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Come one, come all! Here is we begin deliberation, planning, and logistics for a 2014 trip to Peru to attend an Ayahuasca retreat. This offer is open to all members of the psychonaut community, or anyone interested in expanding their mind/healing their soul.
I was flying back from Warsaw. I did have a business class ticket, but still. Anyway, I went to a priority security line with very basic metal detector security and like two people in front of me. No stress. Passport control was easy with no line. Customs was like a 15 minute line in the US, but he just looked at my passport and that was it. This is what I'd consider a reasonable amount of security, and I don't remember ever having this easy of a time.
I once had a flight back from a layover in Hamburg, and boy was I ticked off from this experience. After going through your typical US style security.. Shoes off.. pose in front of that ridiculous machine, light pat down.. whatever.... at the gate there was an even WORSE security. And for this it didn't matter where you were sitting on the plane. Only crew were exempt. They THOROUGHLY patted us down, and any bags we brought on the plane were emptied and searched intensely. I was really annoyed.
So my impression from this was the Poles are cool and the Germans suck considering one was my best airport experience ever, and the other I got on the plane infuriated. Ironic that they can treat me that way too considering I'm Jewish. As if they didn't do enough to us already!!
My (F27) BFF (F 29) and her now ex (M 33) of 3 years finally ended their toxic relationship after months of issues. It ended with him assaulting her and being taken to jail. He is expected to be released in a couple days and will have a police escort to pick up his belongings at their house. I bought a plane ticket (DC to LA) to go and support/comfort her for a couple days.
Myself along with other loved ones have tried to get her away from this person because of the toxicity but she was unable to leave him until he was sent to jail. We all hope this is the final straw for her.
I had to cancel my flight because I was dealing with personal issues and did not feel capable for helping her. She is a heavy drinker and I find it difficult to be around her while she is drinking.
My question is: How can I be a good friend to her? Should I fly out and be by her side? Should i get her to come to me? To I tell her I will help her when she is sober? Any advice would be great as I want to be as good of a friend to her as she is to me but maintain my boundaries.
So, I don’t know where to start with this. We met at a music festival 8 years ago and became instantly close because we also lived nearby. At the time I’d watch her young kid, cook, always come over, do everything together type thing. Eventually I was her MOH in her wedding 4 years after that and shortly moved from our city 3000 miles away to an isolated tropical location.
I was the first friend to visit just 3 months after they moved (about 4 years ago now), we had a great time. She had a baby and I visited when the while was 1, and I visited again early this year when her child was almost 3-year-old. We have maintained a close long-distance friendship through these years, and I was always one to visit. I’ve been a good friend being long distance, sending care packages, gifts for her now two kids, etc. I always pick up the phone and make time for her to talk. We have business plans together and know everything about each other.
The last few months she will hardly talk to me, I know she’s busy with a toddler, but this has been beyond quiet. Let me rewind to earlier this year where, reflecting, she might have been kind of a bad friend. In early January, another city friend of ours was going to go visit so I thought it would be fun if I fly out too. I pay for a ridiculously expensive flight to go see her a few days before new year’s, but I didn’t care because life is short. So, we would have maybe 4 days together to catch up and be friends. On the night of New Year’s Eve, we mee these random people on a boardwalk. She gets this girls number who closer to my age and has two young kids, makes sense because she just moved to this island and that way their kids have a playdate. I expect they would do this after I left.
The next night this new friend calls her looking for weed to smoke because they are new, and she wants some of the stuff that I threw down money for my time being there with my friend. This new girl brings over a crew of like 6 or 7 other people to smoke this weed the next evening, kind of robbing my time with my best friend. Whatever I thought, until a day or two later my friend invited her over again (and their whole crew) so their kids could play.
Now I get it, I don’t have kids or anything, but I thought my friend would want to spend some more time with me and not some new randoms. I would have hung out just with her and her toddler (since she made me her toddler’s godmother) because that’s what I flew out to do before our other friend got out here, but boy was I wrong.
Also, through the trip she would leave me along with her toddler without warning while her and her husband went to go smoke (I felt left out). I understand my friend has children so there would be kind of working around the child’s time and all that, but I didn’t expect her to want to spend so much time with new strangers at her house and quite literally leave me in the corner.
