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inviouswriting · 3 years

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A Fall - Kivera

Characters - Shuri/Lilith belong to @snow-covered-moon while Kivera and Divinity are mine.

Kinda a theme I write alot is fallens. My reaper is one. So thought about writing it.

Touches on themes of insecurities, hints of other things for Kivera’s past. Death and mourning. Along with grief and all that goes with it. Some fluff at the end.

Kivera can recall any event that has happened to her, any event she has attended, witnessed or it was recorded in a book. The one memory that haunts her is her fall. She remembers how her wings use to be pure white, why she doesn’t like others touching her left wing is it is the only pure thing about her.

Pristine, the shimmer of gold among the feathers, she use to have six of them. Kivera remembers when things were simpler, all she had to do was get up and guard a gate. She would fly around the heavens, taking in the splendor of colors, she remembers her first flight. How it felt so freeing.

Then she fell in love, and that changed everything about her. A choice she would make again and again. She does not see anything wrong with her choice. It brought her so much more than what she could even dream, nightmares and terror all.

How she strived to get her wings back even as a demon.. even with her tarnished status as a fallen angel. She wears it proudly now, that even a creature like her can rise to ranks in another way. She had delivered retribution even on her murderer. She chased the love she sought freely, and it was reciprocated until Damien defended her.

She would never forgive him for that, she can’t forgive him. She would have been fine from the attack Vanth used. She would have been able to heal, instead he let himself get caught, and worse Vanth tried to use him as his next host. A ritual that failed.

Kivera made sure to reduce Damien’s body to ashes after his death, while she had taken his life. She remembers that like it happened hours ago. Yet it was necessary, in a twist of fate. She doesn’t remember much after that, her memories are fuzzy, she only remembers Divinity embracing her and holding her after the rage subsided, after her awakening. What stood of the area Vanth had made for himself was nothing but a smoldering crater.

Kivera had asked Divinity what did she do, but stopped when she saw the look of terror in her eyes, in each of the spirits she helped. Parn and Killian only looked away, while Aiden looked down. None of them wanted to remember the scream she had made, or the pain she went through.

She didn’t learn of the magnitude of her wrath till Kronos showed her. When she pleaded to spare Damien, to bring him back from death. Breaking one of the three taboos in the underworld. The first since she had broken her vows above.

Every memory she had flitted before her very eyes, like a flipbook she couldn’t look away from. She saw the fight she had with Vanth. How she devastated him, and further destroyed the very realm he had created for himself. All she could think was...

“good riddance..” The third event she never regretted. She doesn’t regret the manner in how she died as a human, her fall, or what was the catalyst of her spirit awakening. Zodiac spirits are born from tragedy. Every Greek tale speaks them of tragedy, hers as Scorpio especially hard as the sign of death. Her entire existence is life, death, rebirth.. transformation.

So she stands there watching Shuri embrace her former self, the missing half of herself. Lilith. She always found it interesting that the name is of a fallen angel too. Maybe that was a secret draw to Shuri, what made her so special to Kivera. She has always been aware of her lacking a soul, how she had been created and not “born” naturally.

Kivera doesn’t see a difference in being born, though in another time she would have killed her creators. For blood magic that creates unlife is a taboo in her domain. Yet it was different in this case, they did not use the souls of the dead. What keeps her from carrying out that hidden order.

How dutiful she is even to the underworld. Her former habits as an angel. Yet if she was ordered to, she would destroy the star that is The Source without hesitation. She learned what hesitating does. It equals things you wish you never knew.

She saw the beasts that plagued Amaurot, she was glad to end them all in her destruction and hopes they never resurface as nothing but a memory. She despised that worm creature, it was the most offensive to her eyes.

Kivera closes her eyes and remembers the events of her fall, how she came back, knowing she would be thrown out. She sought mercy. She had kneeled and bowed her head, she had pleaded for them to forgive her.

She was never forgiven, at least not the angel that ordered the way she was thrown out. She recalls the burn in her right wing, the stain and scar of black feathers, she shoved them before they touched her left, it made her lose her footing on the edge.

She fell backwards, she couldn’t fly once it began, a fallens wings are paralyzed till they land. She was glad that the last sight of the heavens she had was calming, she accepted her fate then. How she has constantly accepted her fate. Where she understands the warrior of lights, and Kiya, Hecate.

Hecate had the same expression she did when she extended her hand to end her life. She just accepted her fate.

Where she fell was through another gate, into the Underworld, and into Styx. Many scorn the goddess, yet she was merciful on Kivera. Keeping her a float as she drowned in waters from Styx and Cocytus. She was fished out by the underworld lord himself Hades.

She scoffs at the name that Emet had. He was no where near the level of god that the true Hades is, or how merciful he actually is.

“It’s Persephone people need to pay more tribute to.” She muses aloud, the first sound of her voice since Shuri’s soul was completed. Divinity eyes her, seeing Kivera’s eyes closed, she frowns a bit knowing what she is thinking of. She leaves her alone to travel through her mind.

Kivera had been collected out of the river, to be placed in a boat for a field to go through the process of judgement. The rest of her memories are painful with the way The Fates had intervened with that, they knew what her path was, and how none of them could intervene what the stars ordain. She had to endure Hell.

Kivera rubs at her shoulders where she still feels the fire of when her wings were torn off her back. Or how the last sight she had, was snarling hatefilled human souls as they gouged her eyes. How dare something so pristine as an angel be allowed in Hell.

She remembers darkness and pains she wishes she can forget. It thuds in her mind as dull of an ache as much as listening to Thancred talk about noble rightness. A thief talking about righteousness is absurd to the angel.

Kivera feels a warmth on her lap, this breaks her reverie, her eyes open and she is greeted to Shuri and Divinity resting their heads equally on Kivera’s lap.

“You three.” She acknowledges the other within Shuri, if she made her happy and complete. She didn’t have anything against her. She reserves her judgements on actions over existence. If there was a judgement on existence she is the worse offender out there.

A scoff comes from her at the way she was offered redemption, able to return to her former position after she had become a powerful being. Something feared, enough to leave gods in other domains and realms in ashes.

The temporary form of the miqo’te she chose, it will one day fade and she will have to uphold her role. She just hopes and for the first time in ages prays that she never has to claim her beloved ones. She can never tell them when they’ll die, or how they die.

She knew Damien’s. She had tried to prevent his, she fought so hard against Aiden and Killian to reach Damien before Vanth had stabbed his side. Divinity couldn’t cross the circle, she would have been another catalyst to the spell. She was held down too by Beatrice and Daphne. Saying she would kill all of them if she ran to Kivera.

Kivera cards her fingers through Divinity’s hair and Shuri’s. Something both of them do for her endlessly, They’re kittens compared to a lion. Shuri... more of a wildcat. She’s seen her ferocity when she fought hard against Innocence, and Hades.

Divinity, she knows way before this world, a different world and different time. How could anyone forget the Salem Witch Trials. Orchestrated by Vanth, Kivera takes her hands off Shuri and Divinity’s head to prevent scratching as she curls her hands.

When she begins her memories even she can’t stop them from flowing through her mind once they begin. It’s why she stares hard at those she shares them with. She watches for any recoil in disgust that someone has for her. Those in the past to her, that have failed it. She has seen them recoil at her fall and descent in Hell. She couldn’t blame them, but it also meant they would not be able to see her as anything more than a “fallen.” Instead of the greatness she became.

Pride is much her vice, as much as wrath. Wrath more... there is nothing more fearsome inducing than an angel’s wrath. And one who has nothing to lose earns more respect. They become greater protectors of realms.

