M33) 6ft tall ectomorph
Used to be way slimmer
32’ pants were baggy on me at 161lbs at aged 30
But now I’m 10lbs less:
Waist is the same
Body is the same as hoodies fit the exact same
Head/face is bigger
Legs are way bigger
Mainly the calves
Sedentary lifestyle since lockdown?
**Photo of one of my calves*
https://ibb.co/BC8h4QZ
Edit: I noticed 5 months in to lockdown 2020 I started getting bigger sligtly then it escalated a little more over time since

Sorry folks, no photo here - can you lovely plus size peeps give me tips on styling paper bag waist shorts and pants? I DO NOT tuck in my tops usually, but that seems to be the main way people wear them. I live in black tank tops so I guess I could give it a go, but what else do you wear with them??? I'm trying to branch out for summer, it's hot!

Since being diagnosed 3 months ago, I got the blood work done and I'm seeing good numbers with the blood sugar. (It's not all great since my Alanine Aminotransferase is 115 (up by 10 from last time) and Aspartate Aminotransferase is 56, and my potasisum is 5.6.) Almost 34 years old.
In terms of lifestyle change, I lost just over 20 lbs, about 2 inches in the waist, and pretty much cut out carbs (like bread, rice, cereal, etc.). Sugar is still in everything even when I try to avoid it, but I'm not having things like ketchup, candy, milk, or fruit juice. For the most part, I mainly have meat and vegetables and I'm pretty okay with that since I'll still have cheese. I used to do things like have 4 slices of bread for a sandwhich, having bread and ketchup, finish a bowl of rice, or just have a bowl of cereal for no apparent reason, etc.
I'm also on 2 tablets of metformin, once in the morning meal and once in the evening meal.
My goal now is to keep on losing the weight since I'm low'ish 160s and to keep this diet that I'm on. I still am pretty fat around my midsection and so I should still lose that. I'll still be on the metformin since it is helping me with the blood sugar, but maybe if I can keep the numbers low for the next blood test in three months then I might ask the doctor if I still need to be on it?
My biggest issue is fighting "kicking myself" for allowing myself to be around 200lbs+ for the last two decades and allowing my pant size to be 40'ish. I feel I could have prevented all this had I not allowed myself to be obese. (And even if I would have become diabetic regardless, I still should have cared more about my weight.)

I had been contacted by the magistrate to investigate a night wedding in the countryside that had involved the loss of human life. There seemed to be a recent rise in tourists involved in ghost dowries over the years. However, from my research I believe it was a man in search of night weddings for personal gain that was the cause of so many deaths.
When I received the request, I was nearby on Green Island, and addressing a rather unique matter even for my line of work. A little girl from the mainland had arrived two weeks prior and claimed to be the recently deceased husband of the grieving widow.
The child claimed to have woken up in the hospital where the doctors informed them that they had drowned and was clinically dead for 4 minutes when the body inexplicably sat upright in the gurney. This would have seemed to be great news, except when the child looked into the mirror, it was not their face staring back at them.
In old Taoist texts I have read of such events, where the bodies of the recently deceased are not put to ground quickly enough, and their souls are left to wander. They could get carried away by the Northeast or Southwest wind. Depending on the location from where they died. And possibly attach to an empty host.
This seemed to be the case, as the wife acknowledged that due to the wet season, they did not bury her husband's body right away. Because the grounds were so wet, that any graves would wash away, leaving corpses laying in the street. Still, I had the responsibility of testing the child. Whom passed a simple test of naming names. Where they used to live. The wife's habits. A conversation they recently had, and even childhood memories. All were confirmed by friends and family. But it would be the child's handwriting that ultimately convinced me. They were a perfect match, down to the signature.
Upon my approval, the villagers had no choice but to accept that this child was indeed the man come back to life. And when I left, he was sitting outside of his house cleaning fish as he had always done for 32 years, except now in the body of a 10 year old girl.
I didn't have much time to dwell on this case as I was needed at the aftermath of the failed night wedding. Ghost dowries have been in use for thousands of years, and traces of it can be found in many different cultures. From the Aztec to the Egyptians, and more recently from old Spain to the streets of Southeast Asia. Though in recent times, only a few remote places continued the practice, and there are a limited number of priests today who are qualified enough to handle such a case. Luckily, I had plenty of experience in this matter.
In my early years, I had married many ghost brides.
And was often asked, "But you're a priest, how can you get married?"
"Zhengyi Taoist priests can choose to take a wife or not. In fact, in order to pass on my Celestial title, I must have an heir."
The man looked distraught, "And you're sure this will stop her from whispering into my ear every night?" He clutched the bag rather tightly.
"Don't you worry," I took the bag from his hands. "Everything will be fine."
We would perform the customary vows and the following night the man reported no more whisperings from his daughter, yet a week later, the police raided my hotel in a different district. The man had claimed that I had swindled him. That his daughter had returned and continued her whispering of terrible, horrible things that he dare not listen. Clanking and banging away in the walls as he covered his ears in fear until sunrise.
Fortunately, I was allowed to prove my innocence.
I returned and stayed in the man's room, waiting with him for signs of his daughter. And surely enough, late in the hour, I heard the wretched scraping and dragging in the walls. The man stopped breathing in his bed and laid perfectly still. Even I was afraid to move as the most dangerous aspects of my job are in the unknown. My mind began racing, wondering if I had somehow botched the night wedding. Or worse, that the ghost bride wasn't his daughter at all, and I had inadvertently given this mysterious entity a special anchor to this world, a holy man.
The walls shook without reason. And a tiny noise could be heard near the man's bedside. He jumped off his mattress and ran to my side. The two of us watched as the noise traveled back and forth against the back wall like wooden clogs.
"My daughter did always carry around a rattle drum when she was little," the man whispered.
"Hush, don't let it capture your breath," I warned him. "Whatever this is, I don't believe it is your daughter. And because of the ritual, we may have increased its hold on this realm."
He whimpered, "Not my daughter?"
I held up my finger and traced the noise as it traveled in an odd form. I began to wonder if the entity was creating some sort of symbol.
"What are you drawing," the man cried.
"It may be creating a portal," I told him. "Now hush before it turns its attention toward us."
"Please, there must be something you can do?"
I reached into my bag and pulled out some incense. I lit the ends and began chanting. From my waist I pulled out a long yellow parchment. And drew on it a sealing spell. "Spirit," I called as I stepped forward. "I am a guiding light." The noise rattled with conviction as I drew closer. "Let me lead you to peace!" And with one quick motion I punched my hand into the wall, clutching the sealing spell in my palm, at the last place I heard the noise. To my displeasure I felt something wriggling in my grasp as something long and thin wrapped itself around my wrist, its end clawing at my forearm. I screamed when I felt its teeth sink between the soft flesh of my thumb and index finger. But I did not let go. Instead I pulled out this demon from the wall and threw it roughly to the ground.
The man screamed as he jumped onto a chair and screamed, "Rat!"
Yes. A simple field rat. That had a trap stuck on its tail which caused its movements to rattle in the wall. That had been rummaging near the man's nightstand because in one of the drawers he had left a bag of watermelon seeds.
