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crash-hawk · 2 years

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Life on the line, winner take all, ready or not, let’s begin...

In honor of the one-year anniversary of Third Life (hi!!! I’m not okay!!!), have a Tumblr re-release of what I consider to be one of the finest one-shots I have ever written for any fandom.

(Inspired by thcscus’s Aerie series, this fic is part of the Kaleidoscope AU, and can be read totally blind/as a standalone. That said, I highly recommend checking out the rest of the series! My co-authors are extremely cool and epic.) AO3 link can be found HERE for those who prefer!

Three

If you come inside, things will not be the same

When you return to the light

And if you think you’ve won, you never saw me change

The game that we have been playing…

- Chris Cornell , “You Know My Name” ---------------------------------------------------------------

“So what do you do?” asks the young girl with the flower braided into her rust-red hair.

There are twenty or more of them gathered around the huge campfire that’s been set up on the beach--not everyone who calls the island village their home, but a goodly number of them, ranging the entire gamut from masters and journeymen to the greenest of the new apprentices. The young girl who’d spoken up is one of the latter, a bright-eyed young thing who’d come to learn architecture and botany, and who watches the two guests who’ve come to join their nightly get-together with eager curiosity.

The guest in question doesn’t appear to really hear her, looking over his shoulder back toward the lights of the village. “Where in the hell did George get off to?” he wonders, a trifle irritably.

“He’s still off with Pearl, I think,” answers one of the others, smiling. “Relax. He’s not going to vanish or be eaten by monsters or fall off a cliff, not around here, I promise.”

Of all of them, he has been here the longest, long enough to remember when the island was nothing but empty plains and gnarled cypress trees and the occasional massive old oak. They had been three when they’d first come, much like these three who’ve come to visit today, laughing as they’d sized up their new refuge and laid the foundations of their first homes. One is gone, now, old age having claimed him decades ago, but pieces of his spirit are still scattered about the village: the great snarling beast of a tree, meant as a prank, that he’d loved so much he’d made a home of it; the wind-powered music machines that still play to this day; the old underground farm that still produces far too many potatoes for the village to eat, even at full capacity, but that no one has the heart or the inclination to replant with something else.

His wings are tucked safely out of sight tonight, out of an abundance of caution, although he’s certain his guests know they’re there. He knows well enough what his guests are, and vice versa--but while he trusts Pearl’s quiet, gentle spirit-brother, god of the green places, so much like his old friend that his heart aches, he is not so certain about the other two.

“Oh, yes, he’s perfectly safe,” chimes another from beside him. “Pearl’s night vision is a-mayzin’, she’ll spot any dangers a mile away, and I’m sure Grian’s cleaned up all of the traps...you did clean up all of the traps before company came over, right?”

“Traps?” queries one of the guests, eyebrows arching high over eyes as black as his hair.

“Shut it,” Grian hisses, elbowing his oldest friend so hard in the ribs that he doubles over, laughing and coughing at the same time. “Don’t listen to him. There are no traps. Why would there be traps? We absolutely, positively do not build, lay, or arm traps anywhere in this village. In fact, trap-laying is punishable by summary banishment. It’s in the village charter.”

That gets everyone laughing, residents and guests alike, and Grian relaxes a little. He’s being paranoid, he knows, but he can’t help it. It’s rare enough that visitors ever find their way to their place of safety...never mind visitors like these.

“I think the young lady was asking you a question,” says another of the trade masters, a genial man in black and gold with unruly reddish-brown hair who sits right beside the newcomers, tinkering with what appears to be an ornate clock. Much like said newcomers and a few of his fellow villagers, his youthful face belies his true nature.

“Hm? Oh, you mean me?” asks the first of the two guests, the one who’d introduced himself earlier as Dream.

The red-haired girl smiles, nodding. “It wasn’t terribly important. I was just asking what you do.”

Dream smiles, shrugging a little. “Oh, nothing very impressive. Nothing like you all do here. This place is really something else.”

Grian’s friend grins, twisting the old scars marring one side of his face. “Flattery will get you everywhere, good sir.”

That earns a snort and an eyeroll from Dream’s black-haired companion. “He’s fishing. His ego is the size of that bloody huge pile of rocks over there. Why the hell is there a bloody huge pile of rocks over there, by the way? I’ve seen castles that were smaller.”

“Are you insulting my bloody huge pile of rocks, Sir...Sapnap, wasn’t it?” Scar rumbles, mock-threateningly.

“Wouldn’t dream of it, and don’t call me Sir,” Sapnap retorts.

