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autumn-may · 11 months

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Please tell me about the data boys AU I love the data boys so much and you draw them so CUTE AAAAA

(Im gonna @ the people who asked about the fic: @dergshadow @mosttsundereofplants @bloody-holly)

(It’s more of a fix-it fic than a au but lol)

Ask and ye shall receive ig

The short of it is I force data sora and data riku back into the story while flipping nomura off for the re:coded ending ft. Riku and data-riku being friends, data-soriku being fun, and minor 358/2 references. I’ve been calling the au Re:Boot!

Full concept under cut: (it’s pretty long)

edit:I’m writing it

The long of it is during re:mind the data battles crash, and the Final Fantasy group+Riku theorize that it might have something to do with Jiminys Journal (seeing as the data battles are made with data from the journal) Riku goes to Disney castle and it turns out yeah that’s probably what’s happening! The Disney castle computer displays the words ‘there are new hurts to be undone’. Riku is sent into the datascape in order to help with said hurts.

The long of it is Riku enters to a really bugged up version of the data destiny islands, and is told by the Disney gang from the outside to find a way to get deeper into the datascape and help out. (System sectors). Riku finds it and enters.

First and second levels of the sector go pretty standard, fight the buggy heartless and all that however one of the bugs for the second level has a similar silhouette to sora, which is a little unnerving to say the least. The third level looks like rikus data(from when he got bugs in him) and the Disney gang loses contact with riku at this point.

(YES the three stages getting more buggy the deeper you go is a reference to the boss stages in re:coded. If you even care)

Riku looks around for a bit and D!riku (that’s what I’m calling data-riku rn) notices him from somewhere in the datascape, and teleports or something to him. After the initial ‘we’re the same guy’ convo D!riku tells him about the bugs, and how he believes that they are caused by D!soras amnesia, as he gained a heart, which is currently sleeping due to the reset (hearts can be destroyed and all that yk the deal). Since the datascape is sorta centered on d!sora, if something’s wrong with his code it might affect the datascape. D!riku tells him that since the reset, he’s been working to attempt to find soras heart, but he hasn’t been able to make much headway (maybe because a heart is separate from data, and isn’t as easily manipulated)

(That’s my idea for why he wasn’t really there in the post reset stuff on soras side at least )

Well where is D!sora you ask? Well let’s go see! They teleport away and oh frick is that the memory pod. (Things are getting uncomfortably familiar for riku) D!riku has him in there as he works to find and wake soras sleeping heart, (instead of having to like, chase him around the datascape with a computer or something, sleeping heart doesn’t necessarily equal sleeping guy in this situation so we just put him in a coma). D!riku opens the way to D!soras data, and in they go.

They search for a bit, and when D!riku gets frustrated at the lack of progress, the bugs slightly worsen (riku notes this). Riku asks a bit about d!rikus relationship with d!sora, saying his drive to protect him is something they have in common. D!riku actually somewhat denies this, reminding riku about how the datascape is centered on sora, d!riku—to some level— is the datascape. it’s just a part of his programming, the journal correcting a glitch in the system through him. Besides, d!soras the one with a heart, d!rikus just a really good AI and also kinda a clone. Riku is so skeptical of this.

Riku says that he doesn’t believe that, d!riku fights to protect d!sora because he just cares about d!sora. Surely d!rikus noticed the bugs grow stronger the worse d!riku feels, if the data scape affects him, surely he affects the datascape as well. And a system as advanced as the data scape wouldn’t be programmed to destroy itself. By going to such lengths, d!riku proves he’s more than his programming, he’s more than the datascape, he has a heart, and he cares about d!sora in a way a line of code couldn’t.

Well that revelation kinda broke d!riku but that’s fine. The bugs lessen however, so that’s a good sign also the final boss dark side shows up. The rikus prepare for a fight, and d!riku recognizes this as d!soras heartless. (Bond between d!soriku manifested in the datascape bringing their hearts together) They win the fight, and recover d!soras heart, which is still sleeping. Riku uses the power of waking, tracing the bond between him and d!riku, and d!riku and d!sora. Rikus able to wake up d!soras heart, restoring his memories, and the rikus leave his data.

D!riku thanks riku for the help, and releases d!sora from the memory pod. D!sora and d!Riku reunite (i fight the urge to reverse the kh2 scene yk the one) riku feels comforted in his search for sora (idk he sees the bond between data!soriku as able to physically manifest into bringing them together so I mean why not real soriku?)

The trio go back to the surface of the datascape, Disney gang gets to reunite with the data-gang and they apologize for not being able to help more (“gee well, if we knew you were hurting, we would of sent someone way sooner” “We can’t just leave our friends behind!” Or something idk) and riku comes back to the real world.

Riku talks to the data boys through the computer, d!sora asks about sora which is just a little bit of a punch in the gut (reminder this takes place during re:mind) but anywayyyy d!sora wonders if there’s a way they could enter the real world, since riku was able to come to the datascape. (They probably couldn’t :( they never had physical bodies, they have data bodies) Riku thinks about it and realizes hey wait a minute isnt Evens whole job making bodies for hearts that need them they totally could come to the real world.

