Happy Lunar New Year!
There are still many more characters to come for this story will have a fairly large scale and scope. I hope you enjoy and Happy Lunar New Year!
Brian Joseph Johns
I, under no circumstance will trade, barter or otherwise swap my own identity for that of another person and I protect the same right for those who've contributed their artwork to the various projects under my management at Shhhh! Digital Media, my own company, no matter the colour symbolism involved. These rights are protected by law under the Charter Of Rights And Freedoms under section 7.
Unfinished Index
Here are the chapter titles as they are written...Part 1
- Unfinished Prologue: Wounded Aerth (Finished December 23, 2024)
- Unfinished Stars (Finished December 24, 2024)
- Unfinished Romance (Finished December 24, 2024)
- Unfinished Republic (Finished December 24, 2024)
- Unfinished Penrose Imperium (Finished December 24, 2024)
- Unfinished Sanctum (Finished December 26, 2024)
- Unfinished Migration (Finished January 22, 2025)
- Unfinished Hairstyle (Finished January 23, 2025)
- Unfinished Warrior Queen (Finished January 23, 2025)
- Unfinished Wishes (Finished January 24, 2025)
- Unfinished Singularity (Finished January 24, 2025)
- Unfinished Improvements? (Finished January 24, 2025)
- Unfinished SAPCHoP (Finished January 28, 2025 2:0 PM)
Part 2
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Sick Kids Foundation
Help research that provides cures and support treatment for sick children.
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The World Veterans Federation is a humanitarian organisation, a charity and a peace activist movement. The WVF maintains its consultative status with the United Nations since 1951 and was conferred the title of “Peace Messenger” in 1987.
I'd like to point out that it was the incredible Gary Sinese Foundation that brought the issue of Veteran's rights to my attention. I've always had little respect for those who'd forget the great contribution made by those who've risked life and limb to defend those values that so many of us espouse. Perhaps the true measure of one's principles are by that for which they'd risk their life.
"None can speak more eloquently for peace than those who have fought in war."
Ralph Bunche, Nobel Peace Prize 1950
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The Edgar Allan Poe Museum
Because Barris told me to put it here. If I didn't, he said he'd walk. Geez. Stardom really gets to some people's heads. Maybe I could kill him and bury his heart beneath the floor boards! Or I could encase him in behind a brick and mortar wall, for shaming my family name of Amantillado!
Was that the words of Poe that just graced my ears?
Wikipedia
The model for what may become the Encyclopedia Galactica, a complete reference and record of history, events and knowledge of humanity and its journey beyond. It is the encyclopedia of all that we know, what we surmise that we've known and will learn in the future. Yes, Wikipedia is a charitable organization of great importance. If you enjoy what I am doing here then please take the time to donate to Wikipedia. Surprisingly only 1% of Wikipedia's users donate yet the site serves pages to millions every day.
Humble Bundle
A video gaming storefront benefiting a vast variety of different Charities in the United States and United Kingdom (hopefully soon to be expanded to include other areas of the world?). By software their software bundles and choose which Charity your money benefits and how much of your money benefits that Charity. See? Gamers can do their part too.
Other Ways To Help Using Your Computer
Donate your idle computer time to science! Join the World Community Grid by...This story is intended for a mature audience. Reader discretion is definitely advised.
Shhhh! Digital Media Presents: Tales Of The Sanctum - A Lady's Prerogative
Unfinished Bee's Wax
Part 1
Unfinished Prologue: Wounded Aerth
"Ila... ila... ila... ila... ila.. ila." Barris' voice rang out through the air around her ears.
"Barris?" Mila suddenly arose from her drunken slumber, bent sideways against her easel.
When she was suddenly roused from her state, she began falling in the direction of her easel and down towards the floor amidst the numerous wine bottles that littered the space.
Her hair was long and unkempt, almost as much so as the hair which had grown in on her legs.
She was comfortable yet absent of her own self impression, for she'd been lost in the pursuit of the one true love of her life, and indeed lost without him.
The only true love she'd ever known and the the one who'd been taken from her.
She watched as her entire reality twisted and folded until she was on her feet again. Confident fully. Standing in front of her peers in the Midspace. In front of the Sanctum Seclorem as she stood down the threat that they'd just defeated, turning back Lorr and his siege upon their stronghold.
"...truth is it that you'd prefer is it?" Lorr's teeth gleaned with a tinge of brown, as if stained by some hideous ritual beyond tobacco.
"The truth of your defeat is enough. You are defeated Power Lord on this eve! We of the Sanctum Of The New have bested you and your plans! Alivale hath declared! Sharlesbury hath declared! Westview hath declared! The Aerth Mother Lyra hath declared. The Sanctum Of The New hath declared! Fall back and lay your terms for surrender or else fall and be held until which time you'll stand trial on our terms!" Yirfir declared against their most vile adversary.
"Is this what you truly want, Mila?" Lorr smirked first at Yirfir's words, and then looked to Mila, who suddenly understood the dark plan of the Power Lord.
He'd planned it all this way from the very beginning.
It was he who had been the Mannequins that had chased Mila through the main street of Alivale until she'd arrived at the river of cross roads.
He was the one who commanded the mannequins to destroy her before she crossed the river.
He was the one who felled Barris, and in her moment of need, it was Barris whose life he took, for Barris had fallen in their place, sparing her parents with the sacrifice of his own life.
"You remember that night, don't you?" Lorr's hideous smile glistened in the Midspace Moon as his diminished forces were challenged afore the front gates of the Sanctum Seclorem.
"No! You can't do this! We won! We faced and felled the worst of you. Fair as our souls..." Mila grasped her amulet, beginning to cry as she realized that the Power Lord had intended this from the very beginning.
"It would seem that your cry for the truth of my defeat, has undone the lie of the death of your parents!" Lorr challenged her.
"Whatever is he talking about? Your parents are... Mila? Tell me you didn't deal with this devil?!" Barris pleaded with her.
"There is no such deal at the hand of this treacherous swine! My parents are alive as is Barris!" Mila declared, the amulet suddenly growing so cold that she could no longer bear its touch in her hands.
"One or the other Mila. That was the deal you chose. To undo that which could n'yer be undone! That is the balance of the Aether. You know it as well do I!" Lorr declared.
Mila's knees buckled and she fell before Lorr, crying.
"Nooo... I can't bear it! Please, don't..." she pleaded with the Power Lord.
"You must make a choice Mila, to undo this lie. Which is it? Who shall pay with their lives? Your parents, our Barris?" Lorr pronounced.
Barris was suddenly confronted with his own mortality once again as he had been on that fateful night in Alivale.
Lorr, had bequeathed upon her the choice as to who should be allowed to live, given this travesty against the very bindings of reality: Bariis Windsor, or her parents.
Barris had known a life of loss up until the point he'd met Mila, and it was from this understanding of loss that he stepped forward to face the Power Lord:
"She chooses her parents. I choose her parents. They shall live, and I shall die, and you shall not hold her nor her parents to debt on this matter again!" Barris pronounced.
"Is this what you choose, Barris Windsor?" Lorr betrothed the heir of the unimaginable.
"Noooo! You can't Barris! You can't!" Mila screamed before the gates of the Sanctum.
"Stop him! Yirfir! Jasmer! Why can't you stop him! Please..." Mila pleaded with her allies.
"He is wielding truth Mila, and repatching a fold there within. We can sense it, and therefore the Sanctum cannot interfere... our most powerful magiks will do nye against..." Yirfir declared.
"Tis true. My heart is full of power unmeasured, and yet it is broken in this time to see this peril of my allies, my friends and peers, before me," Sir Manfred kneeled before them, leaning on his gleamingly magnificent long sword, his forehead pressed to its pommel as the guard spread across his forehead, very clearly his cross to bear.
Kensai struggled against the force that held his blade - his soul in its saya - and when he could not bring his Katana to bear upon their enemy, he bowed before Barris.
"You have the honour of a true warrior. One who fights his battles with the virtue of Ryu, perhaps not so much with sharpened blade, but with the sharpened words of your soul," Kensai looked to Barris, and then to Mishima Sato.
"It is as Kensai says, as dispicable as it might be!" Xushu hovered inverted above his sister's head, a hard smirk on his face as he spoke.
A tear slid down Xenshi's face, and as it lost purchase of her cheek it fell into her hand in the form of a diamond.
"I am already missing you Barris..." she said to him.
Sato looked around amongst his friends, until his eyes fell upon those of Barris.
Barris acknowledged Sato's gaze, realizing what he must do.
Xenshi and Xushu both fell to their knees, tears of the five elements falling from their eyes to the heaven of the earth beneath them as they both cried.
The three, Kensai, Sato and Barris all nodded to one another as their peers of the Sanctum faced the Power Lord Lorr.
When their heads rose to eye height, it was Barris who spoke.
"Then it shall be that Mila's parents will live, and I will be gone in their place..." Barris pronounced.
"Nooo! Can't we...? Can't I just... No... please don't take him... He isn't... I can't..." Mila pleaded with the Power Lord, but...
[Sarah Brightman - Dust In The Wind]
Mila's sleeping face slid along her canvas until it lost surface and she fell full force to the floor of her wine bottle littered basement studio.
There she lay upon the floor, the carpet around her slowly soaking up her tears as she cried.
The water from her eyes crept through the carpet, and eventually found the concrete beneath, seeping through even that barrier until it found the water table beneath.
From there, her pain and loss spread through, into the Aerth itself, and the sky became her pain and the ocean became her tears.
The same tears the world cries for any of us who've known such loss, for how could such a vast ocean exist without?
It is within the depth of water that can be found our deepest pain, and our darkest secrets, for water is the wine of the soul.
...
Unfinished Stars
It was the season of festivities, and certainly that time of year for which the term SAPCHOP had first been coined by Mila. The day was at its shortest throughout the year, meaning that every day beyond would be longer than the day before. Given this fact, the day was a rather special time for those whose pursuits found them as students of the Aether, and artisans of the great weave.
Most everyone was busy with activity, either preparing for their holidays or in the case of those in the field of thaumaturgy, they were busy with study or ritual. It was a significant day and certainly one that was full of potential and power.
It was eleven in the morning in Alivale, and thousands of kilometers away in Shepperton off the Thames, it was approaching four in afternoon.
Nelony was busy decorating the house with holiday lights with a little help from the neighbourhood squirrels, while a few blocks away and Shaela was preening one of her cats with a fine toothed comb.
A short bus trip from there, and Sato was busy tending to the customers that had flocked to his store for the day. In fact, it had been one of his busiest times since opening the knick knack shop fifteen years earlier.
He'd hired two students to help him manage things, and they'd do all of the odd jobs like keeping the shop tidy and well stocked with the treasures from Sato's basement, while Sato himself dealt with the customers, entertaining them with stories about how he'd acquired the items from his inventory, and each item had its own tale.
In both Alivale (in Canada) and London (in England), despite their distance apart, tiny flakes of snow drifted gently down from the sky, sprinkling both regions in a light covering, not quite deep enough to warrant a pair of boots, nor quite shallow enough to avert the need for shoveling the walk.
The streets of Alivale were crowded with shoppers, those who were out and about buying the last of their holiday gifts, most of them already laden with those they'd purchased for their loved ones. Many of those whose stores graced the main strip had stepped out front of their shops to clear the snow for their customers, some of them already having laid salt afore the front door.
At the corner of the intersection and taking a considerable piece of the real estate, was The Hot Cup And Cards, Alivale's most popular café. There within, every table was filled and no seats empty, as were the stools and bar area as well.
The aroma of fresh coffee, hot chocolate, cinnamon and latte permeated the air, punctuated by the scent of the in-house bakery. Bread, rolls and fresh cookies lined the counters, disappearing as quickly as they were made.
At one particular table sat three women. One of whom was well known in the region for her artwork, a few of the stores in Alivale selling her work on consignment, though she didn't need the money as much as she needed to constantly be busy in the act of creation, for her name was Mila Ren Dubel.
"Size matters..." Gwendolyn, an attractive woman in her mid thirties with a long and bold head of blonde hair, laughed as she sat beside her two best friends.
Mila suddenly broke out laughing at Gwendolyn's words. Something Mila had long admired about her best friend in the Alivale region. A woman who was unafraid to speak her mind, despite the discomfort it might cause others, but most often her challenging of the status quot would lead to progress, if not healthy debate and most often, hearty laughter. She reminded Mila of Shaela, though with a much softer and less scathing edge. Shaela without the piercing cynicism.
"Honey, we're talking about the size of this man's heart, and I'll tell you, he has a big one, so says the tarot..." Natalie examined the cards spread before her, struggling to contain herself over Gwendolyn's remark.
"I bet that's what you were talking about!" Gwendolyn responded, trying desperately to catch Natalie in a playful lie.
There was a moment of silence between the three, and when none could contain it no further, they, all of three of them burst out laughing, piercing the somber silence of the coffee establishment.
(Left to right) Gwendolyn, Mila (pre-makeover) and Nathalie
"This isn't quite downtown Toronto I'll have you know, and if it was, I'd bet their language would be at least on par with our worst, so could you kindly respect my tourists?" Wendell stepped over to their table of three, in the most fashionable cafe in Alivale as those seated at other tables (at least those who were paying attention) laughed along with Gwendolyn and her friends.
"They don't call this place The Hot Cup And Cards for nothing let me remind you!" Gwendolyn responded to Wendell's remark.
"And we don't usually let just any Tarot readers operate their snag here unless they're awful special to us," Wendell reminded them.
"Well it must be quite an honour for Natalie to be accepted under your roof, because I'm certainly very eager to get my reading... ahem..." Mila looked to Natalie.
"Oh don't you worry honey. You're next," Natalie replied, as Wendell returned to the counter to begin refreshing the coffee stations.
"Well don't keep me waiting honey. What do the heavens have in store for me?" Gwendolyn pressed Natalie.
Natalie shuffled the cards as Mila's cellular phone rang on the table beside her.
"Hi sweetie!" Mila smiled as she answered the phone.
"This wouldn't happen to be the most beautiful and sexy woman alive, would it?" asked Barris as she listened, immediately blushing at his words.
"I don't know. That depends. This wouldn't happen to be the most gorgeous hunk of a man in the world, would it?" Mila played along with Barris' little game.
"How could anyone hope to answer such a question modestly? You're swelling my head... not to mention some other parts as well..." Barris responded playfully.
"Ditto, though you don't have to hide the fact that its only your ego that's swelling..." Mila replied, talking quietly to keep her conversation from Natalie's and Gwendolyn's ears.
"I heard that!" Gwendolyn remarked to Mila, not actually having heard anything at all.
"And my imagination. What are you wearing today?" Barris asked her.
"My holiday skirt, which fits me perfectly today. My red and pink blouse..." Mila began.
"...the satin one? Ohhhh I like that one. Ever so slightly transparent... it just tickles my imagination..." Barris said to her as seductively as he could muster.
"...and those tights you really like..." Mila continued.
"I might just have to leave early today... chase everyone out of the museum and meet you at our favourite place..." Barris truly let his imagination run wild.
"Where? You mean that rental cottage...? And then what will you do next...?" Mila whispered her words.
"I'd..." Barris began, though his words were suddenly cut short as the museum workplace around him disappeared and he reappeared in the middle of an old marble court.
He quickly turned around to take in his surroundings, a group of men in white togas were seated as if in a meeting, a few of them wearing wreaths on their heads.
Unfinished Romance
"Barris?" Mila addressed her husband to be, but the line had gone dead.
She checked her phone for reception, and upon finding it to be alright, she then addressed her friends at the table.
"How's your phone reception? Are either of you two having any problems?" asked Mila of Gwendolyn and then Natalie.
"Mine's fine. WIFI too," Gwendolyn responded.
"Same here. Why? Did you lose him?" asked Natalie.
"He'll call back... It was getting a little hot..." Mila blushed to her friends, fanning herself with her hand.
Gwendolyn and Natalie both broke out laughing with Mila.
"If its that hot, he'll call back. What guy wouldn't..." Gwendolyn added.
"I'll call him," Mila immediately responded, dialing Barris' number but only getting his answering machine.
"One more try..." Mila waited barely ten seconds and then hit the speed dial to Barris' number once again.
"You two for crying out loud! Gag me with a shovel you're just sooo damned cute! You've been with him for almost six years and you two still behave like you only hooked up yesterday!" Gwendolyn smirked at Mila, a smile on her face contrasted her tone.
"I remember when Melvin and I first met. It was flowers every day, and romance every night... for about six months... until it all dried up at once... the fun bits at least... Ohhhh those were the days," Natalie recalled as she finished shuffling the next batch of cards for Gwendolyn's tarot spread.
"These two are like starstruck lovers! Stuck in a perpetual time loop like they're in they're still in their prime or something!" Gwendolyn said with a certainly level of disgust, though it was arguable as to whether it was more jealousy than anything.
"Wait 'til they get married. A few months in and all the best stuff will suddenly disappear in a drought, and they'll finally surrender to being like every other couple in the world. A few years beyond that, and they'll replace that nice queen sized bed of theirs for a pair of single beds on the opposite side of the room...!" Natalie started turning over cards.
"That isn't my fortune is it?" Mila asked as the phone rang on Barris' end as she waited for him to answer.
"No, Mila. It isn't your fortune. Its all of our fortunes, us poor women, when our Prince Charming finally retires to become Prince Rotund, complete with a sizeable inner-tube around his waist..." Natalie looked across the room admiringly at a younger couple, both of whom were trim and vivacious, full of passion for one another.
"Ho! Ho! Ho! I do believe my ears are ringing!" Melvin entered the café as if on cue, a large sack hoisted over his shoulders.
"Honey, we were just talking about you," Natalie said to her husband as he leaned over to lay an affectionate peck on her cheek.
"And I was just thinking about you three, and how a present for you each might change those pouty faces to a round of smiles!" Melvin lay the sack down on the floor and reached in, retrieving three gifts, one each for Gwendolyn, Mila and his wife Natalie.
"I thought those were for the kids?" asked Gwendolyn of the thirty-something year old man.
"The kids have been thoroughly serviced of their holiday gifts. They had a show earlier where you'll never guess who showed up and made sure that there were no children without presents this year..." Melvin stood poigniantly looking off into the distance, his left hand still holding the gift sack, his right hand rubbing the front of his rotund, inner-tube belly.
"...whew! I though I'd lost you..." Barris finally answered the phone.
"I guess we were disconnected. Is everything alright?" Mila asked him.
"Yes... but getting back to our earlier conversation, I couldn't help but think how spending the rest of the day at our secret place might be quite fitting given the season, and let me tell you, Mr. Ho! Ho! is ever so jolly to see you!" Barris responded, picking up where they'd left off from earlier.
Mila ran her finger seductivey up her leg to the hemline of her skirt, which just barely crested her shapely knees and her crossed legs.
"Mr. Ho! Ho! isn't the only one eager to enjoy the pleasures of the season..." Mila did her best to sound seductive, only finding herself suddenly blushing as she spoke.
"Honey. I'm so sorry that we had to delay the wedding. Its been bothering me silly thinking about it, but I didn't think that my parents would ever contact us, let alone request of us to delay the most important date of our lives..." Barris suddenly pleaded with Mila.