Now that she has hardly been talking to me (I know she is having an emotional affair) I am looking back on her actions as a friend, and I just feel icky. Maybe her pulling away is a gift but I still feel sad. It makes me feel I can never be taken seriously as a friend because I don’t have kids or something. Mind you, she never sends me anything or takes initiative for me to come over even though she always hosts and all that (she lives in a very popular vacation destination) but I go there more for time with my friends than a free vacation (I pitch in for food, want to spend time with them, ect.). So lately I’ve just had radio silence even though I know she has time, she probably prefers these new island people.
So we have stopped talking as much and upon reflection, I feel like I am not that important to her. How would everyone else feel in this situation? Thank you.
Does anyone have experience combining skymiles and a credit voucher for a flight? I have $200 from a traumatic (/s…kinda) trip last year plus skymiles and want to use it for an upcoming trip. I can’t find any info on whether or not it is possible to use both. Thanks for any help!
It pains me to admit this but here we go.
I had some neuropsych testing done in September and of course it wasn’t cheap. I probably got a bill for it in October. But I switched insurance two months later and totally dropped the ball. I got another bill in February but at that point when I logged into my account to pay it, it said the balance was $0. Low and behold, last week I got a bill from a debt collector. So I paid it. Right then. And now that bill won’t be floating in the back of my mind till the end of time.
I just booked 2 one way tickets direct from YYZ to BZE for less than $500 with WestJet in December. I've never seen prices this low before!
We’re from Manila, Philippines and planning to migrate to Spain in January.
We have 1 beagle, 1 indoor ginger cat and 1 shih tzu.
I’m looking at our options and it seems like my shih tzu will not be accepted by Emirates, so it looks like my only options are Qatar Airlines, Korean Air and Turkish Airlines.
I’m leaning towards Qatar because both Korean and Turkish have 13 hours straight flights to the first stop, with Qatar only 9 hours heading to Doha, and another 7 hours to Barcelona.
Help this lady out in making a choice.
I would also like to make it clear that yes, we know travelling is stressful for the dogs but we are migrating permanently so we definitely don’t want to leave them behind.
Thanks!
My ex of 5 years dumped me what appears to be back in February but now that I have been awake to it and seeing clearer since going NC for the past week I am realizing that it started long before that. Long story short, he only wants to be friends. After 5 years and an entire life built tigger her and family enmeshment. I’m not 100% sure of why but it had been made clear that it is 100% my fault. He thinks I’m a liar and I was. He was correct in that as I lied about my feelings 100% of the time which caused me to resent him and at times and had inappropriate text message exchanges with other guys 3 times during our 5 years that he found by snooping through my phone. That was my way of escaping this misery I created (I 100% own this, apologized, and he claimed to forgive me). Of course all but 1 of the times, the messages were months old by the time he started to snoop. Meanwhile he wanted to be open and I agreed and he slept around quite a bit and I had to be ok with it and I never slept with anyone. Mainly because I think I felt I deserved it to be this at because of the inappropriate text message exchanges I had.
I am confused because I am a reformed people pleaser (The word No or any negative feedback for him didn’t exist) and had a deep codependency on the relationship and when I decided to go no contact initially back in February and few time over the course of the last few months, I almost asked for permission from him. He was ok with it but gave me some BS response like “I will always love you and be here for you when you’re ready to talk”. It pissed me off but I had to be real with myself and admit that I was doing NC to somewhat manipulate him back into my life.
That didn’t work. So I fell back into the trap of communicating with him. Fast forward to the last three weeks or so, I have finally decided to just go NC and not give him a “heads up”. I just stopped responding and have focused on me. Completely left ALL social media, going to the gym daily, therapy 2x a week, eating better, mediating every morning, saying yes to hanging out with friends, solid travel plans. Completely dissolved my anxiety as I was intensely anxiously attached. I even took a long flight without WiFi or movies. Just me having to sit with myself. That was the HARDEST thing I’ve done thus far.
Anyway, he is now upset that I am not responding. For context, we have assets and semi-live together so there is a requirement for communication but I only respond to business. No responses to how my day is or anything like that. He continues to contact me asking me how my day is or asking for updates and he’s gotten clever enough to start the conversation with that and wrap it up with something that have no choice but to respond to. So when I only respond to the business, I’m now an asshole or he demands to know why I’m not responding.
It’s all too much. I’ve come to realize based on our very last conversation that he has no intention of working out our issues, forgiving me, or even owning his contributions to the state of our relationship. He sees me as a certain way and whatever that is has turned him off completely. He just wants to point out my flaws and blame me for everything wrong in the relationship. However, he wants to talk to me everyday. It’s so fucking weird and annoying and painful!
