• Faustina and Raffaelo (now Malfatto) traverse the pitfalls and traps of a Lair of Romulus, intent on finding the fabled treasure. They successfully navigate their way to the treasure, but the moment they touch the bars surrounding the treasure (it’s in that barred room thingy, remember?) it triggers another trap. All around them, portcullis gates start slamming shut.

Breaking into a run, they left the treasure behind, heading for the last open gate. Just as Faustina ran through, it slammed shut, trapping Raffaelo inside.  Faustina tried to lift the gate, but it wouldn’t budge; she wasn’t anywhere near strong enough. She gripped the bars, staring at her brother. At that moment, a group of Romulus followers dropped from trap doors in the roof, advancing on Raffaelo. Grinding gears and a loud click in the corridor made Faustina turn, seeing a succession of gates starting to slowly close. Turning back to look at her brother, she took a few steps back, away from the gate.

“I’ll come back for you!” She yelled, turning away to run down the corridor.

“Faustina, no!” Raffaelo called after her, reaching through the gate after her, but the Followers grabbed him from behind, pulling him back and surrounding him, wrestling him to the floor with a collective snarl. Faustina looked back, seeing her brother fall, but the gates were still falling. She definitely wouldn’t be able to help him if she got trapped between two gates.

Tears streaming down her face, she kept running. Once outside, she fell to her hands and knees, scraping them on the hard stone. She wiped at her eyes, a myriad of dirt and blood and sweat smearing across her skin. Standing up, she turned to look for another way to get back to the treasure chamber to try to save her brother, but before she could even take a step, a shout sounded from above, a group of masked men appearing and surrounding her. She reached for her blade, but her fingers didn’t even graze the handle before something slammed into the back of her head, sending her spinning into unconsciousness.

When she came to, she was in a dimly lit room, tied to a chair and stripped of everything but her linen pants and shirt. She struggled futilely against the bonds, gritting her teeth to keep from sobbing out of frustration and desperation. A door to one side opened, a hooded woman appearing and stepping into the light. A masked man followed her in, walking behind Faustina.

“Please…” the blonde thief pleaded, beseeching her kidnapper. “Please, let me go, I have to go back!”

The woman stepped forward, grabbing Faustina’s face harshly with leather-gloved hands. She turned Faustina’s head, making her look towards the light. The woman’s lips curled up into an unpleasantly smug smirk.

“Well, aren’t you the pretty little one?” she said, and Faustina could do nothing but stare at her with wide, fearful eyes. The woman looked over the top of Faustina’s head, nodding at the man. Chills ran up Faustina’s spine as the sound of metal scraping against metal resonated from out of sight, the woman releasing her face to walk to a table, retrieving a syringe from a table near the door. Turning back to face Faustina, a predatory glint in her eye, the woman held the syringe aloft, the liquid glowing as the candlelight glimmered through it.

“No..no..no…” Faustina sobbed, shaking her head frantically and struggling against the bonds again. She cried out as the woman pushed up her sleeve, roughly stabbing her arm with the needle and pushing the plunger down, injecting her with what she can only assume to be poison. The woman set the syringe back down, walking behind Faustina and gripping her shoulders painfully.

“Shhh…” The woman reached forward to tear open Faustina’s shirt, exposing her chest. The man stepped into view, holding a hot branding iron. The glowing brand was waved in front of Faustina’s face, fear tightening around her throat and preventing any sound. She trembled, not even feeling the forceful hold the woman had regained on her shoulders. The man placed two fingers to her chest, just below her left collar bone. The woman nodded and without an ounce of hesitation, the man pressed the branding iron to Faustina’s flesh, right where he had touched her. The fear released its hold on her throat, pain taking over to send a scream out of her mouth, ringing in the air as the hot iron hissed against her skin, burning the slave traders’ brand onto her. A hand clamped over her mouth, reducing her scream to a muffled sob.

