Peanut Butter #4, Chocolate Gelato #4, Persimmon #9 + gummy bunnies + fresh peaches
Story: Hands of Fate
Title: Answers
Prompts: Peanut Butter #4: earth, Chocolate Gelato #4: semper ubi sub ubi (Always wear underwear), Persimmon #9: brillig (four in the afternoon) + gummy bunnies (500themes #32: hand of fate) + fresh peaches (The problem is probably beyond your control.)
Rating: PG13
Words: 2772
Summary: The LJ posting page just decided it wasn't going to work for me last night so here's part 4 of my PB story a bit late. Indy finally learns what she is, and yeah this is a bit of an information dump but hopefully it'll be a bit interesting.
The garden is lush. Free to grow as it pleases. The colors and the scents overwhelm me, they're so raw and unflitered. This is nature at its most basic and untamed.
I walk down the gravel path, unsure of where I am going but comfortable all the same. This is a safe place for me.
Yes, it is.
I look back and there is a goddess there. She is completely covered by a dark red dress and hat with thick red gauze blurring her features from me.
Walk with me.
I follow her because it seems foolish to not. She is powerful, filled to the brim with quiet authority, but she isn't a threat to me.
We walk a short distance before she says. I've put a great burden on you, Indiana.
Blood flashes in my vision. A knife stabbing and eyes void of everything. The fire burning the black heart.
As quick as the visions come, they flit away. I shake my head. I don't understand what happened.
You did my work. I am a goddess without hands, Indiana. I can see the threats to the world, but I can do nothing to stop them. I have chosen you to be my Hand. You act as a vessel for my powers so that you may perform the most important task in all of creation. Existence needs rules. Life even more so. Chaos would break my rules, cause disorder and in doing so destroy everything that has ever existed. This is not a matter of good or evil or right or wrong. This is the most basic of all fights. You must fight the chaos.
I shake my head. But why me? I didn't ask for this.
You were chosen. This is a hard task I ask of you, but you have the strength I require. And in return I will give you what you desire most.
My brow furrows. I have no idea what I desire most.
The goddess laughs softly. In due time, Indiana. For now, you need your rest. I treated you poorly last night and for that I apologize. But you were the one chosen to destroy that seed, and it could not be put off any longer. It will be easier next time.
I balked. Next time?
She cups my cheek in her gloved hand. West will explain it all to you in the morning. He's a good man, if a bit clumsy at times. But for now, sleep.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Someone was licking my ear.
Considering I don't have a steady boyfriend and, even if I did, I would not take kindly to him licking me while I was asleep, I didn't take it well. "th'hell?" I slurred, still half-asleep and batted away at whoever it is.
My hand encountered warm fur and a cold nose and I jerked awake. There was a large dark brown boxer dog I had never seen before lying next to me in bed, his long tongue lolling out of his mouth in a happy grin. He moved closer to me when he saw my eyes open and licked at any part of my face he could reach.
I sat up, both to avoid the tongue and to try to get some bearing on my current situation. I was in a strange bedroom. Guy's bedroom, I automatically decided. It was mostly clean, just a couple clothes dropped on a chair by the bathroom, but there were no extra knick-knacks or decorative pieces that girls tended to gather. That realization led to the next most likely question: what was I doing in a man's bedroom?
Last night came roaring back to the front of my mind. I groaned and fell back on the bed. This was a problem. I wasn't panicking like I had last night. In fact, I didn't feel that bad about it at all. I remembered the dream and that part of me that had been screaming for me to burn a man's heart last night was saying that dream was real. Again, it was something I knew I should be worried about, but that dream had done a lot to calm my fears and accept my fate. I'd entered the Twilight Zone. Such was life.
The logical explanation for my current situation was I was at West's place. I'd fainted in his arms last night, and no amount of goddess interactions was going to alleviate my humiliation there. Yes I was from the south, but Southern Belle I was not. How embarrassing.
The dog beside me stopped trying to lick my face off and stared at the bedroom door as dogs tended to do. He jumped off the bed suddenly and ran out the room. I suppose that was my cue to follow him.
