herd lays her eggs to return next year to raise the survivors and the birds mate with each other and a new generation is born, some leave into the Alps but many stay with their parents. The episode also focuses on the Neanderthal, who, despite being built for the cold, is struggling as a result of the Ice Age. One of them is attacked by a Woolly Pachyrhinosaurus, but survives because of his shorter stature and thicker bones.
As the titanosaurs migrate back to the plains, they come into Neanderthal territory where the juveniles is annoyed by the mammals and one is killed by the largest of them all Cave Foxes which drag them down to their cliff home where several giant Parkosaurs watch. they arrive back in their forest where the Gigantosaurus the only thing an adult fears attacks and kills the matriarch. The humans scavenge on the carcass. The titanosaurs are revealed to be going extinct with their herd being the largest thanks to the Ice Age while their birds have a different story thanks to their big partners. The scene then changes to the Oxford Museum and the narrator reveals that "If all this has taught is anything, it's this: no species lasts forever.
BALLAD OF BIG AL
The special begins at the University of Wyoming's Geological Museum, showing the bones of a baby prosauropod followed by an Allosaurus (2.1 metres tall is the maximum height) named Big Al. After the ghost of Big Al wanders the museum passing by his own skeleton and a burrow with some fossilized eggs, the film then travels back in time to 150 Mya) showing a similar nest. Al and his siblings are hiding in the burrow when they are called by their mother. She brings them to a river bank and the hatchlings start to hunt for insects and lizards. When the mother leaves the hatchlings temporarily, a predatory Dilephodon like mammal comes out of hiding and kills one of them (luckily, the victim was not Al).
Al is then shown at the age of two years. He tries to hunt a flock of Dryosaurus. He has not yet learned how to ambush from his mother so he fails to kill one of the swifter, smaller dinosaurs. Later, he snatches a lizard from a branch to keep him satisfied. Al comes across a dead Deinotherium like mammal and an Allosaurus waiting for death in a pit of sticky mud, which forms a predator trap. Meanwhile, a two-year-old female Allosaurus, attracted to the carcass, also gets stuck. She struggles to free herself, but fails. Al luckily avoids the same fate, because he has learnt to avoid carrion and the large carnivores that it usually attracts. Unable to escape, the trapped Allosaurus pair die of exhaustion, their corpses left to the bats. Al returns to his mother and his three siblings and feasts on the carcass she has caught.
Three years pass, and a herd of juvenile Prosauropods are migrating across their forest home and into the grasslands, heading for a herd to the south. Al, now 1.2 meters long, is joined by several other Allosaurus (possibly, his siblings) and they manage to successfully panic the herd into leaving a weakened sick individual behind. But as the Allosaurus gather for the kill, Al is struck down by the neck of the prosauropod. The pack decides to wait for a few hours until the prosauropod is brought down by heat exhaustion and his illness. Though they feed, within the hour, a five-year-old female Allosaurus scavenges the kill. Al takes some remnants of the carcass for himself and leaves, trying to find a safer place to eat.
3 years pass by, and Al, now 1.8 metres long with the crests over his eyes reddening, is shown drinking at a pond. His presence however makes other mammals around the pond nervous and the smell of blood he brings with him puts off a pair of Deinotherium that were attempting to mate. Away from the pond, he discovers the scent of a nearby six-year-old female Allosaurus and issues a mating call. She is interested, but as Al attempts to mate, a Smilodon like mammal out on the prowl pack attacks and kills the female. Al is lucky enough to escape from the ensuing fight with his life, although he sustains injuries to his right arm as well as smashed ribs. Later the dry season comes, and Al is attempting to hunt a flock of rabbit like mammals as the Dryosaurus have moved away. Whilst ambushing them however, he steps on a hedgehog like mammal and kills it but then it is stuck in his foot so he ends up breaking something in his right foot in the resultant fall; he limps away the, his chances of survival as prey gets scarcer now very unlikely. As the dry season turns to a drought, Al's limp from the fall gets worse and his right middle toe -which he broke in the fall- has become badly infected. Soon, unable to hunt because of this handicap, he dies in a dried-up riverbed, where two hatchling Allosaurus are hunting for bugs and come across his emaciated carcass where they eat his eyes and tongue and leave. He is said not to have reached full size, dying as a mature adolescent and that the process of his fossilisation was so perfect it preserved even the injuries he sustained in his lifetime including -amongst others- lumps where his ribs healed after their break and the raging infection on his middle toe even the hedgehog he stepped on. The narrator concludes the special stating how Big Al, in death, represents a frozen moment in the fast and furious life of a carnivorous dinosaur.
