#i love how you colored this like you fought those filters and YOU WON
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It’s been a week since the finales and while I’m over the moon about fire, I’m still so conflicted over pd, specifically Adam and how he talked to Kevin.
I know they’re brothers and the show will have them get over this, but if my white friend said what Adam did? I wouldn’t look at them the same way. I’d lose a lot of love/respect that I had for them.
And a lot of people (of a certain color) are saying it’s not a big deal because of the situation? But like those are his real thoughts, his filter is just gone. Maybe I’m just being too sensitive tho.
I’d love to hear your take on this. If your comfortable sharing it.
I've been thinking of this ask all day, of how to answer it. Because honestly, I have SO many thoughts on this, but I was debating if I should say them all or just sum up but I decided that I'm just gonna speak my mind!!
I, too, have a lot of complexed and conflicting thoughts over this. And I have to say, with stuff like this, with racial issues, you can NEVER be too sensitive.
Firstly, I agree. Kev and Adam are brothers, and the show will have them get over this, it wouldn't be realistic otherwise. But I really do hope they do it in a good, believable and decent way. Because I also agree with what you said about if my white friend said that shit? A little bit of my love and respect for them would be forever tarnished-- at least until I see some REAL improvement, which would take a minimum of a year to properly heal.
This fandom is a real good fandom, but yeah, I HAVE seen a lot of white fans not treating this like the big deal it is. The majority DO accept it's a big deal, but at the same time, they don't seem to truly get just how big, like how they think Kevin and Adam will have to move on from this is quite watered down.
Now, where I stand:
I watched cpd for Kim, Adam and Kev. I got into it for Burzek, and fell so hard in love with Kevin immediately. So when Kevin and Adam fight, I find it really hard because they're my boys! But it's necessary, and I think will help them become even more tight once Adam gets his head screwed on straight.
I do agree that they're his "real thoughts", but my take is that it's a little more complicated than that. Like Adam is a bit of a hothead, and that moment? He was more scared than he's ever been, and Kev, in his mind, is the only other person who loves Kim as much so when Kev did what Adam took as a "betrayal", Adam was angry. And that was shitty. And he should be accountable for that, AND for what he said.
But I think calling them his real thoughts is a little simplistic. They're thoughts that's going to be in his mind a lot, obviously, because Adam doesn't fully get this. So there's two layers to this:
One: People say things out of anger. I've got a temper, and I keep it under control obviously, but it's there, and when you're angry, especially betrayed and hurt, you just want to hurt people the same way you are. And when it's someone you really, really love? You say things you have maybe thought when you were a little annoyed but rationality won and reminded you it's a stupid thought, things that you KNOW will hurt.
And I think that's what this was. Obviously you do this, no matter what the reason, you need to fucking apologize and grovel. Like I'm not saying you shouldn't because I really don't think that. Especially as someone who's said really hurtful things out of anger, I PASSIONATELY believe that you should be held to a high standard about your actions. Because anger is not good, it's an ugly emotion, and you have to fight it.
Two: I definitely think those things are stuff Adam has thought before. I mean, thoughts in anger rarely appears out of nowhere, they're there in the background. But this isn't necessary a bad thing, or makes Adam a bad person. Like we ALL have less than nice thoughts, it's human nature.
And for Adam, he tries, he really does, but the man just Does Not Get all the deep complexities of the police reform. So I think his stance is, he doesn't get it, but he goes along. There's been those times he's argued, but I think most of the time when he's confused, he kinda just...has one of those thoughts but doesn't express it because he KNOWS it's more complicated than that, even if he doesn't understand it.
So when Kevin and Adam fought, Adam got ANGRY, because he felt scared and betrayed, and that's when he voiced all these thoughts he's thought before but kept inside because even though he doesn't understand why or how, he knows it's more complicated. But he was angry because Kim was in danger, and suddenly, it didn't seem logical or rational to keep by book.
Okay so now I've said that, onto what I think this means and how I want this go moving forward.
Adam was a jerk. What he said to Kevin was such a low blow, and things are going to be fractured between those two. And I think nothing Adam feels towards Kev has changed, but I do think they'll be that little emptiness in Kev, because hearing your white best friend say that? Ugh. Pain.
In a general sense, I think they'll be fine. But they can't be as close as they were, without Kevin feeling some sort of distance without any closure.
So in season nine, we definitely need our boys to have a conversation. And not just one, but several. And we need to see Adam make some actual changes to his beliefs. Not just half assing it bc he knows he's wrong even if he doesn't understand the complexities of why, but actually challenging his own beliefs and learning.
I think one of my main problems with this fandom (the white fans) is how much emphasis is put on both Adam and Kev seeking each other out to have a conversation. That's just wrong-- Adam should be the one. None of this, fixing this, educating Adam is on this is NOT in any way, shape or form is on Kevin.
What Adam said is hurtful, and I think Kevin still loves Adam, still sees him as his brother. But siblings don't always get along, or even like each other, even if there's that I'll-die-for-you love. And I think that's where Kevin is at. Adam hurt him, and that's gonna do some damage, and so even though Kev does understand, he's not gonna seek him out or try to fix it AS HE SHOULDN'T, because that onus is purely on Adam's shoulders.
Like. I think what white fans don't get is just how exhausting it is always having to understand, always having to be patient. Like yeah white people don't get the ins and outs like we do, so we're forced to always be understanding bc while we have to learn these things from our first days, they're just learning now. But it's exhausting, so that's why I really hope they have Adam seek Kev out, not have Kev approach him to talk about this.
(it's always why I love how they had Kevin full on yeet Adam, and beat the crap out of him. Poc always have been portrayed as patient when cruel remarks are hurled at us from people we love in anger, and I'm happy they showed Kevin snapping. Bc that was not on, and Kevin was just as worried about Kim, and Adam implying otherwise is wrong. It's also though why I also love that as soon as they were pulled apart, Kev stopped fighting/looking so angry quicker than Adam).
Like I'd be okay with Kev just saying, simply, to Adam "you don't ever say that stuff to me again." And that's that. But for them to actually have a conversation about this, has to come from Adam and HAS to start with an apology.
And Adam has to actively do better. Like no more just accepting things are different even if he doesn't understand, he HAS to learn everything, all the ins and outs, all the complexities, until he lives and breathes it as much as any white man can. Because I can't see Kevin having what was fracture ever feeling completely solid again without that.
And I do like that the show went there, because it's necessary and I think it's the best position for Adam to realise just how Shitty he was. Because Kim was found-- by the book. Like most of his anger was from how in the past, they've gotten their results by being off book, so I think in Adam's mind, he thinks that's the best way to secure safety. But it was by the book that found Kim, and I think that will really make Adam realise that these enforced policies DON'T make it harder to secure their own safety.
Also, Adam's presumably going to spend a lot of time around Makayla, and so forth, will probably get a lot of firsthand experience of seeing racism or it's affects. Like I know we wish he'd see if bc of Kev, and he does with a lot, just not other stuff, but it's different when you're seeing it through the eyes of a little kid, not a grown adult. And I think this will make Adam a lot more humble, which will help patch things up between him and Kevin.
And then there's Kim. People often forget how when you have multiple white friends, when you're hurt, your more knowledgeable friend steps in. Kim gets this stuff a lot more than Adam, even if she can never understand like Kev, and so I can COMPLETELY see her teaching Adam more stuff. Like because she'd want to help her boys, because Adam's a part of Makayla's life, because Kevin shouldn't HAVE to be the one to educate Adam, whereas Kim can bring him up to her own level, and that's when they rely on Kev.
So I think overall, I'm not that conflicted over PD because I'm really hoping this will spark deeper conversations and that Adam will grovel and fix his ignorant stances. And I hope to god they let Kevin heal and forgive in the way he should be allowed to.
I have a LOT more thoughts on this, including how I hate that they only show Adam's ignorance when a lot of the unit is also Not Great, and about partnerships and how Jay and Kev should be going forward. But this is getting really long now, so I won't delve into that or this any further. But I might, especially if it's wanted, because I have so many thoughts.
Also, thank you for sending me this ask!! I am ALWAYS comfortable sharing my thoughts on this fandom (about anything really, racism, sexism, ships ect) but especially the racism and the racial storylines and issues. Sorry it took so long to answer; I've been thinking on it all day, wanting to give you the best answer I could!!
#reese's asks#ree has thoughts#that no one asked for#Chicago pd#kevin atwater#adam ruzek#I'm sorry this is so incoherent
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'Neath Neon Blue Clouds
Cyberpunk 2077; Jackie/V/Misty; PG-13 (AO3 Flavor)
“And what is this?”
“This is me, taking you for a ride.”
“A ride to where?”
Propping an elbow on his knee, Jackie leaned forward to meet her gaze at eye level, over the rim of his sunglasses.
“It’s a surprise,” he told her, “C’mon.”
V hesitated, but curiosity itself won her over, and she slid onto the back of the motorcycle behind him.
The city passed them by in a blur, growing brighter as the sun fell low in the sky behind them and the skyscrapers cast deeper shadows over the streets. It wasn’t until they turned off the city freeway that V fidgeted behind him, all at once sharply attentive to their surroundings as the steel and concrete turned to sand.
Her hold on him tightened when they veered off the main road and into the brush, but whatever her suspicions were, she didn’t pry.
Not then and there.
Jackie didn’t even know what he was looking for until he found a sandy patch of desert, a stones throw or three from a craggy outcropping jutting into the sky, which seemed as good a place as any.
V slid off the bike before he’d even killed the engine. Jackie followed at his leisure, packing away his sunglasses and falling to watching her. She cased their surroundings, then turned back to him; her hair was still tousled from the ride, and her eyebrows scrunched, one quirked just a little higher than the other, as she tried to puzzle him out.
“What is all this?” she finally asked.
Jackie forced an easy smile.
“I... um...” He scratched his neck. “I thought maybe you and me, we could use some you and me time. Just the two of us.”
Shrugging one shoulder in response to her bewildered expression, he lost the smile and opted to avoid her discerning stare by digging around for the blanket he’d packed instead.
V grabbed a handful of it as it unraveled, and before he could throw it down.
“Look... it’s...” She sighed, glancing across the desert wasteland, and back to him. “We’re ‘onna be exposed here.”
Jackie frowned in thought. They hadn’t seen anyone for miles.
“Where’s better?”
V scraped her lip between her teeth, and glanced back towards the city. Even if the set of her shoulders suggested she thought maybe he wouldn’t, he trusted her to know what she was talking about.
Still, there was a worry in his mind that she’d tell him they ought to go back.
Instead, her gaze fell on the worn little mountain of rock nearby and she angled her head that way, and moved to collect the motorcycle. Folding the blanket and draping it over his shoulder, Jackie stepped up to take over from her as she passed him. He rolled along behind, and watched her dart ahead to lead the way.
Closer to the rock, the desert flora had grown in thicker and were thriving, to even a few stunted trees. An oasis, with no water.
Maybe a little rain now and again.
Too small to be a proper mesa, far too big to be a boulder, it offered cover and, as V found them, a small, flat little terrace of stone and sand and clumps of desert sage – big enough for the blanket and the bike both. The sun had set, bleeding color into the clouds above, while Night City glittered on the horizon.
Jackie threw the blanket down, and eased down after it with a sigh.
For a few long seconds, V paced as though hesitant to follow. Then she dropped down at the edge of the blanket, kicking off her shoes, she sent her socks flying right along after them. Draping her arms loosely around her knees, she shoved her bare toes into the warm desert sand. The faint, nostalgic little smile that touched her mouth was tinged with something else.
Melancholy, maybe.
Misty might’ve been right.
“So...” Jackie picked at a loose thread sticking out of the canvas of his pants. “Misty and I were having this talk, and... we agreed, kind of...”
Sighing, he scratched the back of his head. Like that would help make his thoughts work. “Misty was thinkin’ you might be having second thoughts, or... maybe somethin’. And I was thinkin’... well, I been thinkin’.”
A part of him wished Misty were here, because she was better at these kinds of things, but she’d insisted that V might open up to him more readily.
“Oh,” V remarked.
“You wanna elaborate on that?”
She shrugged. “Guess I’ve been feeling a little inadequate lately, okay?”
“Not to me it isn’t.” When she didn’t answer, Jackie prodded, “Inadequate, how?”
“Inadequate as in, it’s hard to live up to perfect.”
Oh.
Shit.
Just like that, it clicked into place. For a moment or two, Jackie full on forgot to breathe. And the absolute worst part was, she didn’t even sound angry about it.
She sounded resigned.
Jackie swallowed.
“And...” he ventured, “Misty is perfect. She’s cute, she’s smart, she’s clever, and she’s got this... amazing perspective on everything, and she’s so full of love it’s unreal.”
“Thing is, thing you gotta understand is... hardly no one walks out of Heywood, and if they do, they don’t get to do it without having blood on their hands. She did – I don’t know how, and I’m not about to ask, but it’s... she fuckin’ did it, like some kind of miracle. She got out and she’s clean. She’s pure. She’s... she’s damn near divine, is what she is.”
“By rights, she should never have even looked twice at a guy like me, let alone been interested... And if it wasn’t for you, making it happen, I... I still don’t know...”
Sure, Jackie knew a thing or two about inadequate.
“But V, I gotta tell you – you’re the one on the ground with me carving out a living every single damn day.” He chuckled. “You, you came crashing into my life, and when the dust settled... it wasn’t my life anymore. It was ours. Us.”
“You understand me in a way she never could – a way I hope to God she never does. And I... you know, I feel selfish even being grateful for that, because maybe I oughta be wishing you didn’t either, but you do and I am. Not like I ever claimed to be a good guy or anything.”
“And V? I am running my mouth over here, do you think you could say something? ...please?”
Her arms were still wrapped about her knees, and she was staring at the sky. The color was gone from the darkened clouds, which only served to obscure her guarded expression further.
“I wish the stars were out,” she remarked at last.
“Brightest one’s already down here, sittin’ right in front of me.”
V’s gaze fell to the sand beneath her feet.
“You know, I thought at first you were trying to say you....” she struggled with the words. “That you.... That this... isn’t what you wanted... Anymore.”
Ah.
Jackie winced.
He sidled over to her side of the blanket.
“That’s not what I promised you,” he reminded her.
“Forever is a long fucking time, Jackie. Not like I’d hold it against you if you changed your mind.”
Jackie paused, his hand hovering over her back.
Thinking better of it, he dipped his head close to her ear.
“I didn’t. So there.”
She didn’t answer. For a handful of moments, he loomed behind her, and nothing seemed to move.
Tentatively, Jackie reached to draw her hair back behind her ear. She followed the sensation, ever slightly towards him, and he blew a soft puff of air across her skin. Drawn that much further, she peered up at him over her shoulder.
His fingers brushed her arm, and he froze.
“Christ,” he swore under his breath.
Where was his head even at?
Sitting up straight, Jackie shrugged off his jacket. He’d dragged her out into the badlands on a motorcycle with her wearing nothing but jeans and a tanktop, of course she’d be cold.
And say not so much as a word.
He offered her the jacket. V blinked, then huffed, then – at his solemn, determined insistence – twisted into it.
It left her with a little less cover than she’d had a moment ago, but she didn’t seem to mind. Rather, she beat him to it; her fingers skimmed his skin, settling over the back of his neck, and she tried to pull him down toward her.
Tried to.
He put up just enough resistance to tease her; not enough for any doubt. Just close to almost touch, but not quite. Just until...
She breathed his name, softer than any prayer on Earth.
Jackie groaned, nuzzling her jaw.
With a startled gasp, V flinched and glanced down. Following her gaze, without so much as a second thought, Jackie shot a hand out to cover hers. The sting grazed him, and with a twist of his hand, Jackie caught the scorpion by its tail.
It dangled, practically helpless, as Jackie leaned back onto his other hand. Squinting at it incredulously, he scoffed.
“...can you believe the brass on this guy?”
V followed him to his feet, but she lingered behind, glancing down and around the blanket. Far enough away, Jackie found a decent growth of cover that followed the incline further upwards.
“Off you go, amigo,” he told the scorpion, tossing it into the brush. “Go show ‘em off somewhere else.”
Brushing off his hands, Jackie returned to the blanket.
“You alright?”
He reached for V’s hand, raising it between them and turning it this way and that.
“I-...” V sighed, but admitted, “Only that I feel like maybe I’ve spent too much time in the city, and that I-... you-... Yeah. Fine.”
Not finding even so much as a scratch, he ran his thumb over her knuckles. She twisted her hand in his, wincing at his marred skin under her fingertips. She looked up, thinly-veiled alarm kept in barest check, and Jackie smiled back, calm and confident.
“Toxin screen’ll filter it out.”
“...you’re sure?”
“Mhhm.”
Sure, he’d had it installed for hangovers and it’d never actually worked for those, but it’d caught everything else so far.
He brushed her hair behind her ear.
“Where were we?”
V laughed. Almost. It was a raspy little sound, torn around the edges.
“Are we going to skip right over the you just saved my life part?” she asked, raising his thumb to her mouth.
“Tch. Happens every other day, doesn’t it? Gotta be a fact of living by now.”
Between two in particular of the soft little kisses she was pressing to the pads of his fingers, V rolled her eyes. Even in the dim light, he caught that much.
Jackie fought back a wry smile.
“Or if you wanna get into it, sure, but how about we also go over all the ways you save my soul?”
Her movements slowed, and he reclaimed his hand to brush his thumb along her jaw. His fingers slid behind her neck, and V swallowed.
“Is that... what you want?”
“V, dulzura, right now all what I want is to throw you over the back of the bike and do things my mamá wouldn’t approve of.”
There was a soft, lurid sound in her throat.
Jackie’s smirk faded as she fell into his arms; he caught her in a tight hug, and sighed deeply.
“I’m trying,” she told him.
“I know, chica.”
The tension in her shoulders eased, and he pulled back just far enough to kiss her cheek; only on his retreat, V captured his mouth, insistent and determined, and dragging him right back down into the thick of it.
Not that he was complaining.
Not in the least.
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hi! i just read your fic, After Dark (for the second time, it’s amazing, easily going into my top five favorite fics of all time, your writing and characterization of dean especially is phenomenal and knocked me off my feet), but i’m still a little fuzzy on the ending. if you find time, could you possibly explain? thank you so much, your writing is beautiful
Okay, so I know I’ve had this ask for a while. I haven’t been ignoring you. It’s just that this fic is one of those stories that was so consuming when I wrote it, I have a hard time diving back in when I get asks. It was my Everest. I was obsessed with finishing it but kept trying to die at the top of the mountain (so to speak). I started writing it in June 2015 and didn’t finish it until December 2018. I have sooooo many notebooks filled with notes and rewrites for this story, it’s almost embarrassing. And, you’ve read it, so you probably know why: it’s INVOLVED. I mean, the very first chapter gives you the most important line from the penultimate chapter of the book.
So, yes. You know what? Let’s talk about After Dark. I’m ready.
Spoilers after the cut
I’m gonna do my best here to clear things up, but since you’re specifically asking about the end of the fic, I won’t do a complete chapter by chapter breakdown of the plot. Let’s instead pick up at Chapter 19 with a little more of a abridged version.
In 19, we finally get our Sam breakdown of what he’s been trying to figure out from the beginning– why it struck him as odd that Dean and Cas had hooked up this time over all the times before. He realizes that the general assumption that God was the light that beat back the darkness wasn’t actually a metaphorical idea, but was, in fact, a literal one. God wasn’t the thing that conquered the Dark, the light he yielded was. That light was Love. Fun side note: The sources Sam cites in that chapter to support his theory are all actual academic sources/philosophical ideas. You can look any of them up to find out more about love as a daemon, or The Unity of Opposites theory. So, Dean now knows that Cas is being used by Alice for something, but doesn’t know what.
