This Event Sounds Fun, Is There An AO3 Collection?

This event sounds fun, is there an AO3 collection?

Not at this time!

Prompts that go bump in the night day 2 A whisper in the dark

A story for @thepromptfoundry event Prompts that go bump in the night day 2 a whisper in the dark.

As Tomie the night guard did her rounds of checking prisoners in this Japanese women prison, she hear a woman voice from behind her said in a whisper in her ear, "Let me out!" and Tomie turn around and shine her flashlight, seeing that there is no one there to her shock. Tomie become scared as she look around to seen who whisper to her.

OC-Tober: Day 01 - Getting up in the morning

OCs: Rook and Wren (I have yet to figure out a last name T-T)

Prompt by @thepromptfoundry

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(What's the name of that tag... no beta we die like men lol)

Rook was normally a light sleeper, and most of his mornings could start in multiple ways. There was the waking up because the sun’s light finally moved to a proper angle, and it shone in his face through the cracks of his closed shutters. The sounds of the animals he was caring for making a commotion because he was a few minutes late waking up to feed them. And then there was his brother.

So when his door creaked open, he knew his brother was trying to sneak into his room. There was silence as he waited. He counted down the seconds.

“Hit me with that pillow and I’ll give you a reason to visit a healer.”

His brother let out an aggravated grumble as he seemed to deflate onto the bed, his arms flopping over Rook’s side. “You're no fun.”

“I want to sleep and you’re not letting me.” Wren started climbing onto his bed. “What are you doing?”

“I’m a man on a mission.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” He finally opened his mismatched eyes in time for his brother to shove open the shutters on his window. Rook hissed as bright morning sunlight spilled into his room. He squeezed his blue and green eyes closed, hiding them from the sudden bright light. Then quickly shoved his brother off his bed with his foot in retaliation. “Get out, Wren!”

There was a shout and a painful thud before Wren let out a cackle. “I think I’m stuck.”

Rook sat up to glare at his brother, only to find an almost identical sun warmed bronze face looking up at him from the space between his desk and bed. Shoulder length black hair was in a tangled mess from falling off the bed. Blue and amber eyes blinked up at him as a sheepish grin appeared. With a scoff, Rook grumbled, “Suffer.” He swung his right leg over the edge of the bed. His arms reached up over his head as he stretched out his back from being curled up on a bed that was still too short for his tall frame. Wren was making struggling sounds as Rook reached out to grab the intricately made prosthetic leg of metal and leather next to his bed.

“Rook.” There was a wheeze. “Help.”

“You can wait.” There was a huff and a grumble from Wren, and Rook could feel the way his lips curved up into a smile. He pulled the drawer next to his bed open to pull out a sock for the end of his scared leg. “You really do need to stop sneaking in here to wake me.”

“Someone has to wake you. Otherwise, you would sleep all day.”

Rook’s voice was offended as he looked up from attaching the straps of his prosthetic, and snapped, “I will not.”

“Do too.” Wren finally wiggled his way out of the space between Rook’s desk and bed. “I find you napping in the sun with the cloud kittens after your practices with Guardian Allistair.”

“That’s a nap.”

“Yeah and if left alone you would sleep until dinner time.” Rook looked up to watch as Wren flopped over onto the floor in front of him. Standing, Rook nudged his brother in the side with his foot.

“Why did you wake me?” He stepped over Wren, heading for his closet.

“Dad wants to make sure your leg is good for the Ceremony of Flight.”

“He’s at the forge?”

“Should be.”

“Out.”

“Why?”

“Out.”

Wren sighed as he rolled onto his feet. He scrubbed a hand through his hair trying to tame it. “I’ll go feed the critters.”

As soon as his door closed, Rook scrubbed a hand through his own short black hair. He took in a deep breath before letting it out slowly. Just another day. He’s just one more day closer to his goal.

Once he was more centered, he pulled the closet open and reached for clean clothes.

Stepping out of his room, he could hear Wren struggling to feed the cloud kittens. A smile slowly pulled at his lips. He made his way over to his kitchen counter to start pulling out pans for making breakfast. He was getting ready to crack an egg open when Wren walked in. “Okay, the cloud kittens are fed and your damn goats were yelling at me every time I approached their hut. So I’m not going anywhere near them. Oh and don’t start cooking, mom’s making our favorite since we’re heading over.”

Rook frowned, “And you couldn’t tell me before I pulled everything out.”