"Ohhhh honey. Its... done, and a summer wedding would have been my dream come true, but we can wait until the spring again, but you have to promise me that there will be no more delays or cancellations... And you also have to make sure that I'm well attended to every single day until that day arrives..." Mila continued again with the seduction, finally starting to feel comfortable enough to thoroughly enjoy herself.
"Honey, I'm just about ready to lock up here, and I'll be there to pick you up in about forty-five minues. Can Miss tinkle-berry wait until then?" Barris asked her.
"Only if Mr. Ho! Ho! can... oh wait! I almost forgot. I have an appointment shortly after Natalie here gives me my tarot reading... ahem!" Mila replied, cupping her hand over the phone to keep their conversation discrete, only raising her voice slightly when she mentioned Natalie and her tarot reading.
"Oh really? How long do you need?" Barris asked her.
"An extra forty five minutes. If you come earlier, just call me and I'll give you directions," Mila replied.
"Where to?" asked Barris.
"Its a surprise..." Mila smiled at her coy little plan.
"Alright. I'll dilly dally here for half hour before I leave, though Mr. Ho! Ho! is getting very impatient... Luv you!" Barris said to her.
"Love you too. See you soon..." Mila mimicked a kiss and then hung up, and Barris immediately began doing the rounds in the museum and preparing to locking up.
"Would you and Barris care to join us this evening for a bit of holiday cheer?" asked Melvin of Mila.
"You're welcome too if you'd like Gwendolyn," Natalie added.
"I was just going to ask you the same thing. We're having a few people over for the holidays and we expect to be enjoying ourselves late into the evening. We've got lots of space if you'd like to join us..." Mila offered.
Natalie looked over to Melvin, who nodded affirmatively.
"We could do that, but what about your friends?" Melvin asked Natalie.
"We're having company at our place, but if you have the room, we could all do the holiday cheer at your manor..." Natalie suggested.
"They're part of my club. A tarot group as it were..." Natalie added.
"I'd love to have you all over. We'll be starting at 7PM but you can show up any time thereafter," Mila said, checking her watch given her impromptu plans for romance with Barris.
"I'll call my beau and see if he's into that. I don't see why not. Besides, it would be nice to catch up some more, especially over a few bottles of that Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon you've been crafting," Gwendolyn got up from her seat.
"Thanks so much for the reading, Natalie. I guess it seems that it would be a good idea to take up Mila's offer then. You could say that it was in the cards..." Gwendolyn bid her friends farewell as she grabbed her bag of holiday shopping and made her way to the door.
"Alright Mila. Your turn... and let me tell you, this looks like your chart is going to be quite remarkable. We've got a Mercury retrograde, and a Venus rising... but who's this mysterious stranger that showing up in your chart...?" Natalie began setting up for Mila's fortune, having already retrieved her friend's astrological chart and was now shuffling the cards for her spread.
Unfinished Republic
"Do I know any of you?" asked Barris of the strange men that surrounded him in what appeared to be a Republic court of some ancient architecture.
Despite its having been built hastily since their occupation of Albion, it was quite remarkable that their supply lines and reach had been capable of transporting the valuable building material from quarries as far away as the Mediterranian, along what their Empire referred to as the red way. Regardless of its having been built in haste, it housed them and suited their purposes quite well. A taste of their distant home, for all roads of their vast empire truly led to Rome.
[Barris Windsor, have you lost your mind since last we spoke? I seem to recall that we made good progress with regard to our mutual learning of each others' language.]
"Barris Windsor, ex quo ultimo locuti sumus animum perdidisti? Meminisse videor nos bene profecisse quoad mutuam alterius linguae cognitionem." Ponderosus addressed Barris from the head of the court.
Barris heard the words, even recognizing that they were likely spoken in native Latin, but having no training in the language most often taught to Doctors for a career in Medicine, he was lost as to how to respond.
"Ummm... hocus pocus...? Hello-us? Hit my knee with a rubber hammer-us?" he responded, an intense migraine headache suddenly cropping up from within the innards of his skull.
"Oh my skull! Somebody please stop it!" he wailed, holding onto the sides of his head.
He grasped at his scalp, half expecting his head to split open and let forth a burst of trapped steam, but fortunately for him no such thing happened. Instead, the pain receded as quickly as it had arrived, and he suddenly had a grasp of the words they'd only just spoken to him.
[I'm sorry, but I don't know you or even remember speaking with you, let alone do I have any idea of how I ended up here...]
"Paenitet me, sed non novi te vel etiam tecum loqui memini, nedum mihi ideam habeo quomodo hic finierim..." Barris spoke, now well versed in the Latin.
[He knows of the rising rebellion amongst the people. He's clearly withholding such knowledge from us, and until we receive the reinforcements from Caesar, we're in a desperate situation with such hidden enemies amongst our midst here in Albion...]
"Seit rebellionem in populo. A nobis plane abstinet, donec auxilia a Caesare accipimus, cum tam occultis hostibus inter nostros hic in Albione desperatus sumus." Carbus Carnum stood, pounding his fist down upon a marble table as he spoke, his Roman armour gleaming in the sunlight.
[Oh? I remember this! This was all about you guys cracking your eggs on the little end, and your enemies cracking their eggs on the big end! Little Endians and Big Endians! Wait a minute, aren't you supposed to be tiny? Like really small compared to me?]
"Oh? Hoc memini! Haec omnia de vobis guys sunt ova in parvo fine crepuisse, et hostes ova eorum in magnum finem crepuisse! Parva Endians et Big Endians! Exspecta paulisper, nonne putaris esse pusillum? Velut vere parva comparatio mihi?" Barris struggled to piece together what these men of the Roman court were trying to ascertain, only coming up with a few shreds of a book he'd once read by Jonathan Swift.
[This man is very clearly a fool! A buffoon and jester, his words are infecting us with his folly, while the rebellion is gaining in strength and support amongst the people!]
"Hic homo praeclare stultus! Scurra et ioculator, verba eius nos stultitiam inficiunt, dum rebellio in populo robur ac robur obtinet." Carbus Carnum once again offered a perspective on the basis of his military expertise.
[We don't even know who their leader is... and yet this man's name is mentioned prominently amidst the scribe's request for supplies in the form of heavy furs and iron ore! I tell you, he is working with them, perhaps as their secretive quartermaster?]
"Nescimus quidem quis eorum dux sit... et tamen hoc nomen hominis eminenter memoratur inter rogationem scribae commeatus in modum pellium gravium et ferri chalcitidis! Dico tibi, laborat cum illis fortasse secretivus eorum magister?" Carbus continued driving his point how to those present in attendance of his more serious session of Republic court.
[It is true. It seems that these supplies are of purpose only for one thing and one thing alone. They're building an army to rise against us.]
"Verum est. Ad septimum sic proceditur. Videtur quod ista suppeditatio non sit nisi ad unum et ad unum solum. Exercitum contra nos aedificant." Ponderosus backed Carbus Carnum, though slightly hesitantly, for he was not a warrior but a strategist and one of the finests of the Roman court.
One of the men of the court raised his hand.
[The court recognizes Selenus Maximus, Mathematician, Doctor and Astrologer.]
"Aula Selenum Maximum, Mathematicum, Doctorem et Astrologum agnoscit." one of the courtisans shouted at the top of his lungs.
[Stand and address your peers, Selenus Maximus.]
"Sta, et tuos alloque pares, Selene, Maxime." the man at the head of the room spoke confidently and asertively.
[There is one other possibility and we have seen that there is a foul mind, a crafty one of such wiles that they might be playing us one against the other, merely by the mention of this jester's name. Sewing the seeds of mistrust so that we call into question his words, and lose the advantage of his insight.]
"Est aliud possibilitas, et vidimus esse mentem impuram, callidam talium versutum, ut nos invicem luderent, solo nomine ioculatoris. Sutura diffidentiam, ut in dubium vocamus verba eius, et utilitatem perspiciamus." Selenus Maximus spoke suggestively, but yet with an air of humble reproach before the leadership.
[This man's words by themselves are enough to sew the seeds of any mistrust, for they are the rambling of a rampant fool...]
"Verba hominis haec sola satis sunt cuivis diffidentiae semina consuere, sunt enim stulte vagabundi." Carbus presented his statement with comedic folly and humour, rousing many of the Roman court to laugh in his support.
[And yet he has intimate knowledge of their most sacred shrine here in Albion. The Standing Stones...]
"Et tamen hic in Albione sacratissimae suae aediculae notitiam intimat. Lapides stantes..." Ponderosus reminded them of Barris importance.
[The Standing Stones are no more a dangerous weapon, than is a calendar or the sticks that Druids use to wytch the water to build their wells...]
"Lapides stantes non magis telum periculosum sunt quam calendarium aut ligna quae druidum aqua ad puteos suos faciendas utuntur." Carbus Carnum challenged Ponderosus' assumptions about Barris and the Standing Stones.
[Remember, with a calendar we are able to time the strength of our military to coincide with the wrath of nature. A formidable weapon far more in strength than even our strongest Phalanx.]
"Memento, cum fasti^ temporis vires militiae nostrae cum ira naturae congruere possimus. Telum formidabile longe viribus magis quam etiam fortissimum Phalanx." Ponderosus reminded the court why he was considered amongst the wisest of men in their ranks.
[Then lead the jester there, and if he can't utilize it to help us against our enemies, then perhaps we can sacrifice him the same way the Druids sacrifice their woodland friends in their rites?]
"Tum ioculatorem illuc duc, quo si uti non potest ut contra hostes adiuvet, num forte eodem modo ei possumus sacrificare druidibus suis silvestribus amicis suis ritibus immolare?" Carbus Carnum suggested, picking up his helmet from the table and tucking it under his arm.
[All in favour, say: aye.]
"Omnes in gratia, dicite: immo." the man at the head of the court addressed them.
There was a resounding response of aye, and their session was finished and Barris' fate had been decided.
[Uhhhhh... so how is it that Druids sacrifice their woodland friends? Just in the point of interest on my part?]
"Uhhhhh... so how is it that Druids sacrifice their woodland friends? Just in the point of interest on my part?" asked Barris as he was summarily surrounded by Carbus' own guards.
[They are prepared for immortality and to assist the heathen gods of Druids, by having their hearts cleaved from their bodies and their flesh offered on the altar.]
"Ad inmortalitatem praeparantur, diis gentilibus druidum, qui corpori adhaeserint, et in aris carnes adhaeserint." Ponderosus responded to Barris question.
[I see. Is there any way I could take a raincheck on this? Maybe come back another day? I could bribe you with this crystal...?]
"Video. Estne ulla via de hac raincheck potui accipere? Forsitan alio die redeo? Tibi hoc cristallum reddere potui...?" Barris opened his hand, and revealed a tiny gem of perfect crystalline clarity that had somehow found its way into his grasp between the museum, his conversation with Mila, and then his arrival in the Roman court.
Unfinished Penrose Imperium
Some seven billion lightyears away, on an unimaginably huge construct that encircled a black hole, harvesting the zero-point energy imbalance that arose from the event horizon and regular space, an alarm sounded, ringing through all hundred trillion kilometers of corridor that lined the construct, finally echoing into the offices of a large bipedal like man, whose armour was very similar to that of Carbus Carnum some seven billion lightyears away and a few hundred years breadth in time.
"Did somebody say crystal?!!!" he spoke in a language very similar to English, after which he began laughing a most sinister laughter that too echoed through the hundreds of trillions of kilometers of corridor that lined the construct, before his wife yelled at him from the bedroom at the other end, where she happened to be knitting holiday stockings for that evening.
"Could you keep it down Corpus! I'm trying to finish the last of our holiday knitting you know!" she said to him from the other room.
All at once, a tremendous build up of steam seaped out through fissures in his ears, the pressure unbelievably powerful as his anger peaked.
"'Right dear. Sorry 'bout that. I'll try to keep it down..." Corpus Corzar said quietly, as he closed the door to their bedroom and stepped out into his office and over to a holographic monitor.
"I want you to find me that source of crystal! Immediately!" Corpus pounded his fist down upon his desk.
"Honey! Could you keep it down! My soap opera is just starting..." came his wife's voice from the bedroom.
"Sorry honey..." Corpus said timidly, then turning to his second in command.
"I want you to gather every ship in our fleet! And then some! We're going on a little trip because as you know, this universe isn't for big enough for both crystals and black holes. There's only enough room for for black hole powered crystal destroying supercivilizations like us!" Corpus ordered his second in command.
"And pick me up a double double coffee if you could at the nearest Timmy's?" Corpus added.
"Very well Sir..." his second in command responded, about ready to activate his entanglement displacement device.
"Oh... and don't forget to leave the little stir stick in. I kind of like that!" their leader added.
"Right away, MADE!" his second in command responded.
"Wait a second. Did you just call me a maid?" their leader responded.
"Yes Sir. You're our Mighty And Deadly Emperor, or MADE for short," the second in command neglected to inform the Emperor that he and his men were having a laugh at the Emperor's expense.
"Ahhh. Very clever of you and somewhat convenient I'd imagine..." Corpus aka MADE responded.
"If that will be all Sir, I'll be off to Timmy's to get your coffee..." his second in command disappeared upon activation of his entanglement displacement device.
When the second in command was gone, the Emperor addressed the third in command:
"When he gets back, have him vapourized. After you get my coffee from him. Don't forget the stir stick either! From that point, you'll be promoted to my second in command," Corpus' face grew contorted as a maniacal laughter erupted from him once again.
"Oh, how wonderful Sir," the third in command spoke with a horrid sense of dread, referring to a command structure where the higher you were promoted was inversely correlated with the duration of your life.
And with that, the soon to be deceased second in command gathered the immensely vast fleet of Corpus Corzar, and upon the retrieval of his double double coffee, was summarily vapourized and replaced by the third in command, who'd already taken out a sizeable life insurance policy for himself to his family's benefit.
With his coffee in hand, Corpus and his vast armada left on the hours long trip through a network of interconnected wormholes, one of which was cleverly concealed on the far side of our sun.
Unfinished Sanctum
Space, despite its apparent simplicity, is actually a very complex thing, hence why so many human resources over years had been spent developing the technology of storage space. As George Carlin, a noteable historian and learned scholar in the science of comedy had once explained, the only real thing that we need in life is a place to put our stuff.
Over thousands of years, as humanity accumulated more and more stuff, we gave these storage spaces ever more elaborate and creative names. Initially, there was the cubby hole, a decidedly tiny space where ancient humanity would store their rocks and pepples (primitive tools at that time), and maybe a clean pair of porcupine hide underwear or two, which were the only human invention that was shorter lived than the 8-track tape.
There was the chest, a storage space that didn't need to be stored inside, as it was its self-contained inside, which was its greatest flaw. Soon after its invention, another crafty human came along and invented the hope chest, aptly named as such as a form of optimism that went along the lines: "I hope that someone doesn't simply come along and walk away with my chest".
Naturally, many people did walk away with them, often burying these chests and hope chests with immense hidden treasures, which led to the development of the inside of doors storage, as few people were capable of walking away with a two storey home.
Hence, at the end of many beds in said homes, one would find a hope chest, though the motive for its name had been reworked to: "I hope that nobody finds my sex toys in this chest". Little did they know that most other chests that had been stolen before the invention of the house, were often filled and buried with sex toys. Information that never quite made it to encyclopedias, upon the discovery of buried pirate treasure, instead often flooding the market for second-hand sex toys, which jump started Amazon three hundred years before the invention of the internet.
Soon, our storage spaces had wheels, in the form of the boot (or trunk as they call it in the new world) and the glove box (or glove compartment in the new world), and we could literally drive our stuff around. Ironically, despite the advances in technology, storage spaces still mostly contained sex toys. Ahhhh, what a thought, seeing her in her nice red lipstick and that plaid lingerie I got her for x-mas last year... Alright, enough about sex (in this paragraph).
All of the time human beings had been busy creating places to put their stuff, another group of people had been busy tampering with the aether in trying to find ways to weave reality (in mostly bizarre ways) until they accidentally happened across a space so hidden, that it actually occupied the space between our own time and space, in another dimension. This place, they would eventually come to call: the Midspace, but only because the name Timbuktu was already taken.
Using their aether weaving skills, these early crafters managed to carve out an immense keep within the Midspace, before a very angry and disgruntled man came and took it away from them. He lived in there for a very long time, though we'll never be so sure just how long, because time doesn't pass the same way in the Midspace as it does everywhere else, in much the same way that you could leave a tuna sandwich on the counter in the Midspace, and it would theoretically never, ever go bad.
As it turns out, this was entirely because the Midspace disobeyed the second-law of thermodynamics, hence Entropy did not exist in the Midspace as one of the universal markers, and as the arrow for the direction of the flow of time. This of course put a serious damper on the market for refridgerators and freezers in the Midspace, leading eventually to the people who lived there storing their ice cream in the cupboards, another deftly crafted storage space of human invention.
It was speculated that the biggest reason that angry fellow eventually left the giant keep they'd built in the Midspace, was simply because he couldn't keep his vast wine collection chilled, so he instead moved to a dark forest in the heart of France, where years later, a group of those meddling weavers of the aether would find him again, and foil his plans to bring refridgeration to the Midspace.
After he'd gained the support of the refridgeration industrial complex, he once again came back to the Midspace, with a tremendous army who pounded the walls of that great keep, until eventually the weavers of aether retaliated and obliterated the angry man's entire army.
He left, returning to France once again, even calming down considerably and making friends with his neighbours, but not before he took the life of the lover of one of those weavers of the aether. An artist of unreknowned ability named Mila Ren Dubel.
She became isolated and withdrawn, lost in her loneliness, eventually disappearing altogether as the spaces in reality began overlapping one another, and before long, she was happily reunited with her long lost love without ever realizing that he'd been gone.
And so, without ever knowing that their reality had been altered so drastically, the Midspace once again began to thrive, and these weavers of the aether, being ever so frisky and with much time on their hands, had many children who in turn eventually moved into the giant keep, and in the process securing the future of the Sanctum Seclorum of the Midspace. Albeit, a very, very crowded Sanctum.
Of course, with need being the mother of all invention, and the father of all procrastination, the women of the Sanctum went to work building plans for an addition to the Sanctum, which was really just their uinfinished basement, which needed a lot of renovation work so that their children could all move into the basement, like all children eventually did on the Aerth. Of course, after decades of procrastination, the men of the Sanctum eventually ran out of excuses and began renovating the Sanctum's basement, which was a vast system of caves that ran beneath their giant keep, though it is still largely debated as to whether the motivating factor to get the men moving on the project was actually when the women got together and cut-off all sex until the project was done.
The Sanctum itself took over a hundred years of Aerth time to construct, if measured in human lifespans, while the basement of the Sanctum took only two weekends, before the children were forced to move in, and the sex lives of the parents resumed.
Over the course of their occupation of the Sanctum's basement, it turned into its own entirely self contained village of over three thousand people, all the unemployed teenaged kids of the residents of the Sanctum. All of them skilled in the manipulation of the aether, not to mention other arts and crafts that had long been lost to history.
With the renewed vigour of these unemployed basement dwelling teenagers, the village thrived and became a tourist draw of the residents of the Sanctum, even becoming a vacation spot in addition to being a place where the residents of the Sanctum could buy knick knacks, like potions, scrolls and even crystal balls amidst the scenic market of the underground village, all of which was lit by the magical bioluminescent crystals of eternity. Oops, I've said too much and might have even revealed the MacGuffin behind this entire story.