Ch 20: Alice explains that the only thing that can save Dean’s soul from its eternal fate with the Darkness is if he’s “released” (so to speak) by his light. She says that the way it works is through Cas’ ultimate broken heart.
“If he takes you, you don’t die out of hate, or spite, or fear,” she whispered. “There’s no jealousy or malice or revenge. You die in stark contrast to all those things. It’s the opposite of everything he’s ever wanted for you— Wanted with you. Everything he’s ever hoped or dreamed or fought for; he does it only because he loves you, and it’s that selflessness that cleanses the shadows. It’s the power of a broken heart.”
It’s Cas’ sacrifice that will save Dean’s soul. Alice is careful to tell Dean that he was never going to survive this. Cas and everyone else is supposed to, but for Dean, it was always just a matter of where his soul ended up.
Cas, of course, says he’ll do it and that Dean needn’t ask, because there’s not really a choice here.
Ch 21: We pick back up with an echo of Rowena and realize that everything she told him in Chapter 2 actually came true. (weird, right?)
Ch 22: Cas wakes up at “the start”, only, this time’s he’s fundamentally changed from the journey. It’s in this chapter that we find out why Cas was getting glimpses from the ‘end of the story’ throughout the book:
Angels are ethereal. They’re not contained to a specific timeline–this is something they’ve talked about in canon. It was ONLY while Cas had his grace AND was actively dying that he was able to see snippets of the things that would happen after the events in Chapter 20. (IE: the dream he had in Chapter 8 of Crowley, the dream in Ch 15 where he’s walking across the field where the Winchesters crashed, even though he hadn’t actually been there yet, etc) It turned out he wasn’t actually seeing or speaking to Rowena. She was more a figment of his subconscious as he tried to warn himself where this story was going. Unfortunately, there wasn’t really any way for him to stop the train. HOWEVER,
In Cas’ lame attempt to keep from drowning Dean like “The Fish” Rowena kept calling him, he’d made the conscious decision to give Dean some “wings” in Chapter 15. The grace had proven threatening/effective enough in the fight against the Darkness to that point, that it had spent the entire story trying to snuff Cas out. It was also the only element keeping Cas from becoming infected by the Darkness the same way Sam and the rest of the people were, which is why Cas quickly became infected after extracting it.
So, when Dean got the grace in Chapter 15, it was enough to pull him back out of the Darkness’ grip and bring him back to life.
When Cas comes out the other side of the spell in this chapter, alive, as he was supposed to be, he realizes that everything had reset like Alice said it would– Except for him. He was still wearing the same clothes, and still dying from his own self-inflicted knife wound (sans Darkness insanity). (Dean, remember, was not supposed to reset. The actions he took during the fic were always supposed to be permanent for him.)
It’s then that Cas understands that it’s not over yet; they’re still fundamentally connected through Cas’ grace, and that means, there’s a CHANCE that Dean’s still alive too (and with Cas’ grace). He asks Crowley to teleport him to the field he saw in his dream and it’s here that he finds Dean, still clinging to life and staring up at the newly found stars.
Cas rallies his grace one last time by laying a hand on the burn mark left on Dean, and uses the rest of it to save him. Then, the very exhausted, very exsanguinated human Cas topples over in the field.
Ch 23: is probably where I lost you and I’m gonna tell you, it’s very intentional that I’ve made you unsure.
It starts with a dreamlike Cas in the field staring at the back of an ambulance bed. There are elements of the Darkness around him, filtering into the sky. He panics when he thinks it’s Dean on the back of the stretcher dead, but specifically points out the bare feet (Dean was in socked feet. It was mentioned multiple times in Chapter 18-20). Alice then comes out of nowhere and tackles him to the ground. She’s our dream stand-in for the things the EMTs are doing to save Cas in that moment (Cas was the one with bare feet) while she warns him that the Darkness is not gone. She tells him she’s proud of him for finding a loophole, but that he shouldn’t believe he’s won. He should, in fact, fear the opposite.
“…it doesn’t matter how fucking proud of you I am for finding it” she says. “The truth of the matter is, it’s gonna take what it’s owed— Or try… ”
Cas then wakes up in Dean’s bed and Dean tells him he was having another nightmare. It’s established at this point that Cas has been having a lot of them since becoming human. So much so, that Dean is practiced in dealing with bringing Cas back down. Cas gets frustrated with the situation and with himself and goes to wander through the bunker and get water. Dean chases after him, like the good caretaker he is.
Cas tells Dean that he doesn’t believe it’s a nightmare. He believes that the conversation with Alice really happened and that the Darkness is not gone, but, maybe, lying in wait either to attack again, or, even, MAYBE, that it already has him… (Not Dean, but Cas this time. Like a trade.)
This leaves us, the reader with the uneasy feeling that that might be true. We’re in Cas’ POV and the last we saw him, he was face down in a field bleeding out from a wound he was probably not gonna be able to recover from. If he’s not sure what’s real and what’s a dream, then how can we be? This is amplified by the fact that everything Cas has done in the story to this point has been proven true, so we want to believe him. But his unsureness feels so much more like the answer we don’t want.
Our unease is punctuated by small things like 1. Dean wearing a purple shirt* when Cas had specifically named that as a color he’d never seen Dean wear before (Ch 19). And then, of course, 2. the fact that his coat is there when it shouldn’t be. Did Alice leave it? Why would she leave it? How could she leave it?
We’re left, like Cas, not sure if the story has ended like it appears to have ended. We’re unsure if they both made it out safe. If they’re really together. And with everything so damn woven, how can we just have these plot holes????
But, that’s also kind of the nature of the trauma Cas has endured. And, if he wasn’t really living this moment with Dean, then why is he healing slowly from his wounds? Why is he out of breath before he gets to the kitchen? (You know how it is when you’ve been laid up for a long stint. EVERYTHING IT HARD.)
So, you, like Cas, find yourself placing your trust in Dean as he reassures Cas that it wouldn’t matter if it’s not over.
“Because you an’ me, we’re unbreakable.”
And now this is where you really hate me because I’m not going to tell you one way or the other. I’m gonna let the story speak for itself. I will say that I would NEVER want to put them through all of that if they couldn’t live in the sunshine on the other side, though.
*more on the color purple
#luniares#and THAT is the story that tried to kill me#essentially#destiel#destiel fic#my fic#after dark#flashing gif#my art
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do 1-100, coward
I AM NO COWARD
anyone who actually reads through all this, god bless you. you can blame leigh @thessaia, i give you full authority.
1. Spotify, SoundCloud, or Pandora?
of those three, pandora. although, i prefer apple music.
2. is your room messy or clean?
LMFAO. CLEAN? I DON’T KNOW HER
3. what color are your eyes?
brown, but they’re lighter than that in the right light. almost a caramel with a dark chocolate ring on the outside.
4. do you like your name? why?
yeah, i don’t mind it. its always been there. lol i mean i used to have different nicknames or pretend to be other people. idk i told my parents when i was like five i was going to change my name to Felicia Franchesca Sarahmichelle Lynn. don’t ask. in fifth grade (before dylan o’brien was even famous) i begged my parents to call me dylan and refused to respond to any other name for like a year. also, don’t ask.
5. what is your relationship status?
single as dingle
6. describe your personality in 3 words or less
CHAOTIC, SMARTASS, STABBY
7. what color hair do you have?
answered
8. what kind of car do you drive? color?
kia forte, although my dad calls it an orte since the “f” is missing. funny story, i got pulled over and gave the dude my license and registration and shit but apparently, he didn’t look at it cause he put on the warning “orte” which i promptly laughed my ass off to. if he had given me a ticket i could have absolutely fought that bitch in court in won. SIR I DO NOT DRIVE AN ORTE. IS THAT ITALIAN? DO I LOOK LIKE I CAN AFFORD AN ITALIAN CAR? I DRIVE A FORTE SIR.
9. where do you shop?
ONLINE
10. how would you describe your style?
very idgaf
11. favorite social media account
tumblr
12. what size bed do you have?
full, it takes up my entire room so i couldn’t go bigger if i wanted to
13. any siblings?
answered
14. if you can live anywhere in the world where would it be? why?
uk, always wanted to live there idk
15. favorite snapchat filter?
idk what its called but it has this higher temperature tone to it and gives me cute little freckles
16. favorite makeup brand(s)
i don’t wear make up, i used to use stilla (i think that’s how its spelled)
17. how many times a week do you shower?
i usually shower like every other day unless its hotter than a pair of saggy tits
18. favorite tv show?
that changes with the weather tbh. i can’t say i really have one. for a really long time it was supernatural though.
19. shoe size?
womans 11.5 (us) i think its a men’s 9?
20. how tall are you?
5′ 3″ or 160cm
21. sandals or sneakers?
sneakers. god i hate sandals.
22. do you go to the gym?
uh, no.
23. describe your dream date
answered
24. how much money do you have in your wallet at the moment?
thats funny cause normally i don’t carry cash but i actually have $20 atm
25. what color socks are you wearing?
im not wearing any atm
26. how many pillows do you sleep with?
answered x2
27. do you have a job? what do you do?
not technically? i’m an hourly temp but i hardly get any hours since i cover for the full-time employee.
28. how many friends do you have?
irl: 0 online: too many to count
29. whats the worst thing you have ever done?
oh god, i honest to god have no fucking clue. i don’t think about this stuff. i’ve done some stupid ass shit but my short term and long term memory are both shot to tits.
30. whats your favorite candle scent?
i think i answered this one for a different ask game. i hate most fragrances and artificial smells, even non-artifical ones. i got a sensitive sniffer. im chill with like vanilla though if its not too intense.
31. 3 favorite boy names
Dylan (not even cause dylan i’ve just always liked the name idk why), Jeremy, Jacob (the other two are random)
32. 3 favorite girl names
i know these are random as fuck, but i’ve always liked them so shoot me.
Andromeda, Persephone, Franchesca
33. favorite actor?
i like a lot of actors, way too many to fucking name and remember off the top of my noggin. for sanity’s sake, we’ll say dylan.
34. favorite actress?
god, again way too many to count. i can’t even think of any right now even though i know i have some. lets say Emily Hampshire
35. who is your celebrity crush?
answered36. favorite movie?
answered37. do you read a lot? whats your favorite book?
i would love to read but my adhd makes it really hard to concentrate. i’ll have periods of time where i’ll read a bunch its insane and then i’ll just kind of stop for a while idk. i always loved because of win-dixie or a wrinkle in time, bridge to terabithia, and american assassin.
38. money or brains?
brains, then you can work for the money and you know shit
39. do you have a nickname? what is it?
sawahbwear, sassafras, whiskey, sar
40. how many times have you been to the hospital?
good lord, i don’t even know. way too many. definitely more than ten.
41. top 10 favorite songs
answered42. do you take any medications daily?
not anymore, i kept forgetting to take them so it fucked me up not being on a regular dosage so i just stopped taking all of them.
43. what is your skin type? (oily, dry, etc)
see, im weird af. cause like my skin is oily af, but also fucking dry and i have shitty eczema 44. what is your biggest fear?
answered45. how many kids do you want?
idfk. i mean for as long as i can remember i always wanted them, but tbh idk if im the type of person to have any…
46. whats your go to hair style?
messy bun
47. what type of house do you live in? (big, small, etc)
small, row house
48. who is your role model?
dont have one.
49. what was the last compliment you received?
probably from michelle i think, or alaina. idk i don’t keep track. unless you consider kiana calling me insane a compliment. 🤷♀️
50. what was the last text you sent?
“thankies”
51. how old were you when you found out santa wasn’t real?
tbh, i don’t think i ever thought he was real…pretty sure i could put in time out in preschool for making a kid cry cause i told them leprechauns weren’t real either.
52. what is your dream car?
mustang or challenger
53. opinion on smoking?
conflicted
54. do you go to college?
disappointingly
55. what is your dream job?
no clue
56. would you rather live in rural areas or the suburbs?
rural, but still close enough to shit it doesn’t take me an hour to go places.
57. do you take shampoo and conditioner bottles from hotels?
haven't been to a hotel in a long ass time. i do but i never use them.. FREE SHIT
58. do you have freckles?
yeah, but you can’t see them unless i’ve been outside in the sun all day for hours.
59. do you smile for pictures?
relatively
60. how many pictures do you have on your phone?
5604
61. have you ever peed in the woods?
yup, and in a parking lot, and in public.🤙
62. do you still watch cartoons?
i hardly watch tv anymore, but if i did, fuCK YEAH
63. do you prefer chicken nuggets from Wendy’s or McDonalds?
WNEDYS ALL DAY ERRY DAY THE RED HEADED BITCH IS MY HOE OKAY
64. Favorite dipping sauce?
ew, no.
65. what do you wear to bed?
tshirt
66. have you ever won a spelling bee?
answered
67. what are your hobbies?
writing, coding, listening to music??, reading
68. can you draw?
NOPE
69. do you play an instrument?
also no
70. what was the last concert you saw?
like two years ago, circa survive with thrice and a third band idr
71. tea or coffee?
neither
72. Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts?
neither
73. do you want to get married?
idk
74. what is your crush’s first and last initial?
DO
75. are you going to change your last name when you get married?
idk, part of me wants to but most of me doesnt want to
76. what color looks best on you?
i look good in all colors except white.
77. do you miss anyone right now?
yeah
78. do you sleep with your door open or closed?
closed cause i still live at home 😖 but if i didnt probably open so my cat could come and go as he pleased
79. do you believe in ghosts?
ghosts, no. spirits, yes.
80. what is your biggest pet peeve?
answered
81. last person you called
my dad
82. favorite ice cream flavor?
mint choco chip
83. regular oreos or golden oreos?
damn, regular.
84. chocolate or rainbow sprinkles?
RAINBOW BITCHES
85. what shirt are you wearing?
supernatural. dean and sam with baby
86. what is your phone background?
mitch rapp
87. are you outgoing or shy?
im an ambivert
88. do you like it when people play with your hair?
FUCKING YES
89. do you like your neighbors?
the ones on the right are bearable and the ones on the left can fuck off with their insane semen demons
90. do you wash your face? at night? in the morning?
neither, but i should.
91. have you ever been high?
nope
92. have you ever been drunk?
answered
93. last thing you ate?
hot dog
94. favorite lyrics right now
answered
95. summer or winter?
fall
96. day or night?
night
97. dark, milk, or white chocolate?
dark
98. favorite month?
umm, august? idk
99. what is your zodiac sign
aquarius
100. who was the last person you cried in front of?
i don’t remember, it’s been a really long time since i cried in front of someone.
#thessaia#ask games#BET YOU THOUGHT I WOULDNT#HA#BITE ME#YOUR BITCH ASS BETTER READ EVERY DAMN ONE CAUSE THIS SHIT TOOK ME LIKE A GODDAMN HOUR
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Healer
This is one of my firsts on archiveofourown.org after a long writers block! I can’t recall if this one was a commission, but it’s a Cavity ship!
This wasn’t the first time he found himself surrounded by death once he closed his eyes. Or did he just open them? Everything felt cold, and in some parts of his body, it felt like seething fire. Liquid fire.
What’s on his hands?
A dark hand raised to his face, centimeters from his nose. It was sluiced in red. Crimson red. His own red. God, the pain...Stars Above, it hurt so much.
Above him, he saw nothing but a burning sky, swathed in an aura of dusky purple and the bloody rose of the sunset beyond. Just barely, he could make out the slivers of the two moons above him, a sign of hope that he was holding onto by strings of fate. How was he even still alive? The battle should have finished him, he knew when he rode into it with his battalion that the odds weren’t in their favor. The dream pirates have swallowed the entire constellation, there was no chance that he would lead his troops to victory against them.
Then again, one must always obey the orders of the king and queen of comets.
His teeth felt brittle as he grimaced against the throbbing that took over his brain. Alright, now he was feeling pain. Sitting up proved difficult, but he fought against the white hot agony to look around him. He had to know if there were other survivors. Anyone to give him hope that they won, for when he was struck off his horse, he fell unconscious and hadn’t been aware of the outcome as the battle raged on. Even the banner men with their flagged staffs would be enough proof of hope that they will return home victorious, that the galaxy was once saved from further pestilence of the dream pirates.
Nobody rose with him. He felt his mouth drop and a gust of air flood his lungs, ripping his raw throat. He wished he felt the hot tears spring in his eyes, but he only felt the dried blood against his cheeks harden as he winced more at the growing pain in his stomach.
His vision cleared more once the blurriness passed along with his migraine subsiding to a dull throbbing. Now he could look out to the sea of lifeless beings with more clarity. Some looked peaceful, helped by those who escaped or defeated the foe and had enough sympathy for the fallen to shut their eyes and say a prayer to the stars above. Others died in the midst of pain, their eyes open, barren, and white. Their mouths open mid yell of pain, filling with more red and staining their teeth like oil paint on pearl.
No...No. I failed. My men. My friends...I failed them. His mind spiraled as he looked around him, his hope quickly becoming demolished.
What have I done.
What have you done? You killed them. You killed them all.
They trusted you, and you got them all killed.
You monster.
Pitch.
Pitch!
“Pitch!”
That was a voice, not a memory. His eyes snapped open, and through the haze of the remaining nightmare, he saw a flutter of color and then magenta eyes filled with worry hover above him like an angel sent from the creator to take pity on him. But his heart still raced, his mind still transported in the realm of the nightmare that was once a fresh wound and a memory. He couldn’t help but act on instinct, the man of battle still fresh in his breath.
Toothiana yelped and took in a breath of air as she was grabbed from the air and flipped onto her back, with his hand around her throat as he sat on her abdomen, a look of bloodthirsty mourning on his face.
“Pitch, it’s just me. Please...it’s okay.”
Tooth. Toothiana. What is she doing here?
The look of revenge swiftly fled from his face, and a new look of horror spread across his face as he quickly retracted from her as if singed. She sat up, looking at him with a new expression he would like to label as pity, but something in his shrunken heart told him it wasn’t that at all. A new voice that didn’t hurt him, that didn’t continuously open old wounds over and over as punishment.
She’s empathetic. She knows you’re in pain.
Pathetic. Get her out of here.
“What are you doing here?” he snapped lowly, not looking at her as he dressed himself. He felt a twinge of shame for climbing onto her like that in just his briefs.
He was met with silence for a moment before he heard the bed linens shuffle. A flutter of wings, and then a soft landing and a gentle hand on his back. He flinched. He’d rather feel angry nails against his spine than something so comforting. You don’t deserve it.
“An old proverb that a lot of the humans say is, keep your friends close and your enemies closer. We’re worried about you.” she said, her voice like satin. No hint of lying detected.
He scoffed and glared at her, “Who the hell is ‘we’?” he turned back and flared his robe out for a final act of inner torment before turning to the majestic fairy. He felt that stirring come back again at seeing that little pout she was making right at that moment, then grew angry at himself for feeling it. Ever since a few months ago…
She sighed, looking to the towering pillar across from them. “Fine. I am. You know I’m soft like that.”
He grunted, fixing his robe more but refused to fasten it, trying to not look at her and drink in her fae-like aura, “Not completely. A year ago you proved that by a nasty punch. Five months ago you proved against that once more. I still have scratches on my back from-”
“Anyway,” Tooth’s voice dripped with warning.