Protectors. Her mind drifts to Ardbert, and Estinien. She laughs a little from Estinien, she remembers full how she met the dragoon. She had knocked him off a rooftop when he chased after her, after pursuing a relationship with Divinity. He had come close to losing his head, even he remembers her pinning him to a rock wall by the end of her scythe. He looks back on it amused as most of the women in his life has threatened to kill him, or almost has killed him.

Yet he treated her no different than a normal individual, even if Kivera is death itself. She only warned him to never do something that harms or causes the death of Divinity. Or she will make his life a living hell. He still doesn’t understand the importance within Divinity’s being. What she is, who she is. She kept it that way on purpose.

The same with Ardbert when he was around. Still is around, but in a different way. He had gotten too close to her, questioned her motives, he infuriated Kivera to no end. They fought hard against each other once to spare G’raha Tia’s life from Kivera nearly killing him. Ardbert had spoken to him after that to never anger her again. A warning he took serious with the damage they had done to Mor Dhona’s debris of airships. He remembers her scythe cutting clean through some of the metals. Like it was wet paper to her.

It was a first for alot of them, to understand Kivera can turn on them. She will if she is made to. Another disgrace is her being Vanth’s puppet once, enslaved to attack others.

Ardbert had been on the receiving end of many of her beatings. He sparred with her so much he had learned the names of her attacks. How when she uses her incantations she sings them, if he was still among them he’d say how haunting her voice is. It lures, it is hypnotic.

In those thoughts for Kivera, she solely thinks about Shuri and Ysayle. How both have to live without Ardbert, she could easily arrange for her to see him. Yet she wonders how her progress would be if she allowed it. It would be another taboo for her. To pull his soul and place it in her world. Would Shuri scorn her for something she could do at anytime. She doesn’t offer the idea because it means a sacrifice for Shuri. And Kivera’s track record was not the best when it comes to bargaining souls. Kronos is cruel. He will take what she values most if she is not specific with her request. Memories, soul and body intact. That alone meant a major piece of her would go missing. Kronos would take Estinien as payment. Another who was suppose to have died but was spared through fate.

Kivera doesn’t tell Shuri about this for everyones sake. Even if it came down to it, she believes her to not choose that path after seeing what it did to Kivera and Damien. How every single memory, and tie Damien had to her was erased. He doesn’t even recognize her existence. He only sees a shade whenever she is around him.

Her mind drifts back to her fall. The last thing she remembers saying to them.

“I’m sorry. I choose love.” The phrase falls from her even now.

“I chose love.” It had angered Azrael, Gabriel understood and so did Michael. Yet Azrael acted on his own, when she was dismissed to await their judgement on her sins. Azrael was her guardian, she answered to him, she had “just” been made an arcangel before she laid with a demon. A great sin among angels was being intimate with a demon.

“We know you chose love.” Shuri’s voice cuts through her fog, breaking her free of her memories and them running through them.

Kivera smiles opening her eyes a bright gold towards both of them.

“Thank you for all this time together.” Kivera says a little breathily, as if almost sighed.

“You’re not leaving are you?” Shuri panics at that phrasing, usually said by someone who might leave her.

“No.. no. I am just elated I’ve reached a point where I am grateful for all this time shared. I have no intentions of leaving unless you’ve had enough of me hanging around.” Kivera reassures her. She would not leave unless it is the last breath she takes. She doesn’t think she could face Estinien again if she was the cause of her death. Taking her life, she could do that to end her suffering. But never do it if it is unwarranted.

“Good.. what are you thinking about?” Kivera frowns at the question. She had been so deep in her thoughts she realizes it has gotten late.

“Memories.” Kivera says quietly, Divinity already knew, she has seen Kivera with that expression before. When she reflects and thinks no one is watching her.

“Which ones? From how pained your face has been.. we’ve been worried.” Shuri points out that she had expressions of pain when she dove into her mind.

“My fall, my descent. The events that lead up to here.” There is no scolding. Only further embraces by both. Neither are in pity or feeling sorry. They understood the pains. What it meant to lose so much. Shuri lost her very identity and mind. Divinity lost her life and father.

“I wonder... sometimes I want to know what both of you see in a stained being like me?” She doesn’t miss the way Shuri’s nose wrinkles at her words, or Divinity narrowing her eyes.

“You know why. and if you call yourself stained again, I will hit you.” Kivera eyes Divinity. Kivera has only felt her hit her once, and the woman uses holy behind her slaps to make her feel it. Otherwise it doesn’t faze her and she shrugs it off as nothing.

“Even stained beings are worthy of love. The same reason others still love Estinien. Some are still scared of him, some are still scared of me, and scions were terrified of Kiya when she almost became a lightwarden. You said it once yourself how our pasts don’t define what we do now. If you say that as true, why do you cling to yours like it matters now what we think of you?” Kivera feels a chord struck in her. She did say that once.

She said it to Ardbert. When he questioned her motives about life and death as her role. That the things he had done in his past do not define what he does then and there.

Kivera ruffles Shuri’s hair till it is messed up.

“A cheeky bastard has told you alot hasn’t he?” One of her hands is caught and bitten for messing up the snow white hair. She had ruffled enough and Kivera feels those fangs for it.

“He didn’t say anything, I felt it. I felt the reason he too had started to love you. You looked pass his weaknesses and made them a strength. So.. you should do the same thing.. Look at your weaknesses as strengths. For all the pains you endured... look what you have gained.” Kivera’s eyes change to a brief blue then back to their brighter green they usually are. Green is the color of life. The color also is the very color she had been born with. Bright vibrant green, a reason she was selected by Bathory. Who also had green eyes.

Kivera feels a sting in her face, and snaps her attention to Divinity, her hand shimmers with white off it. Kivera touches her face and winces from her using the attribute.

“Don’t dwell on that one. I saw your eyes dim down. She doesn’t exist remember?” Shuri a little shocked from the slap.

“Bathory.” Divinity says, Shuri only saw memories of her enough to know what she does. What she did. To six-hundred women. Kivera being one of them.

Kiva Siverstein age eighteen, died after running away from a grand party the countess held in celebration of her birthday, to be used in one of her rituals for her blood. What started her path and trickle in fate. The method she used, Elizabeth beheaded her after Kivera enraged her. She had fought every step of the way to escape. When she realized she would die she called her every single foul and form of ugly she could manage.

Through all the memories Shuri had seen, the one that stood out was Kivera’s fall. How she was shunned for something she believed in, for who she loved. It was the same as Shiva and Hraesvelgr. Those who chose love even when they knew the repercussions. Kivera knew what would happen but chose to fall in love anyway. Just as she does now.

Shuri is drawn out of her thoughts by Kivera’s eyes, they seem to glow under the fading light. Ethereal, was that part of her being or her abilities. It is her. The soft glow was something left over from her former being.

“Thank you Divinity, but you didn’t need to use holy. That hurts. I should use unholy on you the next time you need a slap. Show you how it feels.” Kivera glares orange at Divinity.

“Maybe you should, it lets me know you love me enough to inflict pain to break me out of madness.” Kivera’s tail puffs up at this, and Shuri sees pink irises. She decides to help Kivera up and they start heading inside.

“You both are loved so much. I know Kivera, it will take a while to accept Lilith. I hope you come to love her as equal she is to me.” Kivera nods to this, and smiles soft.

“Of course. You accept all the imperfections within me, and she makes you happy and complete. Just know.. I draw the line at blood magic and summonings.”

“I know. Hopefully nothing comes down to that.” Kivera leans down and presses her face to Shuri’s giving her a full kiss. She backs the auri up to the wall behind her to kiss her more fierce. A promise for later, when she lets her down she can see the fire in her mismatched eyes.