There goes another. I'll just file the rest of this story under the same storage space I put: Tales Of The Sanctum: A Lady's Prerogative III: Singularity or Tales Of The Sanctum: A Lady's Prerogative - Crystals Are Forever and of course, my most recent failure: Tales Of The Sanctum: A Lady's Prerogative - Lost Riff.
Just kidding. Where was I? Oh yes, unemployed teenagers with far too much time on their hands, especially having finished Elden Ring several times already.
With all of that pent up energy, they built the first and only tourist village in the Midspace and the Sanctum Seclorum, and became one of the greatest successes since any children moved out of the upstairs and into their parents' basement, which was good, because on this particular day, there happened to be a delegation present in the Sanctum Seclorum, and they were on this particular moment (which would be impossible without entropy or time, but we'll use the term in reference to equivalent human lifespan), touring the Village of Eternity.
"In two weekends? Most impressive that you've achieved all of this in such a short time..." Merethal walked with two of his enjoys at his side, on his left were Yirfir Lacharme, temporary acting Matron Mistress Wytch of the Sanctum, and her husband Patron Of The Aether,Jasmer McCavanaugh.
"...it was all accomplished mostly over long weekends..." Yirfir responded to Merethal as they walked through the market square.
"...and very effectively motivated I might add..." Jasmer added to Yirfir's remark.
"Their market economy is self sustaining?" asked Merethal.
"Absolutely. Without any pressure from us, they seem to have all picked their own vocations, as if by some uncanny intuition of the future, although in the Midspace, future and past are both woven into one in ways that are difficult for most to grasp," Yirfir explained to Merethal.
"With or without know, one should always go with the flow," Merethal remarked, drawing upon a saying taught to him by his mentors of the Order Of The Life Well.
"We try to maintain a holistic awareness that spans both forwards and backwards in time, with regard to the Prime Plane of existence..." Yirfir replied.
"And yet you do this without any school of Temporality in this wondrous village? How do they go, if without the flow?" asked Merethal.
"Despite their being very successfully apt in their first endeavor away from home, we keep a close eye on them..." Jasmer began.
"Yes... only intervening when absolutely necessary..." Yirfir looked to Jasmer, perhaps a bit embarrassed to be speaking of such matters.
"It all seems too civil. You mean there've been times where you...?" Merethal was very diplomatic when speaking of personal matters.
"Yes... We have had to put our foot down occasionally, being the Sanctum's representation and all. We don't have any children of our own..." Jasmer responded.
"But Matron Thara Lansmore of the Order Of The Night Wytch has three. Two boys, her own and a daughter, adopted she is. Being ever so ambitious to meet up to the achievements of Matron Thara, they once aspired to have a party..." Yirfir explained to Merethal.
"It was more like a concert, really, and of course being sons of one of the most capable summoners in the Sanctum, they summoned an audience... in addition to the three thousand inhabitants of Eternity, for a total audience of nearly a hundred thousand. Three thousand Aerthlings, and ninety seven thousand Warriors Of The Shadow Rite. The only Idigenous homonid-like species in the Shadow-plane, and a very rowdy bunch... who immensely enjoy celebrations..." Jasmer explained.
"Even more so with a few pitchers of Shadowmead in their gullets..." Yirfir laughed uneasily upon recalling the situation.
"How did you tame so many concert goers without disaster or destruction? This village is absolutely pristeen!" Merethal nodded to the two envoys accompanying him.
"Well, it wasn't easy. Both Karas and Bavel certainly are very civil themselves and yet quite rambunctious when it comes to a good time... but their sister..." Jasmer paused, Yirfir suddenly cutting in.
"Domina. She can be very influential... and the bigger the crowd, the more ample her influence tends to be. She's a mind weaver, and a natural one at that. Thankfully she kept her sense about her, and was able to calm the entire crowd down before it turned into an incident. By the end of the concert, the Shadow Warriors returned to the Shadow Plane in an orderly fashion, while the residents of Eternity managed to sell quite a few t-shirts to them... Not without the influence of Domina of course... but we'll keep that secret ourselves..." Yirfir finished the story for Merethal.
"I believe that as one of the more aggressively political members of the Order Of The Life Well, that such situations could be better averted with the presence of an ample population of Seers. The Sanctum, if not Eternity seems to be shy of them..." Merethal suggested.
"Since the Battle of the Sanctum, we lost many of our Seers. The Watchers Of The Lore Of Stars suffered the greatest casualties of any of the Orders of the Sanctum, as they were a required presence as strategists and support troops for our Elementalists and Healers as you know. We've been unable to replenish their numbers, especially with so much energy in the Sanctum focused on rebuilding the Order Of The Aerth Mother. Nelony Ardbloem's current tasking and our highest priority," Yirfir told Merethal.
"Perhaps then this is an indication of just how important having good Seers is for the Sanctum. Upon the Aerth, good weather forecasters are the difference between safety and tragedy for many. Seers would undoubtedly benefit the effort to rebuild the Wytch's Order of the Aerth Mother, and replenish the focus on environmental health..." Merethal spoke confidently.
"Perhaps Merethal is right," Yirfir agreed.
"We're already stretched thin in the department of administrators. We're lacking the capacity to spread our focus so thin and in so many different directions, one of our great logistical challenges given the losses during the Battle of the Sanctum. Are you offering to assist us in this endeavor, Merethal?" asked Jasmer.
"I'm afraid not Jasmer. We too are stretched far too thin to be of any meaningful help other than our existing duties. Perhaps the best solution isn't the most obvious, but perchance the one so close to us that we fail to see it?" Merethal responded, both of his envoys nodding in approval.
The Crystal Caves beneath the Sanctum, Eternity Marketplace
and a little bit of Bella The Gypsy at the end.
Unfinished Migration
Barris began running his gifts between the Girtrude And Wilbert's Alivale Paradise Museum, and the back of his car, carrying them in stacks of three at a time. They were all gift wrapped by that time, and each of them had a tag directing them to the particular person who'd receive the gift at their dinner party that night.
As Barris carried another stack to the back of the car, a large fly suddenly buzzed by his ear, causing him to spin with the gifts to avoid the giant bug altogether. When he arrived at the back of his car, he carefully balanced the gifts as he looked around for the bug.
"Flies? At this time of year? Its a bit chilly for them..." he said to himself as he organized the gifts in the back of his car, not noticing that the large "fly" was actually a bee, and that it had landed on one of the gifts and had burrowed inside beneath the gift paper.
"There... that's better! Only six more to go and we're off to pick up my wonderful wife to be... for some afternoon nookie!" Barris smiled mischievously as he jogged back to the front door of the Museum to pick up another stack of three gifts.
Near the top of the door, a group of bees had gathered, and were in the middle of a rather convoluted conversation. One of them marched along the ceiling overhang over the porch, wiggling its tail every so often, then buzzing its wings loudly as the others listened. One of the bees nodded its head, and contemplated what the other be had just stated, before he replied.
As Barris walked out of the Museum with the next stack of gifts, the bee who'd jusr responded to the other one's conjecture, then flew off, following Barris as he continued towards the car, this time instead of buzzing his ear, the bee simply landed on the top of his toque, and waved frantically for the others to join him.
"Alright! Get the other two out there, and stay clear of his eyes and ears!" one of the other bees ordered another pair of them.
The two flew off, in a straight line and landed atop of Barris' toque beside the others, Barris completely oblivious about the whole affair, and did not in the least suspect that his toque was now being used by a group of hyper-intelligent bees as a staging area for their migration plans.
Barris fit the gifts into the back, one at a time, and while he was distracted between gifts, one of the bees would jump down onto the most recent gift, and hide inside of it beneath the gift paper.
This continued until Barris had finished bringing out all of the gifts, which by coincidence had lined up perfectly with the amount of bees who'd arranged to be ready for these migration plans. They were hyper-intelligent after all, so naturally their plans had worked out perfectly, if the gifts were actually going to be delivered to another location in the world.
However, in this case and much the the bees' lack of awareness, the gifts were only going to travel about fifty kilometers in total, where they'd end up on a gift table adorned with a decorated pine tree and various lights and doo-dads and doo-hickies where a bunch of half drunken adults previously stuffed with hors d'ouvres, would one by one open them, hence ending the bees' migration plans short of their original plan and forcing them to settle for a place at said party.
How you might ask, could a group of hyper-intelligent bees so horribly bungle such a devious plan?
As I stated earlier, they were hyper-intelligent, not hyper-scrutinizing, hence, none of them at all considered any changes to the initial plans once suggested by the first bee... because of the fact that they were not very good at scrutinizing and... this plot element is kind of lame... but that's how it happened. They were very smart, but not very scrutinizing, and so they quickly accepted the first plan thrown at them and I'm sticking with that, because I'm the author, dammit.
Barris returned to the Museum and armed the security alarm before closing and locking the door, after which he made his way to the car and got in. While singing a horrible rendition of Oasis' song Morning Glory, he started his car and began driving happily on his way to pick up his total babe of a wife to be for some <insert your favourite euphamism for afternoon sex at a secret location here>.
The bees, had for most of the trip, spent their time reading the packaging and if applicable the instructions on each of the gifts, and by the time Barris had arrived in Alivale to pickup Mila, they could have been considered experts at each of the respective gifts which they occupied, though at this point in the plot, that wasn't important at all but I just thought I'd throw that out there regardless.
Unfinished Hairstyle
Forty-five minutes later, and Barris was pulling the car up in front of the Hair Salon. He got out and paid for a parking spot and then proceeded into the salon, very sneakily.
The hairdresser immediately spotted Barris as he snuck in, but she feigned ignorance and played along wiith Barris' plans regardless as he found a spot in the waiting area, unseen by Mila.
"...and then you know Shaela and how she can be sometimes. She just walked right over to the creep who'd made that remark about Nelony, and scratched his chin flirtatiously. Of course, from the moment he saw her he was eating it all up as she fed it to him, and then she took her entire glass of wine and poured it into his lap..." both Mila and the hair dresser began laughing at Mila's story.
"So I take it Nelony left with the other man?" asked Tammy, the hair dresser.
"Yes. They did leave together, which was one of the happiest moments I've seen in recent years, poor Nelony having spent most of her time alone before that. From what I hear, they've been an item ever since..." Mila smiled as she thought about their previous yearly Halloween outting.
"...you've just got to find one for Shaela and we can all get together for a quadruple date!" Tammy added as she began removing the foil wrapped segments she'd used to dye Mila's hair.
"Now that's definitely a plan... I'm still looking for one for Shaela. She's a bit asocial... but as soon as you mention the term cat lady..." Mila rolled her eyes as she gossipped with Tammy.
When Tammy had the last piece of foil out of Mila's hair, she applied a conditioning finish to her hair from a mist-spray bottle and then grabbed the hair dryer and began shaping her new hairstyle as Barris snuck up behind them from the waiting area.
When Barris grabbed Mila's shoulders from behind, she nearly jumped out of her chair, as Tammy stepped backwards laughing at Mila's reaction.
Mila spun her chair around to confront Barris, who had a very devious look on his face, but when he saw Mila's new hair and style, his look changed to one of utter awe.
"Awwwww!!!? You cut off all of your long hair!" Barris responded as she looked to him.
The hair dryer suddenly stopped. and there was a moment of utter silence, Tammy cringing, and Mila looking back at Barris, her eyes having grown larger as tears quickly filled her bottom eyelids.
"You don't like it?" Mila asked him, still looking to him in shock.
Barris suddenly found himself on the spot, one of his feet already all the way in his mouth, his other foot waiting on standby as he searched for the right words to undo the damage he'd clearly done thus far by his remark about Mila's new hairstyle.
"Its..." Barris blurted out, very clearly stalling for time as his other foot readied itself to jump full force into his mouth beside his first foot.
Tammy crossed her fingers as Barris struggled to find his words.
"Nice...! Really... really... nice!" he finished, even trying to elevate the pitch of the end of his sentence, hoping that it would be enough to repair a situation which had recently gone critical.
"You don't like it?" Mila responded.
"No...! No... of course not! It looks... very nice!" Barris' other foot now all the way in his mouth too, several other parts of his body suddenly interested in seeing if they could fit in as well, his hands already attempting to dive in.
Mila turned around in her chair, giving Barris her back as she looked in the mirror at Tammy's masterpiece of hair dressing.
Mila turned her head to this side, and then that side, and a smile slowly grew back in place of the frown Barris had so carelessly planted there moments earlier.
"Its... shorter... but I like it..." Mila's smile grew that much more, despite Barris' initial remark.
"It really brings out the pretty features on your face and jaw-line... without overpowering them from the background..." Tammy spoke up in defense of her vision of Mila's ideal framing presentation.
"Are you listening to her Barris? Are you learning anything about women yet?" Mila said to him, the bottom of his stomach falling out as the severity of the situation finally became apparent to him.
"Uhhhh... precisely! That's exactly what I was going to say..." historians would, years later say that it was clearly a low moment for team Barris, using the: you took the words right out of my mouth line, first coined by Meatloaf in the late 1970s.
Historians would further go on to remark that it was a bad play, and that he instead should have remained silent and listened to the two women as they expertly repaired a difficult minefield of a situation into which Barris had stumbled, for it had initially begged the thought in Mila's head: What would make Barris better for me? What don't I like about him?
At that moment, the dynamic that every couple dreads was brought to fruition. The nagging things that bothered them about each other and the things that they thought if they changed about them would make them better, that neither had the courage to bring up with the other, until that very moment when Barris stumbled with the ball regarding Mila's new hairstyle.
That was when Mila first had the thought: What is nagging me so much about Barris?
Mila paid Tammy for her artistic work in creating the masterpiece that now crowned Mila's head, and the two had a good laugh despite the earlier dynamics Barris had introduced into their afternoon, while he only considered how romantic a fellow he was to be picking up his fiancé to take her to a secret love nest of theirs for a romantic quickie.
It even lost its lustre as he rolled it around in his head, after he'd so selfishly blurted out exactly what he'd thought about Mila's new hairstyle.
Awwwww!!!? You cut off all of your long hair!
The words echoed through the empty chasms in Barris' head.
When she turned away from Tammy and began heading towards the door, there was a moment that stood in slow motion as he really looked at her as if for the first time again. And at that moment, he saw her in all of her glory, the wonderful shape of her cheeks rounded perfectly and framed against the borders of her eyes, all underlined by her luscious red lips, and as Tammy had stated, her hair perfectly in the background, like the perfect frame for a masterpiece of a painting.
All at once Barris saw her and took her in.
Mila noticed, and knew that something was different, but she was already hurt and had in the short time speaking with Tammy, gotten over it. She wasn't thinking about their romantic secret love nest at all. She was thinking about the things she'd change about him to suit her needs, and most selfishly so, for she'd never in all their time together, put herself first. It was always about him and what his fantasies were.
He quickly grabbed the door for her as she waved goodbye with her fingers to Tammy, walking by Barris as if she wasn''t showing him off to everyone else, but as if she suddenly realized that she was and had been the best thing about them, because for the entire time they'd been together, she never put herself first and that was going to change.
Unfinished Warrior Queen
The Phalanx marched perfectly in rhythm and form, a giant red box against the luscious green fields as eight columns of men moved on towards the great monument of the Druids: Stonehenge.
Ponderosus walked alongside Barris, whose hands were now bound behind his back while a length of the best Roman rope fastened him to two nearby Guards in Carbus Carnum's own unit, Carbus behind the two men as they marched forward, Stonehenge now visible atop the plateau and their destination.
[If you care to relieve yourself now of your knowledge of this place, it would be a most beneficial time for you to do so.]
"Si tibi nunc huius loci notitiae curas levare, commodissimum tempus tibi id facere futurum esse." Ponderosus spoke with the calm of a scholarly man and one who kept matters of war and savagery at arm's length.
[You heard this blathering fool's drool earlier, Ponderosus. He is just a fool from admidst a people obviously much more well informed than he, who has fallen into a dangerous situation, impersonating the worldliness of one who knows. I prefer to think that this whelp of a man knows nothing! He'll grovel at your feet and say anything he believes you want to hear, just to spare his life a few moments more.]
"Audisti hoc stultorum blaterantes prius nugae, Ponderose. Stultus est ab intimo homine multo manifestius instructior quam ille, qui in periculosas res incidit, munditiam cognoscentis personans. Malo putare quod hic catulus hominis nihil scit! Ad pedes tuos noet, et quicquid audieris credit dicturus est, vitae modo parcat paulo plus." Carbus Carnum spat at the back of Barris feet after addressing his superior.
[It seems that you're lacking the support of the brutes, my dear friend and I can only do so much to stave their blood-thirsty nature, for their respect of me is purely on the grounds of duty and out of respect for their superiors. The moment I stepped out of line, they'd be at my throat just as readily as they are at yours. If there's one thing I've learned in this world my friend, its that the appetite of wolves is peaked by the appearance of weakness. Fret not though I know it to be difficult, for real strength lies not in the fiber of one's muscle, but in the mettle of their heart's thumos. If you allow these men to trounce you with words, then you're failing us both. Be unafraid to share your knowledge of this ancient device with me, for if you do, I will see to it that these wolves grovel at your feet rather than either of us at theirs.]
"Brutorum auxilio tibi cares, amice carissime, nec tantum possum tantum sanguineum sitientem occidere, est enim respectus mei pure ex officio et ob reverentiam praelatorum. . Ut iam egrederetur, aeque facile in gutture meo forent quam apud te sunt. Si hoc unum est, amice didici in hoc mundo, quod luporum appetitus specie infirmitatis spectetur. Ne contendas, etsi difficile esse scio, verae enim vires non in fibra musculi, sed in cordis thumo consistit. Hos si permiseris verbis te jactare, tum ambos deficis. Non metuas tui huius priscae notae communicare mecum, nam si facias, curabo ut lupi ad pedes tuos potius quam alterutro nostro volent." Ponderosus appealed to Barris' sense of camaraderie that had formed over the time of their acquaintance.
Ponderosus knew that they were both cerebral more so than savage. That their fortunes depended not upon how many different ways they could bludgeon a man in combat, but in their ability to inspire others to think beyond the shadows of the forest and their own dark fears, most of which were founded in ignorance.
Ponderosus knew that for ignorance to win, it only required good men (and women) to give up thinking, to remain silent when their voice was needed, and to do nothing when action was called for.
Even the great warrior General and Emperor Caesar was bound between these two eidos of the omni. A warrior's heart and leader's mind. The savage and the cerebellum in constant flux, while the man pray n'yer that either grew too far in strength that much above the other, for history had demonstrated that when one was absent, that it would soon be needed the most. The fall of every great empire that preceded theirs was beset by this very fact. The cerebellum and the savage were the saviours of the empire, so long as they remained in balance, but never in harmony.
Each had the means to undo the other easily, but when they worked together, they could move mountains to valleys and oceans to seas.
Their columns of Phalanx arrived, encircling the Stonehenge protectively as Ponderosus, Carbus Carnum and Barris Windsor approached its center.
...
On the top of a nearby hill, and within the tree and brush that covered it and spanned nearly a semi-circle of the distance around the Stonehenge, an army lay in wait.
