An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
New chapter update, I hope you enjoy it :)
When Mundungus Fletcher and Stan Shunpike enter the prison courtyard they are taken straight to the infamous Tom Riddle a.k.a Voldemort. There they are forced to detail the gruesome details behind their injuries and the child that inflicted them eliciting Riddle's curiousity. Demanding an investigation into the child Riddle soon finds out everything about him and he is enraptured. Seems like he'll have to escape sooner than planned, after all he can't let anyone but him have that child. Talents like those are wasted in suburbia.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
â Live Streamingâ Interactive Chatâ Private Showsâ HD Qualityâ Free Actions
Free to watch ⢠No registration required ⢠HD streaming
When Mundungus Fletcher and Stan Shunpike enter the prison courtyard they are taken straight to the infamous Tom Riddle a.k.a Voldemort. There they are forced to detail the gruesome details behind their injuries and the child that inflicted them eliciting Riddle's curiousity. Demanding an investigation into the child Riddle soon finds out everything about him and he is enraptured. Seems like he'll have to escape sooner than planned, after all he can't let anyone but him have that child. Talents like those are wasted in suburbia.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
The Species: R. Acicularlis Lindl., R. arkansana, R. woodsii
How can we determine which of the roses are which in the Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area and George Genereux Urban Regional Park forest communities?
Part 4
What is taxonomy? Part 1 | Rosids Part 2 | genus Rosa Part 3 Â
Distinguishing between the three Saskatchewan wild roses to determine the species
Making observations of the plant structure, the leaf structure, and the flower structure.
How to describe the species; learning botanical terms.
Rose in the Richard St Barbe Baker Afforestation Area
Native Rose Bush blooming in June
Native Rose Bush blooming in June
Bumblebee on rose
Woodâs Rose, or Common Wild Rose (Rosa woodsii) may also form thickets of clones from rhizomatous roots. The rose shrubbery may grow as high as 30 to 240 centimeters (1 to 8 feet high.) These thickets of rose bushes provide nesting sites for birds, as well as thermal and feeding cover for deer and other small mammals.  The flowers may be either solitary or corymbose. Blooms are short-pedicelled AKA the stalk of an individual flower is short.
Flowers are usually a deep pink about 5 cm (2 inches) across. Flowers can be set on rose bush in clusters of one to five at the end of a branch less commonly are they seen solitary. The inflorescence is distinctly saucer shape, and the petals are not flat across.
The sepals provide a covering around the rose bud during the formation period before the inflorescence blooms. The sepals are lanceolate, which is a botanical term meaning shaped like a lance or a spear head. Looking closely, the sepals can be located under the rose bloom, supporting the petals, and the sepals will be broad in the lower half close to the stem, and tapering to a point near the tip similar to a lance or a spear. Tomentose is another apt botanical description for the sepals meaning that they are densely covered with short matted downy filaments or hairs, they are rather fuzzy looking. The Woodâs Rose sepals are persistent on the fruit (rose hip), and each rose hip may have 15 â 35 seeds. Persistent in botanical terminology means that the sepals do not fall off, and will still be seen on the rose hip in the winter months.
The leaflets are single-toothed with a shape described as obovate to ovate to elliptic.  Often the leaflets are cuneate or narrowed at the base and may feature straight sides converging at base, producing a âwedge shapeâ, cuneate is from the Latin root cuneus âwedgeâ + -ate.  An obovate shape would describe the leaflet as shaped like a tear-drop where the tip of the tear drop attaches to the stem near the base. An ovate leaflet shape is an egg-shaped oval, where the point tapers, and the widest portion of the leaflet is nearest the base. Whereas an elliptic shape refers to the leaflet being oval without a point, or a very rounded and subdued point. There are usually 5 to 7 leaflets making up one leaf, and may be as many as 11. The upper surface of the leaf is shiny. Stipules are prominent and united at the base of the leaf giving rise to the term adnate stipule. Adnate means joined or united by having grown together. A pair of stipules (straw, stalk) are little outgrowths on either side of the base of the leafstalk. Each leaflet has a very short or no stalk at all stalk (sessile).  Sessility from sessilis meaning âsittingâ or in botany âresting on the surfaceâ having no stalk
Oddly pinnate leaf â imparipinnate Courtesy Maksim CC x 1.2
Leaf shape or morphology OBOVATE Courtesy Maksim CC x 1.2
Leaf shape or morphology OVALE Courtesy Maksim CC x 1.2
Leaf shape or morphology ELLIPTIC Courtesy Maksim CC x 1.2
Figure 1 Rose Leaf showing alternate odd-pinnate leaflets. Leaflet shapes. Draw the leaflet shape of the roses seen in the Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area and George Genereux Urban Regional Park
Prickles on a Wood Rose stem may be straight or curved, however generally have a curve. Â Infrastipular spines are commonly present, and the stems are prickly. Â Infrastipular means below (infra) the stipules (stipular), so the spines are commonly seen below âthe small appendage at the base of the petiole of a leafâ (stipule). The Common Wild Rose (Wood Rose) only has a few scattered thorns, in comparison to the Prickly Wild Rose which is covered with many small weak bristles. Â The Wood Rose thorns feature are broad and flattened at their base.