Ooh, he loved teasing her. As much as he hated himself for feeling an attraction for someone like her, or even anyone at all, he had to take mirth out of riling her up. It usually leads to good and distracting outcomes. He made no effort to hide his smirk, a look that once irritated Toothiana enough to fluff her feathers.
“I didn’t just come here to...wake you from your troubles.”
“Business, I take it.” he muttered, striding out of the room. He didn’t care if she followed. She usually never does. He wanted to milk out what he could from her visit as much as he can. He hated it when she left, and he hated that he felt that way at being alone now.
“Although the Guardians have recollected all the teeth you’ve stolen, there’s one you haven’t yet returned. I have a slot missing in Russia, you know. I would have suspected of North using it for gifting inspiration from their memories but he has no idea where-”
Pitch swirled his fingers, the sand dancing around his digits until out formed the canister of teeth, glittering in the filtered light that barely made it down to the depths they walked in. He heard Tooth huff in irritation, and a smirk once more graced his fine features.
Took her long enough to notice.
Anything to keep her here longer.
“Out of all the times to be immature,” she leapt into the air to grab it, but he was quicker. His hand retracted from over his shoulder to his other hand and out far away from her reach. Toothiana found herself draped over his shoulder, giving him a perfect view of her curves from a slight turn of his chin.
He grinned, “This oddly feels familiar.”
“Grrh!”
The canister flew up, twirled, and disappeared in nightmare sand just as she reached to his other hand, a look of irritated determination on her face. He smiled, closing his eyes in modesty as he felt the slight ruffle of baby feathers from her upper chest against the tip of his nose. She always smelled of spring water, roses and mint. Such a good mix of smells for a tiny, pretty little thing.
She froze, realizing her position.
“Again, familiar. Is this becoming a habit, my dear?” he teased.
She leaned back and glared at him. That goddamn mouth of his. She didn’t know if she was thinking that in annoyance or slight attraction at seeing his smirk and his golden, heated eyes looking up at her with mirth and a crackling fire she wanted to spill her own flames onto. A prickling heat sensation came over her cheeks when she realized she was staring at his mouth for too long, remembering the darker things his mouth can do that wasn’t just talking and taunting.
Growling, she grabbed his face and pulled him towards her, mashing her mouth with his. She felt him stiffen before reluctantly melting into it. It both surprised them that Tooth was the one who acted first and Pitch was all talk and actually reserved once Tooth makes the first move.
Then again, it doesn’t take him long enough to react as animalistic as her either.
Kids these days call this fuckmates, you know.
Shut up.
The canister reappeared and fell, and because the king of nightmares was too...preoccupied with trying to win at the war Tooth started, she caught it with dexterity, and pulled away with a triumphant look on her face.
His own expression soured. “Good for you. You can leave now.”
He tried pulling away, but was surprised by the gentle tug of resistance from her, and looked at her with expectancy as she gently fluttered to stand on the cold ground. She gently smiled at him, touching his face with affection.
Wait. Affection? What is this? What is she doing?
“I was thinking of staying a while, if you don’t mind.” she offered, clearly hinting at what he hoped for for months.
Well, shit. Now we’re really fucked.
He grunted and gruffly looked away from her as if in annoyance, but she caught the darkening on his cheeks enough to gloat about it with a prideful smile.
“I suppose you could….if you’ve got the time,” he looked back at her, ready to test the waters, “I thought you and I strictly made this thing between us an...informality?”
She smiled, cradling the tooth canister to her chest as she guided him back to the room they left a few moments ago.
“I’m ready to make it formal, no matter what others think.”
The calmness that washed over him, the promising smile on her face made all nightmares from previous nights wash away. He felt a genuine but small smile creep against his mouth, and it caused her to brighten.
She knew of the nightmare that constantly plagued him. It didn’t take Toothiana long to dig it out of him over time, but for once, the cruel voices that plagued him through it were finally silenced, if anything for the fleeting moments that she was there for him, and with him. She was his healer, and he was her glimmer of hope. Perhaps now he’d awaken from a dream where he rises among a battlement of victorious souls, along with a feeling of completion now that she’s finally made herself known to him.
Yes, he can endure this. Just for her. And even, for him as well.
#toothiana#rotg fandom#rotg fanfiction#rotg fanfic#fanfiction#fanfics#rise of the guardians#rise of the guardian fanfics#pitch black#pitch black x tooth fairy#pitch black x tooth#pitch black x toothiana#rotg cavity#cavity#tooth fairy
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𝐝𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐦 𝐛𝐨𝐲 . i still don’t get it right sometimes , i just don’t get it as wrong . / a STARSCREECH playlist ! now streaming .
title sequence : brothers & — the wonder years ( no closer to heaven ) / edie will likely never forget that he was the one who was with pendulum when everything went wrong. to a certain extent, he knows it cannot be his fault, but there’s a voice that finds volume on dark nights or lonely mornings that are a bit too quiet. the lyrics ‘ we’re no saviors, if we can’t save our brothers ’ puts the word post deluge into context. he’s more determined than ever to make sure that those around him are safe, and that this new world he’s found doesn’t meet the same fate as the one he was born to. / we’re no saviours, if we can’t save our brothers. we’re no saviours, we’re no saviours.
personal theme : be more kind — frank turner ( be more kind ) / while it doesn’t always appear as such due to a calm and patient nature, edie is highly aware of the threats any future might bring, he’s seen a world break and knows how little it takes. his home world was not always at war; he was a hopeful kid with a decent childhood, and then things changed. he wants to help keep earth from the same fate, but the truth is he doesn’t necessarily know how to. that fate was never avoided for his people, so he has no guide or blueprints, he is only trying his best. he thinks perhaps just a little bit of kindness, however, might go a long way. / history’s been leaning on me lately, i can feel the future breathing down my neck, and all the thing i thought were true, when i was young, and you were too, turned out to be broken and i don’t know what comes next. in a world that has decided that it’s going to lose its mind, be more kind, my friends, try to be more kind
preparation [ before the battle ] : go get your gun — the deer hunter ( act ii: life and death ) / edie is a soldier, and has the mindset of one. he’s good at taking orders and will do what has to be done, and retains faith that it is all for a greater purpose. he feels guilt for those they are unable to save, but truly believes that the exemplar are doing the most good that they can. he’s never truly considered the moral implications of having justice placed in the hands a few ( albeit a few that are so carefully guided, but not with the true consent of the public ), as all the villains they’ve fought he’s seen as true threats. / go get your gun, get your gun, imposing penance one by one, you’ve got a virtue in a vice, it forces fate, you’re taking lives, with all the history to guide, you’ve got passion in those eyes, so aim it straight and true, and to those who’ll die, please try to understand, that for those who die we’ve tried the best we can
realization [ adjustment period, part i ] : dream boy — waterparks ( fandom ) / when the american public loved starscreech, edie felt like he belonged on earth. maybe he struggled with the delicacies of human interaction, but people seemed to care for him anyway. when the exemplar disbanded edie came to realize that the world loved an image that had been constructed for him, and the true version of himself was not one that garnered friends in the way he hoped. people had different expectations of america’s first alien, and those expectations were usually that he was a little more human or a little more alien. / build your expectations, saturated and inflated, ‘cause i was born to be your favorite. make me complicated, i’m modern and i’m dated, because i was born to be your favorite. build - a - boy, pick my pieces, overjoyed, never leave your heart destroyed, i’m your boy.
rationalization [ adjustment period, part ii ] : figuring it out — swmrs ( drive north ) / edie still hasn’t completely come to terms with what exemplar is, something to inspire and, more than anything, be a source of palatable nationalism. he wants it so badly to be something, for it’s what he’s hitched his identity to. he spent his time in isolation hoping for a return because it is within the context of exemplar that he understands himself, even if it is “made for mass production.” even if it was because “everybody want[ed] to be somebody” that they cared, at least they did. edie continues to rationalize the team as something great and believes a return is what he needs. / we’re just scapegoats all too dumb, body paint and day glow, where do trends go when you’re numb? when everybody wants to be somebody, they all care, and everybody wants to know themselves. we’re too scared, we’re still figuring it out. made for mass production, is it hard when you want more? was i made to function, or create, or just get bored?
promise made : fortress — mat kearney ( crazytalk ) / edie was quick to adopt earth, and more specifically america, as his purpose. this song is his promise to his new nation and its people when he arrived. when he arrived in the 70s, he was as hopeful as he was still hurting for the world he had lost, and if he could stop needless war and violence from taking even just one planet, he’ll feel as if he has done something meaningful, what he was unable to do when he was younger. however, america adopted him as much as he did it, and they were what allowed him to become the hero he wanted to be. / let me be your fortress, i’ll let you in. hideaway your secrets, i’ll carry them. you’re the one i’ve wanted to defend, if you let me be the hero i’ve never been. let me be the war already won, you can be the nation where i come from. we can be the kingdom yet to come, if you let me be the one.
the alien : burning man — dierks bentley ( the mountain ) / the most human thing about edie is how badly he wants to be, perhaps more human than anyone sees. he’s, at his core, a man who’s trying to find himself and help others. he’s calm and obedient, but he has a passion behind his somewhat robotic exterior. he’s constantly trying to both understand and emulate the human condition, without realizing that his desire to fit in is the most humanizing aspect to him. / i still don’t get it right sometimes, but i just don’t get it as wrong. i still go a little bit crazy sometimes, yeah, but now i don’t stay near as long. i’m a little bit steady, but still little bit rolling stone. i’m a little bit heaven, but still a little bit flesh and bone. little found, little don’t know where i am. i’m a little bit holy water, but still a little bit burning man.
controversy / conspiracy : made in america — waterparks ( double dare ) / for the most part, edie has been unaware ( either actually or by sheer force of will ) of the “ conspiracy ” that the exemplar were only puppets. however, that doesn’t mean that those ideas don’t impact the way people see him. to some the alien’s promise of defense and aid was cheapened by his donning of a skintight colored suit and red cape. even he thought that the team was a bit showy at times; however, to him it was a sacrifice that was made to do real good. / counting back down from showtime, and selling you a filtered frame. we, we’re made in america, we’re classic hysteria, we’re culture clashing, hazard smashing, maybe someone’s. we, we’re made in america, we’re fucked and don’t care at all. aesthetically, yeah, we’re so pleasing.
genesis : superheroes — the script ( no sound without silence ) / while it is often not seen, it is what edie experienced on his home planet that made him into a hero. it’s not that heroism is innate in his form, but something he grew to see as necessary after seeing such total destruction. / ‘cause he’s strong than you know, a heart of steel starts to grow. when you’ve been fighting for it all your life, you’ve been struggling to make things right, that’s how a superhero learns to fly. everyday, every hour, turn the pain into power.
rejection [ adjustment period, part iii ] : save myself — ed sheeran ( divide ) / between being separated from the team and the strange series of attempts at connection after the exemplar was disbanded, edie found him on unsteady ground. it was a choice to keep himself save to isolate. yet, even as he kept himself separate from the world, he hoped a new one would call to him, or ( even better ) that he would be recalled to the team, taking up the mantle he had come to wear. / and all the ones that love me, they just left me on the shelf, no farewell. so before i save someone else, i’ve got to save myself. but if i don’t, then i’ll go back, to where i’m rescuing a stranger just because they needed saving just like that.
family : one of us — new politics ( lost in translation ) / when the team was together, they were like family to edie. he had traveled across the galaxy and was alone when he came to earth. while he had taken the entirety of the earth under his wing, at least in his mind, living with the members of the exemplar was the time he felt closest to those around him. a new family to make him feel less alone, and ease the lost of his own family, his own people. edie is loyal to the team, almost in excess. he has their backs no matter what. / is this your staring role or just a cameo? who are you living for? when can’t take no more, cause when it rains, it pours. i don’t got much, but i got heart and soul. everybody needs a place to call their home, everybody needs someone to call their own, every when you’re lonely, know you’re not along. you’re one of us, one of us, one of us.
isolation : over my head ( cable car ) — the fray ( how to save a life ) / there was a small feeling of betrayal that edie felt when he realized he didn’t quite pass among humans in the way he thought he did, wishing that someone would have told him sooner. maybe then he would have been able to learn the intricacies better before he was on his own again. / i never knew that everything was falling through, that everyone i knew was waiting on a cue, to turn and run when all i needed was the truth, but that’s how it’s got to be. it’s coming down to nothing more than apathy, i’d rather run the other way than stay and see, the smoke, and who’s still standing when it clears.
return / reunion : get better — frank turner ( positive songs for negative people ) / when edie returned to hq, it was with a feeling of hope. he was sure that this was what he needed. any problems that occurred while the team was on hiatus could be fixed. he’s ready to take on whatever the world throws at them with a brave face, and he’ll encourage his teammates to do the same. / i got no new tricks, yeah i’m up on bricks, but me, i’m a machine and i was built to last. i took a battering but i’ve got thicker skin and the best people i know looking out for me. i’m trying to get better because i haven’t been my best. try and get better and don’t ever accept less. take a plain black marker and write this on your chest, draw a line underneath all of this unhappiness. come on now, let’s fix this mess. we could get better, because we’re not dead yet.
nostalgia : lost in nostalgia — the maine ( lovely little lonely ) / even though he was never sure he would answer a call that took him from earth, it was the hope that he would hear one that kept edie from focusing too much on the past. he knew he had to keep looking forward, even if that meant looking somewhere else. yet, there were certainly moments when he slipped back into thinking about the good old days, probably more than he would like to admit. / don’t you get lost in nostalgia, no, turn something softer and lighter, yeah. don’t you get lost in nostalgia, no. it’s not too late, it’s not too late.
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To Stare Into Darkness: The Infestation Incident Of Black Lotus Labs
As Told By Four Letters Unsent, Three Letters Sent, And The Official Report Drafted By Acolyte Consecrate Iria Strell
For those of you who have been following the gay murder elf bachelorette campaign (official title, In Their Footsteps We Shall Follow) (or have not been following but have become interested considering the number of memes I've been spanning of Book 5 of it), it has the backstory and narrative crafting of a full series of novellas more than a DnD campaign, and the fourth book recently came to its magnificent conclusion. (hence the Book 5 memes). Which means, of course, that I have to write a novella about it.
gay murder elf bachelorette tells the story of Iria Strell, a Caedic elf and solid villain of this setting considering the Caedic Empire is an aggressively expansionist empire whose magic is fueled and religion is centered around blood sacrifice. It is equal parts Iria Strell being evil doin’ her cool evil things and Iria Strell falling in love with every pretty girl who crosses her path, so a lot of fun.
there exists a Book 2 and a Book 3 summary as well, if you haven’t read them either feel free to read them or just have fun here with context clues, this one stands alone pretty well and is a lot more readable than the others because I had to actually seriously think about what parts of it made a Good Story out of the....nearly 33 hours of recording that were made of the six chapters. and I think a Good Story did come out! so if you’re willing to stick with me, boy do I have a wild ride for you consisting of: friendship, gayness, twisted emotions of wondering if you’re good enough, coping with the slow loss of mobility from an old injury while adjusting to civilian life, mad science, more gayness, and the friends you make and bonds you forge while dealing with a surprise zombie-coral-crystal-parasite-fungus attack together at your mad science lab.
(tw very mild body horror-- third paragraph of the first (unsent) letter to Talvus, midway through second to last paragraph of the first (unsent) letter to Maldai Varricon, and third paragraph of the official report. also a mild amount of stabbing scattered throughout, but this came from DnD so what do you expect, and a large amount of stabbing in the final battle, which hopefully should be fairly obvious when it begins, also in the official report.)
_______________________
Dear Talvus,
There’s no way I’m going to send this letter, considering you disappeared without saying goodbye, let alone leaving a mailing address; but I’ve been stuck in bed for three days with a broken leg and am supposed to stay put for another two, which means I’ve really got nothing better to do than write.
So I left for Black Lotus Labs, in Insul. I work for the Department of the Craftsman now. I’m a junior researcher in Summer Division, which I was a little confused about at first, considering Winter Division is the Division doing all of the research regarding developments for the Army, but it immediately became very clear that I was assigned to Summer. I’m like a dragon amongst lizards—a scientist, not someone in the guard division, but who has active combat experience. The expedition that I was assigned to certainly was dangerous enough to merit that, hence the broken leg, although the fight with the dryad may have been the least dangerous part.
There’s something here called the Misery. It’s strange and fascinating—not magical in and of itself, we don’t think, just a stage in the life cycle of the moths. It starts out as a cloud of thick mist, although you can see the maggots on the trees before you get to the mist proper. The maggots materialize on color, and leech it away to a stark white. That’s why we had to wear these large, unwieldy full-body suits with a breathing apparatus and mask that filtered air through black cloth; otherwise, the maggots would form in our lungs. They eventually transform into moths, which eat flesh. Very unpleasant, but not particularly deadly, they don’t travel in large numbers and they die when you swat them same as normal moths.
But what the Misery was caused by—well, we call it the Catalyst. It was an artifact in some ancient temple; Talvus, the temple alone is something worthy of years of study. It had working magical wards in the walls and the floors, and it must have been abandoned for centuries. Think of what we could do if we could store spells in objects—powerful spells—that showed little to no decay, that activated on a trigger without needing a mage to activate them.
(I know, my motives are painfully clear. Can’t let the mages have all the fun. One day technology will catch up with you, just you wait.)
But the temple—two or so years back, an expedition found it, and they found the Catalyst in the center of it. They did something, and it exploded. Lux Maelius, our Senior Research Lead, and Ovir Arbutus, a Research Lead now but he was only a guard at the time—they were the only two survivors, because they were outside in a courtyard when it happened. So they managed to make it out. Then there was a hurricane of magical energy that raged for months, then it settled down into the Misery.
We set up makeshift labs in the heart of the Misery, near the ruins. We spent a few days studying it, running tests. I was able to figure out some things about Green magic and life magic that might be adaptable into better healing potions. Two researchers joined us partway—Vennikus, you remember her from when she visited us on the front?, and a friend of hers, Chaera Canth. I tried to jump in a little bit on some of the bugswarm intelligence projects Vennikus was doing, because it seemed slightly more exciting than staring at mist, but I was making more progress staring at mist so eventually I went back to that. This sort of research isn’t really my forte and I was thrown right in with barely an hour to drop my stuff off in my rooms before I was told the expedition was leaving, and I was informed about the Misery as we walked through it. It’s not like it was a waste of time, by any means. I did contribute some things. Suggest some experimental setups. But the real reason we were here became evident when Arbutus and Lux started arguing. Arbutus wanted us to bring the Catalyst out of the Misery, so that it could properly be studied. We took a vote on who would be willing to risk themselves to fetch it. I, of course, volunteered. I know she said why would you seek it, but, well, the Wolf said that to the both of us together and you weren’t here. Besides, it was Serae that was half blown off the map, not Insul.
So we went into the ruins and we set up another makeshift lab around the Catalyst. It is not particularly impressive in appearance: a large, dark, opaque crystal, perhaps the size and shape of a forearm, floating above the pedestal. More notable was how it felt, even to me, rooms away. Like something was just off. Like that twinge in your stomach right before you get nauseous, and it only got stronger the closer we got. And if that was my reaction, well, I’m sure you’d hate it. It has these sparks that seem to interact in my favorite way with life and magic and the stability of energy, namely, by exploding. We’ve tested it against leaves and small bugs—it will annihilate them completely. Felt a little bit dangerous to be doing all the tests considering we weren’t sure what made it explode into the Misery in the first place, but we managed to conclude “don’t let it touch living things and it won’t explode too much.” And we had to, in order to properly design the container to take it back. Arbutus argued and won that we couldn’t just leave it. We made a makeshift case and packed it up with the rest of our stuff to head back to the main labs.