Wren made a sharp gesture at the front door, “I was fighting your clouds of doom outside.”

“Nonsense they’re sweethearts.”

The look Wren shot his brother was one of disbelief and done with him. “You're full of it.”

“Let me finish feeding the rest of the animals.” He gave Wren a mocking pat on the shoulder. “Got to make sure they won’t eat you.” Wren gave Rook a half hearted shove.

“Jerk.”

Rook chuckled as he stepped away to start packing up the food while Wren worked on putting out the fire in the stove. “Do I need to bring my sword with me?”

Wren looked up at the ceiling as he thought about it, “Mmm, wouldn’t hurt to bring it.”

“Alright. Animals and we can leave.”

Wren stood up brushing his soot covered hands on his pants and closed the hatch on the oven. “I’ll be swinging by to see Haward about my bow. I gave it to him to make sure it’s capable of surviving the Ceremony of Flight.”

Reaching for his coat to pull on over his loose tunic, he finally said, “Might be time to get a new one.”

He was wrapping his sword belt around his waist as Wren gave a scandalized gasp. “How dare you suggest that?”

Rook attached his sheathed sword to his belt while he looked at his brother with a blank face. “How long have you had that bow?”

“Yeah and? Bows have a long life. I take good care of that bow.”

Rook waved off the pout Wren was directing him. “Just don’t want you stranded without a way to defend yourself.”

“You worry too much. I got this.”

“Fine.” He motioned to the now open door. “Let’s go. I still need to feed the animals.” Rook followed after his brother, closing and locking the door as Wren jumped off the steps to the path leading to the animals. With a sigh, Rook followed down the stairs. “I’ll need to find someone to look over the animals while I’m gone.”

“Mom has offered. So has Elara, said she can swing by here on her way to finding herbs.”

Rook made a face as he scooped up a bucket by the fence, and headed for a small building. “I’ll talk to Elara. Mom has enough on her plate with the festival for the ceremony drawing close.” Wren made sure to stay far enough away as Rook opened the small hatch door on the side. He walked around to the back of the building to open a wooden bin to scoop out some grains, before walking around in time to see the very round and small winged goats run at Wren who yelled as he ran off. Rook whistled and rattled the bucket. Ten large eyed heads turned to look at him, and he tossed a handful of grains on the ground. With an amused grin at Wren who was now sitting on a fence glaring at the small winged goats as they waddled over to eat the grains off the ground. “You sure you're ready for the Ceremony of Flight. You do know you're bonding with an animal right?”

Wren gave a huff before crossing his arms. “I’m pretty sure it’s only your animals that want to kill me. I have no problems when I’m by myself in the woods.”

Rook tossed more grains on the ground until the bucket was empty and passed it to Wren, “Go feed Rocky. He at least likes you.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Wren took the bucket and headed for a large stable. There was a loud bellow as Wren laughed. “Rocky, buddy, your poor fluff was trimmed.”

Rook rolled his eyes as he headed for the large roost in the back. Two heads poked out of windows, beaks clicking. “Yes, food. I’m getting it.” He walked behind the roost after he opened the door to let the large birds out. They trilled at him before bumping their heads against his. He chuckled as he opened a bin to pull food out. Large beaks tried to pull the feed from his arms, and he swiftly dodged them. “You can wait.” Rook dumped the feed into a large trough and pushed it around as the large birds jammed their heads past him to crunch down on the leafy greens. He ran a hand over both of the large heads and checked over their wings. “You two are almost ready for flying. Remi will be happy. You two scared him you know.”

He got trills and one of them fluffed up their feathers.

“I’ll be right back to give you lunch. Be good.”

Wren approached as Rook stepped away from checking over the white and gray flight feathers. “How are they?”

“They’ll be fine. Should be ready to help Remi transport his goods to the festival. Snow harpies are hardy and large.” He felt a beak nudge him in the back and he chuckled. Gently pushing the head away he added, “They just needed some extra time for their wings to grow in properly. And a little help.”

“Well, I’ll let Remi know since I’m heading that way.”

“Okay.” He huffed when another head nudged him. “Did you get the cloud kittens back in their hutch? They’re still learning how to properly move about without floating too high.”

“Yeah.” Wren started to head towards the front of the house. “It was a struggle just to keep them in the hutch while I fed them. Their mom was not pleased I put them back.”

