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Saga of Stardust: Infinite Grimoire
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Selfish | X | Epilogue
It’s nothing short of a miracle that everything aligned just right for them to have killed a Fairy Queen without any major loss occurring. It is also a bit of disappointment for Mari that Dionaea only had but one life for them to take. Nonetheless, it is satisfying to watch Yuto finish her off, and the thought crosses her mind he should look into changing his wizard name to Roland, the scene that follows makes her almost certain of it.
She watches in silence as Juneau bds her knight farewell and stares at Caleb and Ben, with Ben working on the burden of time now, and she wonders if she’ll now wake up elsewhere entirely for a moment, before she shakes her head subtly to herself and simply throws out a peace sign at the couple as the magic begins.
Back at the beginning, she realizes, curiously enough, that her worldview has expanded.
No, not figuratively, she hasn’t learned anything, nor is she thinking better of the people around her, but she literally can see better again. With both eyes, much to her own, short-lived surprise as she realizes, of course she can.
Ben did offer to fix it before, after all. In her seat, in the middle of the speech, the thought makes her chuckle lightly to herself, unnoticed by anyone else.
Later, washing her face, she’d chuckle again when realizing her eyes are mismatched, one the same dark blue it ever was, the other a surprisingly familiar golden hue. Not one to complain as long as they’re in working order, though, she carries on with her day, and then days, skipping all classes and acing all their exams and presentations anyways.
So the extra time was spent on research of her own personal interest, rather than the bullshit thesis she made some months ago when she learnt about the academy’s offer, maybe she’ll be more open about that next year, after all, she doesn’t hate it here.
It’s not home or anything like that. It isn’t as if Stardust Academy holds some deep special place inside the small, cold, grey stone that she has for a heart, no. But the people here, at least some of the people here…
Well.
They’re not annoying.
Most of the time, anyway.
But certainly, even if they annoy her, even frustrate her sometimes, or amuse her in ways they really shouldn’t, she can’t and won’t deny that some people are important to her. More than she ever thought possible. In truth, they’ve grown more important than she ever would’ve liked them to. But that’s okay. Okay enough, that one early morning, after some of the class has decided to leave, she decides to write a letter to a certain friend, outside, worded as awkwardly as everything that comes out of her mouth.
Anemone,
Hello.
Stardust Academy has been fine, a couple of things have happened:
Lots of people hate the British. I don’t, though. I just think they’re stupid fucking wankers. Did meet a few that aren’t.
Killed a guy (he got better so it’s fine.)
Lost an eye (grew back so it’s fine.)
Made some friends (somehow. Weird.)
Helped kill some fairy (had it coming so it's fine.)
Learned that murder is okay if the victim deserves it. If you want something you should take it. There’s a third thing too stupid to commit to paper. Will tell you in person.
Regards, X.
She finishes, and puts a turtle stamp over, giving it to Hades to take to be mailed to the outside world, knowing it’ll find its way to her friend with the instructions she’s prepared for it, she instead begins to write into another piece of paper, to be posted at the bulletin board.
Preparing dinner for the scholarship class. 8PM. Dorm. Come. Or don’t.
That's the entirety of the message, speaking little for the effort she'll put into making a little something for the people she knows that day, for the same reason she does everything, because she can.
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C’EST LA VIE | vb | epilogue
Victoria Bitter- no, Lucy- has had a rough time of it. Nobody can dispute that, even when you consider she wasn’t a huge part of the ‘killing’ in ‘mutual killing game’; putting aside the one time she pureed Petrel in the middle of trial (and got a whole new rule put in place because of it), she rarely killed and was rarely killed in return. But that in itself created a whole new bucket of issues, a few more traumas on top of the big ol’ bundle of problems she’d found herself trying to work through ever since she got here.
It wasn’t all bad, mind. If coming to Stardust Academy had taught her anything, it was that her own perception of herself was a lot more negative than it needed to be. She was used to defining herself by a very limited scope- a big burly protector, nothing more- and the realisation that she had a knack for academics was a pleasant surprise. (Going toe-to-toe with a giant snapdragon amalgation and winning ruled too, but she wasn’t as surprised by that. She just assumed she’d win. Even the universe isn’t so cruel as to make her get pasted by a giant monster in front of many pretty women twice in one year.)
Yet, although getting a series of gold stars on her chemistry assignments and a special distinction for her weird dicks paper was a boost to the ego, it couldn’t solve everything. And it certainly didn’t do much to solve the problem of the shadow that had loomed over her shoulder from the moment she walked in- the shadow of a woman who had slipped through her fingers, the presence of someone defined in absolute by not being there.
Had they- had Caleb, Janelle, and Ben had to listen to her complain about her lost love every time, wondered Lucy as she sat and listened to Archibald’s speech again? Had the rest of them had to listen to it too, even if they didn’t remember it? Would five years of advice on getting over it actually amount to much?
Hah. It was kind of depressing to think about. She wouldn’t find any answers to that sitting in here- so as soon as everything is said and done, and as everyone is shuffling out to the courtyard to breathe fresh air unbound by a time loop, VB is walking a little bit behind the rest, lost in thought.
And she hears something.
A disturbance. Raised voices. Curiosity. A member of faculty- Professor Wuthersbury?- asking, incredulously, where “you and THOSE came from”.
There’s a whine.
Lucy pushes to the front of the crowd. She blinks. And she gets it.
The question of whether she would ever move on. Be the bigger person. Take all that good personal growth and understand she could do better than a wannabe Vriska who burns pasta and gets in Internet slapfights about manga. Understand that she’s a well rounded woman with infinitely desirable traits, who could date someone secure and successful and sane and sensible-
“AAAAAAAAUUUUGHHHHHHHHH HONEYYYYYY YOU WON’T BELIEVE WHAT HAPPENED TO MEEEEEEEEEE”
Fuck it.
Fuck everything.
As Lucy runs to lift her inexplicably soggy girlfriend up in her arms and squeeze her tight, she knows the answer to that question in her heart. She knows it more confidently than anything she’s ever known in her life.
It’s no.
She could do better. But she isn’t going to.
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SAGA OF STARDUST: INFINITE GRIMOIRE [Finale, 4/4]
And that’s it.
You’re back.
You can choose to rise from your chair and flee the pocket dimension the moment Archibald stops talking, or stick around and ace a semester you already know all the answers to.
You can leave now, escape the campus that you’ve spent five years in, whose ancient walls have seen your blood spilled in ways you can’t and don’t want to remember.
Or you can stay, to rewrite new memories on top of the old, to replace thoughts of corpses and trials with fun and mischief. After all, you’ve got a brand new chance to set that breakfast wizard up with someone even worse now.
But it’s up to you. You’re free to do as you choose. You’re free to love who you will. You’re free to be who you are, who you really are, and not what anyone else wants or demands that you be.
The pages of the Infinite Grimoire turn one by one until none are left. And your story- this chapter of it, at least- finishes as it started. As it always should have, on a single message with more meaning than its speaker could have ever imagined it’d impart.
For the tikka masala, you see-
It’s back too.
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Happily Ever After [Finale, 3/4]
You don’t remember the previous times that Bently’s magic has swept you up and carried you off to the very beginning, but, this time, you’re cognizant of it the entire time as the process unfolds.
Perhaps expected at this point, it’s warm. You’re beginning to wonder if all time magic is like this or just lynxan magic. Maybe it’s just Ben’s. Either way, this isn’t the sudden and uncomfortable feeling you’re used to. There is no struggle to breathe nor does the very air around you seem to fight against it. Instead, it’s what you imagine feeling a movie rewind at a slow, gentle pace would be like. There is no stuttering and no flapping of wings that grind you to a halt. Instead, there’s peace, and you’re left with your thoughts as the journey comes to an end.
You’ve just faced down an incredible being and lived to tell the tale. You’ve beaten something seemingly timeless in your mortal life. Or would it be lives? You don’t remember them, but they existed, at some point, didn’t they? And not one of them could have been the exact same. Dionaea was driven further into her own insanity by her inability to change, her hatred of fluidity, but look at you.
[ ♫♫♫ ]
Each one of you is proof of the strength of spirit, the power of identity, and the miracle of sheer determination. You are living infinite possibilities. What you did in the last loop doesn’t matter because you have a new, permanent, certain life ahead of you, and, as time moves past you, you’re reminded that, though your possibilities are limitless, the time you have is finite. But just like this warmth has not left you, the friends and family you have made here will not either. You’re certain of it. Your experiences and the people around you have shaped you in inextricable ways, you beings of mighty self.
You, Yuto– a fount of possibility and potential, waiting only to know which direction you now mean to walk with it.
You, Mari– a stalwart flame of hearth and home for those you have entrusted with the vulnerability of your can-be kindness.