Not all cases are this simple, and plenty are true to life supernatural encounters. Over the years my experience has taught me to be more cautious in my evaluations. Which was why when I finally arrived at the house of the massacre due to a failed night wedding. Every hair on my neck stood on end as I tried to be objective as possible.
But there was no denying that something heinous had occurred here. Bodies were still laying on the floor. Some with their faces in the dirt. Some missing their heads completely. And those with their faces up, were unrecognizable. And my first wife leaned into my ear and whispered to me, "This is the work of a ghost bride."
"How do you know?"
"I recognize her anger. It was mine before we were married."
"How do I know what?" A man walking toward me asked. "Are you the priest they called out here?"
He was average built, and in plain clothes, "Detective, why yes. I am here to assist you in anyway that I can."
The detective spit on the ground, "Assist me? As far as I'm concerned we're wasting valuable time carrying on with this hocus pocus bullshit. The killer's trail will be cold by the time we get through all this religious tape." He wafted the air in front of his face, "And the dead bodies boiling out here. This is all your fault as far as I'm concerned. Assist me," he snorted.
"Where there any eyewitnesses, Detective?"
"Several. But they're all saying the same damn thing. Spouting a bunch of nonsense. Which is why those religious nuts down at the station dredged you up."
"All non-relatives to the home owners?"
He snorted again, "Coincidence."
"Let us hope so," I told him. "Because the alternative is much worse." I walked the scene, going around the upturned tables, tracing the steps of carnage in the courtyard, to the main living room. There I saw the body of an old man, both hands clutching his chest, his face was completely missing. "Any surviving family members?"
"Some are still left," he grunted. "But we've gathered most of them under police protection."
"Have you located the husband?"
"Yeah, we're trying to extradite him."
"Extradite?"
"The foreigner took off in the middle of all the commotion. Boarded a flight back home according to our investigation. We've contacted the airline, and the airport security in America will hold him when he lands. As he is currently my number one suspect."
I circled the area in front of the shrine. Noting the spilled bowl and its contents on the ground. The position of the spoon next to it. Before standing in the spot on the left side where the effigy would have stood. "What about the bride?"
The detective shook his head, "What bride?"
"It was a night wedding," I told him. "There must have been a physical object acting as a stand in for the daughter's soul."
"Nothing more than bags of cotton usually," he paused. "But they did report that the stand-in this time was some sort of department figurine. A mannequin of some sort."
"Have you looked into that?"
"Why would I look into that. Are you crazy?"
"Right, you're right of course. You'd have to wait until after sunset to be able to figure out which mannequin serves as the ghost bride's earthly form."
The detective stormed off as if I had said something outlandish. Leaving me to my own devices, I interviewed a few of the neighbors who attended the night wedding, gathered some evidence and sorted with the other officers at the site, and then left for the nearest hotel in the city.
It had been a long month for me and I couldn't think of anything better than I would enjoy more than a cold beer. So after checking in I went down to the bar, where an ethereal creature sat alone. She was beautiful to say the least and I had to strike up a conversation lest I live a life of regret, "S'il te plaît ma chérie, dis-moi comment on t'appelle pour que quand je sois perdu dans les ténèbres. Puis-je demander la lumière."
"What?"
"Oh, American. I apologize. I thought you were French."
"On my mother's side," she brushed away her hair.
I noticed the ring, "Ah, you are married. My sincerest apologies miss."
"Newly married," she told me. "My husband speaking with the concierge."
"Activities on vacation," I mused. "How wonderful."
"It's nothing like that. It seems someone has left him a note. And we're technically on our honeymoon." She paused, "Though this isn't where we're supposed to be. We're supposed to be in Hawaii."
I ordered a beer with the bartender and sipped my drink, "Hawaii is wonderful, but this is also a beautiful island. In fact, when the Portuguese came here, they named it Formosa. Which translates to beautiful island. It may not be where you're supposed to be, but perhaps you'll find that this is exactly where you need to be."
The woman sighed, "I don't even know anymore."
"Ah, I know what this is. I've great experience in these matters. Having been married many times. You feel doubt."
She laughed, "How many times have you gotten a divorce?"
"Divorce?" I laughed. "I never leave a woman after we have been wed."
She looked taken aback, "Oh. I didn't know polygamy was so common in these parts." She glanced behind her to where a tall man was standing with what looked to be the hotel's concierge. "I guess we're in the same boat."
"It's not what you think," I told her.
"Where have I heard that one before," she rolled her eyes.
"Larissa!" The man called for her.
She stood up, "Well, it was nice meeting you. Tell your wives I said hello."
I smiled as she left, glancing at my sides. "If only you knew," I said while sipping my beer.
Now in hindsight, if I were not so fatigued after nearly a month of hard work and constant traveling. I would have perhaps picked up on the fact that she too was familiar with the concubine lifestyle. Which was unusual in itself for an American. Or perhaps I would have picked up on the fact that Larissa was an uncommon name. As I had read Jim's article. But there was no such luck, which is why, when I say that I am deeply regretful of what I read on the news later about the couple, I am truly at a loss for what I could have prevented. But that is not my story to tell.
After I finished drinking at the bar I made my way to the elevator and got in. When a man came towards me to hold the door, I called out, "It's full." He looked at me bewildered as I was the only person he could see in the elevator, before sticking his hand out to stop the doors from closing. Huffing and puffing as he glared at me angrily before pressing his floor number. Except the elevator pinged. The weight capacity light had turned on above our heads. "Like I said, it's full." The man shook his head in amazement. Pressing his floor number again. The elevator pinged again. Unwilling to budge. I sighed and got out, "I'll wait for the next one."
And wait I did, even in my room I waited for night fall instead of resting. The thoughts of a botched night wedding swirling in my head. For the many things that could go wrong. Because even though I had much practice in these matters, I was still always nervous before a fight. So when night fell, I was red eyed and exhausted, but better mentally prepared than before.
But when I arrived back at the scene of the crime, I was not prepared for all of the commotion.
"Ka-kin-eh Ka-kin-eh," a man shouted as the fire blazed.
I grabbed one of the men running by with an empty bucket, "What happened here?"
"T-the villagers, they set the p-place on fire. Trying to rid the evil demon."
I let him go and shook my head. The fools! I made my way toward the courtyard where I saw the detective from earlier moping his forehead as he was helping put out the fire. "Detective! This is terrible," I yelled as the flames licked the night.
"No shit dumbass, it's a fire."
"You don't understand," I told him. "Now the entity has nowhere to return. We may never find it."
He threw the bucket to the floor and whirled around, "Enough! I've had enough! Listen here, there is a fire. F-I-R-E. This a real problem. If it catches to the fields, it could light the newly laid fertilizer on fire and catch the entire mountain!"
"Detective!"
That was the only word I had to say before he punched me. It was a dark night out, but stars had suddenly appeared. He hovered over me and I thought he would strike me again but then suddenly he froze. "What is that?"
I turned my head and looked out into the field. The heat of the fire burning the back of my head as I tried to stop my nose from bleeding. "Where?"
Neither one of us moved as we watched the tall field.
"Right there." He pointed.
I reached up and threw his hand down, "No! You never point at entities," I told him. "Now you could be marked!"
He ignored me and reached for his gun, "Stop! Hey you! I order you to stop or I'll shoot!"
