taennyn | No promises on length.

Entry tags:

No promises on length.

But hey. It's been a while since I did a sparks post, hasn't it. :)

Wild Roses:
ripple effect - Gideon; appears to be related to unexpected and unrefusable cargo 1

(interpret as liberally as you like) - early Crown Navy era, Ulysse and Lida

Putting one foot in front of another - Trickwood Unification, Ruadhan (appears to be in the period between arrangements and arguments [where Dón knows Ruadhan's into the woods but has no idea whatsoever exactly where he is], and when Ruadhan actually shows up in Hernén's demesnes and starts being his irritatingly noisy self all over the woods.)
figures emerging from mist - Trickwood Unification, Evescha and Ioann
A thin layer of ice on everything - Trickwood Unification, Ioann and Evescha
second verse, same as the first - Trickwood Unification, Ruadhan
swans - Trickwood Unification, Geoffrey, references unexpected and unrefusable cargo 2
"actually, that's their version of a friendly hello" - Trickwood Unification, unknown
bees in a glass jar - Some Kind of Love Song, 'Jack Gibson'
"I already gave you my decision" - Trickwood Unification, Jared and Hernén

=DDDD - Jonathan Sabaey and his Sense of Impending Doom

that godsdamned ticking - Alternate Earths, Yasha

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Witches' Horses:
"Don't write THAT down" - Sibir, Stas
loss of vision/sight - Sibir, Nadya
passing the bottle around the campfire - Sibir, Nadya
working on 72 hours without sleep - Sibir, Nadya

Blue glass - Chevalier de Grammont, Grammont and Sinclair

Untapped amber - Falcons' Feathers, Irina
no really it will fit - Falcons' Feathers, Khenbish

The kind of soup one can only get at home - Swallow's Tale, Taarstad
"what's the fuzzball chewing on now?" - Swallow's Tale, Helena and Sascha

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Deaths:
sparkling like water - The Morrigan
Clock tower - Julian De'Ath
Booby trap(s) - The Morrigan
insufficient resources - Deaths, Julian and Eduard De'Ath

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The Mummy Series:
the gravitational pull of bed - Mummy postscript, Evie Carnahan
"what is my life what are my choices" - Rick O'Connell
pie - Evie Carnahan and Rick O'Connell
"Why am I juggling magicians?" - Evie Carnahan, Rick O'Connell, Jonathan Carnahan

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Other:
OH GODS FINALLY - Unknown
tumbleweeds - Unknown

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loss of vision/sight

second verse, same as the first

no really it will fit

tumbleweeds

bees in a glass jar

(interpret as liberally as you like)

They were in the middle of an emergency extraction, doctors and medsestras crowded in shoulder to shoulder to hip and ankle with engineers, and she saw it coming. Just barely, but she had time to get her eyes closed.

Someone else yelped--likely her neighbour getting tagged in the thigh by a chunk of the coolant pipe--as she tried not to scream. Grit her teeth hard as searing-hot-wet-freezing hit her across the face.

She allowed herself a gasp, then said "Get me out right now, eye wash bottle in the secondary kit, now now now--"

Someone hooked an arm around her hips from behind, yanked unceremoniously, and she thanked several saints that she'd been packed in too closely with other bodies to have to worry about getting her head bounced off a piece of the half-shattered horse.

Hoped the casualties from right next to her were going to be low, but she wouldn't be doing any triage until she got whatever horror was currently on her face off her face dear God in Heaven it felt like it was trying to eat through her eyebrows. "Eye wash" she repeated herself, still getting dragged past other people's limbs.

She could still hear the trapped soldiers swearing. That was good.

Hanging half-upsidedown from--someone--'s grip on her was less good, especially when someone who definitely wasn't a doctor said something she was definitely not supposed to understand, then started yelling for a solvent.

"Eye wash bottle, green bag, should be by the strut that was holding when we got in, right now" she said, then snapped her mouth closed and held her breath when the not-a-doctor said "Solvent first, sorry dyevushka, this is going to feel terrible" and splashed a powdery liquid from her hairline to her collarbones.

It felt like she was abruptly covered in extremely angry live bees. She very seriously considered swearing. Kept holding her breath instead, because--yes. There was the second hit, thank you, Engineer whoever-you-are, she would definitely be remembering this moment.

This time there was a cloth involved, dabbing and blotting, and then she heard the seal ripping off the eyewash container.

Knowledgeable hands guided her into position, and she swished. Blinked into the opaque container, trying to feel if there was any actual damage beyond the bees crawling all over her face still, swished again, signaled for the second canister.

As the old fluid got vacuum-pumped away, she smelled blood, tried to lift her head, got stopped. "I'll be fine," Heléne Alexeivna said, "you focus on you, Nadyezhda Valentinevna, you're the one who got hit in the face, I just need some glue once we get everyone out of that twice-blessed horse."

Edited (fixed a typo while i could.) 2016-05-05 15:11 (UTC)

Auuuuugh. *scrubs at own face*

Ew. that's unpleasant.

NOPE NOPE NOPE.

Lucky someone knew what to do tho.

UH URUGAGH. D:

Glad they moved fast and well on that one. EEESH.

He could hear Dón's voice in his head as he looked at the map. The words were clear as Arianhrod's when she was in a mood, without the sense of leaning presence that meant he was actually holding an icon and waiting for Ruadhan to notice. Dry as dust, not quite to the point of rolling his eyes but close: Second verse, same as the first.