I got out of bed and had a moment of disconnect. I was not wearing the clothes I'd been in the last time I'd been conscious. Granted, those clothes had been sopping wet and covered in blood so I can understand West feeling the need to change me out of them, but still. The man that I still suspected to be my stalker had seen me mostly naked while I was out. Weird. I was in a man's shirt and work out shorts, both way too big for me. I pulled the waistband out and checked that my panties were still in place at least. They were. Still weird. There was also still nothing I could do about it though, so I saw no point in having a virginal distress moment.
I tied the strings in the shorts' waistband as tight as they could go then walked out of the bedroom. West had a house by the looks of it, a one story with a pretty decent sized living room and connected dining room. Again, the decoration was at a minimum here, but he had the basic furniture and required tv. I took a left at the dining room and went into the kitchen. The chef in me commended the bright windows light and clean layout of the room.
The backdoor to the left of the fridge opened without warning and the brown boxer and a tan boxer came sprinting into the house, trailing mud after them. They both mobbed me, jumping in the air and leaning on my legs to try and get my attention. I didn’t have a dog but I'd always gotten along well with them and I wasn't wearing my clothes so I had no problem with them jumping on me and leaving dirty paw prints all over the white shirt.
"Buddy! Holly! Jeez, you two, back off." West stepped inside after the dogs.
My eyebrows raised in amusement. "You named your dogs after Buddy Holly?"
He grinned, a little embarrassed. "It was either that or C3PO and R2D2, but then I couldn't use them to attract hot girls."
The dogs finally collapsed under the weight of their own excitement and sprawled contentedly on the tile floor. I sank back on my heels, feeling as tense as West looked. I would never feel awkward after a night of sex again. This morning-after scene was a billion times worse.
West moved towards the counter. "Uh, do you want coffee? I still have some from this morning."
"What time is it?" I asked, then jumped when I saw the clock on the oven said it was nearly four in the afternoon. Good lord, where had the day gone? I'd never slept this late, not even as a teenager.
"You needed your sleep," West said. "Uh...your work called this morning. I told them you were sick and wouldn't make it in today."
"Thanks," I said even though I kinda wanted to smack myself in the forehead. A man answered my phone in the early morning and I was sick. Right. Like anyone would believe that one.
West put a cup of coffee in the microwave then looked back at me. "Are you hungry? I have toast or some cereal. I could scramble an egg, but I make no guarantees that it'll be any good."
I would have said no just to avoid the awkwardness but my stomach was twisting with hunger so I vetoed that idea. "I'll take some toast."
"Right. Okay." West fumbled with the loaf of bread, store-bought I noticed, then put two pieces in the toaster. He took his time retying the bag before he suddenly turned to me. "I'm really sorry," he blurted out. "I fucked up big time in my responsibilities. This is just the first I've ever had to train a new Hand and I didn't really know what I was doing and I'm not good with meeting new people under the best of circumstances. Your first job wasn't supposed to be so traumatizing."
I smirked a little then. "Tell me, West. How could stabbing a man to death, cutting his heart out, and burning it with fire I can produce at will be less traumatizing?"
West made a little face then. "Point taken. But I didn't mean to scare you before and make it worse. And it was my job to at least tell you why you were doing it before, you know, you actually had to."
That was the thing about West. Even back when he'd been picking me up at the bar with the mallet line and creeping into my work, there had been a part of me that recognized he wasn't all that bad. Crazy, yes, but not bad. And now that I knew a little about the craziness, I couldn't really hold a grudge against the guy just for being such a bust at making a good impression, could I? "Why don’t you tell me the details now and we'll call it even?"
West visibly relaxed. "Deal. Sit down and we'll talk." He took my coffee out of the microwave and handed it over to me then guided me to the breakfast table he had stuffed in one corner. Buddy and Holly both migrated to the table as well, obviously interested in anything where food might be a possibility.
He leaned forward in his seat, all business. "So, I'll start at the beginning. You know the myth of Pandora's Box?"
"Boy, when you say the beginning you really mean the beginning." I said tongue in cheek then answered his question. "The gods gave the first woman this gift and told her not to open it but of course she did and unleashed evil into the world, leaving only hope in the box."
"Right, that's the myth filtered through human history, but actually that myth is the story of chaos, not evil. The box was where Fate and Time had locked away Chaos after defeating it in the fight for order. Fate and Time were the two gods that allowed for the other gods to come along and create existence. Well the gods got a hold of the box and passed it over to Pandora, intending to punish man for getting uppity. Pandora opened it and Chaos was released. It split apart and attached itself to humans so it could use the humans to destroy what Fate and Time had created."
