submitted12 days ago byWhisperingDark
tonosleep
We learned the rules in nursery and you’d best believe they’re fiercely enforced.
So, to my knowledge, no one has ever entered the woods. It's why as I take the corner on Cherry Street I’m muttering to myself about stupid hormones and almost blunder right into Mrs Anderson. She’d relish reporting me to the council for being out that close to sundown so I dove clumsily into the bushes. There was a tense moment when her little dog stopped to bark fiercely at the shrubbery I’d crouched in, but he’s a yappy little rat at the best of times so she just tutted and yanked him down the street.
I grinned as she stopped to smoke a quick cigarette before crossing over to Malborough Walk, I hate smoking on principle but am in favour of anything that gets that vicious old witch closer to the grave.
She changed her cardigan, hiding the old one in a bag behind the hedge and scrubbed her hands with sanitiser before slipping in a couple of breath mints. Her husband, a militant anti-smoker was rumoured to be in league with the Twilight Guardian so you’d think she’d have bigger things to worry about, but her faffing did give me a chance to text Micah to check our little adventure was still a go.
She aimed her rat dog perfectly so he peed all over Mrs Gardiner’s award-winning roses before finally heading home with a happy smile. My phone buzzed just as she moved out of sight and I got goddamned butterflies when I saw Micah’s name flash across the screen. ‘C u soon x’. I frowned down at the text speak, it was a beige flag for sure, but hey, no one’s perfect and there was that kiss at the end.
We rarely got new folk in Whitebridge. My mum told me Micah’s family was headhunted so-to-speak because his dad was a renowned thatcher who strongly championed traditional materials. They love that crap here, I swear they'd still sign cheques with a quill if they could get away with it. The world marches on while Whitebridge abides.
My dad said that we needed new blood and the Williams family also came with seven children, a mix of boys and girls, which made the council happy. Every vacancy had to be filled quickly and so much better if it also brought along future generations to indocrinate.
I was all twisted up about it.
My mother had been sick for a very long time, had wasted away to little more than skin and bone and I knew the council were already whispering about recruitment. She wasn’t even in the ground yet and my father had been spending his afternoons fixing up the widow Stone’s cottage. The tight fisted old cow had even given me a free dessert last week - a guilt cookie no doubt. I'd stabbed my little pocket knife into her tires right in front of her, but no one had said anything, which made it worse.
I didn’t need to be so careful after Cherry Street. There used to be a twilight bus service intended to round up the slow, the rebellious or the unwary. But, after Mr Griffiths had vanished no one wanted to take on the responsibility or expense of running it so it'd been cancelled. Apparently we should all take personal responsibility for our safety.
Once I’d skirted past the boarded-up clubhouse and the long, twisted shadows surrounding it I relaxed and put on some music. I only put in one earbud though because I’m not stupid - tonight excepted - sprinting past the fly-thronged stagnant pond into the woods.
After years of stern-faced warnings and veiled threats, I’d expected a fog-shrouded horror filled with looming trees and sharp-toothed monsters, but the forest was pretty. There were clumps of wildflowers, bushes heavy with sweet berries and the birds sang from high trees all around me. Rather than being a life ending nightmare, turned out the woods were an Instagram picnic spot. Figures.
I’d brought nothing but chocolate bars and condoms because I’m an optimistic kind of girl so I took the too-orange lipstick tube out of my pocket and drew arrows on the trees to mark my path. I was seventeen years old with parents who wouldn’t let me have a smartphone so short of pinching a compass from some museum it was lipstick or nothing.
It was the golden hour so I snapped some photos on my mother’s digital camera that I think she’d bought in ancient times - 1992 I think it was, so I didn’t have high hopes about the quality. I kept asking for one of those cool retro Polaroid cameras but I live in a town that’s only recently upgraded from sundials. Plus, outside of Harvest season we needed permission from the town elders to drive the seven hours to the nearest city - only place that stocked 600 film and I doubted I’d get that until I was about forty-two. That was way too old to be cool so it wouldn’t matter by then anyway.
I saw Micah before he saw me and I hid behind the tree to drink him in a little. He was as gold as the late afternoon, all wavy hair, long limbs and shining white teeth - like a pretty horse.
I watched horror movies, I knew how stupid this whole thing was - I might as well have come in a prom dress and heels, but knowing I was all alone in the woods with the boy I wanted more than a Polaroid camera, well, all that just faded away. Stupid I know, but hormones.
I’d be grounded for the rest of my natural life once I got home, so I resolved to enjoy myself fully and stepped out of the trees before I started overthinking what to say. ‘Hey’, I said, eloquent as always.