“How fast do you think we can get all the young ones to sleep?” Kivera sways her waist against Shuri’s.

“You’re playing unfair!”

“Am I? You know how unfair I can truly get.” A promise she keeps. Kivera goes to take a bath, to allow Shuri and Divinity the time they need to calm children for sleep.

#kivera x shuri #Kivera and Shuri #Kivera Siverstein #ffxiv estinien #estinien wyrmblood #divinity libra

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ollieofthebeholder · 4 years

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and some say love is holding on (and some say letting go): a The Magnus Archives fanfic

Also on AO3. Takes place immediately after Episode 159: The Last. Title and song lyrics from Perhaps Love by John Denver, which is going to end up being the lynchpin of an eventual JonMartin playlist.

Perhaps love is like a resting place, a shelter from the storm It exists to bring you comfort, it is there to keep you warm And in those times of trouble when you are most alone The memory of love will bring you home...

~*~*~*~*~*~

The exhaustion hits the second they cross the threshold from the Lonely’s domain to the real world. Jon is shaking from head to toe, worse than the last time he went more than a couple days without a statement, and the confidence and energy with which he brought them out seems to leave him in a rush, like water swirling down a bathtub drain. He could easily sleep for a week.

At his side, Martin’s knees buckle, and he’s trembling so hard it seems like he might actually fly to pieces. Jon tries to support him, but he’s a head shorter and a good deal skinnier than Martin and it would be an effort under the best of circumstances, which these are decidedly not. He intends to guide Martin gently to sit down on the floor, but it ends up being an ungraceful, barely-controlled mutual collapse.

“Let’s just rest here for a minute,” Jon murmurs, trying to catch his breath.

“Do we really have time?” Martin asks, also gasping for air like they had to work a lot harder to get out than they did.

They probably don’t, actually. Trevor and Julia are up there somewhere, cutting a swath through the Institute’s staff, or trying to anyway. The thing that took Sasha’s place is on the loose, too, abandoning all pretense at humanity. Daisy has given herself back over to the Hunt—Jon knew that was what she was going to do without even having to use his abilities—and even if she did it to save them, to save him, she did it knowing she won’t be coming back from it this time. God, if there is an actual God, only knows where Elias—Jonah—has gone or what he’s up to, what he’s plotting now. There may not be a new entity coming into being or a ritual they need to interrupt, but there are still a lot of very dangerous things out there and most of them very much want to kill them. Or at least Jon.

But they’re both exhausted. Jon’s never used his abilities against another avatar before, or such a reluctant subject, and it’s taken a lot out of him. And Martin—God, Martin. Martin stood up to Peter Lukas, to the avatar of the Lonely. He fought his way back from the brink of being claimed. There’s no way he’s not completely worn out. Whatever might be happening on the surface, Martin needs to rest and Jon is going to give him that.

“I think we’ll have to make it,” he says. “The time, I mean. Whatever’s going on...we won’t be of much use like this.”

Martin gives a soft hum, maybe of agreement, maybe just of acknowledgment. They sit there for a few moments, leaning against one of the smooth stone walls, arms still wrapped around each other’s shoulders. There is no sound in that vast, empty room but their harsh and ragged breathing. Jon concentrates on Martin’s heartbeat, close to his ear because of his height and the way they’re sitting. The steady, even thudding comforts him, reminding him that Martin is alive and safe and there. He’s not okay. Neither of them are by a long shot. They haven’t been for a long time, probably since they started working at the Institute. But they’re together and they’re alive, and that goes a pretty long way.

After a bit, Martin says quietly, “The...thing. Not-Sasha. Peter set it loose, Jon.”

“I know,” Jon admits. “It came after us. After me. Trouble is, Trevor and Julia are up there too.”

“The...? I thought they were in America!”

“They were. Followed me here. Finally figured out I’d taken Gerry’s page from that damned book.” Jon sighs heavily. “Daisy fought them off once before, but they came back. They were cutting their way through the Institute. We—Basira and Daisy and I—we were going to try and fight them off, but then the thing that took Sasha’s place came out. Decided Trevor and Julia were a better target than me, I guess? Basira told me to go and I don’t have any real idea what happened after that.”

Martin gives a short laugh that somehow sounds amused, tired, and slightly bitter all at once. “There’s something I never thought I’d hear you say again.”

“Yes, well, I do have to concentrate most of the time to read minds,” Jon says, trying and failing to smile. “And I had something rather more important worrying me.” He pauses, then adds, “What...happened? I know this is the Panopticon. I know Elias is Jonah Magnus body-hopping, and I know Peter Lukas took you into the Lonely, but...what happened?”

“A lot,” Martin says. “Or maybe it just...felt like a lot. I don’t know if I can...” He looks around, then gestures with his free hand off to Jon’s left. “Should be on there.”

Jon turns to look and sees one of those damned tape recorders. Honestly, he should be used to them turning up everywhere these days, and he mostly is, but he’s got to admit he’s surprised to see it here. “Did Jonah bring that?”

“No, I did. Or, well, it came with me.” Martin shrugs. “Didn’t turn it on consciously or anything, so I’ve no idea what’s on there, but I can guess. Tends to turn itself on when something important is going to happen.”

Jon considers the recorder for a minute. It sits innocuously enough, and it doesn’t seem to be running at the moment, so whatever is on its tape is a past recording. It’s just out of reach from his present position, but there is a black nylon strap trailing off one side. He stretches his leg out as far as he can go and kicks ineffectually for a bit before he finally manages to land his heel in the center of the loop. Slowly and carefully, he drags the recorder towards him until it’s close enough that he can reach out and snag it with his free hand.

“Wouldn’t it have been easier just to get up and grab it?” Martin says. “Or wait until you were up to moving that far?”

Jon doesn’t even give the idea of bantering back a second’s thought, nor does he consider putting a gloss on his reasoning. If anyone deserves the immediate, instinctive, and above all honest answer, it’s Martin. “I’d have had to let go of you to do that,” he says as he hits the rewind button. “And I’m honestly afraid if I do, something else will try to take you away again.”

For a moment, there’s no sound in the room but the whir of the tape spooling backwards. Finally, Martin says, “I know, you put a lot of effort into dragging me out of there once already. Shame for that to go to waste.”

A knot forms in Jon’s chest. God, what the hell did Peter Lukas do to Martin? Or...has he always thought like this? “You honestly think I’d have done that for anyone else?”

There’s another beat before Martin answers. “I mean...yes?”

“Martin...”

“You already did it with Daisy—”

Jon is shaking his head before Martin gets all the words out. “That wasn’t the same thing at all.”

“She was trapped in the domain of another...power. You went plunging in, found her, and brought her back out again, alive and well. Seems like the same thing to me.”

“It’s not,” Jon insists, looking up into Martin’s face. “For one thing, the reasoning was completely different. I went to find Daisy because I felt guilty.”

“Guilty,” Martin says flatly.

“I’m the one that brought her into that mess,” Jon says softly. “I’m the one that didn’t prepare properly for what would happen in the Unknowing and got her mixed up in it. And I just...we lost Tim. I lost Tim. I couldn’t bring him home. I could bring Daisy home safe. I went after her because I thought it would help my guilt if I could see her alive, and with Basira again.”

“Did it?”