Now I'm going to do the worst part of WWD, Walking With Dinosaurs 3D and I'm going to remove the voices and keep it as an actual documentary
In the early cretaceous a few million years before the fourth episode of WWD a thing that was actually good and next to the western interior seaway. Patchi is the youngest and smallest in a litter of tiny baby Torosaurus like dinosaurs that are being out competed by pronghorn like mammals. Their father Bulldust the leader is the leader of the herd. Patchi is also attacked by a bird, which attempts to eat him, but he is saved by his caring mother, resulting in Patchi having a hole in his frill as an injury.
Later, Bulldust moves his herd south as well, but when they try to pass through a forest, they are forced to flee when the local Dromaeosaurs make fire to flush out some pronghorns and a forest fire erupts. Taking advantage of the chaos, a pack of dromaeosaurs attacks the scattered herd. They kill most of Patchi and Scowler's family, while their leader and alpha, Gorgon, fights and kills Bulldust while he’s trying to run away as he cares nothing about his children thanks to his kind's ability to breed like rabbits. Afterwards, Patchi's herd, now led by Bulldust's mate, combine with a female named Juniper's herd as they continue their migration. Gorgon's pack attacks them again, and in the ensuing chaos, Patchi, Scowler, Juniper (and many others) fall into a river and are swept downstream to the ocean all juveniles but Juniper, Scowler and Patchi killed in the process, with a scavenger bat following them from above. At a beach, Scowler follows a herd of rhino like mammals to find food, leaving Patchi and Juniper behind as they are scarred up and Juniper's eye is destroyed. The two make their way through a forest and eventually are able to find their herd and Scowler.
After years of making the same migration from north to south and vice versa, the leader of the herd is killed in a river by two cetans Scowler confronts his brother and his gang of friends and challenges him for a battle in exchange for leadership of the herd. Scowler, as he is much stronger and larger than Patchi, quickly gains the upper hand and defeats his brother by trapping him under a young tree before disowning him and ordering Juniper, along with the rest of the herd, to leave Patchi behind. Despondent and heartbroken, Patchi, now trapped underneath the tree and unable to do anything, attempts to accept his fate by allowing scavengers to kill and eat him but thanks to a pterosaur literally pecking out his eye while looking at a butterfly he has the rage to go out fighting.
Reinvigorated by the bat, Patchi and his friends (actually just a bunch of dragonflies that live on his back but like him despite their intelligence) escapes and fights off the scavengers, before catching up to the herd, only to find them confronted by Gorgon and her pack once more (now its gets dark) they manage to scare most of the herd and a bunch of Pronghorn like mammals into a river which causes most to drown, during the battle between Gorgon and the ceratopsians. Scowler pushes Juniper accidentally into a hole with a spike and kills her. patchi in a fit of rage fights Scowler and has his last remaining eye gouged out but he manages to push him off a cliff that was there and while Patchi looks like he's contemplating his action when he is just standing there when Gorgon and her pack kill him, meanwhile a male approaches Gorgon and drops the head of Juniper in front of her she accepts this and leaves to mate.
It then cuts to the survivors who are building up their nest and thanks to their rerouted migration which saves them and their kind from extinction from the Pronghorns. Gorgon's pack have to move away and the lovely gory ecosystem collapses a few million years after this thanks to the arrival of Brutodon which out compete the definitely not sauropod replacement mammals that look like giraffes that will become the largest creatures on earth and it ends on one of Gorgon's young evolving WWM style into the giant theropods from Nigel Marvin's adventures with the largest creatures on earth. The credits this time are of a before and after showing the area in Patchi and friends era and in Nigel marvin's adventures era showing the river area where Patchi was killed into the river area where the Brutodon laid their eggs.
Species/ replacements
Nanotorosaurus replaces Pachyrhinosaurus
Nanogigantosaurus replaces Gorgosaurus
Pronghornodontids replaces Parkosaurus
Parkosaurs replace Chirostenotes
Loxodontamimus replaces Edmontonia
mega Dragonfly, Nanoanurognthathus and mega bats replace Quetzocoatlus
Brontomimus replaces the hadrosaurs
Atroxodontids replace troodontids
Tiny Compusnathids replace Alphadon
Avitelmessus replaces Avitelmessus (crab evolution wasn't that impacted)