There, against a tree, covered in war paint, a tall woman of fiery hair and flairingly toned musculature who somehow graced it all with the power of femininity, she stood there watching the Roman Phalanx, its leader Carbus Carnum, a man of state known as Ponderosus according to her intelligence, and finally, the chosen one: the man who would complete her and together re-establish the Albion Of The Welsh and the Druids and the Albion Of The People: Barris Windsor.
[Boudicca! I ye beg naught we on this day and in this light challenge their Phalanx... We are without armour... and these are men who practice war every single day of their lives! They be as they are... the best that the Romans have to offer to defend their interests here... even this far from their home... I beg of you Boudicca, do not face them on this day!]
"Ystyr geiriau: Boudicca! Yr wyf yn erfyn dim ar y diwrnod hwn ac yn y goleuni hwn herio eu Phalanx... Rydym heb arfwisgoedd... a dyma ddynion sy'n ymarfer rhyfel bob dydd o'u bywydau! Maen nhw fel ag y maen nhw... y gorau sydd gan y Rhufeiniaid i'w gynnig i amddiffyn eu buddiannau yma... hyd yn oed mor bell â hyn o'u cartref... Rwy'n erfyn arnoch chi Boudicca, peidiwch â'u hwynebu ar y diwrnod hwn!" Marlin of Eire pleaded to Boudicca, who up until no more than a year before, had been the mother of two daughters, and the wife of their head of state.
A peaceful woman who'd kept their family and their people together since the arrival of the first Romans to set foot upon the shores of Albion.
When hope had abandoned them, their people as they realized that they were no match for Roman furnaces and forges, or for their formations and tactics, it was Boudicca's firey red hair and her piercing eyes so determined and full of promise, that kept them and their people together.
When the Romans arrived to meet with her husband, and negotiated the first allegiance between the Welsh between the sea and the hills, between the lush and the druids, her people looked to her, knowing that she'd never allow her husband to sell them off, to be annexed by a Roman conqueror who were known for annexing their enemies and integrating them into state.
The Greeks and Macedons had become part and parcel of their empire. There was no longer Zeus, Aries or Aphrodite, they had become Jupiter, Mars and Venus. Hermes had become Mercury, the Mercurial trickster of the gods. As more and more were consumed into the ranks of the Roman empire, so too was their culture and history, annexed. The people of a new name, living under gods of a lost people.
The idea of cerebellum and savagery helped to sell this spread to the people, for the Romans were the cerebellum, the light of civilization, keeping at bay the darkness of savagery. Of all that opposed order. All that opposed Rome. All that opposed the one road leading there.
When the Welsh people, the old and true Albion were faced with annexation, it was Boudicca who stood and defied Rome.
When they killed her husband and took her to the square outside of her home, and raped her two daughters in front of her, as they pronounced her as being a false prophecy of the people.
She was no Warrior Queen, for she'd stood idle as her own two daughters were raped by her conquerors and as her people, the people of a prophecized the coming of a Warrior Queen, watched their heroes, their gods crushed one by one by the conquerors. Their hope was trampled under foot as her daughters cried for mercy, their clothes stripped from them as they were laid bare for all to see.
It was from this darkness that Boudicca arose, and it was from the hilltop overlooking the Stonehenge, the greatest wonder of their world, and one built by the Druids for purposes known only to them, that she weighed her enemy, and the risk of freeing the one from their grasp.
[What are you that claim the ancestry of a Celt, of an Eirish Magi, allegedly descended from the line of the Druid, who cannot wield their magiks to assist us in this time that our ancestors call us forth to thwart our greatest enemy? Would you watch more of our daughters soiled by these filth?! If it is your name and people... EIRE! Anger! The fire of the soul! Then bring it forth to power Druid magiks! Or hold your tongue you filthy bastard while I fight them!!!]
"Beth wyt ti sy'n hawlio llinach Celt, o Lygad Eirish, yr honnir ei fod yn disgyn o linach y Derwyddon, na allant ddefnyddio eu swynion i'n cynorthwyo yn yr amser hwn y mae ein hynafiaid yn ein galw allan i rwystro ein gelyn pennaf? A fyddech chi'n gwylio mwy o'n merched yn cael eu baeddu gan y budreddi hyn?! Os mai dyma'ch enw a phobl... EIRE! Dicter! Tân yr enaid! Yna dod ag ef allan i rym derwyddon Derwyddon! Neu dal eich tafod chi bastard budr tra byddaf yn ymladd nhw!!!" Boudicca's eyes flared as she spat her words at the great Eirish magician Marlin.
The man she'd addressed seemed to have given up. Somewhere within him he was simply a little child fleeing in search of his leviathan, the one that every person who'd given up their own power came to believe would save them against the forces that thwarted them. An unseen saviour of unquestionable power that would in any instance step in on their behalf, no matter if they were just or dire in need.
Her men were divided roughly along this same crime of the soul, when a people gave up on themselves and instead turned to the invisible leviathan to right their wrongs and to shore up the inequities visited upon them by consquences, invaders, monsters or savages cum forth from the wild.
She looked at him, disgusted that the legendary Marlin had become this. That he would give himself to some unseen protector, rather than find that strength within himself to stand beside the people and the land, and serve it for their right to thrive upon it, go forth, multiply and be fruitful unto humanity and the life of nature and the Aerth Mother alike.
[Magi like you wrought that Stonehenge aeons ago, and yet you give up, knowing that no man alive could have carried stone of that size and shape from the quarries on the other side of this land to erect that which ye see before you! Therein lies the secret to the power of the magi and of you and your kind Marlin of the Eire! Find it, or fall on this day. I command thee that you and your Magi will take the first line in our assault. Ye are committed to finding the secrets of Druid magi before their blades find your bare skin and ours. You might fall a coward today, but know it that I will give all the fight I have to make sure that none of us fall!]
"Bu Magi fel chi yn gwneud Côr y Cewri yn ôl, ac eto rydych chi'n rhoi'r gorau iddi, gan wybod na allai unrhyw ddyn yn fyw fod wedi cario cerrig o'r maint a'r siâp hwnnw o'r chwareli yr ochr arall i'r wlad hon i godi'r hyn a welwch o'ch blaen! Yno y gorwedd y gyfrinach i rym y hud a lledrith a chi a'ch caredig Marlin yr Eire! Dod o hyd iddo, neu syrthio ar y diwrnod hwn. Dw i'n gorchymyn i ti a'th Lydaw gymryd y llinell gyntaf yn ein hymosodiad. Yr ydych wedi ymrwymo i ddod o hyd i gyfrinachau hud a lledrith Derwydd cyn i'w llafnau ddod o hyd i'ch croen noeth a'n croen ni. Efallai y byddwch chi'n cwympo llwfrgi heddiw, ond yn gwybod y byddaf yn rhoi'r holl frwydr sydd gennyf i wneud yn siŵr nad oes yr un ohonom yn cwympo!" Boudicca's voice rose in volume, echoing behind the hills so that every Welsh soldier could hear it, but the trees kept her voice from reaching or alerting the Romans.
Marlin listened as she spoke, and noticed that her voice spread far into every ear, and yet the Romans did not hear a word of it at all.
He then realized that the trees had kept it from them, for the trees were both alchemy and alchemists. They could both carry and obscure sound to whom they chose, and yet there was something oddly familiar about the trees that caught Marlin's attention on this day.
His heart began to beat faster, as the Welsh soldiers began lining themselves up, readying for their assault upon a vastly superior force. A force that would easily crush them lest their Warrior Queen be right about finding their one.
She had proven to the people that she was a force to be reckoned with, but they still had not seen a Warrior Queen.
Half of them had reserved themselves to the fact that within the next hour, they would be carried away into the vast sea in the beaks of the Heron, into their death and the land beyond.
The other half, had seen and known the Warrior Queen, and to them there was only victory. However, it was Boudicca who knew that it was both sides who were the fools, for her people didn't need one or the other. Her people needed everyone to be together.
And so it was that as Boudicca delivered the last speech she'd give as Boudicca, that Marlin of Eire learned of the secret of the Stonehenge.
Thirty minutes later, and an army of the one true Warrior Queen charged down the hill to face the most advanced army in the world in the eighth centurty in Albion.
One year later, and by that time she had conquered all of Albion and the surrounding isles, side by side with her husband: Barris Windsor.
A very different Barris, and one who'd learned the secret of Ponderosus' advice. Of becoming both the cerebellum and the savage.
Something that Queen Boudicca and her husband King Barris Windsor would often discuss with Ponderosus, for he had risen to become their advisor, while Carbus Carnum toiled as a prisoner in their castle at Cardiff.
While Barris had grown as a man by embracing his savage nature, and balancing it with his cerebellum, Carbus Carnum had tamed his own wolves, and had learnt restraint and wisdom in his year as a prisoner.
...
Mila lay naked face down on the bed, her eyes open and looking around the room as she thought about their situation. Barris meanwhile, lay on his side, sleeping soundly after having been quickly satisfied, which was part of Mila's plan, as their earlier situation at the hair stylist had left her feeling anything but wanting to be pleasing to this man.
It was like the illusion had all fallen at once, when he'd initially remarked about her new hairstyle. It was all about him.
Their sex earlier had been fun, in an ever so quaint way as Mila now saw it, but it had not been in any way satisfying for her, but by that moment in time she was alright with it, for she just wanted to get it over with, and so upon their foreplay, which was rather abrupt and awkward, Barris moved quickly to mount her, and she decided that she'd make sure it was over very quickly, so he'd be fast asleep and she could have some time in an uncluttered mind space to think to herself and of her life and what she really wanted.
She lay on her front, her milky white skin glowing nearly to perfection as she looked at the mirror that covered the wall she was facing. With her artist's eyes, she was seeing a world of colours and hues, of light and shades and there she was. She could see it herself. She was truly one to behold, and she did not look with conceit, but rather humble gratitude, and a sense of sadness as she wondered if the man sleeping beside her would ever look at her and see what she just saw.
Would he just get away with wasting her life and time, with his wit, all the while gaining a tire around his waist and becoming ever the less pleasing to her, when compared to the effort she made to take care of herself for him... no... wait... she corrected herself. She took care of herself for herself, and this man didn't take care either for himself or for her.
She could see that time would pass, and she'd age like a fine wine, always having that inner happiness and peace that had preserved her, and that need to know that there was one person in her life that knew her better than anyone else in the world. Her perfections and her flaws alike, and found both just as appetizing about her. Someone who could look at her, her breasts maybe, for she had one ever so slightly smaller than the other. It had been something that Barris had never commented about before, and she knew that he hadn't noticed, and with their recent conflict of appreciation, this bothered her more than ever.
Did he know that she had one smaller breast, and that it was something about her that was his. Something about her that she might see as a flaw, but that if he truly knew, would see it as something to love about her. Another thing. Not a disgusting imperfection to hide, but just something that was so close to perfection and yet so far from it, that he couldn't help but love it knowing that it was something only he'd ever know about her. It was something so intimate about her, that it was a treasure, and yet she wondered if the man she'd quickly lulled into orgasm just to have a bit of peace for a moment in a day that had caused her to question everything about him, if he'd even known that about her and just not mentioned it out of shame. As if it was something disgraceful and to be hidden, or something to be treasured and cherished.
These treasures that they shared, these personal secrets about each other, were they entering into a world where even intimate secrets between couples were no longer safe?
Where the minds that cloud privacy and swarm the dreams of the population and its secrets, were now taking away the intimacy shared between a couple that connected them to each other, and to a special moment involving the two.
As an artist, Mila had noticed this more and more, especially since the events of last autumn, when the ghouls had invaded Alivale, and Girtrude and Wilbert had spoken to them from the grave, reminding them of the importance of the secrets between lovers. How the future would challenge love itself, taking away the moments shared between two, that were not meant for anyone else in the world... in the universe... but them.
That this hungry thing one day would undermine the very foundation of what it was to become one with someone else. To be taken from every lover in the world, one by one, until there were no secrets that lovers had, the nobody else in the world didn't already know about them.
The day that when a person had love for someone, that it bore no signifcance anymore than anyone else had in terms of regard for the same person. The day when the way that others felt about each other, only had one flavour and one extremity.
It would all fall with the eradication of secrets between lovers, by a people who denied everyone of such secrets altogether.
This was the secret that Girtrude and Wilbert had given them to protect. The secret that, when secrets between couples were gone, having become public knowledge without borders, that the bias of love would cease to exist and face its greatest threat ever.
Was Barris protecting her from something, or did he not even value the things she'd shared with no other man but him? Did he remember Girtrude and Wilbert's secret?
All of the things that had kept them together, one by one, were disappearing under a hidden pressure that had arrived around the same time as Girtrude and Wilbert's message of hope.
As he lay sleeping, she pondered if he even knew what love was anymore, and if she were to stay for the duration, what she might change about him to overcome his ever growing lack of appeal to her.
She thought of the noble ways she'd change him, his grandeur and being. She thought of the naughty ways she'd have him changed, the things about his mannerisms and physique, and his attention to his responsibilities that she didn't like. How she'd change them all just to suit her needs.
What she didn't know, was that as he slept, he dreamt of exactly the same thing with regard to her.
Unfinished Wishes
By the time Barris had awaken, Mila was already dressed and made up, and seated in an overstuffed chair in their favourite romantic escape hotel room and reading an ebook on her phone.
She purposely continued reading as he situated himself on the side of the bed and began dressing himself.
"I hope its good..." he said politely as he slipped his underwear on.
"Oh... You're up? Have a good sleep?" she responded to him more so on automatic than out of actual concern.
"Yes... It was a bit chilly, but I'm guessing that's because you were five feet away on that cosy overstuffed chair reading, instead of snuggling up to me..." Barris responded, clearly having lost his lustre to the woman across the room from him.
"I'm sorry that for once, my world didn't twist or bend to accomodate yours, but I needed my own gratification and my book was up to the task, seeing as it wasn't in the slightest way thinking only of itself!" Mila responded to him.
"I wasn't thinking of myself simply because I was too freezing on the bed without the covers pulled over me, something you could have done on your way to read your vaginal fantasy book!" Barris defended himself, still not quite getting it.
"If you were so cold, then why didn't you pull the blankets over yourself?" she responded, only slightly paying him any attention as she continued reading her book, which was a historical romantic fantasy thriller she'd picked up from Amazon recently.
Barris finally having gotten his pants and socks on, stood from the bed and pulled his shirt over his chest, and down over his ever so slightly enlarged belly. This caught Mila's attention, over the top of her phone and became another secret point of her contention with him.
They paused for a moment, looking briefly at each other as their tension with one another grew.
Barris then, resorted to something he'd thought would fix their issue, which he'd regarded mostly as a random emotional problem on Mila's part, as she'd often have such fixations only to hours later take a much more forgiving stance, which Barris presumed was because she simply wanted something from him.
Of course, from her perspective it was he who would inevitably perform an emotional one-eighty, and by the end of the day be groveling up to her, which of course would only serve to postpone her growing aggravation, and her resent for him.
"Where are you going?!" Mila confronted him as he slipped his shoes on.
He ignored her, opened the motel room door and made his way over to the car, from whose rear boot he pulled two of the gifts he'd previously prepared. He then after closing the hatchback, proceeded back into the hotel room, closing the door behind him and throwing his shoes off and kicing them beside the door.
"What are those?" Mila asked him accusingly.
"They appear to be boxes covered in colourful paper... oh and look at this... they have name tags on them as well! Let's take a peek and see who's names are on them?" Barris responded sarcastically as he shook each of the gifts in turn, before examining the tags affixed just under the bow on each package.
Mila's face went from a look of skeptical criticism to interest and curiosity as Barris examined the gift wrapped boxes.
"Look at this. This one says: To My Dearest Mila... clearly not referring to you, whom I'd refer to as my: its that time of month Mila. I'm guessing that this gift quite possibly is for my other Mila, on the other side of town. The one with the long hair... and who wouldn't leave me naked and freezing on the bed without a comforter!" Barris withheld the gift as she reached for it, sharpening his words.
"I'm sorry to say that she's indisposed right now, as she's currently with my: sexy hunk of an endowed god of a real man and his chiseled abs and commanding - throw me on the bed, Barris, " she finally grabbed the gift from him, wielding it like a weapon as she stood before him.
Barris caught the protrusion of his belly just beneath his line of sight, and felt a stinging tinge of emotional pain from her words, once again never having taken into consideration his own words and how they might have affected her.
"Fine! Then lets open our gifts, but don't forget to make a wish!" Barris said to her on the brink of cursing, as the bee snuck out from the gift wrapping and found its way around to his rump.
"What could a girl ever hope to wish for when she already has a man like you!" Mila responded as the bee from her own gift flew to her behind as she stood, readying herself to rip the paper from the gift.
As they began tearing, the bees both simultaneously stung them, each in their petute and quite painfully so. At that very moment, and in the height of their aggravation with each other, and the pain of the bee's stings, they made their wishes for each other.
Unfinished Singularity
A man who appeared similar to Barris in every aspect, except for the fact that he was rippled with muscle tone. Not mass, but perfectly sculpted form, marred only by several battle earned scars that populated various areas of his now bare skin, as he lay wrapped around a woman of similar fitness, whose long red hair lined the bed beneath her luscious body.
They were fast asleep, though upon her eyes opening, it could be easily seen how remarkably similar this woman was to Mila. The most blaring difference being her long flowing red hair and her war tattoos which in Welsh, when translated to English, would have read: Boudicca - Warrior Queen Of Albion and Conqueror Of All.
She leaned up from the bed, her muscles flexing as she sat up, her lover still wrapped around her.
She looked around the unfamiliar surroundings, unable to fathom most of what she was seeing. For instance, there was a device emitting light without fire across the room from her. Beneath it, another device, with glowing runes and symbols of some form appeared to flicker in rhythm, as if to the beating of their hearts. She nearly jumped when the runes suddenly changed, and again continued their strange counting of heart beats.
All at once and Barris was up and on his feet, reaching for his Welsh Gladius, one he'd crafted himself after he and Boudicca had conquered the Roman Empire only a month earlier.
[What foul weaveth did the Hun-Pict allegiance put upon us?]
"Pa wau aflan a osododd yr Hun-Pict arnom ni ?" Barris found the hilt of his blade, standing protectively between the fireless light and the device whose runes ebbed in time with their hearts.
Behind them, a door crashed open and Carbus Carnum burst in, adorned in full Phalanx armour, his own bronze Gladius held before him.
[Forgive me Empress. I blinked but a moment and found this unfamiliar blasphemy and feared for your safety!]
"Maddeu i mi Empress. Amrantais ond eiliad a dod o hyd i'r cabledd anghyfarwydd hwn ac yn ofni am eich diogelwch!" Carbus Carnum spoke in near perfect Welsh, only the slightest hint of his Roman accent present.
Boudicca was up by that time, and with her own blade confronting the runic device. She tapped it with the tip of her blade several times, and when it failed to respond, she turned her attention to the fireless light.
She reached out for it with her fingers, the light caressing the silhouette of her perfectly chiseled body as her fingers found its source.
It was warm to the touch, but not hot like fire.
[It is nay weaveth. Just a device like an ox-cart or a lantern. Much farther along in alchemy than our own I'd wager.]