“Did you build any of these?” Dream asks, still smiling at the redheaded girl. Grian feels oddly disquieted, seeing that smile, but he keeps it off of his face. Gods are proud, prickly creatures--he ought to know--and their village holds guest right sacred. He won’t insult them.

“Oh, no,” she denies with a giggle. “I’ve only just got here. But I’m designing a greenhouse. As soon as Pearl approves of my blueprints, I’m going to start building it. I’m Gem, by the way.”

“A lovely name. Anyway, to answer your question, Gem, I write stories.”

“Yeah?” queries a wide-eyed, dark-skinned young man in a fuzzy green wool tunic, absently handing tools to the one working on the clock without bothering to look at them. “Any good ones?”

“Well, I don’t know about good,” Dream demurs, holding up his hands. “I’ve written a lot of them, though, so one or two are bound to be, statistically speaking.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Sapnap mutters, annoyed. “There are cathedral windows less transparent than you. Tell the children a bedtime story and be done with it. I’m going to go see if there’s anything worth hunting around here.” He gets up, shaking sand out of his white cloak, and stalks off down the beach toward the nearest clump of trees.

Grian and Scar exchange glances, nonplussed, but Dream simply waves it off. “Don’t pay any attention to him. He has a short attention span and gets cranky when he’s bored.” He smiles again, glancing around the fire before his gaze comes to rest squarely on the two of them. “That being said... would you like to hear one? I promise it’ll be a good one.”

The villagers all voice their enthusiastic assent, and Scar shrugs. “Sure, why the hell not.”

“Well...as long as it’s not a long one,” Grian acquiesces, not knowing why he feels so uneasy at the idea. “It’s getting on midnight.”

“That’s the best time for stories,” Dream suggests with a grin. “But don’t worry, it’s not a long one. I’ll be done well before the moon touches the water, you have my word.”

“Alright, then,” Grian says, summoning a smile of his own and lowering himself to sit down cross-legged on the sand beside the others. “Lay it on us. And if Scar interrupts, you have my permission to throw rocks at him.”

“I,” Scar protests archly, “would never.”

“He would,” Impulse whispers theatrically in Dream’s ear.

Dream laughs. “Don’t worry, I’m not overly concerned about that. Besides, I think you’ll like this one. I think you’ll like it just fine.”

A sudden gust of wind whips through, sending sparks spiraling up toward the stars, and Grian tells himself that it’s only the chill that it brings with it that makes him shiver.

Only that, and nothing more. -----------------------------------------------------------------------

“In the beginning,” Dream starts, “There was nothing but nothing. A great Void, timeless and lightless and endless. And then there was a flash, and nothing became something. And that something resolved itself into everything, into dust and stars and light and worlds...and stories. The stories were here first, but they needed people to tell them. And so the gods were formed.

“The gods all had their own stories that they presided over, their own domains. Each had their part to play, working together in harmony. But stories aren’t much good without an audience, either, and so mortals came next. Their lives were short, trifling things, but they devoured the stories the gods told and passed them along, and together with the gods they created whole worlds.

“But the Universe had made a mistake: in creating the gods to write and to tell the stories, and the mortals to listen and pass them along, it had given them the freedom to do with them what they would. The harmony began to fall apart. Gods decided they weren’t satisfied with their own domains and looked to others. The humans defied the gods and claimed that they should have control of their own stories, as if the stories were ever theirs to begin with. They fell to squabbling, and war and chaos and tragedy followed, so much that they became the rule of the world. And the God of Stories watched it all, and grew angry.

“Some particularly defiant gods caught his eye. The God of the Stars, who abandoned his post to live among the humans, idling away the years in disguise as a king and holding grand tournaments that drew thousands to play and fight in frivolous games. He took up with a mortal lover who caught his eye in one of these tournaments, uncaring that he was setting them both up for heartbreak. The God of Sorcery, who perverted his art to grant immortality to his favorite and sold the secrets of enchantment to any mortal who came to him. The Goddess of Decay and Rot, who thought to create instead.”

Dream pauses, as if for effect, gazing about at his audience, all of whom sit listening rapt, without a single interruption. A slow smile spreads on his face at the sight.