"The vessels," I said.
"The man from last night was one. The human in him was long destroyed. Chaos was just using him to break rules, cause disorder, and destroy anything he came across."
I nodded. It made sense. He hadn't cared at all about my wellbeing after he'd almost run me over. Then he'd actually intended to kill me when I'd released that fire on his car. It was an overreaction for a human, but it made sense that a man controlled by chaos would go that far.
"Then there's the whole 'hope' thing in the myth. So Fate closed the box and took it away from Pandora before the most basic parts were released: earth, air, fire, and water. If they had gotten out they would have destroyed everything related to their respective element and destroyed existence. Fate realized she had to do something so she manipulated the four elements. Instead of destroying existence, she made them intent on destroying chaos. She released the elements from the box then, and like the chaos, they found vessels in humans. Us."
That was an unexpected development. "I'm a vessel? Like that guy from last night?" I did not like the idea that I had something in common with that...thing.
"Yes and no," West answered quickly. The toast popped up so he explained while he got it for me, "Yes, we're vessels for a greater power, but unlike chaos, the elements inside us are compatible with life. It's not going to destroy you."
Well, that was better than what I was imagining. "So that fire I made last night? That's the element inside me?"
"Pretty much."
"Wonderful," I grumbled. "Fate's made me the human equivalent of a piece of Tupperware. I thought God was supposed to be nice."
West laughed like I'd told the funniest joke he'd heard all day. "Nice is a new trick for the gods. Before the image overhaul they were all about blood, sex, and sacrifice. Fate's still an old god." He set the toast down in front of me and sat in the opposite chair. "Working for our goddess is pretty easy because she's straightforward. She picks who will become a Hand and you do what she says. There's no room for argument."
The independent woman in me bristled at the idea of having my life changed so drastically without so much as a by-your-leave from me. On the other hand, I knew my mythology. Bad things happened to people that defied the gods' will. "So, what? Anyone can be a Hand? Is it luck of the draw?"
"Yes and no. Anybody has the potential, but there are signs for people that the goddess is thinking of choosing."
"Such as?"
"Your name for one thing. We always have names that are out of the ordinary for the times. I don't know why. Uh...your profession is usually a pretty big clue. Hands tend to gravitate towards jobs where they're physically creating something rather than a service job. And then there's the personality aspect. We aren't big socializers. I'm not saying we're social outcasts or anything, we just don't get attached to many people."
I wanted to dispute that last claim because that made me sound like a loser, but when I thought about it, I realized he was right. I was friendly with most people, but there weren't too many people that I would say was my friend. How depressing.
"Oh!" West said suddenly. "And of course there's your tie to the supernatural. All Hands have some attachment to the supernatural world before they're chosen by the goddess. It makes it easier to transition to your new position. The females in my family are all Hinkypunks. What's yours?"
"Hinkypunks?" I repeated, unable to stop my smirk. "Are you even speaking real words anymore?"
West didn't see the joke. "Yeah." He said slowly. "The Will-o'-Wisp Coven? The witches are all called Hinkypunks."
"You say that like I should know what you're talking about," I stated. Witches. Just hell.
"You mean you don't? They're the most ostentatious coven in New Orleans. Everyone in the second culture knows them."
"Until four days ago, I only had one culture. The completely human one."
"Wait, you don't have a tie?" West looked at me like I'd just sprouted another head. "Hands always have a supernatural tie."
"Maybe that means I'm not a Hand?" I asked hopefully.
"No. You're definitely a Hand. Last night sealed the deal there. I've just never heard of a Hand without a tie." West gave me a pained look. "So you don't know anything about the second culture?"
"I don't even know what 'second culture' means."
"Well fuck. I have no idea where to start with that."
I put up my hand. "Good because I don't really want to hear that right now. What's happening to me?"
West still looked troubled about the second culture thing, but he moved back to the original topic. "Alright, here are the highlights. You can control fire, you're not going to age anymore but you will eventually die, and the only god you answer to is Fate. You've got a pretty high status in the world now. We're kinda like the referees of the fight between good and evil, and trust me, that will be an issue in the second culture. And other than that, your life is pretty much the same as before."