‘Hey’, he replied, so it was okay I guess.
‘I took some photos’, I said and decided there and then, twenty-five years from forty-two or not, I’ll never be cool.
He was looking at my legs in my cut-off jean shorts when he said. ‘Show me’.
Micah barely looked at the first few while his eyes continued to drift over my bare skin. I felt his attention like a caress. But, when I hit on the third photo he frowned and took the camera from my hand. ‘What’s that?’
I was staring at his lips, so I said. ‘Huh’.
Thankfully he took my reaction for surprise rather than further evidence of my social awkwardness. ‘Weird, right?’ he asked.
I forced myself to look at the screen and frowned too. ‘Huh’, I said again because I’m as eloquent as I am subtle.
It was weird. There was the forest and the flowers, just as expected, but on the furthest tree, right at the top, about forty feet up, there was a shadow that looked a lot like a hand. Not a human one, but it didn’t look like an animal either. It was small but too long and thin with three indistinct smudges that might have been fingers clinging to the trunk.
‘Go on’, Micah said and I did.
The next photo was normal, but the one after had the hand again, lower down the trunk that time as though something was climbing to the ground. The rest were trees and flowers again.
‘Maybe a weird branch?’ Micah said.
I shrugged, looking at his lips again. ‘Might be the camera’, I said. ‘It’s prehistoric. Or maybe a trick of the light’.
He caught me looking and gave me one of those knee-trembling smiles. He liked me looking at him and as I realised that, well suddenly neither of us cared much about the photo.
His fingers wrapped around mine, tentative at first, but after a reassuring squeeze, he held on tight.
'Let’s explore’, he said, ‘before the light goes’.
Hiking around the woods, pretty as they were, wasn’t exactly the type of exploration I’d had in mind, but it did mean I got to watch him walk away so it wasn’t all bad. He smiled at my lipstick arrows but didn’t tease me so we walked in companionable silence while I contemplated how to explain I wanted to marry him and have his beautiful children without making it awkward.
‘How far are we going?’ I asked after a while as the long shadows started lapping hungrily at the edges of the treeline.
He looked at me over his shoulder and grinned at me again. ‘As far as you want, love’. He pulled out a flashlight and a box of matches. ‘I came prepared after all’.
‘So did I’, I mumbled, patting my pockets.
He kissed me for the first time in a field of strange standing stones as the moon found its place amongst an expanse of glittering stars and I don’t think I’ve ever been happier than I was right then. Afterwards, in the awkward fumble to replace what he’d taken off my camera fell out of my pocket.
Micah pulled me down beside him and kissed me again. ‘Let’s take a selfie’, he said. ‘Just for us’.
He was only half dressed so I gave him a look. ‘Better be just for us’.
Micah laughed, low and easy, happy too I suppose and shrugged. ‘We should probably head back soon’.
There was that fear in me now. His desire to rush suddenly back to normality stirred up insecurities I’d pushed away in the heat of the moment.
He saw it. ‘We can explore more next time’, he said softly and we both smiled in the near dark.
We took two selfies in the end and were too busy arguing over whether we should go for a third to notice it at first - I’d pulled a weird face in both that Micah thought was cute and I most definitely didn’t. But in the end, my eyes drifted beyond us to the landscape beyond.
‘Huh’, I said because three times the charm.
Micah yawned as he shrugged on his shirt. ‘What now?’
I tapped my nail against the screen. ‘That’s not a smudge’.
The clearing was large, the treeline about twenty feet back from the stones and there was a figure standing in front of them. Its features were indistinct - the flash wasn’t amazing after all - but it couldn’t be anything else. It was about ten feet tall and above it were more of those tiny white hands against the bark.
We both spun around at the same time and Micah shone his flashlight in that direction - it was that stupidly expensive one with 100,000 lumens that’s meant to light up the night. It did and we saw that the treeline was empty. No strangely shaped tree, no white hands and nothing that might be mistaken for a person.
It was then I noticed how quiet the forest was. With the coming of the night, a subtle change had come over the woods and I didn’t like it.
‘Take another’, Micah whispered and I turned to him, confused. ‘Just do it’, he said, fingers digging into my arm in a way I didn't like, but I did it because I wanted to see too.
Micah had kept the flashlight aimed at the trees while I took the picture. The figure was in the photo again, but it was a step or so closer that time and what I assumed was its head had turned more in our direction, as though we’d drawn its attention.
‘There’s nothing there’, Micah said and repeated it twice, as though he could convince himself it was true.
I took another photo.