"Nag gwehydd ydyw. Dim ond dyfais fel cert ych neu lusern. Ymhellach o lawer mewn alcemi nag y byddwn i'n fentro." Boudicca responded, her interest passing away from those devices, and now to one on the other side of the room that blew warm air through an opening crafted from metal not unlike that of their blades.
When she arrived near the opening, Barris reached out and grasped her, keeping her from getting any closer to it's breath.
[Might this be the entrance to the Roman hells? There burns deep inside fires that are pushing this warm breath of demons at us.]
"Ai dyma'r fynedfa i uffernoedd Rhufeinig efallai? Mae llosgiadau dwfn y tu mewn i danau sy'n gwthio'r anadl cynnes hwn o gythreuliaid atom." Barris suggested to her, urging her to err on the side of caution.
[Nay. Tis just another device, whose alchemy is much beyond ours.]
"Nage. Dim ond dyfais arall ydyw, y mae ei alcemi lawer y tu hwnt i'n rhai ni." Boudicca moved closer to the opening, her former goose pimples having arisen previously, began shrinking as she got closer to the warmed breath opening, her body tingling from the sudden heat.
She clasped Barris' hand tightly, pulling him closer for she wanted him to feel the same sensation.
He held fast for a moment, but in the end her grip over him won, and she pulled him closer to her and the strange opening of metal, as their nudity was bathed in warm demon breath from within the unfamiliar and hellish device.
Carbus Carnum ever so slightly smirked as he watched their fingers close as did those of lovers, and as they warmed together before the air emitting device, neither Boudicca nor Barris took notice of his attention towards her, nor his envious gaze.
Ponderosus then fell in behind Carbus Carnum, he too curious as to the nature of what they were witnessing.
[There are more devices out here. Horseless chariots, some of which seem to have consumed their owners.]
"Mae mwy o ddyfeisiadau allan yma. Cerbydau heb geffylau, a rhai ohonynt fel pe baent wedi bwyta eu perchnogion." Ponderosus gestured in the direction of the door through which he'd stepped to check up on his Empress.
Barris' eyes fell upon their armour, which lay on the floor beside the bed from which they'd first awakened. He reached for her breastplate, offering to dress her. She turned and kissed his lips gently, again not noticing how Carbus Carnum's attention of them had changed. She gave Barris her soft and scarless back, and he carefully slipped her breastplate over her body, making sure that the padding was comfortably fit to her curves as her body took the weight of the armour.
He tightened it on her back, and when he was done, she did the same thing for him, the entire display seeming ritualistically sexual in some magnificent form, and yet both Ponderosus and Carbus Carnum by that point in time were long gone, and outside investigating this strange land into which they'd suddenly been thrust.
Boudicca and Barris had shortly thereafter, dressed each other and both were now ready for battle, her own armour gleaming beside his as they stepped forth from a motel on the other side of town, to meet up with their army, who stood covering most of rural Alivale, as holiday traffick stopped for what most commuters believed to be some kind of holiday parade.
[Empress, they seem not to be showing their due to your reign. Shall we humble them for you?]
"Empress, mae'n ymddangos nad ydyn nhw'n dangos eu dyled i'ch teyrnasiad. A wnawn ni eu darostwng drosoch chi?" Carbus Carnum advised her on such matters, which were of immense importance given the propensity of weakness and grace expressed on her part to quickly transform the ambitions of the populace into full blown rebellion.
These people Carbus Carnum knew, were not empire builders. They were the thralls of some other builder, whose alchemy had crafted all they could see. They were merely the cattle, who most often did not know or understand that rebellion would bring about collapse, as infrastructure broke under the weight of supporting such an immense populace without supply to keep it alive. These were the cattle who'd march themselves into their own death and the destruction of society, if not without the guidance of the true alchemists and builders of living potential.
Boudicca nor Barris shared Carbus Carnum's stringent views, but they recognized that he'd learnt these ideas from experience after twenty years near the top of command of the world's largest empire. The empire which Boudicca herself overtook to become the largest empire in human history.
Carbus had come to his understanding of the way of things through the harsh Republic Autocracy of Roman rule, which protected the people from themselves, as they simply did not know any better, and up until Boudicca had taken up arms against the Roman empire, their form of empire had worked considerably well. Many had been happy with having the safety of a large army to protect economies from savages and those who'd live without the rule of law.
As this empire grew in size however, and the further its reaches spanned from that one road that always led to Rome, their system of management become overstressed, and often corrupted, as the means to enforce and account for, were centralized in one place, and no matter their reach, there were always places at the edge of empire that lived by a very different law than Rome, and often led by those who'd defy with force if need be.
It was from this very sentiment that was born their Empress Boudicca. An Empress of the people and when her prophecy had come to pass, and she'd found her one true love, the one to stand beside her at the throne, she'd become Boudicca - Warrior Queen Of Albion And Conqeror Of The World.
Until this new world had woven its way into their empire.
[Let the people continue their being as they were. Tis clearly a celebration of some kind. Be scarce of them and stay out of their sight until we know further. Carbus, take the army into the wild away from their alchemy and horseless carriages. Ponderosus, I want you to put your mind and those of your scholars to deciphering their alchemy so that we many use it to suit our own purposes of empire. We will remain scarce, and then reveal ourselves to show them the way.]
"Gadewch i'r bobl barhau fel yr oeddent. Mae'n amlwg yn ddathliad o ryw fath. Byddwch yn brin ohonynt ac arhoswch allan o'u golwg a'u ffordd nes y byddwn yn gwybod ymhellach. Carbus, ewch â'r fyddin i'r gwyllt i ffwrdd o'u cerbydau alcemi a heb geffylau. Ponderosus, rwyf am ichi roi eich meddwl chi a rhai eich ysgolheigion ar ddehongli eu alcemi fel bod llawer ohonom yn ei ddefnyddio i weddu i'n dibenion ein hunain o ymerodraeth. Byddwn yn aros yn brin, ac yna'n datgelu ein hunain i ddangos y ffordd iddynt." Boudicca pronounced to her advisors and generals as she made her way over to her own horse-drawn chariot.
Many of the people driving in their horseless carriages stopped to wave at and honk their horns at Boudicca as she passed them in her magnificent armour, Barris walking beside her as they both waved to the people trapped inside of these strange carriages.
A wall of noise emerged from the traffick as she passed them, smiles filling the faces of both the adults and the children who looked on as Boudicca arrived at and stepped up onto her chariot.
She smiled ever so gracefully, yet retained the dignity of a woman who led the largest empire the world had ever known.
Their chariots turned and left along a side road, followed by column after column after column of Phalanx, archers, slingers and cavalry by the hundreds of thousands as they filled the region just outside of Alivale.
And yet, the power of a single wish had not yet completed its own turn quite yet.
Unfinished Improvements?
Many kilometers away, on the other side of Alivale, in a very different motel room, where Mila's and Barris' own argument had culminated in a sharing of gifts and much spite, which had by that point, led to a pair of hyper-intelligent bees secretly escaping from their gifts, and finding their way to their mutual posteriors, where upon at the very moment of Mila's and Barris' own realization of their holiday wishes for each other, the two bees simultaneously stung them, at that most delicate of parts upon which most people spend nearly half of their lives perched.
At that very instant, though neither Mila nor Barris could tell you if it actually happened as they perceived it, or if it was a side effect of being stung in the rump, the lights everywhere in the universe suddenly went out and stayed out for about three seconds. After those three seconds of darkness passed, every light in the universe all at once lit full tilt for three seconds.
And then it simply was exactly like it was before. Except for a few minor differences, the first of which Barris immediately noticed by how slack his clothing had suddenly become on his body, though his eyes were still closed at that point, as Mila's opened to take him in.
Barris had become a sculpted god of a figure, with a perfectly chiseled body, a chiseled jaw-line and cleft chin, not unlike that of Henry Cavill (who first came to mind when Mila made her wish).
"I feel very different..." Barris said to her, his tone very different, if not somewhat deeper, though he still hadn't opened his own eyes.
"Wait! What's going on?!!!" Barris said, his voice still very much deeper than it had been.
"Something's very different... I mean really different..." he opened his eyes and looked around the room a few times.
"I can't believe how much this place needs a good cleaning!" he said aloud, looking around the motel room at how disheveled it had become since they'd checked in.
"Did we do this? I can't believe this?" Barris immediately began looking around the room for cleaning supplies, before his eyes suddenly came to rest upon Mila.
"I feel a little off balance here..." Mila said to him, her voice ever so slightly higher than it had been, and perhaps even softer and more docile, but that wasn't what had caught his attention.
Mila's chest, which had been considerably modest and much to Barris' liking as it had been, had suddenly grown a thousand fold. Her breasts, which previously had remained very much in the background, quaintly and curvaceously modest, were now mountains of mass, sticking out from her body in a way that could simply not be missed.
No matter how much Barris tried to focus on her face, his eyes were instantly drawn down towards her much larger chest.
But it didn't stop there.
Her waist had remained the same compact size it had been, perfectly suited to her previous shape much like her previous chest, while her waist had become underlined by curvaceous hips that could undoubtedly be used to calibrate the machines that were used to make violins and cellos.
"What did you do to me?!!!" Mila screamed at him ever so softly and seductively as she caught a glimpse of her own chest and cleavage from the first person perspective.
Her stomach, legs, knees and toes were simply no longer visible from her current perspective, and she dreaded the risk to her back if she attempted to bend over.
"I... Look honey, I really need to go to the lew right now... and this place needs cleaning! Can you believe we actually slept in here? How am I going to cook us a five course gourmet meal in a pig stye like this?" Barris said as he ran for the bathroom.
The sound of his fly was quickly replaced by a shriek from the bathroom.
"Is the toilet dirty or something?" asked Mila softly, ensuring Barris was alright.
"Something is way different! It was never this big before! I mean it was fairly big... but never this big!" Barris sounded very panicked, even with his much deeper and masculine voice.
"...one good thing about it is that my aim's a lot better... which means less cleaning!" Barris responded, trying to find another positive in a clearly very uncomfortable situation.
"Ohhhh... I'm sooo sorry..." a part of Mila with which she'd been unfamiliar lied, as she snuck over to the bed and lay herself down on it seductively, certain that her breasts would scream his name as soon as he left the bathroom.
"Ow!!! Its going to take a lot of getting used to this. I'm definitely going to need speed bumps for my fly..." Barris said, as he put the giant cyclops back in its cave.
Meanwhile, Mila lay waiting for him on the bed, now rolling over onto her chest (which propped her entire upper body up), her cleavage clearly visible just beneath her chin.
She lay there in this new concept of seductiveness she'd never experienced before waiting for Barris to step out of the bathroom, but he never did.
"I think I broke a nail...?" Mila said aloud, trying to concoct a fantasy situation where he could come to her rescue, leading into hours of love making and their enjoyment of her new assets.
By the time she finally got up from the bed to check on Barris, he opened the door to the bathroom.
"Are there any tea towels or linens around here? I've almost got the shower perfect! Its like spotless. It just needs a bit more scrubbing and it will be perfect for you, babe!" Barris said as he peeked out from behind the door.
"I'm feeling a little chilly and I was hoping that you could warm me up a bit...?" she swayed her head to the side, and used her hands to press her breasts together invitingly, but Barris was still focused on finding the cleaning supplies he'd need to get the bathroom just right.
"I'm sorry honey, this is only going to take another half-hour... speaking of! We have to get back and get the cooking started for the party tonight!" Barris slapped both of his hands down upon his head, now completely flabberghasted, especially with all of the unfinished cleaning and cooking that still needed to be done.
"We can be a little late..." Mila drew her finger seductively down his chest.
"No we can't! How am I going to build that addition to the deck before the guests start arriving?" Barris said to her, grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking her gently.
She smiled seductively, clearly very turned on by his touch.
"Come on honey! You start getting stuff out to the car, and I'll finish the last of the cleaning and we'll get out of here and back home in time to get the deck finished, the cleaning done and the food cooked for tonight's party!" Barris said as he returned to the bathroom to finish wiping down the shower.
By the time Mila had loaded the car, Barris had returned from the bathroom, when he caught sight of her fingernails.
"Wait a second! We've got to fit your nails in too. When we get back, I'll give a manicure and pedicure, and do your nails (after I do your facial mask and give you your backrub), and then I'll get working on the deck while you get ready? Sound good?" Barris asked her.
"I just wanted to take a little time to appreciate you honey..." Mila moved in to kiss him, but found that with her added assets, she couldn't quite get close enough to his lips.
Barris leaned in and gave her a quick peck on the cheek.
"Alright! Lets go while we still have time!" Barris ushered her out of the motel room and into the passenger seat of his car, and then made his way around to the front.
After checking out, they drove home to Mila's Manor, a thirty minute trip from the motel, where the first of the guests from the Sanctum were starting to arrive in the early evening.
Unfinished SAPCHoP
Before Mila was even out of the passenger seat, Barris was sprinting to the backyard and his lawn cutting shed, where he'd kept most of his sparse collection of tools and equipment. Namely, the tractor mower for Mila's humongous lawn, and a small toolbox that contained a claw hammer, a few screwdrivers, a hand saw, a plumbing bob, a level and few boxes of nails.
Yirfir and Jasmer turned from the front door to face Mila as she rounded the back of the car, to start unloading the party gifts.
"Mila, you're looking rather well today..." Yirfir remarked, not able to see her fully as she was obscured behind the car and the gifts she was attempting to negotiate around her new assets to more effectively carry them.
The gifts that is.
Barris' holiday gifts I meant.
The ones that Barris had delicately wrapped earlier with his hands.
Oh for crying out loud, I mean the boxes wrapped in gift paper into which the hyper-intelligent bees had stowed away as part of their migration plans to setup a franchising scheme for their next hive. Not referring to any (new) addition to Mila's body in any way shape or form. I mean, its already bad enough that writers like myself were tripping over them constantly with adjectives and clearly pushing the boundaries for what was acceptable in modern literature, and most insensitively I might add.
"Do you need a hand with those...?" Jasmer asked Mila, who looked at him rather puzzled and perhaps even confused.
"Oh? The gifts you mean... That would be wonderful Jasmer..." Jasmer stepped over to the car as Mila passed him and Yirfir.
"Something's wrong. They must have had an argument. She's never this agreeable," Yirfir leaned in and remarked to Jasmer, who quickly built up a stack of gifts first for Yirfir, and then for himself.
"They're young-ish and in love-ish is all that is. I wouldn't read anything into it further than..." Jasmer's jaws dropped on Mila's return trip back to the car.
"I was only concerned... for... their... mountains..." Yirfir tried to finish her statement to Jasmer only to catch sight of what had caught his attention.
"That's a lovely blouse Mila..." Yirfir acted faster than Jasmer, who was still tongue tied.
"You like it? Thank you! It seems to go nice with these shoes..." Mila responded, turning and modeling the blouse for them.
"It does... quite well..." Yirfir continued along to the dining room table where Mila had placed the first gifts.
Jasmer followed her and unloaded in the same place and they returned for their last trip.
"You must have had a busy day from the look of things..." Yirfir smiled, making more pleasant conversation as she arrived back at the car with Jasmer.
"You noticed! Tammy did it for me. I think its just lovely, but between you and me, Barris thinks its too small for my body..." Mila explained to Yirfir and Jasmer, who both seemed perplexed as to how Mila could so casually refer to such a big change.
"I honestly never had Barris pegged that way..." Yirfir responded, she too now tongue-tied.
"Well he really likes it big and long... so naturally this caught him off guard quite a bit..." Mila responded, so clearly unhindered.
Barris quickly walked by them, heading for one of the buffet drawers.
"I would have preferred a bit longer myself..." Barris said to Yirfir and Jasmer as he opened the drawer, clearly searching for something.
"I see..." Jasmer was out of responses as was Yirfir by this point.
"Have you seen the orange extension cord?" asked Barris of Mila.
"Yes. Its plugged into the other orange extension cord powering the backyard speakers..." Mila replied.
"We haven't seen you for sometime Barris. What are you up to?" asked Jasmer.
"Sorry, I'm just putting an addition onto the back deck right now, it should be ready in about half an hour, at which time your bath should be warmed and ready for your afternoon massage Mila?" Barris responded to Jasmer and Yirfir, and then looked over to his fiancé to assure that she had the schedule he'd planned for their night committed to memory.
"Are we too early? We could take off and step into town for a bit if you're still preparing?" Yirfir suggested to Barris, as found a measuring tape he'd been looking for in the buffet drawer.
"No! Don't be silly! Can I get you a drink? Take a seat out back and keep me company while I finish the deck..." Barris suggested.
"Alright. Do you still need us Mila?" Yirfir asked her friend and former student.
"That's alright. I'll get the gifts ready and Barris will bring you your drinks..." Mila replied, as she began making room under the tree for the spread of gifts that Barris had prepared.
"So Barris, I didn't know that this Tammy person was a surgeon..." Jasmer asked Barris as he returned from the bar fridge with a trio of coolers for them.
"A surgeon? Oh, you mean... No. She's a hairdresser. Don't be silly. She's fully qualified. A little snip here and there, and Mila's as good as new..." Barris cracked open his cooler and presented it to them for a toast.
"Yes... cheers..." they poured their coolers into their cups and each took a healthy drink before continuing.
"So... when did you get into home renovation Barris?" asked Jasmer, pulling a chair out for his wife after which he seated himself beside her.
"Today... mostly. A bit earlier. It was something I've been putting off for about twenty years now..." Barris responded, as he took the handsaw and expertly cut several logs he'd felled from some of the pine trees on Mila's property, into perfect two-by-fours.
Enough of which to finish his work on the deck.
"I see that you're quite skilled at this... Did you just pick it up or...?" Jasmer continued, now clearly concerned that Barris might not be entirely together.
"Mostly. I've gotta make sure I'm worthy of my wife's affections you know?" Barris said as he affixed the two-by-fours to the deck, tapping them quickly in with a hammer and several eight inch galvanized nails until the addition and the accompanying rail was in place six minutes later.
"There... all done. Need another drink? I'm just going to run Mila's bath..." Barris said as checked their glasses.
"Sure, we'll take another Barris," Yirfir agreed to his offer.
A moment later and Barris returned with their fresh drinks and a full platter of prepared Salmon Rolls, Dumplings, and Spinach wrapped Scallops and Avacado dip.
"Enjoy!" Barris said and then disappeared back into the house to attend to Mila's bath and massage.
"It took him fifteen minutes to build an addition on the back deck, big enough to accomodate another twenty people, and he did it with wood he cut from pine trees moments ago, a hand saw, and a few hand tools. Something is clearly different about Barris..." Jasmer reasoned with his wife.
"Personally I'm very happy for Mila, having such a dedicated man..." Yirfir responded to Jasmer.
"Oh please! He's a little too accommodating! Its not natural for a couple to just agree to everything they want," Jasmer said to Yirfir.
"And you're saying that she hasn't made some concessions for him?" Yirfir gestured with her hands, miming a huge pair of breasts.
'That doesn't seem anything like the Mila and Barris I know, is all that I'm saying. They were always the quintessential romantic couple... mostly... but never to the point of making their guests feel like they should gag themselves with a shovel... their concessions for each other as you put it, so nauseatingly unlike them..." Jasmer reasoned with his wife, who looked at him shrewdly.
