I dare you... to hit paste in the replies.

[SilentSam]

DUN DUN DUN!!

[Delthion]

So what are we supposed to do?

[SilentSam]

Just paste whatever you copied.
Like this: I will note that I will try to start doing weekly posts for this blog, even though there is few people looking at this blog, I may start doing reviews of books, or movies. I will add a page-view tracker sometime soon. I also may do random things too. Goodbye! That's what I copied.

[Jukka the Sling]

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[Delthion]

    Hey, Delthion, you have 36 messages, 3 are new.
December 02, 2014, 06:52:52 PM
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SilentSam
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I dare you... to hit paste in the replies.
« on: Today at 04:55:37 PM »    Reply with quote
DUN DUN DUN!!
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Grin~~~~Silent~~~~Sam~~~~Squirrel~~~ Grin
HEHE!
I AM SAM Grin
Cicha sam jest najlepszym redwall znaków!

Please come to my website:
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Delthion
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Re: I dare you... to hit paste in the replies.
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So what are we supposed to do?
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Yes, I finally got out of my Halloween costume.
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Re: I dare you... to hit paste in the replies.
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Just paste whatever you copied.
Like this: I will note that I will try to start doing weekly posts for this blog, even though there is few people looking at this blog, I may start doing reviews of books, or movies. I will add a page-view tracker sometime soon. I also may do random things too. Goodbye! That's what I copied.
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Grin~~~~Silent~~~~Sam~~~~Squirrel~~~ Grin
HEHE!
I AM SAM Grin
Cicha sam jest najlepszym redwall znaków!

Please come to my website:
http://abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz-0.blogspot.com/
Jukka the Sling
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[Jetthebinturong]

This was written by my best friend and writing buddy, I think his work is amazing, you can read it if you want. Heh, there's so much of it that the forum limit blocks like half of it.