The stem of this rose shrub is reddish brown to gray.
The Wood Rose has a distinct style featuring calyx-lobes entire. Entire meaning not divided and featuring a smooth margin, not lobed or toothed.
The orange-red to bright red or blue-purple fruit is fleshy, globose or globose-ovoid 5-12 mm (.2 â .5 inches) wide, Glabrous (hairless and smooth) and sometimes glaucous (dull bluish-green, gray). Â As many as 15 to 35 nutlets (achenes) may be found within the rose hip, and the nutlets are 3-4 mm (0.1-0.16 inches) long.
Rosa arkansana, the prairie rose, dwarf prairie rose or wild prairie rose (Rosa arkansana) is also a rose bush of Saskatchewan which will reach heights of 30-60 centimeters (1 â 2 feet) tall. The flowers are unique as they are pink and may be streaked with a deeper pink. The blooms are 3 to 7 cm (1.25 to 2.5 inches) in diameter. There may be as many as 5 or more flowers, or solitary flowers on the terminal end of the stems. The inflorescences are corymbs which are a flat-topped or convex cluster of flowers derived from Latin corymbus, bunch of flowers, from Greek korumbos, head where the outermost flowers open first.  The petals on the inflorescence have a top wavy edge, with a central peaked notch at the top.
The sepals are rounded at the base with a smooth outer surface.
Droughty conditions or freezing may cause the plants above the surface to totally die back each year. The roots are very hardy, and will grow deep into the soil, reaching as far as 2.4 -3.7 meters (8 â 12 feet) down in the soil. Asexual regeneration takes place from roots sprouting from the root crown.
The rose hip is almost globular, and starts out as a deep red colour. The sepals persist on the fruit. Seeds produced need a dormancy period featuring successive cold and warm moist periods, and may not germinate until the second year.
This rose bush sports many dense reddish thorns.
The leaves are also pinnately compound, and may contain as many as nine to eleven leaflets. The upper side of the leaves are smooth dark green in contrast to the lighter green hairy undersides. The hairy undersides can be called puberulent from the Latin puber, (downy, adult) + -ulent, from ulentus (abounding in). The leaves can be 8 to 10 centimeters (3-4 inches) in length with leaflets 2 â 3 cm (.75 â 1.25 inches) long. The leaflets bear 2 wing-like stipules at the base of the stem, and may have a few glands at the tip edges. The leaflets are fringed on the margin with hairs and so can be described by the botany word ciliate from the Latin root cilium: an eye lash. The leaflets have either a very short leaf stem, or none at all.
As this is a short growing rose bush, it prefers the open grasslands, however will be found in the parklands. The prairie rose thrives on the extreme continental climate which alternates between severe winters and very warm or hot summers. It was noted that the Prairie Rose thrived during the most extreme years of drought experienced during the âdirty thirties.â
Prickly Rose (Rosa Acicularlis Lindl.) Acicularis has a Latin root meaning small pin or needle. The prickly rose is just that, densely prickled with straight weak thorns or bristles. The prickly rose defence of thorns prevent over-grazing by the animals in the vicinity.  Prickly Rose will have no infrastipular spikes.
Each solitary flower is located at the axis of a short thin pedicel (stalk or stem).  When there are more than one flower, they are featured in a corymb. At 4 â 7 cm (1.6 â 3 inches) across, the flower is fairly large. Look for blossoms at the very end of May through out June.