You, Bo– incapable of ignoring the weight and burden of each emotion brought into the care of your knowing.
You, Nobuhiko– active in your drive to nurture and mend, unmatched in how naturally the world’s troubles ease with the spread of your smile.
You, Fumie– risen above each burden you have unrightfully claimed, held now by hands that refuse to let go just as strongly as you do.
You, Petrel– a gentle current, a gentle breeze, a gentle sigh that carries the light of your prose and its nourishing hope.
You, Xueman– proof that there is more to ice than infinite cold, more sure of who you are than most could dream to be.
You, Haruki– a beacon of life’s purest passion, just as eager to learn from others as you are to share your life and love with them.
You, Charlie– a reclaimed light of a person, beautifully angry brimstone and comforting sunshine in equal parts as you were always meant to be.
You, Miyuki– the sort of spitfire kindness that makes a person capable of more than they know, your own worth and acceptance finally within your own reach.
You, Dragom– brilliant and bright in ways that you have always known mattered long before others caught up to your understanding of the world.
You, Adonis– capable of walking to the beat of any tempo set before you, leaping where others would stumble, trip, and fall.
You, Mayumi– incapable of accepting the lowly things the world would try to sell you, shining ever brighter for refusing to accept less than you deserve.
You, Lukas– a seer and dreamer of unmatched opportunities that only you can bring to their awe-inducing fruition.
You, Lucy– brimming unwavering loyalty and unwavering self, the fire smoldering underneath you only ever a single kindling piece away from reignition.
You, Leslie– more than the place and people that you have come from, full of vibrancy that they could never dare to live up to in your wake.
You, Fio– a parasite that has found purchase in itself, your own feelings, your own dreams, your own life finally yours to take and do with as you please.
Even you, Caleb and Janelle– finished with your terrible work, finally permitted rest. Even Ben, whose magic swaddles you in newly earned warm wholeness.
The feeling of hands on your shoulders appears one last time, and that sensation of a voice whispers to you:
“You’ve done well. Good luck. Live free and prosperously.”
And, then, you’re back where you started. A vaguely uncomfortable chair digs at your back, your elbows are pressed against people to your right and left, and a sea of heads lies in front of you as you watch a fluffy dog take the podium.
“Good afternoon, everyone! My name is Archibald Goodfellow, transfiguration wizard and proud Headmaster of our prestigious facility. It is my greatest honor to welcome you all back to another year at Stardust Academy. For those of us new to our halls, we wish you the warmest of greetings, and hope that your studies here bear the ripest of fruit.”
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The Road Goes Ever On And On [Finale, 2/4]
Juneau looks around at the wreckage from the battle. At Dionaea’s remains. At each and every one of you. Then at the Timekeeper and the Glassbreaker, as well as the Perennial and Adelaide.
“I suppose that you are to reset this now, to a previous time, if I am to understand your plan.” She smiles. “In which case, I am likely to not remember this encounter, and we shall probably never see each other again. But if we do, I pray it will be under less dire circumstances, all of you.”
“Take care, my knights. You are formally dismissed from your duty. Go forth, and live your lives to their fullest, and do not return to my halls without stories and songs of lives well lived. Farewell.”
Once the one who should rightfully hold control over Stardust’s pocket dimension says her final words to them all, Ben figures it’s high time that they set things to rights. It’s been a long journey getting here, but, for everything to truly come to an end, they have to go back to the very beginning one final time. One final reset. As excited as he is for it to be over, as excited as all of you must be for it to finally come to an end, he knows there are two among your number who are more excited than the rest of you could possibly understand.
He turns to look at his husband who has carried the burden of sending you all back to the start so that you could have a chance at a beginning. Reaching over, he links his hand with Caleb’s free one and rubs a small circle with his thumb.
“How about you let me take us back this final time, darling? You’ve earned your rest.”
Caleb, now thoroughly spent from keeping the amplification device active for far longer than it was ever intended to be, slowly turns his head to Ben, and then to the table where Minerva dutifully sits. Gently, he nods.
“And you deserve your magic back. Just… Let her show you the more specific nuances of what we’ve learned to leave alone and what to not. To make it easier for you.”
When spoken of, Minerva flies and makes her perch on Ben’s shoulder, and he closes his eyes once more in the same moment that hers begin to glow. Feeling the magic around him, he can easily pick out the bits that stick out to him. They’re unnatural and manufactured for the express purpose of keeping everyone here together and allowing the loops to do what they’re meant to. Although full lynxan might stare at the “mangled” mess of the cycles in disgust and horror, Ben feels nothing but awe as he feels the delicate weaving and knitting and crocheting of the currents beneath his metaphorical fingers.
Carefully, he reaches his magic out and cradles the mass of strings in it, like a tailor carefully packing their spools and needles away after completing their craft.
Turning to face you all, he grins.
“Let’s go home.”
Ben raises his hand up into the air where a bright light gathers around it, and then, it shrouds you and everyone else.
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As You Wish [Finale, 1/4]
[ ♫♫♫ ]
The sword strikes true.
Heroes’ weapons always do.
And the queen of sunset, who sprouted from the lush volcanic soil of an earth barely cool, has time only to blink her remaining eyes and whisper —
“I —“
— before a few things happen very fast.
One: Her head hits the floor, rolling all the way to Adelaide Carter’s blue-slippered feet. The dead sundew tendrils of her crown curl in on themselves like the legs of a spider.
Two: The snapdragon collapses midroar into a wrack of branches and stems. Its leaves go yellow and brown and then crumble away to nothing.
Three: The magic inside you shivers, and the shiver travels outward, raising the hairs on your arms, tingling your teeth, until it culminates in an invisible brightness that suffuses your whole body. You may guess — but will not confirm until later — that this is the moment the pillars of the Sunset Court crumbled, and all its treasure and magic and pain returned to the infinite ethersea.
(And all its remaining captives appeared between two English oak trees in Saguaro National Park, where they would proceed to startle the hell out of the teenage volunteer at the nearest rest station and generally cause several weeks of confusion. But that’s a story for another day.)
Adelaide looks down at the head of the faerie queen. Her hands ball up in the skirts of the Tudor gown she’s been wearing for — Jesus, how many years? — and she reaches out to nudge the withered branches with her toe.
“How fares she?”
This is the first truly quiet moment in which you’ve heard the girl’s voice. There are traces of a Southern accent left in it, but she’s spent nine years communicating almost exclusively in the cant of a long-forgotten England. The sound, then, is neither here nor there.
Janelle, always the less delicate of the pair, gives the head a solid kick with her boot. It does not move.
“Dead as dust.”
Adelaide looks down at it for a long moment. Her face works silently. And then she raises her little slippered foot and brings it down in quick succession.
Once.
“Fie thee —“
Twice.
“ — and —“
Three times.
“— fuck you.”
Her heel will be bruised from it tomorrow. And there will be more healing to do beyond that — years and years of it. But today, feeling those branches break underfoot, she screws her remaining eye shut and feels tears slip out and smiles. Takes a deep breath. Pulls Janelle into the tightest hug, which looks a bit funny because Adelaide is easily the taller of the two girls.
“I always knew you’d come back for me,” Adelaide says, muffled, holding back a sob. “Sometimes I’d get afraid you wouldn’t, but then I’d always remember you never knew how to quit at anything.”
When she breaks away she looks at the rest of you, no doubt disheveled and bruised yourselves, standing in what remains of Juneau’s chateau.
“I don’t know how Janie got thee here, or — I didn’t know Janie was magic, even — or um, exactly where here is? Somebody’s house? No matter — I mean, nevermind. That was amazing. I can never, ever repay any of you. But I swear forsooth I’ll try to when I get home.”
A beat. She glances to Janelle.
“We’re going home, right? This place is gorgeous, but...”
Janelle breathes in stone-dust and quiet. Breathes them out soft. And nods.
“You’re going to take my hand, and then them two —“ she inclines her head toward Caleb and Ben “— are going to take us all back to Stardust Academy. And then we go wherever we want. I’ll tell you now what I’ll tell you then: You do not owe anyone anything after what you been through. All the tabs are mine to settle.”
Adelaide nods back, eye huge with the terror of joy after so much time locked up. More tears slip out.
“It’s been a really long time,” she tells her sister quietly. “How’s the world?”
“Big.”
A soft smile. “It better be.”
And then —
Adelaide blinks.
“Wait, wait, before all that — the one who got her.”
Her eye indicates one member of the group in particular, and she nudges Janelle with her elbow. Janelle looks confused — then exhales her amusement and retrieves a white bandana from her own back pocket, passes it to Adelaide.