Spoiler

Chapter 1 - Casamira
Casamira Allene was a slight but tall girl, of 16 years of age. She had dark, reddish brown hair, and her face was covered in the most adorable freckles, absolutely covered in them. She had lovely brown eyes, and a truly gorgeous smile, when she chose to let it play over her slender pink lips. She was a genuinely beautiful young woman, and one of the most heart breaking things about her is how she doesn't believe it. She really does hate the way she looks. She thinks that her legs are too long, too skinny, that she isn't nearly curvy enough, and that her freckles make her ugly. She was, of course, very wrong about that, but it's not like she would believe you.
Casamira was lying on her bed, tucked against the wall in a corner of her attic bedroom, the sloped roof coming in close above her, the sound of the rain loud, even through the insulation.
She loved that sound.
The befreckled girl was reading a book she had taken out from the library at her school, and sipping from a hot mug of sweet, healthy lanternleaf tea.
I did mention that this world has magic written all over it, right?
Lanternleaf is a bioluminescent flower that gives off a flickering, fiery light in the dark. This, combined with the rigid, lantern-like structure, and the fact that the flower always either hangs from vines, or stands on tall stalks, lead to the name Lanternleaf. When you eat the petals, your irises begin to glow, and you get to see in the dark for a couple of hours. You can make tea with the petals, too, and get the same effect, but less pronounced, and for longer.
The petals are sweet, healthy, and do not contain caffeine. It's little wonder that they're so popular, what with the lack of withdrawal symptoms, and the little to no negative effect from overconsumption.
She tipped the mug back, and finished it, her eyes soaking in the wordy goodness from the surface of the paper, enraptured by the workings of the writer, captivated by her characters, her plots, her intricacies and well-made plans. Her heart started beating faster and faster as the protagonist leaned in to kiss her love interest. Her eyes went wide at the in-depth description of their lips touching, tentatively at first, then more and more passionately. The characters were lost in each other's arms, their eyes closed, their mouths slightly less so. It wasn't particularly graphic, but it was rather well written indeed.
She finished the chapter, and let the book fall onto her chest, breathing a little more heavily than perhaps she should have been; she was only reading, after all.
Looking disconsolately at her empty mug, her eyes fallen after that one scene had finished, she resolved that it was a perfectly good idea to get some more tea. She had a kettle in her room, and an en-suite bathroom she could get water from, and she kept a few well watered, fast growing lanternleaf flowers in her room, dangling from the ceiling, their vines stretching out over the wood, leading out the windows, searching for water.
She stood up, stretching and yawning. She had been in bed for most of the day, and when she hadn't been watching bad (a word she often used instead of amazing) TV shows about wizards and witches and dreadfully handsome youths, she had been reading and drinking tea, or occasionally going downstairs for something to eat. She was still in her pajamas, and she felt both too lazy for words, and very, very comfortable.
As she walked to the bathroom, kettle in hand, limping just a tad on her right leg, as she had for a long time now, she hummed a tune she'd heard online, and thought about writing her own books one day.
Uh, no. No, certainly not. She wasn't nearly talented enough. She was just a girl, and writers were always great people. She was just a girl, just a silly little girl. She wasn't that great. Not really great at all, to be honest. I mean, what kind of idiot spends all day lying in bed, watching TV on a tablet and reading the kinds of books she liked to read, huh? Not a great idiot. She just wasn't that great.
The passive smile she usually got when reading was already gone by the time she got back to slot the kettle back in to the dock that was plugged in and left on her bedside table, and turn it on, setting the water to the task of boiling.
She was walking slower, carrying herself a little less tall, and thinking more about how bad of a person she was than just how not-that-amazing of a person she was. I mean, really. You have to be really stupid to stick yourself in bed all day like she did, especially when you could be doing something productive, like- like anything else. Anything at all. All stuff she wasn't good at, too.
[darn] it.
And now you see why she's so bloody annoying, don't you? Look at this amazing girl, look at how she's giving herself a personal day- look at how she's wise enough to know when it's time to take one. All around her room, there are small stacks of exercise books, filled to the brim and hem with the most amazing sketches and drawings. She has talent, and she doesn't see it.
What kind of person could possibly have lived with themselves after making her think of herself like that?
She turned to the hanging flowers, their wobbling, candle-like light filling the room, aided by the candles she kept around, and started to cut some of the older petals off with a short, thin blade. This little knife hadn't always been used to cut plants; it had a sadder history than that.
Casamira put the petals in her teapot, after emptying the old ones out into her bin. Then, she waited for the water to come to boiling.
She started thinking about that knife, and her left hand unconsciously went to her right wrist, feeling the skin on the inside of the forearm, feeling where it was just slightly uneven, where it had been-
She shook her head, eyes closed.
She wasn't going to think about that today. She was having a really nice time until- you know, she couldn't even remember what had triggered this? She couldn't even remember why she was feeling so bad about herself suddenly.
So she wasn't going to anymore.
Her friends were coming over soon, and she needed to be dressed for that. They wouldn't mind if she was still in her pyjamas, of course; they probably wouldn't care if she was naked, frankly, because Breanna had never shown any interest in anyone in a sexual way, and Josef was gayer than gay. It would probably be a bit awkward, but she really didn't think they would have a problem with it. They'd known her for ages now, you see. She'd gotten changed in the same room as them a dozen hundred times, and they'd done the same. No problems.
She was going to put some clothes on, though.
By the time the tea was ready, she was dressed in her favourite faded black jeans, and her signature grey jumper, the one with the sleeves a bit too long for her, so she could tuck her hands inside them if it got cold.
She took the first sip from her tea, and thought about trying to get another chapter of that lovely book she was reading when we first met her in before Breanna and Josef arrived...
Instead, though, she decided to take a look around her room.
The rest of her house- her family's house- was pretty modern, really. Her room was the exception to this rule. Where the other rooms in the house liked lighter, airier colours, she had opted for the natural dark brown that the wood furnishings and walls had come in. She had asked for the renovators to leave her walls unplastered, with just the wood panelling, and she had specially requested that they leave the light switch out, because she was going to light it with glowing flowers.
That really isn't as rare of a request as you may think it is, by the way.
She wasn't a big fan of 'the old ways' in which suspected Nameless Worshippers were burned at the stake, and women had no rights- not to say things were honestly that much better now, under a conservative government like this one- but the old world décor did have a certain charm to it that she found hard to resist. There was also the way that the candle smoke tended to soak into wood more easily than plaster, and give her room a delicious, ye olde writer-y smell. She sometimes imagined herself in one of the grand outfits of old, with her dinner jacket and waistcoat and top hat on the desk, frantically scribbling at a piece of parchment as her inspiration took her on a rollercoaster, and her ideas flowed like a fountain of sparkling wine (or tea. Honestly she preferred tea.).
She breathed in, and her breath hitched a little. She hadn't realised how close she'd come to crying when she'd been thinking about herself as negatively as that.
She never did realised how close she always came to crying when she berated herself like that.
Once, she'd gone downstairs for dinner with puffy red eyes and wet cheeks, having forgotten that she had been crying entirely, and she'd been shocked to death when her father asked her in horror what the hell was wrong.
Her brother and sister- weird little twins, sort of semi-psychic- had explained things in a remarkably curt fashion. It was amazing how much they knew, really. When their dad had angrily demanded why they hadn't told him she was being bullied before, as soon as they knew, they looked at Casamira, and then back at their father, and said very simply "It was never our place." In perfect unison.
She loved those two so much.
She sipped at the tea she'd just made, letting the sensation of taste consume her thoughts. The tea was, as always, sweet and warming, and she could already see the room getting slightly brighter as the 'night vision' effect began. She closed her eyes, and lay back on her bed, thinking about life.
Life was unfair, most of the time. She didn't really have all that much to look forward to, in a way. Her dad said she had a natural talent for investigation, and that she could probably have a promising career in the police force if she felt like it. Her mum would always tell her that 'there are always other paths, too, dear' and wink whenever her dad started on this, of course. She could never figure out what her mum was talking about; she should probably ask the twins about it, to be honest. They always seemed to know everything.
Before she could start thinking about anything else, however, she heard the doorbell ring, and her mother open it. It was, of course, the two people she'd been expecting.
Josef was a tall, slender boy, with dark hair and the most gorgeous blue eyes Casamira had ever seen. It was true that the twins had lovely blue eyes too, but theirs were almost paranormal, and Josef's were like icy blue pools of handsome. Casamira's eyes were just mud, in her opinion. Josef had a trickster's disposition, quick hands, and an easy charm. His appetite for fun was matched only by his ability to have it- and to ensure that everyone around him was having fun too. He was the kind of guy that was easy to like, even when he was playing jokes on you. He was also a good listener, and even though there wasn't that much of him to hug, he gave very good hugs. He was good like that.