So riku calls up Even who’s intrigued by the idea of hearts that existed only in data, and how they would manifest in the real world. So needless to say, he gets to work. A while later d!rikus separated from the journal, and the dynamic data duo is brought to the real world yippee!!

(If you’ve ever seen my redesigns of the two data’s they would get their new outfits right here)

And that’s the main idea! I’ve had it for like,,,a couple months? But it’s been stuck in my brain for a while and i like it a lot, just got a Ao3 account so maybe I’ll write it but no promises

#kingdom hearts #kh #kh riku #Data riku #data sora #Re:coded #riku #sora #Kh sora #long post #kh re:boot #<-if it ever becomes a thing #Data soriku #Soriku

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criscura · 5 years

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Here we are. This is it.

I don’t like talking that much about...y’know, stuff like this before, but I think it’s worth it for this guy. After three years, almost 500,000 words, and stacks and stacks and stacks of paper, we’re at the end of Tumbling Down.

I’ve learned an incredible amount writing it. I’ve grown as a person and a writer. So much of me and my loved ones and everyone I talk to has gone into making this, and I can’t really explain how much it’s done for me.

Thank you so, so, so, so, SO MUCH to all the artists, writers, fans, and readers that stuck with me. Thank you so much.

.........Okay that’s all ////// I get flustered with stuff like that....

A shout-out to @oil-tears and this incredible prompt, which started this entire fucking thing and got me writing again. And a shout-out to the whole fandom, too.

If you do not listen to “Book of Love” as you’re reading this, or at LEAST right after you finish it, I will be very sad because I’ve lost count of how many times I bust out ugly crying thinking about this fic and that song.

Here’s the last chapter, and the whole thing on AO3. ((You might want to read the first chapter too. Just...a suggestion))

....Thank you so much guys <3<3<3<3<3<3

Pillow Talk

Takeout, again. It was killing Saitama to order out this much, but there weren’t any stores running good sales and all they had left in the fridge were odds and ends. They probably should’ve gone out to get fresh stuff, but…man, Saitama had been starving and that would’ve taken a couple hours.

“Sensei, Good BuyZ is running a ‘Summer Savings’ sale on Friday.”

“Oh yeah?” They must have posted the promo today, Saitama hadn’t seen it before. He fiddled with his bowl of noodles, thinking through the week. Today was Wednesday, so…if they used up the leftovers tomorrow, they’d be covered until Friday… “Sounds good! We’ll check it out.”

Genos nodded and went back to studying a notebook laid out next to his curry chicken. He’d drawn a little diagram of the two of them in there. The dumb faces he put on his sketches always made Saitama laugh—he got oval eyes and a circle for a mouth (if he was lucky), and all Genos scratched in for himself were two angry black boxes. The way he kept on stopping before he wrote, though, made Saitama wonder if he wasn’t looking through his recordings…

Ah, well. He could ask what videos he was using later. For now he poked his cyborg’s arm. “Aren’t you hungry?” He had an event with HAATO today and then immediately called up Kuseno when he got home. He must’ve been running on empty by this point. “I know how you get when you’re busy. C’mon, dig in.”

Genos pouted back at Saitama, the same way he always did when his sensei called him out. “I will be fine, Sensei. My reserves are more than enough to sustain me for long after my primary power runs out, but that isn’t a risk because I have plenty to last me for several more hours—”

Saitama raised an eyebrow, and his husband pouted harder.

“…But I suppose I should eat something, just in case.”

“Mm,” he answered, “Don’t want to fall asleep for movie night, right? Besides, you gotta take care of yourself, kid.”

“I do…although Sensei already takes quite good care of me.”

God was he corny. Saitama shook his head and looked back to his notebook, wondering what he was plotting out in there. He started sketching when he was on the phone with Kuseno, so… “Is that what were you talking about earlier? With the doc, I mean. Is it for new parts?”

A tiny hiss came from Genos’ shoulders as he nodded, biting into a hunk of chicken. He dabbed away some of the sauce with a napkin and scribbled in another note.

Saitama tried to imagine what kind of upgrade it could be. He didn’t see anything different the last time he was in the lab…but then again, it was hard to tell one pile of wires, gears, and chips apart from another pile of wires, gears, and chips. It must’ve had to do with the list of pros and cons Genos was writing, and the arrows pointing at his face, his neck, his palms, his feet… What did any of those have in common? They were all pretty different…except… “Is it for your skin? Is Kuseno working on a new kind?”

The boy glanced up and bit his lip. Sensei liked hearing about his upgrades, and normally Genos was more than happy to explain it to him, but…discussing this one, when they hadn’t even begun the process yet… “Y-yes, Sensei. It would be, ah…slip-on covers, ideally, a bit like gloves and stockings, that would make my armor safer for more…more vulnerable bodies…”

Saitama straightened up right away. “O-oh? Really?”

The low din of fans kicked in, filling the room with a familiar hum. He hadn’t thought about it before, but…guess it was pretty easy for things to get pinched at Genos’ shoulder and elbow, huh? Especially if he was…holding them there… Saitama swallowed back the butterflies that image gave him and touched Genos’ hand. “Do you need help? Thinking it over, I mean. …If I can.”