“Sort of? I still...” The tape pops as it hits the beginning of the reel, but Jon ignores it for the moment. “I still feel guilty about Tim. I think I always will. Not just him getting killed, but...all of it. I couldn’t fix that, and no matter what I do for anyone else, I never can make it up to him. I’m not sure if I could have even if he’d survived. I don’t know if he would have let me. But at least Daisy was out of there, and I knew I’d done what I could for her. And she’s been doing all right, more or less. Or was, until today. Even if she did join the Institute to get away from the nightmares. Basira’s still inclined to beat up on me a bit, but Daisy doesn’t seem like she blames me, which helps.”

Martin sighs and slumps back against the wall. “Think that tape’s ready.”

Jon knows a dodge when he hears one, but he decides not to call Martin out on it just yet. Instead, he presses the play button and lets the tape go.

It is the one Martin had with him, starting with him and Peter Lukas first coming into the tunnels. Jon’s stomach lurches every time Lukas talks, the buttery-smooth words eroding Martin’s self-confidence and serving to isolate him further. It’s no wonder Martin tried to make Jon leave him in the Lonely, if this is how the bastard talked to him every time they interacted. His heart twists violently at Martin’s voice—the way it shifts from nervousness to trepidation to fear to outright panic—and then Elias’s voice comes through and his heart nearly stops dead. He listens to both of them taunting, toying with Martin, both of them for some reason urging him to kill Elias—to kill Jonah...

And then Martin refuses.

Jon’s lips part, but no sound comes out. He stares speechlessly at the tape recorder as Martin’s voice spills out, telling Lukas what he was thinking, why he did what he did, how he figured out that Lukas was lying to him for some reason. He stands up to Peter Lukas, the avatar of the Lonely, to his face, and refuses to kill a man who richly deserves it, a man nobody would blame him for destroying. Jon can picture him, shoulders squared and head held high, a defiant glint in his eye as he stares down not one, but two fears trying to claim him, and remains, solely and unequivocally, Martin.

He’s never been prouder.

His heart stutters again when Martin starts to ask a question and then vanishes. There’s a loud squeal of static, and Jon can almost hear voices in it, but it’s too much effort to try and force knowledge out of a magnetic tape right then, so he leaves it. And then he hears his own voice, piecing together the little bit he was able to glean from the surface of Elias’s—Jonah’s—mind, replaying the conversation leading up to him opening his mind, finding the path to the Lonely, and going off after Martin.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Martin says softly when the tape ends with a final-sounding click.

“What, you wanted me to leave you there?”

“Yes! I mean...I can’t say I’d like being there, but...damn it, Jon, the whole point was to keep you safe,” Martin blurts out. “Weren’t you listening? Did you not listen to a single thing I said? All right, I know I didn’t give you all the information, but I couldn’t, not and risk Peter starting to toy with you. As long as he thought I was really staying away from you, you were safe, from him at least. And I thought with Elias locked up, you’d be safe from him, and I knew—Elias told me you listened to all the tapes, so I knew once the recorders started popping up again you’d hear them eventually. I tried everything I could to keep you safe, and you just—walked into the Lonely like it was nothing!”

“No!” Jon says forcefully, and he grips Martin’s shirt tightly, forcing his attention onto him, forcing him to listen. “It wasn’t nothing, Martin, and you know that. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. Ever. I had no idea if I was going to be able to get out again, if we were going to be able to get out again. When I went into that coffin to find Daisy, I left a rib as an anchor by the door, so I’d know where the way out was. I had a plan, as...ill-advised as it was, but I did have one. I didn’t have that when I came after you, and I knew there was a chance this was a one-way trip. But it would have been worth it, do you hear me? I don’t care if I’d been trapped in there forever, because if I hadn’t gone in there, you would have been alone, and I couldn’t let that happen. I couldn’t, Martin.” He closes his eyes, trying to stop the sudden rush of tears he can feel threatening to spill over. “All this time...I trusted you. I did. I knew you knew what you were doing. I trusted you to have a plan and to be all right. And you did, and I am so very, very proud of you and what you did. But you...I didn’t just need you to know what you were doing. I needed you to be all right. And when I found that tape you left me, and I realized where you’d gone, I...I panicked. A lot. Nobody would help me, and I was so damn desperate I tried to force Helen to take me to the center, take me to you. I was never afraid for myself, Martin. Not throughout any of this. I was afraid for you. I needed you to be safe, and I was so afraid that I’d be too late.” He draws in a deep, shuddering breath. “I thought I was.”

He looks up and sees Martin staring at him, his eyes wide and wet behind his glasses and lips parted slightly. His expression is hard to read—Jon’s leaning towards disbelief, but there might be a little bit of fear there, too. He could probably know if he wanted to, but in the first place, he is very tired and that’s a lot of effort, and in the second place...well. He’s never pried into Martin’s mind, even accidentally, except once to know where he was because he needed to see him so badly. He’s not about to start now—not here, not in the aftermath of what’s probably the most terrifying thing they’ve faced down since Jon took over as Archivist, which is saying rather a lot.

“Martin,” he whispers again, and it’s halfway a prayer and halfway a question.

Martin shakes his head slightly, although it doesn’t seem like it’s in answer to the unspoken question. “Don’t do this, Jon,” he says, his voice breaking. “Don’t...don’t just tell me what I want to hear. I know you know...I know you listen to the tapes. I know you know how I—don’t play with me. Please.”

“I’m not playing, Martin,” Jon says, his heart breaking all over again. “I meant what I said. Just now. In the Lonely. What I’ve been...I should have told you so long ago. I need you, very much. I care about you. I—” His voice hitches. He hasn’t said it to anyone, in so many years—maybe not ever—has he ever said it? Has he ever meant it?

Well, he means it now. With his entire heart, with whatever he has that still passes for a soul, with everything that is within him. All the twisting paths his mind has taken these last two years, since the first time he really looked at Martin as he sat opposite the tape recorder and insisted on giving his statement, coalesce and unfold into a single, beautiful truth. But it sticks in his damned throat, and he can’t seem to manage to actually just say it.

“He was wrong, you know,” Martin says softly. “Elias. Jonah. Whatever. He was wrong.”

“About what?” Jon asks, a little taken aback by the twist of the conversation. Has he misjudged? He was so sure...

“What he said when he caught me burning those statements. My distraction. So Melanie could get those tapes.” Martin blinks hard. “You listened to that tape, right? He said...that’s when he told me you listened to all of them.” Again that short laugh layered with emotion. “Like that was going to change anything I said.”

“I, ah—no, not that one,” Jon confesses. “Not yet. I...Melanie told me your plan worked. I was...more focused on the statements. And I wasn’t sure I wanted to relive that day. I almost did, the other day, after I told you about...how to quit, but I—I just haven’t yet. What did he tell you?”

Martin swallows hard. “He said...he assumed you’d told me to burn the statements while he was gone. Said I’d do anything you told me to. It’s not that. I’d do anything for you. You know that, right?”

Jon nods. He’s known that for a while now, ever since Martin was “out sick” for two weeks and then came tumbling back into the Archives with the news that Jane Prentiss had been holding him hostage in his own apartment, without his phone. At first he thought, if only to himself, that Martin’s insistence on investigating so deeply was out of some inane need to prove himself, but somewhere around midnight, lying awake in his bed and finding himself wondering if the other man was comfortable and—most importantly—safe in the Archives after all, he came to the sudden realization that it wasn’t that at all. Martin knew, even before Jon did, how badly he needed to know all the details of the statements, and he went looking in the hopes that it would make Jon happy. It hasn’t escaped Jon’s attention that Martin is the only one on the team who’s recorded more than one or two statements, either. He shouldered the burden without question or complaint, for no other reason than to help Jon out. Martin has become the only person in the Institute Jon trusts completely and without question, because if anyone has earned that trust, it’s Martin.