The cruelest part is that I’ve done all of this work to figure my self out over the course of the last 3 months. Owning my shit, apologizing, sharing my past traumas that caused me to show up in such toxic ways and why I “strayed” those few times, and what steps to make sure it doesn’t happen again and he still rejects me. I even confessed how much I missed him and he just ignored me. Then a few weeks later he gives me a little seedling of hope by telling me he was thinking of maybe giving us a fresh new start because he knows we belong together. I got excited and tried to unpack that only to realize that he had no real plan of how we were going to make that happen.
I have been contemplating blocking him completely. However, there is a tiny piece of hope deep within me. Then my brain kicks in and reminds me that there really is no hope. Even when I get close, I think of all the financial shit we have tied up together. I am not in a good place financially because of my people pleasing but I am in an amazingly good place emotionally and mentally because I don’t have the anxiety of worrying about his happiness or well being over mine.
I wish I knew what to do!
Looking for a smallish (3-4”) either HDMI touch screen or HMI. My thought is that probably 50% of the VFD installs we do involve a remote keypad. The OEM keypads are awful, never mind what passes for a menu structure in the VFD software. And no trending. But you can easily control all this from a typical HMI directly over Modbus that most of them support without even using a PLC. So my thought is to use a nice bright display or even E-ink and build our own HMI. We could even make it interchangeable with multiple brands. I’m not terribly focused on the HMI if I can find a reasonable touch screen but otherwise panelized is the way to go.
Still, about the minimum price I see for “budget” HMIs (Maple, Automation Direct) is over $400. RPI is cheap by itself even with pieces and parts but all the displays are either very large, very small (Waveshare), or very, very raw (Waveshare again).
I’ve thought about a Bluetooth version as an alternative. I’ve worked with sensors that have a QR code that sends you to an app that you install then connect to the sensor via Bluetooth. So this would be some kind of app on IOS/Android combined with say an RPI with a BLE interface. It works but I think it’s an easier sell with an on panel keypad.
Any ideas for parts short of building a case with an OEM style PI HAT display on say an RPI Zero?
My ex of 5 years dumped me what appears to be back in February but now that I have been awake to it and seeing clearer since going NC for the past week I am realizing that it started long before that. Long story short, he only wants to be friends. After 5 years and an entire life built tigger her and family enmeshment. I’m not 100% sure of why but it had been made clear that it is 100% my fault. He thinks I’m a liar and I was. He was correct in that as I lied about my feelings 100% of the time which caused me to resent him and at times and had inappropriate text message exchanges with other guys 3 times during our 5 years that he found by snooping through my phone. That was my way of escaping this misery I created (I 100% own this, apologized, and he claimed to forgive me). Of course all but 1 of the times, the messages were months old by the time he started to snoop. Meanwhile he wanted to be open and I agreed and he slept around quite a bit and I had to be ok with it and I never slept with anyone. Mainly because I think I felt I deserved it to be this at because of the inappropriate text message exchanges I had.
I am confused because I am a reformed people pleaser (The word No or any negative feedback for him didn’t exist) and had a deep codependency on the relationship and when I decided to go no contact initially back in February and few time over the course of the last few months, I almost asked for permission from him. He was ok with it but gave me some BS response like “I will always love you and be here for you when you’re ready to talk”. It pissed me off but I had to be real with myself and admit that I was doing NC to somewhat manipulate him back into my life.
That didn’t work. So I fell back into the trap of communicating with him. Fast forward to the last three weeks or so, I have finally decided to just go NC and not give him a “heads up”. I just stopped responding and have focused on me. Completely left ALL social media, going to the gym daily, therapy 2x a week, eating better, mediating every morning, saying yes to hanging out with friends, solid travel plans. Completely dissolved my anxiety as I was intensely anxiously attached. I even took a long flight without WiFi or movies. Just me having to sit with myself. That was the HARDEST thing I’ve done thus far.
Anyway, he is now upset that I am not responding. For context, we have assets and semi-live together so there is a requirement for communication but I only respond to business. No responses to how my day is or anything like that. He continues to contact me asking me how my day is or asking for updates and he’s gotten clever enough to start the conversation with that and wrap it up with something that have no choice but to respond to. So when I only respond to the business, I’m now an asshole or he demands to know why I’m not responding.
It’s all too much. I’ve come to realize based on our very last conversation that he has no intention of working out our issues, forgiving me, or even owning his contributions to the state of our relationship. He sees me as a certain way and whatever that is has turned him off completely. He just wants to point out my flaws and blame me for everything wrong in the relationship. However, he wants to talk to me everyday. It’s so fucking weird and annoying and painful!