Genos sat quiet for a moment. His vents sure did get louder though. “Saitama-sensei,” he trailed, “If…you could tell me which you think would be best, of these…”

Saitama craned his neck to see the whole page. “Uh… Which would be softest?”

There was a creak as Genos pushed away from the edge and skootched over to Saitama’s side of the table, notebook in tow. He plopped himself cross-legged next to his hero and opened it in front of him. “More, Sensei, which would be most comfortable for an—an i-infant. Should we end up…um… Do you think the warmth of my skin is most important, or the padding from my palms and feet…”

“Okay,” Saitama breathed, taking it in his hands. Genos was so fucking cute when he got nervous (not that Saitama didn’t get why). He cooled his head enough to scan the diagrams and immediately realized how bad he was at visualizing things. “Can I, uh…” He lifted his arm, waiting for Genos to look over at him.

The boy nodded and Saitama slid his hand across his cheek, smiling when Genos leaned into it. He was such a dork… Saitama was too though, ‘cause it still gave him flutters when Genos did stuff like that. They were married for frick’s sake, he needed to get his act together.

He moved his hand without thinking and tried to compare what the rest of Genos’ body felt like. It’s not like all his other squishy parts weren’t soft too, they were just soft in a different way. The skin on his face was velvety, and firm, and warm… Not quite as warm as the rest of him, but enough to feel nice…

Saitama glanced up at his disciple’s eyes and saw the telltale flicker of numbers in his iris. He gave a soft laugh. “Are you recording me…?”

“Perhaps, Sensei,” he admitted. “…My husband is very handsome when he’s focused.”

The man shook his head and ignored the ticking counter, trying not to get self-conscious. He wrapped a hand around Genos’ and compared it to his face. The fleshy skin was softer, that wasn’t a question, but his palms were like tiny pillows… He ran his fingers down Genos’ cheek and chin and nose, weighing, deciding. He might’ve been getting a little distracted too, if he was being honest. The kid’s skin was really soft, and his eyelashes were so long, and he could land a permanent gig at any modeling agency he interviewed at because he was so damned jaw-dropping…

Saitama snapped to and felt along Genos’ hand, going from wrist to fingertip and back down to the knuckle. He couldn’t help but linger over the itty-bitty words over his ring finger though. Genos didn’t say anything, the same way he didn’t say anything as Saitama pressed his thumb over his lips. He must’ve had the nicest lips in the whole world, what with them being all plush like that. No one could come close. Saitama’d kissed them more than a billion times by now and he’d never get over how pouty and smooth and—

He jumped, caught off-guard by those same lips pressed up against his own. Only then did he notice how far he’d leaned in, and the sly little smirk painted across his disciple’s face. Had Genos just been watching him come close…?

…Saitama’s cheeks blazed, and he didn’t know why. It’s not like he wasn’t used to Genos being a total brat when it came to stuff like that. He knew every one of Saitama’s buttons and he played them like a PS2 controller. But nevermind! Forget all that, Saitama had to focus, he needed to figure out what would be best for a b…baby…and stop thinking about Genos’ perfect skin and his pillowy lips and his pretty, gold hair…

Saitama hung his head. “They’re all really good,” he said, mumbling over the buzz of Genos’ core. “I think Kuseno could make something out of any of it.”

“He could, I do not doubt that, but…I’m unsure which to suggest first. They all have their benefits and drawbacks.”

“…What about,” Saitama drawled, desperate to offer something worthwhile, “Some padding?” Genos sat there, tipping his head, waiting for him to continue. God did Saitama wish he was smarter. “Y’know…cushioning, or fluff, so…their head has something nice to lay on.” He took a slow breath. “I’m sure he could blend them fine. I mean, your throat and tongue and all that is just fixed up skin, isn’t it? So it would work.”

Genos batted his eyelashes in a way that meant danger. “I hadn’t thought of it that way…though I suppose Sensei would know far better than me how both of those feel.”

Saitama muttered a bashful “brat” and they sat, daring the other to go on, knowing they were both feeling that same giddiness, that same heat…

“Genos,” Saitama mumbled, fiddling with the edge of his chestplate.

It took a second for Genos to respond. “We will look at it with fresher minds in the morning, Sensei,” was all he said. Then he stood up, walked out onto the balcony, and closed the door behind him so the warm air didn’t rush in as he fished their bedding off the drying line.

Saitama watched him through the glass, fixed on his silhouette moving against the dark sky. Saitama probably should’ve been laying out their futon right now, but…he couldn’t. There was something hypnotic about seeing Genos there, and he couldn’t pull away.

He tried to figure out what it was. It had to do with the shimmer of the moonlight, and how gently his fingers moved, and the way his armor caught the stars… It was like he was casting a spell out there, almost.

…Geeze, all the kid was doing was unpinning laundry and Saitama felt like he was watching Cinderella transform into a princess. It was ridiculous. It happened every time he ogled Genos for too long and it was ridiculous. He could be folding clothes, typing emails, paying a cashier…it didn’t matter. The feeling hit Saitama all the time and he could never explain himself when he was caught staring.

