Why are chip bags like, 80% of unused space? 

askladypitchiner:

generalpitchiner:

He started to get a little nervous when she paused, he hated to make this situation awkward again after it had just settled, but when she did, he relaxed again.

“Haha, small small world. I look like a dog’s chew toy so it doesn’t really surprise me that you almost didn’t.” He chuckled a little, pushing back his hair.

Ebony chuckled, looking at him with a warm smile. “Well for a chewtoy, you’re still looking good.” She said.

By now, the rain seemed to be coming to an end, which was at least a small relief. Or maybe it was just her mood that now felt a bit lighter, Ebony pondered. It could happen when you met someone you hadn’t talked to in… gosh, years!

“It’s really good to see you again.” She said sincerely. “It’s always nice with a friendly, familiar face.”

“And you look elegant as I remember.” Wow, he couldn’t remember the last time his mind stumbled this hard and could only come up with some of the lamer things to say. But what he did say was the truth, she looked good as ever.

“I’m honestly sorry about your father; I can say without a doubt that he was a good man.” He felt a phantom stab to the heart at the reminder of how easily he could be starting at his own father’s grave soon. 

isaac-hawthorne:

Had anyone asked him if he remembered anything before the orphanage and the streets, he would have simply shaken his head. The only thing he remembered was his name - and he had never been sure if it was a name his parents had given him before they had thrown him away, or if one of the matrons had made it up. He didn’t care. It was just a name. And he never mentioned it.

Not because he didn’t want to talk about it, but because he never knew another life than that on the streets and - whenever they had caught him - in the orphanage. They always locked him up behind their thick, wooden doors with the flimsy locks, and they always expected him to stay put. At first, when he was little, maybe five, six years old, he had not figured out how to pick the locks of these doors, but the older he grew, the less time he spent inside the damn building. It was an abandoned military hospital, and since there was very little to no money to be spent on urchins (or orphans, as they were officially called), it looked like something out of a horror movie.

They did not bother repairing the broken windows, or maybe they didn’t have the money to do so. Most of them were boarded up, others were covered by cardboard and tape, and the ones that had been broken only recently had not been taken care of at all. It was like an open window, the matrons said. They should be glad they’re getting fresh air at all. But then again, the matrons never slept in the rooms with broken windows. Graffiti lined the outside walls and the boarded windows, sometimes rough, obscene drawings and words, sometimes beautifully drawn flowers with butterflies and fresh colors. It looked like heaven and hell mashed together.

The whole place with its broken windows, creaking doors and long, tiled hallways that still smelled of antiseptics and blood gave him the creeps. The ‘rooms’ had been carpeted with old carpet and decorated with a few old posters here and there by the younger matrons, and most of the hospital beds had been replaced by either mattresses on the ground or bunk beds, but that didn’t matter. He avoided sleeping inside the orphanage whenever humanly possible. There had been the occasional flu he had caught on the streets, and he remembered every night. He had always been skinny, and fever was something his body didn’t respond well to. He usually had started hallucinating, he had seen blood run down the tiled walls, he had heard the screams of dying people from the other wards, he had heard the nurses and doctors trying to get into his room to inject him with nasty stuff, promising him to make the fever go away. He had always ended up barricading his door with whatever piece of furniture was available, cowering in a corner and waiting for daylight, mostly because he would finally fall asleep by then.

They had told him he didn’t need to come back to the orphanage at the age of 11, when he had moved to the streets anyway. They had chased him off at the age of 12, when he had stolen a few blankets, clothes and a bit of food (and he was still amazed just how fast he could run while carrying all these things), and he had never gone back ever since. He knew how to survive on his own. He was a quick learner; he knew which goods he could steal from the market stands, he was good at analyzing tourists’ movement patterns and their general body language, deciding which ones were slow enough to be pickpocketed easily. He knew the old tunnels below the city where most of the urchins hid during thunderstorms and bad weather in general, he knew the industrial pipes and vents where he could sleep during winter because they kept him warm, he even knew the few merchants who had lost their own children to the war against the Fearlings. When he smiled at them and acted all cute, they usually bought him a hot chocolate or something similar. He never wasted a thought how they really felt. All that was important was his own survival. He avoided dancing on the backs of the bruised, but he didn’t care for them either. Nobody had ever cared about him, so why would he care about others?

And one day, he made the mistake the older children had always told him about. Everyone made a mistake sooner or later. They got caught stealing fruit from the market stands, and once the city watch got you, they’d kill you. This was of course exaggerated, but it was enough to keep children from getting caught. Some of them were not careful enough, and many were never seen again after they had been taken away by the guards. Fear was, in many cases, the best teacher… but even the brightest students made mistakes.

When the hand had grabbed his wirst in a vice like grip, his mind only needed a split second to come up with how the guards would decapitate him after they had beaten the shit out of him. He had watched the half armored man from a distance, he had seen how slowly he moved and even if he had noticed the scrawny hand in his pocket, the boy would have gotten away in time. Should have gotten away in time, but the large hand had grabbed his wrist just as he had gotten a hold of the man’s purse. He felt the air being knocked out of him as he was slammed against the nearest wall, and it hurt, but there was no air left for him to utter so much as a whimper. Still, his dirty fingers were holding on to the purse for dear life. Maybe the man wouldn’t notice. Maybe he’d hit him in the head a few times and let him go.