“I just...I figured you knew how I felt,” Martin mumbles. “Even aside from the tapes. I know you just...know things sometimes, too. And, let’s face it, I’m not exactly subtle. Tim—” His voice hitches slightly on their friend’s name. “Tim used to love taking the piss out of me for it. So even if you weren’t psychic—”

“I’m not—all right, fine, I’m psychic. But I’ve never read your mind,” Jon tells him. “I—I try very hard not to invade people’s privacy, especially the people I care about, even accidentally. And I’m—I can be somewhat oblivious at times,” he adds with a self-deprecating laugh. “I suppose...I suppose I didn’t see it because I thought there was no possible way I could be so lucky.”

“Lucky?” Martin repeats, sounding faintly surprised.

Jon reaches up with one trembling hand and cups Martin’s cheek. “To have you feel the same way about me that I do about you.”

He tries not to voice his thoughts aloud, tries not to think about what Martin said the first time, when they were still trapped in Peter Lukas’s hellscape. I loved you. Not present tense, past tense. Loved. Jon knows, with a certainty that has nothing to do with the Eye, that he’s not going to stop feeling this way any time in his life. And if it’s now as one-sided as he always assumed it was, well, he’s lived with it this long. It won’t bother him too much.

Both the Eye and his own, actual brain chime in to inform him that he’s only kidding himself. It will bother him; it will hurt deeply to know that he could have had a chance at happiness, at maybe a little bit of peace, and he missed out on it forever because he couldn’t get his head out of his arse long enough to tell Martin why he agreed so readily to leave him behind before traipsing off to blow up a circus. He hopes like hell that Martin’s words were just an effect of the Lonely, that the world they were in warped his mind and made all his thoughts and feelings in the real world seem distant and unreal, because as terrifying as that thought is, the idea that Martin might have really stopped loving him is worse.

Of course, he thinks bitterly, see previous statement regarding there being no possible way I could be so lucky.

There seems to be an eternity in the heartbeat between Jon’s statement and the small, broken sound that escapes Martin’s lips. He turns his head slightly and brushes his lips against the palm of Jon’s hand, just for a second, then leans into the hand and wraps his arms around Jon, tight and secure. Jon can’t help the gasp of relief as he returns the embrace as fiercely as he dares, silently offering up a prayer of thanks to whatever higher power has decided to give him a damned break for once in his life.

“I—” Jon tries again, but the words stick in his throat just as hard. He wants to say it. Needs to say it. Needs Martin to understand. But they just won’t come.

“I know,” Martin whispers, his voice thick with tears. “Me, too, Jon.”

There are no words, in any language, to describe the emotions that flood over Jon with that. Or maybe there are, but Jon can’t think of them. All he can think is thank you thank you thank you as he presses his face into the space between Martin’s neck and shoulder. He doesn’t deserve this. He’s never deserved Martin, his loyalty and quiet devotion, everything that’s served as a touchstone, a way to ground Jon to reality, the one thing keeping him from losing himself completely. It’s been hard, keeping his distance from Martin since he woke up from his coma, but he realizes it hasn’t exactly been a picnic for Martin either. Jon at least had Basira and Melanie and Daisy, even if at least one of them wanted to kill him at any given time, and even though none of them are Martin, none of them could ever understand him the way Martin has from the very start. Martin had no one, and even if it was his choice—or he was pretending it was, anyway—it had to hurt. All those months in close, near-constant proximity to Peter Lukas, the avatar of Isolation, would destroy a weaker man than Martin Blackwood. Jon knows, with utter certainty, that he would never have been able to survive that. He would have given in. He would have broken. But Martin stayed the course and survived.

And then Jon almost lost him anyway.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, the sound muffled by Martin’s shirt. “I’m so sorry. If I’d...”

“Don’t,” Martin chokes. “’S not your fault. You didn’t—this isn’t on you.” He lets out another short laugh, but there’s no bitterness in it this time and it makes Jon’s heart lighten a little. “You saved me.”

“You saved me first. We’re even.” Jon tries to laugh. “Actually, I think you’re still well ahead.”

Martin huffs, but doesn’t argue. Jon senses it’s less because he agrees and more because he doesn’t have the energy. “Don’t suppose you know the way out of this maze.”

“That...no. I don’t,” Jon admits. He shifts back enough to look up at Martin’s face, but he doesn’t let go. He doesn’t know if he can right now. Maybe not ever. “I only got down here because—Jonah called me. I’d like to think I’d have been able to find you, but these paths are...”

“Distorted?”

“Yes, that’s probably the best word for them. I doubt I could have retraced your steps and made it.”

Martin’s lips twitch in a smile. “Maybe it’s like leaving the Lonely. Maybe you just have to pick a direction and keep moving that way.”

“No, that wasn’t it,” Jon corrects him. “It wasn’t that I knew where the exit was, either. I didn’t...not exactly.”

“You said you—” Martin stops. “No. You said you knew the way out. That’s it, isn’t it? The only way out of the Lonely was together.”

Jon brushes his knuckles against Martin’s cheek fondly. “I knew you were still part of the Archives.”

Martin blushes. He takes Jon’s hand in his and kisses the back of it gently. “Well, then, maybe we can find our way out of here together, too. If you’re ready.”

Jon can feel his own cheeks heating up. He nods. “I think I’m about as ready as I’ll be able to be down here. You?”

“Same. Feel like I could sleep for a week, though.”

It’s on the tip of Jon’s tongue to suggest they collapse in the back room of the Archives, where Martin stayed when they were worried about Jane Prentiss, but he holds off. First of all, he suspects neither one of them wants to relive those days, especially as Prentiss was closer than they’d suspected. Even now, Jon’s heart lurches and stutters when he remembers those worms working their way through the walls, how close they came to getting to Martin when he was alone and vulnerable, and he doubts Martin has forgotten that either. Second, and more importantly, Jon is fairly certain the Institute is going to be crawling with police, between the thing that isn’t Sasha getting loose and Travis and Julia outright murdering people. The Archives are almost certainly a crime scene, and there’s no way they’ll be able to stay there, even if they want to.

“We might be able to get some sleep down here first,” he says instead.

“Not sure how much sleep I’d actually be able to get with...” Martin trails off, glancing over to where Jonah Magnus’s body lies. “And what if he comes back?”

“Both excellent points. Upwards, then. And let’s hope there’s nothing worse waiting for us than Basira.”

They manage to get to their feet. Jon isn’t sure who assists whom, but they struggle up together. Before they start to move, though, Jon tugs Martin around and hugs him again. He’s not sure he’s quite ready to head through the tunnels, through the Spiral’s domain, and up to the undoubted chaos awaiting them in the Institute. He just wants another moment of quiet. And more than that...he just needs to reassure himself, again, that Martin is here, solidly present and warm and safe, or at least as safe as they can be in the world they inhabit.

Martin hugs him back, just as tightly. Jon can feel the same emotions roiling through him as he does, relief and love and the lingering remnants of fear. He tries to shut them out, tries to do Martin the courtesy of not prying into his brain, until he realizes that it’s not his abilities as the Archivist, it’s simply that Martin’s feeling those emotions so strongly that anyone who knew him could pick up on them. It may also have to do with the fact that he’s shaking slightly.

“Has anyone touched you since you...came back?” Martin asks in his ear. He sounds a little sad.

It takes Jon a moment to realize what Martin means. “I did get a hug from Melanie right before she...resigned. Other than that, nothing very pleasant.” He looks up at Martin, whose eyes radiate so much sympathy it almost hurts. “You?”