…Just like when Genos came back inside. Saitama didn’t have a chance to whip his face away before Genos made eye contact, and he knew immediately. All he did was smile back at him though, and look at the blankets on his arm, and pat out their wrinkles.

“Sensei, do you want me to save the leftovers?”

Sensei fumbled with his drawstrings, hiding the red in his cheeks.

“I can use them to make a stir-fry tomorrow.”

“Uh… Sure, Genos. Go ahead.”

Trailing smugness and a gentle buzz, Genos laid the sheets down and gathered up all the dishes. Saitama moved to help but he was waved off. In no time flat their lunches were made and packed away, perfect little bentos appearing on the counter like…well, like magic.

Saitama kept on watching as he washed the dishes. He must’ve been a little bit magic, to do all the things he did. To be as amazing as he was. Saitama thought so, at least.

Genos glanced up at the picture of them hanging in the kitchen and picked up the “I do” mug. He started humming to himself as he rinsed it.

…Yeah. That was undeniably, positively it. Magic. That was all it could be. There were all sorts of magic, after all—hypnotizing someone, making things disappear…true love’s first kiss…

Genos peeked at his husband and back to the sink, scrubbing motions slowing.

There were a lot of magical things out there.

“Sensei,” blondie called, “Do you want to begin loading Chobits while I dry the dishes?”

...And now that he thought about it, “happily ever after” was pretty magical too.

“Yeah… Yeah, sure Genos. Sounds good.”

He reached over and pulled the DVD off the tower. A stack of papers came tumbling down after it, one of them a packet from the HA about their adoption program. Bang had given it to them a week ago, saying they might be interested, but they never figured out how he knew. It’s not like they talked about it with anyone other than Kuseno…

Saitama put down the DVD for a second and flipped to the page where he left off reading. It was tough for him to concentrate with how hard his heart was thumping inside his chest.

#one punch man #one punch #opm #genos #saitama #genosai #saigenos #precious robot baby #egg on legs #egg on all fours #fic #fan fiction #opm fic #tumbling down #oil-tears #i don't believe it #wow #fuck

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jacksoninblogform · 7 years

Text

That Weird Little Hill Outside the Engineering Center

Class ends and everyone starts putting away their stuff. I sit there for a few moments even though my stuff is already put away, because I don’t want to be the first person to get up and leave the room because I feel guilty because I hadn’t been paying any attention. I would say that it’s funny, that I’m distracted by my phone even though the things in class are more interesting, at this point, than the things on my phone. Except it’s not that funny, but more importantly it’s kind of a fake comparison. It would be a fun little morality play to tell myself, to notice again how this desire for distraction becomes so extreme, so desperate, that it somehow becomes far more boring, at least in a sense, than it would be to just do the right thing. But that wouldn’t really be true, because the simpler explanation is just that I’m a little behind in class and I can’t really understand today’s lecture so of course I’m distracted.

Finally I pick up my backpack and put on my jacket and head through the door at the back of the classroom. I’m walking through the hallways and now looking again at my phone. It’s interesting, in fairness, I mean better-than-usual but also actually interesting. You see Blue Origin is a space company that wants to make reusable rockets – you’re thinking of SpaceX but they’re different, SpaceX makes the Falcon 9 and flies missions to orbit with real payloads but Blue Origin hasn’t done any of that yet, they’re still all research-and-development. They can afford to play the long game because the company is owned by Jeff Bezos, same guy who owns Amazon, and while they might both look like rich tech billionaires to the rest of us, Bezos has something like ten or twenty times more money than Elon, so he can fund all these rocket engines and test vehicles and all that just straight out-of-pocket, and doesn’t have to worry about closing the business case until later. Anyways Blue Origin has just announced some more details for their big new rocket, meaning like I mentioned the one that’s intended to start doing real business. It’s huge, of course, which is awesome, like half or two-thirds the size of a Saturn V, but everything is huge these days, it’s exciting. I can’t imagine how awful it must have been to be an aerospace engineer twenty or thirty years ago, when everything was always the same and if you were lucky you got to help shuffle shuttles around while you waited for the internet to get invented. But what’s really interesting about this new rocket, New Glenn they want to call it, isn’t the size, it’s the design. And what’s more interesting than the design is the approach. SpaceX like I said is already flying real missions, they made the rocket first – which for the record was a great rocket even before it could come back and land on a boat – and then they added everything else later, the reentry burns, the grid fins, the landing legs, very iterative, test test test. But perhaps as a side effect there was just a little a bit of opportunity cost there, because looking at New Glenn you can just tell, it just feels more polished, more cohesive, so obviously designed from the ground-up to be A Reusable Rocket, the way they have that aerodynamic shield around the engine and the landing legs that tuck so nicely into the body of the rocket and like wings, like huge fricking wings actually, with which apparently they’re going to glide for a really long time through the upper atmosphere, bleed off velocity, avoid a hot reentry that might damage the engines, plus no need for a boostback or reentry burn so that’s a massive amount of fuel saved which equals a whole lot more delta-V for the payload. Clever stuff, certainly, really interesting, but maybe it’s not all quite so great as it looks on paper. The Falcon 9 is already flying right now, for starters, and that means they’ve got all kinds of experience and they’ve had opportunities to work out all the bugs and they’ve been able to change the design of their rocket as they fly it, for instance to make it easier to manufacture or help it have a faster turn-around time for reusability, and you don’t get those advantages with the more secretive pre-planned Blue Origin approach.