"Does that mean that you wouldn't do the same for me...?" Yirfir challenged him in their little game of wits.
"Ditto!" Jasmer responded, cupping his hands over his chest to mimic a huge pair of breasts.
"Yes... There are limits to the concessions that couples should make for each other..." Yirfir reluctantly agreed, not willing to alter her body except in the interest of her own health and well being.
"Not to mention there are limits as to one's sacrificing of their own integrity for their partner's benefit..." Jasmer added.
"Its her body, though..." Yirfir argued as she thought about the choice Mila had so clearly agreed to.
"Are you saying to me that you'd find it alright if I went out there and started going on about how much I admire women with large breasts, in front of impressionable young women much, much more modestly endowed?" Jasmer responded.
"Young impressionable women? You mean minors?" confirmed Yirfir.
"Its their body?" Jasmer threw her argument back at her.
"Not if they're minors! What kind of a monster would make young women feel self conscious about the size of their body parts? Enough so that they'd think that for members of the opposite sex to like them and notice them, that they should go out and get their bodies alterted to please?" Yirfir responded, clearly very passionate about the topic.
"Mila's not a minor. She had to have made that choice for herself as an adult," Jasmer responded.
"I still find it difficult to believe that the Mila I knew would ever agree to something of that ilk. She was my student for years Jasmer. You have no idea what you're talking about," Yirfir defended her stance on the issue.
"Fine! And the Barris that I know would never request something like that of her!" Jasmer stood up for Barris.
Yirfir thought about it carefully, and then nodded to her husband.
"Agreed. There is something not right about either of them. They're so unlike the people we knew." Yirfir looked to Jasmer, a modest smile slowly appearing on her face.
"What? What is it?" Jasmer asked her.
"Its good to know that despite our not bending over backwards for each other, that we can still work together," Yirfir said to him.
"Honey, we wouldn't have it any other way," Jasmer agreed.
Nelony suddenly opened the sliding door and stepped out onto the deck, Shaela in tow, preceded by a handsome man with whom Yirfir and Jasmer were unfamiliar. Barris appeared behind them all soon thereafter.
"Yirfir? Jasmer? Barris? I'd like you to meet Eric," Nelony smiled as she introduced her date.
"Pleased to meet you all. Nelony has told me so much about you and I have to admit, you appear the part in person," he said to them, politely shaking their hands as he greeted them.
"She already has him well trained as you can see..." Shaela remarked as she followed them around the table for her greetings.
"She's not the only one..." Yirfir looked to Barris, who'd arrived with a handful of drinks from the bar fridge.
"The glasses are on the table there. Help yourself. I'm just attending to Mila for a bit longer. Help yourselves to the hors d'ouvres here and we'll be with you in a bit..." Barris disappeared back into the house and ran up the stairs to finish Mila's manicure, pedicure, foot and body massage and nails.
...
Gwendolyn sat comfortably in the driver's seat of her two door hybrid, while Nathalie sat beside her in the passenger seat, her phone in hand as she read a question for Gwendolyn:
"In nineteen ninety-eight, this company was founded by an eccentric systems software engineer, initially starting out as an online chat platform?" Nathalie asked Gwendolyn.
"What is MindSpice and who is Gabriel Asnon?" Gwendolyn responded.
"<BEEEEEEP>... close! Want another try?" Nathalie offered Gwendolyn after mimicking the sound of a losing buzzer with a raspy voice.
"...uhhhh... nineteen ninety-eight? Oh! What is Cheerify and who is Cynthia Pearldolly?" Gwendolyn responded excitedly.
"That's definitely close enough, though FYI her name is Cynthia Pearldottir. That's pretty good so far. Twenty questions and you've gotten sixteen of them right," Nathalie checked Gwendolyn's score on the phone.
"...and I was driving the entire time. That's got to be worth an extra point?" Gwendolyn added.
The car ahead of them, which had been slowing down more and more as the driver obviously checked either side of the road for landmarks, suddenly came skidding to a stop. Gwendolyn slammed on her brakes, immediately leaning on her horn.
"What's with this driver? They've been stop and go for the last twenty minutes!" Gwendolyn said, very obviously frustrated as Nathalie checked their location on the GPS.
"We're like right out front of Mila's. The driveway should be just up that way on the left hand side," Nathalie pointed out to Gwendolyn.
"Oh, good. Should I just pass her or wait?" Gwendolyn checked the oncoming lane for any traffic when the car ahead of them began moving again.
"Finally. Let's see if we can make it to the driveway..." Gwendolyn said sarcastically.
The car ahead of them paused as it arrived at Mila's driveway, and then slowly made a left turn into the enormous driveway and took a parking spot outside of the double car garage. Gwendolyn pulled in behind the car and shut off her car before getting out with Nathalie.
The driver of the other car was a short woman of about five foot seven, clearly adorned in gypsy attire when viewed from behind. She turned to face Gwendolyn and Nathalie who were greeted by a pretty and lively face.
"You had a little trouble finding the place?" asked Gwendolyn of her.
"Trouble? No. I'm a teller of fortunes and I knew that it would be a difficult and long trip, coming all the way from my shop in Niagara Falls. If I didn't, then what kind of teller of fortunes would I be?" the Gypsy responded to them.
"Bad traffic?" asked Gwendolyn.
"That... and the fact that this car is from nineteen ninety-eight and doesn't have GPS, which is very odd because my brother set my shop up with the latest computer and website. I'm Bella your Forune Teller. Enough about me, and who might you be?" the Gypsy responded, extending her hand first to Gwendolyn and then to Nathalie, though Nathalie cut in, very excited to be meeting another fortune teller.
"I'm Nathalie, a dabler in the mystic arts myself. I mostly focus on tarot cards, astrology and occasionally tea readings too. Its so nice to meet you! Oh, and this is my friend Gwendolyn!" Nathalie shook hands with Bella and then introduced Gwen.
"Pleased to meet you, Bella. Do you have a phone? Cause you can just hook up a phone holder/charger in your car and plug it into the lighter, and use the GPS from your phone," Gwendolyn explained to Bella, who seemed stunned by Gwen's simple solution to her dilemna.
"I'll get my brother to do it when I get back to Niagara Falls. Thank you! You see, I've only known you for a minute, and you've already done something good to help me. You're a kind soul," Bella responded to Gwen, as a limousine pulled into the driveway and slowly pulled up, lining the back door up with the front walkway.
A tall woman with immensely perfect blonde hair and a near perfect physique stepped out of the driver's seat of the limousine and proceeded to open the back door as she stood to the side.
An older small framed man got out of the back seat, a hat adorning his head, wearing a black dress coat and slacks and an elaborately ornate cane in his hand. He turned to face Bella, Gwen and Nathalie, removing his hat briefly from his head to greet them before replacing it again.
Morton Keyser
"Good day," the man said to them as he turned to head towards the front door.
Another man stepped out, much taller than the first but somewhere near the same age. He wore a gray suit, and a perfectly knotted bow tie graced his neck. He too smiled and nodded to the others before following the first man towards Mila's front door.
"I'll just park the car at the end of the driveway, on the gravel if that will be alright, Morton?" asked the limousine driver.
"That would be wonderful Gallea. Good suggestion. Then, if you would grace us with your presence and escort these kind guests to the front door with us, we could all make our entry at the same time," Morton added.
Gallea closed the back door and got into the driver's door of the limousine, and then pulled out backwards to the end of the driveway and onto a gravel section that housed the mailbox and package reception safe. When she'd parked the limousine, she got out and approached Bella, Gwen and Nathalie, somewhat overshadowing the three of them.
Gallea Keyser
"Hi. I'm Gallea Keyser," Gallea held out her hand for each of them in turn.
"Gallea! How are you my darling! We haven't seen each other in nearly two years!" Bella offered her friend a hug.
"I'm sorry, but you look so different with this year's holiday attire. Morton? Benjamin? Its Bella and her friends Gwendolyn and Nathalie," Gallea quickly covered for herself, and then informed Morton and Benjamin before walking with the other women to the front door.
As Morton was about to press the door bell, the door suddenly flew open.
"Hello Morton. Benjamin. Bella! Gallea too! And..." Barris began.
"Barris, this is Gwendolyn, and this is Nathalie," Gallea introduced the two newcomers to their group.
"I'm Mila's fiancé, Barris. Very pleased to meet you. Do come in and make yourselves comfortable. There's food and drink out back on the deck, and I'm just getting some other goodies ready for later. Mila should be down any moment," Barris said, holding the door open for them as the all filtered into the front foyer.
"Bella! You look very... have you lost a bit of weight?" Bella turned to comment to Barris, but by that time he was already gone somewhere else working on his immense list of pre-party chores.
Gallea took their coats and put them in the closet, and then led them to the sliding doors of the back deck, where many of the guests were gathered and the party was beginning to pick up steam as the evening sun settled beneath the grove of apple and pear trees that graced Mila's orchard.
Morton and Benjamin found their way over to Yirfir and Jasmer, greeting the other guests along the way.
"Is this the senior's section?" asked Morton with a mile on his face.
"It certainly is. Can I get you a plate of cheese and avocado dip, and a cup of prune juice and maybe?" asked Jasmer jokingly.
"That's quite alright. I'll stick with a glass of Mila's house wine if you're asking," Morton held out his hand to greet Jasmer.
"I'll get that for him. I know my way around here. What are you having Benjamin?" asked Nelony, standing from her place beside Eric.
"A glass of sipping whiskey, three fingers should do, Nelony," Benjamin smiled as he took a seat beside Yirfir.
"Morton, I just noticed that they have a place for the gifts? I'm just going to run out to the limo and get our gifts from the back trunk," Gallea said as she disappeared into the house once again, and out through the front door.
"With all these fresh faces here, how are the Sanctum regulars going to show up without causing suspicion?" Morton asked Jasmer, but it was Yirfir who answered.
"Mila had a rather large gazebo installed last year, with an interior large enough for the portal weavers to use. It remains hidden inside. There's motion sensing lights inside of it, so nobody ends up arriving in a dark room and stubbing their toes on a doorframe. We're the only two who've used it today, but there's a lot of guests from the Sanctum yet to arrive, so I imagine we'll see quite a bit of activity from it," Yirfir explained to Morton.
"I would've used it myself if I'd have known, with Benjamin's help that is?" Morton responded.
"What about this that I've been hearing that the Sanctum is having a staffing shortage?" asked Benjamin.
"We've had trouble attracting new members, not to mention with recent issues involving what appears to be a non-consensual psychic collective of some form, our security screening process is vulnerable, and we haven't had the resources to evaluate the threat or develop a new screening method. We've mostly been relying on full members, who have been bringing us people they trust, but at only a trickle's pace since before the Battle of the Sanctum," Yirfir explained to them.
"As a possible short term solution, we're looking at bringing in a new order of seers. Especially those with talents for entropic alchemy, divining, remote viewing and fortune telling, not to mention we're also looking for the naturally veiled..." Jasmer added.
"And by naturally veiled you mean...?" Benjamin asked.
"Those born with a natural immunity or shielding against extrasensory phenomenon. There's a multitude of lore in a number of worldly cultures that indicate those born with immunity, but we haven't been able to verify many of those means, but we're working closely with a number of outside mystic agencies to identify prospects," Jasmer continued.
"What about Gallea?" Morton suggested.
"But she's a..." Jasmer paused, not entirely sure of how to politely address her origins.
"A crafted woman. A construct. A golem, of the richest clay, the most pristine water and the purest gold. She is everything that my wife and I had dreamt of in the daughter we were planning to have. Before Arlaya passed away, she made me promise that I would go on to have a daughter, our daughter. I promised her on her death bed, and she gave me her most treasured heirloom, one that had been in the possession of every woman of her family line. Before she passed on, she put every one of her dreams and aspirations about our daughter into this heirloom, and it became Gallea's heart. She can't reason the same as we can, though she's quite adept and skillful in life, but her greatest strength is her heart, for in it, my wife's and my dreams of a daughter are contained. She lives by her heart. As for what you're looking in terms of your prospects for the Sanctum? She's immune to psychic intrusion, for the means to her rationale doesn't originate in the same way as it does other people. Her heart is a mystical source that can't be scryed, by the means that psychic collectives or others who use collective scrying to open a person's mind and memory employ. However, please do remember that she's our daughter, my wife's and mine. She's no less a real person than anyone else, and in the end it would be her choice alone," Morton explained to Jasmer and Yirfir.
"Would you mind if we discussed the matter with her?" Yirfir asked Morton.
"Not at all. That's why I suggested it. She's not going to grow as a person if she's only ever with her father. Working with the Sanctum would be a good thing for her and for you from what I understand," Morton added.
"Sorry, I couldn't help but overhear your conversation and thought that you might want to know that there's a few 'seers' here tonight. Bella for instance, and that other girl over there... uhhh Nathalie I think?" Shaela leaned over and interjected herself quietly.
"Bella? We could discuss these matters with her. She's clearly demonstrated her abilities in delving and scrying, and to a degree in entropic alchemy," Yirfir quickly glanced over to Bella's direction.
"We'd have to test her intrinsic and latent abilities and see that she'd be a good fit for the Sanctum. Same with her friends. We'd have to approach them very cautiously and in the usual manner," Jasmer responded, looking to Yirfir and Shaela.
"It sounds to me as if you're on your way to a few solutions then," Benjamin smiled.
"I suppose we are. Maybe that's a sign of things to come, both at this party and perhaps for the future of the Sanctum?" Yirfir suggested.
"Let's finish our drink, and we'll both speak with Gallea, and Bella," Jasmer added.
...
Six billion light years away, a vast armada of space borne vessels emerged from a twisted and sinewy conduit of time/space extending itself for twenty light minutes from the event horizon of a supermassive black hole at the center of its host galaxy.
Corpus sat in the command chair aboard his flagship vessel, the Crystal Crusher, looking at the holographic navigation charts as he tried to find his route through the wormhole network.
"Hmmm... we went through the NGC 1560 wormhole two jumps ago, and then through the M87 just now... That would put us... oh dang! I think we're..." Corpus scratched his chin, as he traced his route on the navigation charts.
"Sir, we could stop and ask for directions?" his 2IC suggested.
"bahhh! We're not lost! I'm just finding us a better route! Don't we have quantum-scale boson, muon and gluon actuated computers to handle this sort of thing?" Corpus asked.
"Sir, we switched them off a couple jumps ago. When you complained about a strange ringing in your ears?" his 2IC reminded him.
"Oh? That's what fixed it? I was thinking that it just went away. Hmmm. Good job. Insofar as directions go, no! I'll figure this out... wait... is that an O-class blue aura crystalline star I see on our scanners?" Corpus pointed out on another part of the holographic interface.
"I believe that is, Sir," his 2IC answered.
"We have some crystal crushing to do! Set course for that star! We're going to crush it!" Corpus closed the holographic navigation map and opened his tactical and strategic interface.
"Ohhhh... and when we're done, we'll go back a jump and take the other wormhole. We'll find our way soon enough..." Corpus said as he lined up the array of compressed neutron cannons at their target.
Through the corridors of the ship his voice echoed until it reached the chambers of his wife.
The communicator came on and her voice emerged:
"Corpus? Are you there? Why don't you stop and ask for directions?!!!" she said to him.
"Alright honey. I'm on it, after I take care of some other pressing matters..." Corpus spoke in a withdrawn and timid voice as he smirked at his 2IC.
"Alright. After we've crushed this crystalline star, stop and ask for directions," Corpus said aloud, not even looking to his 2IC but definitely resenting him.
"Yes Sir. Alright men, you heard him. Crush that star!" the 2IC ordered, wondering if he'd moved closer or farther from shortening his life span.
...
Barris quickly made his way down the stairs ahead of Mila, who was still taking things carefully not being able to see her feet from her current perspective anymore, and feeling somewhat of unfamiliar balance.
Her nails, both those on her hands and feet, upon which were worn her favourite heeled dress shoes each adorned with a crystal near the toes, were expertly painted (by Mila of course). Her body was adorned by a long dress which managed to fit her topside much to her gratitude given her recent changes.
When she'd made it to the bottom of the stairs, it was Nelony who now in the kitchen, spotted her first.
She had a glass of wine in her hand, which upon seeing Mila, summarily dropped to the floor.
"Oh dear...!" her hands immediately went to her cheeks.
"Nelony!" Mila opened her arms for a hug, much to the dread of her best friend.
"Watch your step on the glass dear. I seem to have dropped my wine..." Nelony said awkwardly as she dodged Mila's hug.
"Let me get that. You're a guest! Go out there and enjoy yourself. I'll be with you in a minute with a fresh glass for you," Mila said as she grabbed the broom and began cleaning the broken glass from the floor.
"Uhhhh... you seem a tad bit over burdened already. Perhaps I should stay and assist?" Nelony asked her friend awkwardly.
"That's alright, I'll get this done. You go out there and enjoy yourself," Mila said almost too agreeably.
...
Nelony bumped into Barris as he made his way out through the sliding door.
"Sorry 'bout that love," Barris said to her.
Nelony looked at Barris with a scathing look on her face as the pressure built within her.
Despite her best efforts, her hand as if spring loaded, suddenly jumped from her side and slapped him across the face, loudly enough that the entire party in progress suddenly stopped.
"How could you?!!!" Nelony screamed at him.
"You mean the deck? I thought it was big enough? There's lots of room for everyone!" Barris responded defensively.
"Oh sure, the deck's big enough, but Mila's knockers weren't! You pig of a man!" Nelony nearly spat at him.
"I beg your pardon, but Mila had the knocker on the door replaced years ago with a doorbell!" Barris rubbed his face as it swelled ever so slightly.
"You know exactly what I mean! She wasn't good enough for you that you had to change her?!!! You make me sick!" Nelony stormed outside and to the border of the deck, her back to Barris as she waited for Mila to return.
Every one of the guests was staring at Barris, perhaps waiting for him to say something to ease the tension that had clearly peaked and was not in any way ready to give up its place at the top.
Morton Keyser looked to Barris, suddenly recalling why he'd placed such an importance upon attending Mila's party.
His memories went back to years before, and his first encounter with the Sanctum and their allies...
A Lady's Prerogative: The Pug Mandate
At that very moment, the doors to the gazebo opened and a number of guests stepped into view, the first of which made his way upon four short and stubby legs.
"Happiu~isuka!" Nelony said excitedly as the little pug ran for her happily.
Nelony greets Happiu~isuka with a biscuit
"Someone's been keeping well?" Nelony said, reaching into her pocket and pulling forth a dog biscuit which she'd brought specifically for the pooch.
He happily took it in his jaws and began crunching it to smithereens, making sure that none of the crumbs or morsels were lost to the surface of the deck.
Mishima Sato arrives
"Like any good party guest, he always immediately goes right for the hors d'ouvres and buffet," Mishima Sato said as he walked the flagstone trail from the gazebo to the deck, accompanied by a few other expected arrivals.
"That might not be the case if someone fed him a bit more!" Nelony responded.
"If I fed him the way you do, it would have been a very thin and frail me running to you for handouts from your pocket, and him hobbling along with an extra two hundred pounds of weight, after having put me in the poor house having fed him the same designer treats you've been giving him," Sato responded.