My hand was frozen with my toast halfway to my mouth. "Well other than that, I'm not worried."
Title: Answers
Prompts: Peanut Butter #4: earth, Chocolate Gelato #4: semper ubi sub ubi (Always wear underwear), Persimmon #9: brillig (four in the afternoon) + gummy bunnies (500themes #32: hand of fate) + fresh peaches (The problem is probably beyond your control.)
Rating: PG13
Words: 2772
Summary: The LJ posting page just decided it wasn't going to work for me last night so here's part 4 of my PB story a bit late. Indy finally learns what she is, and yeah this is a bit of an information dump but hopefully it'll be a bit interesting.
The garden is lush. Free to grow as it pleases. The colors and the scents overwhelm me, they're so raw and unflitered. This is nature at its most basic and untamed.
I walk down the gravel path, unsure of where I am going but comfortable all the same. This is a safe place for me.
Yes, it is.
I look back and there is a goddess there. She is completely covered by a dark red dress and hat with thick red gauze blurring her features from me.
Walk with me.
I follow her because it seems foolish to not. She is powerful, filled to the brim with quiet authority, but she isn't a threat to me.
We walk a short distance before she says. I've put a great burden on you, Indiana.
Blood flashes in my vision. A knife stabbing and eyes void of everything. The fire burning the black heart.
As quick as the visions come, they flit away. I shake my head. I don't understand what happened.
You did my work. I am a goddess without hands, Indiana. I can see the threats to the world, but I can do nothing to stop them. I have chosen you to be my Hand. You act as a vessel for my powers so that you may perform the most important task in all of creation. Existence needs rules. Life even more so. Chaos would break my rules, cause disorder and in doing so destroy everything that has ever existed. This is not a matter of good or evil or right or wrong. This is the most basic of all fights. You must fight the chaos.
I shake my head. But why me? I didn't ask for this.
You were chosen. This is a hard task I ask of you, but you have the strength I require. And in return I will give you what you desire most.
My brow furrows. I have no idea what I desire most.
The goddess laughs softly. In due time, Indiana. For now, you need your rest. I treated you poorly last night and for that I apologize. But you were the one chosen to destroy that seed, and it could not be put off any longer. It will be easier next time.
I balked. Next time?
She cups my cheek in her gloved hand. West will explain it all to you in the morning. He's a good man, if a bit clumsy at times. But for now, sleep.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Someone was licking my ear.
Considering I don't have a steady boyfriend and, even if I did, I would not take kindly to him licking me while I was asleep, I didn't take it well. "th'hell?" I slurred, still half-asleep and batted away at whoever it is.
My hand encountered warm fur and a cold nose and I jerked awake. There was a large dark brown boxer dog I had never seen before lying next to me in bed, his long tongue lolling out of his mouth in a happy grin. He moved closer to me when he saw my eyes open and licked at any part of my face he could reach.
I sat up, both to avoid the tongue and to try to get some bearing on my current situation. I was in a strange bedroom. Guy's bedroom, I automatically decided. It was mostly clean, just a couple clothes dropped on a chair by the bathroom, but there were no extra knick-knacks or decorative pieces that girls tended to gather. That realization led to the next most likely question: what was I doing in a man's bedroom?
Last night came roaring back to the front of my mind. I groaned and fell back on the bed. This was a problem. I wasn't panicking like I had last night. In fact, I didn't feel that bad about it at all. I remembered the dream and that part of me that had been screaming for me to burn a man's heart last night was saying that dream was real. Again, it was something I knew I should be worried about, but that dream had done a lot to calm my fears and accept my fate. I'd entered the Twilight Zone. Such was life.
The logical explanation for my current situation was I was at West's place. I'd fainted in his arms last night, and no amount of goddess interactions was going to alleviate my humiliation there. Yes I was from the south, but Southern Belle I was not. How embarrassing.
The dog beside me stopped trying to lick my face off and stared at the bedroom door as dogs tended to do. He jumped off the bed suddenly and ran out the room. I suppose that was my cue to follow him.
I got out of bed and had a moment of disconnect. I was not wearing the clothes I'd been in the last time I'd been conscious. Granted, those clothes had been sopping wet and covered in blood so I can understand West feeling the need to change me out of them, but still. The man that I still suspected to be my stalker had seen me mostly naked while I was out. Weird. I was in a man's shirt and work out shorts, both way too big for me. I pulled the waistband out and checked that my panties were still in place at least. They were. Still weird. There was also still nothing I could do about it though, so I saw no point in having a virginal distress moment.