The dryad attacked us a little bit after we got out of the Misery, so at least we could breathe properly again and had the suits half off. It made these golems that went for the carts, but we had three other ex-military folks of some kind or another on the expedition, so I left them to deal with that and leapt straight into the grove of trees and thorns that it summoned around itself, and then we just…fought it out. I was close, I was so close to taking it down. But it got a really good hit in that cracked my femur and then decided it wasn’t worth it and booked it, and delivering the Catalyst to Black Lotus Labs was more important than going after a single native resistance fighter. Although I still have no idea whether or not it was attacking us for the fun of attacking us, because we’re Caedic and this island has decided it hates all things Caedic, or if it actually knew something about the Catalyst. I tried asking it—her, maybe?—you know how chatty I get when fighting—but I’m pretty sure she didn’t speak our language, as all she did was scream incomprehensibly back at me. So now I’m here after my first successful week sitting around in the med bay with a philosophy book Vennikus brought me and some security reports and a couple of interesting research papers, killing time until I’m allowed up and about and back to the labs where I can start working on the healing potions and merging of Green magic and ritual magic properly.
Let’s see, what else is there. I’ve been making friends. There’s Arbutus, who first told me that I didn’t need to act all formal because we weren’t in as strict a hierarchy as the military when I gave him a whole rundown before the expedition about my combat abilities and drawbacks and what I’d be like in a fight because I let Silvanus down when we were attacked on the way from the ships to the labs by a satyr—Saren according to the report the guards here have on him—and these great terrible lizards called dinosaurs he had gathered, because I fainted when I shouldn’t have. After the fight where I kicked all their asses but, well. I still went down. So Silvanus has seen me faint but she was on the “let’s get the Catalyst” side and does seem to at least give me credit for my skills. She has a spear, she’s really cool. I’m still really gay. I think she thinks I’m cool. Please don’t make fun of my attention span. Anyways, Arbutus might be mad at me because a few days after his whole speech about there being no ranks here I gave a fairly impassioned rant in front of the whole expedition about how if we were going to bring the Catalyst out, we couldn’t bring it back to the labs, a separate bunker had to be made until we knew what made it explode or we’d be putting all the Empire’s research at risk, and he told me that first of all, I was right and they’d build a bunker, and second, okay there still kind of were ranks here and I should never speak to him like that again.
Who else. Vennikus is here, and possibly flirting with me. She has a friend, as I mentioned, Canth, so hopefully that’ll go over fine, Canth seems to tolerate me without any problems. And I met Lia Bassus and Talia Aurelia on the ship over, Lia Bassus is trying to do magical transportation and so came with us into the Misery, and Talia’s working on this project that looks into other planes. As in entirely other realities superimposed over our own. There's this weird strange grey realm that she showed me, (perhaps the Arcane Other?), and though it was full daylight when she ran the experiment, through the window of the little room her team had cobbled together, I could see the distant stars of a different sky. Neither her nor Lia Bassus seemed particularly impressed by my altar when I mentioned it on the boat, so I’m pretty sure I’m not at all exceptional for what the expected level of creativity and craftsmanship is here. I guess I’ll be joining everyone for normal day-to-day research as soon as this leg heals.
I miss you, a lot. I hope you’re having just as much fun as me, wherever you are. Hopefully not with the broken leg. Still, totally worth it.
Love,
Iria
———
Dear Talvus,
So I work in Winter Division now. Remember Galen Torus? The Exarch who was there when we were presenting the delayed explosive designs to Professor Acari? He showed up and requested me and just me for a special secret Winter Division project. And then promoted me to Senior Researcher on the spot because he was annoyed that I wasn’t being immediately given full access to things for the project because of my Junior Researcher status, which is one way to climb the ranks here, I guess.
There was this…mechanical contraption, found wrecked in the jungle. Some sort of war machine, we think. It looks like a humanoid—it has arms, and legs—but its interior entirely consists of clockwork. Galen and I have spent a few days examining it and nothing magical animated it. It’s just metal. But it moved and it fought and we’re going to figure out what made it tick.
He says that this work is of upmost importance to the Empire, and he’s stayed at the labs to work on it himself, but he still hasn’t pulled anyone but me for the project. I don’t know if it’s because it’s more efficient to work alone, or if the project is more secret than it appeared to be, or if I’m more useful at these kinds of things than I thought. Mechanics make sense to me.
I’ve been working as hard as I can to try not to disappoint him. I stay in the labs the entire day, except unlike you, I grab extra rations at breakfast so I can go through lunch without skipping the actual eating part. I hope that you’re remembering to eat.
Love,
Iria
———
Dear Talvus,
So everything’s gone to shit, as it does.
It was just another normal day at the labs, and then the dryad and the satyr and a whole bunch of dinosaurs made the first actually organized attack. Galen and I were working on the construct when it happened. We heard it first. I had a prototype of a weapon from the construct that I was able to strap on in time for the first dinosaur that burst into the room, which at this point I was very efficient in dispatching of. Then the dryad that came after it, which I had a bit harder of a time dealing with. I fought it to a standstill, but it wasn't enough without a proper pair of weapons to gain any sort of upper hand, and all it took was a stumble for the thing to slip past me and attack Galen. I stared in horror as blood spurted from him and he was pushed backwards—only he didn't fall, and the blood didn't flow, it condensed into the shape of a sword and he flicked it out and it cut with no resistance through a large portion of the dryad's hand. She stepped back, in shock, and then turned and fled. Galen turned to me, his back straight, his face hard, his eyes bright. He tossed me the sword. I caught it.
"Finish it," he said.
I grinned and turned to chase the thing.
The rest was...it was both crystal clear and a blur to me, Talvus. I've never gone so deep, so cold, there was something bubbling inside of me like some sort of rage, a perfect insanity. The only thing that remained in my mind were Galen Torus's orders, echoing, Finish it. I know that this sounds like...like there was some sort of compulsion associated with those words, but there wasn't. It's just—he's been this untouchable, unreachable figure. I've worked with him day in and day out for over a month and I haven't been able to get any sort of read on him, or on whether he thinks my work has at all been adequate. I was so ready, Talvus. I was so ready to be responsible, to stay and guard the construct, to admit that it was no longer my role to bring enemies of the Empire to the sharp end of my blade. But in my heart of hearts, I wanted to fight. And there was Galen Torus, showing the closest thing I had seen to an emotion from him in the vicious tilt of his smile, throwing me a sword made of his own blood and ordering me to do the one thing that I wanted to do more than anything else.
In that moment, I would have done anything for him.
I tore through two—maybe three?—of the smaller raptors sprinting along the destruction the dryad had left in its wake. They barely slowed me down. I was getting to a part of the facility that I was unfamiliar with. The dryad's path led to a larger open room with cots, almost like a medical bay, which was strange, because there already was a medical bay and not really enough people getting hurt here day to day to need another. Some guards were off in one corner fighting off more dinosaurs. The dryad was in the other corner, and I lurched forwards, ready to Finish it, when someone in Senior Research Lead robes and a cane got absolutely mauled by one of the larger dinosaurs across the other entrance. I absolutely would not have cared, except with one motion of his hand he magicked his guts back together, finished speedwalking across the room, threw healing on me (which in hindsight, was much appreciated), then wheezed, "I trust from the look on your face that you're rather more of a fighter than I am. I'm going to stand behind you now, if you don't mind."
I absolutely did mind, there was now a very large dinosaur between me and my intended target, but it seemed rude to abandon the Senior Research Lead right after he'd healed me, and besides, the combination of his rank and the power he'd so casually wielded made me think that there was a slight chance that he was an Exarch too, and I couldn't risk disobeying an Exarch's orders. So I tore through the dinosaur in four angry hits, and then as there were no more dinosaurs on my side of the room, abandoned the maybe-Exarch in the corner and finally closed the last of the distance to attack the dryad.
It was a difficult fight. But it—she—could not stand against me now that I was properly armed, and certainly not with the maybe-Exarch throwing magic of every kind at me to strengthen me as I cut her to pieces. And then, as I could still feel that strength roaring in my blood, I caught sight of the satyr Saren halfway up the wall on the other side of the room and just charged him. I had to jump, leveraging myself up a wall to reach him and I plunged the sword into his gut, impaling him. He lost his grip on the wall and the two of us slammed into the ground, driving my—Galen's—blade even deeper into him. He pushed up, scrambled back, tried to run away, and had his back to me, a cowardly death, as I whipped Galen's sword around again and decapitated him. It gets a bit hazy after. I'm pretty sure I charged the remaining live dinosaurs across the room, but at that point I'd put Bishops know how much strain on my injury, and I blacked out.
I awoke in the same room, on one of the cots, with the Senior Research Lead standing over me. Up close I could see he was nowhere near as old as I'd assumed; the cane was some sort of tool of the trade. Looking at his face, he couldn't be much older than you.
He spoke first.
"I must say, you might be the best person to hide behind in a fight that I've ever met. It doesn't really take much hiding when everything goes down in a spray of blood in a matter of seconds."
I wasn't quite sure what to say back, so I just replied, "Happy to be of service."
"You should be fine to stand. I've fixed all your injuries, and that old wound, well, your muscles have cleared for the moment. It's been long enough that they've unlocked."
His robes were still in tatters, and there were bodies of guards and dinosaurs still in the room, so not much time could have passed. His wounds were totally healed, although with his robes in pieces instead of buttoned up higher than most people around here wear them, a huge, roughly circular scar across his throat was visible, which would explain the wheeze. He helped me up.
"What's your name?" he said.
"Iria Strell," I said. It felt weird to introduce myself without rank, but what was I supposed to say? My robes denoted me as Senior Researcher. Consecrated Acolyte—right, Galen Torus consecrated me, I guess he decided that I'd done enough work—still, Consecrated Acolyte didn't really seem to apply, we didn't really...go by clergy rank here. Even though it's been months since we left the Army, I settled with, "I was a Corporal Specialist before here." I guess old habits die hard.
He wasn't wearing enough jewelry for me to judge where in the nobility he would lie, and the Black Lotus Labs uniforms don't include pips on the collars, so I had no idea where in the clergy he ranked, but he was wearing gold, so he was nobility, which meant no matter what I was bowing, and he'd been throwing around a ridiculous amount of power so even if he was too young to be an Exarch, well—he'd totally saved my hide, so I went with the deepest waist bow. I know you don't care, but then he said:
"Qaedius Galseii."
Galseii.
I had nearly snubbed someone Bishop family and had just... luckily guessed that I should do the most respectful possible bow that someone from my station would give someone from a station above me because he'd been good at healing and I didn't recognize that he was Bishop family and just. Thank the Bishops, Talvus, I nearly snubbed a Galseii, I know you really really couldn't care less but that moment was more terrifying to me than the entirety of the fight had been, in an instant of ignorance I could have made enemies of someone who now I think has a great deal of professional respect for me from the abilities that I demonstrated and I didn't because I was lucky enough to guess that hey, maybe I should show more respect than might be necessary to someone with such powerful magic. Well. It was really fucking necessary.
(We've actually been professional acquaintances since, I made the mistake in our second interaction when he politely asked me about how I was and I thought he meant my research not how I was healing and I got overly excited when delving into an explanation of the mechanics of the hand razors, because the hand razors are cool! which he shut down with an "oh just because I'm personal with my patients as my patients doesn't mean we should be overly familiar in any other context" and I just wanted to die but I held my tongue and apologized at the end of the conversation with a "sorry I just get super excited about research" and I think he indicated that he understood and Talvus, it is a snakepit ever having to interact with any other noble ever. I'm bad at this. I'm bad at it and I hate it. But at least I don't think I messed this one up. And either way, I'm still the best person to hide behind in a fight that he's ever met. Haven't lost that yet.)
But anyways. Woke up in the cot, not dead. Qaedius continued, "And, well, I don't know what lab policy regarding this information is going to be going forward, but now that you're conscious, it's probably best if you left Spring Division."
Which I suppose answered the question of where I was. We have a secret Spring Division, not just Summer, Autumn, and Winter. How fun is that!
Things have settled down again. I couldn't move at all the next day because of the strain I'd put on my injury, but the day after I was walking again. I went back to research with Galen. Well, of course, because I couldn’t not, I asked Galen as politely as I could where he learned to make a sword like that from his blood and where I might try to learn it because I would never assume that I could ask him to teach me but maybe if I knew where I could study it I could figure it out on my own. He said it was a technique that only he and the person who developed it—a mysterious her—knew, so it wasn’t something I’d be able to learn or find easily. I thought it that was that, and then I came the next morning to find him clearing tools off of tables. I was worried for a moment that our project had ended; I asked if he was leaving, and he said no, this was maybe the most important work we could be doing for the Empire, just that he needed the space if he was going to teach me. Which just flabbergasted me of what, I was worth an hour off of the most important work we could be doing for the Empire? We’ve been practicing ever since. It’s hard, I can barely make my blood take a shape, let alone reach the metallization stage, but maybe one day I’ll be able to make a sword out of my own blood. Never catch me unarmed at a party again.
And now things are back to normal around here. The rhythms of research. Spring Division, which was entirely secret, has been joining us in the mess hall considering most to all of their buildings were destroyed, and now they’re somewhat less secret but we’re all quietly pretending we don’t notice for the time being and until someone higher up decides what to do about the whole involuntarily declassified thing. I’m working with Galen every day on the construct. Qaedius usually sits with me at meals. As I said, professional acquaintance, but an acquaintance enough that I can talk about my research sometimes because he's actually sitting with me and that is the only thing that is discussed at tables because we're all nerds. Vennikus thought that it was very impressive that I fought as well as I did. She always sits with me. It’s fine. Everything is fine. I wish it were fine.
It took me a day before I could walk again, Talvus. I couldn’t get up the morning after. I can walk again now but it feels worse. Like something in my back has torn. All I can think of is there’s going to be a fight that’s going to be the last time I’m able to fight in any serious capacity, I don’t know when it’s going to be, I’m probably not going to know until after the fact, I just…it feels like I should be weighing every battle I go into with an “is this worth it, is this worthy of being the very last time I’m ever able to fight,” and under that scrutiny a dryad and a satyr that the guard could have dealt with themselves—I don’t know if it was worth it. I don’t want this to be the last time I ever fight. That Galen is wasting his time on me teaching my how to shape my blood into a weapon because how much longer am I going to be able to use weapons? What would you do, if you knew that every spell that you cast might be the last needle you had the power left to thread? How would you…stay you? How do I stay me when the one thing that I was really good at, the one thing that I ever really wanted to do, is not only irresponsible for me to keep doing, but one day it’s just…going to be gone. I don’t know if I can handle it being gone.
I’ve been doing some pretty fantastic science, though. I keep developing things. The hand razors I mentioned. Qaedius didn’t think it was cool. You probably wouldn’t care much either, but the mechanical contraption we found, it had weapons hidden in its arms. I’ve been able to make modifications to these bracers with hidden blades in them, combat spurs that I can use for interception and different vectors of movement. It’s…it feels like hope. This thing has to move so much differently than we move, it weighs so much more, but if I can adapt bits of its structure, maybe I can come up with a different fighting style. One that I’d be able to keep at, even as more and more bits of me start to fail. There are all the official parts of my projects that I’m working on. Trying to make mechanical magic and all that. But I can keep hoping for an entirely new way of approaching combat in the spare time that I have.
I bet Lex will think that my hand razors are cool. He actually answers my letters. He actually told me where to send letters in the first place. You better not be dead.
Love,
Iria
———
To Vilum Lex
Department of the Doctor
Veteris
Dear Lex,
You’ll never guess who showed up out of the blue today. Our mage friend. The big dummy, he didn’t warn me he was coming, I don’t even think he knew I was here. I still missed him so much that I can’t be mad at him. I totally rescued him from some raptors before he even got to the lab proper, so things are back to normal. Just as stressful sitting next to him wondering who he’s going to terribly offend today, although he’s high up enough in the pecking order that I no longer have to worry about him getting in too much trouble for it. And he’s doing what he always does. He immediately jumped onto Talia’s project just hearing it described at lunch—still partially bleeding from wildlife ambush wounds, mind you, but hey, at least he was eating lunch—elbowed his way in past the project supervisor to run his own test and impressed absolutely everyone by pulling a breakthrough out of thin air. And didn’t get in trouble because it was such a great breakthrough. It’s like something has been righted in the world, I can breathe freely again, I know that he’s alive and well and still…him, and he’s back next to me.
So you’ve got to take my side on this, you appreciate sharp pointy things. I have made these absolutely revolutionary bracers that look perfectly normal, you could probably even get them to look decorative, I’m working on a new pair with lined backsides so you can’t even immediately tell if someone takes them off to examine them what the payload is, and all it takes is a directed wrist gesture and out pops a concealed, specially sharpened blade. No one here cares. And then our mutual mage friend got here and he also could not see the appeal of it other than oh, another sharp thing! Like, does he have any idea how much work went into miniaturizing the mechanical contraption to get that all to fit in a bracer? And the spring-loading, in a manner that you don’t have to take it apart to re-load it? And the way you have to temper the metal so that it’s just as strong as a conventional blade, and the attachment mechanisms of the bracer have to be such that it’s just as steady as if it were something that’s being held the way you hold weapons, which let me tell you, was a non-trivial problem to solve. And did I mention I came up with a new sharpening technique? Which I’ve been applying to everything, including the hand razor blade. That’s cool, right, and useful? It’s already saved my life once because the corridors here are too small for it to be reasonable for me to carry around a pair of scimitars all the time, but bracers are easy to just wear and don’t interfere with range of motion when doing research and anyone who thinks I’m paranoid can tell that to the trail of dead dinosaurs and Fae I’ve been carving through here. But you think they’re cool, right? Please tell me you think it’s cool. I am surrounded by scientists who only appreciate things that stab when it’s all that’s between them and toothy death, but it is objectively cool. I will show you my new knife-sharpening technique if you tell me you think it’s cool.
Unfortunately, Vennikus and I haven’t gotten any further in testing the health potion, but I do think it’s still an active project? I’d have to check with her, I’ve been moved to another division. Actually, I’ve been working on another project that might eventually make its way to the Department of the Doctor, there are these mechanical seals that are a bit hard to prepare, but once you’ve got them prepped it’s foolproof, slap them on a wound and they’ll automatically deploy: it’ll both physically bind to the body and act as a bandage, as well as it imparts magical healing. I haven’t had time to test them in the field yet but I’m pretty proud of them, they’ve worked in all the lab trials I’ve run. I’m working to try to develop them further, make them easier to store, easier to prepare, less expensive to prepare, that sort of things. Right now the design includes rubies, and I don’t think there’s an easy way to get rid of that without disrupting the energy flow of the whole thing, but, of course, that’s a significant barrier to mass production. If you have any ideas, I’m all ears.
I hope things have continued going well for you. Let me know if there’s any interesting Capital gossip. It’s all very quiet here, everyone is extremely friendly and gets along with no drama whatsoever, because drama would be a distraction from research; which is great, it means no petty fighting that gets in the way of progress, but I hate being out of the loop. I spent three years in the Army being out of the loop, I have so much catching up to do.
With sincerity,
Iria Strell
———
To Celsus Strell
The Strell Estate
Veteris
Dear Celsus,
I refuse to fall out of contact with you just weeks after I finally got to see you again. Black Lotus Labs is a touch far for visiting, and I’m doing such important work here so I’m not sure the next time I’m going to be home—which means letters it is. I’m a Senior Researcher already. And a Consecrated Acolyte. I am doing absolutely fascinating research here, a lot with military applications, because of course, that’s my specialty, but we’re not really supposed to talk about research much.