I looked into the field, scanning the endless rows before my eyes stopped and froze in horror. At one point in time the thing must have been a simple plastic mannequin. Standing in a department store perhaps. But now, it was twisted and gnarled. It's first dirty and unrecognizable. It stood on all fours sometimes threes as it swayed slowly back and forth. The thing was also without form because it didn't need to bend or move as normal people. It was still objectively, plastic. It swung its arms behind it and used that as leverage to run, turning its head - cracking the seams that had somehow still held and took off.
The detective rung a shot out at it. I think it struck but it didn't matter. Though the mannequin was gone. The detective must have lost his mind because he gave chase.
I couldn't let him go alone so I followed. Pulling out my long yellow parchment as I wrote on it the symbols for sealing, hoping the simple spell would work. As we entered the tall field.
It was chaos. The ground was mushy beneath my feet, and the smell of fecal matter assaulted my senses further. In the brush I had lost the detective, so I was forced to tell my wives to help me locate his whereabouts. They didn't often leave my side, and some were reluctant but ultimately agreed.
I stood in the field, waiting with bated breath as I heard further gunshots in the distance. I couldn't wait for my wives to gather as I tore after the detective. And just in time as I saw him standing, looking absolutely terrified as he shot blindly into the fauna until his pistol clicked. The mannequin lunged for him. But I got there first. Pushing him to the ground, causing both of us to tumble.
He was eating a mouth of dirt as I pulled him to his feet. "We have to get out of this field! The ghost bride will pick us off in this thicket!"
Stumbling, and running, the two of us were covered in more than dirt. Several times we heard rustling nearby as if something were running alongside us. But eventually we made it out into the open plain. The detective trying to catch his breath as he reloaded his pistol.
"Shooting it doesn't work," he panted. "But maybe I can disable it from moving."
"Shut up," I told him. "Listen."
He stopped for a moment and we waited. Then all of the stalks before us shook wildly as if a hundred people were running through it. The detective raised his arm but I stopped him as my wives ran out of the field.
They were terrified as they ran right through us.
I hadn't experienced the feeling in awhile but the coldness as their ghostly forms went through our bodies was cold as ice. It was enough to bring us both to our knees, clutching our chests as we struggled to breathe. I had passed through one or two in a row before. But never 10 or 20 at a time. I lost count.
"What was that," the detective managed to gasp, his fingers in a death grip around his gun.
"A blue procession," I told him. "Something caused all of my dead wives to flee."
We looked up as the leaves in front of us rustled.
"Is it..."
I shook my head, running forward to catch her. My 13th wife, Ah-ren. Her arm was missing, and a part of her shoulder. She was an innocent girl that had drowned when she was alive. Her innocence carried on with her to the afterlife where many souls generally grew up embittered. But never her, always sweet my girl, just weary of water.
"I didn't want to go," she told me.
"I know," I held her. "I'm sorry."
"It got some of the others too. But Meita got in its way and told me to run." She cried.
"Don't cry I told her. You know how you hate getting wet."
"I don't want to go. I wanted to stay with you. All of us together."
I watched as her soul splintered and disappeared forever.
I had never felt such fury. In all my years, a womanizer, a liar, a cheat at cards, a scoundrel, a bastard even. But an undutiful husband? Never.
Without thinking I approached the field and cast a spell that was been forbidden.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm purging the field. All beings alive or dead will forever feel displaced when they enter here. A feeling of unending dread and doom will overcome them, causing madness if they do not leave or are unable to. But I have no other choice." I reached into my side and threw a handful of salt. It landed on the ground as I chanted. The winds carrying it into the field, the small white morsels rolling obediently into the darkness.
"Nothings happening," the detective's word stuck in his mouth as a horrible scream echoed into the night. It sounded like two pieces of steel being twisted together.
"There," I took off after it. The jumbled figure of the mannequin fled toward the village.
We followed it through people's homes, and between alleyways; the villagers screamed and fled when they saw it. We barged through home after home as we chased it. Until we cornered it at an abandoned building at the edge of town.
"It was supposed to be a mall," the detective told me. "But the developers ran out of money."
We walked quietly into the empty building. Shells of stores stood in various degrees of construction. Checking a few of the fronts before venturing further inside.
"You've got to be kidding me," the detective said as we came near the center of the complex. There next to the escalators and the fountains was an army of mannequins of all shapes and sizes lined up like terracotta warriors. "They must have stashed them all here when the place was being built, and forgot about them when it closed."
"There are hundreds."
"We'll go through together. Quickly and quietly." He added, "Stay alert."
We moved through the rows, staring at all of the stuck faces, searching for one covered in grime and bullet holes. But it was more difficult than it sounded. Many of the mannequins were in bad shape, weathered, broken, laying in pieces on the ground. It was hard to tell if a pile of parts was indeed our culprit.
Slowly we began to clear the rows and I could see the other side in sight.
"There!" The detective shot his gun. The surrounding mannequins dropped like dominoes when the entity scattered. Falling down all around us, drowning in a sea of plastic arms and smiling faces. I was struggling to stand as I looked up and saw the entity come rushing toward us. The detective fired his gun blowing out a knee cap. I hurriedly reached for my parchment but could not find my pen. Another shot, but the scorned bride kept on charging unable to feel pain.
It jumped into the air and another shot blew a part of its face away. The detective screamed as it tore at him. Pieces of his sinew was launched into the air as he was torn apart. I rushed forward trying to help but the creature grabbed me by the throat and lifted me into the air. My feet searching for the ground as my lungs folded trying to breathe. The thing turned its head toward me and said, "Will you marry me?" As the darkness closed into the corners of my eyes.
The fight was leaving my body as I saw several of my wives rushing forward. Their ghostly forms ethereal as they began tearing at the mannequin, slowly pulling out pieces of her soul, causing the mannequin's arms and legs to go limp as they dragged her out.
I scrambled the floor blindly with my fingers searching for my sacred parchment but could not find it amongst the rubble and the ghost bride was fleeing, leaving the shell of her mannequin in a heap on the floor. My wives chasing her, screaming their fury for killing the others. For destroying their souls.
I chased after them into the open air, where she was being cornered. Crying as I approached, trying to escape into the Southwest wind. I knew what I should have done, but could not bring myself to do the right thing. Instead I bit my finger and drew symbols on my forearms with my own blood. Approaching the bride that never was and tore her soul into pieces.
When I was done my wives sat down around me before slowly dispersing as the sun began to rise.
"We did it huh?"
I continued staring at the sun, "Yeah."
"Well then," the detective said before disappearing. "Maybe in the next life I'll be sooner to trust you."
Later they would find his body in the abandoned mall. Still clutching his gun. The department gave him a 21 gun salute at his funeral and a medal as commemoration. I was just glad that his soul had not been eaten.
I, on the other hand, went back to the hotel. To the bar and ordered a well deserved drink. Where I saw a pretty woman sitting alone, "Did you know that in order for me to pass on my Celestial title, I must bear an heir?"
​
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s

This isn’t a good kind of tickle, I’ll start with what happens most nights when I’m trying to sleep. (This has happened for around 10 years now) As I’m falling asleep I get this small tickling sensation in my sides and back and the feeling grows as if someone is jabbing in all their fingers into me and my body jolts me away from the sensation, it’s even worse if I’m wearing pyjama trousers with an elastic waist band, it feels like that band grows tighter but in a way that is ticklish, it’s so difficult to explain the feeling but it’s made me dislike going to sleep.