Breanna was a flirt. A huge flirt, in fact, with a fantastic, curvy body, and long eyelashes, and wonderful, shiny hair, and a really nice wink. Casamira always looked at her and thought how great life would be if only she looked more like that, with flawless, unblemished skin, and hips and breasts worth a [darn]. Oh, and no freckles. Casamira hated her freckles. Breanna was the girl who could wind boys around her fingers like putty, but never actually went out with anyone. Breanna was amazing. She was kind, and sweet, and when she kissed you on the cheek for doing something nice for her (which she did a lot, because people were always doing nice things for her) she made you feel special, because she was special.
Casamira smiled, the ends of her lips curling upwards just slightly. She could spend all day telling you about her awesome friends, they were just that awesome.
When Josef and Breanna got up to her room, Casamira pulled a couple of chairs out from her desk for them, and set them by the bed. She didn't need to ask if they wanted tea, she knew that Josef would always have lanternleaf tea, and Breanna would always have coffee.
She set the kettle again, and then sat down, smiling.
"So what's up, Cas?" Breanna asked, hands on her knees, leaning forwards like she always did.
"Well, I've spent the day reading, and watching that show you made us watch at your house." Cas' voice was quiet, but her friends were used to it.
"What, you're actually watching it?" Breanna's eyes lit up. Usually it was her that took book recommendations from Casamira, not Casamira taking TV recommendations from her.
"Well yeah." Cas smiled a small smile, not a nervous smile, but the smile of a girl who wasn't used to her smiles mattering to anyone. "It's good. I like Marlin." Her smile broke into a grin. Marlin was the heartthrob of the show, the cute guy who always ended up shirtless and covered in water. This one time, he'd gone out in the rain without his top on for absolutely no reason at all, just to feel it on his skin. That episode had been one of the fan favourites.
Of course, Casamira recognised the symbolism too, all of the meaning behind it. She knew it was a really important part of his character development too. She understood exactly why the writers had made it such a long scene. Oh yes, definitely. 100%.
But he was gorgeous too.
"Everyone likes Marlin." Breanna's smile was cheekier.
"I like Marlin." Josef chimed in, his eyebrows raised, looking down into his cup. "I definitely like Marlin."
The room was silent for a minute, but then they all started laughing. Josef did like Marlin. They all liked Marlin. Everyone always liked Marlin, and everyone always said it wasn't just his abs, his pecs, or his butt.
It was always his abs, pecs, or butt. Usually a mixture of those three. Of course it wasn't always just those things; Marlin was an intelligent, meaningful character too, and he knew how to treat people right.
"Hey Cas, you draw, right?" Breanna began to suggest, slowly.
Casamira nodded, unsure where Breanna was going. Her drawings weren't bad- no, not bad at all- but they certainly weren't credible pieces of art. Why would Breanna want to know if she could draw?
"Have you ever drawn Marlin?" Breanna smiled coyly, her legs crossed, her eyes devilish. This was not the first time she had asked Casamira if she'd been drawing boys recently.
"I... I guess I might've?" She guessed. She drew characters from her favourite things pretty regularly, so it wouldn't surprise her if she'd been drawing Marlin recently.
"Can I sneak a peek in your books? Just to be sure?" Breanna flashed a cheeky grin at Cas, a 'may I please please please with sugar and honey on top?' grin, as Josef had once called it.
Casamira thought about it for a moment, and then, when she noticed Josef looking eager too, she gave in, and nodded as she poured herself more tea. It was hardly as if she had anything to be embarrassed about in there, anyway.
Wait. Did she? Casamira never paid much attention to herself while she was drawing, and even less on the rare occasions she deemed herself talented enough to write. A faint blush flooded her cheeks as she thought about all of the possible scenes she might have been depicting in there all along- all of which her friends were about to become privy to.
"Cas..." Josef gasped, his hand to his mouth, shocked. He'd found something, she knew he'd found something, and now he was never going to speak to her again. God [darn] it, Casamira.
"Cas, this is beautiful." He finished.
And now she was really blushing.
"Oh my gosh Cas, I wish I could draw like you." Breanna said softly, stunned. Casamira really was a gifted young artist.
"I'm not that good." She brushed the compliment off, as she had become far too used to doing.
"No, Cas, you're brilliant!" Josef looked up. He, despite being a notorious and widely revered (or despised, depending on which people you ask) prankster, had a heart of pure and unadulterated gold. If there was one thing he hated more than the way people would treat him if he let on that he liked guys, it was the way Casamira belittled herself. "You're absolutely brilliant, you know that?" He reached over and patted her gently on the shoulder.
Casamira had withdrawn into herself a bit. Praise always made her feel uncomfortable, for the pure and simple reason that she did not feel she was deserving of it.
"Hey, what's this?" Breanna sounded surprised. She had found one of the few pages in all of Cas' doodled, drawn-on and art-ified books that was most revealing to Casamira. It was a picture of-
Casamira snatched the book back. She knew she shouldn't have let them look through her things, now she had no idea how much they'd seen of it- how much they knew. It was bad stuff art, but it was revealing, and she didn't know how they were going to react to it.
"Cas? What's wrong?" Breanna backed up suddenly. Casamira was not an aggressive girl. "Why'd you do that?"
"Because- because it's awful." She lied. It was an obvious lie, she's not much of a liar, and it didn't take a Grey (one of the government's secret police) to figure it out.
"Actually I liked it." Josef said plainly.
"Me too. Sweetie, what's wrong?" Breanna came over to sit by Casamira, wrapping her arm around the smaller, thinner girl's shoulders and squeezing her warmly.
"Nothing's wrong, Breanna." Cas lied again. Seriously not good at lying. Not at all.
Josef looked at Breanna, and Breanna looked at Josef.
"Something's wrong. You can tell us anything, Casamira." Josef's voice was tender, and very handsome, actually. If he had been straight, or otherwise going for girls, Cas would have been tempted to ask him out.
"He's right, honey." Breanna cooed gently. She was, perhaps, the kindest girl that Cas had ever met. Also the most beautiful.
Cas looked down, scratching roughly at the back of her right hand, shaking her head rapidly.
She froze when Breanna laid her hand gently on her own, stopping her scratching, just as she drew blood.
"Don't hurt yourself. If you don't wanna tell us anything, you don't have to."
[darn] it. [darn] it! God [darn] it! Why was she so useless? Ugh, what a bloody idiot- didn't she trust her friends? She'd known them for years, for crying out loud. She must be a very selfish girl if she wasn't going to share this with her friends. She must be even more stupid than she was selfish if she thought they cared.
I mean, she wasn't worth much, was she? She wasn't even pretty.
Casamira had begun to cry, silently, but Breanna could feel her sobbing.
"Cas, Cas look at me." Breanna brought her friend's head up gently, until she was looking Casamira in the eyes. "It's ok. Whatever it is, it's ok."
"Cas, there is literally nothing in the world that could stop us from loving you, ok?" Josef came closer too, resting his hand on her back. For such a slim young man, he felt very strong. "It's ok. We're here for you."
Slowly, Casamira began to stop crying. It must be said that what she's currently going through- whether you've worked it out yet or not- is probably one of the hardest things human beings could ever be forced to do. As a result, I'm not going to tell you what the secret is. Oh, I know. I know a lot of things. But I'm not going to tell you, because it would be wrong to do that to Casamira.
"It's fine, don't worry. You don't need to tell us a thing if you don't want to." Josef, pulled them both into a hug.
That was twice today Cas has ended up crying, or gotten at least half way there.
She breathed in deeply, trying to calm herself down. She was also painfully aware that her tears were getting Josef's t-shirt all wet.
"I'm sorry." She apologised. She was. She was very sorry. Sorry for a lot of things, none of which had ever been her fault.
"It's fine, hon. You don't need to apologise to us about this, you didn't do anything wrong." Breanna hugged them both tighter. "You never do."
"I'm sorry." She said again anyway.
Josef shushed her gently.
"It's ok. We've got you."
They're the best friends in the world, aren't they? Casamira is a very lucky girl in many ways, even if she doesn't always feel it.
Suddenly, there was a knock at the door.
Casamira's mother burst in, her face panicked, her hands shaking. Something was wrong, terribly, terribly wrong, because Fiona Allene (Casamira's mother) was never scared, not of anything in the world.
"Cas, there are three Greys at our door, and they're asking for Josef." Her voice shook like a leaf. "Cas, they have rifles."
Now that was it. Greys don't carry rifles when they're not there to take someone. Investigators get pistols, and baton-sabres, like all the rest of the Greys. Abductors get rifles.
They were going to take Josef away.
"Mother..." A younger boy's voice came from behind Casamira's mum.
"... please let us through." A girl's voice followed it.
Yes! The Twins! Neala and Finn Allene were bright, and saw things coming before they came. They would have a plan, they always had a plan.
The Twins were calm, as always, their presence ethereal, their very posture ghostly, and their faces serene but thinking.
They held the silence for seconds that felt like minutes that felt like hours, unmoving. Somehow, everyone knew not to speak- or rather, they were wordlessly ordered not to. The Twins had this effect on people sometimes.
The silence continued.
"There is nothing you can do." Finn finally conceded.
"There is no escape from this." Neala explained.
Breanna was trembling in a sour mixture of rage and terror for her friend as she turned to Josef.
"What did you do?!" She screamed
Chapter 2 - Baine
Neala shook her head briefly, and pulled her twin to one side, speaking quickly and quietly to him. If you were to listen, you would not understand the words they were using. This is either because they are using a coded language they have developed for themselves, or because they are not really talking, and are fully psychic.