The cruelest part is that I’ve done all of this work to figure my self out over the course of the last 3 months. Owning my shit, apologizing, sharing my past traumas that caused me to show up in such toxic ways and why I “strayed” those few times, and what steps to make sure it doesn’t happen again and he still rejects me. I even confessed how much I missed him and he just ignored me. Then a few weeks later he gives me a little seedling of hope by telling me he was thinking of maybe giving us a fresh new start because he knows we belong together. I got excited and tried to unpack that only to realize that he had no real plan of how we were going to make that happen.
I have been contemplating blocking him completely. However, there is a tiny piece of hope deep within me. Then my brain kicks in and reminds me that there really is no hope. Even when I get close, I think of all the financial shit we have tied up together. I am not in a good place financially because of my people pleasing but I am in an amazingly good place emotionally and mentally because I don’t have the anxiety of worrying about his happiness or well being over mine.
I wish I knew what to do!
My ex of 5 years dumped me what appears to be back in February but now that I have been awake to it and seeing clearer since going NC for the past week I am realizing that it started long before that. Long story short, he only wants to be friends. After 5 years and an entire life built tigger her and family enmeshment. I’m not 100% sure of why but it had been made clear that it is 100% my fault. He thinks I’m a liar and I was. He was correct in that as I lied about my feelings 100% of the time which caused me to resent him and at times and had inappropriate text message exchanges with other guys 3 times during our 5 years that he found by snooping through my phone. That was my way of escaping this misery I created (I 100% own this, apologized, and he claimed to forgive me). Of course all but 1 of the times, the messages were months old by the time he started to snoop. Meanwhile he wanted to be open and I agreed and he slept around quite a bit and I had to be ok with it and I never slept with anyone. Mainly because I think I felt I deserved it to be this at because of the inappropriate text message exchanges I had.
I am confused because I am a reformed people pleaser (The word No or any negative feedback for him didn’t exist) and had a deep codependency on the relationship and when I decided to go no contact initially back in February and few time over the course of the last few months, I almost asked for permission from him. He was ok with it but gave me some BS response like “I will always love you and be here for you when you’re ready to talk”. It pissed me off but I had to be real with myself and admit that I was doing NC to somewhat manipulate him back into my life.
That didn’t work. So I fell back into the trap of communicating with him. Fast forward to the last three weeks or so, I have finally decided to just go NC and not give him a “heads up”. I just stopped responding and have focused on me. Completely left ALL social media, going to the gym daily, therapy 2x a week, eating better, mediating every morning, saying yes to hanging out with friends, solid travel plans. Completely dissolved my anxiety as I was intensely anxiously attached. I even took a long flight without WiFi or movies. Just me having to sit with myself. That was the HARDEST thing I’ve done thus far.
Anyway, he is now upset that I am not responding. For context, we have assets and semi-live together so there is a requirement for communication but I only respond to business. No responses to how my day is or anything like that. He continues to contact me asking me how my day is or asking for updates and he’s gotten clever enough to start the conversation with that and wrap it up with something that have no choice but to respond to. So when I only respond to the business, I’m now an asshole or he demands to know why I’m not responding.
It’s all too much. I’ve come to realize based on our very last conversation that he has no intention of working out our issues, forgiving me, or even owning his contributions to the state of our relationship. He sees me as a certain way and whatever that is has turned him off completely. He just wants to point out my flaws and blame me for everything wrong in the relationship. However, he wants to talk to me everyday. It’s so fucking weird and annoying and painful!
The cruelest part is that I’ve done all of this work to figure my self out over the course of the last 3 months. Owning my shit, apologizing, sharing my past traumas that caused me to show up in such toxic ways and why I “strayed” those few times, and what steps to make sure it doesn’t happen again and he still rejects me. I even confessed how much I missed him and he just ignored me. Then a few weeks later he gives me a little seedling of hope by telling me he was thinking of maybe giving us a fresh new start because he knows we belong together. I got excited and tried to unpack that only to realize that he had no real plan of how we were going to make that happen.
I have been contemplating blocking him completely. However, there is a tiny piece of hope deep within me. Then my brain kicks in and reminds me that there really is no hope. Even when I get close, I think of all the financial shit we have tied up together. I am not in a good place financially because of my people pleasing but I am in an amazingly good place emotionally and mentally because I don’t have the anxiety of worrying about his happiness or well being over mine.