When I do fall asleep I have reoccurring dreams of being grabbed by my arms and I’m being poked, jabbed and tickled, it feels like I could throw up. The person in my dreams doing this to me is usually my boyfriend which makes it feel even more awful. These dreams are getting worse and I wake up with a lot of anxiety.
Thanks for reading my post, I feel so fed up of this. 😞

I know it’s quite specific and someone will likely advise me to get my pants tailored but I just wanted to give it a shot.
I have very short legs, even petite sizing can be too long for me, and I have a very long torso. I just feel most confident with super high waisted pants that are super cinched in at the waist.
Id say American eagle jeans highest waist x-short in size 12 is currently the best I can find but I’m looking for more selection. Dress pants and jeans that are a bit more mature looking. Any recommendations?

When I was getting started, an actor I knew gave me some really good advice. While deciding whether or not to take a certain role, consider three factors: the money, the show, and the people. If at least two of those things are good, accept the job. If they’re paying you well and you love the play, you won’t mind putting up with shitty people. If it’s a great show with a cast full of friends, but you’re not getting paid so well, that’s still alright, it’ll be artistically fulfilling. If it’s a bad show but you love the cast and you’re making money, you’ll probably have the time of your life making fun of the playwright backstage and laughing all the way to the bank.
What my friend failed to mention is that as an aspiring actor, you don’t usually get to be that picky. When I got the call from my agent that a production of The Bacchae was urgently seeking a new chorus member, all I could see were dollar signs. My survival job had just fallen through (the family I nannied for was moving upstate, insisting that Manhattan had just gotten “too dangerous” for their toddler), and my savings were only going to cover my rent for another month.
It was raining the day of my audition, and my train got delayed. I showed up panting (I had to run from the subway station) and my hair a disaster. Luckily, in The Bacchae, the chorus is full of… well… Bacchae. Fervent followers of Dionysus, wild women, drunk and running through the countryside. In the climax of the play, they crowd the protagonist in a frenzy, literally ripping him limb from limb.
I’ll never know if it was my frenetic energy from barely making it to the theater on time, or my actual acting, but I got the part. My costume fitting was the next day– they weren’t kidding about urgently needing a replacement. Which thrilled me, because I wasn’t kidding about urgently needing the money. At the fitting, I discovered something my agent failed to mention about the production: this wasn’t just any version of The Bacchae, it was a recreation– an attempt to perform the play in the traditional Greek style. In other words, everyone was wearing masks.
I’ve never been fond of masks. We had to do a few assignments with them in my college acting courses; covering your face can enhance the physicality of your body, something like that. But I never liked wearing them, or seeing other people wearing them. It wouldn’t be fair to call it a full-on fear, but the stiffness, the lack of expression, gives me a weird feeling in my stomach. And wearing one, your field of vision limited, your mouth covered, making it harder to breathe, harder to project your voice– I don’t like it. It’s as simple as that.
But I needed the money. My costume wasn’t ugly, per se, just strange: a long white dress, or maybe toga is a better word, the fabric about the thickness of a burlap sack. My mask, stark white, paper mache, covering my entire face except my eyes, the mouth carved to imitate a grin. No shoes. My hair tucked into a wild black wig– we wore wigs, they explained to me, so the chorus could be identical, indistinguishable. We moved as one, spoke as one, and were meant to look like one. They even made sure to cast women of the same height. In our costumes, it was impossible to tell which of us was which.
It didn’t help that I was an outsider to the rest of the cast, joining the show weeks into rehearsals. Everyone seemed annoyed that they had to teach me the blocking, the inflection of the lines (so my voice didn’t stick out from the other chorus girls), and where to go backstage during scenes with no chorus. A few people tried to be nice to me, but quickly gave up when they realized I knew nothing about Greek theater, or masked theater, or the avant garde. My last show had been a regional production of Cats, for God’s sake. I was totally out of my element.
Things got especially sour when I tried to ask what had happened to the girl I was replacing. Nobody wanted to talk about it. People gasped when I brought it up. The clearest answer I got was a whispered, hesitant, “she fell,” but the person wouldn’t elaborate any further. The cast seemed superstitious, uncomfortable, like talking about her would cause them to suffer her fate: removal from the show. And it was clear that, aside from me, everyone else loved this show. The actor playing Dionysus, the couple of times he deigned to talk to me, just kept gushing about how honored he was to play this role, how electrifying it felt to put his history minor to use, to show people a piece of the world’s theatrical beginnings.
I thought the show was fine. Kinda boring, kinda scary. I don’t think I “get” The Bacchae. In brief, the story is about Dionysus, son of Zeus, disguised as a human. He and his followers (the chorus) show up in a town, but the leader of the town, Pentheus, is upset about it. He doesn’t understand why all these women are acting crazy, and he arrests Dionysus, not believing him to be an actual God. As punishment, Dionysus possesses Pentheus’s own mother with the same madness as his followers, and together, with their bare hands, they rip Pentheus apart. His mom walks back into town holding her son’s head, thinking it to be, in her madness, the head of a lion. When she realizes what she’s done, she is overwhelmed by grief, and futilely attempts to put Pentheus’s mutilated corpse back together. Dionysus returns, basically saying, “well, he said I wasn’t a God, and that’s blasphemous, so he got what was coming to him.” Pentheus’s mother is exiled.
It’s incredibly dark. In the reviews, critics called it daring, challenging, a bloody spectacle, a feminist masterpiece. I don’t really get what part of “a man who’s a God possesses women’s minds, driving them to murder” screams “feminism,” but hey, I’m the girl who commuted to New Jersey every day for four months to do Cats, what do I know?
Here’s something I do know: the other chorus girls did not like me. And they took their jobs seriously. As we waited to enter for each scene, there was dead quiet in the wings. Usually, there’s some light joking, maybe quickly running lines, maybe physical warmups, shaking out your nerves– I tried to do this once. Before our entrance at the top of the show, we all gathered in the stage right wing, all twelve of us, a perfect and identical dozen. It was a dress rehearsal. No audience. I did a few jumping jacks, trying to hype myself up. Another masked girl grabbed my bicep, hard. When I turned, she just shook her head “no.” Just a simple, silent, “no.” We don’t do that here. We stand silently in the wings, focusing on our craft, breathing, waiting for our entrance. I never tried it again.
When you can’t talk to your coworkers, acting becomes a lot less fun. The collaboration element is totally gone. And honestly, the “acting” element was gone for me, too. How am I supposed to find my character or sense of identity in a role when my role is “don’t let your voice stick out, don’t take a wrong step, blend in perfectly with eleven women who dislike you?”
So before the shows, instead of chatting, or doing jumping jacks, I wandered the theater. I’ve always loved theaters; the dramatic architecture, the ornate prosceniums, the stark contrast of backstage, so dark, so dusty. The theater was no Broadway house, but it had a fly system (which we didn’t use, because the Greeks wouldn’t have been able to fly anything in), just over three hundred seats (including a mezzanine– fancy!), and lots of backstage space. I could say more about it, because I spent hours during the run of the show wandering, but it wouldn’t be terribly interesting to anyone who’s not me. Just know, it was a beautiful old theater– and I mean OLD. Built in the 1910s, just before the Great Depression. I used to love imagining how many generations of people had performed on that stage, imagining what they’d think of this show, or what they’d think of me.