Take your pick, they're both just as likely.

"Finn, we must do something." She urged. Contrary to what might be popular opinion and gender roles, they both acknowledged that Neala was the most impulsive of the pair. She saw this as a fault, and was trying to correct it. Finn, on the other hand, was occasionally a bit passive for comfort. He was, of course, trying to fix that too.

"What can we do? There is nothing." He replied, a note of cold anger in his voice.

"Finn..." She rested her hand on his upper arm, looking deep into his eyes. "... there is never nothing."

Finn looked at her. His darling twin. It's true, she was reckless at times, and she had put their goings-on in danger with it before... but she was a good person.

Often, she was even better than he was- and above all, he trusted her. He trusted her with his life, and more importantly, with all the lives he was there to protect.

"You're not saying that we should..." He began.

"... make contact with them?" She finished his question.

There was, again, silence. You get used to it eventually, but it's bone chilling to begin with. They really do have a supernatural quality to them- people have even made allusions that the twins are not entirely human before.

The Twins only smiled at those suggestions, which was even weirder.

"We can't." Finn shook his head again. He'd worked to make these connections, and he couldn't let them be thrown away right now, for the sake of one-

"For the sake of one living, breathing, feeling human being, whose crimes may well deserve punishment, but are obviously unworthy of the penalty that The Greys will bring."

[darn] it, she was right. Always, she was right.

"You're right too, just not right now." She felt his cheek. They were a remarkably affectionate pair, and had reportedly never fought with eachother a day in their lives. "We have to."

"You're right." Finn nodded.

"We often are." She smiled at him.

Meanwhile, the others in the room were beginning to panic good and proper. This was not mild panic, this was not even moderate panic. This was Defcon 20, apocalypse level, end of the world, London's Burning panic.

"You idiot! You bloody idiot! What did you do?!" Breanna was beginning to beat weakly against Josef's chest. Tears were streaming down her face, and Josef could only sit there, frozen in the highest, most elite state of terror.

Casamira's mother had gone back downstairs to try and talk to the Greys at her door, find out what his charges were, things like that. She couldn't say he wasn't here. They would know, they always knew. It was like a Grey benefit, you get to know when people are lying to you, and then you get legal license to murder them for it.

And Casamira herself was sitting on her bet, her knees drawn up to her chest, pressed up against the corner, chewing so hard on her lip it was entirely feasible that the most prominent colour on her face when the Greys inevitably came up and beheaded them all would be the blood dribbling down her chin. It was over. Her life was over- ALL of their lives were over.

What did he do?

Casamira's mother returned.

"They say that they won't tell me anything, but that they will talk to you, Josef." Her eyes were bloodshot already, and she looked a cross between faint and terrified on adrenaline.

"Don't go! You can't go!" Breanna grabbed him and held onto him, tightly. "I won't let you go! They'll kill you!"

"They say they're coming in if he doesn't come out, and that then we'll be guilty of harbouring a fugitive." Cas' mum looked up at Casamira.

Casamira had closed her eyes. Everything seemed to be working against her, and her friends. The world seemed more than determined to have them all hang themselves before winter arrived properly, and it wasn't that far away.

The world was succeeding, so far.

"I have to go." Josef burst out suddenly. His eyes were steel in that moment, his jaw clenched and his will set. If they were to kill him, then they could kill him, but he would not have his friends hurt by his refusal to step out of the house with his hands up- even if he would be stepping into a firing squad.

And once again, the room fell totally silent bar for the unending pettering of the rain. Even the twins were wordless. They hadn't expected this.

Josef stood up, stronger than he had been before. He felt the shadow of the one they call Death upon him already, but there was nothing to do about that. Why waste time worrying about what has been done, or what will be done that you cannot change?

Unless you can change it.

As Josef walked out and into the rain, the grimace he had painted over his features beginning to slip as the rain soaked him through, two of the three Greys in front of him raised their rifles, and moved to his sides, not coming close enough for him to swipe at them, but close enough that they wouldn't miss.

The one who remained in front of him was not carrying a rifle. He was holding a baton-sabre, in its baton form, and he was staring at Josef in a mixture of pity and distaste.

"So you are the saboteur." His voice was gravel, and it sounded cold.

"There's no point in saying I'm not, is there?" Josef was angry. He stood there, rain slicking his hair down, running down his face like all of the tears that parents don't let boys cry, because boys don't cry; only girls cry.

Josef wanted to cry right then. I imagine you would too.

"No, not really." The man sighed, clicking a button on the hilt of his Baton-Sabre, pointing it towards the floor as a long, elegant, indescribably deadly looking blade shot out of its end. It was unbelievably thin, and probably just as strong. This may well have been the blade by which Josef would die, and he knew it.

"What if I tell you why? I know you can't tell that, Grey, not just by looking at me." Josef stared at the Grey, stared into his cold grey eyes. The Grey's hair was wet and slick too. It was long, which was unusual for the Greys- although officers got privileges, he supposed.

"It won't change anything, Josef." The Grey in charge took a few lazy steps forward. "But I'll humour you."

He knew his name.

That was another power the Greys seemed to have.

Josef stood up taller, ignoring the Grey Blade that seemed eager already to fell him like dead foliage or a practice dummy, ignoring the two automatic rifles aiming at his neck. Josef stood up taller and he started to speak out.

"Because what you do is wrong. Last week you dragged off a young man I knew by the name of Marcus. He did not return, instead the police found his body, and did not investigate." Josef's voice was building, and so was the storm. His friends were watching. "I knew that man, Grey. He was a good man, and you had no reason to take him. He left behind a woman who loved him, and a wedding ring he had been going to give her later that evening." Josef was roaring; he was a lion; the Greys were but mice to him.

"He was going to propose, Grey, and she was going to say yes." Josef trembled in rage and fear and anguish. If he was the one holding the sword, then none of the monsters that stood before him would still be standing.

"And that was not the first time this has happened."

The Grey looked up at Josef. If these stories had reached him, he did not show it.

"Josef, my name is Alexander Baine. I am the High Commander of this region's Greys, and I care for my men." His voice, on the other hand, was calm. Scarily so. "When you poured sugar into the fuel tanks of our fast response cars, along with your three other co-conspirators, you removed our ability to respond. As a result, not only did the terrorist known as the Firebomber manage to take a dozen hostages, but he also managed to set the building on fire, and make sure that his hostages stayed there until they had burned to death."

Casamira paled. Breanna less so.

"I'm going to level with you, since you already seem like an emotionally aware boy. I don't care for the government. I don't care for their officials. I care for order, though, and I care for my men." the High Commander, Alex Baine, took a breath.

"12 hostages, Josef. All of them high ranking government officials. They can be replaced easily, but I lost upwards of 20 Greys in that fire, the explosions it caused, and the chaos that ensued- and they were not bad people."

He poked Josef in the chest with a single, strong finger. Josef was pushed backwards by it.

"You may not have set the fire, but by sabotaging our ability to respond, you are as much a murderer as the Firebomber himself."

"Then I'm no less guilty than the Greys who died, am I?" Josef smirked. It was a brave- and foolhardy- smirk.

The Commander seemed to ignore it.

"Josef, there is a word for what you are." He began, feeling along the blade of his sabre, his gloves protecting his fingers from it. Believe me, if it weren't for the gloves, he may well have lost bits of himself by now, touching the blade of one of those things like that; they're extremely sharp. The Commander looked up.

"That word is traitor, and it carries the death penalty."

The rain did not stop for that. The rain stops for nobody. In a way, it's fairer than the Greys.

"Don't! Please don't!" Breanna shouted, taking a step forward, but freezing in place when one of the Greys with rifles turned to aim at her.

"Back up, girl." He commanded.

"Don't hurt him!" Breanna cried, even as Casamira came forward- shaking in terror, of course, but coming forward nonetheless- to stand by her side.

"Please, we'll do anything." She offered.

The High Commander, Alexander Baine, shook his head.