The calyx-lobes (referred to on the flower as sepals) are erect on the fruit. Erect in botanical terms mean upright, more or less perpendicular to the point of attachment.  The calyx lobes are lanceolate and acuminate. Acuminate is another way of saying âcoming to a pointâ from the Latin acuminatus, past participle of acuminare (âto sharpen to a pointâ). The stipules are mainly broad. The fruit or rose hip can be ovoid or pear-shaped with a length of 1.5 cm (0.6 inches) The rosehips is a bright red when ripe, and can be seen orange-red across the prairies.
The leaves are pinnately divided, and the leaflets are often twice toothed or double toothed.  The leaves have conspicuous winged stipules with outward turning teeth born at the base of the leaf. The winged stipules may also be termed auricle having a small ear-like projection, from Latin auricula âexternal part of the earâ, diminutive of auris âearâ. Leaflets may number 5 to 9, and are often glabrous or resinous so are often sticky. The leaves are pubescent on the undersides which also means the leaflets are covered with short, soft hairs.  Glandular-hairy petioles and rachises would imply that the leafstalk (petiole) which joins the leaflet to the stem and the main axis or shaft (rachis) bearing the leaflets have hairs upon them mounted with glands producing secretions on the surface of a plant. The leaflets are obtuse (blunt or rounded) at the apex and rounded at the base. Leaflets are oval or oval-lanceolate. The leaves are hairy on the underside of the leaflets. Each dark green leaflet is on average 3-4 cm (0.1-0.16 inches) long.
Thorns are straight, needle like and unequal.
The shrub may be formed as clones from rhizomatous roots, or from achenes born in rose hips. The shrub of the Prickly rose will reach a height of 0.9 to 1.2 meters (3-4 feet) at full maturity, and a rose thicket has rhizomatous roots which may create a single clone as large as 10-20 square meters (12-24 yards square) in size. However, rhizome roots of the rose sprout after a fire, or other types of disturbance.
Draw the entire leaf, and the smaller leaflet shape of the roses seen in the Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area and George Genereux Urban Regional Park.
Which leaflet morphology is the closest to the rose seen in the afforestation area?
How many leaflets does the entire leaf contain?
What is the size in length of the leaflets?
Is the underside of the leaf the same color as the top?
Does the afforestation area leaflet have a long or short leaf stem (petiole) or is it sessile? Sessility from sessilis meaning âsittingâ or in botany âresting on the surfaceâ having no stalk
What color is the leaf backbone or the ârachisâ?
Are there hairs on the leaflets? on the rachis?
Does the leaf have a stipule where the petiole attaches the rachis to the peduncle? leafstalk (petiole) joins the leaflet to the stem, the main leaf axis or shaft (rachis), the woody rose stem of the plant (peduncle).
Can you find the stipules? These are the little straw like outgrowths on either side of the base of the leafstalk (petiole)?
Is the stipule winged or adnate (joined together)?
Are there thorns or bristles below the stipules? These would be the infrastipular spikes.
For directions as to how to drive to âGeorge Genereuxâ Urban Regional Park
For directions on how to drive to Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area
For more information:
Blairmore Sector Plan Report; planning for the Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area, George Genereux Urban Regional Park and West Swale and areas around them inside of Saskatoon city limits
P4G Saskatoon North Partnership for Growth The P4G consists of the Cities of Saskatoon, Warman, and Martensville, the Town of Osler and the Rural Municipality of Corman Park; planning for areas around the afforestation area and West Swale outside of Saskatoon city limits
Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area is located in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada north of Cedar Villa Road, within city limits, in the furthest south west area of the city. 52° 06Ⲡ106° 45â˛
Addresses:
Part SE 23-36-6 â Afforestation Area â 241 Township Road 362-A
Part SE 23-36-6 â SW Off-Leash Recreation Area (Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area ) â 355 Township Road 362-A
S ½ 22-36-6 Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area (West of SW OLRA) â 467 Township Road 362-A
NE 21-36-6 âGeorge Genereuxâ Afforestation Area â 133 Range Road 3063
Wikimapia Map: type in Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area
Google Maps South West Off Leash area location pin at parking lot
Web page: https://stbarbebaker.wordpress.com
Where is the Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area? with map
Where is the George Genereux Urban Regional Park (Afforestation Area)? with map
Pinterest richardstbarbeb
Facebook Group Page: Users of the George Genereux Urban Regional Park
Facebook: StBarbeBaker
Facebook group page : Users of the St Barbe Baker Afforestation Area
Facebook: South West OLRA
Twitter: StBarbeBaker
You Tube Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area
You Tube George Genereux Urban Regional Park
Should you wish to help protect / enhance the afforestation areas, please contact the City of Saskatoon, Corporate Revenue Division, 222 3rd Ave N, Saskatoon, SK S7K 0J5âŚto support the afforestation area with your donation please state that your donation should go towards the Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area, or the George Genereux Urban Regional Park, or both afforestation areas located in the Blairmore Sector. Please and thank you! Your donation is greatly appreciated.