"He deserves a good treat every now and again," Nelony responded to him.
"Well this is now, and again won't happen for at least another six months. A good pacing for the kind of treats with which you've been spoiling him. If you only treated people the same as you do him and the rest of nature, this world might be a virtual utopia by now," Sato replied.
Xenshi - Spirit Sister Of The Ancient Tao arrives
"It would seem that we're not too early..." Xenshi said as she approached Mila's back deck.
"Or too late," Xushu, her brother, added from beside his sister.
...
Near the sliding doors on the deck, Yirfir and Jasmer both approached Barris, while most of the rest of the party slowly picked up to the level of a hushed conversation, tension still thick in the air after Nelony's confrontation of Barris.
"I take that Nelony was addressing you about Mila's recent changes?" asked Yirfir.
"What changes are you referring to? Her hair?" Barris responded, folding his arms and revealing a very toned pair of arms and shoulders, which too caught Yirfir's and Jasmer's attention.
"Not exactly..." Yirfir began, once again hitting the roadblock of how awkward a subject it was to discuss, despite the fact that there was a clear need for it to be so.
"Barris, we're concerned for both Mila and yourself. You see, the Mila we know and love was much lighter in the region of her chest..." Jasmer began.
"...considerably so and happily as much too," Yirfir added.
"As was the Barris that we knew, with every aspect of her being, both in terms of her creative and gentle being, and her immense natural beauty. In fact, it was something about which you were both quite happy. It was never the kind of thing that we'd expect either of you to change so drastically, seemingly so on a whim," Yirfir continued.
"What are you talking about? The Mila I've always known and loved has always been a little..." Barris too felt uncomfortable discussing these matters about his fiancé even with their best friends, and so he cupped his hands in front and mimed it for them.
"...big... ...mountainous... ...spacially greedy..." Barris explained as he caricatured it for them with his hands.
Yirfir gently grabbed Barris by the arm, and pulled him inside of the house through the sliding doors. They ventured a ways down the back hall, past the kitchen and to the wall of shame, as Barris often jokingly referred to it.
The wall was lined with framed photographs, mostly of Mila and Barris, and certainly of family and friends.
"See this one here?" Yirfir pointed out a photograph of Mila to Barris.
It was a photo taken at the beach, as Mila lay on a folding sunbed in her bikini, even posing for the photographer, who just happened to be Barris. In the photo, it was very clear that Mila was nowhere near as endowed as she now was.
"How is this? This is Mila, but she's so different from the Mila I've always known," Barris reacted upon seeing the photograph.
"And yet, that Mila in the photograph is the Mila we've always know," Yirfir responded.
"And we can't both be right, is what we're trying to say," Jasmer reasoned with Barris.
"Oh, its so nice to see someone finally admiring the wall of shame..." Mila said as she snuck up on them from the kitchen.
"Hi honey. Yirfir and Jamser were just taking in the memories contained on this wall, and they happened to notice something a little off in the photos..." Barris handed Mila the photograph of her on the beach.
She immediately smiled, remembering that exact moment, but then an abstract difference between herself and the photo arrived at her awareness. She looked down at her own bosom, and then the one in her photograph and seemed very perturbed.
"Is this some kind of a joke? I thought it was against the rules of the Sanctum to use the weave for personal hoaxes or grudges!" Mila looked to Barris first, and then to Jasmer and finally Yirfir skeptically.
"These photos Mila, are of the Mila we all remember. So far, it seems that you and Barris are the only two who don't concur with this point of view," Yirfir explained to one of her favourite students of the weave.
The sliding door suddenly opened and Nelony stormed in the door, followed by Sato, and finally by Xenshi and Xushu who pursued them all in an attempt to keep up with them in case of trouble.
"Wait...!" Yirfir urged Nelony to hold her challenge for the bigger discussion, but failed.
"Finally I find you! Mila, why did you do this to yourself?!!!" Nelony challenged Mila.
"Do what? My hair you mean? I thought it was..." Mila once again found herself in the salon chair, looking at Barris' face, when he had been lost for words upon seeing the immense change in her hair style.
"Its... nice...! Really... really... nice!" Barris had said to her, doing everything he could to soften the shock it had been for him.
Mila now stood before Nelony, facing the same scrutiny (from which the hyper-intelligent bees could have learned a thing or two), that Barris had given her in the salon and the entire situation suddenly unfolded before her mind's eye. Her sudden sense of sadness that the man she loved was so set back by her courage to try something new with her hair, one of the many palettes through which a woman expresses herself. And he responded as if he had somehow lost her.
Now, here were her friends doing exactly the same thing to her, and yet something still stood between this moment and the salon that had gotten in the way. Something that was supposed to be private. Affectionate. A moment between two in love.
She thought back to the hotel room, and what a wonderful time they'd had there, but there was another competing memory. One that overlapped the same memory she was having and it was very different. She'd felt elated at the moment she'd shared with her Barris, the man who now stood beside her and the same man with which she'd been involved for the last nine years.
And yet, there was a moment when their love making had been, insofar as her efforts go, an attempt to end it abruptly, so she could have some mind space of her own to contemplate the state of her relationship with Barris, while he inevitably slept in his post-orgasm slumber.
She had memories of life and her immense creativity, crafting and designing many great works of art over the course of her life. Many adorned her walls, while many she'd worn to parties and gatherings. She was the center of an entire ecosystem of creativity, and despite what these people were calling her out for, she remembered being accepted exactly as the person she was. Not the person they now expected her to be. It was as if she'd recently acquired two different sets of memorty that occupied the same recent time span.
Memories that were competing with one another.
They converged around a moment when Mila remembered tearing the wrapper off of her gift, and in a moment of both the most extreme love she could have for someone, and the most enduring hatred of his worst, she wished for something that...
When she returned from her thoughts, Nelony and Yirfir were in a heated argument with Sato and Jasmer, while Xenshi and Xushu both in their own way attempted to be the peace makers. Xushu would take their argument to the extreme, hoping to snap them out of their sudden emotionally guided disdain for each other's perspective, while Xenshi provided the voice of reason, a beacon from which they could all find common ground and the sensibility to discuss matters rationally. However, the conversation was missing the two people over which it was being fought.
"It was the gifts!" Mila suddenly blurted out.
"Mila, could you kindly stay out of this...! Wait! I'm sorry Mila, did you say... the gifts?" Yirfir turned to face Mila who'd suddenly returned from her emotional turmoil of recall.
"We opened gifts! Do you remember honey?" Mila grabbed Barris' hands, naturally holding them close to her chest, suddenly making him feel a bit cautious lest Nelony and Yirfir suddenly lynch him.
"The gifts! That's right! We opened gifts!" Barris too now remembered the moment that they tore into their gifts, in a sort of haze of passion and rage for one another.
"Who wrapped those gifts?" asked Yirfir.
"I did. At the museum. Before I went to pickup Mila at the salon," Barris recalled.
"How many did you wrap?" asked Jasmer, catching on to his wife's line of reasoning.
"I think there were twelve in all. Two that Mila and I had picked for each other, and ten more," Barris remembered his time back at the museum, where he'd been busy all day landscaping the grounds in minus ten degree weather to prepare a few acres of new flower beds for the coming spring.
A detail he'd left out and one that likely would have given them a considerable clue about the nature of their situation.
They all looked at each other, and all at once went for the gifts on the gift table beneath the Seasonally Appropriate Politically Correct Holiday Tree (or SAPCHaT for short, as if not to confuse matters further).
When they arrived, Yirfir and Jasmer both began going through the gifts.
"Which ones are the ones you wrapped?" asked Jasmer as he piled the gifts on the now empty dining room table.
"I'll sort them to the left... Uhhhh... this one, this one, not this one, this one..." Barris began sorting them with the help of Jasmer and Yirfir as the others watched with intense interest.
When she spotted it, Nelony picked up the gift tagged as her's.
"Oh, you didn't..." Nelony immediately began opening the gift as Mila tried to intercept it.
"No wait!" Mila pleaded with Nelony but by that time it was already too late.
The bee contained in that gift had secretly snuck out of it, and found its way to Nelony's posterior. Upon the height of her joy opening the gift, it stung her.
All at once, the most extreme of her love and the most destructiveness of her hate emerged from her in the form of a wish.
Almost instantly, the Mila they all knew was returned and standing before them, still struggling with Nelony in attempt to stop her from tampering with the gift.
Barris however, had also changed. He had returned to being the same Barris he had been since wrapping the gifts and loading the car before picking up Mila at the salon. He however, wasn't the same Barris that had set about attempting to landscape acres of land at the museum to add flower beds for the spring. Something this Barris (and most other people) would have seen as either obsession or insanity, or quite possibly both.
If necessity was the mother of all invention, then it certainly was the father of all procrastination and this was certainly the case with this particular Barris. The very thought of landscaping the museum grounds in the middle of winter made justifiable the aspects of comfort and the immensely health preserving aspects of procrastination very reasonable. It gave hope to all men who'd put things off for warmer weather, when confronted by other men, who would do before thinking. Leap before looking. Perhaps motivated by the fact that they were running from something in themselves or someone else that they did not want to face.
And so it was, that this Barris returned to his rightful place in the scheme of things as they currently stood, albeit somewhat changed.
Mila suddenly released Nelony's gift as Nelony stumbled backwards slightly.
"That was the most profound experience I've ever had opening a gift..." Nelony said aloud, very exhausted on many levels.
Mila looked down and saw her favourite dress shoes with only the most modest obstruction of her view.
"Oh thank goodness!" Mila said as she realized that she was once again home.
"I'm sure that the other Mila is likely just as grateful, being in her own home as well as she likely is," Morton had stepped into the dining room area, looking with concern to his friends and peers.
"Other Mila?" Nelony suddenly caught on upon seeing the Mila she remembered.
"What you just experienced is the effects of when two realities, two planes of existence intersect as a result of some very powerful manipulation of the great weave," Morton explained to Mila.
"...and a lot of scrutiny and facetiousness from all of you, who were all over me about my sudden loss of upper body mass... as Nelony had put it! Jumping all over me that I'd change to suit Barris' wants and desires," Mila responded, truly traumatized by the experience for it had left her with a sense of being inadequate.
As if she simply wasn't enough as she was, with her modest and comfortable body. The only one she'd known and loved for her entire life, for it had safely gotten her through many challenging situations in life. Those that had required endurance at times, and strength at others, and it had somehow through every challenge to her well being and health, gotten her through safely. Not only that, but she'd also felt great joy and pleasure through it as well. It was perfect for her in every way.
And yet, up until moments earlier, her friends and entire circle simply didn't see things the same way. They implored that she was not herself. That the Mila they'd known had a much different layout and generosity of body shape and size. She'd been scolded by all of her friends and the people she'd trusted most, for she had been different from the Mila they remembered and it somehow was a blasphemy to them and their understanding of things, as much so as it had been for the Mila who up until moments earlier, had been here in her place.
She all at once understood the immense pressure that some, perhaps all women are subjected to when it comes to a society not accepting of them as they are. Sure, there was the benefits of better health if you chose to pursue a high degree of exercise and activity in your life, and that could be a good thing if that was what you chose for and of yourself.
However, the pressures that Mila had rarely experienced throughout her life, had suddenly been presented to her all at once, when she'd been thrust into a world that had come to accept a very different Mila than the one they'd previously had. All at once she wondered how truly these people looked into her, rather than at her exterior, to acclimatize themselves to the person they claimed to know and love.
What a weight such an idea must be upon the shoulders of a young woman. The world telling you that you're not enough, and that for people - a potential mate to even look at you admiringly - that you have to be so many different things all at once, all of them different from who you currently were.
The experience that the other, generously endowed Mila had experienced was no different than the experience that their Mila had in her reality. They too were as confronting of her, immediately challenging that she was herself at all, and none of them had realized how they'd looked to her not as a person, but as a shell around a person. At that point, she wasn't quite sure if the lesson she'd gained from it was theirs or hers. Perhaps it was a bit of both.
"It is a pleasure to see you again," Xenshi broke the tension with her honest sincerity.
"I wish I could say the same! I rather liked that other one!" Xushu added, now floating upside down over Xenshi's head.
His brashness of statement was taken as scathing sarcasm, and they all knew exactly what he meant, including Mila for he'd earned the respect and right to express the most sarcastic of views to them. Others, however unfamiliar, might not get the same acceptance nor did they have any obligation to receive, whether presenting their own views, or merely parroting or echoing those of the people that Mila and her friends knew.
"Truly, my sister and I are glad to have you back Mila," Xushu flipped back onto his feet and stood before her.
"This isn't over yet. This is just the proverbial tip of the iceberg. You see, things as you knew them, perhaps from some time ago, are very different than the due course given your interconnectedness would have taken them," Morton explained to them.
"How so? It appears that we have our Mila, and our Barris, don't we?" Yirfir responded to Morton, then looking both to Mila and then Barris for their agreement.
"I feel like I'm home," Mila replied.
"Me? I don't know. What do you think Mila?" asked Barris of his fiancé.
"I think you're my Barris, and that we've got issues to work on," Mila said to him, both lovingly and assertively.
"So be it. I'm Barris and we've got issues to work on," Barris responded.
"Something happened in your past. Something between the two of you, and changed things immensely, and altered the realities and planes of everything. Since your encounter with a certain Power Lord..." Morton began.
"Lorr?" confirmed Jasmer.
"Precisely. In France. La Pied D'Arbour Noire. The mansion there. Something from that moment forward altered everything, and I''ve been trailing you all and trying my best to piece it all together. To find ways to stitch reality back to its intended course, for all of this happens all at once. Our minds just present it to us in a sequentially temporal manner, alchemically speaking of course," Morton explained to them.
"That is why some dragons remember the past, and why some remember the future," Xenshi added.
"From what I can see here, someone else has been dabbling in things. Trying to change them from another angle," Morton continued opening their understanding of things.
"Our thoughts exactly. That's why we were examining the gifts..."
"That is, until Nelony lost control and like a curious and impatient child, gave in to the urge to rip her gift open!" Sato spoke in a spiteful yet humourous tone.
"The very act that changed things..." Jasmer said in realization.
"Do you recall what happened when you opened your gifts?" asked Yirfir of Mila and Barris.
"I don't know. There was a lot of tension between us, but I wanted everything to be perfect. And yet, I wanted my needs to be fulfilled. I wanted Barris to live up to expectations and aspirations that might have been a little too high, given the fact that I was very animous over our situation. When I opened that gift, I remember feeling intensity. Like... both passion and anger towards him, and then there was a sharp pain..." Mila recalled.
"Do you recall where?" asked Sato.
Mila pointed to her posterior.
"Barris, was it the same for you?" asked Jasmer.
Barris looked to Mila for approval and she nodded once at him.
"Yes. It was definitely a sharp pain in the..." Barris was interrupted.
"Rear. Let's just leave it at that," Mila finished his sentence.
"It was like a sting! Like a hornet or a bee..." Nelony had a very clear recollection of her experience and that was when Morton turned to see something crawling on the wall.
"Get a jar, now please!" Morton requested of her friends.
It was Nelony who moved first, knowing what he intended to do and fully in support of him seeing as it didn't involve squashing the poor creature, who was in all likelihood just as lost and scared as were they. A moment later she returned with a mason jar from Mila's cupboards. The very same jars Mila often used for pickling cucumbers and beets from her garden, and preserving jams and jellies from her apple and pear trees.
Morton accepted the jar and carefully placed the opening atop of the bee, trapping it. They waited for a few moments for it to climb onto the walls of the jar, and when it did, Morton slowly and carefully removed the jar from the wall as Nelony placed the cap on it and twisted.
"Seems to be unharmed," Morton smiled, admiring the little creature as it tried to make its way to the brightest source of light from within the jar.
"Nelony, I believe that you're the only one of us who has qualifications for what comes next. Could you do the honours?" asked Yirfir of her other student.
"Right then. Ummmm. Alright. Let me give this a try..." Nelony began weaving her hands gracefully in the air and weaving the aether until it accumulated in a ball in her hands, she then stretched it and expanded it until it became a pinkish-greenish dome complete with glowing hexagonal filaments, encompassing them all in the dining room.
"There. That should do it. Alright. I'll start: Hello little fellow. We're friendly and mean you no harm. We just need to ask you a few questions about yourself and maybe a few of your friends? After that, we'll try to find a way to return you to safety," Nelony said aloud, and almost immediately as soon as she directed her speech at the little critter, a projected image of her as a bee appeared on the jar.
It began walking and wiggling its bum, occasionally buzzing its wings.
"Stunning how accurately it depicts our Nelony," Sato remarked, drawing a smirk from Nelony.
A moment later, the bee began doing something similar, however much more elaborately so.
A projection of the bee's face appeared before them, and it began to speak to them in plain English:
"Friendly? After laying that one on your bottom? I find that hard to believe, but who am I to scrutinize? So, what is it you'd like to ask me?" he responded quite clearly fluent in grammatical thinking already.
"He's somehow altered. He's been improved. Most bees aren't capable of grammatical thought, let alone language, yet this one clearly demonstrates grammar in his reply. He's different from other natural bees," Nelony explained to them.
"Ask him why he and his friends were in the gifts," Mila suggested.
"Hello again little one. Could you tell me why you and your friends were inside of those gifts?" asked Nelony of the bee.
The glowing face appeared again and responded:
"Migration really, but your kind would likely call it franchising. We're expanding, seeing as there's an obvious shortage of us, and the great Aerth Queen Bee would certainly want to see us spreading far and wide, seeing as we're amongst the most important of pollinators in the world, alongside our sisters, the butterflies, and this world is on a crash course for disaster from what I understand given this shortage, and the fact that there are many hive like humans: hive wannabees we call them - pun intended - steering humanity on an early crash course with its fate. Something we've been tasked with helping to stop," the bee replied to them, in almost perfect pronunciation and illiteration.
"How is it that you plan to stop all of this? This shortage of pollinators and these hive wannabees?" Nelony asked the little bee.
"How? By migrating to other places of course, and setting up colonies and then keeping the Queen Bee quite contantly busy and making many little bees of course, while the better of your kind spread good public relations for us, not to tamper with our hives and how to recognize an invasive predatory species versus actual pollinators, so we're better protected to do our job for the Aerth Queen Bee and take some stress off of our butterfly sisters. Rinse and repeat. Insofar as the hive wannabees... that is only for the great Aerth Queen Bee to know," the bee responded.
"Well, it seems that we're much closer to understanding this situation, and how they came to be in these gifts, but we're going to have to dig a little deeper," Yirfir surmised, looking to Jasmer who nodded in agreement with her.
"Are there any bee keepers in the Alivale region?" asked Jasmer of Mila.
"I'm not sure. I mean, there's someone around here who provides honey to the local markets, and lots of it, but I've never looked into the matter myself. My orchards are alive with both bees and butterflies in the spring and summer, but not like these," Mila explained to them.
"Where's your first home little one? Your first hive?" asked Nelony of the bee.
"Let me check my ancestral rolodex here," the bee responded, taking a moment to check something bound to his furry little body.