"The Law is final." He lifted the sword up, and Josef shut his eyes tight.

"Commander Baine." Came a voice. It was authoritative, strong. Which was a little odd, because the origin was Finn. Normally, the decisive speaking came from Neala. "Is there truly nothing we can do to stop this?"

Frustrated, the Commander lowered his sword and furrowed his brow in frustration. He was not a kind man, nor was he a very good man, but he was not fond of beheading teenagers, no matter their crimes; he wanted it over with.

"No." He said, looking at Finn.

"But you are down 20 men and women, Commander. Surely there is another way of punishing the guilty party?" Neala suggested. She knew exactly what she was doing; the Greys have a unique 'Right of Conscription' allowing them to conscript any and all citizens they deem appropriate to their ranks in times of need. A time of frequent terrorist attacks counts as a time of need.

The Twins were suggesting that Alexander Baine recruit Josef instead of execute him.

"What are you suggesting I do instead?" The Commander asked them, his voice unsure. Surely they couldn't mean that?

Josef looked back at the twins, confused. Casamira and Breanna did too, the same befuddlement dancing across their faces. It was something that the twins would usually enjoy, outsmarting people, but this was serious. Josef's life hang on how they worded this.

"The Greys possess the right of conscription, correct? You need more Greys, Commander, whether you like it or not. Josef is able bodied, and we have found him to be remarkably intelligent." Finn took his turn at speaking. The Greys with the rifles were stunned into silence, not just by the twins' immaculate use of language and eloquent phrasing- that's more the kind of thing that the Commander would notice- but by the fact that they knew anything about the Greys at all.

The Greys are not the best documented of Secret Police Forces, probably due to the fact that they are a Secret Police Foce, and that they are rather good at remaining so. The few books about them don't contain much on rules, because they are not generally bound by them, and even then the books themselves are atrociously hard to find- especially for teenagers whose biggest worries should really be acne and getting dates.

"It would be an awful shame to waste him like this." Neala added.

They were working on him. They could already see him reconsidering the death penalty- it was within his power to offer Josef his life if he wanted to- and more importantly, they could feel him reconsidering. Their feelings were their most accurate tool, and their most deadly weapon.

But they couldn't take chances.

"And of course, to further bolster your numbers after this tragedy, Casamira, Breanna, Finn and myself will gladly join your Greys."

Now that surprised them.

"You will?" The Commander quizzed, his eyebrows raised in surprise.
"We will?" Casamira, Josef and Breanna all turned in incredulity.
"We will." The twins decided unanimously.
"No!" Fiona screamed. Even the Greys jumped a little- a good mother is not easy to separate from her children. "I will not allow it!" Her voice was shrill and furious. "How dare you even consider taking my children from me!" Her face was red, and her hands clenched in fists of rage. Even Casamira was a bit afraid of her like this, stepping out into the rain, away from her mum.
The Commander ignored Fiona as much as he could.
"You're sure about this? Not all would consider what you suggest to be a mercy." Commander Baine asked Neala and Finn. He had not used his 'right of conscription' and did not enjoy the thought of doing so.
"No! No they are not! Kill me and be done with it!" Josef roared, his voice breaking halfway through. His throat was hoarse already, and rainwater had trickled a river down his everything- he was soaked to the bones.
Commander Baine had a real talent for ignoring people, it turned out.
Suddenly, he pushed past Josef, and came up intrusively close to the twins, leaning down on them, sword still in-hand.
Casamira could not hear what he said next. The hair on Cas' neck stood on end as she saw his grip tighten on his baton-sabre hilt, but his fingers soon relaxed, and the air was pierced by the mechanical sound of the blade being withdrawn.
It would appear that an agreement had been reached.
Breanna was still stunned into silence as Josef began begging them not to do this to him- not to make him serve the Greys, or to become one himself. Casamira, however, was fully able to turn to her younger siblings as the Commander left their personal space, and start interrogating them.
"What are you doing?" Her voice sounded just as terrified as her mother's. In fact, their voices were fairly similar in general.
"We are doing what must be done to save Josef, Cas." Neala tried to reassure her, but Casamira wasn't used to listening to positive talk.
"Josef would rather die than this!" She hissed, a dark kind of rage building in the pit of her stomach.
"Shut up, Cas, you're being an idiot." Finn dismissed her.
Casamira recoiled in shock. Finn had never called her an idiot before. Her heart felt like it was shrivelling as she stepped backwards from her brother and sister- and right into the arms of the Grey waiting to drag her into the car and take her to the Grey Tower, where she would inevitably die. She knew better than anyone that she would never survive Grey training, and the cadets do not live to speak of their failures.
She screamed as burly arms closed around her, and lifted her from the ground.
"Mum! Mum!" She shrieked, struggling futilely as her mother was backed into the house by Commander Baine. Cas could see her mother shaking her head furiously as she was cornered- and then she was thrown in the back of the car. It was a stoutly built military model, and the Grey locked the door after her. Josef and Breanna were already in there, huddled together on the far side of the back seats. Cas could see that Josef had tried to fight them, and she could see that it had ended in a fierce nosebleed, leaving a streak of crimson dripping from his chin.
"Why the hell did Finn and Neala say we were going to do anything for these bastards?!" Josef raged, not particularly as Cas, but she was feeling it the most.
"I'm sorry!" She cried out, panicking at the volume of his voice. Josef was normally calm and quiet and gentle, this wasn't like him, this wasn't him. He would never hurt her, she was sure of it, but this wasn't the Josef she knew. "I'm sorry, Josef!" she repeated as Breanna leapt away from Josef's noise, towards Cas.
Josef looked down, his face twisted in anger as everything about him sank. He was in a dark place, and his eyes showed it best.
Finn and Neala were being escorted into the car in front of them, more gently as they were not trying to resist.
Cas pulled Breanna close, trying desperately to feel warm or safe or anything other than terrified and awful for letting the twins betray Josef like that.
But without them he would be dead.
But that's what he wanted!
Casamira buried her face deeper and deeper into Breanna's shoulder, trying to block everything out. She should have made them let Josef do what he wanted, but she didn't because she was stupid and weak and she knew it, she knew it!
Cas started to scratch the back of her hands again- the same spot she'd torn her skin just before- when Commander Baine walked out her house, his baton drawn and the end of it painted in blood.
When he got in their car, Josef began to vocalize.
"What did you do to Casamira's mother?!" He shouted in panic, noticing the blood on the end of the baton.
"She'll be fine." He avoided it nonchalantly.
"No, you tell me, [darn] it!"
The Commander turned around to speak to Josef through the wire mesh separating the front from the back as the car started to move off, towards the Grey tower.
"She tried to stab me with a kitchen knife, so I dodged her and sliced open her ankle. Then, when she still refused to give up, I put the blade away and used the baton to knock her out. The blood is from her ankle, not her skull. Satisfied?"
Josef growled.
"You monster."
"If I hadn't, she would have stabbed me." He droned boredly, turning back to face the front. "This may be one of the few occasions where the only violence committed on a call was purely in self-defence." The commander mused.
The car fell into silence for a good while, Casamira still holding on to Breanna, and Josef too infuriated to speak reasonably about anything.
After a while, though, he calmed down a bit, and found that he had a question that needed answering.
"Why didn't you just kill me?"
Commander Baine had been very patient with these children- he wasn't normally as tolerant of ridiculousness at all- but even he could respect a good question.
"That's a good question." He remarked, smiling softly to himself, running over possible motives in his head.
"It could be that I saw something special in each and every one of you, and that I'm going to make you all special elite soldiers that go out and save the world from some insane engineer's mad mayhem machine." He suggested jokingly, and the driver chuckled, shaking his head in amusement.
"But no. There is a reason, young Josef. More than one, to be fair."
Josef sighed.
"Then please, enlighten me."
The driver stopped laughing.
"Well, for one, I have an intense dislike for the murder of children, and no matter your crimes, Josef, you are but a child still."
The car rounded a corner. People outside were gaping. They were people that Cas and her friends knew, and they couldn't believe that Casamira, Breanna and Josef could possibly end up in the back of a Grey car.
"For two, those odd twins are right. There aren't quite as many of us in the Grey tower as you all think, and each and every Grey is more valuable than can be imagined. I need to replenish my troops- and successfully inducting one of the saboteurs might just stop it from happening again."
"Thirdly, there are people in the world whose opinions I respect and care about. Not all of them would approve of what I arguably should have done to you." He added more quietly.
"We never caught your fellow saboteurs, by the way, Josef. We assume that they were extracted by the Revolutionaries shortly after your crime."
Josef perked up, surprised and confused.
"But that's impossible. We don't know anyone with them."
The Commander sighed, and turned around again, a look something like pity in his eyes.
"No, Josef. You didn't know anyone in the Revolutionaries. The others may not have either, to be fair, but they do now. We found a red feather on each and every one of the suspects' beds."
And at that point, Josef's jaw dropped.
The Red Feather was indeed the publicly accepted calling card of the Revolutionaries.
And Josef had not received one.
He fell into a different kind of silence. His shoulders slumped, and his eyes were downcast in shame. They had been chosen; he had not.
Admittedly, he had not had the goal of joining the revolutionaries in mind when he joined the others in their bid to put the Greys' cars out of action, and they'd not known that the Firebomber was planning anything on that day- although if the others had been in contact it would make sense to plan the two events together.
All he had wanted was to hurt the system that seemed so keen to hurt him, and his friends.
"You know, I do understand why you did what you did." The Commander said. His driver gave him the most surprised look, it almost had Breanna laughing- almost.
"Oh yes. I know. Kind of scary, isn't it? Big, bad Grey empathising with another human being. But no, I can see why you are angry."
He shrugged.
"Occasionally I feel very angry too."
Josef didn't know what to think- and neither did his two feminine friends, although Cas wasn't thinking all that much right now, being in the middle of a panic attack and adamant in the belief that she was going to die horribly in the Grey tower.
And the driver maintained his look of wide-eyed disbelief. At this point, people who were not so sure they were being driven to their deaths definitely would have laughed.
"The way our government treats people like you, Josef, and like you, Breanna, and even like you, Casamira- though I doubt you know it yet- is wrong. It is, perhaps, the epitome of wrong." The Commander was speaking slowly, ponderingly.
"But it is more important to maintain order. Order and peace cannot be sacrificed for the well being of a minority- can you not see how many people would die in the fires of a revolution? Innocent people, too." He was speaking the views he held, now. He was speaking his mind.
The driver was looking slightly less shocked, but still fairly catatonic- not a wise move, considering that he was driving.
However, the car didn't crash, nobody died of spontaneous cardiac arrest, and the world didn't end just because one man had an opinion you might not have thought he would have.
The Commander leaned forwards, and looked up.
"We're nearly there." He announced quietly as his eyes met the spire of the Grey tower.
The Grey tower was an imposing, threatening, intimidating beast of a building. It was, with no doubt about the matter, the tallest building in the city, ignoring height restrictions entirely, and it continued underground for X distance (it is a closely guarded secret).
It was, of course, made of grey rock. Not simply cement, not just stone, but rock. Gargantuan slabs of igneous rock, unpolished and dull, formed its four terrifying walls.
The spire was at once blunt and sharp, with not even a hint of architectural chaos in all the design, but with something vicious built into it.