About a week into my wandering, on some fifteen-minute break, I was looking at the ladder that led up to the catwalk– a long, thin metal walkway stretching across the stage from above, usually used for hanging lights. I wondered how long it had been since it was used during a show. I wondered if it was even safe. What would the view be like from up there, seeing the entire stage from thirty feet in the air?
I slowly looked up the ladder. I wouldn’t actually climb it. That would be crazy, right? I’m not particularly good with heights. As my eyes lifted, I made eye contact– or rather, mask contact– with someone. A fellow chorus girl, up on the catwalk.
I stopped breathing for a second. What was she doing up there? I started to say something stupid, like, “Why are you up there?” when just as quickly as the face appeared, it vanished. I saw her white robed form retreat down the catwalk, heading for a different ladder, probably. It was weird. Why did she run? Embarrassed to be caught somewhere she shouldn’t be?
I allowed myself to entertain a little fantasy: maybe she was just like me. Maybe she also hated the other chorus girls, and didn’t “get” The Bacchae. Maybe she was exploring the theater for fun on our break, enjoying the old architecture, like I did. I had no idea who she was under the mask, and she had no idea who I was. She probably thought I was one of the normal judgemental girls, and ran off before I could tell on her to the stage manager.
I was filled with unfounded hope. Could I make a friend here? Was it possible? After two and a half weeks of silence from the other girls, it was hard to imagine. How would I find her? How would I let her know it was me– that I had seen her on the catwalk, and we were the same?
After that day, I got much more observant. When the director called for a break, instead of immediately retreating into the depths of backstage, I watched my eleven doppelgangers carefully, tracking who went for water, who went back to the dressing rooms, who ran off towards the vending machines. It was hard to tell everyone apart, but people had to take their masks off to drink water eventually. I memorized faces and tried to keep track of them. I started to get a handle on everyone’s patterns, narrowing down potential adventurers.
It was impossible. Eleven people is too many to observe. But I’m an actor. Memorizing shit is literally my job. By week four, just days from opening, I had three potential girls. I tried to stick close to them during rehearsals, picking one to follow each day, but nobody ever wandered towards the catwalk. Maybe the girl, whoever she was, had been scared away from adventuring when I caught her. I started to lose hope. We were opening soon– I should focus on making my entrances, not making friends.
But then I saw her again.
This time, it was half an hour before the curtain went up for our invited dress rehearsal. The press was there. I was nervous. I knew I had my part down, but when you’re doing a show, no matter how prepared you are, there’s always the lingering fear that you’ll freeze up, forget everything, and ruin everyone’s hard work. It just means that you care. I was surprised that I cared so much. I still didn’t even get the play. I couldn’t let the other girls see me weak. I barely show my real feelings to people I care about, much less mean actresses who look down on me. To get away from it all, I wandered down to another unused part of the stage: the orchestra pit. We did have music in the show, but the Greeks didn’t have orchestra pits. So it was closed off, being used as storage.
I loved it down there. I loved looking through the storage bins, finding props from long-forgotten productions– sometimes I would find something incredible, something I swore was from the day the theater opened, something old and valuable– and usually, I could never find it again. Those bins were a treasure trove. Of all the weird little spaces I found backstage, the pit was my favorite. I felt like a real explorer down there, illuminating my path with my phone flashlight, getting spooked when a mouse ran over my foot (of course the theater had mice, it was more than a hundred years old! And besides, every building has mice in New York City).
That day, I wasn’t there to look around. Just to sit. Just to catch my breath. I tiptoed down the creaky steps, and plopped myself on the ground, surrounded by bins. I inhaled and exhaled, smelling the mildew-y scent of old props on every side of me. And that’s when I heard a noise. Not a mouse noise– I was used to those. Something bigger. I turned my phone flashlight on immediately, calling, “hello?”
And the light landed on a mask, just like mine. Mine which was currently off, because I was doing my breathing exercises. I felt exposed– she could see my face, but I couldn’t see hers. I stood up. “You scared me!”
She didn’t respond. She looked at me for a second, and started to retreat the other way, towards the stairs at the other side of the pit.
“Wait!” I called. “I won’t tell anyone I saw you!”
She stopped for a second. But then she kept walking. I stood and followed. “Please stop. Can I at least know who you are? I don’t fit in with most of the chorus girls–”
I reached for her long white toga. I swear, I had it in my hand, but somehow, she slipped away. I staggered a bit, almost tripped, confused that I hadn’t made contact with her costume. And when I looked back up, I only saw a glimpse of her disappearing up the stairs. I tried to follow, again, but I found that side of the pit’s stairs reached a dead end. I didn’t understand how she’d gotten out. And when I looked back down at my phone, it was time for places. Disappointed and defeated, I rushed away to the other stairs, making my way to the stage right wing to wait for my entrance.
I counted heads immediately when I arrived. Maybe she hadn’t made it back yet. But, alas: twelve. All accounted for. I nudged a girl next to me, subtly. “Who was the last one here besides me?”
She just stared at me for a moment, which came off as very creepy through the blank dead stare of her mask. “How the fuck am I supposed to know? We all look exactly the same.”
I sighed. “Okay. Thanks.” For nothing, I thought bitterly.
The invited dress went well. The press liked it, as I’ve already said. I was distracted the entire time. After that day, I made it a habit to count all the girls when the stage manager called for “places.” If I was right about this girl, she, like me, would be one of the last, if not the last one there. She would be wandering, exploring, getting away from the bullies.
I wish I hadn’t done this. I wish I’d given up when she disappeared on a dead-end staircase. I wish I’d never seen her on the catwalk. Because when I started counting heads, I noticed something impossible. Sometimes, before we went on, I counted thirteen identical masked faces.
It was a chorus of twelve. It was supposed to be twelve. I’d recount. Recount again. Thirteen. A chill went down my spine. We all looked the same. Same masks, same togas, same wigs. Who was the imposter? How could anyone be an imposter? It didn’t make sense. How would they get into the theater? How would they get a costume?
I started counting more often. Between scenes, in the dressing rooms, even on stage during dull moments. It fluctuated. Sometimes I’d count twelve for a whole day, an entire show, and sigh in relief, feeling like some curse was broken. But the next day, at least once, I’d count thirteen.
And it seemed as if one masked pair of eyes was always trained on me. I don’t know how she knew it was me. We looked the same. But she’d stare. It felt scary, but also ridiculous– I couldn’t be sure it was the same person looking every time. I couldn’t be sure it was unlucky number thirteen. But I felt like it was.
I felt a lot of things. I felt like I couldn’t tell anyone. The other girls already didn’t like me– I couldn’t have them thinking I was crazy. And admitting the presence of the thirteenth would mean admitting to my adventures into forbidden backstage areas. I couldn’t lose this job. I was living paycheck to paycheck. I wasn’t eating well, or sleeping well– maybe this was all a hallucination. And somehow, my biggest feeling was that if I told someone about the thirteenth, I’d never see her again.