Adelaide gathers her skirts in her hands and darts over to Yuto, who receives as deep a curtsy as was ever curtsied. She gestures at him to extend his dominant arm. When he does, she ties the bandana carefully just above the elbow.
Anywhere else, it might be one nonmagical, unspecial, lonely young person’s wordless thank-you to another.
But this is a castle. You’re wizards. You have just used the power of love to defeat an evil sealed away for centuries. In a high-fantasy story like that, where things are allowed to be grandiose and frilly and a bit foolish, there’s only one thing for Yuto’s new accessory to be:
A princess’s token of favor, tied to the arm of a champion.
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A Lesson Learned Late Is Still A Lesson Learned
In this sort of situation where an enraged fae queen has come to basically kill everyone in this room, where people are shooting off guns and magic spells, Yuto would probably run and hide. Find the biggest thing or person to hide behind and let the actual wizards handle the highly magical threat.
But he doesn’t.
Yuto is standing there watching it all happen with wide eyes and an aching heart. Caleb’s dedication to bringing back Ben was awe-inspiring but what hit far too close to home was Janelle- Going to hell and back for her sister, ready to do whatever it took to bring Adelaide home to her. That was a real sister. This has been the realest love anyone could have for another. A type of love he should have shown a long time ago. Somewhere outside this school is a young woman who deserves a thousand apologies and the love of a big brother, and Janelle’s strength makes it all click into place. He needs to leave this place alive.
Ducking and weaving out of the way of his friends, Yuto makes it to a Corgi.
“I need a sword!”
The dog scampers off to Juneau as he returns to study the battle and the people in it. The people where even in his darkness moments did their best to support him. So much love and encouragement was granted to him and he selfishly denied it. He was more willing to wallow in hate and hopelessness while everyone else around him was actually working towards a future. This bright future that included him. How much time has he spent wasting their hard work and tears? So many people in this room tried so hard to make Yuto see the truth that despite whatever flaws he saw in himself that there was so much about him to cherish. Turns out he has been wasting these efforts for far longer than he knew. Not another moment shall go by where he once again denies the love of the friends around him.
The corgi returns with a sword. Yuto takes it in his hands and starts skulking around to find a good position.
There is no fear in his teary eyes and nothing but love in his heart. The queen struggles to find the strength to rise again and Yuto creeps closer from behind. He could very well be rendered into dust doing this. He throws himself into the battle not for a lack of concern for his own self but to help protect everyone. His sword is raised and held back. He fully believes in Caleb’s words; We’re all going home. Yuto is going home and he’s going to be happy.
“You might have survived thousands of wizards but I have bad news for you,”
"I'm no wizard."
Every ounce of strength is mustered for this single swing. The blade swiftly cuts through the fleshy plants of her neck until the Queen is beheaded.
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woundwood
It had seemed so amusing, all that time ago, to watch kine like these kindle their little magics in seaside knap-houses and play Erl-King with the ones who got bravest.
Dionaea remembers moving herself through the mycorrhizal mat of the wood they came to call Rendlesham, her consciousness flowing from one root to the next, keeping herself right under the judder of their heart. She could coax the grass to grow back over the path they’d used to enter; she could pull the trees together where they might have hoped to find an exit; and when their eyes went entirely wild, she would rise in a sigh of leaves like the whispering of skirts to deliver their fate.
The entire forest screamed with delight when the first one tried to cast a spell on her.
(A horse-faced young woman with a swaddling child bound against her chest. Her pale eyes shone like moons when she stretched out her hand. Her spell, intended to halt the queen’s pursuit, amounted to no more than a gentle shove.)
The queen was so busy laughing she let the little thing go — a human who could use magic was far too much of a novelty to destroy. Like a dog that can put its paws on the piano.
What a delight it had been, then, to slowly learn there were others and that each one knew a slightly different trick. To catch them, play with them, exchange them, share stories among the lords and ladies.
Now she wishes she had killed the first one.
If she had killed the first one, and every one after that, perhaps she could have culled their whole breed and kept humans the way they were meant to be.
The hooded one wouldn’t be looking at her now with the same loathsome shining eyes, wielding a power to which he none like him had a right, breaking her wave into a ripple. She whips a thorn-studded branch toward him and feels it turn to dust as it enters the corona of healing magic rolling off of Nobuhiko’s body.
“—?!”
She doesn’t breathe in the traditional sense, which means she also doesn’t gasp, but you feel a snatch of sound like it. A sudden intake of something.
The worst part is that she feels nothing as it happens. Nobu is a healer. Even at his most defiant, he is gentle. And so the vine crumbles apart and blows away, painless and quiet as sleep. His magic and his spirit refuse to dignify her with anything like grand obliteration.
This is probably the most embarrassing thing that could ever happen to a faerie monarch, except for the next thing that happens, which is that a smug little sawtoothed goblin says EAT FUCK and launches a torrent of misery at her.
She can do misery.
She’s done misery. Four hundred-odd years of it at the end of the world, betrayed, alone-alone-alone in a way nothing else could ever understand. She believed that the other fae monarchs were her peers until they began to quail, one by one, away from their vaunted histories and the rights to which they were entitled as lords of the Earth. Fear of iron made them forswear their own natures, rewrite their stories.
Not her. Never her.
(Would she have been permitted to?
If she could?
If she had wanted it?
The clemency granted to her brethren had depended on an example being made of someone. She had been a natural choice. They scorned her for games they had all played together, weighted her down with their crimes, and they joined hands with that powder-faced kinslaying queen of England and used their own shame to cast her from the land that had been her body.)
What could she do but remain herself? Find her amusements where she could? What could she do but take clippings off her own branches and try to grow them into new courtiers that would replace the ones slain by the kin-killers?
She had to exert her power over each person who wandered or was dragged in, twisting them until everything inside snapped and the final drop of amusement had been extracted.
There was never anything else to be done.
And the one-two strike of Fumie’s warm memories against Amon’s terror makes her see, for the first time, the slow suffocation she was always destined to endure.
There was never anything else to be.
Never anywhere else to go.
Never an end for her that wasn’t this.
Disgraced, alone, eating fuck.
Like all royals, she has the power to do everything but save herself from ruin.
“B E A S T S,” her limbs creak as the darkness clears.
(Beastsbeastsbeasts.)
“We have known pains — and insults — and indignities that would rend thee stitch from stitch.”
Petrel is talking. She hears him. She talks over him, gaining volume.
(There is a song in his blood that she has only ever heard from the shore. King Carcharodon used to gift her selkie skulls and say you could still hear them singing if you listened hard enough, but she never could. She still cannot make it out.)
“Thou cannot harm us in a way that matters. We have endured fire, flood and plague.”
Dragom’s wind tears her remaining petals off the bloom, rendering her a creature of thorns and stems and branches only.
(Another unhuman thing lowering itself to the level of human. She is forced to assume he is enslaved by fear of obliteration or loneliness; she cannot consider the thing steering him is love.)
“This world belonged to us before thy first crawling kindred were but a speck. All of the world’s first dreams were dreamt by us.”
The thorns sharpen and lengthen to the size of dragonteeth. She is a living briar patch.
And Mizu is likely to hurt himself as he strikes, because there is no part of her safe to be this close to, but he strikes true. The sword breaks the tangle of plants forming the center of her body like cutting tendons, sending her reeling for a moment as the branches regenerate.
Unfortunately, the abundant water that’s just been sent her way helps with that.
Plants love the stuff.
And she sighs in rapture as her branches bud again. Her flytrap mouths regain their green. She puts none of the moisture into flowers and spends a large portion of it regrowing her bark, knotting her branches, sharpening her thorns. A hanging tree.
(Roots that clutch. Branches that grow out of stony rubbish. The dead tree gives no shelter and the cricket no relief.)
Reinvigorated by water and rage, she darts forward to smash her head against Mizu’s and send him stumbling.
“Thou chooseth nothing! What right hast thou to choose? To deny the will of one who is owed so much as we are? Dost thou believe thou knowest deprivation, pretender-princeling? Dost thou believe thou hast any right to power over thine flesh? All flesh is grass. Thou art entitled to nothing but gratitude toward thy elders and betters.”
Miyuki Jones’s ball punches through her sternum at this moment, and she whirls on the spot only to get hit again — and again — and again — and — from every angle, at impossible speed, with force as strong as Miyuki’s quietly indomitable will —
She has enough water to recover from it. But it’s a narrow and ugly thing. She stands hunched as she does it. Her splinters litter the floor; her bark, although healed, is scarred and lumpy.
Woundwood, this is called.
“We are — “
Another gasp-like noise. Movement is becoming difficult at some of her joints where the woundwood is thickest.
“ — the last pure and honest thing in this world. All of thee, liars. Cowards. Artless, ugly things. Destroying a world to which thee have only just arrived. Our home. From which we were banished for nothing except living in the true and ancient way.”