But by the Bishops you would not believe how much drama has been going down.
So there’s a researcher here—well, I guess technically she’s an Instigator, she is in charge of starting new projects, she was a Senior Researcher when I met her out when I was in the Army—there was a Fae font that we discovered while mapping out land near the Surrian border, and she came to take samples, and we hit it off, killed a Fae construct together, and I made a joke about if she had any more potions that she wanted to test in the field, well, I’d be happy to test them for her because she gave me a really cool potion that let me shoot fire from my eyes while we fought the thing and then even though it was totally a joke and that was not a good week for trying to get Arcadia to laugh at my jokes, anyways I joked that if she had any other potions I was happy to be a test subject and she just…handed me another potion she’d been working on and said yeah great I should write and tell her what it does. So I guess it did kind of fall flat. The joke. The potion worked great, it helped me and Talvus get a lot less injured than we might have when we were ambushed by a party of Rat Clan orcs coming back from the Highlands. Anyways, I wrote to her and she wrote back and I wrote to her again and she sent me this really cool beetle that let me see magic that was absolutely instrumental in trying to test my altar designs and she was just a really good friend, so I was excited that I was going to be at Black Lotus Labs because even if everything else was horrible, at least I was going to have one friend here, right? Vennikus Callo, my brand new friend. Right?
Wrong.
Well sort of right, I’m pretty sure we are friends, she was waiting by my bedside for me to wake up after I broke my leg in a fight with a dryad and she lent me her favorite philosophy book to read so that we could talk about philosophy together and she’d said that she was really glad that I was a researcher even though she originally thought I was here as a guard because she thought I was smart and could do a lot of good doing research here and she was actively nice to me in all of our written exchanges before I got here, like, really really nice, she didn’t have to be, I was just the soldier that led her to the Fae font and did my job of stabbing the thing that tried to attack her and nothing remarkable beyond that. And then here I was an entry-level scientist with absolutely no background in magic or higher schooling, and she still finds me interesting and wants to spend time with me. Which makes us friends. I think. It’s sometimes so hard to tell, I guess I still have trouble trusting if people really are my friend. But I’m pretty sure that Vennikus Callo is my friend. Actually, I think people don’t really make friends too much here, they don’t tend to socialize out of their research groups, but I’ve been pulling anyone and everyone who wants to come to morning practice to either spar with me or I’ll teach them how to spar—so I’ve gathered Talia Aurelia, whom I met on the ship ride over and has been a morning practice and mealtime buddy ever since, Vennikus, of course, Alexis Corinthian, who is great and ex-Army so by default the most reliable to spar with—and then the breakfast table is sometimes joined by Chaera Canth and some friends from another department, which I think means that my table is the single most cross-divisional table in the mess hall. It’s a really great table. Plenty of friendly acquaintances to go around for everyone.
Anyways. Vennikus Callo. I don’t know how to describe her to you. She’s really sharp, and has an incredible wit. Her memory is insane, she can recite entire passages from books and I’ve seen her listen to information being recited at her and have it down all in one go. She’s really good at fighting, she practices with me sometimes, and she’s holding back, I can tell. Maybe not a trained soldier, but she’s fast. And she just…holds herself with this poise. She conducts herself in a manner around the labs that seems…approachable. Amiable. Easy to work with. But there are tiny bits and places where you can tell that is a conscious choice, that she would have no trouble navigating the highest circles of nobility; I suppose she just does not see it necessary, or perhaps not efficient, to run a lab like that. She is an incredible project manager. She’s actually made a couple of jokes about starting projects in areas that I have expressed interest in, which on the one hand I do think they would be interesting projects but on the other hand I was too busy at the time to jump on anything else, and it felt a little bit like trying to use my friendship to get an advantage, which, also, while she technically wasn’t my personal supervisor when I was in Summer Division—that was kind of Canth, we were partners on a project but I was the Junior and she was the Senior Researcher—but she was still kind of my superior. Although there totally was a time where I had just figured out this way to combine Caedic blood magic and Green magic in this ritual that drained the life force from a plant and then could be used for various things and we were all talking about it at dinner and she seemed really really interested in it and I was like “listen, why don’t I show you, it’s only half an hour or so” and she was like “right now? after dinner?” and I was like “unless you have evening plans?” because there are usually a few hours after dinner before sleeping and people don’t always go back to their labs and she said great and we finished eating dinner and were heading out of the mess hall and she was like “sooooo….my room?” and I was like “oh does your room have plants in it? because we need a plant?” and we just. stared at each other for a moment. As I realized that I was a fucking idiot and Vennikus was definitely interested in me and I’d just been propositioned to and Vennikus realized that I had been 100% serious about just showing her the plant thing and hadn’t been propositioning to her. And it was terrible and before I could say “your room is also fine” she said “right, we should probably do the lab.” Which she also really was interested in the plant thing, we went to the lab, she only had to see me do it once before she was able to reproduce it herself which was pretty incredible and it was definitely not an evening wasted, we both had fun.
So I ended up transferring to another division and for a while I was taking meals in the mess hall less, like, just grabbing food at breakfast to take me through lunch and then a late dinner from the kitchens, which meant we were only really seeing each other at morning practices, I hold those before breakfast. Still can’t shake that Army scheduling of rising with the sun. Anyways, so Vennikus was coming to a number of those, and there was a blood magic thing that my….supervisor? mentor, maybe? —okay this is a total aside, but there’s an Exarch who took interest in me during the Trials at first because of a delayed explosive that Talvus and I developed but then he said that he looked forward to what I was going to do with my altar so I had to do something cool with my altar which was most of the reason why instead of just trying to design a functional altar I designed an altar with bronze needles physically threaded with blood that could cast arcane magic—and I’m pretty sure that he was the one who got me the job at Black Lotus Labs. Apparently it’s not that common around here to get recruited directly after passing the Trials. I guess I showed enough promise? He also had me transferred from Summer division because there was a project he wanted me working on and I’ve been working under him and it’s—it’s great. I’m doing so much more here than I was doing before. It’s just the two of us on this project, and we’ve made so much progress. I couldn’t be more exhilarated. I am serving the Empire here possibly more meaningfully than I have served anywhere else in the entirety of my life, and that’s what matters, you know? I just can’t help but feel that I owe everything in my career to this Exarch. I wouldn’t have done anything special with my altar if it weren’t for him encouraging me, I wouldn’t be here at Black Lotus Labs if I hadn’t been noticed by the Department of the Craftsman for that even if he didn’t specifically recommend me for the job, he was the impetus behind the altar and that had to be what got me noticed. And I was…mediocre at best in my previous division. And now I’ve been promoted to a Senior Researcher and I’m working on something that I’m really, really good at but I wouldn’t have been pulled for this project if he hadn’t specifically pulled me. At least in the Army with Varricon once it became obvious that they were going to keep me in their unit, well—Maldai was Dad’s friend. And I knew what they were training me for, to be a tactician, to continue a career in the Army. I have no idea what this Exarch has singled me out for, or if I’ve even been singled out as much as it was just I was the person at the facility who had the most relevant skillset and was working on the least important things and none of it is supposed to mean anything. But it still sort of feels like he’s mentoring me. Let’s stick with my supervisor because it’s safer and that bit I’m sure about. So— there was a piece of blood magic that my supervisor gave me to practice, mostly to build up my skills because I’m not particularly experienced in that regard, and I was just getting up a quarter of an hour early to practice exercises on that before morning practice. And Vennikus, who didn’t always come to morning practice, did start coming to those because she’s good at blood magic because she’s good at everything and just. She was there to give me tips and spot me, I guess, make sure I didn’t mess up horribly and hurt myself. I was using my own blood, after all. Anyways it was just one morning like any other and we were going through the exercises and Vennikus said, “Hey. Strell. We should hook up.”
And so of course my concentration breaks and there’s blood on the floor and I tried to play it all cool and I think I said something like, “Yeah, sounds good to me.”
And then she maybe said “Great” back and all I could think of was how utterly ridiculous and not suave I was sounding so I tried to re-gain control of the situation by, like, leaning back against the wall to look cool and I tried to say “your room or mine?” except my blood was still on my floor and it was slippery and I definitely slipped in it and fell flat on my ass. And she just. Came over and looked at me. And said “you know, if I weren’t already decided on the matter, you wouldn’t be doing a very good job at convincing me right now.” And I just sat there gaping in a pile of my own blood until Talia came in the room for morning practice and Talia was like “what happened?” and I was just. Still staring after Vennikus and had a moment of oh shit, what do I do, because I had no idea how public Vennikus wanted to be, and I had no idea what Talia’s feelings for me were either, like, I think I’m her closest friend? Outside of my morning practice and thus meal group, I don’t really see her interacting much with anyone? and I wasn’t really sure what my feelings for her were because, like. She’s a really sweet person. A bit shy. Really passionate about her work. And we’d gotten close. Just, I knew Vennikus and I knew I really liked Vennikus and Vennikus just…has this way of being so bright and sharp and multifaceted and makes everyone look graywashed in her wake. But also I…my feelings towards Vennikus weren’t really the romantic sort? Just. She was someone who was already my friend. And I already liked. And she is really really hot.
So I didn’t want to hurt Talia’s feelings but I also didn’t want to lie to Talia, you know? So I just kind of. Kept staring after where Vennikus had left, and then finally got out, “it’s fine, I’m just a gay mess” because that was vague enough that it didn’t actually pin anything to Vennikus if she didn’t want to be associated with me but it was also entirely the truth. And Talia stared at me, and then turned and looked to the corridor Vennikus had gone down, and then turned to me again, and said, “Oh,” and I really couldn’t read the expression on her face but at least she didn’t look….actively upset? And then we just continued morning practice and it was fine.
Oh, the answer was Vennikus’s room, which led to my second big question of so am I supposed to dress up and try at all to look pretty, or do I just go right after I get out of the lab in my uniform and not care? And I was really torn because I have been given solid advice from several sources that I should really try harder to actually look like a noble and bother caring about my appearance, but also, we were all really busy researchers and was Vennikus going to care whether or not I bothered to waste my time and hers trying to put on makeup and I decided screw it, Vennikus had known me for a few months, she knew what a complete mess I was and what she was getting into and if I thought a little bit of eyeliner was going to change her opinion now, I was definitely being stupid, and that the wasted time bit would have been a bigger insult. Which, thank Bishops, was finally something that I was right about, this wasn’t a “put on something a little bit pretty after work and we’ll go on as best a date as we can make happen” thing, she’d already changed into her nightwear, it was a fling, pure and simple. And that bit I can do. Behind-closed-doors flings seem to be my specialty.
And then, just through—bits of conversation, I guess, who’s passing who in hallways, allusions, maybe just instinct—over the two weeks, I became almost positive that Vennikus was also seeing Chaera Canth.
So Chaera Canth. I met Canth on my first week, when I was working on a project out in the field and Vennikus and Canth came to join a few days in. She and Vennikus seemed pretty close? They had exactly the sort of “why are you doing this dangerous thing” “because I’m me? next” dynamic that you only get when you are actually legitimately fond of someone. So I figured that Canth and Vennikus were at the very least pretty good friends if Canth was watching out for her like that, and I really didn’t want the same thing to happen with her that happened between me and Impera Casque during the Trials—namely, Impera Casque decided the moment that I met her that she absolutely loathed me and everything I did, and I’m still not sure why, because I didn’t get up and leave when she and Helena sat at my table or something?—anyways, if Canth and Vennikus were already friends I wanted to make sure that I was playing nice with Canth so that I didn’t have a co-worker who hated my guts next to someone that I was trying to spend time with. And then we were assigned to work on the same project about the connections between Caedic magic and Green magic and we were cooperating just fine as co-heads and I genuinely liked working with her. I invited her to my morning practices when it looked like we were trying to develop a combat application for one of the things we were working on, and she has the background of a ritualist and cleric, not that of a warrior, and so she had been showing up to those every once in a while. She was pretty good, too. And she was one of the regulars at my table during mealtimes. And she’d sometimes catch me and pass on messages to me after morning practice even when she didn’t come when I was hurrying off to get a head start on research skipping breakfast, because that’s the sort of reliable, solid person she is, who would look out for her colleagues. But anyways. We worked together for a while. She apparently really liked my altar design for Craftsman, we had a conversation one morning in our lab with her slamming down papers in front of me and going “Strell, what is this!” and I was really terrified for a moment and this was before Vennikus so I didn’t even know what I did to make her mad except maybe flirt terribly too much and then realized that it was just notes on my altar from the Trials and I kind of shrugged and went “my altar?” and she was all “why didn’t you tell me?” and I shrugged again mostly because everyone here had been working on things and didn’t really seem to care so I didn’t think she’d find it interesting and she went “how did you even do this it’s impossible” and I was like “because I didn’t know enough about arcane or ritual theory to know it was supposed to be impossible?” and she laughed and knocked me on the shoulder and said okay, fair, that was how a lot of discoveries were made, and I really thought we were friends. Think we are friends. I still do. Think that, I mean.
But she’s a good person. She’s a fantastic researcher and an accomplished ritualist and genuinely considerate and at this point it really wasn’t “I want to suck up to Vennikus’s friends so that I can spend time with Vennikus without it being awkward” anymore, I really liked her. And she and Vennikus clearly knew each other and clearly had history from well before I came into the picture even though I definitely did not know that they were seeing each other when I started seeing Vennikus and it was one thing if casual flings were the sort of thing that happened at Black Lotus Labs, I was fine with that, but if it wasn’t—I didn’t want to ruin a long-term serious relationship that Vennikus had if she was serious about Canth and Canth didn’t know about me, but also, I couldn’t help Vennikus cheat on someone who was a genuinely good person, which means I had to try to track down Canth and see if I could…subtly ask, or something?
Celsus I am so bad at subtle. I regret so much skipping out on those tutors that Mom and Dad got for us about polite interactions, because maybe I would have figured out how to be even slightly subtle. Of, you know, tracking down someone out of the blue in a corridor that definitely wasn’t in my segment of the labs to ask “soooo how are you doing” like it was just normal smalltalk and I hadn’t obviously tracked her down for something instead of catching her at or before breakfast and when that only got a “fine,” to “sooooo how have things been going in the division” to which I got a quick update on how the research projects were going fine to “soooo how is everyone doing?” which still didn’t get me the answer of whether or not she and Vennikus were a thing or a thing-thing and at this point I’d already made a scene so I just kind of went “so, you and Vennikus?”
To which she said, “Oh, Vennikus didn’t tell you about it yet? I thought she had weeks ago. Yeah, don’t worry.” I think. Might have been worded slightly differently. That gist got across. I was already retreating (okay, fine, running away) down the hallway blurting something along the lines of “ohgreatthankBishopsIjustwantedtomakesureIwasn’thelpingcheatonyou”. Which also probably was the worst thing to say. I have stared death in the face multiple times and I don’t think any of that was as terrifying as the moment before Chaera answered that question when she was just. Staring at me. Slightly quizzically. And I had no idea whether or not I had just detonated the biggest interpersonal bomb the labs and ever seen and was about to ruin absolutely everything within the tentative web of friendships I had formed or if it was all okay and turns out it was all even more okay than I thought, she knew about us from the start.
So anyways. I think me and Canth are still friends. She’s been acting like we’re still friends. The same table of us all usually get meals together. Nothing has changed, me and Vennikus are still seeing each other and it’s still great. Quite frankly Vennikus might have actually been dropping hints on purpose of “this is not an exclusive thing, I’m seeing Canth too, you get it, right?” and I accidentally signaled that I got it but it just went completely over my head because I’m so new to this. Big exciting false alarm. I wonder if Talia and Alexis think that I’m flirting with them still. Honestly just Vennikus is enough in terms of sheer time management, there’s just so much work to be done with our research. But yeah. Me and Vennikus Callo. Score for Iria Strell. Well. More score for Vennikus Callo, I was pretty useless in the entire process.
Don’t tell Mom and Dad, or rather, specifically, don’t tell Grandmother, I don’t want her getting any sort of expectations that I’ve been forging some sort of web of social connections or Bishops forbid any ideas about me marrying up. It’s just so nice to have friends my age again. I had Talvus in the Army, but Talvus was Talvus and my best friend and that’s never going to change, but is also a guy, and even if it wouldn’t be weird to like Talvus in all his Talvusness I don’t think I like guys in that way, and here I am surrounded by a group of like-minded geniuses who do the coolest science, are down to give morning defense practices a try, even if I’m teaching more than sparring with half of them, and are also all so pretty. So pretty. It’s great. I would happily spend the rest of my life here, if it’s how I can best contribute to the Empire. I guess I had Arcadia in the Army too. I have no idea what we are to each other. Did any letters from her arrive for me at the family estate?
Anyways, I know it probably sounds like I haven’t been getting a lot of work done, but I assure you, I have been making a lot of fantastic progress on a lot of fronts and I will do our family proud. I should probably get back to said work, I feel like I’m on the cusp of a huge breakthrough. Although it’s all so new and exciting that everything is the cusp of a huge breakthrough. I hope that your work has been exciting and fulfilling as well.
Love, your sister,
Iria
———
Dear Maldai,
I've been working at Black Lotus Labs, for the Department of the Craftsman. I mean, I guess you know that I've been working here. Or at least as much as I could tell you in my last letter. The letter that I actually sent. Or I guess that actually reached you. I know that I cannot send this letter for a lot of reasons, but I wanted to write it all down, before I forget a single detail.
I met the Bishop Lucan.
There was a fairly serious attack—a dryad and a satyr stirring up some local forces—and I played an instrumental role in fending it off, I killed a number of their forces then both of them—but the damage to the facility had been enough that the Department of the Architect was taking personal interest in helping us rebuild. There were rumors that the Bishop was coming. And then one morning there were rumors that She had arrived. I made sure that I was wearing the best clothes that I had, but more than that, what do you do when there is the chance that you might run into a Bishop in the hallways of your workplace? Prostrate yourself on the floor solidly out of the way when She is walking down an adjacent hallway turned out to be the answer.
(Talvus…tried to copy some of Her needle design. While She was still in the hallway. She paused for a moment and I thought we were both going to die having utterly disgraced ourselves and our names because Talvus couldn’t keep it together for one minute when we were passing one of the Eleven Bishops and then She kept walking.)
The morning went much of the same way, Galen and I continued working on the research we had been working on, which at this point I had managed to develop mechanical wands that mages could store simple spells in. After an hour or so, he sent me away. I went to make myself useful in Summer Division, as I knew my way around their main labs, and I kept myself busy for another hour. Then there was a message spell, red light and Galen Torus's voice, telling me to return to our lab.
I could feel it before I got there, radiating through the door, the air, my veins. The Bishop Lucan — She was there. I had been ordered to enter, so I entered. She was sitting in a throne-like seat woven of red light, the same needles that had been around Her that Talvus had tried to copy, I couldn't — not that I would try to look at Her, but I couldn't see Her, couldn't see any more than a silhouette and the raw radiating power.
Galen was standing off to one side. I dropped prostrate on the ground, and then She — She looked at me.
It was like my mind, my soul, my self was a knot and there was a tug and it unraveled. Every — every memory, every smallest aspect of me laid bare, there wasn't even a me anymore and I could feel Her looking through it. I do not know how much time passed. It stopped rather abruptly. I was still on the floor, trembling. I could tell that She and Galen Torus were exchanging words, but I couldn't catch what the words were. I saw Galen Torus walk over to our workbench, and put the prototype of my — our — mechanical wand down. He turned back to Her.
