Why does he look MORE like harry potter now? What gives?
(via trexally)
Reblog if you want your followers to ask you anything they’re curious about.
h4te:
Like anyone will actually do this^ and yet we reblog
(Source: hate, via aleithetimelord)
Wow, I just read that plotline. I REALLY enjoyed it! Selkies, haha.
(Source: beatonna)
Trapped in the Hedge
The numbers just wouldn’t add up. He’d looked at them, and looked at them, and looked at them again, but no matter how hard he tried they were there in stark black and off white. He’d lost the Pendleson account. His professional life was over. He was ruined.
For not the first time in his life, Frank wished he could just get away from it all. From his high backed chair he looked out over the nighttime city and into the roiling banks of inky blackness, wishing he could see through the smog to the beach. Perhaps even a better future.
When Frank turned around again there was a smiling man sitting in the chair opposing him. The guy’s suit was amazing, his poise perfect, and when he spoke it was in round tones. “Hey Frank.” He said.
“How did you get in here?” Frank countered as he looked at the clock. He looked back at the smiling stranger. “It’s after nine at night, the building is closed.”
“I’m from a different department, graveyard shift, and I’m here to help you with the Pendleson account.” The stranger explained, his wide smile never twisting.
Frank’s eyes shot to the computer screen where the account remained displayed with accusing numerals spread across it. He couldn’t believe management would know so quickly. It had to be a scam. And yet there was something in the smiling man’s demeanor that made Frank want to believe he wanted to help. “And you are?”
“Fairweather, Baron Fairweather.” The other responded in his smoothest James Bond voice. “And I want to take the account off your hands, make the whole thing disappear, and give you an all expense paid vacation to the sun kissed vacation community of your choice.”
Frank smirked. Guy was laying it on a bit thick, wasn’t he?
“What’s the catch?”
“No catch. No contest, no service, no survey. Not a thing you have to do other than sign a small agreement stating that you, the primary, have agreed to give me, the co-signed, your resources to continue your labors without your literal presence.”
Baron Fairweather reached into his sleeve and pulled out a contract that unrolled like a scroll tube from an old move, dropping weighty folds of cloth like paper onto the desk. When Frank eyed it all he could see was every other word, the text so ridiculously tiny he would have had to use a magnifying glass. “It’s a new work release program,” The Baron explained. “We work, you’re released.”
A gag then, Frank decided. Any minute now a stripper would burst out of a cake his coworkers had put together some cash for, or the pen would explode in his hand, or the hidden camera crew would come out to get a laugh at him. What the hell, he thought, why not just go with it.
“Where do I sign?”
The Baron reached down and pulled back the sheets of paper to reveal signatory line. “Here,” then he reached into his pocket and pulled out a pen. “oh, and use mine, its traditional.”
Frank took the pen into hand with a wince. The pen, although extremely elegant and light weight, was also roughly textured and abraded his fingers as he nudged it about. Maybe it was some kind of fancy pen, from Europe. “Ow.”
“It can sting the first time, but only the once.” The Baron agreed, nodding as Frank signed his name. “That’s a boy,” the Baron nodded. “yes, that’s fine.”
Once Frank had signed Baron Fairweather claimed his pen and stashed both it, and the contract, somewhere in his jacket. For someone so thin the rolled up packet seemed inconspicuous, and Frank wondered where it had been stashed. Then the Baron seized his hand and shook it. “Thank you very much, Frank, you’ve been a big help.” The Baron smiled, and Frank was smiling, and everything seemed to be going well.
Any minute now.
“Now if you’ll come this way.” The Baron gestured as he rose, leading the way towards Frank’s outer office. Frank rose as well, closing his laptop, and inched around the desk.
“Won’t I need my bags?”
“Already packed.”
“Oh,” Frank’s head hurt. Maybe it was a cologne that Baron Fairweather was wearing, maybe it was the company AC, but for the life of him he couldn’t explain this sudden soporific feeling. “That’s convenient.”
“Surely is.” The Baron agreed, opening the door. “Now if you’ll just step through here you’ll find yourself in baggage claim.”
Frank paused, one foot through the door into a sudden and apparent nothing in the tone of warm summer sunlight, although he had no means or method to explain this transformation, and one foot firmly planted in the grime and banality of his normal life. “Wait, how is this possible? I don’t see anything.”
The Baron laughed. As he did Frank saw long, dragon like, teeth protrude from Fairweather’s head while his long face was split with yellow saurian eyes. “Oh my dear silly boy,” The Baron said. “Where you’re going you won’t need ‘eyes’.”