You know this is not true, of course. You’ve read the things faeries do. You can see the venus flytrap blossom that sprouted out of Adelaide Carter’s eye when she displeased the queen.
But you know as she says it that it is true for her. All of it.
She turns to look at Heliotrope when he speaks, having only a few eyes left. All located in her head.
“We pity thee,” she tells him. “Boasting about thy fitness for a transformation that reduced thee beyond measure.”
(hairallover, her bark groans. painallover. fearforever. death. andthoseshoes.)
She holds still as Xueman’s spikes penetrate with the thunk-thunk-thunk of arrows hitting a wooden target.
“Water again, mereswine? Envious of the princeling? Or merely incapable of learning from his errors?”
Dionaea begins to soak it up, channeling it through her body in preparation to heal again.
And then —
It turns into iron.
(ironIRONIRON)
No word can be made to stretch over the pain that lances through her.
The scream that accompanies it would burst your eardrums if you weren’t protected.
Trees burn from the inside, sometimes, when struck by lightning; she burns, now, flameless, inextinguishable, stumbling around and scraping at her bark with her own thorns in an attempt to get the iron out. It doesn’t help. Nothing helps.
And as she realizes it, the scream of pain fades into something like a laugh. You only recognize it because she was laughing when she got here. Hard to believe they’re the same sound.
She falls to her knees under the power of it.
“They will grow tiiiiired of thee,” she says. She’s not looking at any of the class anymore, but Xueman will likely know Dionaea is addressing her. “Merling. Bonefish. Whiteflesh thing. They will indulge thee and whisper secrets until the day when thy use is exhausted, and they take up whispers about thee, and cast thee out to die in shame. Everything they have ever loved in thee is an illusion or a thing they will come to despise. Even now. Killing us only affords thee more time before they set to it.”
She tries to force herself back to her feet and finds she can’t. The most she can do is take one knee and breathe in a rattle of branches.
“And we will live forever. Here, in the earth, we will die and grow again until the world entire rests in the cradle of our mouth. Thou hast done — nothing. We have watched thy kind grow into magic and we will watch it destroy thee. We are eternal. We have survived wizards a hundred-hundred times.”
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#NORMALSWEEP | Heliotrope, Makka, Xueman
[ ♪♪♪ ]
There was a lot to process in such a short amount of time. And there was no way to know what would come next. Makka retreated further into the safety that was Heliotrope and Xueman’s side. A fear washed over her and with no way to correct it, it stayed. Part of her enjoyed it, as she should. Another part wished that she would wake up. Even if she had to wake up to a beautiful, candy colored world where nothing could hurt her. To cower felt terrible. To be forced to experience this was awful. She wanted to claim she was in control of her own emotions but that would not be true at all.
And then she remembers the hand. The one that held hers and squeezed when everything was too much. She slips her free one into Xueman’s, sure the other would hate the touch but Makka was ready to be the selfish one now. She shut her eyes tight and squeezed both hands. The tea parties, the drunken talks, and the giggles shared soothed her enough to open her eyes. This wasn’t an indestructible force that spelled the end in front of her. This was just another thing to talk about between whispers and eye rolls. This would come to pass. And they would make sure of that.
Makka lets go of both of the hands, staying put between her friends and reaching for her whisk. It didn’t matter if her magic was naturally unsuited for an attack, she would find a way to deliver all the pain and rage she held onto. Thankfully she wouldn’t have to do it alone.
Heliotrope meanwhile takes a good look at Dionaea, in all her fascinating yet terribly mad glory. There’s something familiar about that arrogance, that ego, that entitlement to enforce one’s own will upon others. Yes, he most certainly feels he’s been acquainted with something similar to it before, if even on a much smaller scale.
Even then, that smaller form of such ugliness displayed by his own mentor had been enough to push him to rid the world of her in the end.
He quickly gathers Xueman and Makka closer, whispering to them both and listening as they whisper their own thoughts to him. Their plan slowly takes form as others launch their own attacks on Dionaea. A smile spreads across Heliotrope’s face, even in the midst of this terror. But who can blame him? He’s always been an individual who had an unshaken confidence in himself.
And now, there are two by his side he can also put his complete faith into.
Heliotrope, Makka, and Xueman all give a small nod as they get ready and in position. It’s time.
Xueman had prided herself for her almost unsettling control over her own emotions. She’d been praised for such a thing. The funny thing? Her control has never been something as simple as burying them deep and ignoring them. No, Xueman’s tight grip on her feelings include drawing up specific emotions as she sees fit, and as much as she needs.
And, now? Xueman reaches into her depths for every drop of pure rage that she can hold onto.
She exhales a steady, icy breath; one that swirls around her, and noticeably chills the air. Her magic slowly builds into a solid structure above her. As the ice grows on itself, Xueman raises her arms in front of her, palms pressed together. Another breath, and she’s sliding a foot backwards, turning her body, and drawing one hand back past her head. It follows the motion of drawing a longbow; shoulders square, eyes focused straight ahead at the sorry excuse of a “queen” before them.
For the moment, she holds her shot; letting the icy spike above her build and build. Heliotrope and Makka rush to the spike, Heliotrope seems to whisper directions to Makka, demonstrating symbols with his finger. Makka mimics the symbols with her whisk. It’s not the flashiest of moves, but she is able to create large frosting runes. They glitter as the light catches the sugar powdered on top. If he wanted a rune boost, Makka was going to make it the most powerful she could possibly craft. Even if she would have to use her other arm to keep herself steady, feeling her body be pushed back by the force of the magic she’s wielding.
Heliotrope nods to Xueman, gesturing his readiness is near approaching, but before anything else can happen, the alchemist turns to face his friends. He projects his voice with all the drama of an actor upon the stage, making sure Dionaea hears his words.
“Jeez! And I thought fae were supposed to be something more worthy of legend! But this one’s over here having a toddler level tantrum over what? Having to experience humanity?”
He turns his head again, now looking at Dionaea with a smirk.
“Sounds like a skill issue to me~”
With just a sharp gesture of Xueman’s fingers, the spike is released and sent soaring forward. Though the projectile has been loosed, her focused stance remains. Ice creeps across her fingers and along her hands, but it’s hardly an unfamiliar sensation for her. Xueman adjusts her footing; facing forward with her hands pointed ahead of her, as though guiding the large spike from where she stands. Ice climbs past her wrists, and a frigid wind picks up around her, but she pays it no mind. Her gaze remains on Dionaea; as sharp as the spike speeding towards the fae queen.
Closer…
Closer…….
There…!
A violent crack rings out as Xueman quickly jerks her wrists; and the spike splits. And splits. And splits. Splitting and spiraling out into several arcing projectiles. For every loop she’s had to endure, every death she’s experienced, the spike cracks apart. For every minute she had to sit there in that trial and bite her tongue, every excuse spoken by those three captors – because she truly has no other name for the three that have forced her into a cycle of falling apart and just barely scraping her pieces back together into something that could just resemble something human enough over and over and over again.
… For every violent, jagged shard of herself that can’t quite fit back together anymore…
Xueman sends every single frozen, icy shard to pierce deep into Dionaea’s body. And her fingers curl like claws, her hands mimic ripping through the air itself as she draws upon every bit of magic she has to drive and twist those spikes further in. Ice is surging up her arms, leaving a lingering, stinging pain across her skin. But, she takes that pain and pays it forward to Dionaea. She’s got a surplus to share.
Of course, one can’t expect it to end there.
Heliotrope grins, and suddenly his chest begins to glow with that usual blue light that comes with every time he uses his magic. Only now, it’s brighter, noticeably so. But who’s really surprised? With the mix of buffs gifted to everyone at the start of the fight combined with the enhancing power of Makka’s own magic added to his usual alchemizing runes, Heliotrope’s range has expanded far beyond his usual need to touch something to alchemize it.
He directs that light, that magic, forward and forward still, until it reaches Dionaea.
Until it reaches the icy shards he’d marked for transmutation.
And it transforms each shard, still piercing deep in Dionaea into agonizing, burning iron.
He laughs, still so capable of his usual glee even in a fight to, presumably, the death. He stumbles back a bit, catching himself before he can fully fall. All that casting would surely put a strain on him, but he figures he can rest for now and enjoy the show.
With the ice turned to iron, Xueman no longer has control over any of them. The cold wind around her dies down, near frostbitten arms dropping limply to her sides. She breathes heavily, a visible puff of air on each pant. It’s almost painful to take such deep breaths; as though she’s got her own ice crystals scraping down her throat and through her lungs.
The adrenaline leaves her suddenly, and she all but collapses backwards.