“The God of Stories’ greatest ire was reserved for those who thought themselves above it all, who thought to separate themselves from all the chaos and turmoil of the outside world, as if they themselves weren’t a party to it: the twin Gods of Science and Invention, who taught secrets to the mortals that they were never meant to know; the God of Time and Travel, who helped the mortals find paths that they should never have found, and his friend the God of Calculation, who saw the rules of mass and motion, only to break them in ways the Universe never intended. Worst of all, though, were the two tricksters: the one who cheated his way out from under the Angel of Death again and again and rooked the gullible with promises of commerce, and his constant companion, he who stole fire from the sun and made it his own and granted himself the power of flight, a power the Universe had reserved only for one.”

Grian’s eyes suddenly widen, trance broken, hackles raised. He can feel every feather on his hidden wings lifting, puffing out as if in response to danger. And there is danger here, Grian knows, every instinct screaming...yet he can’t move.

“Together, they and their mortal favorites created their own false world in microcosm, a place they believed was safe, where they could live and create and make their own rules, where they could teach the mortals how to become the authors of their own stories. The God of Stories was very angry when he saw it, and set out to teach them a lesson.”

Grian can feel electricity crawling along his skin, crackling between the barbs of his feathers--his suddenly very visible feathers.

“What are you doing,” he whispers, his voice little more than a husky croak.

Dream blinks. “Telling a story, just as you asked. Just as you all asked.”

With a tremendous effort, Grian manages to turn his head to look at Scar, who sits frozen beside him, eyes round and glassy. Impulse, too, stares back at them from across the fire, still as stone. All of the others’ eyes remain on Dream, transfixed, lost in the tale.

“So the God of Stories came up with a plan: he would weave a world for these renegades, these shirkers and usurpers. A small world, with enchanted glass walls that no god or man could pass. He would set them down in this world, along with those mortals they loved the best, and there they would play a game.”

Dream’s words echo from the waves, vibrating along Grian’s bones. He can feel the world begin to shift and twist around him, the air encircling the captive audience by the campfire shimmering like a mirage. Worse than that is the feeling of being trapped, pinioned, fixed in place when every atom of him is screaming to take to the skies.

“Stop it!!”

“Stop it? Oh, come on, now, we’ve only just gotten to the good part!” Dream grins, his eyes flashing green in the flickering light of the campfire.

“Each of the players in this game would be granted three lives. They would live in their glass box, free to make whatever they could of their little world...and each death, accidental or on purpose, would take a piece of their soul. Each time they came back, they would come back a little less, stripped down closer and closer to base instinct, to kill or be killed. Friendly pranks would turn deadly, alliances would turn into warring factions, lovers would watch one another die and burn the world to avenge them, until only one remained in the end.

“And when that one finally gave in to despair, left alone with the blood of his friends still dripping from his hands, the God of Stories would send them all back to their little haven--but wiser than when they left. They would know that there was no true escape from chaos, that war and turmoil were inevitable as the tides, there was no love that would not end in loss. They would look at their closest friends and know that they were one string’s pull away from tearing each other apart, that bloodlust lies just beneath the surface, waiting for the right motivation. They could continue to build, to invent, to teach their little apprentices, and when the apprentices left to return to the wider world, the creations they brought with them would break armies and bring nations to their knees.”

“You’re wrong…” Scar grates out from beside Grian, and he feels a burst of fierce pride in his friend break through the leaden terror weighting him in place. “You...can’t make us…”

“Oh, I can. I absolutely can. Don’t worry, though, it’s only a story. You’ll wake up and it’ll be like it never happened.” The Green God’s eyes glow brighter, until they’re almost too bright to look at, until they’re all Grian can see. The eyes, and the smile. “Well, almost .”

“...how does it end?” a slurred, drugged voice asks from somewhere Grian can’t move enough to see. Gem, the young apprentice girl, he thinks. “...the game...who wins…?”

There’s a low murmur from around the campfire, a rustling susurration as the others join the chorus, hypnotized children waiting on bated breath for the storyteller to bring their tale to a close.

The Green God cocks his head to the side, as if pondering. “Well, I could write the ending now, I suppose...but the fact is I won’t know until it happens, and it’s so much more fun to watch it unfold unspoiled. After all, what audience doesn’t love a cliffhanger?” I won’t, Grian wants to scream, but the world is dissolving around him, the cold darkness of the Void slipping through his feathers as he falls. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Gods and humans in order of appearance in Dream's tale: Scott Smajor Jimmy Solidarity Rendog Martyn Littlewood ZombieCleo TangoTek ImpulseSV BdoubleO100 EthosLab Scar Grian

#Hermitcraft Season 8 #Dream SMP #Third Life SMP #Passerine #Fanfiction #Kaleidoscope AU #If You Can't Boatem Join 'Em

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