Rook chuckled as he followed after Wren. “Marshy is ready for them to go off on their own. I’ll see if anyone in town is looking for new pets.” He made sure the gate was closed, before turning to Wren. Tossing an arm around Wren’s shoulders, he tugged him along. “Come on we should head out.” The two headed off for the town. The sun’s golden light slowly spilling over the small island they live on. A slow life but one that they enjoy.

Written for @thepromptfoundry's Oc-Tober prompts - Day 1, Getting Up in the Morning.

Ahn Dru is my mostly Light-Sided SWTOR Sith Warrior.

Getting Up in the Morning

The first thing Ahn does upon waking up in the morning is stretch.

Well, that's not entirely true. The very first thing he does is take in his surroundings. He might be - Force forbid - in a warzone, he might be in his quarters at Dromund Kaas, he might be off-planet on a mission somewhere in the galaxy.

Privately, he always hopes to awake aboard the Asfalis, in his cabin. This almost guarantees that Vette will be in bed next to him, the two snuggled up to each other after good nights and Ahn's limbs splayed every which way with Vette hogging the blankets after restless nights.

The next step is, if Vette is indeed next to him, to carefully extricate himself from the bed. This is harder than it sounds, as Vette gets clingy when sleepy, and more often than not, along with her limbs, her lekku have curled around Ahn. The first time this happened, Ahn had frozen and simply stayed in place until Vette woke up, at which point she had flushed a deep purple and almost bolted from the room. Their relationship had been quite new at that point, and both were exceptionally worried about overstepping the other's boundaries. Now, though, Ahn is comfortable slipping free from her grip, no matter how tight. He still worries about waking her up, but he's gotten quite good at it.

Once free, he replaces whatever blankets he's displaced and stretches. Suppressing the groans that come with moving his hours-immobile body, he tackles the standing routine first, then runs through some sitting stretches. He does all this in the bedroom, so Vette has sometimes woken up to see him balancing easily on one leg, holding the other up by the ankle behind him. Often, she just blinks at him blearily, grunts a tired greeting at him, then goes back to sleep.

After that, Ahn takes his respirator from the bedside table, ties back his hair, and goes to eat breakfast. If there's nothing on the schedule for the day - and if Pierce isn't up already - he makes something. It's often some variant of pancakes or waffles, something the rest of his crew will smell upon waking up, but he still remembers the glee in Jaesa's eyes when he had made them all parfaits.

Even if he doesn't go big on breakfast, Pierce is normally the first he sees. They exchange nods, click together mugs of caff, and continue on. Sometimes, Pierce is already cooking when Ahn gets there, and that signifies a good day. The man can kriffing cook, and if Ahn hadn't taken him on for his military prowess, he certainly would have for his culinary skill.

When he's done eating, he slips back into his room, taking care not to wake Vette if she's still sleeping, and changes into whatever he's wearing today. Most often, it's just a black tunic and leggings, over which he can quickly buckle his light armor in a pinch. On his way out, he pulls his lightsabers to his hand, fastening his belt with the other.

He brushes his teeth, shaves the overnight stubble, brushes his hair, and ties it back again, taking the time now to make it look nice. It had been a struggle when he was first growing it out - back then, he had only had Vette, who had no hair, and Quinn, who kept his cut according to code, to turn to for advice. Funnily enough, it had been Too-vee who had proved the most helpful. Now, though, he takes pride in how it looks.

If he's woken up early, he still has some time before the other members of his crew get up, so he sits in the common area with a datapad and reads. It relaxes him and eases him into the day, and even after years out of the Academy, it's a luxury still. Galactic news takes precedent, naturally, but if nothing major is happening, he's partial to fiction works.

Eventually, the rest of his crew filters in. Broonmark leans in the doorway, uncomfortable with getting too close. Quinn enters, produces a datapad of his own, and takes a seat at the table. Jaesa slips in, flashes Ahn a grin, and plops down onto the couch across from him - throwing off the strictures of Jedi etiquette has gone amazingly, almost too well. Pierce climbs over the back of Jaesa's couch to obnoxiously lie down and stretch out, prompting Jaesa to smack him until he retreats, grinning. Vette appears, sauntering into the room to sit next to Ahn and lean against him, fiddling with her blaster or a small device he can't quite identify.

And this, Ahn thinks to himself, this is his reason for life.