“That’s on me. And I don’t...you need that, Jon. I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault. I could have...asked someone.” It’s ridiculous, and Jon knows it, and he knows Martin knows it. Basira is prickly and stoic and very much not the touchy-feely type, and Melanie was angry with him for so long, partly because of the bullet in her leg and partly because Jon was a convenient target for her feeling of being trapped. And while he and Daisy have come to an accord, she’s got her own traumas and neuroses to deal with and Jon’s never been sure where the line between his needs and hers might lie. Once upon a time he might have been able to count on Georgie for at least a few friendly touches, but, well, that bridge was well and truly burnt. But he won’t let Martin blame himself for this. “Let’s just agree that we both need to agree to stop ignoring our needs in favor of protecting the people around us and practice being a little kinder to ourselves, hmm?”

Martin’s lips twitch in a smile. “I promise to ask next time before I assume I know what the best thing to do to protect you is.”

Warmth flows through Jon, and he returns the smile. “And I promise to do the same.”

Martin bends over and presses his forehead against Jon’s. Jon closes his eyes, feeling calm soak through him. It’s probably a ridiculous thing to feel, as the likelihood that things are going to be all right even for a little while is slim to none, but he’ll take it while he can.

Whatever is coming, Jon is sure it’s nothing they can’t face together.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Perhaps love is like the ocean, full of conflict, full of pain Like a fire when it's cold outside or thunder when it rains If I should live forever and all my dreams come true My memories of love will be of you...

#the magnus archives #tma #jonmartin #ollie writes fanfic

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jq37 · 4 years

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The Report Card – Fantasy High Sophomore Year Ep 13

What the Hell?

Hey y’all. We’re back with a very eventful episode of Fantasy High--both from a plot an RP perspective--so let’s not waste any time getting into it. As you remember from last week, the kids are split up doing their various investigative activities. The first group we’re gonna check back in with are the Owlbears--Gorgug, Fabian, Ragh, and the Hangman--who are with the gnomish tinkerers.

Gorgug talks to the head gnome dude (Krumpkin in case I didn’t mention before) and asks to have his shoes loaded up with springs, which he is happy to do. Lou--via an offhanded comment that he absolutely commits to--establishes that Fabian has extremely small feet which is not plot relevant but I felt like I needed to mention. While they’re waiting for the shoes to be done, Krumpkin brings in a logbook so they can see what Killian--the elf working for Arianwyn--bought. It was a lot of stuff used in making magical candles and 2 blocks of Dusk Moss Incense. Dusk Moss is a hallucinogenic moss that people use recreationally to have sort of lucid dreams while awake. Gorgug knows that some kids in school do Dusk Moss but he’s never heard of it being in incense form before. He decides to buy everything that Killian did to be safe--including the drugs which he and Fabian are (hilariously) very flustered about.

The gnomes give Gorgug his upgraded shoes and, in return, they just want to check out his crystal. Easy trade. He explains to them how the crystal works and Gorgug realizes, “Hey. I’m surrounded by people who know how to build stuff.” Maybe they can help with making a cell tower. They think they might be able to do it but they’d need access to more raw materials. Either that or access to a satellite. Gorgug (with the help of Fabian’s Bardic) suddenly remembers: while he was in jail the year before his parents actually launched a satellite into space! And a bunch of the schematics and stuff for it are in the Van. They go to get it while we flash over to see how the Nerd Squad is doing.

They’re still casing the room Arianwyn was staying in at the Owl and the Harp. Adaine finds non-detection runes her mom put up to keep Falinel from finding her. She also can tell that two rituals happened in the room: one to kill Killian and the other to put the Devil’s Heart Ruby (ie: The Gorthalax one) into his body. Riz realizes that the ritual isn’t about getting into Sylvere so much as getting the Shadowcat into Sylvere by way of having the gem Petrosmos (as is rock+osmosis--as in what’s going on with Ragh’s mom) with someone she’s infected. He also finds a lot of super old school medical texts written in, like, hieroglyphs almost. Adaine ritual casts Comprehend Languages so she can read it and one of the texts is a diagram of a centaur with scary looking cat symbols at its eyes, ears, tongue, sinuses, and spine but not the brain (which they later deduce means that she can access their senses but not their thoughts). He also knows that the two rituals were cast 24 hours apart which means that either Arianwyn left while they were partying or somehow knew to do the ritual the second they initially grabbed Aelwen.

Adaine rolls to try to find proof that her mom cares about her any personal effects left behind and does that thing people always do in movies where they lightly shade over a piece of paper to see what was written on the sheet on top of it. She finds a note written in her mom’s handwriting that says: Aelwen is with me. You are betrayed. You have no other choice, darling. Come join us. It seems as if she wrote it down to make sure she was under the limit for Sending. Adaine assumes it was to her Dad since it wasn’t to her. Riz also sees that the amount they were packing is way more than they would need to get to the temple. It’s hard to tell exactly what they were going there to do though because they brought all the important stuff with them.

They discuss Kalina’s abilities some more and are pretty confident that she can only be in one person at a time. They also think she’s unable to get into a Moon Haven/the Hallowed Van but they’re not sure if she can get in if she’s already in one of them before they go in. Adaine wants to establish that any private info, they Message to each other instead of saying it out loud. With an 18 Medicine check, Riz knows there’s a cure but he doesn’t know what it is. He takes all of the research to bring back to the party clerics who we’ll visit right now actually.

The Clerics and Fig are in the shrine with Vrath, the super aggro devil who’s just served Fig a subpoena. Fig reads it and sees that she’s being subpoenaed as a witness for a Tribunal against Gorthalax for neglecting his domain (he’s gotten 9 summonses which have all lapsed). Fig thinks it’s just a misunderstanding since Gorthalax is in a gem. Fig wants to do some court shenanigans but Kristen convinces her to at least get everyone together first.

Gorgug gets the research to the gnomes and they think they can rig something up in maybe a day. Then, the Owlbears go check in with the other two groups. After being told about the whole subpeona situation, Sandra-Lynn points out that Gilear actually knows a good amount about the law. He insists he’s not a lawyer but agrees to help and, upon reading the subpoena, says it seems pretty above board. Fig and Kristen also think they might be able to recruit the devils to fight against the NK while they’re in Hell since devils hate demons.

Adaine sets up the Message system they talked about earlier and Kristen decides to peruse the medical docs Riz found. NAT 20 BAY-BEE! And Kristen might have a -3 to Dex but she has a +9 to Medicine. That’s a big ol’ 29!

After taking a second to eat his dice and contemplate how jossed his plans are, Brennan says that they can make a tincture using Dusk Moss and some other alchemical supplies from Sylvere that would cure it and that, with a Nat 20, she understands it so well that she specifically can cure it with Greater Restoration. Sandra-Lynn talks about what she found (where Arianwyn and Co. entered the forest) to cover the fact that Adaine and Fig are Messaging this information mentally to the group so Kalina doesn’t know what they know. Adaine thinks maybe they should start saying things that are untrue out loud so that Kalina is getting bad info. Fig thinks maybe they cure everybody but one person so they can control the info she’s getting but realizes that Kalina would probably realize what they’d done and catch on. Tracker pitches that they also could just all go in the Hangvan to be safe and then Kristen could one by one cast Greater Restoration on everyone who needs it. But she can only cast it once a day so it would probably take longer than they have.

Gorgug asks a very insightful question that hadn’t occurred to me--if Sandra-Lynn is infected, why isn’t Gilear? Fig relays the question to her slightly embarrassed mom who says she must have gotten it within the past 3 years. Not info Fig really wanted to know I’m sure but these things come up when you go adventuring with your parents.