Day 1
The baggage claim was loud and raucous. Everywhere Frank looked around the rolling device bearing heavy boxes lined in jeweled brass there were strange creatures crawling, skittering, and loping along. Some wore officious looking suits while others were little more than rag swaddled slaves hauling heavy loads from one platform to another, sweating under the whips of immense overseers who drove them harshly. Dabbing at his forehead in the sudden heat Frank approached one of the tall figures in uniform.
“Excuse me, sir?”
The creature rolled on him and Frank reeled back. Towering at seven feet the uniformed figure had a face like a wrecked car wrapped in a railroad of scars over a warty nose and two blazing pinholes for eyes.
“Wotddyou want?”
“My name is Frank Higgens, I’m here for my trip?”
“Trip?” The being snorted diresively. “Ey Jimmy, dis ‘ere new meat came for his ‘trip’.”
‘Jimmy’ was another long limbed and large being, but whereas the first was merely huge, this one was spidery; eight flexible limbs moving eight packages at once while two more stamped relentlessly. “That’s a good one, Bob.”
Day 2.
Frank was hungry. So very hungry. He couldn’t imagine having been more hungry in his whole life. He’d tried to buy a coke from the vending machine but it just stood there and wouldn’t take his money. He tried talking to it, he actually tried sweet talking an electrical device, but the face etched across the unbreakable plastic containing candy and chilled carbonated beverage just stretched in a grimace of unmentionable pain before the device turned away on stomping feet.
There was no end to the airport. He couldn’t even remember how he got to the airport to begin with. There was no terminal, no lobby, no front nor back door although their were innumerable windows suggesting an outside. When Frank peered out of one all he could see was limitless, empty, eye-burning sun shine.
His attempts to communicate with the other beings in the luggage area had born mixed results. Some had laughed at him, others ignored him, and some had threatened him with violence if he didn’t “get along”. He’d also learned not to stay in one place too long, lest the overseers decide he wasn’t working and attempted to beat him. He’d already been sent fleeing more than once.
The only downtime he’d gotten was the night cycle, and that was a thousand times worse than daylight.
Day 4. Night.
Frank woke up next to a guttering fire, cool fluid being poured down his throat. Looming over him an orange furred orangutan in a business suit knelt with an expression of deep concern. Frank smiled and went back to sleep.
When next Frank woke the orangutan had moved away towards the fire and squatted there throwing scraps of newsprint into it. The bits of paper screamed and wilted as the fire reached up and gnawed on them between gory teeth. The chamber around them appeared to be nothing less than an AC vent or the bottom of an Elevator shaft. From his angle he couldn’t tell.
“Sleep now.” Said the Orangutan. “Daytime come soon.”
Day 12.
Mr. Peepers the Orangutan butler had made the rules quite plain. Mr. Fairweather was the Keeper, and it was the Keeper’s will that everyone did his, her, or its part to make sure the luggage got where it needed to be. Where that was didn’t matter, but it would get there or they all would suffer.
What would happen if they failed? Mr. Peepers shuddered to think. The last time Baron Fairweather personally visited the baggage claim there were a great many ‘cutbacks’, culminating in ‘the purge’. Dark times. Better not to think about them.
Instead there were smiles. One should always smile. Always. Even if your face hurt. Smile. Because happy workers were efficient workers, and workers who didn’t smile were fed to the furnace.
Day and gainful employment.
Frank was now Frank the Bag Man. And, Frank thought as he scurried around in his paper sack pants that had long replaced his original slacks, he and Mr. Peepers would no longer have to risk the Night. They would get to move into the safety of the inner fortress where they’d get more food and more privileges.
Victory!
Then Frank heard the screaming. Shoving his way to the front of the crowd he looked up and saw The Keeper and his Baggage Guard standing over Mr. Peepers while one of them beat the Orangutan savagely with a cane. Frank swallowed dryly as he saw the hiding place Mr. Peepers had first taken him too pulled open and exposed, the store of food smashed underfoot.
“This cunning Beast has betrayed my trust,” The Keeper remarked. “dodging his duly appointed labors and hoarding food for you, his fellow workers.”
The Baron cast his blazing summertime gaze over the gathering of laborers. “What is to be done with him?”
“The furnace!” One shouted, and soon other voices began to raise too.
“The furnace!”
“The furnace!” Frank screamed.
Night.
Loneliness.
Mr. Peepers was a good friend. A very good friend. Good to Frank. And now he was gone.