I wish I knew what to do!
I ordered 300 of the lower half of a mic stand from China to use in a different application. The manufacturer sent them with some wrong dimensions. They have since corrected their mistake, but I have 300 stands that I'm looking to get rid of. Is there a sub that may know of a marketplace that I could list them for cheap. Or maybe even a sub that I could post them for sale?
First Previous Ja’vail woke up with a yawn, her eyes squinting in the evening light. Her room was positioned in the castle on the west side, to ensure that Tor’s sun would wake her up for her duties. It was a purpose that it served with perfection, despite the fact that she really would have liked to sleep for a few more minutes.
However, her duty could not be delayed. It was her power that served as the linchpin to Tor’s spell, and she would fulfill her duty to ensure her Diarchy’s, and her world’s, future. With a grunt of exertion, Queen Ja’vail rose from her bed, stretched out her wings, and moved to the balcony before picking up her robe. As soon as she was somewhat decent, the Queen of the Night then opened her wings, looked to the skies, and began channeling her power into the spellform that had been weaved between the planet and its moon, renewing the bonds that connected them, and ensuring the delicate balance between her magic and her husband’s would not come undone.
She performed this ritual twice a day, every day, to ensure the spell’s continued existence. In the past few months she had performed it well before Tor had performed his own renewal, and had had to go remind the foolish drake to not only perform his duties, but to hurry up and get his tail to bed. Without her efforts, and her constant reminder to the king, the entire thing would come undone, ensuring their planet’s rapid descent into division once again.
Without the two dakri turning the planet, the two sides would either become too hot or too cold to sustain life, with the twilight between them ruled by monsters birthed from the nightmares of the oppressed.
It was with some surprise, then, that as she poured her soul into this undertaking, she could feel the thrum of her husband’s power clear in her mind, letting her know that Tor had already renewed his half of the spell for the night.
He really did need that sleep, she thought, giving a self-satisfied nod towards the setting sun before turning back towards her private chamber. She still had much to prepare for her night; even with the most pressing matter out of the way, she still expected a full schedule. Her court wasn’t especially busy, as the dakri found the night to be the best time to sleep and prepare for the next day.
That was besides the point, though, as her duties rarely involved overseeing the day-to-day rule. Rather, her task was to patrol the ǣther, hunt the nightmares that plagued her people, and to do her best to heal the source of those nightmares.
This was especially important now that she had cleared the Forest of Yith and had located the source of that particularly violent nest. It was best to keep those nightmares from returning, and for this cause she was going to attempt to enter the survivor’s dreams again. She doubted she would have as much success this time as she had last time, simply because almost drowning had weakened the creature’s defenses significantly. However, she had faith that she would at least be able to soothe the visitor’s dreams, and possibly gain a little more information on how he thought.
At the very least, she’d settle for a name. She couldn’t just keep calling it ‘the creature’ or ‘the survivor,’ as those ‘names’ grew heavy on the tongue, and wore down her patience. A name would also help the visit she had planned go a lot smoother, and would hopefully help them as they tried to convince him to come to the castle with them.
Once Ja’vail was dressed, she left the comforts of her room and made her way to her husband’s study. As she expected, he was still there, his desk still quite messy, a combination of his daily paperwork and the reports of the crashed alien spaceship forming the majority of the clutter.
Much to Ja’vail’s surprise, however, Tor wasn’t at his desk. Instead, the drake was standing at his window, looking out over the countryside and the eerie sunset before him, a reminder of the twilight that his people had escaped. In his hand he held a memory crystal, its red glow plainly visible in the slowly darkening room.
“Tor, are you alright?” the queen asked as she approached her husband.
Tor turned to look at her, surprise on his face. “Oh, I am well enough, I suppose…” he said, clearly still lost in thought. The king then looked down at the memory crystal in his hand, his brows furrowing in displeasure. “I have just received some… unsettling news. I was actually waiting for your arrival before deciding on anything.”
Ja’vail took a few more steps, her eyes locked on her husband's diminutive form. “What happened?”
Tor looked at her, then back at the stone. “It isn't easy to say this, but… we may have to kill the visitor.”
Ja’vail felt like her stomach had turned to ice. “Kill? Tor, what madness are you spouting? What crime could he have possibly committed while I was asleep to earn him a death sentence?”
Tor looked at his wife, pain in his eyes. “Nothing, dear. He’s completely innocent. That is beside the point, however.”