Anyway, after some more discussion, they decide that they have to go the tincture route so they can all get cured at once since doing it piecemeal means they lose their element of surprise and they also decide that going to Hell to clear up Gorthalx’s tribunal is top priority. Tracker stays behind in the Van since she can’t get into the temple where the door is because of the mural while everyone else tries the door. Fig goes in first but stands in the doorway so it stays open (if anyone else tries to approach, the door starts growing thorns). Gilear walks in, Riz is hanging onto Fig. Fabian and Adaine are next, both on the Hangman but the doorway recognizes a devil (the Hangman) going through the door and shuts, leaving Fig, Riz, Gilear, and the Hangman in Hell and everyone else in the shrine.

Gilear immediately gets knocked out by fire-rain but Riz brings him back with his healer feat and the Hangman (who is very sad puppy about being separated from Fabian) gives him a devil mark on his forehead that protects him from fire. Gilear also says that, as long as they go to the tribunal, the devils will have to send them home afterwards. On their way to the tribunal, Gilear has some playful banter with Fig which Riz is immediately suspicious of he gets Gilear to blurt out in a panic that he’s feeling confident because Sandra-Lynn and Jawbone broke up and she asked to sleep with him and he declined. They had a good talk and they left it on good terms but that’s what’s going on. Fig is happy Gilear is feeling more confident, especially since she feels a little guilty about his whole deal, a fact that shocks Gilear. She thinks it’s obvious. She’s a living reminder of the fact that he got cheated on by his wife. He pauses. Then he says he’s going to step up for her and turn his life around. Oh, also, Riz going absolutely feral but that’s unrelated.

They get to court which is overseen by Vraz (plus a Spiked dude and a Chained dude--Blozo, Vraz’s boss, is stuck in traffic). Fig is called up and asked if she knew of any intention by Gorthalax to neglect his duties. She says no and that Gorthalax was trapped in a gem by Kalina via a proxy (which, you will remember, was her). Brennan makes Fig roll to get away with that tricky wording of the technical truth and Adaine gives her a Nat 20 portent roll to beat Vraz’s 23. That gets Gorthalax off the hook for punishment but they still have to get someone to run the place while he’s gone and the tribunal isn’t over. Vraz calls a recess and puts the party on house arrest in hell. Also, Fig cut herself to show her blood to prove she was Gorthalx’s daughter and inadvertently created a fully sentient imp valet for herself so that’s also something that’s happening.

Back in the shrine, Adaine checks out the mural and sees an occult rune on the spellbook and realizes she’s seen it somewhere. They then go check out the spot Sandra-Lynn found where Arianwyn entered the forest and the briers there are actually more tangled than in other places, not less. It seems like they were trying to throw people off by entering through a less intuitive spot but also that it will probably slow them down. They go back home to prep and wait for the rest of the party. Fabian gets a ping from the Hangman asking if he should try to call his dad. After a little bluster, Fabian admits that yes, yes he should.

Meanwhile, Kristen wants to check out their coins to see if they have the spellbook (though Gorgug thinks the baddies already have it) and Adaine realizes she saw the symbol at the Compass Points library so Ayda would know what it means. She doesn’t have Sending stocked so she decides to trance so she can either get a short rest or have a long one and get the spell prepared, depending on when they need to leave. Gorgug decides to go see how the gnomes are doing with his crystal. Since he’s there, he can help out. Nat 20! They get the crystal to work. He now essentially has a satellite phone.

He magic Facetimes Zelda who is at a party with the rest of the 7 Maidens. She’s shocked that Gorgug was able to rig his phone to work on the road and she’s not even mad at him anymore. She apologizes for reacting so strongly and says she misses him so much. In the background, her party members do the extremely teen girl thing of hyping up the boyfriend that they all like. He and Zelda have a sweet little conversation and Gorgug lets her know that they’re about to go into the forest so their service might not be great. Zelda says that they’re done with their quest so he shouldn’t worry about her. She also says he loves him which the gnomes with Gorgug are super stoked about. They pop some bottles.

Adaine wakes up from her trance, restocks her spells, and casts Sending to ask Ayda about Planeshift and the rune she found. Ayda says they should use the Synod of Spires and has Adaine check her right jacket pocket where she finds a glowing blue key. When Adaine uses it on a nearby, glowing lock, she finds herself in this cool pocket dimension which Ayda also appears in. She gives Adaine a copy of the spell (it’s 1st level I believe) so she can use it too when they need to talk and the Sending spell would be inconvenient. Re the symbol: Ayda says it’s an Abjuration rune (but not a protective one, a meta-magic one ie: modifying magic) that masks powerful curses and spells by letting them Trojan Horse under a different curse (she says the underlying curse could be a vessel for other spellcasting which sounds like a spellbook to me). She also says the larger Trojan Horse curse would be better if it was something static--Adaine suggests the wall around the forest and Ayda says that could work.

When Adaine offhandedly mentions that Fig is currently stuck in Hell, Ayda freaks about rescuing her immediately, eventually revealing that they kissed for an hour the night before (“AN HOUR???”) to Adaine’s immediate delight (until she starts in on the TMI at least). Ayda actually was about to call Adaine as well so she could ask her to use her Oracular abilities to suss out how to avoid any possible futures where Fig doesn’t want to be with her anymore which has got to be the most teen girl thing Ayda has ever done in any of her lives. Adaine tells her that that’s not really how her powers work but reassures her that Fig wouldn’t play with her emotions and it wouldn’t be weird for her to ask Fig for clarification about their relationship status. They end up having a little talk about how both of them are wired differently which they bond over and the episode ends with Ayda mentioning that she created the friendship section of the library that Gorgug found a while back out of loneliness. And now she has a best friend and a girlfriend (probably)! What a different ending that a devil subpoena.

Detention

Kristen for Trying to Handcuff Sandra-Lynn

No one actually did anything too crazy this episode so I’ll give it to Kristen for a joke I have no idea how she saw going over well.

Honor Roll

Kristen for Making Brennan Eat His Dice (And Going Full Jonas Salk All Over Kalina’s Ass)

I think the only other person who’s made both lists in one ep is Fig.

Anyway, you know I had to give it to Kristen for that Nat 20 to figure out literally everything in those medical texts and how to cure everybody. What a clutch time for Ally’s dice powers to kick in. This is why Kristen had to almost break her leg ribbon dancing out a window. Equivalent exchange.

(Also, props to Brennan for honoring the roll and probably jossing some of his own plans in the process.)

Random Thoughts

Housekeeping Update: There are only 7 episodes of Sophomore Year to go (not counting this one)! March 25th is the last one so prepare accordingly! As much as I’m enjoying these, I’m pretty OK with this since I think more digestible content is one of the big strengths of Dimension 20 content.

Also, for those of y’all who don’t watch Critical Role or missed last episode, on Friday (2/14) Ally will be playing on their Valentines Day one-shot of Monsterhearts (monster high school setting) and, based on the promo, looks like they’ll be playing a werewolf so be sure to check that out if you want more of Ally’s shenanigans in your life.

I feel like Brennan must have a lot of fun coming up with nonsense gnome names. They’re all so insane.

“Anything is an alchemical ingredient depending on what you’re trying to do.”

Lol at Lou being like, “We all have the same information and I didn’t figure out any of that,” when the Nerd Squad was figuring stuff out irl.

I love how Gorgug has no patience for eleven nonsense but someone says the word, “crystalmatron” to him and he doesn’t bat an eye.

“This is in hell.”/”What!?”/”Hell.”/”What!?”/“Hell.”