October 1: Getting up in the morning

Made in response to @thepromptfoundry's Oc-Tober list of prompts. Here are a couple of Gravity Falls OCs I haven't actually used in a published work yet, but which have been part of various half-formed Plans for some time now. Everyone, meet Dr. Corwynt (a therapist in the weirdest place on his version of Earth) and Rouk (a bird person on a mission through the multiverse, which has been slightly sidetracked by the Gideon Gleeful and Ghost Eyes of the FWJB-verse hijacking his spaceship).

Dr. Corwynt

The alarm clock went off precisely thirty seconds after Dr. Corwynt opened his eyes, and he went through the first of the two facial expressions which bracketed his morning routine as he frowned at it while turning it off. Why he turned the thing, with its capacity for producing head-splitting racket, on every night was not something he could adequately explain: it was simply part of the routine to do so, just as it was routine, once his eyes had focused on the stamped seventies ceiling above his narrow bed and he had reviewed his memory to ensure it contained no dreams, for him to then rise, bathe, and put on most of a dark blue suit. There was no alarm to tell him when to stop each of those activities and when to begin the next one, because that was not part of the routine. Then he shaved his face, taking extra care as usual with the right side, and went into the kitchen.

The appliances were not as uniform as the ceilings, but they did have an average age of more than ten years in common between them. He did not mind this especially, not least because he hadn't bought them; this flat had been advertised as furnished, and he was therefore satisfied with everything in it so long as each item continued to work correctly. The stove was one of the older devices in residence, so he waited to make sure it had actually started getting hot before he started taking out the things he'd need to prepare the same breakfast he ate every morning: that was, two eggs, scrambled together and seasoned with a single twist of each of the spice grinders in the cabinet above the stove, two slices of toast with lemon curd, one cup of milky coffee, and one cup of plain, strong black tea, which - for reasons he had never been entirely sure of, considering they were on the opposite side of the planet - the vendors insisted on calling a Scottish Breakfast blend. Once the food and coffee were consumed, he marked off all the routines necessary to the maintenance of a human body as complete and moved into the next phase of the day, which began with washing and putting away the dishes he'd just used: the pan for scrambling the eggs, the plate which had held everything solid, the mug which had held his coffee, and the cutlery which had made eating an at least reasonably tidy affair. Once he was satisfied that the kitchen was in order, he picked up his teacup and saucer and took them with him into the lounge, where he proceeded to drink his drink his tea while sitting in the soft chair and looking intently at a framed photograph on the opposite side of the room, which hung beside the door which led out of the apartment. Once the tea was complete, he put the cup and saucer on the small, faux-marble-topped table beside his chair and then walked over to the photograph, where he made his second and final facial expression of the morning, frowning again as he examined it at closer range.

It was old, this photograph: it had been taken in color, but most of the colors had long since started to fade, so that not everything was as sharp as it might have been. It was, however, nevertheless easy enough to make out that there were two boys in the foreground. Both were dark-haired and dark-eyed, and they stood about the same height, but one was heavier-set than the other and had a third figure, a girl, perched on his shoulders and peering over the top of his head as he smiled at whoever had been holding the camera. This boy was the main subject of Dr. Corwynt's scrutiny, with his eyes only occasionally rising to consider the girl and almost never going toward the second, slighter, more solemn-looking boy at all. If a third party had been present, and had looked closely, they might have noticed that the second boy's features could have easily matured into something very similar to Dr. Corwynt's own, but there was one difference between the two which he imagined would always keep the casual viewer (not that he was in the habit of allowing either casual or attentive third parties into his house or allowing them to study his belongings) from realizing that they were the same person: the boy in the photograph had nothing even vaguely resembling the long, curved scar which stood out against the doctor's right cheek, and which was easily the most memorable aspect of his appearance to most others.

"No," he said, aloud, after a moment. He rested a couple of long fingers gently on the image of the other boy. "No...I don't think I'll forgive you today, Perry. I'll consider it again tomorrow."

Perry, obviously, did not answer. Because he was quite sane, though, Dr. Corwynt didn't expect any other outcome, and with that last ritual complete, he took his suit jacket off the cloakstand beside the front door, put it on, and started undoing the several layers of locks holding the door shut in order to get on with his day as the only licensed practitioner of mental health services who had, so far, managed to stay for any length of time in Gravity Falls, Oregon.