But even though he squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his teeth, fully expecting a blow to the face in the next second, nothing like that happened. On the contrary. The man, apparently a soldier judging by his clothes, the armor and the way he moved, grabbed the boy by the collar and let go of his hand. He didn’t lift him up, he just held him in place. The boy’s hand, still holding the purse, was quickly hidden behind his back.

And the boy did look scrawny at best. His clothes were ragged and old, only his boots seemed to be rather new, but even so, they basically had ‘stolen’ written all over them. He wore pants held on his boney hips by a simple rope because they were too large for him, and an once white cotton shirt that reminded the man of the camouflage pattern used for woodlands. How old was the red haired boy with the matted hair? Twelve? Maybe thirteen.

“I suggest you give that back, lad”, the man’s voice said, lowly. He was not shouting, he was not calling for the guards, he was not even hitting him. He was just talking, and it made the boy open one eye. The other remained shut, because a part of him still thought this to be a cruel joke. Those filthy rich bastards always called the guards, didn’t they?

He was about to protest, he wanted to shake his head and clutch the purse in his hand even tighter, but there was something about the way the man spoke, something about his looks and the way he eyed the boy up and down that made him hold his tongue. He was like the kind of teacher everyone listened to because he was the prime example of authority, without having to yell even once. The man was old, the boy mused. He had short, graying hair and the build of someone used to much more armor than what he was just wearing. And the way he held his hand, silently asking for his purse, didn’t help. Sighing, the boy slumped his shoulders and put the purse into the palm of his hand.

“Lemme go”, he muttered, rubbing the back of his hand across his left eye and nose, smudging a bit of dirt across his face. He avoided the man’s gaze. For some reason, it made him extremely uncomfortable, almost to the point where he felt guilty. And he had never felt any guilt in his life.

“What did you want the money for? Drugs?”, the man asked. No… he didn’t ask. He demanded to know, without even having to raise his voice.

“Nah”, the boy murmured, staring at his own, dirty hands just past the hand that was still holding him by the collar, without making his feet lose solid ground. “Food.”

“You sure about that?”, the soldier said, grabbing the boy’s left forearm to turn it around, so he could get a good look at the crook of said arm. He did the same thing to his other arm, and this time, the boy began to struggle and protest, trying to yank his arm away, to twist it out of the guy’s grip somehow, but to no avail. There were no visible injection sites on his arm, no red dots that spoke of how often, maybe even what kind of drug he took. Somewhat satisfied, the soldier let the boy go, his arm first, then his collar. Instantly, the boy’s eyes darted around to look for an escape route.

“I was going to buy some food”, the soldier informed him. “Tag along if you want some.” With that, he turned around, turning away from the boy. He hadn’t hit him, he hadn’t called the guards and he just turned away. No, he even offered him food. Casually, the redhead pinched his own arm to see if he was dreaming, but he caught himself already following the man instead of making a bolt for it. Maybe it was a nightmare. He had heard others talk about the Fearlings and how people had more nightmares the closer they got.

Both of them, soldier and urchin, stopped at a stand that sold soup as well as different kinds of bread. The boy had his hands in the pockets of his trousers, looking around like he didn’t really care for the damn food, while his stomach was making the strangest of noises from the smell of freshly baked bread, different kinds of pie and hot soup alone. He could take care of his own. He didn’t need someone buying him food. Or that’s what he told himself.

“Here you go, lad”, the man said as he turned around, holding a fresh piece of bread with melted cheese on top of it in front of the boy. Oh, the boy didn’t want the damn food! He felt like a beggar, and if there was one thing he had left, it was pride. At least until now. He grabbed the bread and sunk his teeth into the crispy food almost before the soldier could pull his fingers away.

“Woah”, the elder man laughed as he pulled his hand away just in time, turning to take his own food - the same kind of bread with cheese - from the hands of the merchant. “I didn’t know you were so-“

But the second time he turned around, the red haired boy was gone. His eyes scanned the crowd in front of him, but there was no sign of any copper hair.

Well. The boy was quick. He had to give him that.

drawntonightmares:

She backed a little away from the General, that seemed to darken on the spot. His smile and laugh made her a little nervous but nonetheless she came back, smiling a little.