In order to protect the three from any loose shard to countermove, Makka holds her whisk out, moving her arm in a wide circle before pointing it upwards. A gingerbread house, with all the cute fixings, surrounds them. Of course one wall was forgotten, so they could enjoy the view of watching a queen fall. Makka ignores the crystal beeping on her arm. But she can’t avoid stumbling back and to the ground, resting against the wall across from the opening. She takes as steady of breaths as she can. She’s forgotten how it felt to push herself to uncomfortable limits with no blessing to force her to ignore the strain on her body. Now she’s happily and willingly inhaling a very sweet scent but it’s so… different. It’s warm with a slight spice to it. Makka giggles weakly at the thought. Being in such a sweet yet hollow structure, breathing in perfumed fumes but feeling something. Alive? Whole? Hopeful? She blinks, trying to keep focus but feeling her head bob. When she finally looks away from Dionaea towards Heliotrope and Xueman, Makka feels an odd yet familiar warmth spread through her.
She feels… happy.
Charlie is happy. Probably the happiest she’ll ever be. She lets her eyes close slowly as she’s forced to rest. At least she knows she’ll wake up happy.
It’s always a cold feeling when Xueman feels her magic leave her like this. The disgustingly familiar sway of her vision, before the world turns before her eyes. Usually, she’d sink into another cold, numbing feeling. Whether it be the bitterly cold ground, or the bite of icy water, she grew to expect some sort of similar sensation.
But, this time, that feeling doesn’t follow. A full body ache replaces that numbness. A burn in her chest when she realizes she can actually catch her breath this time. She’s surprised that she can actually feel her hands and arms, even though she’s mostly aware of how much they hurt right now. Though, she doesn’t really mind the pain. Slumped back against a gingerbread wall, with an out of place sugary scent filling her senses.
Xueman realizes that she’s only so aware of the pain in her limbs and chest because of how warm she feels everywhere else.
… It’s not a bad feeling, when she thinks about it.
Heliotrope- No… it’s always been Adonis with these two, hasn’t it?- Adonis takes a look at his friends, at the gingerbread house shielding them from the fallout, and he sighs. Not a sad one, mind you, he sounds happy as ever. How could he not, with this odd warmness he often feels when with these two? He finally allows himself to take a seat, humming as he settles in.
“Maybe if we’re lucky, we can get a bite in on this gingerbread house after this all blows over, eh?”
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Grand Slam ⚾
Growing up, magic for Miyuki was something packed away, only taken out on special occasions - on brief excursions outside of her regular life. Even after she moved to a place where magic was more intertwined with her day-to-day, it crept along the margins of her existence. She trimmed it back, pushed it aside. Shoved it away, for fear of what it could do and had already done.
(Sometimes, when she raises her arm, she's that little girl by the roadside again, lost in the darkness of the citywide power outage she accidentally caused.
All she'd done was thrown a rock in frustration. A spark had escaped from her soul to empower it. Within the clap of overwhelming pitch black, there'd been screeching wheels, the crunch of metal, a scream...
amounting to a pile-up of extremely close calls. They managed to survive her mistake. But that threat of what had almost happened scared Miyuki just as much as if it had.)
Post-graduation, she threw herself into a traditional baseball career. Strict rules locked her magic down. Fielding positions in marked-off roles meant belonging in a group without question. Expectations guided every player. Nothing was nebulous nor out of a range of ordinary normalcy. In a rigid environment like that, the 'wonders' of magic had no place.
By design, magic's a cheap shortcut; a cheat code for hard won talent. That derision spoke to her throughout her life, insisting that magic's the stuff of liars and fakers and greed and envy and selfishness and harm and hurting and broken, messed-up people. Magic ruins not just the sanctity of sports games but so much else far beyond that. All facets, all that it touches down to its poisoning core.
It's the writhing danger lurking beneath the surface of every wizard. It's the ignition of an unfair, maddening push forward towards glory otherwise unreachable by average means. A boring, everyday person couldn't stand up to the enormity of something like that.
(Media hounds phrased their nastiest remarks a lot worse than that. As soon as 'Yuri Smith' the pitching phenom was exposed as a wizard, none of her athletic accomplishments mattered. No one cared that she'd carve her magic out of her if she could. No one noticed how much it sickened her to be a walking gun, able to chart destruction in a single glance.
If she's not a baseball player, what is she? Who is she?)
She holds out her hand. Bright energy swirls into a cowhide ball, cradled on her palm. Another Miyuki at a different time would've balked at this burst of the impossible. She would've shaken herself free of it, giving into her fear. But the Miyuki of the here and now stands tall and wields it, in awe of her endless capability.
Of everyone's, really. Their effort in working together has to be the most beautiful thing she's ever seen.
And Miyuki's part of this. She's one of them. They're fighting all as one. For the first time in her life, she's proud to be a wizard. Magic doesn't taste ugly in her mouth anymore. It's wonderful, awe-inspiring.
Spinning reticles dot the scene over enemy number one and on the surrounding surfaces in the area. The enhancement to Miyuki's magic paints her targets visible to all, every vulnerable weak point mapped out in a flash to show where to aim.
She pitches the ball at the ground, the force of her throw as full as the overflowing force in her heart.
The ball cracks the flooring, ricocheting to launch at the mess of a monster before them. It strikes true like the punch of a bullet and bounces off of Dionaea to fly at a target waiting on a far wall. It hits, disappears the target, and shoots back to Dionaea for another attack that makes solid impact. The bounce sends the ball towards the ceiling, where it hits then comes back down.
Hit, bounce, hit, return; hit, bounce, hit, return. For as fast as it happened, that one ball might as well have been a Gatling gun from all directions, perfectly pathed out to take Dionaea down. It goes on like this until Miyuki, blowing an impressively large bubble with her chewing gum, changes her stance.
A bat appears in her hand, formed from determination unbridled.
The ball comes back to her on its final bounce-back.
She steps into the swing. Her bat slams into the ball, hurtling it like a full powered cannon straight at Dionaea.
(There's that question, lingering still. Who is she?)
She's Miyuki "Strikeout No-Hitter" Jones, Deadeye Pitch Witch, and baseball wizard extraordinaire:
Never one to be underestimated.
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moon
What was destiny? Was it something predetermined for us? Fate that wove every piece of one's life to fit onto a path? Was it one's parents painstakingly planning out every single aspect of their life before they lived it?
Haruki for so long had lived under the guidance of others who didn't know what was best for him. They poked and prodded at him, broke and put him back together, trying desperately to shape him like wet clay into the man he ought to be. Ought to be. How ridiculous. Haruki before he came to Stardust Academy was nothing but a seedling trapped in a pot far too tight for him to grow out of. He suffocated within the confines of what was judged as 'perfect'. It was his destiny to be Mizukabe Sansei. He had nightmares often about being unable to carve who he was meant to be from the marble he was given. Even now, he hears a quiet voice speak to him, in the sound of raindrops, in the calming sound of a wave, in the winds that Dragom began to summon.
You're not doing it right.
You're not doing enough.
Give up and get back to what you're good at.
[ ♪♪♪ ]
What Haruki found when he entered the school was rebirth. He stared into the abyss of his shadow, reached in, and found the person he always wanted to be, but was too afraid to become. The pot he was in shattered when the world around them shattered. He threw himself off the beaten path, and found something he could never replace: Love. Love in the pieces of his shattered soul that reflected on those he came to know. In a quiet but worried man who had lived up to every expectation, yet still felt empty. In a woman who would do anything to save the ones she loved. In men who had loved the world, despite the pain it brought them. In the parasite who felt like an outsider to the world, afraid that they'd never understand what love even meant. To the young woman who carried her guilt, unable to forgive herself for the people she's hurt. He found love in Dragom, whose curiosity and unapologetic love for the world gave Haruki a new outlook, and in Petrel, who pushed him to dive headfirst into himself, and truly see himself reflected in the shattered remains of his heart. His friends and loved ones had shown him who Haruki Okumura truly was.
As Haruki watched the Faerie Queen begin to attack his loved ones, he knew that if he was going to get this life he wanted with Dragom and Petrel and every single person who's touched his heart, he was going to have to go on the offensive. He felt magic surge within himself. Dragom's beautiful song rang out true in his heart, and he turned to face him with a determined nod. He then turns to Petrel, who was shedding dark dream heavy tears. Gentle hands reach up to his face, holding his cheeks, rubbing his thumbs across those warm cheeks. This was it, the chance to have a life that he designed himself. To forge his own path in the woods, across the sea, tearing down everything in his path to finally reach happiness. With the softest of smiles, Haruki uses his magic to lift the tears off of Petrel's face, swirling them around in his hand before he sharpens and thins the shape to a blade. He nods one last time at Petrel, then to Dragom, then runs headfirst towards the one thing standing in his way.