I’ve just stepped outside the engineering center now and I switch to wondering whether I should walk home or try waiting for the bus. I think about this almost every time I leave the engineering center despite the fact that I almost invariably walk home instead of waiting for the bus. It’s odd because when I’m leaving my house and going to the engineering center, I take the bus pretty often, maybe even a little more than half of times. Why do my preferences change just because I’m coming versus going? Probably the main reason is that I’m rushing when I head to class but I’m not really in any rush when I’m going back the other way, and if you happen to catch it then the bus is obviously much faster than walking. Another thing that’s definitely true is that the bus to school always has room, wheras the bus from school is sometimes full with all the students who just got out of class, and of course the times when it’s mostly likely to be full are exactly the times when you most want to take the bus because so does everyone else, for instance when it’s snowy or icy or just cold and windy, and then you’ve waited all that time in the cold for nothing and you still have to walk. There are other factors, too, like when I leave from my apartment I can look down the road for a long way and see if the bus is coming, and pretty often if I see it’s coming I can run to make it to the stop in time, so there’s a bit of flexibility there, in a sense, I can also see how many people are at the stop and judge whether the bus just passed by and picked everyone else. It’s kind of hard to explain but having that information about where the bus is allows me to either wait for it or not wait for it in a more intelligent way than I can at school, where it’s more random and so on average I’ll end up waiting more. And then there’s other things, like there’s a big hill on the way to school and maybe secretly I hate going up the hill and that’s why I take the bus on the way there even though as far as I can tell I’m pretty sure I don’t mind going up the hill. Or maybe psychologically it’s easier to walk home and feels like a shorter trip but walking to school makes it a slog. But no matter how many good reasons I think of, the asymmetry still bothers me.

While I’m thinking about the bus I’m still looking at my phone; I never like having stuff running down the battery in the background so I tap to close the couple of tabs I was maybe gonna read and then double-click the home button and start swiping apps to close them. I click the screen off and put it in my pocket and then I pull my hood on and kind of jerk my shoulders to heft up my backpack so it’s more comfortable, and then I look up and up standing on the top of that one little grassy hill is just this girl.

It’s also night. The sky is dark deep-blue. The buildings around the college look very different at night, more like a city, a warm glow shining out through the little windows on the dormitories, streetlamps here and there full of sodium light. In front of the engineering center there’s this wacky little hill, maybe four feet high, very round, very green, all by itself, surrounded by like at least twenty feet of concrete on all sides. In the daytime when everyone’s going to class there are always tons of people walking around on the concrete, walking and parking their bikes and standing around talking to one another. But now it’s night and nobody’s here, there’s just one or two people walking across the campus, listening to music with their headphones in, and then this girl standing on top of the hill, looking kinda towards where the mountains would be, although for the most part you can’t see them behind the dormitory.

She’s a pure silhouette in the dark, but nevertheless I recognize the girl as Lakshmi, who I know from a group project we both worked on when we were in Fluid Dynamics last semester. She is the only person I know in the aerospace program who is Indian but not actually an international student, although she’s visited the country often enough to have fond childhood memories of Diwali in Udaipur where her aunt and uncle and grandparents live. I know this because it was around Halloween last semester when we were working on the group project, which was a bunch of Matlab code to simulate the motions of some weather balloons released inside a thunderstorm, and I mentioned how it’s funny that holidays from around the world can end up having some of the same qualities, and I wondered if maybe it had to do with being in the same part of the year, or possibly it’s coincidence because maybe there aren’t enough ways for holidays to be different from each other so they always end up sharing a couple of things. We talked about honeyed sweets from street vendors and firecracker celebrations in the little alleyways, and warm little candle flames glowing everywhere at night, like in a church.

I walk up on top of the hill next to her, and say “hi”. She says “hi” back. The grass is pretty soft; I can’t remember if I have actually walked on this hill before but I have definitely never stood on top of it. The whole engineering-center plaza looks the tiniest bit strange now, even though I’m only four feet higher up than normal.

Lakshmi is wearing a medium-length black dress; she must have been at that Lockheed Martin event earlier. I think, that must be cold, but then I realize that actually the night isn’t very cold. I take off my hood. There’s just the tiniest breeze that I can feel, and now in the corner of my eye I can see some trees, and their branches sway a little in the air, making a nice sound.

“Isn’t it funny,” she says, “how when you’re looking straight ahead, almost half of what you can see is sky, but nothing ever really happens in the sky? It’s very beautiful sometimes, but it’s almost never relevant to anything humans do. Half the world is just sky, and the other half is just the ground, and everything we think is interesting lives in a tiny little strip near the horizon.”