Everything snapped and I was — I was more myself again.
The voice resounded, thrumming, around me, inside me, everywhere.
"A promising project."
Then She rose and the throne unravelled, shifting and fading into the larger network of Her magic that Talvus said had been suppressing Her full power and who-knows-what-else, and She moved past my prone form and out of the lab.
I met the Bishop Lucan, She looked at my mechanical wands, and She said "a promising project."
I—I knew that I was in over my head, working with Galen Torus. I knew that—that the project I was working on was of vital interest to the Empire. I knew how lucky I was to have caught the attention of someone so important, to work on something so important. But everyone here is doing important things. Talvus is the one—Talvus always was the one—who knew how to do important things, who was supposed to be doing the important clever things. I was supposed to be in the Army, training to maybe be a Captain, maybe a Legionary Captain one day. I was learning to be a Captain one day. This is—it's so beyond anything I ever thought I'd be doing, and while the politics are beyond me, the science, it seems, is not. I'm good at this. I'm as good at this as I ever was at tactics. Maybe not as good as I was at fighting, but a Captain can't decide that the solution to a tactical situation is that they go and fight the entire enemy army themselves because they're the best fighter and I—I guess I never really learned not to do that. So maybe I wouldn't have made a good Captain. Maybe it's better that I'm here now, working on science, technology, weapons for the Army to deploy. Galen Torus is still the mastermind behind this project, and I might not be a soldier anymore, but I know how to be a good specialist, a good tool, I know how to be wielded to do incredible things. And I can't say that it's mine, but some of it was mine. Some of it came from the delayed explosives Talvus and I developed in the Highlands. And not just the wands. The Arcanum cannons. We've—I've—successfully adapted it, created our own. The Rose Gun, we call it. Lined with rose gold. It's smaller, more compact than the Surrian Arcanum Cannons were. Enough that one strong soldier alone could carry it. The payload is not quite as powerful, I'm not sure if we'll ever make it quite as powerful, we're still in the most preliminary of testing stages—but the tactical applications are entirely different. This doesn't need to be planted on top of a hill on a battlefield and defended because it's too large to move. This—this is far more versatile.
There's a part of me that's just waiting for another disaster to happen. Talvus is here too, which means—well, you never got the letter, where I told you about the Wolf of Ears Eyes and Hands, or what she said. How scared she was of us, and not for killing her. I don't think there's anything related to anything she saw here, nothing matches any of the charcoal drawings we took from her tent, but it's still—it's too quiet. I keep waiting for something to ambush us. At least in the Trials, things kept going wrong. There was no letting down your guard. Maybe I just...got too used to war, but I don't trust that the fighting is over. I can't trust that it's over. Things have been quiet since the dryad's attack, and it feels wrong, but there's nothing to indicate that anything is at all wrong. I guess one of the researchers in Autumn Division committed suicide a fortnight ago, and people have been a bit shaken up about that. He dug out his own teeth, which means every time I wake up with my teeth even slightly aching, I get paranoid all over again. I'm running morning practices still, same as I did during the Trials and the journey before that. Alexis Corinthian shows up to nearly all of them, she's a friend of mine from Winter Division, ex-Army, so she's good to practice with. Vennikus Callo comes mostly to watch and sometimes to test a move or a spell, but she's a much better fighter than she's letting on, I don't know why she's hiding it. Talia, who's been practicing with me from the very beginning, literally since the ship we took out here—well, she's alright, but she's not good, it's clear that the way that I'm showing her to move isn't natural to her. Which is—I mean it's to be expected, she's a civilian, and she's more a mage than a fighter. She's improved, but I don't think I'd tell her to do anything in a fight other than stand behind me or run. Not that I'm expecting anything horrible to happen, it just seems...overdue.
My injury is getting worse. It's the natural progression of things, and I have to accept it. I'm learning to accept it. It’s not like I can’t still do important things to serve the Empire. I hope yours are getting better. I hope that if—when—the Rose Guns go into production, maybe then I’ll be able to tell you it was me, I was the one who figured out how to meld magic and mechanics, I was the one who built the first prototype, I was the one who developed the theory. I hope that you’ll be proud of me.
Be well,
Iria Strell
———
To Maldai Varricon
3rd Legion’s Meridionalis Barracks
Serae
Dear Maldai,
I am writing because your blades have been lost. I cannot tell you why or how, just know that it was in decisively defeating an Enemy of the Empire the likes and scale of which were unprecedented. As I still have the ability to fight, I was hoping to gain from you the knowledge of how you had them specially balanced, that I might commission my own pair.
I hope that you have been healing well, and that the Empire is triumphing on the Surrian front.
May that you be well,
Iria Strell
———
Official Report On The Black Lotus Labs Infestation Incident
Drafted For Filing
Iria Strell, Senior Researcher Acolyte Consecrate
The following is a report of the attack on Black Lotus Labs by the Infestation, and the actions taken by myself, Senior Research Lead Talvus Zhale, Senior Research Lead Qaedius Galseii, and Instigator Vennikus Callo to contain it. While the end result was rather extreme, it remains my tactical opinion that the measures employed were matched to the severity of the threat this Enemy presented; not just to Black Lotus Labs, but to the Empire as a whole. I include at the end of this report all relevant information from the months prior that might pertain to this Enemy, such that a proper assessment can be made.
On the night of the incident, I had stayed late in my lab to work on a personal project as many of the researchers do. As such, I did not take the fastest route back from Winter Division to the sleeping quarters, but rather a more roundabout way that passed near the kitchens, that I might grab rations to make up for a skipped dinner. I mention this because the route passed a corridor which connected to Autumn Division, and it was in this corridor that I encountered my first instance of an infested body. I could see a figure lurching towards me, half falling against a wall as its stumbles extinguished a candle. All behind it was darkness.
I hurried forward to try to help, and I first perceived what I thought to be Senior Researcher Lia Bassus of Autumn Division. I caught her before she fell to the floor. It felt like she was shivering in my arms. It took my eyes a moment to adjust to the darkness that I assumed had been accidental in her wake; the first sign that something greater was at play. What the dimness of the remaining candlelight revealed was as if from a nightmare: the back of her head had been caved in, as if by a blow that I would presume to be fatal or near-fatal on a battlefield. Her hair matted with blood. One of her eyes—part of her face—was gone, and there was a strange, bone-like structure growing from the cavity in its place, spines curling into the flesh of her cheek. Some of her teeth had been dug out, much like Hieronymus Acari's body had been found—the Autumn Division researcher who had apparently committed suicide a few weeks prior.
Bassus raised an arm and struck me, cutting into my shoulder, and it became clear that her hand had been replaced by crystalline spurs jutting from her forearm, a strange shade of teal that seemed greenish-black in the flickering candlelight. I could not tell whether or not she was dead; it had felt like she was still breathing. As such, I did not want to harm her if there was a way to extract this thing without killing her. Yet I could not leave her alone and run and fetch a medic, lest she wander somewhere unknown, or cross the path of another without the advantage of my combat training. So I began to lead her towards the common room off the sleeping quarters, where even at this hour it was likely I might find someone I could send running for help. She shambled after me mindlessly, all I had to do was walk slowly enough for her to keep pace.
I abandoned this plan as I reached an intersection with a corridor that led to Summer Division; there was a shout, and I saw a guard running before he stumbled and fell, and was immediately overwhelmed by three creatures that were more bone-like crystalline growth than mismatched corpse. I immediately updated my assessment of the situation: that this was not an isolated incident affecting only Lia Bassus, but rather a full-scale attack. I left what I now believe to be Bassus's corpse to run to my sleeping quarters and retrieve my weapons and armor, that I might better respond to the crisis.
When I exited my room, armed, I nearly ran into Senior Researcher Chaera Canth, woken by the distant but rapidly spreading sounds of fighting and shouts of panic. As she was a non-combatant, I instructed her to stay behind me as I escorted her to the common room as established by the new emergency procedures. There, I decided, I could take stock of which researchers had made it to relative safety. We encountered none of the crawlers or infested along the way. However, in the common room, I noticed several prominent researchers missing, and resolved to comb the living quarters armed as I was for more survivors. Senior Research Lead Talvus Zhale of Spring Division caught me before I could go and agreed to come with me. We had served together in the same specialist unit in the Army, and as such we were familiar with fighting side by side. He was not nearly as enthusiastic as I was about returning to the unsafe territory of the sleeping quarters or corridors beyond, but we encountered no enemies to or from the sleeping quarters, nothing save the last living stragglers who were evacuating. None of the researchers that I wished to find were in their rooms, so we returned to the common room, Zhale attempting to talk me out of searching Summer and Autumn Division labs alone for those who were missing.
As we turned into the common room, my senses began to fail me. Zhale said something that I could not comprehend, yet I could hear whispering across the room with perfect clarity. The walls seemed to re-orient to a tilted frame. All I could concentrate on was what felt like a point of gathering focus on the opposing wall.
Then all hell broke loose.
A thing burst through the wooden barrier, trailing infested corpses and crawlers in its wake. Everything seemed to emanate around it, to warp from it. I leapt into action, running across the room even as Zhale shouted something at me that I could not understand. The Thresher was humanoid—a strange silhouette, with the jagged bonelike spikes coming from it, the unnaturally long and thin limbs, the crystalline spikes growing everywhere, but especially at the end of its claw-like arms, its deep purple coloring in the dim lighting, a triangular armored head with no eyes but dozens of small clicking feelers beneath it—but it was humanoid and it was moving so I assumed that it could bleed; and I was not yet used to my blades failing me.
The Thresher ripped through a researcher in a single blow, and the crawlers fell upon others. I attempted to join the melee, and an old injury affecting my spine that I had received in my tenure in the Army flared, and I collapsed. A few seconds later I was able to push myself to standing, and tried to attack again, and it flared again. I blacked out. When I came to, the room was partially evacuated, and there was a crawler over me. I shoved it off, and joined those who were fleeing, the guards forming a line behind the researchers as they held a defensive retreat.
As I wasn't running particularly fast anyways, I joined the guards without hesitation. The infested caught up with us as we held out in the hallway. I had dropped both my blades as my injury had dropped me, but I was wearing a prototype of a swift-deploying hand razor within a bracer, so I activated that. The things were upon us. I turned to fight. Yet as I lunged to strike my first blow, there was a sharp twist of pain within me, and I could feel something tear in my back. Guard Captain Saturninus Strabo leapt over my prone form, and struck the blow that I could not. Another guard dragged me back and along with the civilians, and so I was delivered to the Winter Division central complex, as Winter Division seemed to be the least infected and thus the safest place we could barricade ourselves. He deposited me in a chair, then joined the guards who were fortifying the room.
Guard Captain Strabo and most of the guards who remained in the hallway did not return.
After about a minute, I attempted to stand and found that I could not. I could still feel my right leg, but it was limp, and it could not hold my weight. I fell to the ground. This caught the attention of Senior Research Lead Qaedius Galseii, amongst those who had escaped the carnage and had gathered for holdout of evacuation here. Senior Research Lead Galseii had treated injuries of mine in the attack on the labs by Saren and the dryad's forces a little over a month prior, and was familiar enough with it to immediately locate a detached muscle and perform impromptu surgery to return me to my feet.
Research Lead Ovir Arbutus took command of the situation with the poise and authority that his prior experience as Guard Captain proffered him. We did not have the manpower, weapons, or fortifications to hold out against this infestation in any room within the labs, even the relatively unaffected Winter Division central laboratory we were in, for any substantial period of time. He ordered the full and immediate evacuation of the laboratories; to move all personnel to the docks and vacate the island, until the Army could return in force. He asked for volunteer runners to attempt to locate any other survivors in the laboratory and spread the news of this evacuation, and the rest of us would make our way out through corridors we believed to be least overrun, with all who could fight holding the edges of the formation. I could not run; it was a testament to Galseii's skill as a surgeon that I could stand at all, so there was never any question of which of these two groups I would be traveling with. I had the time to duck into the private lab where I had been working, to grab the most important of my notes, and prototypes of mechanically deploying bandages (both standalone and the lightweight underarmor woven of them that I designed). My second generation hand razor prototypes were not near enough ready for combat to be of worth taken, and the partially inlaid barrel of the Rose Gun prototype was too heavy to carry in my injured state, so I left them.
The group was already organized into its leaving formation by the time I returned. I joined the makeshift collection of combatants along the rear. Zhale and Galseii were within the group. We made it a large portion of the way out through emptier corridors, but there were too many of us to move swiftly enough to avoid confrontation, and these things seemed to be tracking us through more senses than our own. They came from the back and from the sides: the crawlers, partially consisting of scattered bits of corpses and held together with wild crystalline growths. The guards and volunteers began to fight them, and it became evident that these things could rapidly regenerate, that cutting them apart did little to slow them down.
Recalling that the corpse of Lia Bassus had been putting out candles, I suggested that we use fire against these things. After a brief scramble to get a torch from the center of the group to the fighters on the outskirts, we tested my hypothesis to great success. We pushed forward with no casualties until another Thresher burst through one of the walls. Research Lead Arbutus moved to cut it off, and I to support him, when a huge crystalline monster, well larger than the largest of the dinosaurs that attack, smashed through another wall. The Thresher's aura was warping my perception of reality, but I saw it slit across Arbutus's throat, and Arbutus fall; so I leapt forward and slapped one of my mechanical bandage prototypes across the wound. The crystalline monster was simply too large and too strong to fight. I was able to kill the Thresher that had attacked Arbutus, but its warping field did not disappear; it instead felt as if to strengthen more as more Threshers began to attack the back of the column. There was no hope fighting, I lost sight of everyone but Arbutus and the guard to his right. We hoisted his body between us, and ran.
We made it outside, as did a number of the others. I blacked out shortly after from the exertion. I came to on a makeshift cot a few hundred feet away from the laboratory complex, with Senior Research Lead Galseii standing over me and tending to my injuries. A brief assessment of the surroundings indicated that Senior Researcher Alexis Corinthian had taken over organizing the survivors to move to the ships at the docks, as Research Lead Arbutus remained alive but unconscious.
Senior Research Lead Talvus Zhale and Instigator Vennikus Callo were the two who had noticed, and were discussing, the larger implications than immediate escape. There had been strange, small, coral-like growths that had appeared extremely intermittently in various locations around the laboratories over the past few months, and Callo alone took the chance to study some instead of immediately purging them. They had seemed to grow from nothing, in a sealed and sterilized container, and Callo had discovered little more than that they must have been feeding upon some outside source, and that they were remarkably resilient, before the worry of contamination led her to dispose of the samples in fire. She made the connection that these growths had been precursors of the Infestation, and that they were not merely feeding upon and incorporating all living things that they could consume, but that there must be a larger unidentified force, presumed magical in nature, supplying them with the power to expand exponentially and with nothing material to feed on. By her calculations, they would overrun the entire island well before the Army would be able to return, and the evacuation itself might still be in imminent danger.
The mention of an outside force supplying the energy for growth gave Senior Research Lead Zhale the idea: that he might be able to erect something based on the principles behind the Warding Wall, that could keep the Infestation from drawing on this power. It would be an immense undertaking, and for it to work, he would need both to lay a ritual anchor and cast the spell separately. As he did not have the raw power and blood magic expertise to lay the ritual anchor in full, he turned to Senior Research Lead Galseii, a frequent collaborator of his, for assistance in this plan. Instigator Callo indicated that she believed she could invert a Green Magic spell she had reverse-engineered over her studies in Summer Division in order to mask the life force of the casters, which she concluded from her research was what the Infestation was using to see and track its surroundings, allowing the casters to recuperate overnight. She suggested the bunker where the Catalyst was being separately kept and studied, far enough away from the main laboratory complex to ensure it would not be threatened in the case of another Misery event, as the ideal place to spend the night; after all, even hidden from the Infestation, the jungle held many dangers.
After ensuring that what I had salvaged of my research notes would make it to the ship, I volunteered to stay behind and provide martial support to the casters. No other guards could be spared. Corinthian agreed after a brief conversation with Callo that she would hold the ships from leaving until the next morning, but longer than that if she had not received a signal from us she would not risk the lives of the other survivors.
The laying of the ritual anchor went essentially as planned. Despite my injured state I was able to hold off the onslaught long enough for Zhale and Galseii to finish. I blacked out again briefly during our escape and retreat to the Catalyst bunker, and came to safely laid in a cot.
The mages—Zhale and Callo—slept immediately. Galseii and I discussed our options, as there is a stiffness in my injury that develops after extended periods of rest, and it was likely that if I tried to sleep I would wake up the next morning immobilized for hours. We concluded that it was priority that I be able to provide emergency support for the casters in the case of Callo's charm wearing off during the laying of Zhale's Warding spell or during our final retreat through the jungle, and that the two of us would remain awake. Under his supervision, I performed a number of exercises to ward off the stiffness, and in the intervening time, I finished incorporating the mechanical bandages into the underarmor I had brought along, and Galseii a series of bloodrunes that he would apply to himself to cause a continuous damage to all surrounding enemies the next morning.
Zhale and Callo arose a little after dawn. In the light, it was clear that one of the stationary growths that had precipitated the arrival of the Infestation had appeared in the corner of the bunker. Upon its pointing out, Callo stated to the group that she worried that the makeshift Warding Wall spell would not do enough; that it would cut these things off from magical continued growth, but only within the radius of the spell, and that it would mean nothing for that which was already here and could consume naturally the life around it. Furthermore, that if any remained in any corners of the island when the Army came back in force, that it might come back, again and again, never truly eradicated. And that was assuming it did not manage a way to get off the island before then.
I was the one who suggested it. After all, we were right there, and I do not believe that I ever saw the Catalyst as anything other than first and foremost, a weapon. It seemed tactically relevant to think of all possible ways to make a thing explode.
"What about the Catalyst?" I said. "Can we set it off? Make another Misery big enough to destroy this thing?"
The idea stopped Callo short. Of all of us, she had been following the research on the Catalyst, and could speak to how it worked: that it disassembled life, and the energy field from that disassembly, if it encountered more life, would destabilize in a further chain reaction, expanding until there was no life left within the field. If it were set off in the heart of the Infestation, the deepest point within Black Lotus Labs, the growth-density ought to be enough for the explosion to reach the treeline, and the blast would overtake the entire island, giving a guarantee that units of soldiers fighting through the underbrush could not of the ending of this threat for good.
As a military strategy, I recommended it to the others as perhaps the only way, given Callo's modified calculations, to secure the island even after casting Zhale's Warding Wall. But for the potential of loss of knowledge and unique abilities of those gathered within this room was also a great consideration, not when all that was needed was for one to wait behind until the others had reached the ships, push their way as deep into the complex as they could, and detonate the thing as they were overrun. Callo was just expressing doubt that any one of us four would not be able to make it in deep enough to trigger a large enough chain reaction, when Zhale woke up.
"There's another way out," he said. "Deep in that building. Deep, deep in that building, there happens to be a window into a probably-not-going-to-explode arcane realm. Big enough for a person to get through, or several persons if they're not dead."
After that, it was unanimous amongst the four of us. With the Warding Wall cast, the Infestation would lose its regenerative powers. With my fighting abilities, emergency support and alchemical prowess from Callo, consistent healing from Galseii to prop me back up, and Zhale conserving his energy for the portal to the Arcane Other that he believed using the scaffolding Autumn Division had created, he could cast — the four of us judged the likelihood of our success and our survival to be well worth the risk of the undertaking.