If this tower were a man, this man would be a murderer.
And they were headed right into his arms.
Chapter 3 – The Grey Tower
Casamira got a lot of dirty looks from everyone as she was frogmarched through the halls of the Greys. Her hands were cold and stained lightly with blood where she had been scratching at herself, and her stomach was tying itself in a reef knot.
Josef looked oddly calm. He obviously hadn't taken his apparent rejection from the Revolutionaries that well, and the frightening levels of empathy he had experienced from a Grey...
Maybe it was too much for him to take. Maybe he was thinking deeply on his beliefs. Maybe he no longer cared what happened to him.
Maybe he was getting better at hiding fear.
Breanna walked unsteadily. They were not cuffed, but she wasn't moving her arms as she walked, holding her hands together up by her chest, shaking. It wasn't clear to anyone if she was shaking in blind and undignified terror, or if she was shaking in blind and indiscriminating rage right now, though, as her face was completely non-emotive, which was unlike her.
The twins actually started to look nervous. Nobody would have recognised the look, however, as it was the first time they'd shown it this much.
The inside of the Grey tower is not something that most people will ever see- or that any sane person who doesn't want to join the Greys could ever hope to see. Most people who walk these corridors do not leave them, unless they leave carrying a baton-sabre and pistol, daubed in thick Grey clothing.
They were taken to the top of the building, and directed to a room at the end of the corridor that the lift opened out to.
Commander Baine sat down at his chair at the desk in the room, and quickly pulled out a book from a drawer in the desk.
"This is the Grey tome. You won't have heard of it, and you'll never tell anyone of it. It is how you will be joining us." He explained briskly, uncomfortable with holding the book.
Scanning through the pages briefly- as quickly as he could, in fact- he tried not to look too closely at the symbols and sigils inscribed in silvery ink onto the thick, crisp paper. The others, however, looked, fascinated in an inhuman sort of way.
"Don't look for too long." He warned them, his voice ever so slightly pained. "Just don't look at them for too long."
Eventually, after what seemed like an age to the 5 teenagers awaiting some kind of big show, he stopped on the middle page of the book.
It was entirely blank, and too white to be real.
"Josef, you'll go first." The Commander slapped the book down on the table, eager to fling it from his grip. He drew his baton, and extended the blade.
"Run each of your thumbs along the blade." He laid it on the table in front of the book, holding it so the blade faced upwards. "Press hard, if you can. The book recognises a shoddy job."
Josef looked suspicious- which was odd because the real Josef would have been up in arms at even going near the Grey tower, let alone being told to cut his thumbs open inside it- but stepped forwards.
He closed his eyes, and sliced himself on the weapon, blood trailing a thick red swath over the glinting metal. His wounds still dripping, and the wince only just leaving his face, he looked to the Commander.
"Press both of your thumbs firmly into the paper, one on each page. Hold them there, and no matter what, do not pull away." He instructed, wiping his sword with a grey, silken cloth, and laying it down again for the next person.
Josef didn't even question it.
As he stuck his thumbs down to the paper, he cried out as his fingers began to burn. He looked down in horror as he saw his thumbs pale visibly as blood was drained from them- but he did not pull away. No, he gritted his teeth, and he struggled through it.
His cry built until he could no longer bear it, his voice already hoarse and cracking under the strain.
And then the book- the Grey Tome- let him go.
Josef stumbled backwards, clutching at his thumbs, the burning sensation fading rapidly and being replaced with an icy cold- the icy cold that came with a distinct lack of blood present in the hands.
Casamira looked- in an uncharacteristically curious manner, I must say- at the pages. There was no blood on them whatsoever.
"The Book is hungry. It forces you into it with curiosity, and then it drains you- or at least, that's how it was when we found it. We repurposed it- we negotiated with it and its kin- until we found that it could be used for blood oaths of a kind."
"You just fed an ancient pamphlet your blood, Josef. Feel the gift of charity on you yet?" Neala joked, nerves tittering in her voice. Again, uncharacteristic. Also odd, because this book is a very powerful thing, and it should have been making her intrigued, not afraid.
"Not charity, Neala. That was a trade. The Book demands to be fed, and it grants power in return. Over the next few days, you will change, and your curiosity will be replaced with pain whenever you go near the book." He held out his hands. Only Josef did not gasp when they all saw that his palms were scarred deeply, and that his fingers were still a blistering red from his contact with those cursed pages.
The Book seemed amused.
"Breanna next." He commanded, not turning back to the book, his eyes having a haunted look to them already. "She seems bravest out of all you who are left."
Casamira came last.
"Your friends have all done this already. They're already feeling better." Baine tried to encourage her. She shook her head resolutely, fear gripping at her throat, muffling her, strangling her.
"Cas, its fine. It doesn't hurt that much anymore." Breanna rested her hand reassuringly on Casamira's shoulder, petite and bony though it was. "Josef, back me up."
"Yeah, it's fine Cas." He mumbled. Some friend, huh?
Breanna growled- growled- at him, and then turned back to Cas.
"Cas, it's gotten to the point where we don't have a choice." She urged her.
Casamira looked up at Breanna. She took in as much of her face as she could for no particular reason other than that her friend was the most beautiful young woman she'd ever seen, and she liked the way Breanna looked.
She knew Breanna was right. Breanna was always right in the end. It might be because Breanna, being an especially adaptable girl, was good at shifting her point of view slightly enough that she could still win an argument if proven wrong and make you think that she'd been right all along. It might also be because she was always right in the end.
But Cas was so scared. She was mortified. The idea of cutting herself- on purpose- again was too much. She was afraid that one cut, even for something like this, could lead to anything. She was afraid that she would somehow die in the 'booking'. She was afraid of a lot of things that she knew to be totally pointless, and that she knew she shouldn't be afraid of.
But that didn't stop her being afraid of them, now did it?
"It's gonna be alright." Breanna took her hands. The wounds had been bandaged shortly after, but her hands were still cold, still drier of blood than they should have been. "I'll look out for you. I'll even hold your hands while you do it."
That was enough.
In fact, Cas' 'booking' was especially vicious. These books, these ancient leather-bound predators, they can sense fear and vulnerability and they love to abuse it. In truth, nobody knows who created them- and I doubt very much that the book would tell you if you asked it, even if it knew.
As Casamira shunted backwards, her scream dying in her throat, she fell, and Breanna caught her.
The blood soaked into the book's greedy pages, and Alex Baine stepped between the new recruits conscripts and the tome itself. Steadying himself, he then proceeded to skim through the rest of the pages, from the halfway point to the finish.
When it was over, he threw the book shut, and then stuffed it back into his drawer- a lead lined drawer- as fast as he could.
"I swear to whatever cruel being made this world that those bloody books will be the death of me." He wiped sweat from his brow, and turned to face the new guys.
Cas was leaning on Breanna, not just her hands having gone pale, but all the way to her elbows- even her cheeks had lost their colour, making the freckles more pronounced than ever. If she had the emotional capacity to give a [darn] about anything but warming her hands up and not falling over right now she would probably have screamed at the freckles.