1./ Learn.
2./ Experience
3./ Do Something: ***
 âSt. Barbeâs unique capacity to pass on his enthusiasm to others. . . Many foresters all over the world found their vocations as a result of hearing âThe Man of the Treesâ speak. I certainly did, but his impact has been much wider than that. Through his global lecture tours, St. Barbe has made millions of people aware of the importance of trees and forests to our planet.â Allan Grainger
âThe science of forestry arose from the recognition of a universal need. It embodies the spirit of service to mankind in attempting to provide a means of supplying forever a necessity of life and, in addition, ministering to manâs aesthetic tastes and recreational interests. Besides, the spiritual side of human nature needs the refreshing inspiration which comes from trees and woodlands. If a nation saves its trees, the trees will save the nation. And nations as well as tribes may be brought together in this great movement, based on the ideal of beautifying the world by the cultivation of one of Godâs loveliest creatures â the tree.â ~ Richard St. Barbe Baker.
Rose Species The Species: R. Acicularlis Lindl., R. arkansana, R. woodsii How can we determine which of the roses are which in the Richard St.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
â Live Streamingâ Interactive Chatâ Private Showsâ HD Qualityâ Free Actions
Free to watch ⢠No registration required ⢠HD streaming
Light filters in through cracks and grates- not enough to see by, but enough to know light still exists. That's good enough for me. As I keep watch for the tell-tale glow of the undead, I try not to be distracted by the noises from the city above- carriages, the occasional motor-run vehicle, and hundreds of pedestrians.Â
Bet none of them are human.
From behind me, I hear more immediate noises- splashing and cursing. Cassandra, better known as "Dross", is the closest thing to human I have at the moment. Even if only her mother is a human. I assume her parents donât speak much English, or else they would have known they weren't doing her any favors by giving her that nickname.
"I can't believe we got stuck with the suicide tubes," I say, glancing behind me to make sure my partner is listening to my complaints. But I'm greeted only by darkness, sporadically punched through with pillars of light. Only the fact that she makes a lot of noise lets me know I'm not alone down here. "This is spoutling work. The rules say at this point we should be working Old Town."
"I can't believe I got stuck with you," she shoots back. Well at least now I know she's listening. "Donnie, don't they know I'm too hot for you?â
"We're too advanced for this kind of busy work," I keep on. "Weâre only two weeks away from forming a proper squad-" Before I can continue I hear a squeak and spot a faint shimmer of black light. I splash after it, trying to estimate where it would dart next based on the Tell. Taking a shot in the dark, I jab out with the silver point of my staff.
I had aimed true, and there it is- a little ghostie rat waiting to be loved to death.
Paralyzed and momentarily solidified by the effects of the silver, the rat poses no threat as I clip a wooden disk to the spoon end of the shaft and pull the trigger around the mid grip. The staff bends at a cleverly hidden joint, smacking the rat with the wooden disk before snapping back to its former erect state.
The rat's ghost melts away, successfully exorcised. I shake the wooden disk out of the spoon handle, leaving it behind now that it's spent.
This is how I had spent my weekends for the past three years.
Dross catches up to me, elbow spikes and foot talons gleaming silver in the lonely patches of light that make it down here. For one moment I almost see her- a tall shape covered in ruby-red scales. Then she darts out of the light and closer to me, a dark outline on a slightly less dark background. "So how many was that?" she asks, toe claw clacking on my discarded wooden disk.
"I had 100 disks this morning. It's five hours later and I still have 74 left."