After what seemed like an eternity, the hot iron was removed and a bucket of ice-cold water was thrown over her; a kind gesture, executed cruelly. The bonds holding Faustina to the chair were cut, the chair itself yanked out from under her. She cried out as she hit the floor, her hands shaking, daring not to touch her scorched flesh. Her whole body shook as she sobbed, her vision blurring. The poison was starting to kick in; she felt like she was floating, and rigid objects in her view started to undulate and flux in a demonic dance. Her sobs subsided to shaky breaths, her pupils dilating as she stared at nothing. A million miles away, words were spoken and she was lifted, flying from the dimly lit room to a darkened cell. She was tossed like a rag-doll onto a cold, stone floor, but she didn’t even feel it. Another shudder worked its way through her, her body convulsing before an eerie, dreamy, drug-induced smile curled her lips. Her eyes, glazed over and dull, couldn’t see the cell she was confined in. All she saw was a field where her brother stood, waiting for her.

• A year passed with the slave traders giving her regular injections, forcing her to become addicted to the substance so they could control her more easily. She was kept as part of a private stash for that entire year until a man purchased her, adding her to a number of other pretty slaves that were to be used and abused. However, he didn’t continue giving her the injections like the slave traders had told him to, (or whatever) and Faustina started having withdrawals. Through the withdrawals, some lucidity returned and she was able to escape, though the over-usage of the drug had severely affected her mind. After about a month, she was able to find her way back to the treasure chamber, where she collapsed on the dusty stone. “Brother….I came back….” she said, hallucinating as she lay on the ground. “…Can we go home now?”

I was wearing nothing but a tank top and underwear (my pajamas) and I was either hanging out with or on a date with some guy. Throughout the dream, this guy’s hair changed from normal to mohawk, to normal and spiky, and back to the mohawk, and back to normal, etc. Anyway, we were talking and apparently brainstorming about something. Suddenly, we were brainstorming with my mom, who was writing a card. In the dream, my mother was obsessed with the events of 9/11, and she was going to write something about it in the card. I said “Nothing about 9/11″ over and over but she didn’t listen, she just kept on writing. I got really angry that she wasn’t listening to me and slammed my hands down on the table, yelling at her that nobody cares about 9/11 anymore and she should stop fixating on it and that I told her not to write anything about it. She said “It’s not about 9/11!” but I looked and, of course, it was. It had something to do about “God’s plan” too, and that really set me off. I said “Don’t write anything about GOD in it! There IS NO ALMIGHTY! There’s no one controller of the universe!”
I stormed off to my room, because apparently we were in my house. When I shut the door behind me, I groaned because I thought I had just ruined my chances with that guy by throwing a fit in front of him (and in my underwear no less!). So I went to my computer and started doing something on it. Right as I thought “I should probably go shower and get dressed” the guy came down the hall and into my room. I looked up at him from where I sat on the floor, leaning against the side of my bed.

“Hi.” He said.

“Hello…” I replied.  He moved over to the opposite corner of the bed from me and sat on it. ” I wanted to apologize for throwing a fit, but I suddenly couldn’t say the words. It didn’t matter, though, because the guy started talking before I even tried to speak.

“…you’d be able to leave the country and go to Europe…you’d be able to live there without problems… you’d be able to eat the food and not get fat…and it’s a damn cool name: Vigneti.”

I blinked, confused by the words he spoke.

“So…I’m thinking we should get married.”

I laughed, raising my eyebrows.

“Is that what you want?” I asked, and he looked thoughtful for a moment.

“I want…what will make you happy.” He said, and I laughed again.

“That’s a funny bullshit answer.” I said, and he furrowed his brow in confusion.

“You don’t believe me?” He asked.

“That’s the kind of thing people say when they don’t want to do something but feel obligated to do it anyway.”

He raised his eyebrows and thought that over for a moment.

“I suppose I should get my timeline right, then.” He said, standing up and walking around the bed to stand in front of me. He leaned down, his hands on either side of me on the bed, and pressed his lips to mine. I looked up at him in surprise for a second before closing my eyes and letting myself get lost in the kiss.

Just as he ran his tongue across my lips to bid them open, I opened my eyes…

and woke up.

Talk about frustrating!