Not quite, Ruadhan thought, looking over the design of the hillfort and noticing the individual details some thoughtful mapmaker had added indicating steep approaches and the overhangs that would let someone roll nice big rocks onto the heads of approaching traffic if they felt like it.

"Remind me: what have this lot done?" he asked, because he was sure he'd been told but the details had gone.

Somehow I get the feeling those defences aren't going to help here.

Another 'impenetrable' fort to crush, another day...

They were playing catch-me through the stableyards of a grandmother who'd gone to sleep months ago and hadn't woken when they'd come in to say hello. It was good practice, or should have been, a chance to stretch his legs and his horse's paces before they went raiding again.

'Should have been' was a phrase he was starting to associate with this girl a lot.

"No, no--don't you dare, no!" he yelled at his mirrors, watching her horse roll thoughtfully sideways before putting on more speed. "That gap is not big enough for you!"

If she heard him, she didn't reply.

He was going to watch a Russian girl break her horse's neck on a frozen-open stable strut. If she was lucky she wouldn't break hers, but her horse was definitely not getting through this--

She'd somehow spiraled herself through it. Infinitesimal incremental adjustments at a full running pace, and she not only wasn't dead her horse didn't so much as flash a whisper of an emergency beacon up on his refit-from-Russians mirror.

Haha, she's *good* at this. :)

*cackle* underestimating the girl brings its own punishment.

*GRIN* No, that gap is not big enough for you.

They used to joke that her hair was like tumbleweeds. Unruly, wind-tossed, inclined to go where it liked and ignore the rules that said it wasn't allowed.

She would have protested, but she liked the desert imagery. Bought jackrabbit and roadrunner pins, wore sagebrush scarves and sunglasses.

Did up her hair with styling wax and strategic wires one year for Halloween and went to a party as an anthropomorphic tumbleweed, raspy branches and all, did somersaults for the camera on a backyard trampoline and won a prize for most creative costume.

Are they actually a real thing, tumbleweeds? Like, do they really root back down?

Yup, they're for real. Had a violation for them once, we had to clear a whole 4 acres because they're considered invasive as hell. They're also known as Russian thistles. They grow up normal, green bushy plants, and then they dry out, die, the stem breaks and the plant skeleton rolls/bounces away on the least breeze. It's how they disperse their seeds.

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2013/12/tumbleweeds/johnson-text

Edited (added link for a decent article, in case one was curious.) 2016-05-07 19:32 (UTC)

Haha, clever. Does she wander too? Go peering at all the abandoned places with the rusty no trespassing signs attached?

https://www.tumbleweedgems.com/

Edited (one good link deserves another? preeeetty) 2016-05-07 19:35 (UTC)

I'd been asked if I wanted to tag along for a trip to move a hive that had taken up residence in a tree that didn't want it.

I'd said of course, because why not: honey's delicious and I'd never seen a hive up close.

Should have paid attention to the part about the 'tree didn't want it', because let me tell you, a tree heaving itself open right over your head like it's going to eat you and use your bones for fertilizer is a pretty memorable experience.

I'm still not sure how exactly I wound up holding a glass jar the size of my torso. Filled with bees. Who'd clumped up protectively around their queen, who'd had to be winkled free of the recesses of the tree with a grass stalk and a whole lot of muttering.

Most of the muttering wasn't mammalian, for the record.

Today's been a weird day, even by my standards.

Ohhh dear.

Bwahaha. ahem. yes, quite weird. (I noted the odd phrasing of the first line and my brain tried really hard to make it 'were we didn't want it' but no, Opinionated Tree is Opinionated.)

"-- and you can interpret that as liberally as you desire."

Gideon was delicately cracking his knuckles one at a time as the connection closed.

"Please tell me that wasn't who I think it was," Lida called from the other office.

Ulysse leaned back in his chair. "If they didn't want to deal with consequences they shouldn't have told me I have no authority to dictate their use of customs and quarantine facilities. I am merely allocating my resources as I deem appropriate to the circumstances."

Well, that's an oops on someone's part.

....that's not going to end badly at all, nope. *looks somewhere else*

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No promises on length.

no subject

Loss of vision/sight - Sibir, Nadya

Re: Loss of vision/sight - Sibir, Nadya

Re: Loss of vision/sight - Sibir, Nadya

Re: Loss of vision/sight - Sibir, Nadya

Re: Loss of vision/sight - Sibir, Nadya

second verse, same as the first - Trickwood Unification, Ruadhan

Re: second verse, same as the first - Trickwood Unification, Ruadhan

Re: second verse, same as the first - Trickwood Unification, Ruadhan

no really it will fit - Falcons' Feathers, Khenbish and Irina

Re: no really it will fit - Falcons' Feathers, Khenbish and Irina

Re: no really it will fit - Falcons' Feathers, Khenbish and Irina

Re: no really it will fit - Falcons' Feathers, Khenbish and Irina

tumbleweeds - unknown

Re: tumbleweeds - unknown

Re: tumbleweeds - unknown

Re: tumbleweeds - unknown

bees in a glass jar - Some Kind of Love Song, Takashi

Re: bees in a glass jar - Some Kind of Love Song, Takashi

Re: bees in a glass jar - Some Kind of Love Song, Takashi

(interpret as liberally as you like) - early Crown Navy era, Ulysse and Lida

Re: (interpret as liberally as you like) - early Crown Navy era, Ulysse and Lida

Re: (interpret as liberally as you like) - early Crown Navy era, Ulysse and Lida