It was our duty.
As there was little more to discuss, we set out to return to the main labs, the Catalyst with us in its portable protective casing. The first sign that this occurrence was different than originally judged became evident as we reached the clearing in front of the complex where we had laid the ritual anchor: despite the rapid spread of growth the night prior, there was no sign of the Infestation having spread beyond the buildings.
The immediate priority was the casting of Zhale's Warding Wall spell. I can report no technical details on what he did: he wove large and incredibly complex three-dimensional needles, using his own blood to stabilize the structure, then asked that the rest of us first hold magic in place, then contribute blood to increase the complexity of the spell. Callo added her blood first. I added mine second. Galseii added his third. Upon adding my blood to the needle, I could feel a connection to the spell, and could indeed both feel and see the increase in complexity that Zhale spoke of; upon the casting, I could feel a pressure, something outside trying to push itself in, but the spell held strong and Zhale's Warding Wall cut it off.
Callo and I plotted what we believed to be the most efficient route to Autumn Division, given what had been observed the night prior with the route taken to escape through Winter Division; what Callo had seen when she had volunteered as a runner; the assumption that the Infestation had started and was concentrated in Autumn Division and had spread evenly throughout the facility; and prioritizing routes with fewer ambush points or connecting hallways so that the casters would remain as safe as possible and could rely mainly on my martial expertise to push forward, instead of dealing with attacks from multiple directions. This route ensued entering through Summer Division. The assault went with few hitches. That which is notable, I report here: besides the infested corpses, Thresher, and crawlers we had fought the day before — we did not encounter another crystalline Destroyer — we encountered crawlers with tendrils that they used to attempt to grapple, pin, and pull in prey; infested corpses of the local fauna, namely raptors and dinosaurs, indicating that the Infestation had spread the night before then pulled back to the facility; and Threshers with vine-like appendages with a reach of well over thirty feet that they used to attempt to snatch and pull in their prey while fighting. There were also stationary growths on the floor that made no active attempt to engage in the fighting nor did they show any sentience or signs of moving, but remaining standing on these growths one would begin to sink into them, become ensnared, and their insides contained both an acidic substance and many small spines. Zhale's Warding Wall cut off the ability of all of these things to regenerate, but it otherwise did not seem to slow them down. We must have fought between a dozen and a dozen and a half of all of these creatures, myself taking the brunt of the attacks but Callo protecting Galseii and Zhale with a remarkable aptitude from behind, Galseii providing healing and some magical support, and Zhale carrying the Catalyst and conserving his energy to cast for our escape.
In the final room between Summer and Autumn Divisions, we encountered our third sign that the Infestation was being guided by some form of overarching intelligence. The ground was covered by a swarm of strange beetles. Upon lighting and sweeping a torch near them, they scattered somewhat, but more poured from cracks in the wall and the floor until we were wading through them. We stuck as close as we could to the edges of the room, when we were struck by the strong mental pressure against going right; so we eased around the left side of the room. We had gotten perhaps halfway across the room in these conditions when the beetles suddenly swarmed together to form a massive column in the center of the room. The column lashed out and specifically targeted Zhale, and pulled back with the case containing the Catalyst, leaving Zhale on the floor. I had to leap into the column myself to grab and retrieve the case; otherwise the Catalyst and the entire plan would have been lost.
We were very close to Autumn Division once we had made it through the laboratory that had been overrun by the bugs. We turned into the final hallway, to which we saw a humanoid figure, slumped slightly; its weight somehow wasn't right on its feet.
Zhale moved forward and the small light spell he'd been holding cast away the gloom. It was Talia Aurelia.
I was standing in front, so it saw me first.
"Iria?" it said.
"Talia. Rough night?" I asked.
"Not terribly," it said. "It all went well, all told."
At that point, I readied my blades, and drank a refined prototype of a potion for increased strength and speed that Callo had given me. Zhale pushed the light further into the hallway, and it became clear why it was slumped strangely: it wasn't putting any weight on its feet because extending from its back and arching over its shoulders were articulated pointed growths and limbs made of the strange mix of crystalline outcroppings and pieces of corpses. Some were lumpy but many were jointed, clean — an enormous form, something between a centipede and a mass grave.
"So did the Infestation get you, or was this you the whole time?" I asked it.
"There never was a Talia Aurelia. There is only us," it said.
Beyond it, the room was dug out, which huge, person-sized insectoid creatures crawling constantly over and around one another, a roiling sea filling the pit of their own making. The room that we needed to get to, the metal chamber, for Zhale to cast the spell that would allow us to escape — it was more than forty feet up a sheer vertical wall.
"What was it that you thought you were going to accomplish?" I asked the thing in front of me.
It lunged, sweeping with two huge claws that loosed a spay of crystalline needles.
"To pave the way."
Galseii cast something on me as I kept fighting, kept trying to hold its attention so that the others could go around and begin to set up for our escape.
"What for?"
I got three good, solid hits in, but it did not nearly slow the thing down — it plucked me up with one of its claws, articulated spines piercing into me where it grabbed me.
"Come on, we're friends, you can tell me," I said, and thrust up through the chest where the heart would be and ripped the blade out. It looked down at me, smiled, a bit of blood dotting the side of its mouth, and flung me into the pit.
Callo took over the more martial aspects of the fight at this, pulling out a silk scarf that she began to whip around, magic sharpening the end. It took me a few seconds to climb out of the pit, at which point the thing had begun to attack Galseii, and was trying to peel his head apart. I dismembered the limb that was holding him, and took the attention of the Infestation once more.
It was at that point that I was hit by Callo's blade. Her eyes were open wide and shaking, as she slashed it across my throat, resisting but failing to resist some sort of telephysical control. I was impaled twice partially through my torso by the monster. Zhale barreled across the room, as fast as he could run still carrying the Catalyst, and tackled Callo, making up for lack of skill with pure momentum.
She came to again, and shouted, "Legs! Go for the legs!"
I turned away from the front of the thing and ripped underneath it, cutting out five or six legs' worth of musculature. Callo pushed herself up and severed another leg.
That which had called itself Talia, its body tattered and ripped to pieces, chunks of lung and the remains of what was a heart mixed with other viscera, leaned over me.
"I know you though, Iria," it said.
It slammed another of the limbs that it had been trying to use against Galseii into me, knocking me onto my side, and a row of teeth dug into my back and ripped into connection points of the musculature of my spine. The places that were weakest from my injury.
It ripped.
I regained consciousness about twenty feet in the air, in a cradle of silk carried by a massive summoned spider. Galseii and Zhale were next to me. Callo was single-handedly holding the monster off, severing leg after leg with her scarf. The three of us made it to the door in the wall, and tumbled into the compartment. Once we were safe inside, Callo started climbing.
"I need more time!" Zhale said.
Recalling once more these things' original distaste of fire, I dragged myself to the edge and set the webbing that remained on the wall on fire, and the silk hammock that had carried me as well, to throw at the monster. Callo easily dodged the burning bits on the wall, and made it through and into the room. We shut the metal door, and there was immediately a great force slamming into it, spines piercing partially through. Zhale finished his preparations, using my discarded sword to smash through the glass window that had previously been used for viewing in this chamber, and cast the spell. Galseii finished doing something that allowed him at least to prop me up.
The original plan had been for me to be the last through the portal; the one who waited, who could wait and hold fighting who-knows-what while the others got as far through the portal and away from a potential blast radius as they could. This was no longer possible. Galseii and Zhale took me, an arm around a shoulder each, and half-carried me through the portal. Callo stayed behind. When we had hobbled far enough to hopefully be safe; or perhaps when it became clear that the chamber door would hold out for no more abuse, Callo kicked the door open, opened the protective casing, threw the whole thing out, turned and dived through the window, and began sprinting towards us.
There was a booming roar, although muffled; everything was muffled in the Arcane Other, gray, strange. There was the strange sensation of the ground shaking, yet far away, or perhaps a concussive front from the mass explosion occurring right through the window reached us before the eruption of the strange flickering red and green sparks that characterized the destabilization field, blooming out like a poisonous cloud. In its initial expansion it was faster, covering the distance Callo had covered much more rapidly, and it seemed as though all would be lost; but in the Arcane Other, there was no life to fuel this outcropping of the reaction, and it seemed as though all might be well; but the cloud clipped Callo and threw her forward with a force as it began dissipating. The window snapped shut.
Galseii left me with Zhale and ran towards Callo's prone form, even as she shouted for him to stay back; but the red and green sparks that sunk into her were not quite enough to set off a new reaction. She lost her eyes, as she stabilized. Galseii tried to pull from the Caedis healing magic to treat all damages to her, but could not reach anything. Callo waved him off and stood on her own, and without her eyes, pointed us in a direction.
We walked, for what must have been nearly an hour, Callo giving small corrections when necessary. The distance felt similar to the distance that we might have walked from the laboratory complex to the ships; although I am not sure if I could report more exact details, as the exhaustion of nearly two days' without sleep, the exertion of the previous night and morning, and the injuries that I bore meant that remaining upright and moving forward took most all of my attention.
Finally, Callo stopped us. Zhale took several attempts to pull and stabilize a needle, but he did, and we saw through once more into our world: the deck of a ship, for Callo's navigation had been flawless. Galseii all but dropped me through the window, and he and Callo followed. Zhale attempted to step through as well, but had been so exhausted by the amount of casting he had done that he lost hold of the needle, and the portal closed before he was fully through, severing a part of his leg. Galseii moved to cast healing, and Zhale to stop him, but Zhale was a moment too late—alterations that Zhale had made to his blood during the Trial of the Architect to allow him to use it more freely in needles meant that it reacted poorly to the healing spell and lashed out, destroying the hand that Galseii had used to summon the magic. Healing magic was cast on Galseii, and mundane means to stop Zhale's bleeding were employed. The ship, now with all expected passengers, departed with haste to carry the survivors and this news back to Veteris. This concludes my report of the events surrounding the Infestation incident.
I believe that this Infestation represents an unprecedented threat to the Empire. It has not been eradicated, it has been pushed back, and we have no measure of how much this defeat cost it. Its advance force had in-depth research on the Empire, enough to create and impersonate a noble, infiltrate Black Lotus Labs, and to know enough about our language, culture, sciences, and magic to fit in seamlessly in both social interactions day-to-day for months and in its research team. The appearance of Talia Aurelia could not have been a magical construct whatsoever, as it sat and interacted multiple times with Senior Research Lead Zhale, who has perhaps the most sensitive passive magical senses in the Empire and would have immediately picked up on any magical influences in the appearance of its body. It cast simple Caedic needles needed for its research multiple times, and once in front of Senior Research Lead Zhale, indicating that it was not merely parroting but had discovered how to fully reproduce Caedic arcane casting. It knew beforehand of the Capital and the protections in the Capital such as the Warding Wall; Talia Aurelia attempted to engage me in conversation about the mechanics of the Warding Wall when we first met, as well as the research and capabilities of the Academy, and was only thwarted by the fact that I knew little on either topic.
The mechanism with which it used to invade Black Lotus Labs is unknown, other than that it was partially blocked by a spell based on the Warding Wall. The reason why Black Lotus Labs was targeted is unknown; it is my instinct that the project that Autumn Division was researching that Talia Aurelia personally joined was perhaps something that the Infestation planned to use to more completely manifest in this dimension. This postulate is drawn from the facts that Talia Aurelia did choose to focus on the project involving dimensional observation for months and actively contributed to research for the team, that Black Lotus Labs was targeted despite being a well-guarded Caedic stronghold instead of some easier unoccupied place to manifest, and that within the labs most of the concentration and actions of the Infestation were in Autumn Division near the viewing room of Project that Talia Aurelia had been researching and that Senior Research Lead Zhale used to construct the portal for our escape. However, I do not believe there is any evidence present that could lead us to assume that the room and project were needed in the first place for the Infestation to invade, just that it was necessary for the second stage of the invasion.
We must face the very real possibility that we do not know how many other Caedic elves are currently being impersonated or have been created entirely by the Infestation, or that might be in the future. We must assume that the Infestation has the ability to begin a second invasion anywhere in the Empire or in the world that is not currently protected by a Warding Wall, and its advance force alone—that which was sent to pave the way—was enough to destroy in near entirety a high-security Caedic stronghold with a large military-trained guard force specifically present and on the outlook for foreign threats.
I can still feel the connection to the Warding Wall spell Zhale erected. All four of us can. The force that was pressing against it remained pressing against it, with purpose, after the detonation of the Catalyst; it was only hours after the destruction of the advance force that the pressure withdrew. If anything tries to enter the island of Insul with Black Lotus Labs, we will be able to alert to Empire immediately. Senior Research Lead Zhale states that he expects the spell to hold for the span of a month to a few months. The Catalyst now lies in the center of a storm of magic. If its last event is anything to be judged by, the storm will stabilize within the year, allowing for the Catalyst to be fetched or secured at the Will of the Bishops. As for this Enemy and the threat it represents, the actions taken by myself, Senior Research Lead Zhale, Senior Research Lead Galseii, and Instigator Callo put an end to this incident. I can only re-iterate the words that it spoke to us: that it was here to pave the way for something greater. There is more of it out there, more which survived, which ostensibly now also has all of the research that Talia Aurelia collected for months on the very thing it needed to more fully invade. We merely stopped this outcropping, and we know not when it will be back.
———
to do list before reaching Veteris
-- check report one more time for anything missing. make sure no bias. they don’t want your opinion, just the facts.
-- reconstruct rest of notes of Project Pendulum for Galen. do not assume any excuses will be accepted. cannot return empty-handed, especially not after destruction of the construct and prototypes.
-- Talvus prosthetic design work in mechanical wand parts so can be used for spell storage too worried it might explode (coward). work in snack secret compartment instead
-- work on possibility of designing Qaedius a working magic-mechanical hand prosthetic? probably impossibly/ beyond any theory work on it anyway. mechanical anchor based on construct—try non-magical scaffolding version first to model. if works, ask someone who knows better if offering to design with Qaedius would be insult
-- visit Vennikus? would she want to see you she has Canth with her, not like she’s alone. still visit, make quick, show no pity or guilt you wouldn’t want anyone to pity you
-- take notes on pain in exercises every morning. mobility in attempts to get through sword forms is improving. do not push or strain. not worth it.
-- practice being better noble. greetings, dialect, personal presentation. do not write off any aspect. will need.
#gay murder elf bachelorette#dungeons and dragons#my writing#we finally did it folks I've finished writing up Book 4#I'm very tired so I hope it comes across as coherent
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Hi there so please allow me to scream about one Joshua Kiryu bc i've been sitting on this for ages now
I'd like to preface this by saying that Yoshiya "Joshua" Kiryu is not a monster. At least, he's trying not to be anymore.
Joshua knew a few things for certain in life: Firstly, he could see things other people couldn't. He was heavily ostracized by other kids for the things he could see--people with arrow-tipped, wiry wings, people who had died and were now running around Shibuya with timers on their hands, animals with glowing tattoos for legs, arms, tails, that would attack those dead people and cause them to disappear, strange red symbols that would float around, yellow symbols that would latch on to people and, a few times, himself. No one ever believed him, of course. "Stop lying," his parents would tell him. "Stop crying for attention." He eventually learned to just stop mentioning it. Later he learned to just stop telling people the truth at all, since they never believed him. People heard what they wanted to hear, and what they wanted to hear were things that benefitted them in some way. "Home life is fine," he'd say. "I'm fine," he'd say. "Everything's fine," he'd say. And people would believe him then, because that meant they didn't have anything weighing on their conscience.
Secondly, nothing he did was ever good enough for his parents. Top of his class, winning numerous awards in math and science at his school, and it was never enough because that was their expectation for him. Perfection was their standard. Sometimes Joshua would get a couple questions wrong on an exam, and his mother would look at him and tell him she was disappointed, that she expected better of him, that she didn't want a failure for a son, and Joshua would agree because what else could he do? They wouldn't love him if he wasn't perfect. So he tried to be perfect. He really did. But come his tenth birthday, when the world became nothing but him and a pair of silver headphones, he just... stopped caring.
Thirdly, the world was dull and gray to him. Unbeknownst to him, Joshua was suffering from depression. He found himself feeling unmotivated, unusually tired all the time, finding no joy in even the smallest of things that he had found to be hobbies of his. And the world around him felt just as gray and lifeless as he did. It took a lot of effort to just get out of bed in the morning as he grew older.
Then he met Hanekoma.
Hanekoma was and still is the only person that Joshua genuinely trusts, the one person who ever took him seriously and treated him as something of an equal, and most importantly, the one person who actually confirmed that all the things that he had seen for his entire life were real. Hanekoma told him about the Game, the Underground, the Reapers and Players. And Joshua listened to every word, feeling complete relief at the fact that he wasn't crazy.
But the more Hanekoma talked, the more Joshua realized that he didn't want to just learn about the Game; he wanted to be a part of it. There was nothing for him in the living world, he thought. Parents who barely knew he existed and fought all the time (Mother was stressed, Father drank because he was stressed, Mother got more stressed because of his drinking which made Father more stressd), peers who constantly mocked and ridiculed him, and a world that was moving so fast for a tired, goalless boy. In the Reapers' Game, though, there was a goal. Everyone could use pins, everyone was put on equal footing. And there was one goal: to win. There was something.
[SUICIDE TW]
He was afraid of doing it, initially. He didn't want it to hurt. But he knew he had to. He wanted to. He wanted to get out of this endless hell of his life and do something for once.
So on July 30th, 1995, Yoshiya Kiryu hanged himself in his room, and was later found by his mother the next morning. The funeral was minimal; very few attended.
[TW END]
He can still remember the look of hurt, of regret in Hanekoma's eyes when he saw that Joshua had entered the Game. But Joshua excelled in the Game, being able to use a wide variety of pins--not all of them, but certainly a large array of them. He and his partner made it to the end of the week, and while they both had scored enough points to return to life, only Joshua's partner did. Joshua wanted to become a Reaper. He even told him to keep his entry fee--his mark on the world, other people's memories of him, any information about him. He wouldn't need it in the Underground. The Reapers could not keep his entry fee in full, so only minimal information on Yoshiya Kiryu was released back into the living world.
Joshua immediately became a Harrier Reaper, and was very efficient in his job of erasing Players. But upon learning about the position of Composer, the most powerful being in Shibuya, he set his sights on that. For once in his existence, he had drive, motivation, a reason to do something, and it was wonderful. The world, for once, had color to it as he fought and got stronger. This was where his quietness grew into confidence, and confidence grew into arrogance. A couple slips let him find that people’s reactions to him flirting with them--especially cute boys--was not only hilarious, but kept people from getting close to him. Why bother? No matter how lonely you are, your life made it pretty obvious that friends weren’t for you.
Eventually, he took on and defeated the previous Composer. His ethereal form reflected the age of his soul--how long he had existed, how old he would have been had he lived--and suddenly, he could hear everything in Shibuya. Everyone’s thoughts and emotions were readily available to him, all at once without filter. And it stayed like this for around 10 years (if we assume twewy takes place in 2007). Joshua could hear and see everything in the city--every horrible crime, every fight, every meeting between friends, every death. He had to pay special attention to the deaths, of course, to see if they were strong enough to be Players. He was bombarded with information, especially with the rise of popular culture and the city’s fixation of the consumption of goods.
This overexposure to people and consumerism, as well as his own cynical viewpoint warping his perspective, caused Joshua to gradually grow to loathe the city. And the city grew duller and more vapid in response to Joshua’s will. He is the city; the city is him. They affect one another. The omniscience cause him to become horribly numb and disenfranchised, not blinking at death or murder or suicide any longer because he had seen it so many times.