With every pounding step of his boots on the ground, the words of his father rang out in his head. Feel every drop. Every molecule of water is yours, it always has been. The water in the air, the water in the ground, in life itself. With his magic amplified, Haruki doesn't feel the need to focus, it just comes to him. Every droplet of rain from the storm that Dragom summoned is felt in his body, strong enough to make his hairs stand on end. Without moving a muscle, the raindrops that poured down around Dionaea began to shift. Like a dance only Haruki could perform, the raindrops began shooting at the faerie queen at incredible, violent speeds. They move around anyone within the area, making sure not to scratch a single being that wasn't in the Sunset Court. Any attempt on him was thwarted by a watery shield that was created in seconds with raindrops. As he ran closer, right up to Dionaea, Haruki yelled out, loud enough to hush his own anxieties.
"Listen here, you fancy pancy Poison Ivy knockoff! Everyone here's worked too hard for too long to get their happy endings! We're getting our friends back! And we're ending this fucked up school year once and for all!"
Once Haruki was within reach, he created platforms of solid water, leaping up them with grace. Not unlike a salmon swimming upstream, as he made it look natural, fighting against a current. Every ounce of his anger, pain, despair, love, joy, and hope flowed through him and into every shot he took at Dionaea. With one last leap, he swung out his arm, holding the sword that carried Petrel's, Dragom's, and Haruki's dreams within. They get to have their future together, and like Hell Haruki was going to let it slip past him. Though his shame whispers to him on his stream of consciousness, telling him he hasn't earned this, he calls out through it. He recalls the countless times he's cried in self pity. The times he's struggled to connect. All the times he's reached out and someone reached out back to him. From Ben and Caleb's countless 'You're enough's to Petrel and Dragom's 'I love all of you's carries him in this moment.
"I get to choose my life!”
Haruki swings the dark dream water sword onto Dionaea's chest, and once it makes contact, shifts the shape, releasing it from his hand to explode into shards of determination into her.
“Twenty notes in 4:4 measure play the final coda. The lullaby is a song to end the dream. My ocean swallows the sun, my sky lifts us starwards, my moon will render destiny obsolete.”
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sky
Petrel’s words bolster Dragom into action. Caleb, Ben, and Janelle…their stories, their tragedies have touched Dragom’s heart in a way he never expected. Everytime he had thought about coming face to face with the puppet masters of their misery he had thought he wouldn’t be able to be stopped from tearing them limb from limb. For all the tears they made him cry…for all the tears they made Haruki shed. He never expected to fight by their sides, bolstered by their power.
Dragom could forgive them…because their actions were ones that were made out of love…out of desperation. The only way they could see…love for your husband, love for your sister. Even if he wanted to admonish them he couldn’t…because love is such a powerful thing that makes you do crazy things…
Dragom had come to Stardust Academy for a single purpose. To learn more about humans. To connect with more of them and bond together human and orc. Over his time in the academy, Dragom has learned about humans, he’s connected with them, wanted to protect them, and even join in a relationship with one. From what he had learned about humans and about himself…Dragom discovered the key to the universe, the strongest element out there…
Love.
Friends, family, lovers…when brought together, the element is born, when torn apart, it can not die. Love festers out of control within a heart, love explodes in a passionate gesture, love never forgets the first moment it formed, and when the origin points split, love seeks reunion with the one it lost. It seeks a place where it can thrive happily with those that gave it life.
Dragom sees this within those three…
He sees it in himself. Dragom is prepared.
Dragom is going to go home after this, he is going to live a full life for himself, a life that he has always wanted to live. When he died, his afterlife had become nothing more than one to satisfy and push Haruki forward. For him Dragom would carry the world if it meant he would smile. Dragom had given everything up but he doesn’t have to anymore. Dragom is going to go home and Dragom gro-Goramalg Voshor is going to exist as himself.
With his head held high he’s going to go visit his parents and give them the grandest hug he’s given them in years. He's going to bring Haruki and Petrel along of course, the two nestled tightly in his arms. Shaking them around as he gushes about these boys to his parents. Gushing about how he found love, how he found understanding, and how he found a place to belong among the humans.
Dragom pulls his ocarina made of Haruki’s love from his pocket. A glossy blue ocarina made by Haruki’s careful hand, etched with a wave design on its surface. This ocarina symbolized the feelings that Haruki harbored for Dragom, his care for Dragom’s culture and the music that he played. Dragom brought the ocarina to his lips and began to play.
“Quake in anticipation of the solace we'll seize within our storm, do not shun the voices that speak through us, and remember the 'us' that project our voices into the void.”
[ ♪♪♪ ]
The song that Dragom formed was something new and something old. His sun song of love for Haruki combined with new experiences and new feelings. He wanted to form a song that captured all of his emotions, his love, his joy, his terror, his suffering. And not just his but Haruki’s as well, and Petrel’s, and Caleb, and Ben, and Janelle, and everyone else that was here in this moment, this once in a lifetime moment. Though these five years have been filled with memories forgotten and lost to the ether, Dragom wants to find those lost emotions and convey them all in this song.
A journey of five years is what has brought them to this finale.
Even if he can’t remember it, Dragom wants her to feel what that must’ve felt like.
Listen close to the song that is an ode to their five years of repeated suffering, Dionaea
Their five years of repeated passion,
Their five years of repeated love.
Dragom bounces in place on his feet, a small dance to contrast the big laddie playing his tune. The amplified magic flows to the rhythm of his song, a gentle breeze that wraps itself loosely around the orc. Tousling his hair and blowing lightly on the edges of his clothes. Every note played sends a pound through the hearts of his peers. It flows so easily through Dragom, into his ocarina, and out into the air, the amplification making his music's effect happen much quicker than ever before. The winds around him pick up all the moisture that can gather forming small clouds above them. The coming rain was for Haruki to use, that boy was always a storm, now he could take control of the downpour…and Dragom, he’d take control of the raging air. Wind and rain, together Haruki and Dragom will conquer any storm and come out on the other side every time.
“We travel the currents of a river like seeds– but the river is magic and the magic is emotion and our emotion draws blood.”
The clouds above, as if responding to the emotions of the song, begin to weep for those who suffered so long. Of course it was just the falling rain but how beautiful is it to turn everything into something poetic? To attach meaning to the meaningless. Another lesson that Dragom had learned with his time at Stardust Academy. The rain pelts his back and the orc points his one eyed glare in the direction of the faerie queen. She is all that’s left…the final obstacle that stands in the way of leaving here with Haruki and Petrel, the final thing that stands between him and a life with meaning.
He plays out with more intensity. A growing rage, a growing desire, a growing need to go back home! It comes through in his song, the winds respond to his emotions and change to the direction of the faerie queen herself. One final obstacle.
The breeze that passes her by is light at first, the winds dance and frolic around her like it was nothing more than an early day in spring. They begin to pick up speed, becoming more ferocious with each second. That soft breeze quickly changes to a gust as sharp as a blade. Severing a section of greenery from the queen it sends it flying through the air. He will not let his playing cease. He wants her to hurt…to suffer all that they have. A tornado of wind wraps around her slicing and sending a flurry of petals through the sky. If it was only against a moonlit backdrop, it would look like the stars of the night danced for them.
Dragom’s song ends for a brief moment as a grin comes to his face. He points his claw directly at her with a guffaw!
“Wahahahaha!! Take that one ye hackit beast!! Haru, te rain is all fur ye!”
The wind of the storm had its time, now it was time for the rain to play its part. Dragom brings his lips back to his ocarina to continue his song to bolster forth his future. And held strong between Petrel’s prophecy and Dragom’s song, Haruki is entrusted with their destiny.
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ocean
[ ♪♪♪ ]
The overwhelming dread that momentarily floods the room is a chilling reminder of the thing Petrel has tried to run from his whole life: Fate.
He’s tried to flee from it.
Tried to steal from it.
Tried to fight it, tried to fix it, tried to curse it, and even tried to speed it onwards.
For someone blessed with dreams of foresight, he was always making terrible mistakes– because he had always forever been fixated on the futures he wanted to avoid.
For the first time, he had a future he wanted to chase. He feels the power that that kind of future holds, inherent understanding flowing in with all the magic and all the warmth. It’s a laugh that shakes you to your core. It’s a hand that remains clasped through unimaginable pain. It’s a hug that stays with you for the rest of the day.
He grasps those feelings and centers himself on the futures he wants to steer them towards– The haven of Ben and Caleb’s home, with all of them sitting around the wicker table. School, normal school, with low stakes and all the time in the world to wax poetic about the nature of magic and the universe with Bo. The ability to wander the world and find home again and again and again in Fio. A new future full of art, for writing and creating beautiful things instead of stealing them. A decade of time of healing for Yuto and Lucy and Janelle and Adelaide and Fumie and Mari and– fuck, even Xueman, too– for every year they’d spent endlessly breaking apart.