“Then tell me, what madness has overtaken you that you would murder an innocent?” Ja’vail demanded, her tone brooking no argument. “Or what monster are you, to have taken the place of my Tor? I must say, you have the likeness down, but your impression of his mannerisms leave much to be desired.”
Tor let out a mirthless laugh at that. “No monster or madness, my dark princess. Just a visit from an old friend…” he sighed again, before turning and holding out the crystal for Ja’vail to take. “Lady Siv paid both me and the survivor a visit today. She left me this, as well as a decision to make.”
Ja’vail looked at the crystal, before staring back at her husband, a dubious expression on her face. "And she told you to kill him? I do not remember her being so heartless.”
“And you would remember correctly. She was nearly in tears when I met her, though she did well in hiding them,” Tor said, before approaching his wife. He gently took her hand, and placed the crystal in her palm. “When she saw the visitor, she also looked into his future. This is what she saw. Please, do not force me to bear this knowledge alone.”
Ja’vail’s expression softened ever so slightly before she glanced down at the stone in her hand. “I will look, but I do not promise anything.”
Tor’s crest rose, but he did not say anything else. Instead he turned back to the window, waiting patiently for his wife to see what he had seen.
The memory took Ja’vail less than a second to go through, but she felt like she had been gone for a lifetime when the world came back into focus. She stared at the rock in horror, before throwing it to the ground. It did not shatter, it being made of quartz, but it still felt satisfying after the horrors she had witnessed.
“I was not pleased, either,” Tor said, not even bothering to turn and look. “Even if the visitor was guilty of some crime, I would spare him for what he could teach our people. As it stands, he is lost and alone, hoping for a friend. And I have to kill this lonely soul.”
“But… but we can’t do this! You’re better than this… we’re better than this!” Ja’vail said, nearly in tears. “Would we really sacrifice an innocent for the security of our own realm? Would you… would you…”
“Would I what?” Tor asked, turning to his wife, fire in his eyes. “Would I judge the worth of souls? Would I weigh a single life against the good of my people? Of his people? Would I become my father?”
Ja’vail looked away, her eyes closed as she folded her arms. “I’m… I’m sorry…”
“Don’t be,” Tor said, turning back to the window. “You have no need to apologize. I cannot measure the worth of anyone’s soul, nor would I try. However, this visitor’s life is not worth the lives of every person on this planet. When you include the lives of his own world, as well as the unnamed snake people… well… the choice is quite obvious.”
Ja’vail looked down at the floor, her eyes filling with tears as she thought everything over. “Would it have been better, then, had I not saved his life? Should I have let him drown?” she asked, her voice barely a whisper.
“Maybe. Maybe not. All I know is that the spirits have told us that the lives of others are better off if his is forfeit,” Tor said, his voice filled with bitterness. “I have not even seen this visitor in the flesh, and I do not know anything about him at all. What is he like? Does he have a family? What does he enjoy?” Tor asked, looking to his wife hopefully.
Ja’vail shook her head, not daring to bring her eyes up to meet her husband’s, as she didn’t think she could contain herself if she did. “I cannot say. I was only in his mind for a brief time, and I do not understand much of what I saw,” she said, her form gently shaking, as if a chill wind had entered the room.
Tor looked back at the window, his eyes closed as he thought on this. “Essentially, we are deciding the fate of not only an innocent, but a complete stranger.” Tor took in a deep breath, then slowly let it out. “And try as I might, I cannot measure his worth as greater, or even equal, to the lives of my people’s. If it comes to it, he will be slain, and his body destroyed, just as the spirits have told us to do.”
Ja’vail began crying in earnest, her shoulders slumping with the weight of guilt. This caused Tor to turn to her, lifting her beak gently with one hand until she looked him in the eye. “So… let’s ensure that it never comes to that.”
Ja’vail looked up at Tor, hope in her eyes. “But, Tor, we can’t-”
“Shhhh…” Tor said, encircling his wife in his arms. He was shorter than her, but she still felt comforted, simply because it was him. “I’m not going to murder someone simply because of the damage his life
might cause. Siv’s vision wasn’t that his continued existence spelled our doom, but that we must do everything in our power to ensure he doesn’t leave.” He pulled away from her a little, looking up into her hopeful eyes. “His death will be treated as a last resort, nothing more. For now, let us see how much worth his
life is. What can he teach us? What is his people like? I, for one, do not want to squander this opportunity that the spirits have gifted us, simply for fear of an unknown future.”