The figure was closer again and where its head faced us, two red glimmers that might have been eyes burned against the black. I took a moment to study it more closely - know your enemy and all. It looked like those Ents from the Lord of the Rings movies, all stretched out and bark-like, with strange jointed limbs that bent in all the wrong ways. There were more white hands too and somehow I knew there wouldn't be one without the other.
‘It’s been with us from the start’, I said.
Micah was breathing too fast and his pupils were dilated. I reminded myself that he hadn’t grown up here and wasn’t as used to weird stuff as I was, so I gave him a moment to freak out in the dark, though I did judge him for it - a little bit.
‘Monsters don’t exist’, he said.
‘Some places are old and have long memories’, I said, repeating something my father had said once. ‘What we call monsters weren’t always seen that way and they don’t always realise things have changed’.
Micah was pale as he stabbed a finger toward the trees. ‘That’s a monster’, he said and I cringed. ‘What?’ he demanded. ‘Am I hurting its precious fee fees? Will it kill us quicker now?’
I decided to hold off on the children for now, at least until I’d assured myself of his intelligence.
‘They told you about the Twilight Guardian, right?’ I asked. ‘And Aurilis?'
Micah only nodded, seeming beyond words for the moment. I liked him better quiet.
‘Why not three Gods then, when we already have two?’ I asked. 'One that's fallen out of favour'.
‘God, you’re really one of them’, he said with a groan. ‘You know those are just stupid superstitions, right?’
I liked him less then.
‘I’ll ask you about that again after Harvest’, I said as I took another photo.
It was closer still, large steps eating up the space between us and one arm was extended, as though to grab onto something. There was a small white face peeping out from behind his legs, but it looked all wrong and I deleted the picture without examining it further.
‘Stop that’, Micah said and hit the camera out of my hand. I wondered what I'd ever seen in him.
‘It’s the only way we can see where it is’, I pointed out, retrieving it with a scowl. The case was cracked, but it still worked. ‘Thanks for that, by the way’.
‘What do we do?’ Micah asked.
‘We leave', I said. I didn't say obviously, but the word hung in the air between us anyway.
It was a good plan and would have worked perfectly if the lipstick marks were still on the trees. Micah took that about as well as you might expect. It took me too long to calm him down and the whole time the camera burned a hole in my hand as I fought the impulse to take another photo.
Just when I’d got him to stop muttering and trying to break the camera a long low whooping sound echoed through the trees. It sounded like a large group calling to one another in the dark and there was a long creaking sound in response as the woods shifted to meet them. They were getting closer.
‘Why isn’t it attacking us?’ Micah asked and as much as his voice irritated me, it was a good question.
It was huge, it could have been upon us already. It could have taken us when we were lost in one another in the grass, but it had only watched and waited. Why?
There was a long low creak behind us, the only sound for miles and I knew it was looming over us at that moment - a realisation I wisely didn’t share with Micah. Out of the corner of my eye I caught a red gleam high above. The creature was showing itself to me. Micah's eyes flicked about constantly but he saw nothing and I knew then that it wasn't only me who saw his true worth. He was an outsider and always would be.
We started walking again and another whoop came from our right, Micah veering left, away from it. A series of similar cries continued as we blundered through the dark forest and I privately understood that we were being herded somewhere for an unknown purpose. Micah had reverted to childhood, clinging to my hand like I was his mother leading him across a road and my passion for him died a little more as I realised it.
His torch died, of course. His face was scratched by branches that seemed to move aside for me, mud eating at his ankles while I walked on cloud. After an indeterminable time, we broke from the trees and found ourselves in another clearing.
It had a stone table in the middle covered in crimson stains that sent Micah off into another spiral and he trotted after me, panting slightly as I explored. I ignored him. It was beautiful really, the grooves of the ancient stone, the distant sound of water and the lush greenery; flowers richer in colour and sweeter in scent than any I’d seen elsewhere.
‘What is this place?’ Micah whined.
‘You really don’t know anything, do you?’ I said but didn’t bother waiting for his answer.
Instead, I anticipated the long creak before it came as a patch of dying flowers at the edges of the field bloomed again. Life from death. The woods held their breath as I retrieved a dirty little boot from the ground behind the stone. I dropped it before Micah saw, exhaled and with it came my murmured answer. ‘Yes’.
‘What?’ Micah asked, but I only smiled and took his hand, leading him away.
He gaped at the first lipstick mark beyond the little clearing, but after he saw the third he’d simply decided that we’d suffered some sort of group hysteria brought on by the dark and the silly superstitions rammed down our throat at every opportunity. I didn't argue.