“That is funny,” I say.

“Even when it rains,” Lakshmi continues, “Even when it rains, you don’t look up to see that it’s raining. You can already tell by looking at the ground. So, there’s really no reason at all.”

I look up at the sky. The brighter stars are out by now. Venus is the brightest, low over the mountains, following the sun. Its gold light feels even more beautiful contrasted against the rich, deep blue of the western sky. Jupiter is higher up, its bright beige-pink light adding an extra jewel to the colorful reds and blues of the winter stars near Orion. There are no clouds. It’s dark and very quiet, except for the sway of the trees and the sound of the cars, far away.

“Isn’t it funny that there are all these dorms,” I start, “and there are all these undergraduate students who live in the dorms, and they have meal plans and eat at the cafeterias, and they go to class each day and in the evenings they go to all these campus events or go to parties, or maybe just sit in the common room with their friends and play videogames? And I’ve never once been inside any of these dorms, or eaten in any of the cafeterias, or any of that. It’s a whole different college.”

“Yes,” she responded, “They have all these Centers. Like the athletic center, the theater center, the music conservatory. Or that thing with the big flat roof they’re building over there.”

Lakshmi is pointing north, towards the stadium and, beyond it, downtown Boulder. I am intimately familiar with the dark outline of the gigantic building she is referring to, since I walk by it every day on the way home from class, but I have no idea what it contains.

“Sometimes I think I should go to some of those things, you know, all the college things. Just out of curiosity.” I say to her. “...But then I just start thinking about everything else I want to do, in the same way, just to see what’s there. Like, have you ever been for a hike in the flatirons?”

I point to some of the mountains peeking out from behind the left side of the dormitory. Even though it’s night, they are illuminated by a faint grey light. I can’t see the moon in the sky, but it must be up, probably hidden behind the engineering center.

“Do you mean those ones in particular, or..?”

“No, just in general.”

“Then yes, I’ve been.”

“When I was at Colorado College, which is in the Springs, it was a lot like here with a nice view of the mountains,” I say. “So every day, walking to class or eating dinner at one of the on-campus places, I would always be looking at these mountains. By senior year I’ve been looking at this beautiful vista for four years, and I know that Pikes Peak is one of the easiest mountains to climb – people literally drive to the top, there’s this dumb train and everything. So I’m like, obviously I have to climb it, how crazy would it be to look at something for four years and never be able to go there and look back? So I set off one weekend, and for the next two days everything I see is just completely unbelievable. Like, first off, once you climb the first little hill out of the town, there’s this massive valley before you get to the mountain. You spend the entire first day just walking through the forest – it’s high altitude but it’s not really part of the mountain, it’s not sloping upwards. It’s just, like, secret land. And I had had no idea it even existed, and there’s nothing there but forest, like it had been folded up. When I had always figured the mountain was more or less right there after the foothills. Then on the second day you actually climb the mountain, and in addition to being huge of course, it’s just so incredibly, like... three-dimensional.”

Lakshmi laughs. “Yes! Yes, I know what you mean,” she says. “Like that statue in Chicago.”

“Yeah! I just couldn’t believe my eyes, this thing I had stared at every day for four years had suddenly become totally curved and warped out, so in a way I had a better understanding of the real shape, of course, but it was also so gigantic, and so different, that I felt disoriented. And the view kept changing, of course, so eventually it felt like they were all, not wrong, but like... equidistant.”

“It’s so funny,” she said.

“Yeah.”

“You know what else is funny,” said Lakshmi, “There are so many things that we can’t think about. Or can-but-don’t, or maybe we can think about them, but not in a way that we can notice or not in a way that feels like thinking. And I don’t mean the sky, or the mountains, or anything even close to those things, because clearly we can think about those things, and in fact they are perfectly ordinary thoughts.”

As she said this, Lakshmi ran a hand through her hair, which was dark and straight and long, and then started doing some intricate thing, gathering up her hair into sections and passing them one over another. I watched her as she did this, and she continued with what she was saying:

“But it’s like those things. It’s like the sky and the horizon, and everything we can think about is on the horizon. Sometimes the horizon is really narrow, even more than usual, like... those glasses that are worn by the Inuit, in the snow. And then you can forget about almost everything else in the world, and all your thoughts are these loud, discrete things, like digital signals. Other times it’s better and the horizon opens up, and you can see much more and it feels like you can have all kinds of thoughts, all together. But it’s never, for instance... I mean, the whole sky is there the entire time. But even though it’s always there, it’s never the whole sky. There are so many parts of my life that I can’t say –”

“Yeah, and it’s not like they’re inaccessible,” I offer, “or like they’re out of reach...”

“No, certainly. It’s like – the whole concept is that we’re not wearing the snow-glasses, the whole sky is always there, it’s a part of me, but it’s as if it’s a part of me that isn’t part of me. Or something. It’s very strange. It makes me sad, when I think about it.”