I tied the strings in the shorts' waistband as tight as they could go then walked out of the bedroom. West had a house by the looks of it, a one story with a pretty decent sized living room and connected dining room. Again, the decoration was at a minimum here, but he had the basic furniture and required tv. I took a left at the dining room and went into the kitchen. The chef in me commended the bright windows light and clean layout of the room.
The backdoor to the left of the fridge opened without warning and the brown boxer and a tan boxer came sprinting into the house, trailing mud after them. They both mobbed me, jumping in the air and leaning on my legs to try and get my attention. I didn’t have a dog but I'd always gotten along well with them and I wasn't wearing my clothes so I had no problem with them jumping on me and leaving dirty paw prints all over the white shirt.
"Buddy! Holly! Jeez, you two, back off." West stepped inside after the dogs.
My eyebrows raised in amusement. "You named your dogs after Buddy Holly?"
He grinned, a little embarrassed. "It was either that or C3PO and R2D2, but then I couldn't use them to attract hot girls."
The dogs finally collapsed under the weight of their own excitement and sprawled contentedly on the tile floor. I sank back on my heels, feeling as tense as West looked. I would never feel awkward after a night of sex again. This morning-after scene was a billion times worse.
West moved towards the counter. "Uh, do you want coffee? I still have some from this morning."
"What time is it?" I asked, then jumped when I saw the clock on the oven said it was nearly four in the afternoon. Good lord, where had the day gone? I'd never slept this late, not even as a teenager.
"You needed your sleep," West said. "Uh...your work called this morning. I told them you were sick and wouldn't make it in today."
"Thanks," I said even though I kinda wanted to smack myself in the forehead. A man answered my phone in the early morning and I was sick. Right. Like anyone would believe that one.
West put a cup of coffee in the microwave then looked back at me. "Are you hungry? I have toast or some cereal. I could scramble an egg, but I make no guarantees that it'll be any good."
I would have said no just to avoid the awkwardness but my stomach was twisting with hunger so I vetoed that idea. "I'll take some toast."
"Right. Okay." West fumbled with the loaf of bread, store-bought I noticed, then put two pieces in the toaster. He took his time retying the bag before he suddenly turned to me. "I'm really sorry," he blurted out. "I fucked up big time in my responsibilities. This is just the first I've ever had to train a new Hand and I didn't really know what I was doing and I'm not good with meeting new people under the best of circumstances. Your first job wasn't supposed to be so traumatizing."
I smirked a little then. "Tell me, West. How could stabbing a man to death, cutting his heart out, and burning it with fire I can produce at will be less traumatizing?"
West made a little face then. "Point taken. But I didn't mean to scare you before and make it worse. And it was my job to at least tell you why you were doing it before, you know, you actually had to."
That was the thing about West. Even back when he'd been picking me up at the bar with the mallet line and creeping into my work, there had been a part of me that recognized he wasn't all that bad. Crazy, yes, but not bad. And now that I knew a little about the craziness, I couldn't really hold a grudge against the guy just for being such a bust at making a good impression, could I? "Why don’t you tell me the details now and we'll call it even?"
West visibly relaxed. "Deal. Sit down and we'll talk." He took my coffee out of the microwave and handed it over to me then guided me to the breakfast table he had stuffed in one corner. Buddy and Holly both migrated to the table as well, obviously interested in anything where food might be a possibility.
He leaned forward in his seat, all business. "So, I'll start at the beginning. You know the myth of Pandora's Box?"
"Boy, when you say the beginning you really mean the beginning." I said tongue in cheek then answered his question. "The gods gave the first woman this gift and told her not to open it but of course she did and unleashed evil into the world, leaving only hope in the box."
"Right, that's the myth filtered through human history, but actually that myth is the story of chaos, not evil. The box was where Fate and Time had locked away Chaos after defeating it in the fight for order. Fate and Time were the two gods that allowed for the other gods to come along and create existence. Well the gods got a hold of the box and passed it over to Pandora, intending to punish man for getting uppity. Pandora opened it and Chaos was released. It split apart and attached itself to humans so it could use the humans to destroy what Fate and Time had created."