Gone and thrown to the furnace.
How long had Frank continued working with tears running down his face? (But never stop smiling. Always smiles. Happy workers are efficient workers.)
How deep was the gnawing pit of coldness in his gut at his crime? He had sold out his friend that had taught him so much over the years just because those were the rules.
He was a Judas.
Now he was alone in another one of the hiding places trying to avoid the creatures crawling around outside looking for sweetmeats and rodents and he had to wonder: how long would it go on?
How long before it was his turn in the furnace?
Day.
“Morning Bob.” Frank said to the guard troll.
“Morning Frank.”
“Any empty luggage?”
Bob paused and licked his huge tusks in confusion. “Empty luggage?”
“Yeah, pre-load.”
“I guess,” the troll said. “why?”
“Orders, y’know,” He leaned over and nudged Jimmy in the ribs. “Y’know?”
“Yeah,” Jimmy nodded. “Orders is orders.”
Ten minutes of searching between the two guards and the bag man discovered the amalgamated piles of empty luggage not yet ready for transport. They lay as if discarded in a largely unused portion of baggage claim like the empty caskets of unknown corpses waiting to be filled. Selecting one Frank lay into it and folded himself up like a paper lunch sack.
“Okay guys, load me up.”
“Huh?” Both said almost simultaneously.
“Orders,” Frank explained. “One luggage for home. Chop chop.”
The luggage hit the bottom of the dumpster hard, and that was how Frank knew it had worked when his head began to throb with pain. Pushing against the leather case he spread his limbs until the seams began to burst and then opened the luggage with the gasp of one breaking the surface of the water. Rain was falling and it pelted his paper body, absorbing the fluid as it chilled him to the bone. Surfing on a sea of trash he climbed out and fell onto the concrete with a cry, the wet faux stone cutting his palms. When he looked at them there was blood.
Looking up there was darkness. Not the perpetual twilight of the night cycle or the burning jewel of summertime dawn, but sooty, gray and black, darkness. No moon, no stars, with the imperfect asymmetry of neo gothic architecture against the shadows.
Home.
Dark.
Painful.
But free.
Reality.
Day 7.
Some things are like falling off a bike. Tying a tie is just one of them. Over, around, down. Frank practiced it in the mirror over and over again until he had it fully remembered, or half remembered. Over, around, down.
It was now 2012. The President was a black guy. And ‘we’, meaning America, were at war with Afghanistan. Frank made a mental note to find out what a nine eleven was. Today was his first job interview, and he wanted to make it just right.
He had tried to return to his old job, only to find that someone else named Frank Higgens was already working where Frank used to work, with a family and everything. Frank didn’t know how this not-Frank had done it, but he knew he didn’t want to find out.
The other Lost called it a Fetch.
That was another change. Almost as soon as Frank had gotten out of - what was it called? The Hedge? - he had been found by other beings just like him with their own stories. Some of them had even invited him into their club called a court, they said they could always use someone with a bright smile. (Smile! Always smile! Happy workers are efficient workers. Workers who don’t smile go to the furnace.)
Frank’s concentration slipped.
Mr. Peepers.
Taking a deep breath Frank concentrated on the tie. Over, around, down. Nothing to it. He was out now. He was going to make good on it. He was going to do what he could to make sure nobody else had to go through what he did, and if someone else came out of the hedge, he was going to be there to help them too.
“Today,” the bag man said with a crinkly smile mouth. “is going to be a great day.”
-Originally Posted by RuneKnight3 on /tg/
-Originally Posted by RuneKnight3 on /tg/
"For you, the city, thus I turn my back:
There is a world elsewhere"
There is a world elsewhere"
— Coriolanus
"Cowards Die Many Times Before Their Death"
— Julius Caesar by Shakespeare
“Thieves forced their way into an antiquities museum in southern Greece on Friday, making off with 60 to 70 items of “incalculable” value. Two men in ski masks reportedly used hammers and a gun to smash their way into the Archaeological Museum of Olympia during an early morning shift change and “immobilized” one of the guards. They then shattered display case and removed dozens of items, mostly small bronze and clay statues, though a full accounting of the missing items has yet to be made. The museum, which is located near and draws most of its exhibits from the site of the ancient Olympic Games, contains some of the nation’s most treasured artifacts, some dating back to the origins of Greek civilization. The country’s culture minister, Pavlous Geroulanos, has reportedly already tendered his resignation due to the obvious lack of security.”
THAT BELONGS IN A MUSEUM