"Those books used to feed on emotion and weakness, Casamira. They still sense it, and take advantage of it. You will notice that Josef will recover fully before any of you- and that you will be the last to regain your colour." For a secret police Commander, he was very good at sharing information.
"I promise..." He was breathless still. "I promise that you will not be made to do that again." He groaned, and stretched his back. "Now if you'll excuse me, I need a drink. Duncan is outside, he'll show you to your quarters and around the tower as much as you're allowed to see right now. You're going to have a few days before your training begins, and you'll be put in with another group that have just been booked, so they're not getting a head start. Use the time to get to know eachother, and to look around the base."
He sighed.
"After all, this is your home now."
With that, he made his excuses and left.
Duncan had been in the Greys for years now, and knew the base like the back of his hand. Whatever the book had done to Casamira, it was acting already; she was paying more attention than a person who'd just had their hands feeling like they were being ripped off and burnt arguably should have been. The twins kept rubbing their eyes, and Breanna was blinking a lot, but looking around more too. Josef was taking on a wider, more dominant stride, too.
"This is where you'll sleep." He gestured inside a doorway.
Inside was a corridor, with several more doors branching off from it. There was a sign pointing to the bathrooms, and a sign pointing to the common room.
"You'll get plenty of time here, believe it or not. Training sessions aren't as long as the public seems to think they are; we don't spend our entire lives down below. Common rooms are pretty sweet, too."
He started walking on down the corridor, and continued speaking.
"You'll get moved down a floor every two to three years. Things pretty much stay the same as you move up the building. I mean, there are some changes, of course, but nothing drastic."
"Dorms are on floors 15 upwards, ending at about 70, maybe 75. I never counted them, not even when I was a bored recruit. Anything about 80, though, that's where the booking offices are, and then you get up to the Commanders' apartments. Off limits, got it?"
They resounded a quiet yes, still semi-reeling, even as those slight modifications to their temperaments and personalities were made by the book's magic.
"We have a bunch of mess halls for you, from 15 downwards. You gotta keep in mind that there are armouries and stuff mixed in with all of this too, ok? If something goes down you have to respond superquick, or people die."
"Speaking of which," he stopped walking. "If the sirens go off, drop what you're doing and wait for orders. Rookies get them too when we get sent out, you just don't usually tag along."
He started up again.
They got in a lift, which took them up a good distance. Then, Duncan took them out and showed them something kind of stunning.
"Look out over the city." He said quite simply. They were on a landing pad, underneath a large, solid covering. There were aircraft of various natures parked neatly about it, but the view was the most important bit, Cas felt.
"This is the topmost hangar-pad." Duncan informed them. "The view is the best bit."
He sat down on a bench nearby.
"I come up here and think sometimes, I do. It's peaceful, as long as things aren't going on- although you don't think much when you're in the thick of things so coming up here to think would be a bit redundant, if not just against orders."
The view was stunning.
Cas found it interesting, actually. She was looking down over a city that contained some of her other friends. She was now superior in rank to them, being a Grey cadet, and could see just how big the city was in comparison to each and every one of them.
She could see the richer buildings clustered around the Grey tower, the financial district not too far away, and the rich peoples' homes just between the skyscrapers and the banks. But as she started looking further out, she noticed a distinct lack of wealth in the buildings, and she began to see slums, too.
Wealth does not trickle down, it seemed.
She resolved that she could not go back now, but that she had to maintain her own views. She had to stay individual. She had to-
"We're not trying to make you into clones." Duncan said, like he'd been reading her mind.
"That's what they all think when they get taken up here first time, you see. It's kind of funny, but as soon as people get up here and see all the different bits of the city together like that, they tend to notice how unfair it is that some people should live in poverty while others live in luxury and don't even care."
He pulled a small bar of chocolate from his pocket, and opened it.
"I agree, actually, with that point. But you see, then you all think that it's the most important thing in the world to hang on to this new perspective- as if we're trying to rip it away from you. We're really not." He continued to explain with a mouthful of chocolate.
"In fact, we don't care what you do or don't believe as long as you do your jobs. We don't care about a lot, when you think about it. You'll find Greys on every floor that are pretty open being gay or whatever too. As I said, nobody here cares- although you're not meant to have relationships or anything. Don't get any ideas." He mock-warned.
"Nah, we don't honestly care about that either. The really really high ups in command might, but Baine doesn't, and so we don't either. I mean, Baine's actually got a girlfriend."
What?
"I know. He seems a weird kind of guy at first, too, but he's pretty cool when you get to know him. I mean, by no means is he a saint- we all have to do what we have to do to keep the peace, y'know?- but he is a pretty cool guy."
Hang on, what?
"Commander Baine has a girlfriend?" Breanna gasped.
"Oh, yeah. She's another High Commander. That's not the top rank, by the way. It might seem like it is, but it isn't. Top rank is 'Overcommand Chairman' believe it or not. Odd, I know, but we're unlikely to get far enough to be confused anyway, so we may as well enjoy ourselves, eh?" He opened another chocolate bar.
"I'm sure it's obvious why my nickname is Chocolate Dunc-ers, right? You know, because I love chocolate and my name is Duncan?"
"I think I might even like it here." Josef murmured.
"Ok, I made that nickname up myself. I don't think anyone really calls me that."
"You what?" Breanna whipped around, almost sending Cas sprawling onto the smooth surface of the landing pad.
"Maybe you guys could call me that? I'd like it if you could."
"I said I think I might even like it here, Breanna." Josef reinforced, a little louder.
"Ok, you don't have to call me that if you don't want to. It's not the best nickname anyway, is it?"
"How?! How can you like it here? You've always hated the Greys!" Breanna's voice rose in kind.
"I mean, I have plenty of other defining features, like my ability to play guitar, and my love of flavoured lip balm."
"But that was before I knew them, and before the other side refused me." Josef's voice wasn't angry- but it wasn't ready to sit down and be shouted at either.
"I guess a better nickname would be something like 'lippy' or something."
"So you're going to give up your beliefs that easily?" Breanna rebutted.
"Maybe Big Duncan. Hmmm, no. No that makes it too easy for them to call me Big D, and that'd be dumb."
"Maybe I will." Josef raised his voice, anger flaring in his eyes. Anger did not normally flare in his eyes, it usually flushed his cheeks. The 'booking' might have affected him in other ways, it seemed.
"Like you were going to give us up so easily?" Breanna's voice trembled. She was still upset about how willingly Josef would have gone to his death when she and Cas still obviously needed him around. Breanna especially needed him; she'd come to love the ant like the brother she never got.
Josef was silent.
"Guys, you're gonna have to work this out." Duncan's talk got serious suddenly. No more nicknames, he was making a point. "You're going to have to trust each other with your lives at some point, you know. You've got to be friends, I mean, we grouped you with cadets we thought you'd get along with for that reason, after all. No sense in having a row and ruining everything between you two, whatever it is that you guys have together."
For such a simple sounding guy, Duncan was pretty wise.
"Look, dinner's soon. I want you two to sit next to each other and talk this out."
"Can't." Breanna res