Lakshmi summons a hair-tie and tilts her head sideways for a moment as she fixes the bun in place. I look down at the ground, and notice that I can see our two shadows stretched onto the plaza below the hill. I wheel around to catch sight of a nearly-full moon, which has just emerged from behind the engineering center. I watch the moon for a while, and I must not have heard the click of her shoes against the concrete, because when I turn back around she’s gone.

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lionhart-w · 6 years

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Necromancer

He was in a dark room - it was impossible to tell how big it was - and he was in a kneeling position. Desmond tried standing up but there was something firmly holding him in this by the second more uncomfortable position. Desmond started to sweat heavily and his breathing grew louder and louder. Then he threw up. The stinging warm mash wandered up his throat, passed through his mouth and finally dripped down his chin. What were probably minutes felt like days. Every second agony as his head started to hurt and the vomiting didn’t stop. Then it stopped. He was standing upright and his chin was free of sick. Silhouettes started to trace around him. After a while Desmond could make out a mountain and very distant lights. Another amount of time passed (it was strange… he could feel a large amount of time passing but it didn’t feel like he had spent any of it) and he could see everything around him. It was dark but he could see. Not that there was much there. A gray dessert and the shape of the mountain, which was more prominent than before.

“Chapes!”, a male voice echoed from somewhere deep, deep beneath Desmond.

His vision locked on a large building seemingly carved out of the mountain. He started walking towards it but soon started running - sprinting. Desmond didn’t fall or trip over the dunes. Then when he wanted to cross a stream running between two especially large dunes, he woke.

———————————————

Desmond woke up smelling a salty-acidic smell. He felt cooked. Hot and his clothes were drenched with throw-up and sweat. Vaguely remembering the night before he tried to jump up but found himself bound. Ezekiel must have bound him in this unbelievably awkward position.

“Ezekiel?”, Desmond shouted.

“I’m here.”, he was somewhere behind him.

“Look, I am so sorry.”

“Well, you should be.”, said the other man and moved into his field of view. He had a dark purple spot on the left side of his face. “But you drank almost a liter of Demon-Juice and, except for drinking that, was basically not your fault.”

A few moments of awkward silence passed.

“Why am I bound then?”

“Just for insurance. Never seen a human drink more than a shot of that stuff without having both kidneys fail and or falling into a deep coma. I tested you for every possessing demon, hellish parasite and Necromantic magic traces.”

“So why am I bound?”

“Because the testing for the Necromancy traces showed positive, Desmond.”

“What? How?”

“You tell me.”

“Wha- no! I don’t do nectar mancy!”

“Necromancy.”

“Huh?”

“THEN TELL ME WHY YOU DRANK A WHOLE LITER OF DAIMOCIT WITHOUT HAVING EVERY ORGAN IN YOUR BODY FAIL!”

“I don’t know, Ezekiel.”

“Necromancy has died out except for one guy and he is locked up in the Immortal asylum on Ahall and can’t fucking move!”

“Maybe your test was flawed! Do it again!”

“I already did — five times!”

“Then… wait did you just say immortal?”

Ezekiel stared at Desmond for a while. “Maybe.”, he finally said.

“Immortality is real? You can live forever?”

“Well… no. You are either born into it or, as the last Necromancer did, try out an experimental way that horribly went wrong and end up being a sentient kull for the rest of eternity. And- why am I telling you this?”, he thought for a moment. “NECROMANCER!”

Knock knock

“Guys? Are you okay?”, Hester shouted through the door.

“Come in!” said Ezekiel.

“Oh lord. Is he possessed?”, she said almost casually as she entered.

“No. But he is a Necromancer.”

“Nonsense. Necromancy went extinct 800 years ago.”

“I found traces of Necromantic magic in his scalp.”

“Maybe Morgan flung a turd at him but he is not a fricking Necromancer.”

She went over to Desmond, pulled out a knife and started sawing at the thick ropes that bound him there.

“No!”, Ezekiel shouted and he darted towards them.

“Don’t you come any closer, Azriel!”, she pointed the knife at Ezekiel.

He stopped dead. “Azriel?”

Hester lowered her knife and continued cutting Desmond’s bounds. Ezekiel just stood there, watching them gloomily now.

“Forget that.”, Hester calmly said to Desmond but she looked very, very sad all of a sudden.

“Alright. Thanks.”, he said rubbing his wrists.

“You’re welcome.”

“You got the bandages?”, asked Ezekiel.

“Yup.”, she said as she drew a metal case out of her backpack.

Another couple of moments of awkward silence.

“Let me help you with that.”, offered Desmond but was soon looking down the barrel of Ezekiel’s gun.

“I ain’t trusting you yet, Desmond. So if you want to keep your brains I suggest we keep our distance.”

Desmond nodded briefly and went to the sink to wash himself up a little. He could hear Ezekiel, trying to keep his voice down, debating with Hester over whether to trust him. “He could have done something with the Djinn!”, he said.

“If you kill him I will-“

“You will what? Be salty?”

“I will stick your stupid head where the sun don’t shine.”, he didn’t say much after that.