"The vessels," I said.
"The man from last night was one. The human in him was long destroyed. Chaos was just using him to break rules, cause disorder, and destroy anything he came across."
I nodded. It made sense. He hadn't cared at all about my wellbeing after he'd almost run me over. Then he'd actually intended to kill me when I'd released that fire on his car. It was an overreaction for a human, but it made sense that a man controlled by chaos would go that far.
"Then there's the whole 'hope' thing in the myth. So Fate closed the box and took it away from Pandora before the most basic parts were released: earth, air, fire, and water. If they had gotten out they would have destroyed everything related to their respective element and destroyed existence. Fate realized she had to do something so she manipulated the four elements. Instead of destroying existence, she made them intent on destroying chaos. She released the elements from the box then, and like the chaos, they found vessels in humans. Us."
That was an unexpected development. "I'm a vessel? Like that guy from last night?" I did not like the idea that I had something in common with that...thing.
"Yes and no," West answered quickly. The toast popped up so he explained while he got it for me, "Yes, we're vessels for a greater power, but unlike chaos, the elements inside us are compatible with life. It's not going to destroy you."
Well, that was better than what I was imagining. "So that fire I made last night? That's the element inside me?"
"Pretty much."
"Wonderful," I grumbled. "Fate's made me the human equivalent of a piece of Tupperware. I thought God was supposed to be nice."
West laughed like I'd told the funniest joke he'd heard all day. "Nice is a new trick for the gods. Before the image overhaul they were all about blood, sex, and sacrifice. Fate's still an old god." He set the toast down in front of me and sat in the opposite chair. "Working for our goddess is pretty easy because she's straightforward. She picks who will become a Hand and you do what she says. There's no room for argument."
The independent woman in me bristled at the idea of having my life changed so drastically without so much as a by-your-leave from me. On the other hand, I knew my mythology. Bad things happened to people that defied the gods' will. "So, what? Anyone can be a Hand? Is it luck of the draw?"
"Yes and no. Anybody has the potential, but there are signs for people that the goddess is thinking of choosing."
"Such as?"
"Your name for one thing. We always have names that are out of the ordinary for the times. I don't know why. Uh...your profession is usually a pretty big clue. Hands tend to gravitate towards jobs where they're physically creating something rather than a service job. And then there's the personality aspect. We aren't big socializers. I'm not saying we're social outcasts or anything, we just don't get attached to many people."
I wanted to dispute that last claim because that made me sound like a loser, but when I thought about it, I realized he was right. I was friendly with most people, but there weren't too many people that I would say was my friend. How depressing.
"Oh!" West said suddenly. "And of course there's your tie to the supernatural. All Hands have some attachment to the supernatural world before they're chosen by the goddess. It makes it easier to transition to your new position. The females in my family are all Hinkypunks. What's yours?"
"Hinkypunks?" I repeated, unable to stop my smirk. "Are you even speaking real words anymore?"
West didn't see the joke. "Yeah." He said slowly. "The Will-o'-Wisp Coven? The witches are all called Hinkypunks."
"You say that like I should know what you're talking about," I stated. Witches. Just hell.
"You mean you don't? They're the most ostentatious coven in New Orleans. Everyone in the second culture knows them."
"Until four days ago, I only had one culture. The completely human one."
"Wait, you don't have a tie?" West looked at me like I'd just sprouted another head. "Hands always have a supernatural tie."
"Maybe that means I'm not a Hand?" I asked hopefully.
"No. You're definitely a Hand. Last night sealed the deal there. I've just never heard of a Hand without a tie." West gave me a pained look. "So you don't know anything about the second culture?"
"I don't even know what 'second culture' means."
"Well fuck. I have no idea where to start with that."
I put up my hand. "Good because I don't really want to hear that right now. What's happening to me?"
West still looked troubled about the second culture thing, but he moved back to the original topic. "Alright, here are the highlights. You can control fire, you're not going to age anymore but you will eventually die, and the only god you answer to is Fate. You've got a pretty high status in the world now. We're kinda like the referees of the fight between good and evil, and trust me, that will be an issue in the second culture. And other than that, your life is pretty much the same as before."
My hand was frozen with my toast halfway to my mouth. "Well other than that, I'm not worried."