[close]

[James Gryphon]

obliquely

[Leatho Shellhound]

left handed

[Taggerung_of_Redwall]

Winter of Blanketing Snow

[Rainshadow]

there is a -1% chance I might have voted. So I've yet to vote!

  I was trying to view that (it was size 1 text), so that's why I copied it. 

[James Gryphon]

a large hypodermic needle

[SilentSam]

Spoiler

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Qoth the Dwarves.

"Chip the glasses and crack the plates!
Blunt the knives and bend the forks!
That's what Bilbo Baggins hates-
Smash the bottles and burn the corks!

Cut the cloth and tread on the fat!
Our the milk on the pantry door!
Leave the bones on the bedroom mat!
Splash the wine on every door!

Dump the crocks in a boiling bowl;
Pound them up with a thumping pole!
And when you've finished, I any are whole,
Send them down the hall to roll!

That's what Bilbo Baggins hates!
So carefully! Carefully with the plates!"
-Dwarves, The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien


   



Redwall


Squirrel
Take What Redwall Goodbeast Race Are You? today!
Created with Rum and Monkey's Personality Test Generator.
You, my friend, are a Squirrel. One of Redwall's most valiant and hardy of creatures. Squirrels are warriors of the treetops, brave, curious, and sometimes annoying. You are known to have a silent sense of humor and a serious game face when trouble's afoot, and no one doubts your wisdom when times get rough. You are quick on your feet, bossy at times, but ever the friend a beast could need. Your emotions don't slip out much, but when they do they make you seem all the more enticing as an ally. Its okay, sometimes, breaking down is the answer, but for now, your stone-solid resolve is what your allies need to see.

   




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[James Gryphon]

(I actually copied this just so I could paste it here; I just started up in OS X, so nothing was copied.)

TEXAS HOCKEY LEAGUE:
AMA Amarillo Storm (3)
AUS Austin Armadillos (5)
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SAS San Antonio Spirit (8)
STS South Texas Sparklers (7)

SOUTHERN DEVELOPMENTAL HOCKEY LEAGUE
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HOU Houston Nauts (4)
KIL Killeen Rangers (5)
LBB Lubbock Cotton Kings (1)
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OKA Oklahoma Settlers (1)
PAS Pasadena Wildcats (2)
RRR Round Rock Rooks (5)
WAC Waco Warriors (1)
WCH Wichita Bombers (4)

[Rainshadow]

  Okay, I must admit, I searched for something to copy so I could post it here, because frankly, what I had copied wasn't anything interesting at all.

i'd be a terrible superhero i'd be at home and see the signal calling me in the sky and be like "i literally just sat down"

[Søren]

   Hey, Soren the Warrior, you have 19 messages, 0 are new.
December 04, 2014, 04:30:13 AM
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