A wedding in the woods.
A house in the forest.
A life spent not drowning in dreams but sailing through waking hours with the most beautiful people he’d ever met.
The dream water rolls down his cheeks, heavy black droplets of iridescence... The last tears Petrel ever wants to shed again. When he embodies his dream of the future– when he lets the ambient magic overwhelm his emotions and mind and speak through him– familiar words ring out in an otherworldly melody of inevitability.
“We travel the currents of a river like seeds– like little notes across the lines of sheeted music. The music plays a battle cry.”
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reflection & refraction
When drowning, your first instinct is to hold your breath. It keeps your mind working for a little longer. It keeps your lungs from filling with water. For a few, brief moments, you can pretend that you’re fine. But that moment never quite lasts. The bubble always bursts, lips always part, lungs always fill. And Bo is no stranger to drowning.
It’s why he feels as though he’s been holding his breath for hours now, struggling to hold on to his last little shred of calm—focus on facts, focus on theories, focus on what he knows will keep him from choking on the larger panic that has been hammering at his skull to be let in since he’d woken up that morning. It’s why he can’t wait any longer, once Janelle vanishes and reappears with her sister, having wrung every last drop of composure out of what he’d desperately held within his chest.
He breathes, expecting to feel the cool rush of air fill his lungs for the first time in months. It’s only when a horrifying voice rings out around them that Bo realizes he’s still underwater.
And then, he begins to drown.
Terror floods his senses, it fills his throat, his lungs, his limbs, as Dionaea claws her way into the room with the everyone else he cares for and the fighting begins. She brings with her a different sort of fear—not his own, but something he feels deep into his core. Something ancient. Something instinctive. Bo, as he chokes on his welling panic, briefly wonders if this was the sort of thing terror had first been formed from. His grip tightens on the hand he’s been clutching this entire time, unwilling to let go of his life line even while in the midst of drowning.
Amon holds into him, tethering him to something outside of that fear. It takes a special type of someone to look into the face of terror and laugh. A nervous smile erupts onto Amon's face, and an uncomfortable grimace with a bothered laugh, but a reaction that is uniquely Amon.
His fingers scream, the frigid chill and tight grip feels like a crushing vice, but still he holds on. Not once has he truly let go, in the face of turmoil, adversity, and danger… Amon never looked back, never backed down. A powerful ego, a chaotic will, and tenacity that could move mountains. Though he’d never had a proper place to channel that energy, only into the most selfish of whims. But now… there's a titan they're facing down, and a prize in his hands he wants to protect… the path forward has never been clearer.
Amon twists his hand, fingers woven, his own trembling with cold, but a quick glance to Bo shows the fire in his eyes. The door before them is ready to be opened. And Amon is more than ready to put his foot against it and break it down. There is a promise that will not be broken. After living so long in the moment, it's finally time to walk into the future.
Bo feels the pulse of Caleb’s magic course through him, growing and burning through his veins in a way that’s all too familiar—a different sort of drowning. One that he’s carried inside of him for nearly as long as he could remember. One that he’d felt lurch to life once more when he’d been foolish enough to interrupt a live magic circle. He can feel it writhing in him again and immediately squeezes his eyes shut as it threatens to spill out, spill over, spread further until it can take and take and take…. but that moment never comes.
Instead, a familiar warmth, Ben’s warmth, sinks beneath cold, hardened skin, wrapping the thrumming magical excess in its embrace and refusing to let it run wild. Gentle, but firm. Guiding, but not smothering. There’s a security in it that gives Bo courage enough to open his eyes without worrying what may come spilling out. What he sees is no less terrifying.
It isn’t the twisted amalgamation of vines and thorns bleeding at VB's hands, or the frenzied row upon row of eyes staring back at him. There’s something else there, floating at the edges of his own vision. Without knowing entirely why, Bo tips his head back. He looks up. And he sees.
Pinpricks of color well in the corners of unseen eyes and spill over onto an invisible canvas. They spread like ink in water, clouds gently expanding as breath in lungs, while heavier tendrils of thought slowly sink downwards. Deeper. They mix and muddle, each softly bleeding into the next with a low murmur of familiarity. Intertwining. Overlapping. Embracing.
And then they spin apart again, a hushed swirl of lonely little galaxies reaching out to one another over an endlessly empty space. Each point marking where it’s been. Each arc charting where it’s going next. Each journey leaving a faint trail through the hazy, heavy atmosphere, so that it might always know the way back home again.
All of this, Bo sees, eyes fixed over his own head in horror and wonder as he recognizes the shape of his own feelings. There’s no time to analyze them, but for a moment, the chaos around him seems to dim. The colors—his colors—draw him in. The subtle umber of dread. Quiet, fearful greys. And a single, emerald swirl of curiosity that seems to reach out towards him, beckoning him closer. Without a word, Bo raises his hand, pointer finger delicately pressing to his reflection overhead.
It’s only a moment, standing there with body and soul perfectly mirroring one another. Then it shatters, the point where feeling meets flesh blooming into a blinding expanse of light. No one else can see it. Bo himself can barely see it. But he can feel the energy thread through his fingers—converted emotion bursting into pure, unfettered potential. It’s exhilarating. It’s terrifying.
He tears his eyes from the sight to look back towards Lukas, a slightly crooked grin curling across his lips. He doesn’t need to ask. It’s instinctual, the way that Bo pours every drop of his own awe, his joy, his utter bafflement and adoration for the other man into the magic weaving between his fingers. The only warning that Lukas gets is the slight shifting of Bo’s grip and a breathless murmur in his ear.
“Don’t let go. You promised.”
Potential energy dances along Bo’s palm, wrist, arm, chest, as it races through his body to reach the other side. It spirals down into the space where their joined hands meet, palm against palm. And it sinks beneath Lukas’ skin with the soft, relieved sigh of something finally come home to rest. The feelings had always been meant for him, after all.
“Now that's what I’m talking about!!”
The magic slowly swells into a surge and it courses through Amon, and his hair almost wants to stand on end. His sweater bulges and billows like a gale is blowing through, like waves crashing over, and with a burst a dark cloud erupts, surrounding him in shadow. Amon’s laughing rings out.
“Like hell I’d let go of you, babe, especially not before the big boss fight!!”
The miasma surrounding him is impenetrable, like the walls of a storm. For a moment, only light breaks through, the glow of his crystal… then the vortex parts, and the air feels heavy! Even with his target set and locked in before him, the residual effect of this spell can be felt through the room. Sorry guys–
The air feels thick, and the looming sense of unending doom takes over, like a curse hanging in the air, a shadow consuming your heart, a cloud fogging your mind. Despite the dread, Amon smiles with absolute glee.
“EAT FUCK, QUEENIE!!”
The darkness rushes like a beast, like a bolt of dark lightning, consuming its target! The queen is swallowed whole in torment and despair! Hopefully she could do with a little bad luck, because she’s getting a whole fucking lot of it.
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Tumbling Down To The Never | Nobuhiko
Nobuhiko Murata always considered his magic more of a tool than a weapon.
He was a healer, yes. But not through his magic. He could sew open wounds back together, but that was done by hand. His magic, while supplementing his profession as a nurse, was something different entirely. Something rooted not in medicine, but religion.
His ancestors believed they were purging evil spirits from the ill when they used their magic to break a fever in someone with an infection. That when they used their magic on an otherwise clear body of water that was making people sick, it was them destroying fell forces and demons within. That their magic and presence could sanctify a space, making it ritually clean.
None of them knew what the hell a germ was. But despite that, their magic worked to purge forces that were causing harm. And as Nobuhiko raised his hand up reflexively when Dionaea began scattering poison spores everywhere, he was closer to those ancient era ancestors battling evil spirits than he was any of his medical colleagues.
If anyone is holding their breath too long, they may realize they are doing it for nothing. Once the poison spores are more than an inch or two away from Dionaea’s body, they break up further into harmless motes of magic and light, dissipating more and more into a fine mist filling the room. Now standing on top of the table, with an old stethoscope in one hand and the other raised high, Nobuhiko stares down the fae queen, eyes glowing as like the mediums and priests of old he cleanses evil from this place.
And if Dionaea gets closer, or tries unleashing tendrils to attack, they begin to dissipate as well, the same as any other malignant presence would when exposed to the might of Nobuhiko’s magic.
This was a sanctuary, and no force of evil would touch those under Nobuhiko’s care.