Ja’vail’s crest rose as she dried her tears with the feathers on the back of her arm. “Yes… I completely agree…”
The two of them spent quite a bit of time like that, lost in each other’s arms as the sun slowly set on the horizon. Even after the world was shrouded in night, they were still there, lost in the comfort that each other provided.
* * *
Kel’vara’s beak glowed as she wove her magic, pulling the water from the bucket in front of her. It coalesced into a ball hovering inches above her hand, the swishing, splashing sounds of the liquid a soothing counterpoint to the frustration she was feeling.
She liked working with liquids when she was feeling upset. It had always come easy to her, the seemingly chaotic way it flowed and ebbed was a balm on her nerves, instead of a frustrating mess that most other practitioners found the state of matter to be.
She slowly flexed her fingers and extended her wings, the movements giving a tactile presence to the shapes she was forming in her imagination. Slowly, as if watching ice melt in reverse, the ball of water stretched and flowed, extending here, twirling there, molding and shaping to her will to become whatever she wanted.
In this instance, the water took the shape of a dragon, its long, strong legs striding through the air as it looked around, its inquisitive, intelligent eyes searching for prey, or barring that, a dakri to play with. Its long tail wagged behind it as it seemed to spot something, before it shot off like an arrow, dashing towards whatever had garnered its attention.
The small, watery, facsimile of a dragon didn’t get very far across the room before the door opened, breaking Kel’vara’s concentration and causing her happy little pet to lose its cohesion. In an instant, the once watery, spiky, two legged reptile was nothing more than a mess on the once clean floor.
Kel’vara looked up in annoyance, her gaze falling upon an irritatingly unapologetic Valros as he entered the room. “Haven't you ever heard of knocking?” Kel’vara demanded as she used her magic to scoop up the water and return it to the bucket.
Valros was unimpressed. “Kel’vara, you can’t just stay here sulking, we still have work to do.”
“I’m not sulking! I’m just practicing my more precise spell work,” Kel’vara said, turning up her beak as her crest lay flat against the back of her head.
Valros, however, did not look convinced in the slightest. “Kel’vara, The Lady is her own person. You can hardly expect her to stay around and answer every single question you have.”
“I never said that she wasn’t.”
Valros let out a frustrated sigh. “Well, if you’re sure, then I really think we need to go over the plan for tomorrow,” Valros said, trying to get Kel’vara back on track. “I don’t think we’ll need many knights, the thing’s pretty docile, all things considered. Have you given much thought in how we’re going to actually communicate with it?”
Kel’vara thought about this for a while, her beak glowing softly as she played a little with the water in her bucket, causing the surface of the liquid to ripple in odd ways. “Ja’vail said that she was able to communicate pretty well with it while it was dreaming. The only problem with that is that it was
dreaming. I don’t know how dreams work with its species, but for dakri at least, anything that happens to our subconscious from outside forces is quickly forgotten. Bad dreams, flights of fancy, nothing to be taken seriously, or remembered.”
“I’ve been talking with the Captain of the Dreamguards about that too. He told me that we can’t rely upon that for communication, since we’re just as likely to get a straight answer as one about how the creature loves to eat its own pillow and ride a dragon made of Twirly Whirlys,” Valros said, stretching his wings a little and grunting with discomfort. The knight quickly brought his arm close to his chest, searching the broad wing until he found the feather that had been giving him trouble, and quickly put it back into its proper place.
Kel’vara found herself staring a little as the knight preened himself, before she turned away, her feathers fluffing a little in embarrassment. “Yes, and… ah, and in addition, the creature won’t be as weak as when we fished it from the river. It has an ǣon level spirit, after all, regardless of any actual ability it may or may not possess. We’ll be lucky to be able to intrude on its dreams at all.”
If Valros noticed her discomfort, he didn’t show it. Instead, he stood up and made his way to the window. “I remember the Sunrise Tribe had something to communicate, but it was mainly used to control their apprentices during ǣon training. It was supposed to be able to cross language barriers, but I don’t think we want to be dredging up the old ways…”
Kel’vara shuddered a little. “Those ways were barbaric.”
Valros nodded at her, but did not say anything as he stared out the window. “I suppose the only choice we have is to slowly teach the thing how to speak.”
“That’s not as easy as it sounds, though,” Kel’vara said, shaking her head. Valros looked at her, one of his brows raised, prompting her to continue. “When I treated his wounds, I ran a number of tests on him. He’s showing the symptoms of someone who has been transmuted into another shape entirely, except that he has no binding spellform keeping him in that shape.”