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2. Rouk

He had trained himself to ignore it, at least for the most part, but there was always a part of Rouk which missed mornings. Unfortunately, it didn't seem to be a part of him that had any inclination to decrease in size as he spent more and more time away from home, and it was especially noticeable when he found himself, as he now did, waking up for the far-too-manyth time in the timeless chaos of the Inbetween. Even, he thought irritably, the perpetual dark of the Void and a handful of fringe dimensions he'd visited before wasn't quite as disorienting as this; at least in those places, one could pretend that eventually the sun would rise. Here, though....

One day again.

It had been a long time, of course, since the mantra had started to lose meaning, but he held onto it just the same. To do otherwise might well be to begin the process of giving up, and to give up would be to fail, and to fail was not an option. Therefore, he recited the phrase to himself once, allowing his mind to go where it would for that moment, before he firmly put all thoughts of suns and his colony's roost out of his head and began his devotions to the Lady, who, in the mornings (or what passed for mornings, anyway, at the moment), was in her bright aspect as the Watcher of Ten Thousand Ways. That done, he left his sleeping pod, thinking vaguely of his breakfast and only remembering that he might need to have a knife fight or two in order to obtain it once he'd stepped out onto the main deck, where the ship's other three true bipeds were all gathered, if not exactly gathered together.

A quick look around showed no evidence that anyone else had resorted to violence this morning, which was always a good sign, but since Ivan wasn't in yet, there was still a chance things could get...interesting. in the meantime, though, the ship's night pilot, a Hybrid Mutate called Meili, bared her teeth in what passed for a friendly greeting among her kind despite the dark circles under her golden-green eyes, and Rouk inclined his head in an equally familiar gesture of acknowledgment as he bowed to her in response. The bow was shallower than usual, but although he still struggled to interpret mammalian body language and supposed they found his just as perplexing, he suspected that, this once, Meili would realize that he intended no offense to her and was merely keeping the area's other two occupants in clear view of one eye.

Humans, they were; he hadn't met many of their kind, but he'd met enough to recognize them. Peculiar creatures, they were, even more peculiar than Meili, who at least had patterns to her, blots of dark grey breaking up the otherwise white hair which covered most of her head and fell down her back. The two creatures sitting off to one side, though, were...blocks of uniformity, only occasionally broken by blocks of other uniformity: the one who seemed to be in command between them, the pale one, at least had something of a crest, but the other, the big one, seemed to have put his head together wrong, so that his hair fell from nose to chest instead of perching on top like his master's did and the way Rouk had gathered most humans' hair did. Meili, at least, also didn't have hair on the bottom half of her face, and although it was a distant relationship, the Hybrids were still considered part-humans in regions where that mattered. Rouk endeavored not to stare, but it was disconcerting to see just how much bare flesh true humans seemed to put on display, and he wondered, not for the first time, how they managed not to freeze to death with neither fur nor feathers to supplement their clothing. Fur was uninteresting, not nearly as visually appealing as his feathers, but at least it was some covering....

The pale human stood and, to Rouk's surprise, folded his talonless hands at his waist and bowed correctly, just as one should to a new acquaintance. From the way his face moved about, Rouk thought he was possibly surprised by his own behavior, too, but then, humans were known for using their bodies and voices alike to lie; humans weren't to be trusted, everyone knew that. That did not, however, mean that it was excusable to be rude to them, even if they had just stolen the ship he had only recently managed to steal back from someone else, if they somehow knew enough to be marginally polite, and so Rouk returned the bow just as correctly, being very sure not to incline his head or break eye contact in any way.

"You have traveled more than most of your kind," Rouk observed.

The humans seemed to take a moment to figure out what he'd said even after their translators rendered into human-babble; creatures without beaks often seemed to have that problem, so that wasn't a surprise. Finally, they glanced at each other and then back at him.

"I - I reckon so?" the pale human glanced at the big human. "I'm guessin' we've met other fellers like this...sometime or another?"

"A few times, Boss."

The pale human shook its head. "How I forget seein' some kinda bird-man before but don't forget how to say hello to one, I got no idea..." With an effort, Rouk refrained from either pointedly ruffling his visible feathers or clicking his beak in annoyance at the creature. It frowned at nothing for a moment, then said, "well - nice to meet yer, anyway. Name's Gideon."

Rouk felt a few of the smallest feathers on his face stir involuntarily in confusion once his translator implant conveyed the sense of what the creature had said to him. "Nice," he repeated. "I did not think that hijacking ships was what humans considered...nice."