And I needed to see her again. The obsession had only gotten stronger. I knew, somehow, deep inside, that she was the one I had seen on the catwalk and in the orchestra pit. I no longer wanted to be her friend– I wanted to corner her. To ask who she was, and why she was sneaking in as if she was one of us. I wanted to ask what she wanted from me.
Because she must want something from me, right? Why else would she stare? Why would she appear only to me?
The timing never lined up. The show had opened at this point, and I had a job to do: delighting the audience. I couldn’t skip my entrance to catch number thirteen. The chorus formations would look ridiculous with a missing person. And as much as the other girls hated me, I owed it to them as my costars to make them look good.
Logically, I knew there was only one person the thirteenth could be: Catalina, the actress I’d replaced. She must be jealous of me. Bitter. Maybe she wanted to take my role, like I’d taken hers. It would be insane, but it was all that made sense. She was the only other person who had the costume, who knew the keypad code to get into the theater. She must have recovered from her fall and come to find me.
It was almost like a game. It definitely made the show more interesting for me. Before I realized what was happening, I dreaded performances. I felt stupid, taking on this role in a show I didn’t even understand. But now I had so much to do. I had to plan.
I started showing up early, an hour before my call time. I walked my old spots, thinking I may see her. The other chorus girls were impressed that I was showing up early, thinking it showed some sort of dedication to the show. I think they even started to hate me less. They still detested any attempts at conversation in the wings, but in the dressing room, I started to have a few breakthroughs. In particular, I started a semi-friendship with Erin. Ironically, she had been one of the three women I thought may be the thirteenth, until I realized the thirteenth wasn’t really one of us at all.
She was the only person who I could actually ask about Catalina. “Did she ever say anything about the theater? The building, I mean? Did she have a favorite part of it?”
Erin would laugh at my seemingly random specificity. “We weren’t close, Michelle. I have no idea what she thought about the theater.”
“What did she do on her breaks?”
Erin thought for a second. “I don’t know. I never saw her at the vending machines, or the dressing room. I guess she found some quiet place to run lines.”
That confirmed it, for me. A quiet place like the catwalk. Or the orchestra pit. We were three weeks into our five week run when I came up with a plan to catch Catalina. It wasn’t a great plan, and I had no idea if it would work, but showing up an hour early every day was making me tired and producing zero results. I needed a new strategy. I realized that after seeing her in the pit, I only ever saw the thirteenth when all twelve of us were together.
So I told a white lie. One night after the show, when everyone was changing in the dressing room, I appealed to my fellow chorus girls. “Are you guys busy before the show tomorrow?” I innocently asked. “I’m feeling a little shaky on some of the entrances. If we could all get here just twenty minutes before our call time tomorrow, I’d love to run some stuff with you guys. I’ve been running it on my own, but without the entire team, I don’t always remember where I fit.”
To my surprise and intense joy, everyone agreed. They really did seem to respect me more when I looked like I was taking my role seriously. I could barely sleep that night, I was so excited to see if my plan worked. And hey, if it didn’t, I had two more weeks of shows to think up something else.
It was a Sunday night, our last show of the week. Mondays are often “dark days” in professional theater, meaning there are no shows that day to give the team a rest. I had planned this on purpose– if I failed, I had a dark day to reflect on that failure and try again.
At 5:40, twenty minutes before our call time, all the girls were assembled and in costume. We started running entrances. After ten minutes, I thought my plan had failed. We had run our first three entrances, and I never counted more than twelve heads in the wings. But around 5:55, as we got to our entrances in act two, offstage, I locked eyes with a mask. A thirteenth mask.
I quickly told everyone “I think I got it, you guys, thank you so much for coming early!” Everyone mumbled that it was no problem, that they were happy to help.
The thirteenth mask broke eye contact with me, looking around in confusion– perhaps distress. The girls started to trickle back towards the dressing room. The thirteenth turned and power-walked away. I shoved through the crowd to catch her, not calling out like I had in the past. I knew she didn’t respond to that. I knew I had to catch her now or never. Once we were out of the crowd’s eyeline, I began to run. She ran, too. “You’re not getting away this time!” I yelled, like some kind of cartoon superhero. My adrenaline was pumping, and blood rushed to my ears.
After I yelled, I suddenly became aware of another set of running feet behind me. “Michelle? Where are you going?” It was Erin’s voice.
“Don’t follow me!” I hastily called back, picking up speed. The thirteenth also picked up speed. Though she was running just as fast as I was, she showed no signs of exertion. I couldn’t hear heavy breathing, or heavy feet on the floor. It was like she was gliding. It infuriated me.
Erin didn’t let up. “Michelle, the stage manager is gonna wonder where we are!”
I ignored her. The thirteenth rounded a corner, and I realized where she was going: the catwalk. The ladder.
She ascended the rungs rapidly, like a spider. I clamored up much less gracefully. Erin’s voice had a heavy tinge of concern. “Michelle, what are you doing?! It’s not safe up there!”
“Then don’t follow me!” I yelled back, exasperated. “This is between me and her!” Despite my vocal warning, I heard Erin climbing behind me.
Once on the metal rail, I looked both ways, terrified she’d escaped me again. But her white toga was just a few feet away, retreating into darkness. I lunged at her. The entire catwalk shook. The thirteenth and I both grabbed the railing to steady ourselves. We met eyes. Or rather, we met masks.
“You have nowhere to go.” I stated.
I heard Erin reaching the top of the ladder behind me. “Michelle, come down, please. You’re scaring me.”
“I can’t. I finally have her.” I took a step towards the thirteenth. She took an equal and opposite step back. “Take the mask off.” I beckoned her. “I know it’s you, Catalina.”
I felt the rail shake slightly as Erin got on it. “What are you talking about, Michelle?!”
“She’s been sneaking in, Erin! She’s been standing in the wings with us before we enter! For weeks!” I took another step towards the thirteenth. In my peripheral vision, I could see how high we were above the stage. Thirty feet. You could die, falling from that height.
“It’s not Catalina. It can’t be. Stop this.” Erin called. Finally, frustrated, I turned towards her.
“Who else could it be?!”
Erin had taken her mask off. Her face was streaked with terror. “Catalina died, Michelle. She fell off this catwalk, directly onto her face, and she died. Please come down with me. I don’t know who you’re talking to, and I don’t know what you’re trying to do, but it isn’t worth it.”
“What are you talking about? I’m talking to–”
I turned back, and she was gone. Vanished like a bad dream. “I swear to God, Erin.” I started to say. “She was right in front of me. I chased her here–”
I turned back to Erin. The thirteenth was behind her.
It made no sense. Nobody can move that fast. Nobody can be in front of me one second and behind me the next. It was inhuman. I stopped speaking. I stopped breathing. It sucks to learn that in a fight-or-flight situation, my answer is to freeze.
Erin must’ve seen how my face changed. “Michelle?” She asked quietly. “What’s wrong?”
Behind her, the thirteenth raised a hand to her mask. Her hands were impossibly pale. How had I never noticed that before? She gripped the mask in her hand. Time stretched. It must’ve only been a second, because Erin didn’t move. But it felt like years of my life passed me by as the thirteenth, inch by inch, raised her mask from her face. Or– raised her mask.
Because there was no face.