"Ouch." Her tail swishes in the sewage. "That's why I dump two disks for every rat I catch. I mean, how are they really gonna know how many rats I exorcised?"
I hope her night vision is better than mine so she can see just how nasty a face I'm making at her and her irresponsibility. "What if we wound up needing those disks later, Dross? You're dumping perfectly viable-"
"Ha da blah dah bah!" She waves her eerily human hands in my face, blasting me with the stench from when she had fallen down earlier. "Look around you, short stuff. Take a good whiff too- go on. Get that richness in your system. See any captains? See any authority figures?" Grabbing me by the shoulders and probably ruining my robes, she shakes me. "No. One. Cares. And in two weeks we won't even be shoved down here anymore- we'll be junior squad members! Official ghost hunters! None of this grunt work." She lets go of me, kicking one of the disks aside and causing another splash. A group of live rats swarm past us in angry packs, startled out of hiding by the noise.Â
I choke, trying to hop past them. Had she hit a nest or something? Jeez! "Where there are rats there are snakes," I remind her, trying not to let my voice shake. Little pittering rat claws crawling over my feet on top of being in a dark place make a nervous Donnie even more nervous. "Bigger ghosts feed on smaller ghosts. If there's nothing to feed on-"
"I know the mantra, thanks."
"There are always smaller ghosts, Dross," I insist. "And if the Acuminate wants us to exorcise one hundred, weâll exorcise one hundred."
I hear her tail splash in the shallow water of the walkways, slapping hard against the stone beneath. "Donnie, quick being such a stick in the mud! I know the mantra!"
I eye her critically, almost able to make out her muscular shape, her claws and ferocious spikes. Practically a ghost hunting machine, she was still notoriously arrogant, even by teryn standards. "Do you?" I challenge.
A growl resonates in the lonely pathways, drowning out the noises from above. "Great Blue Flames, you're annoying," she says, giving me a shove. "You know what your problem is, Donnie? Youâre like a- youâre a drone. You love being a little cog in a big machine and you'd give oral to every Peacemaker you came across, if you came across one."
Heat floods my face. "And you're a spoiled rich girl." I turn my back on her, continuing our mission. I was wrong to complain earlier about being in the suicide tubes- the mission isn't what's bothering me. My partner is what's bothering me. No matter how demeaning, gross, or stupid a mission is, I'll always complete it to the best of my ability. But I just can't handle being with Dross for some of my last missions as a sproutling.Â
When I'm a proper ghost hunter, I'll be in a squad filled with people who were matched to my skill level. I'd be analyzed by the minds of the Acuminate and I'd finally see all my hard work pay off and I'd never have to deal with this girl again.
"And you're a spoiled rich girl," she mimes behind me before rushing forward to take point. "Whatever, cupcake. I'm gonna run ahead and marvel at how many ghosts aren't here."
Not responding immediately, I pause to think. Gripping onto my staff with both hands, my heart starts beating harder. Parts of a puzzle I hadn't even realized I was working on suddenly snap together after my subconscious had gathered all the right pieces.Â
Rats are one of the few animals known to manifest after death as a ghost. Where there are rats, there are snakes- or more literally, poltergeists. There are alwaysrats.
But there were none on this mission, after almost eight days without a regular sweep.
Where were all the rats?
"Dross!" I shout before I even know what I'm doing, running down the narrow tunnels after my partner. "Dross!"
Coming to a T-intersection, cold sweat builds and runs down the back of my neck. Glancing left and right, I listen carefully for her, for the sound of her tail dragging across the ground or silver-plated talons clicking on limestone. All I hear is traffic above me and the constant trickle of water. "Dross!"
A faint response. "Over here, dimwit." Then a loud laugh, and a more clear reply. "Don't you know my number one rule by now? When in doubt, go left!"
I tear after her down the left tunnel, splashing through the filth to try and find Dross and share my fears with her, half hoping she would laugh in my face and prove me wrong somehow as she so often did. Annoying, yes. Crude, yes. But Dross was no dummy, and a damn fine hunter- she wouldn't be down here if she was scared of hard work.
As much as she got on my nerves, I didn't want her to get hurt.
Her shouts get clearer, the tunnels get steadily lighter. Being able to see my surroundings instills more confidence in me- not that there is much to look at in the suicide tubes, which are just big enough for two people to walk abreast. ""Hey Donnie! Look what I found!"