Valros looked confused at this. “You’ll have to forgive me, M'lady, but my knowledge of magic is somewhat limited to a handful of combat spells. You’ll have to use less formal terms with me.”
Kel’vara rolled her eyes a little, then used her magic to pull the water from the bucket again. With a thought, she caused the water to take on the shape of a dragon again. “With magic, it is possible to force something to assume another shape or state. Such as turning a dragon into a pig.” With a little exertion, the water took on the desired shape. “I’ll not bore you with the details, but things… well, they remember what they were. Always. If the spell is not properly maintained, the spellform will eventually fall apart, and the thing will revert. This is because things want to return to their old state. They’ll continue chipping away at the spellform, increasing the difficulty of keeping things in their altered state, until it grows beyond the mage’s ability to control. It’s why you cannot turn copper into gold and have it stay that way, or why you cannot turn dirt into food without accidentally poisoning someone.”
“Or purposefully poisoning someone,” Valros pointed out. “I remember history class at least. That happened quite a number of times during the Clan Wars.”
“It was a popular method of assassination, yes, but the old ruling class quickly caught on, and began screening their food before eating.” Kel’vara furrowed her eyes as she twisted the water to appear like the creature. “Whatever the bug-like aliens did to the creature, it didn’t involve magic. ‘The creature’s shape isn’t his own,’ if you remember what the queen told us. It’s entirely possible that it’s lost the ability to speak, even in its own language.”
Valros thought about this for a time. “Well, can’t we turn it back? Reverse the changes, and return it to its original shape?”
Kel’vara thought about this for a little bit, but shook her head. “It’s… possible, but there are so many unknowns. I was even afraid of using regeneration magic on him when I healed him. I had to resort to sealing spells to repair the damage.”
Valros looked confused. “I’m not sure I follow. I thought you healed it up pretty good.”
“I didn’t heal it at
all. All I did was fuse its skin together, and do some very basic repair based on that strategy, to keep it from bleeding internally or externally. It’s why I still applied bandages, in case those wounds reopened; I couldn’t risk regenerating it,” Kel’vara explained, her voice both pained and exasperated.
Valros still didn’t understand what the fuss was about, though. “Why not? What’s the big deal if you use a little regeneration? And what does this have to do with changing it back?”
“
Everything!” Kel’vara said, standing up in anger as she rubbed both hands through her crest. In response, the water in her grip twisted and flowed into strange shapes, a clear reflection of the tormented state of the battlemage’s mind. “This is an entirely unknown scenario, with an entirely unknown species! The spell to do this doesn’t even exist! All we have are spells to change something into something else, not to return something to its original shape. The way we would do this if this were a magical affliction would be to simply collapse the spellform, but this isn’t magic! If I were to try to change it back, any number of things could go wrong, the least being the creature dies a quick, painful death as it turns completely inside out! The closest I can come up with is the regeneration spell, which would force accelerated cell mitosis using the target’s remembered form, not its changed form. If I did use regeneration, it is entirely possible that the creature might revert…”
“...But?” Valros asked, knowing that there was a but in there somewhere.
“But the creature’s body might start attacking itself, killing itself from the inside out! The two different sets of genetic material might merge, making it into something even more monstrous than it is now! Any number of things could go wrong!” Kel’vara shouted, the water next to her turning into some kind of lumbering beast, whose basic shape only vaguely resembled the creature in the forest.
Valros held up his hands in a placating gesture. “Okay, okay, I get it. It’s probably a bad idea… but what do we do, then?”
Kel’vara collapsed into her chair, the water that she had been shaping falling into the bucket at the same time. “I don’t know… I really don’t know…”
Valros rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, there’s always pictures and trying to teach it to read…”
“That would take even longer than just teaching it to talk,” Kel’vara said dismissively. “Especially since it probably can’t-”
Before Kel’vara finished, a voice chimed in, interrupting her thought process. It seemed to be coming from the lieutenant’s belt pouch, and based on the tone of the speaker’s voice, whatever it was was urgent. “Sir Valros! Are you there?”
Valros quickly pulled out his whispering stone and gave it a squeeze, worry building in his heart. “What’s wrong, Calis?”
He almost wished he hadn’t asked, because what Calis said next turned his insides to ice. “Sir, I’m relaying a message. Viar and his drakes need backup, and they need it now. It’s those bug aliens the queen told us about. They’re here.”
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