The humans both began to look redder in the face, but not, apparently, for the same reason; the big one started to rise, growling something that sounded like a threat before any effort was made to translate it, but the pale one snapped his fingers and turned his head back and forth a little twice and then the big one instantly sat down again. Yes - the big one had been the one who had come barging into the ship demanding that they get him and his 'Boss' off Lottocron 9 immediately, but the pale one was in control, even though that made very little sense. What sort of hierarchy would put the pale one on top when he was shorter than Meili and anyone else on this ship, including Ivan, could have broken him in half without much effort? Did he come from a world where humans did everything backwards just for the sheer joy of contrariness? Was this supposed to be human humor?

"Temp'rary matter of necessity," the pale human, Gideon, said. "This - old gal we ran into back there in where we just come from, she done gone and robbed us. Soon as we catches up with her, we'll be out of y'all's hair and no harm done."

Rouk's translator made a valiant effort to cope with Gideon's syntax and vocabulary variations, but it finally conceded defeat with a beep. Going over what he understood of the language the human was using manually didn't do much good, either; he gathered that someone had robbed the humans and that they wished to apprehend the someone, but everything else....

Meili had her hands on her head, flattening down her ears. "I think I know what language you're speaking," she said, "but you have the strangest dialect I've ever heard."

The humans seemed displeased by that remark as well, but were distracted quickly - quickly and understandably. Ivan had just hopped onto the deck and was talking to himself in a rapid rumble of disjointed syllables which instantly inspired Rouk and Meili to tap the sides of their heads in order to shut their translators off before they started trying to make sense of them. Ivan, for his part, showed no sign that he'd noticed any of them. His bulbous eyes were fixed on nothing as he came to a stop and rose up on his back legs so he could raise the front ones to check and re-check the straps which secured his helmet, making sure it could not move a micrometer off-center on his pebbly head. This was fairly routine behavior, too, but there was an extra sort of urgency Rouk recognized in the gestures which it seemed logical to attribute to the humans' recent behavior....

"Sleeping over," Ivan croaked finally. "Sleeping over. My ship now. Mine." And he groaned as if he found the idea physically painful, webbed toes spreading out to press his helmet just a little bit more firmly down on his head.

"Yep," said Meili, doing an admirable job of maintaining the tone which she seemed to think indicated all was well and normal no matter how bizarre it might happen to actually be. "All yours, Iv. My turn to sleep."

As soon as Meili was out of the pilot's chair, Ivan - still with no acknowledgment of their unwelcome guests - dropped his front legs from his head back to their default position at the floor and hopped over to it. He began to laugh as he strapped himself in, singing 'mine, mine, mine' to himself as he adjusted the controls back into the positions more comfortable for his anatomy, all distress seemingly forgotten. The humans were staring at him and even Meili shook her head and said, in an undertone, "You know, you said you and Ivan are from the same place, but you never did explain why you didn't leave him there...."

Rouk considered several answers before he settled on, "that's because I would prefer not to."

I've decided to participate in @thepromptfoundry's OC-tober this year! I probably won't write everyday but I will try my best :)

Day 1: Getting up in the morning

The sound of Graves walking down the bunker hallway is becoming more familiar to Mariposa.

Her new wolf ears, a result of her recent inheritance, act as her inner alarm clock; they never fail to wake her up in her new home, Burrow Enclosure #81799, a place where she's learning to adapt to her new gifts.

“His keys are singing to me…” she somnolently exclaims after letting out a huge yawn.

Mariposa rolls over in bed. Her eyes are heavy and start to flicker shut. The last thing she sees is her sun chaser deity, Skoll. She doesn’t understand why she had to inherit Skoll.

Mariposa knows the deity won’t appreciate her animal skull collection and mini shrine to Fenrir.

The enclosure starts to get increasingly hotter. Mariposa starts to pick up the sound of the crackling of fire?

“OH MY LORD!” Mariposa shrieked, her voice trembling with fear. Skoll’s flames are engulfing her field of vision, casting a terrifying glow.

Mariposa is glued to the wall. She can’t seem to take her gaze off the beautiful brown wolf.

A loud click of the enclosure’s lock pulls Mariposa back to reality. She has a couple of seconds to gather herself. Today has to be a good day!

Graves hears a thump behind the door before it slides open. He looked down to see Mariposa on her knees with both hands behind her back. She beamed and said, “Good morning, Lord!”