"Alright... BzzzBinky, BzzzBidbin, BzzzBusy... that's it! Busy, Very... oh wait. Very Busy Honey. I meant that figuratively rather than literally. They're called Very Busy Honey. They're just off of Rural Road 115 at number 99, though its the second driveway," the bee's face explained to Nelony, as its body danced out an elaborate display of bum wiggling anb buzzing.
"That's right around the corner from the museum!" Barris observed out loud.
"That explains the stowaways on your gifts. But why did they target you?" Sato asked.
"Perhaps we can find out more at Very Busy Honey?" Mila suggested.
"Tonight? It wouldn't be the first time we've bailed on a party and left our guests hanging without a host..." Barris recalled the events of A Lady's Prerogative: SAPCHoP from a couple years earlier.
There was suddenly a loud knock at the front door.
"Its probably Sir Manfred, wearing his armour again," Barris said, immediately making his way to the front door.
As soon as he opened it, a large man in armour pushed his way in, knocking Barris off of his feet and onto the floor, as he slid backwards away from the man.
Behing the man who'd barged in, another fifty men slowly surrounded the house as another column of men marched up the driveway.
"What is the meaning of this?!!!" Nelony challenged the Phalanx.
"Yes, last I heard, private residences were out of bounds for parades..." Sato added, stepping protectively forward.
The man looked at Barris and spat, as a woman with long red hair came walking in behind him, followed by a man of similar resemblance to Barris, albeit, far more muscular and scarred, with the physique of an athlete and the demeanor of a leader.
"Empress! Here is the imposter!" the man who'd initially burst into Mila's home suddenly dropped to his knees as the woman in long red hair stepped forward, fearlessly into their home.
"These people are soft!" Boudicca exclaimed, looking to each of them as her form glistened in the light.
She too of the highest fitness, though she was shorter than Jasmer and only slightly taller than Yirfir. Regardless, her presence was unquestionable, and every one of them in the dining room felt her raw energy as she paced amongst them fearlessly.
The man who appeared like a hardened version of Barris quickly grabbed him up and held his gladius to his throat.
Mila couldn't contain herself and quickly wove the aether, turning the man's gladius into a boquet of flowers before his very eyes.
He dropped it, as if it were cursed, backing away from it fearfully, as Boudicca watched, even looking admiringly towards Mila.
All at once, Boudicca's memories came back to her of that day as they lay in wait for their ambush of the Stone Henge, Carbus Carnum's battalions lining the plateau.
Marlin of Eire was amidst the front lines, tasked with the charge by foot, as Boudicca had no cavalry or chariots. She commanded only the will of the men sworn to fight for her, and their little equipment and armour. They were technically as outmatched as they were in terms of skill, but Boudicca knew in her heart that every foe could be beaten. She knew that they needed a miracle, and that the druids were the key to deciphering the Stone Henge, and winning the war.
The Romans however, had known this too, and when they arrived to slaughter Boudicca's husband, and rape her daughters and her, another detachment left for the home of the druids, further north, and slaughtered all of their kind. A few remained, one of them being Marlin, a most reknowned druid of tradition, with yet no demonstrated abilities associated with their history and rites.
Boudicca had seen the same kind of suffering as had Marlin, and knew that the man would find a solution only when faced with the crisis of his life, as much so as she had discovered her destiny when faced with hers. Hence, she ordered him to lead the charge with his druid brethren against a superior foe with superior equipment now occupying their most sacred of temples with the man prophesized to complete Boudicaa and turn the tide in their favour. Between that day, and the moments before their final charge, only death remained a barrier.
She looked across the field, and through the standing stones of the Henge, and to the battalions of Roman soldiers that now surrounded it. A fierce gaze crossed her eyes as she sited their leader, and she let forth her battle cry:
[Charge forth and lay them all asunder!]
"Codwch nhw i gyd!" Boudicca screamed loud enough for her voice to echo through the peaks and valleys around the Henge.
All at once they came running from the amidst the trees, some of them even appearing like the foliage themselves, and many of the Roman soldiers who saw them thought them to be living plants, charging at them in revenge for their fallen druid-kind, but the firm Roman training held them fast, and they turned to face the threat. Their shields set forth, and in a wall to face their oncoming enemies.
Boudicca's force was massive and impressive, at first, but quickly as they got closer, it became clear that they were armed only with hide and leather and facing off against an army armed with weapons cast from the most advanced forges this side of the Black Sea.
As they got into range, the javelins launched their first volley at Boudicca's forces, bringing down at least a hundred of them, most dying or dead. The charge didn't lose its momentum as Boudicca quickly caught up with the druids and was now leading the charge beside them. They knew they were committed, and how no excuse, for their Queen was charging in battle beside them, like an ancestral siren of old, her body gleaming with sweat and war paint as she ran.
Marlin watched as another javelin volley from the second line Phalanx flew through the air, cutting into half of his druids, a javelin barely missing him. His ears had abandoned him, and all he could hear was his pounding heart and his breath, which was rapidly approaching its limits.
He looked on at the great stones around him, once again having a vision, like something he'd seen before and when it came to him, everything became clear all at once, and he fully understood his ancestral rite as he did all of druid magic.
His vision was a memory of a glade his people, the druids used to take him and all the children and it was set within a great forest. Within this forest was a clearing, where the largest trees to be found in all of the land grew. These particular trees had grown naturally in a pecular formation, and that had stuck with him all of his life, and until this very moment, when he realized that the Stone Henge was not stone at all, but wood transformed to stone. As it was in all of alchemy, what could be done, could be undone. All things had a way, and a means by which to become as one another. Upon this realization, he paused and took in a great breath, holding his hollywood staff before him, waving it across his view of the Henge.
At first, the ground began to rumble and quake. The Romans kept their footing, but became startled by the emergence of this new threat. Still, they kept their focus on the enemy coming at them, and never suspected what would come from behind.
One by one, the stones came to life, they sprouted legs and arms and began to systematically crush underfoot, every Roman soldier they encountered. Tall stone golems and short alike came to life, and each paid their share for their given life in the battle.
When Marlin saw that his life's work had been realized, he began testing his understanding of the great alchemy, and wove his hollywoodo staff again. The ranks of Boudicca's army, suddenly found their skin becoming hard as stone, while the Roman armour melted from their bodies, dripping in pools of molten metal, burning and scalding their bodies as it slid from them. Their screams soon became prevalent over the victory howls of Boudicca's men.
Carbus Carnum, who'd been scarred by the incident, but left standing and very capable of fighting, ran for Boudicca as the rest of the ranks of the Roman army fell one by one.
[It is customary for the generals to face each other! I have never felled a woman in battle, but I'd gladly have you be my first!]
"Solent duces inter se congredi! Mulierem in proelio numquam cecidi, sed tu primus esses libenter!" Carbus Carnum challenged her.
She understood Latin, being educated herself and so faced him.
[It is far too grave a loss that your men never upheld your high standards. Perhaps that was the truth behind your downfall.]
"Grande nimis magnum est iacturam quam tui nunquam tui signa suscepisse. Forsitan id verum fuit post casum." Boudicca responded in Latin, with a thick Welsh accent.
Marlin stood and watched as Boudicca faced off against Carbus Carnum. Marlin's remaining druids almost charged forth to murder Carbus and would have if not stopped by Marlin.
[There'll be no honour in stabbing this man from behind. Let our Queen do it while facing him.]
"Ni fydd unrhyw anrhydedd mewn trywanu'r dyn hwn o'r tu ôl. Gadewch i'n Brenhines ei wneud wrth ei wynebu." Marlin urged the druids, who stood down and joined him as they watched their Queen face a man of superior training.
They circled each other a short time, Carbus testing Boudicca's guard a few times, trying to become accustomed with her skill level. He quickly found that her had a striking weakness in her right side, possibly a shoulder injury or poor training in defending with the outside hand.
He then focused on leading her by attacking only her left side, and when he was certain that she had become fixated on that side, he quickly went in for the killing blow with on the right side.
It appeared he had her, but unlike most of his other foes, she would never give in or up based upon their differences of skill. She simply moved faster than could he and struck the gladius from his grip, so hard and fast that he was caught off guard. She then kicked him down and he fell backwards as her blade met his throat.
[My Queen? We uncovered one of their advisors. He's a friend of the chosen one.]
"Fy Frenhines? Daethom o hyd i un o'u cynghorwyr. Mae'n ffrind i'r un a ddewiswyd." one of the runners came up to her, holding Ponderosus within blade striking distance.
[It would be a waste to end you, when we could accomplish so much more if we worked together. We could change things, everywhere or we could have this be the beginning of generations of carnage. Stain our ancestor's remembrance of history with hatred and rage. Or we could make a new beginning together. One that would undo the wrongs and forge a brighter future for all.]
"Byddai'n wastraff dod â chi i ben, pan allem gyflawni cymaint mwy pe byddem yn cydweithio. Gallem newid pethau, ym mhobman neu fe allem gael hyn yn ddechrau cenedlaethau o laddfa. Lladdwch gofiant ein hynafiaid o hanes â chasineb a chynddaredd. Neu gallem wneud dechrau newydd gyda'n gilydd. Un a fyddai’n dadwneud y camweddau a chreu dyfodol mwy disglair i bawb." Boudicca looked both to Carbus Carnuum, and then to Ponderosus as she spoke.
[Marlin! Go at once! Take your druids with you! Find and heal every Roman soldier you can, neither favouring our injured or theirs! Heal them all alike!]
"Marlin! Ewch ar unwaith! Ewch â'ch derwyddon gyda chi! Dewch o hyd i bob milwr Rhufeinig y gallwch chi ei wella a'i wella, heb ffafrio'r rhai sydd wedi'u hanafu na'u rhai nhw! Iachau nhw i gyd fel ei gilydd!" Boudicca ordered Marlin and then turned back to the two men she held under one blade.
Their choice was already made for them, though they didn't know it at the time. Soon thereafter, they swore their allegiance to Boudicca. Together, they raised an army of both soldiers, and diplomats. They'd send in the diplomats first, and when they didn't return or returned with negative results, they'd send in the soldiers and the druids, and for the first time in a very long time, nature fought on the side of a human nation.
Barris, had been there, laying upon the field plateau of the great Stone Henge, afraid as Boudicca's men surrounded him.
[A helpless goat who hath lost his flock. A man without courage. A beggar without a coin. I shall take you into my tribe and make you my husband and a man worthy of sharing the throne. It was meant to be, and always will be.]
"Bwch gafr ddiymadferth a gollodd ei braidd. Dyn heb ddewrder. Cardotyn heb ddarn arian. Byddaf yn mynd â chi i'm llwyth ac yn eich gwneud yn ŵr i mi ac yn ddyn teilwng o rannu'r orsedd. Roedd i fod i fod, a bydd bob amser." Boudicca said to the helpless man named Barris.
As she looked to Barris on the floor in Mila's home, she recalled all of what had come to pass, and all at once she had a heart for Mila. Here was a woman who risked herself to protect her man against an army, and did so by turning a man's sword into flowers.
"We are taking this land. All of it. It will still be your home, but I will be the Empress of all of this land, and soon I will be the Empress of all," Boudicca told those who still stood gathered in the dining room.
Yirfir looked to Jasmer, the two remaining helpless in all appearances.
"Would it be too much for us to enjoy our holiday party?" asked Yirfir of Boudicca, careful not to sound demanding of her.
Boudicca's Barris by that time had offered a hand to Mila's Barris, hefting him up and onto his feet with a strong arm.
"A weak one you are. Its hard to believe that you and I were once so much alike. If I could tell you of what I've seen, where I've been, what I've done, you'd still have no idea of how a man like you became a man like me!" Boudicca's Barris looked at Mila's Barris with intensity in his eyes.
"They are not the keepers. They are more like the cattle. They are soft, and should not be made yet, to play in our game. Come my husband, there is still so much left to be done on this night," Boudicca commanded her Barris, who immediately stepped out of the door.
"I will leave a garrison here. You have wealth, and will provide for them and they will protect you. When next I return, we will have matters to discuss about your knowledge of alchemy, perhaps it is similar to the kind of alchemy my druids used to make it possible for us to speak and know your language. That will be all," Boudicca stepped out of the door, and continued down the driveway towards her waiting chariots.
The rest of the men left them, closing the door behind them but leaving a garrison of thirty men, including ten druids, out on the driveway.
At that moment, Shaela came stumbling into the house and found her way to the dining room, obviously a few sheets to the wind.
"I have to say Mila, you still know how to throw a good party... See this girl... she's my best friend!" Shaela wrapped her arm around Mila's shoulder and began dancing.
Meanwhile, outside in the Alivale region, Boudicca's army started their takeover, leaving garrisons at key strategic points from which to assert her force and to defend it if need be.
Unfinished Bee's Wax
Part 2
Coming soon...
To be continued...
Thank you to all the ASMR artists, massage artists, tarot readers and astrologers I watch on YouTube, I truly appreciate the healing and of late have needed it more than ever, given my struggles with an illness recently (Pneumonia and a bronchial infection).
Credits and attribution:
Artwork: Amy Wong, Wendy Pusey, Ghastly, Birdman, Brian Joseph Johns, Daz3D, Unreal Engine...Tools: Daz3D, Corel Painter, Adobe Photoshop, Lightwave 3D, Blender, Stable Diffusion (Easy Diffusion distribution), InstantID, Sadtalker, Google Colaboratory, Microsoft Copilot (Windows 11), Hitfilm, Borderline Obsession...
Extra Special thank you to InstantID by: Wang, Qixun and Bai, Xu and Wang, Haofan and Qin, Zekui and Chen, Anthony. Research Paper Title: InstantID - Zero-shot Identity-Preserving Generation in Seconds.
Extra Special thank you to Adobe, especially their award legendary image editing and compositing application Photoshop, who make much of the artwork on Shhhh! Digital Media possible.
Extra Special thank you to Corel for their Painter application, which is a great companion tool when combined with the power of Adobe Photoshop.
Thank you to Cognibuild for their great and very informative YouTube channel.
Sadtalker by: Zhang, Wenxuan and Cun, Xiaodong and Wang, Xuan and Zhang, Yong and Shen, Xi and Guo, Yu and Shan, Ying and Wang, Fei.
Research Paper Title: SadTalker: Learning Realistic 3D Motion Coefficients for Stylized Audio-Driven Single Image Talking Face Animation.
Gratitude: Our Mentors, Senseis, Sifus, Sebomnims, lifetime inspirations, family, friends, the Nomads (ask Stanton about that one), the Music, the Movies, the Theatre, the Arts, ASMR, (both YouTube and Bilibili and the many other creators on those platforms), the Gaming and Developer communities and of course, the audience.
Ask Seki Sensei | Online Katana Lessons! - Study Iaido And Kobudo Online
Martial Arts (in the words of real experts and at least one comedian): https://brucelee.com (home of the real Dragon and an entire family of inspirations), http://iwco.online International Wing Chun Organization (International presence of a very scalable intensity martial art, protected and developed by Shaolin Nun Ng Mui) and the alma mater of Jinn Hua's own specialized variation thereof, https://iogkf.com International Okinawan Goju-Ryu Karatedo Federation (even Hanshi had his teachers), https://itftkd.sport International Taekwondo Federation (Here there be Taegers), https://tangsoodoworld.com Tang Soo Do World (the path of Grandmaster Chuck Norris), https://www.aikido-international.org International Aikido Federation (how else would Navy Chef Steven Seagal liberate a Nimitz Class Aircraft Carrier from a team of hijackers?), https://www.stqitoronto.com Shaolin Temple Quanfa Institute (The City Of Toronto's own Shaolin Temple), https://www.enterthedojoshow.com Master Ken's Ameri-Te-Do presence (If we can't laugh at ourselves, then we can at least laugh the loudest at others, and other Zen)
Special thanks to Aitrepreneur, Hugging Face and the YouTube educational content producers, including those catering to the AI content production pipeline and of course AlphaSignal.
Thank you to Captain Crunch from 89 Steps.
Special thanks to Fifth Social Club Toronto (appears in Two Butterflies episodes) and The Drake (appears in Dragon Butterfly).
Thank you Epic!
Something to give you perspective: The very first teacher had no formal education, didn't graduate and was self taught, but only because they had no other choice. We do.
Tools: Daz3D, Corel Painter, Adobe Photoshop, Lightwave 3D, Blender, Stable Diffusion (Easy Diffusion distribution), InstantID, Sadtalker, Google Colaboratory, Microsoft Copilot (Windows 11), Hitfilm, Borderline Obsession...
Extra Special thank you to InstantID by: Wang, Qixun and Bai, Xu and Wang, Haofan and Qin, Zekui and Chen, Anthony. Research Paper Title: InstantID - Zero-shot Identity-Preserving Generation in Seconds.
Extra Special thank you to Adobe, especially their award legendary image editing and compositing application Photoshop, who make much of the artwork on Shhhh! Digital Media possible.
Extra Special thank you to Corel for their Painter application, which is a great companion tool when combined with the power of Adobe Photoshop.
Thank you to Cognibuild for their great and very informative YouTube channel.
Sadtalker by: Zhang, Wenxuan and Cun, Xiaodong and Wang, Xuan and Zhang, Yong and Shen, Xi and Guo, Yu and Shan, Ying and Wang, Fei.
Research Paper Title: SadTalker: Learning Realistic 3D Motion Coefficients for Stylized Audio-Driven Single Image Talking Face Animation.
Gratitude: Our Mentors, Senseis, Sifus, Sebomnims, lifetime inspirations, family, friends, the Nomads (ask Stanton about that one), the Music, the Movies, the Theatre, the Arts, ASMR, (both YouTube and Bilibili and the many other creators on those platforms), the Gaming and Developer communities and of course, the audience.
Ask Seki Sensei | Online Katana Lessons! - Study Iaido And Kobudo Online
Martial Arts (in the words of real experts and at least one comedian): https://brucelee.com (home of the real Dragon and an entire family of inspirations), http://iwco.online International Wing Chun Organization (International presence of a very scalable intensity martial art, protected and developed by Shaolin Nun Ng Mui) and the alma mater of Jinn Hua's own specialized variation thereof, https://iogkf.com International Okinawan Goju-Ryu Karatedo Federation (even Hanshi had his teachers), https://itftkd.sport International Taekwondo Federation (Here there be Taegers), https://tangsoodoworld.com Tang Soo Do World (the path of Grandmaster Chuck Norris), https://www.aikido-international.org International Aikido Federation (how else would Navy Chef Steven Seagal liberate a Nimitz Class Aircraft Carrier from a team of hijackers?), https://www.stqitoronto.com Shaolin Temple Quanfa Institute (The City Of Toronto's own Shaolin Temple), https://www.enterthedojoshow.com Master Ken's Ameri-Te-Do presence (If we can't laugh at ourselves, then we can at least laugh the loudest at others, and other Zen)
Special thanks to Aitrepreneur, Hugging Face and the YouTube educational content producers, including those catering to the AI content production pipeline and of course AlphaSignal.
Thank you to Captain Crunch from 89 Steps.
This content is entirely produced in Toronto, Ontario, Canada at 200 Sherbourne Street Suite 701 under the Shhhh! Digital Media banner. Both photos depicted here are of me and were taken in the last two months.
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Produced at Shhhh! Digital Media
200 Sherbourne Street Suite 701
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Inquiries: brian.joseph.johns@shhhhdigital.com, info@shhhhdigital.com