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holly
Thick, milky manchineel sap paints the chateau walls as Victoria Bitter goes to work on the snapdragon. It drools out of its broken stems as it throws its massive body at her; when VB feels her knuckles push not just against but through a peduncle, she’ll pull them back covered in the stuff.
It burns like hell. In the wild, this would be the end of VB’s day. Her life might follow if she touched her nose, eyes or mouth with her hands still contaminated.
Here, she feels it bright and brief, like sparks on her skin, before Janelle’s ward sweet-talks her body into a fast recovery.
All of the snapdragon’s eyes are trained now on VB. All its menace has been redirected into their duel. It circles, snaps its jaw, lunges, and occasionally barrels through other sections of the battlefield — but it is, like all faeries, catastrophically vain and myopic. It cannot rest until it has repaid the indignity of being struck by a human hand.
(killyoueatyoutearyou, its blossoms say to each other. growinsideyou. unfurlourpetals. inthegardenofyourskull.)
It doesn’t even know what Australia is, or it would be mad about that, too.
Dionaea, meanwhile, opens her body like an umbrella as the Leslies multiply, casting a wide shadow over the arena. Her human silhouette is almost entirely lost in the action — she is closer to the thicket of briar that surrounds Sleeping Beauty’s tower than anything. Appraising the illusion, some of her eyes crinkle in condescension. And the next thing she says makes it clear that she may have gained more than passage into Juneau’s chateau as she traveled between worlds.
“Little fool-princeeeess.”
Just as you knew Janelle’s story entire in the moments she spent away, Dionaea’s learned a few things about you. Not many. Nothing Janelle’s mind did not carry. Little snatches of information, whisps of thought.
And nothing like the truth. The truth is transformed beyond recovery when it enters a mind like this.
“Spreadest thou thy infinite failure among these shadows?”
Her vines sweep out at the various Leslies, passing through them in search of the real ones. But the ploy is working — as her pet chases VB, Dionaea’s attention is split dozens of ways by a single woman.
“We should hardly be able to stand the sight of ourself, had we squandered as much as thou. Let us put out thine eyes as a kindness. Replace them with —”
Little white flowers and tiny red berries bloom all over the spindly distorted form. Holly.
(Known in Gaelic as celyn.
Holly-garden is laes celyn.
And many centuries ago in Scotland, that phrase ran together into a single word: Leslie.
Mortals have always been so envious of their masters, the queen thinks. Rightly so.)
“Something beauuuutiful.”
Her leaves fan into something like a smile.
And that’s exactly when Nevros shouts.
Dionaea pulls herself back in. Not all the way, still a looser approximation of human shape than before, but most of it. The Leslie clones are so loud and abundant she has to search for a moment to identify the source of the taunting.
They’re entertaining me instead!
She’s still searching when Nevros’s teeth sink in deep, spilling more of that milky sap all down their chin and front.
And she does, in fact,
S C R E A M.
It is not like a human scream. There is no instrument on Earth that could replicate this sound, nor would you wish to invent one.
And although she had come to know, in the days before her banishment, the stories of magic-eaters that even faeries feared —
She has never met anyone like Nevros.
“THIEF!” she howls, thrashing against their teeth. This only aggravates the wound, tearing it open further. As much as she bucks and twists, she cannot dislodge Nevros. “BARK-BORING INSECT! EATER OF BROKEN MEATS! Thy touch — augh!“
The iron hurt her badly, sent its cold fire lancing through her. Nevros’s power is something else entirely. Her leaves are spotting. Her petals are falling dry off the bloom.
And she’s still talking shit.
“Thou — thou striketh ever at the heart of thine envy,” she says, continuing to struggle, wrapping them in thorns. “We should pity thee, were thou not beneath it. Fighting on behalf of the fleshthings? Coveting their affection as thou coveteth magic, undeserving of both and incapable of holding onto either?”
The thorns tighten.
But speaking of love, Baku is here.
The faerie queen raises her vines to defend herself from the bakemono, then. Freezes entirely for the first time since her arrival. The eyes all go still.
She is lost in a dream.
Lost being the operative word, here. These fond memories of warm intertwined hands and tender quiet moments are terra incognita. Nothing could be more disorienting than expressions of human love.
Human friendship.
The experiences of living in a littler-than-usual human body (awful, wretched constructs, full of blood and worse) that is being held, crying with joy, savoring the feeling of sand against its fleshmitten hands.
“What is this?”
The voice she uses to ask it is quite small, but the question echoes among all her mouths.
(whatisthiswhatisthiswhatisthis)
“STOP IT STOP THIS WE WILL NOT SUFFER THE INSULT OF HUMANITY ST—“
Mayumi, shining like a valkyrie, cuts into her midsentence. She attempts to shrink away from the blow but doesn’t know which direction to move, mind still spinning at the gala. Her form dodges into the next blow instead of away from it, and her attempts to course-correct are hampered both by Nev’s bulldog-like grip on her and the litany of Leslies still jingling all around.
(“Huzzah!” Adelaide shouts suddenly from the sidelines, no longer cowed into silence. Her fists are clenched. “Strike clean and true, champion!”
A moment later, too overwhelmed by emotion to continue filtering her speech: “You guys are so fucking cool!”)
Dionaea retracts into herself, clearly in agony. The scream is building again. It hums through the room and presses on your eardrums. Her remaining vines all curl at once. Her petals snap shut.
Then they seem to bulge from inside.
“Enough!”
The flowers explode open. You are showered in lush, dewy petals like confetti.
And something else.
You might spot the spores before you breathe them in. You might instinctively blink, catching one between your eye and its lash.
There’s no avoiding them no matter what you do. They float through the chateau like motes of dust, so thick in the air that you are likely to find your visibility suddenly limited.
The more you breathe, the more you feel your body reacting to them. They burn you from the inside. Your thoughts start to run together and strength begins to drain from your body.
Of course the plant lady can send out poison spores. Of course she can.
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Good Fortune
The fear Mayumi had felt as Dionea made her appearance had been underlined by deep, boiling anger. An anger borne from a sense of injustice and emotional fuel that had been building in Mayumi her entire life: that this just had to happen to spoil everyone's happy ending, that of course the universe wouldn't let everyone off without even more sacrifice in the end. Hadn't everyone here been through enough, already? Why did this always have to happen? Even as she shook in fear, her fists were balled tight as well, nails digging into her palms.
And so that anger was buoyed to the top as the mastermind's empowerment floods the room, fanning even the meager flame of magic that remained in Mayumi to a radiant star, bright enough to drown out the fear. All her life she'd wondered if her magic was just a joke, but if in this room, at this moment she can at least be of a little help to everyone, then she'd say it'll have been worth it.
She unsheathes her blade and takes her place as one of Juneau's knight one last time, cutting roughly through any of the queen's court that bar her way, unflinching as she gets scratched by thorns and brambles as she rushes to Mari's side, more worried about if Dionea's assault managed to harm her. She lets out a relieved sigh once Mari assures her that yes of course she's fine, and then proffers up her blade.
"Mind making this something a little better at chopping through the brush here, dear?"
More than willing to oblige, Mayumi soon finds herself armed with a gleaming silver machete. She turns her gaze towards the mad queen; it would be just the right weapon for the job. But, the court seem to sense her intentions and a regiment of angry shrubs forms to block her advance, growing thorns as long as her forearms to wield. She's undaunted, though. For the first time since she died, she lets her magic shine on herself. Quite literally in fact: it's as though her whole body starts to take on a golden glow, starting from her earrings and spreading down so that she's outlined with it, a bright halo behind her that seems to cause the plants around her to wilt in its presence.
She'd always believed that her luck couldn't affect what people could do, that people's actions were beyond what she could influence, and that's why she found it so hard to help people with it. But now... Perhaps it's because of the empowerment she's experiencing, maybe its her own change in mindset, but now, suddenly, she can feel her good fortune in every step she takes towards Dionea.
All of a sudden all her swings strike true, cleaving through the nightmarish tangle of living evil plants without effort, always finding some way to strike at their very core, or their weakest point. Any attempt at striking back at Mayumi looks almost comical in how easily it's deflected, or avoided, or simply somehow manages to miss altogether. Nothing can approach her, seeming to almost wither against the light of her gleaming good fortune. A light that says only good things will happen to me and everyone else from now on.
She cuts her way through to Dionea's side as effortlessly as walking up to her, unable to keep herself from smirking at how untouchable she feels right now, and joins in on the growing assault against her. "No one cares who you are and what you want anymore, freak. You weren't invited, so get out." She spits as she begins slicing away at any part of her that looks even vaguely like a mouth, any fear she had left was gone now, replaced instead by certainty. She's going to help make a happy ending out of this no matter what, and there was nothing an overgrown weed could do about it.
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