Under the mask, pale and gruesome, was a bloody flat edge. Broken, disgusting, it was impossible to make out eyes, or a nose, or a mouth. Inside a somewhat face-shaped frame of stark-white skin, all I could see was flesh, red and raw, squished in on itself. Like someone had fallen from a very high height. And landed on their face.
By the time I finally began to react, it was too late. The thirteenth– or, Catalina– or, the ghost, or– whatever the fuck that thing was. It moved its hands from the mask to Erin’s shoulders. And it pushed. And she screamed, agonizingly loud, as she flew over the side of the railing. And she screamed for the second or so she was in the air. I was screaming, too. And after the crunch of her body hitting the wooden floor of the stage, everyone else screamed, cast and crew alike.
I stared down at her limp form from thirty feet up. Her legs were twisted the wrong way. A pool of blood began to seep out of her. When I looked up again, I expected the thirteenth to be gone, but it wasn’t. With no eyes, it was also looking down at Erin. At what it had done.
And then, slowly, it turned towards me. On all fours, backwards, I scrambled away from it on the catwalk, terrified, not wanting to be next. The thirteenth’s shoulders shook rapidly, like a person laughing. But it made no sound. It never made a sound. Not going up the stairs of the orchestra pit. Not when it pushed Erin. And not as it climbed back down the ladder, rung by rung. I found myself alone on the catwalk.
Erin survived, somehow, paralyzed from the waist down. Apparently she fell on her legs, which, when you’re falling from thirty feet up, is a good thing. If she’d gone down head first, there was no chance. The show had to close, of course. When they lost Catalina a few weeks into rehearsal, she was replaceable. But with me refusing to go on, and Erin in the hospital, there was nothing to be done. I haven’t seen Erin since that day. I feel too guilty. But I was never arrested, so I guess she told the authorities that I didn’t push her. I don’t know what she told them. I don’t know what I would’ve told them, had they asked me.
I don’t do stage plays anymore. The family I used to nanny for gave me a star-studded recommendation, and now I make my living taking care of a five-year-old and a two-year-old for another filthy-rich family. I still act, but I only audition for film work.
I don’t even see plays these days. I won’t set foot in a theater. If the thirteenth had vanished off that catwalk, maybe things would be different. Maybe I could chalk it up to an extreme hallucination, some terrifying creature my mind brewed up to cope with the stress of the show and paying rent. Maybe I could even forget its bloody mess of viscera in the vague shape of a face.
But I saw it go down that ladder. Rung by fucking rung. And I know it’s still out there.
Erin was unlucky. Erin was a victim of being at the wrong place at the wrong time. And if I step inside a theater again, some way, somehow, I know the thirteenth will get me on another catwalk.
This time, I’ll be the one going over the railing.
And I’ve never once landed on my feet.

Relationship Status: Single
Seeking: a relationship and/or friendships
Romantic orientation: heterotomantic, sex-positive demisexual
Gender: Female
Age: 37
Height/Build: 5' 5 and 3/4" and Curvy
Physical description: caucasian, dark blonde hair, green eyes, hourglass figure. Finding pants that solve the thigh/waist gap problem is key.
Personal description: ANFJ. Capricorn. I'm a pretty happy person who gets snarky on occasion. I really believe in found family and building community. I balance between staying at home where I read books, listen to music, watch movies and sew and do crafts, and also getting out into the world. I love to hike and travel and see new places and go for drives. Because I'm an ambivert, I have the best and worst of both worlds. I both need people time and alone time.
Location: I'm about to move back to North Carolina at the end if June. I'm really excited to be in the mountains and with alot of my family and friends

Hello! Thanks for reading so far, and thanks again to u/MelasD for creating the universe the story is set in.
Previous Chapter
A Scale of Vengance, Chapter 4.
Nele Stood outside the wall of the fortress city, it’s weak King had sent the majority of his military to fight us, and had failed, much to her delight. Landing her forces had gone unopposed, with only the city remaining to be conquered. It had been left to her to recover the priceless Egg that was held within the city. The Void demanded it, she could feel it pressing her onwards, urging greater speed, more ruthlessness, etc.
Her [Inquisitor] skill made her someone whom secrets were fun things to rip out of people’s souls, and those who had defected from the city only thought that they had something to hide. But this latest person, she had a memory of something disturbing to her. As she delved into the defector’s mind, the screams of pain were nothing to her as she ruthlessly pulled the memory of a Palanquin followed by the Princess…on Foot! Like a damm commoner!
The King was still there, in the city, her “diplomats” had wounded him in their parley, the fool even tried to surrender the city. Of course I had asked for the Egg as a sign of trust that he intended to live up to his word. Not that I had planned on not enslaving or slaughtering who I pleased mind you once I got the Egg in hand, but the fool had blanched, and broke off talks, so my assassin/envoys had gotten a poisoned dagger into him before being killed themselves. Good on them. They were worth every penny we spent on them.
The defector’s mind broke as I poured the Void’s essence into it, but the details I had were adding up to a disturbing whole. One that would have me groveling for my life in front of the [Hero King] much as the defector had been minutes ago, and likely with similar results.
“I want this wall down, NOW!” Nele shouted at her Subordinate, her rage and sense of panic threatening to overwhelm her, while the Void itself as always pushed her onwards, urging speed, urging her to find the one thing that made her even try to capture the city instead of laying it to waste.
The hooded officer fired the spellauncher, a magical siege weapon designed to break things like the spell shielding the walls of the city. As it and others like it fired into the spell protecting the city, she could feel the rot as the Void blessed spell ate away at the sickening purity of the city’s defenses. However, It would not fail in the time it took her to eat her lunch, so she turned her back on the black streams of Void’s power eating into the blue dome surrounding the city, She smiled, imagining some poor priest’s eyes bleeding as he prayed to a God that would never answer. She liked that idea, even as the Void whispered as always of late “faster,faster!” into her soul.
***===***
On board the good ship Andromite, The Lady Benning touched the Black Egg, feeling its cool scales, and for a moment thought there was nothing to it. When she was suddenly wreathed in blackness like a tarp had fallen over not just her, but her senses she tried to pull back, but it was too late. Unconsciousness took her to a place that was unfamiliar to her, waking up in an odd cavern where she heard mumbles and roars. She looked up to see a striking though odd pair of dragons, each with two heads, all four of them looking at her. She reached for her sword, only to find herself unarmed. Slowly she returned to facing the Dragons, both hardly waist high, more like large wolves than beings who could level a city.
“Hello?” She said, and received aserries of roar-barks in return.
She levered herself up to a standing position, trying to get her feet under her. The two Dragons were communicating, it was clear before the one with scales made an outraged noise and stood between her and its companion, growling.
‘Um, Talio, is that you?” I said, and the Black Dragon flinched, causing the other Dragon to breathe flame in what had to be a belly laugh. If this dragon wasn’t Talio, it sure looked embarrassed about something as the other dragon continued to spew flame and mirth.
“Answer the question” I said,with an even voice, one that I had used for years with Talio as his tutor while laying my palm on its shoulder. The dragonette sighed, looking back at me and nodded in the affirmative.
“Well, that answers that, though not why you both have two heads each.” I said, pointing at Talio’s companion. I was unprepared for the amount of communication that passed between both dragonettes as four heads tried to talk/roar at the same time. I held up my hands to moderate between them.