Okay, so real life time now. We’re past the Art and Wine Fusion festival thing, at which we only sold about 35 jars of the 360 we made. We sold some to a winery across the river to sell in their tasting room, and we’ve sold a few to some private parties, but not enough to call it a profit. We haven’t even reimbursed ourselves the cost of the materials yet.

I’ve ordered all the stuff I need for my outfit to wear to my sister’s wedding next month, and I’m planning on out-classing everyone there (apart from Margret, who will be coming with me and similarly out-classing everyone). Shouldn’t be too hard since it’s a luau-themed wedding and most of the guests are VERY white-trash.

The outfit:

But the outfit was the easy part. The hard part is coming up with the 120 cupcakes my sister wants me to make the day before the wedding. So far I’ve tested a pineapple cupcake recipe, which is nice and moist, but I wouldn’t be able to handle making 120 of them because for whatever reason the mingling smell of the vanilla in the cake mix and the pineapple gives me a headache and is rather nauseating. I’m going to try a lemon cupcake tonight, and look for maybe some coconut cupcake recipes. My mom is going to buy a German chocolate cake and a carrot cake for the wedding as well, but I want to tie in the cupcakes with the theme of the wedding. Silly me.

Anyway, that’s what’s been going on. I’m going to cook chicken for dinner tonight.

I’ve been told that it shouldn’t matter if my tattoo touches the pillowcase, since it’s clean and the tattoo is not going to go anywhere, but I’m still rather paranoid about the tattoo sticking to the pillow and hurting when I unstick it. One of my tweeps said to put a towel over the pillowcase since the coarse terrycloth will be less prone to sticking, but I’m still wary. I’ll probably text Mouse tomorrow and see what he says, since he’s my expert tattoo artist. Plus, he’s had his neck tattooed, so he knows about the whole neck-process. I could also text Margret, because she got the Cold spider tattooed on her neck.

Neck mobility is still limited, though much improved since yesterday. Looking left is still at about 30% capacity, but looking right is at about 60-65%.

I’d post about a weird dream I’ve had, but I haven’t had any recently. I’ve barely gotten any sleep in the past two days because of my fresh ink. I need to find more movies that are awesome that I haven’t seen.

I also have to figure out what to wear to Aubrey’s “Classy as Fuck” birthday party on Friday. I know how I’m going to do my hair, thanks to some experimentation on how to put my hair up in a way that is comfortable. I don’t like buns, my big toothy clip hurts my scalp, and a pony tail is just long enough to graze my tattoo.

I’m watching Evil Dead 2. I love this movie. My parents and I just finished watching The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, which was weird, cool, enjoyable and weird. Yes, that’s weird twice.

Anywho, my neck has been UBER stiff all day. I haven’t been able to look left or right past maybe a 45 degree angle. Why, do you ask? Even if you don’t ask, I’m going to tell ya. I got my first tattoo yesterday afternoon. It took two and a half hours and $120 because Mouse gave me a 50% “Awesome Person” discount.

Anyway, in the hopes of relieving some of the stiffness, I just smeared a little Tattoo Goo on my ink. It stopped bleeding quite fast considering how slowly I clot normally, but then again with a wound I can’t see, I have less of a tendency to pick at it. Last night I kind of oozed on the pillowcase, which was grody, but hopefully tonight will be better.

Tomorrow I’m going to be applying the tattoo goo whenever I feel the tattoo is too tight and/or dry, rather than just once before bed.  I want to be able to turn my head!

It occurs to me as my dad reacts to the movie that perhaps he’s never seen Evil Dead 2. I know he’s seen Army of Darkness, though.

I think before bed I’ll put more cloth over my windows and door so I can sleep in longer.

I’m also visiting my old kitty Gunther while I’m down here, since Aubrey is taking care of him until I move to Portland this fall. It took him a while to remember me, but that doesn’t really matter at this point, I feel. He’s going to have to get re-used to me in the fall, plus he’s going to have to get used to Adolf.

Fun fun. If my camera starts working again (water was spilled on it) I’ll take a picture of the tattoo and post it.

Anyway, my camera is in my bag downstairs and I’m too lazy to go get it now, so I’ll post pictures tomorrow.