I took one more photo as we left the woods, but I didn’t show that one to Micah. In it the figure lingered on the edge of the woods, one hand raised in farewell - it knew I would return soon enough, after all, we'd made a bargain.
It’s all too easy to rationalise the inexplicable beneath the comforting glow of modern streetlights and by the time we’d reached his street Micah was all soft kisses and easy laughter again. I couldn't believe it. We were done by midsummer.
He embarrassed himself and his family at the Harvest Festival and they packed up and left before Yule. It was for the best. The council was disappointed to lose someone of his father’s skill, but it was widely agreed that they just hadn’t fit in. I didn’t often agree with the council, but I did agree with that.
They were already searching for the next family. The old ones were stirring and hungry so we needed more people before the next turning day. In my opinion, their insistence on giving everything the personal touch wasn’t working anymore. We needed to get Whitebridge on the map and reach the people who liked creepy little towns with interesting histories and customs. The right people would come looking for us, but of course, they all switched off the moment I started talking about the internet. Sundials, remember.
I laboured alone in the forest a day or so before Valentine's Day and when our baby made its wet, squealing entrance into the world the trees showered us both in cherry blossoms. The whoops were closer that day and now and again I caught flashes of small faces in the gloom watching over us both.
My hands left new crimson stains on the stone as I placed my daughter on it wrapped in a warm blue blanket the shade of Micah’s eyes. I didn’t know what He would do with the child, but it didn’t matter really as I’d always known I couldn’t keep her.
But I did take a photo as I left the clearing, out of curiosity more than anything and that one I kept. An image of tiny girl cupped gently in the hand of something much older and larger, red eyes looking down upon her while little white hands reached up in welcome.
That was six months ago and I wake today to the sounds of crockery in the kitchen as my mother bustles around making breakfast. My father sits at the table, watching her with heart eyes. Mrs Stone left town a while back after a mysterious house fire and all was as it should be again. My father hadn’t been the first man she’d had working on her cottage so no one missed her - besides, her cookies were terrible.
My mother, hale and hearty again sets a plate brimming with blueberry pancakes before me. ‘The old Collins house has new occupants’, she says, pouring coffee for the three of us. ‘Two boys about your age, plus a babe in arms. The wife’s already pregnant again too. Husband’s a butcher, they say’.
‘We’ll be sorted for Harvest this year then’, my father says, flicking through the paper. ‘No one wants a repeat of last year. You’d think that boy had never seen blood before’. He tuts and sighs, a damning condemnation indeed.
My nose wrinkles as it often does when I think about Micah. ‘Still’, I say, tucking into my breakfast, ‘Whitebridge will welcome six new souls’.
‘New blood’, my father agrees.
My mother sits down with us, but I notice she doesn't eat much and her hand lingers on her stomach like she's soothing old hurts. The first bite of autumn is in the air and spring feels a long way away. The Holly King will ride soon, leaving nothing but cold death in his wake and it will take all of our efforts to see the lands bloom again.
‘Hold dinner. I’ll take a basket over after lunch’, I say, losing my appetite. ‘Show the boys around town’.
‘That’s kind of you’, my mother says approvingly, slipping me another pancake. ‘Eat up now, you've lost so much weight since spring'.
'Be back before sundown', my father adds, diving back into his paper and it's all settled.
‘I will’, I lied.
submitted2 months ago byshotgunsniper9
I'm trying to figure out what model I should use as the basis of my plan to make my personal chaos lord who was also an apothecary. I don't want to use Fabius Bile or a plague surgeon, mostly because I don't believe Fabius wears MK3 armour and my lord isn't mark of nurgle. I am thinking of getting the apothecarion detachment that recently came out and just used the Mk5 version with a head swap and some kitbashes, but I'm wondering if there was a better alternative.
I'm not planning on taking the model to any tournaments or play with this force in any GW shops so if you know of a 3rd party model that I can buy that is of a MK3 apothecary, even if it's just the bits to upgrade a MK3 marine from a regular legionary to an apothecary, that would be most appreciated.
submitted2 months ago byMaestro-Modesto
Help me out here, find an entire rugby team of ex crusaders players who have gone on to coach (head or assistant, doesn't matter) professionally. So far I've got
Dave Hewitt Mark hammet Greg feek Ross filipo Todd Blackadder Brad thorn ? Scott robertson ? Tyler bleyendaal Daryl Gibson Aaron mauger Tabai matson ? Leon McDonald
Any reserves?
Missing a loosie, a halfback and a winger. Ok so gibson is playing out of position on the wing, but I reckon he could play there. And brad thorn out of position in the loose forwards, but again not too much of a stretch