How had she gained so much distance so damn fast? I come around a curve to be almost blinded by the amount of light that greets me. When my eyes adjust to the brightness, I blink a few times and find my partner holding the long dead body of a human man, thrusting it out to greet me.
I will admit it now, even if it makes me look like a weenie: I screamed. "Great Flames!" is the first coherent noise to leave me, arms flailing and panic blinding my senses.
I completely take back every decent thought Iâd ever had about her. "What in the name of the Ancestors are you doing, Dross?" I demand once I'm a safe distance away, shivering with revulsion.
It takes a long time for her to stop laughing enough to answer me. "Playin' with it," she says when her giggle fit is over. "Witness!" Easily as ripping apart a piece of paper, she tears the skull from the neck of the dead man, strips of mummified flesh and all. The body crumples to the ground. Grabbing the lower jaw, Dross starts playing ventriloquist. "Oh great Mother look who we have here! It's the Dimwitted Wonder Donnie! Donnie doesn't dare desecrate... desecrate...." she paused. Seconds ticked by. "There a word for dead people that starts with 'd'? I want a word that means dead, but fancier."
"The deceased," I answer automatically, and she flashes me a smile of too-sharp teeth. Even covered in grime and Ancestor-knows-what, her scales are a vibrant shade of red- handsome and strong in teryn culture; brash and impulsive, like her. "Now put it down! We need to report this, and the fact that this place is barren of any rat ghosts. It could either be a very good thingâŚâ I glance at the corpse, strewn across the floor like garbage, throat tightening. âOr a really bad thing."
Dross clacks the dead person's few remaining teeth together, making it speak again. "Woop," she squeaks at me, pushing it into my face.
"I'm not a woop.â I slap it away; she tries to make it bite me in retaliation. âYou're depraved."
Without warning she tosses the skull to me, rattling her spine scales suggestively. "You know you love it, boy."
Squashing the thrill of terror that ripples down my spine at the sight of eyeless sockets rushing towards me, I make sure I catch the thing properly. "He was probably murdered," I say calmly as possible, all the while screaming on the inside. Splashing over to the body in the ankle-deep murk, I try to send my life energy towards him, recalling the mantras of the dead. "Left here where no one would find him for a while."
Putting the skull back where it belongs, I kneel down before him in the muck and pray to our Ancestor, giving his soul the wings necessary to carry him to his hearth in the sky.Â
My teryn partner makes a noise of disagreement, another rumble in her chest. She paces behind me as I pray. âNo way hon. This guy died a long time ago- and not in the sewers.â Eyebrows furrowing in confusion, I turn to her and nod my head quickly, asking her to explain. She shrugs when I get back up again, turning my back on the body. "The flesh is desiccated- he decomposed in a dry, hot area. Definitely not down here. Anyway." Another careless gesture, a disdainful flick of her spiked tail. "It's a male. Males kill each other all the time, they can't help it. It's not like there isn't a surplus of the damn things."
"Not for humans, there's not," I remind her sharply. "You know you could at least pretend to act like you are part of us, once in a while. I'm sure your mother's human clan has added you to their tree by now."
Lips part in an incredulous smirk, showing just a hint of teeth. Even though Dross is only fifteen, she has six inches over me. And Iâm not a very tall guy to begin with. "Wow, how ignorant are you? You should know better than anyone that humans hate the ones who 'betray the blood.'" Gripping my shoulder tightly, she leans in close with a widening grin.
Twitching out of her clawed grasp, I shove her away and wish for the millionth time that I had been blessed with longer limbs. Misreading my signals, she gets excited by the prospect of a fight to establish dominance. Red scales on her tail rattle, to little effect. Bending down and lifting her tail up with one hand, I squash one of them down and silence her. "Quit fooling around, Dross. Let's get out of here."Â
Quiet.
Dross doesn't respond, isn't even looking at me anymore. Her almost-human eyes widen, and slowly, the vibrant red scales around her cheeks fade to a stark white of pure fear. All the hairs on my body rise as a new noise fills the murky air, static crackling noises, like the sound of a giant foot stepping on thousands of tiny rat bones, crushing them all beneath its weight.
I turn around, backing up against my partner who is rigid with fright.
Shimmering and fizzing with fierce black light, the dead man stands up.