Desmond didn’t want to go outside since he didn’t want to spark any suspicions (not that he would do anything suspicious), so he went into the other room. He looked at each of them again. Unsurprisingly they all were still in place. Just the metal flagon was gone. Desmond lied down and thought about the creature that erupted from it. He thought of the dizzying effect it had on him. Those deep, black eye-holes that made his head hurt. He remembered that skull that sat over the Djinn’s containment and then, within seconds he connected the dots.

The skull wasn’t there anymore and that creature had a similar one. He sprang up and rushed to the main room.

“EZEKIEL!”, Desmond shouted.

“WHAT?!”, the other man answered.

“The skull!”

“What skull?”

“It- There was a skull over the flagon! It’s gone and it looked like the thing’s!”

Ezekiel remained silent. Then he repeated: “What skull?!”

“Come on! I’ll show ya!”

He hurled back to the bedroom and pointed to the skull’s empty place.

“Do I have to say it again? What skull?!”

“Wha- There- I explained it already.”

“I never had any skulls here, Desmond.”, Ezekiel calmly explained.

“But-“

“Skulls carry bad energies. I wouldn’t bring one without the peel in here.”

“Peel? Oh lord, that’s a weird way of saying skin. But what did I see then?”

“I don’t know but you’re gonna have to do me a favor.”

Did Desmond imagine that skull? Why would he? He doesn’t know anything about skulls.

“What do you need?”, Desmond finally asked.

“I need you to shave your head.”

“Excuse me? What for?”

“We need to go to the city and you’re missing so we need to change your appearance.”

“What do we need from the city?”

“Hester tells me that lumberjacks have been going missing on Fonrica for the past years and I suspect a demon is doing that. Also, I’m bored.”

“Why do I have to come?”

“Because I can’t let you be alone with this many ingredients for summonings after the necromancy thing.”

Desmond considered asking further into Ezekiel’s questionable morality but decided it would still be there when he had more energy. Right now he felt like curling up in the bed and die, but that could wait as well. He cut down his hair so that only a light reddish bristle remained. Desmond hadn’t shaved his face for a few days and his facial hair grew like rambling weed so that a messy beard was obscuring half of his face.

Hester had left shortly after she and Ezekiel argued so he and Ezekiel made their way through the dense forest towards the water without her.

“Has Morgan gotten out of his cage the other night, by the way?”, Desmond asked.

“No. Why?”

“I had another nightmare. I guess it was just a regular one.”

“What did you dream?”

“Can’t really remember. I just know it was stressful.”

“Probably the Daimocit had its effects on you.”, Ezekiel muttered something under his breath and looked a bit disappointed as he glanced at Desmond after he finished.

Soon they could see the sea glittering in the afternoon sun and Desmond couldn’t help but relax as he smelled the stinky steam-motor of their ferry. For additional disguise, the two men wore hats and Desmond was pretty sure Ezekiel put on some make-up.

“Where to?”

“Not your harbor-apartment. They were watching it after you went missing.”

“Really? I don’t think that they’ll be observing a victim’s home.”

“No, I just don’t wanna go there because I broke a lamp on my way out.”

“What? That wasn’t mine! I’m gonna have to pay the landlord.”

“What? Why?”

“Why?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“Because it was his, Ezekiel.”

“Yes…”, he shut up for a minute before continuing. “…but why? You’ve been kidnapped. Why would you have to pay for something a good looking criminal broke?”

“Well… I don’t have insurance.”

“That’s ridiculous! Even without insurance, you should not have to pay that. Unless…”

“Unless?”

“Unless they can’t know you live there. Reasons for that would be…”, he thought for a moment. “…being a fugitive? An escaped prisoner? A refugee? You did say you were from Ukune. Or maybe an illegal immigrant?”

Desmond looked at his toes to avoid eye contact.

“It was one of them, wasn’t it? I can tell by that very obvious averting of eye contact.”

“I… It is none of your business, Mister Rave.”

“Rave? Oh yeah. That’s my name. But you can tell me, Desmond. I am, after all, your closest friend.”

He was the closest thing he had to a friend. “No.” But still not an actual one.

“Oh come on-“, Ezekiel was cut off by the shouts of ferrymen, docking into the harbor.

“We’ll continue later.”, said Ezekiel, as they walked off the ferry.

They had arrived on Simm.

“You asked where to. We’ll spend about an hour here on Haven Boulevard and then take the next ferry to Fonrica. There Hester organized a hotel room for about a week for us.”

“And we’ll hunt the demon?”

“Probably some plant demon or angry island spirit, but yeah. We’ll hunt it.”

“Dope.”

Ezekiel made a sharp left turn into an alleyway. The alley merged into the main street. They were on Simm, which was the last of three smaller islands. The store, Ezekiel had shot the Subrians at, was on Skrimm the first one. They shopped some basic supplies like clothes, some food, and two storm lanterns and then made their way towards Flimm, the middle island, where their ferry left.

They waited inside a rusty shed missing its front wall. They didn’t sit there for long for the ferry had arrived earlier than anticipated. Fonrica was about half an hour away so they settled down beneath a very simplistic sheet metal roof.

The sun was already setting. Desmond thought to himself, that it was odd how fast the day had passed. Ezekiel was asleep and he decided to do the same.

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