“That is quite a good question….” she tilted her head to the side, hair flowing over her shoulder and into her face as she chuckled lightly, coming closer. “…I first saw you in different occassions…most of them were memories of a certain being…they remembered you and at the same time not you. The memory was washed away…Then I’ve met a fearling, or more likely, a Queen turned into a fearling…and she did remember you. I was interested and wanted to find out who you were exactly. Because all these dimensions, all these different paths….I must admit that it was just curiosity nothing much, but it became more.” she smiled fondly, standing now right in front of him, her feet this time on the floor, to show how short she actually was…

“I saw who you are. At least some of it. And I like it….I like it very much.” A hand was extended and laid on his armour, right above his heart. “You have a kind heart, general. You are one of the bravest beings I encountered, believe me these are many, and you still stand against your demons. You fought. You won….you lost…I know what it means to loose” she sighed and shook her head, the smile still there, only a little more broken. “I know that you cannot bring back the dead…nor can you undo what you’ve done….Even if I could I wouldn’t. You did so many great things, so many lives you have saved, so many hope you brought…and you still do! If I change the past, your future would be a short one. I have seen what would happen…” her eyes darkened a little bit, quickly shaking her head to loose those memories. “…but you won’t go to this path….you are on yours….and, dear General….”

A tiny glow was on his plate, the glow forming slender streaks and forming a white and blue heart for a short time, like an ice flower that bloom over the dark armour.

“…do not think that you are alone…that you do not have anyone that cared… no one that understands you. Because you have. You have a tender heart….and everyone knows that. Please do not forget that, dearest General. Your heart. Do not let it freeze over, just because you feel bitterness of the fallen.”

He made a silent snarl as she came closer; her friendly demeanor looked nothing more than a cloak in his eyes, a wolf in sheep’s skin. He couldn’t trust a darkling who had just admitted to surveillancing him for a length of time. He could rattle off multiple names of those who could and would deal such creatures. Wait… Queen turned into a fearling? What was she going on about? His mind raced even faster through his memories of any ‘Queen’, but came up with nothing. She was lying, she had to be lying.

But as she spoke, he listen more intently, for as much as he wanted to write off everything she was saying, they way she spoke was bring him out of this storm raging in his mind. As much as he was listening to her words, he wasn’t fully aware of her getting closer until her hand was touching his chest plate. The sudden coldness of the icy mark was the final jolt from his temporary madness and back to attention.

“I’m half temped to say that you’re just spinning sweet smelling webs in hopes that I’ll just was walk in and get myself tangled.” His expression was still harsh but his tone had softened to a more human level. “However, you don’t seem the type to easily hide what they’re feeling, as hard as it is to believe a nightmare. Doesn’t help my case that you speak sensible words.” He relaxed a little, his hand reaching up to the mark, almost flinching at it. The last time he had been marked, it wasn’t a pleasant experience to put it lightly, but this was on his armor, and seemed more like ward than a claim. He uttered a thank you under his breathe.

My dog is still very sick and is now staying overnight at the vet for blood work. We’re hoping that it’s nothing more than a toothache that can be fixed, but all signs are pointing to her being poisoned. She has become incredibly lethargic and has completely lost her appetite. This whole thing started after part of our fence got blown down after a serious windstorm and our dogs got loose for 30 mins. 

This is a message that unless it’s absolutely necessary for you to use poison on a pest problem, avoid it as it’s extremely harmful and if you do, tell your neighbor to keep and extra close eye on their animals.

piratebaysanddragonways:

generalpitchiner:

 

Kozmotis nearly jumped out of his skin at the sudden intrusion on his mind. He would say that this was rude, but he did ask what the critter wanted to tell him. He wasn’t at all sure if he should answer back telepathically (if he wasn’t even sure he could do that in the first place.) nor was he comfortable with the idea that this thing could listen in on his thoughts.

“Ah uh, yeah? That… was the plan. Okay, right then, you want my help dealing with Ringmaster while you(?) and some of the girls friends help her and the pup escape? Do I understand you correctly?” He wasn’t sure if the Kid could get out. From scouting and watching from the shadows for a few days, something told him that Klown was marked and marked people didn’t have much of a leash to get away. 

“Real question is now how to go about making a distraction good enough to keep him busy. Demons are sharp, and last thing we need to things to go sour just as we got one foot out the door.”

The creature chirped and shrugged in an odd way, shoulders and arms hunching and tucking closer as his head lifted high.

<Yes! Distract Ringmaster. Fight. Kill? Absorb soul?> He crooned, idling about with a little weight shift between his feet, <I will be with Friend. Creepy man is helping. Creepy man has connection to Demon. Somehow. Barely anything in Creepy’s head. Very empty. Simple shell. No organs even! Maybe. 

<Needs help. We will fight monsters. Smash mirrors. You fight? Place bet. Friend’s soul is on the line. Bet demon all of our souls for Dragon Lady’s soul. Need fight. Make demon think you are one going after souls instead? Trickery! Tricky, tricky.>

“Yes, we’re going to kill the little snake though, he doesn’t have a soul himself. You guys go after the souls, I’ll be taking the ringmaster down myself. As for Klown he’s undoubtedly in big trouble. I think RingMaster has the Pup’s soul on him personally, as to why, well, that’s anyone’s guess. I think by the time I get in there, there won’t be a need for sneaking around. Thanks for the heads up,”  almost it out thinking, He gave the small dragon a scratch behind the ear.

“Smart critter, I’ll have to give you a proper thanks later as I got nothing on me now. Go help your friends now.”