“It’s complicated, but there’s no Void or anything eating at you?” That got a definite response, with both dragonettes nodding in the affirmative before starting to chat among themselves once again.
“That’s good news, I couldn’t feel anything of the Void when I touched your egg, or just now when I touched you, we just don’t know why it turned Black, it scared us.” This brought on another round of chatting with the Blue and Orange Dragonette walking forward and opening its maw towards a rock, and causing it to melt, then refreeze near instantly forming a puddle shaped rock covered in hoarfrost.
As I looked at the obviously cold and formerly melted rock, Talio’s tail tapped me on the shoulder, then nudged me aside before it focused and with a Roar, the Rock went back to its former shape before the Blue and Orange dragonette had melted it in the first place.
“You did that?” I asked, not seeing a lot of difference, but they were trying to show me something important, and as one of Talio's heads nodded, his foreclaw drew a Sun-dial’s face on the ground as the other head concentrated. I looked at it not getting what Talio was trying to say as the other dragonette was talking to it.
Talio drew an exaggerated picture of the sun in the dirt, which I recognized, then did a small roar while erasing the sun with it’s paw, then drawing it lower in the sky.
“You can move the Sun?” The other Dragonette thought this funny, and was trying to restrain itself while commenting in low growls and barks. Talio just pointed at the sundial and looked exasperated just as two more dragonettes popped in much like I must have earlier, one frantically berating Talio, but as Talio concentrated, rearing upright on his hand paws and placing his paws on me I recognized the dragonette “Carana!” I shouted as the world faded around me.
I awoke, back in the familiar hold of the Andromite, but things had vastly changed with shouts and violence around me as sailors and even some men were struggling, and shouting curses. But this time, when I reached for Reliant, he was there, the spirit within the blade thirsting for the unrighteous.
I let out a roar, wielding Reliant and Lady Kara stood beside me, one arm dripping blood while holding a short sword with the other.
“Drop your weapons! I don’t give a rats ass whose side you think you are on, drop them now!” This statement had the immediate effect I wished as the sailors had seen my handiwork before embarking, though conflict still raged on outside the room.
Kara panted “Mutiny, as I foresaw, too bad I didn’t foresee your disappearance.”
“Let’s get this mess in order, and hang the bitches who instigated this.” I growled.
***===***
The Black Dragonette had come up with a devious plan, one that the Temperature Dragonette had eagerly acquiesced to. “Since we have unlimited access to our powers, let me slow time down here, or even reverse it, so we can fully bond with our Guardian Spirits!” Talio had said, and try as he might, the Temperature Dragonette could find no flaws in this.
Even flexing his powers to this extent gained experience, and at first, there was little effect, but as they concentrated, Talio felt a connection with his Draconian self, feeding it energy until there was some resistance, then repeating it as they used their Time Distortion power. As Talio was practicing, he felt time like a wiggily serpent, hard to grasp onto and hold and it was during one of his introspective sessions with the Black Dragon that he and the Others were quite surprised by the addition of one Human into the mix.
The Temperature Dragon asked “Did you do this?” as we both looked down at a much larger than normal sized Lady Benning from my perspective.
“Not that I know of” I said before Cinder sniffed deeply of her
“She smells of our magic, so somehow, yes.” She answered the Temperature dragon.
“She’s Lady Benning, the Swordsmaster, and my tutor.” I said “I know her well, but don’t know why she’s here.” I said as the human stirred, starting to awake as she put a hand to her temples. When the Temperature dragon nudged her with a forepaw, Benning went for her sword rolling to her left, away from us, finding that her sword had not materialized with her. I backed off a couple of steps, still finding it odd to use 4 legged locomotion.
When all of us stood there for a second, each a bit scared as with her size she probably could do us some damage, but fortunately she could read the room, even one occupied by two dragonettes.
“Hello?” I understood her perfectly, thank goodness.
“Hello Lady Benning! It’s me Talio!”I said, forgetting that I was unable to speak common anymore.
Cinder flashed me the memory of not being able to talk to others, while also tinging it with annoyance. The Temperature Dragon however, stepped forwards, curious.
“This is what females of your species looks like?” He said openly gawking, as I stepped forwards, intercepting him from doing whatever he planned, when he sniffed me. “You were a mate to her?” he said, not sounding too innocent at all.
“What? Me? No!” I interjected. Probably louder than I should have.
“Our scent says otherwise, you like her, even if it’s unrequited.” Cinder said unhelpfully.
“And you’re now a female dragon, what a love story!” The Temperature dragonette barked, before laughing at my expense yet again.
“You are so going to get the Hiccups again!” I said growling, standing between Benning and the mirthful dragon both as defense, for my honor, and to avoid Benning from being hit by flame on accident.
“Um, Talio, is that you?” Benning said, and I looked back, unused to seeing the Swordsmaster being uncertain about anything. There were stories where women show their tender sides to a man they adored, protecting them and providing for them, but as a Royal, all I ever looked forward to was a Royal Marriage and being used as a political pawn and a Stud, and then raising kids that probably weren’t even mine. Needless to say, seeing that I had romantic feelings for a person that I was close to was unsettling, to say the least.
The moment was somewhat ruined by the Temperature Dragon, who once again had laughed themselves into hicups, and was laying on their back, kicking their paws into the air in assumed hilarity. So much for any prejudices of Dragons being majestic and serious creatures. I thought, rolling my eyes.
“Answer the Question!” She said, causing me thanks to years of instruction to assume a sitting position, back upright, and nodding in an exaggerated fashion while Cinder said to the Temperature Dragon “You ought to be ashamed!” and stuck her tongue out at him.
From then on, we chatted, or at least tried to. She trying to understand my gestures, and I while being able to read, nobody had sat down to teach the [Swordsmaster] how to. So it came down to drawing pictures, and demonstrating what I could do, being a one of a kind sort of dragon. I think I more or less got the point across, and even the Temperature Dragon was being helpful, when Carana and a White Dragonette appeared, presumably fulfilling her prophecy that she would indeed find a companion/meal in that specified time. What I was not prepared for was the immediate panic the now male dragonette got into.
The Fate Dragonette known as Carana on my world immediately started jumping up and down “Send her back, NOW!!” He roared the last.
I, knowing Carana’s powers immediately questioned Cinder.
Cinder whispered into my mind, as she took control of our body, which I complied, focusing on all that I knew of Benning, from her sense of humor, or how her breasts looked, or now as Cinder placed our paw on her heart, feeling her heart under my paw.
Benning disappeared similar to how Carana and the new dragonette had appeared. Cinder purred into my mind.
I sat stunned, while our world needed someone with the Victory Dragon’s powers, I was glad that I had not been tempted to pick..her. The Fate Dragonette was looking at me funny. “If you only knew how close you came to being thrown into the ocean right then. Don’t make me regret not going back there to avenge my city.” He said before greeting the Temperature Dragon.
I greeted the Victory Dragonette, a feisty female dragonette whose gold color made her dazzle, even in this dimly lit area. “Hello, I’m Talio.” I said, and the Dragonette bowed in return, a slow wave traveling down her neck which I recognized, though I hadn’t seen it before, the memory being one of Cinder’s.
“I’m Vera, the Victory Dragon, and I don’t think I like you much, Time Dragon Talio. She said, leaving me to wonder exactly what I said to set it off.