[SUICIDE TW]
Finally, it came to a tipping point, where Joshua was going to destroy Shibuya--and himself along with it. And he thought he was finally going to get his wish for death, to stop his miserable existence. Kitaniji was actively trying to stop him; any of the Reapers who wanted his job could just try to kill him; and even Hanekoma, the one person he genuinely trusted, thought it best to help Minamimoto become Composer and destroy Joshua in order to protect Shibuya. And once more, Joshua Kiryu felt completely and utterly alone. Not even the person he trusted more than anything thought he was worth saving. Every path lead to Joshua’s death in some manner.
[TW END]
So he was willing to put everyone’s lives on the line. He felt nothing as he killed an innocent teenager and made him fight for him, put him through hell just so he could prove that the city was stale and stagnant, just as he had always thought.
The time Joshua spent with Neku began to plant the seeds of doubt in his mind. Neku was no longer fighting for himself, he was fighting for another person, one he had just met and yet already cared about. Multiple times throughout the week, Neku had helped other people, in some cases without a bit of hesitation, because it was the right thing to do. He saw Shibuya’s people grow and change, both in good ways and bad--including his own proxy. It didn’t make sense to him. This want to help and protect people... the fact that someone once as cynical as him could gain that was baffling.
Even as baffling was Joshua faking his sacrifice. Well, not entirely faking. Neku would have most certainly been destroyed by the level i flare, and had Joshua been a tenth of a second later, he could have been seriously injured himself. He didn’t get out of that unscathed, either--the attack had grazed him as he jumped to a parallel world, and it had hurt a lot more than he thought it would. Any later, and he could have easily been in far worse shape. That week in that alternate timeline let him think, and he did everything he could to justify to himself that all of this was wrong, that the moment Neku was presented with a strenuous situation he would revert back to his old ways, and Joshua’s plans to erase Shibuya could go on as planned.
But then Neku didn’t pull the trigger. He had every reason to, but he didn’t. Joshua had won their Game, and he could do as he desired with the city. But he couldn’t destroy it. Not after going through that week with Neku, after watching him fight Kitaniji in order to rescue everyone--Joshua included--from the Conductor, after being unable to shoot Joshua. He didn’t know what was going through Neku’s head or why he didn’t shoot--but some small, deeply-hidden part of him thought that maybe, maybe it was because Neku thought Joshua was worth saving.
“I can’t forgive you. But I trust you.”
He still doesn’t understand how that was possible.
The following week left Joshua to reflect, to fight with Hanekoma over what he had done to protect Shibuya, and to finally realize the disgusting, emotionless monster he had become. Even just a bit of the weight of what he had done slammed into him full-force, and he slunk into momentary despair over what thing he had turned into. Since then he has been guilt-ridden and remorseful, but is unsure of how to even begin to approach the subject. Only recently has he left himself start to acknowledge his emotions, because the guilt and horror at what he had done was just too strong to push aside.
Since the end of TWEWY, Joshua has been trying. He’s been trying to become better. He is slowly beginning to try to understand people, to understand that people’s lives--even his own, to an extent--have value, to try and be just a bit more selfless, to try and care. It’s certainly difficult, uncomfortable, and extremely foreign to him, but he’s trying. (I tend to play him like his KH3D incarnation, hence this is how the original game leads to this--) He doesn’t want to continue to be the monster he had been.
Becoming a Reaper was like he got tinted glasses. Eventually, the luster faded, and the world was gray once more. Because of Neku and crew, Joshua Kiryu finally feels like he can see color in the world that he couldn’t before.
#;author's notes {ooc}#-KICKS DOWN DOOR- MOM HOLY F U C K#THIS ABOMINATION IS FINISHED#I DON'T KNOW IF THIS IS EVEN COHESIVE JUST FUCKING TAKE IT#anyway i love one (1) joshua boy#;lonely god {joshua}#;footnotes {headcanons}#alcoholism ;#death ;#suicide ;#hanging ;#twewy spoilers ;#just regular twewy spoilers nothing from the New Stuff
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Saudade - Han Mubo
Angsty mood --> angsty fic
I’m good at chemistry, I know that that’s a valid reaction
fucking fight me
Pairing: Han Mubo x reader
Genre: angst, father!au
Triggers: death, cancer
Word Count: 3k
Saudade (Portuguese): a longing for someone you love but have lost; the love that remains.
Mubo knows you’re a fighter. But some battles cannot be won.
Masterlist
aksjdgh why am i doing this to him
Three words can change a life.
. . . . .
“You have cancer.”
Mubo blinks.
You squeeze his hand.
He blinks again.
Your face is pale.
He blinks again.
The words sink in.
He blinks again.
No way.
Please, no.
Mubo panics. His throat closes up, and tears prick at his eyes. But he forces himself to breathe.
“Is there any chance at all that it could be something else?” Mubo asks, swallowing. He squeezes your hand back, hoping against hope for even the tiniest possibility of it not being… that.
Please.
The doctor shakes his head, and that’s when Mubo’s world comes crashing down.
. . . . .
Cancer.
Mubo never wants to hear that word again.
He has to leave your son with the OACA boys while you sit with the doctor for too many appointments to count. He has to accept the condolences of all the people he knows. He has to keep up a brave face. He has to wipe his tears. He has to try and figure out just how to tell your son what’s going on, why you’re never home, why you’re always in that clean room and not with him at home.
All because of those three words.
There are so many horrible things he’s had to do because of those three words.
But by far the worst thing those words have forced him to do is cut your hair.
It’s your last day home before you move into the hospital long term. Your things are already packed up and Mubo hates it. He hates the emptiness of your bookshelf, its contents having been taken to the hospital to keep you occupied. He hates the lone suitcase standing in the corner of the room. He hates the fact that the scent of your perfume is already fading from the house.
When you walk up to him, holding out the hair-cutting kit, Mubo almost loses it right then and there.
You continue to look at him, your once-bright eyes somber, as you press the kit into his hands. “Mubo,” you whisper, your voice quiet and almost unrecognizable from your usual fiery tone, “I’d rather you do it than anyone else.”
He grasps the kit loosely, unable to respond from the lump in his throat. He simply nods, motioning for you to sit. You do so, and after wrapping a towel around your neck, he picks up the shears with shaking fingers.
He takes a deep breath. He steadies his hand.
Clumps of hair fall to the ground, ringing your feet as the shears buzz. At some point Mubo realizes he’s crying, but you don’t flinch as the tears drop on your head.
All of your hair is gone. All of the lovely hair that he used to card his hands through as you read a book on his lap. All of the lovely strands that he pressed kisses into just before you fell asleep. All of the lovely locks that framed your face and covered your son’s head when you hugged him.
Zixi comes home, dropped off by Qin Fen, who doesn’t say anything about your lack of hair. However, your son has no such filter, so he simply asks, “What happened to Mama’s hair?”
Mubo swallows, kneeling down to be face to face with his son. “You know your mama is sick, right?”
Zixi nods.
“The treatment she’s going to go through will make her lose her hair,” Mubo says. “Rather than go through that, she decided to shave her hair before.”
You kneel down next to Mubo, gazing up at your son.
Zixi is thinking. Mubo knows that because he has on the same expression you wear when you think. He finally nods.
“Mama still looks as beautiful as before,” he says resolutely.
The tears well up in Mubo’s eyes, but he manages to hold them back until you pull Zixi into a hug.
Then, he lets them fall.
. . . . .
Mubo hates the hospital.
He hates it.
It’s a battleground, full of patients fighting for their lives against the illnesses, the diseases, the disorders that plague them. When he enters the building each day, he’s assaulted by the pristine neatness of the place, by the scrubbed floors and polished windows, by the cheerful pictures displayed on the walls.
Your room is painted with pale blues and greens, colors that soothe Mubo yet make him sadder. They are calming colors, but he would almost rather be angry. Angry at the hospital. Angry at the diagnosis. Angry at the tumor. Angry at the world.
You lie on the bed, holding his hand loosely as you listen to him talk about his day. You listen to his stories about the OACA boys, about how Zimo did this and Peiyao did that. How Qin Fen finally brought a girl home. How Zuo Ye went out with Xukun and Ziyi.
He tells you that Zixi got a perfect score on his math test, that his teachers are asking him if he would be okay with Zixi doing higher level things while his classmates continue with their lessons. He tells you that Zixi is just like you, only gentler and quieter, which makes you stick out your tongue and laugh.
He tells you that Zixi, when asked by a classmate who the prettiest girl in the world was, replied, “My mama.”
You tear up at that, trying uselessly to stop them from falling. Instead of teasing like he would have a year ago, however, Mubo simply holds your hand, brushing away the tears with his thumb. When they don’t stop, he sits on the bed, holding you close until the shuddering cries stop.
. . . . .
A year passes in this manner. Hospital bills begin to eat away at your savings, but there’s nothing Mubo can do about it.
Every day, you grow weaker. Your skin gets paler, your eyes more tired. Still, you keep up a brave front, holding Zixi close whenever he comes to visit, smiling at the OACA boys when they show up as well.
Friends and family come in and out of the room, leaving flowers, cards, small presents. At the end of each day, Mubo arranges them carefully on the tables and windowsills, knowing how much you hate disorganization.
Mubo stays every day until visiting hours are over. He still goes to the company, he still works, but every minute that he isn’t, he’s in the hospital. He watches you as you sleep, wondering why the world would tear you two apart like this.
You’re fighting. Mubo knows you are, knows that every day is a struggle but that you’re doing your best to get through it. Mubo knows you, knows that you would never go down without a fight, knows that it was never in your nature to give up.
He knows, because you were the one that fought the company. He knows, because you were the one that protected yourself from the fans when they came after you. He knows, because you fought for your relationship. Because you fought for him.
He knows, because he knows you. He knows your fierceness. He knows your bravery. He knows your confidence, your boldness, your determination.
But he also knows you can’t win every battle.
The chemotherapy doesn’t help. Instead, it only weakens you further. It hurts Mubo to see you gritting your teeth in pain when the headaches don’t go away.
Nothing is helping.
Why, he wants to scream, why do you have to be cut away from the relationship you worked so hard for?
Zixi sits on his lap, staring solemnly at his mother with his big eyes. You hold out your arms to him, smiling tiredly, and he eagerly crawls into the bed with you, snuggling into your side.
Mubo watches the scene quietly.
This should be happening at home.
Zixi soon falls asleep, and there’s a long silence until you speak.
“Mubo,” you whisper, “I’m not going to make it.”
Mubo’s throat constricts, and he swallows uncomfortably. “Please,” he whispers, clutching your hand tighter. “Don’t say things like that.”
You smile sadly. Mubo wants to tear his eyes out because that smile is nothing like the one you wore when you were healthy. Mischievous twinkles and loud laughs have dwindled into tired tilts of your mouth and slight amusement in your eyes.
“When I go, Mubo,” you continue, “move on. You must.”
The tears are pricking at Mubo’s eyes, and you shift around on the bed to make space for him. He sits down, letting you pull him close.
“What if I don’t want to?” he whispers childishly.
You huff, rolling your eyes slightly in amusement before turning serious again. “You must, Mubo,” you repeat. “For yourself. For Zixi. For the boys.” You swallow. “For me.”
Mubo says nothing, simply holding you and Zixi close.
“Mubo.” Your tone is insistent, refusing to relent. “Promise me.”
He struggles to speak, struggles to free his throat from this constricting ball of emotion that’s clogging every breath.
“Mubo.” Your voice breaks that lump that’s keeping him from speaking.
He swallows, feeling the tears well up again. “I promise,” he whispers.
“Pinky promise?” You hold up your pinky, careful not to bump any wires or wake Zixi up.
A shaky laugh bubbles from Mubo’s lips, and he hooks your finger with his. “Pinky promise,” he says.
A contented, joyful smile spreads across your face, reminding him so much of the lively woman he married years ago. “Thank you.”
“You know I would do anything for you, right?” Mubo says, raising an eyebrow.
“Would you walk through fire for me?” you ask teasingly.
“Anything,” he breathes, sealing your lips with a kiss.
. . . . .
Papery skin, dull eyes, weak breaths. It’s a struggle for Mubo to watch you breathe, a struggle for him to even bring Zixi into the room because he doesn’t want his son’s innocence to be tarnished by pain and death so early in his life.
But Zixi insists, and Mubo knows that he can’t keep his son away from his mother. And Zixi is an angel. He’s quiet, obedient, and simply watches you with wide eyes.
Both of them are in the room on that final day. Zixi is on Mubo’s lap, telling his mother about something new that happened at school. Mubo watches you, watches the contented expression on your face as you listen, watches the love in your eyes as you gaze at your son.
His heart aches.
Zixi’s story is finally over, and he clutches his mother’s hand in silence, gazing into your eyes solemnly. You smile weakly, reaching up to caress his face. Mubo helps you struggle into sitting position, and you place a kiss on Zixi’s forehead.
“I love you, Zixi,” you whisper, holding your son’s face in your hands.
“I love you too, Mama,” he says back without blinking an eye before pressing a kiss of his own to his mother’s cheek.
Mubo’s heart is already fragile, and he feels like it’s about to crack right then and there as you lie down again, unable to sit for long.
An hour passes as you drift in and out of consciousness, then two, and Zixi falls asleep. Mubo is left to listen to your irregular breaths as your heartbeat grows weaker and weaker.
For a moment, your eyes open, and you gaze at Mubo with a startling fire he hasn’t seen since you were hospitalized. “Mubo,” you say, your voice strong, your eyes intense, “remember your promise.”
He swallows, then nods. “I will,” he says back, gazing deep into your eyes, your beautiful eyes that he fell in love with. “I promise.”
It hurts to say this, hurts to knowa that he will eventually have to let you go, but a promise is a promise and he knows that he must keep it.
“For Zixi,” he murmurs. “For the boys. For me.” He lifts your hand to kiss it. “And for you.”
Your eyes close, your body relaxes, but the smile on your lips is unmistakable.
Another hour passes. Your heart continues to get weaker. Mubo continues to watch.
“I love you,” he whispers. “I always will.”
He doesn’t expect you to answer, so he’s startled when your lips move slightly. “I love you too,” you murmur, so softly he almost doesn’t hear. “I will be with you, always.”
Mubo drops a last, light kiss on your forehead, then on your lips. The faint smile on your face grows slightly wider.
He holds your hand tight, watching the life drain from your body. He fights back his tears, watching the heart monitor go flat. He bites his lip hard, watching the nurses run into the room. He watches them pronounce your time of death, watches your hand being ripped from his grasp, watches you being carried away.
Wordlessly, carrying Zixi, he walks out of the room, telling the nurse he will come tomorrow to pick everything up. He’s pretty sure that isn’t proper protocol, but she sees his blank eyes and haggard face and relents easily. He straps Zixi into the car, then drives home.
The house is dark, empty, and unwelcoming when he unlocks the door. He flips on the light, but it doesn’t help. The light only illuminates the room, making it seem much larger than it is, making him fully realize that your laughter will never grace the halls again. That your perfume will no longer scent the air.
That you will never come back.
Zixi is on the sofa, Mubo having laid him there when they arrived home. He sits up, awake, and looks at his father with the bright, intelligent eyes that he inherited from you.
There’s a silence.
“Mama isn’t coming back, is she?” he finally asks.
Mubo can’t stop the tear that drips down his cheek as he sits on the sofa next to his son.
“No,” he whispers, voice broken. “She isn’t coming back.”
Zixi thinks for a moment, then nods. And then, looking smaller than ever, he reaches his hands out to his father.
The tears come quickly as Mubo holds his son close, allowing Zixi’s tears to soak into his shirt. He doesn’t know, doesn’t care how much time passes. All he knows is that he is crying, his son is crying, and that you are never coming back.
Father and son hold each other in the dark hours of the night, mourning the untimely loss of the woman who brought them so much joy.
. . . . .
- Three months later -
Mubo stares at the object in his hand, remembering what the nurse had told him.
“She told me to give it to you if she didn’t make it,” she says, her calm voice trembling slightly. “Open it only when you feel like giving up.”
And Mubo has never felt more like giving up.
He swallows, eyes boring holes into the small flash drive lying on his palm. His gaze flickers to his laptop, and as though in a trance, he walks over, turns it on, and plugs the flash drive in.
Long seconds pass as he waits for the drive to load. When it does, he takes a deep breath, then clicks to view the files on it.
Two videos. One is named “Han Mubo.” The other is named “Han Zixi.”
He hesitates, the cursor hovering over the one labelled with his name. Then, unable to stand it anymore, he clicks it.
You pop up on the screen, smiling, eyes tired, but as beautiful as he always remembered.
Mubo almost exits the window right then and there. But something, he doesn’t know what, brings his hand away from the mouse.
“Mubo,” you say, “if you’re watching this… it means I didn’t make it.” You pause for a moment, adjusting the blankets on the bed.
“I’m sorry,” you continue, swallowing hard. “I’m so sorry, Mubo.”
“Please don’t be,” he whispers, unable to tear his eyes away from the screen. “It’s not your fault.”
“But I know what you’re probably saying right now,” you say, laughing slightly. “‘Don’t be, it wasn’t your fault.’”
Mubo smiles through the tears clouding his vision. “You knew me so well,” he murmurs.
“But that won’t stop me from being sorry.” You scratch your forehead, a rueful smile on your face. “I’m sorry that I had to leave you this early. I’m sorry that Zixi will grow up without his mother.”
There’s a short silence, and then you continue.
“It’s been… what, six years since we got married?” You laugh a little. “Time flies. I just... I want you to know that I don’t regret any of it. I hope you feel the same.”
I do.
I do.
Oh, I do.
“I want you to know…” You swallow again. “I want you to know that just because I’m not there with you in person, I will never truly have left you. I’ll always be with you, Mubo, to guide you every step of the way. But remember your promise too, and move on, alright? Don’t let me or Zixi be your last love.”
“Why,” Mubo chokes, “why do you have to be so selfless?” It doesn’t matter to him that he’s talking to a computer screen. He only cares about the words you’re saying, and how they’re hitting his heart.
“I love you, Mubo,” you whisper, brushing a tear from your eye. “I love you and Zixi. Never forget that. And never let him forget that either, okay? Watch the other video with him when you feel he needs it, alright?”
Mubo nods wordlessly, wiping the tears from his face.
“I love you,” you say again. “I always will.”
And the video ends.
Mubo remains seated, unable to move after watching the video. Unable to move after seeing you again for the first time in months.
The pain in his heart is still there, and he doesn’t think it will ever truly heal. You left your mark on him, and that mark will never fade. In fact, he’s glad for the pain, because it ensures that he will never forget you.
“I promise,” he whispers, “that I will move on. For Zixi. For the boys. For me.” He takes a deep, shuddering breath, recalling that last day. “And for you.”
Zixi comes home to see his father crying on his chair, uselessly wiping his face as the tears continue to trickle down. Wordlessly, he climbs onto his father’s lap and hugs him.
Together, they watch the second video in silence. And when it ends, neither of them have dry eyes.
They hold each other tight, Zixi’s tiny hands clutching Mubo’s shirt, Mubo’s large hands covering his son’s back, but for the first time in a while, things feel… better.
Not okay, not good, but better.
Mubo smiles faintly.
At least it’s a start.
#idol producer#idol producer han mubo#han mubo#angst#father!au#triggers#death#cancer#han mubo scenarios#oaca entertainment#saudade#scriptura-adrepticius
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