Gilear: Everyone is in great danger all of the time

Adaine: I agree.

Gilear: Good? But also disquieting coming from the Oracle.

It occurs to be that Garthy is a really bad person to be infected by the Kalina Virus considering their occupation and how good they are at it.

Fig is right. A simultaneous, “Bye Kalina,” would be very dope.

If Kalina happened to be watching them at any in this episode, it’s good that they bought the Duskmoss beforehand. Like, if Kalina knows they bought Duskmoss blindly because they just bought everything Killian did, she’d be a lot less suspicious of them than if she sees them suddenly buy 2 huge bricks of an important ingredient in the cure for her.

It occurs to me that Jawbone is also a bad person to be infected with the Kalina Virus.

Oh man, Jawbone and Sandra-Lynn just got a house together with so many people. And now they broke up. I know they’re both being adults about it and all but you can’t tell me it’s not gonna be a little awkward.

I wonder what Zayn is doing back in the haunted house while this is going on. No real reason. Just wanna know. Like is Adaine gonna come back and he’s like, “I taught Edgar how to do a trick. What about you?” And she’s like, “Hoo, boy. Where do I even start.”

Fantasy drugs in D&D are always so so funny to me. Also, lol at the fact that Adaine is actually pretty down to do fantasy hallucinogens (she thinks they might be therapeutic).

The 6/7 Maidens texting Gorgug to be like, “Good job buddy!” is such a sweet detail.

The vulnerability from Fig talking to Gilear in this episode. Gah. Fig’s thing is that she’s not a closed book despite what she says. She’s a wide open book for the most part. But that’s not the same as letting yourself be vulnerable necessarily. And the clear shock from Gilear that Fig would not only concern herself with his wellbeing in that way (like, she’s always head of the Gilear cheer squad but this is like, more than surface level, you know?) and that she would put it upon herself--something that she should never have to deal with as the child? I did not ASK for touching scenes from GILEAR but by God are they happening anyway.

Upon learning that Fig is wearing her library card behind her ear now instead of a clove (in tribute to Ayda of course) I got my library card and tried that and, folks, it is for sure a Choice.

Man I hope Adaine messes with Fig over Ayda. Them acting like bratty sisters (like them fighting for rooms in ep 1) is one of my fave dynamics amongst the Bad Kids.

Do we know how/why Ayda ended up in Leviathan in the first place? Like, did Aguefort just drop her there for some reason? Is that where she was conceived? How sentient are phoenixes? Does she have any kind of relationship with her mom?

“I want to be alone but also surrounded by my friends at all times.” Again, too real.

Siobhan knows so many crazy words offhandedly. When Brennan said “synod” I started Googling and before I even pressed Enter she was like, “So it’s a church thing.” Wild.

@jamiebluewind has a Galaxy Brain theory that the kids need to get rid of all of their Kalvaxus gold for the coin/spellbook to reveal itself (details here) which I think makes a lot of sense because from a storytelling/gameplay perspective it would be weird for them to have possibly spent it before they even knew it was a thing they were looking for.

The obvious person that Arianwyn would have sent that Message to would be her husband but I’m wondering if either it’s a mislead or a trap because we know they’re not working together because of Aelwen (who I’m inclined to believe). What is your game Mom Abernant? What are you doing?

They got Gothalax out of punishment by saying that the reason he hasn’t shown up is because he’s been in a gem but 9 seems like a lot of summonses to have received in the past, what, four days (?) since he’s been trapped. Feels like a longer-standing issue potentially.

Kristen and Gorgug each roll one Nat 20 in this episode and Fig gets one via Adaine’s portent roll. Fig and Fabian each roll one Nat 1.

#fantasy high #fantasy high spoilers #dimension 20 #dimension 20 spoilers #fantasy high live

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common-blackbird · 4 years

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I’m not good with gaming and i never really imagined myself finishing any game, so this was a whole new experience for me... I really sucked. At one point i remember even crying when i just couldn’t fight smth. I hate asking for help (i’m infinitely grateful for it), or even looking “how to do this” bc i feel like i cheat, while when i just can’t beat smth in the game it makes me feel dumb. But i learned that usually happens bc i’ve been playing for too long.

So where to start.... The thing i liked most is the lore. Not just the content of it (which is very entertaining) but also the way it’s portrayed: through conversations, through various notes you find around, and it’s not just “well this is how it is” but rather sometimes contradictory claims that reflect different cultures. I love how you only ever see one country, but hear a lot about the others (well mostly Orlais, but there are tidbits from other countries as well), but also various cultures. I also love how the complex situation is in the game. The question of mages, the repression of elves, the dwarves and their culture, the question of religion.

The game is really good at setting the moral ambiguity and make you have hard choices. Once you realise there’s a pattern it does get easier, but some just make you wonder a lot what is the better choice.

While we’re at it let me talk some quests and decicions.

Free the elves?

So the easiest choice (though i don’t really think there was much of choosing) is the elves-slavery in denerim. Free elves, free citizens, i don’t even understand how did they get to be second-class citizens (or maybe i just forgot, i’ look it up), but they literally did nothing wrong, aren’t dangerous and frankly, there’s so much wilds in ferelden, i don’t see what’s the problem. However, though i don’t know if that was implied, if you go strictly against slavery, but this was a deal made between ferelden and tevinter, you risk a decline in diplomatic relationship as well as economy i assume, so it could be a setback. But again, if you have free citizens elves that are not just piled in one place, you can freshen up your own economy with capable workers. Like, even if you regret breaking a relationship with tevinter (that doesn’t even happen but i was thinking about it at the time), and the elves riot and go against you once you do give them freedom bc lot of bad history between ferelden and elves i guess, it’s still a morally & practically easy choice.

Free the mages?

This was... hmm... mage rights... I LOVE how they went about this problem. So the mages are problematic bc doing magic also means you can get posessed by a demon which results in a catstrophe (like that kid that demolished redcliffe). So they’re locked into a circle tower where they are trained and have a rigorous discipline and are under the watch of templars who might kill them if they try to escape? Mages who actually do escape the tower get hunted down and are forced back, or they get killed, especially if they attempt the bloodmagic (immoral dangerous magic practice?).

It’s kind of obvious that the game leans more to the mage rights (i mean, i wish there was a more memorable templar who isn’t like “mages are bad” by default, but they are kinda trained that way. tbh i just wish we had more templars...). At first, the only mage (other than that one in ostagar) you acutally meet is morrigan, who... who is not a very good example of “why people think mages are bad”. She’s cool, she handles magic really good, yeah she seems to be against the world, but what can you exepect when templars would kill her on sight? Even when alistair is constantly suspecting her, he’s basing that on her being a mage, and not on her saying really creepy immoral stuff. So initially i was all for mage rights. Then things didn’t really help much in the circle tower bc all templars were for just killing all the mages bc things got out of hands. Retrospectively i get where they’re coming from, but still, they seemed really incapable at the time. But then i met wynne, and she told me her backstory. And what really stuck with me is that

1) they find out she’s a mage bc she set someone on fire = mages are dangerous

2) while one templar ignored her completely, the other templar that brought her to the tower was nice to her and carried her on his shoulder (which is very cute) = templars don’t have to be so antagonistic towards mages and

3) the circle tower does not only protect the people from mages, but also the mages from people, bc people are bigoted and scared and will kill a mage = a social/cultural problem.

In any case, i feel like simply freeing mages just like that would turn out to be a terrible mistake bc they are kinda walking time-bombs and they’d be ostracized from society which would make them turn desperate bc no protection, then you get easily corruptible, and so it brings lot of trouble. That being said, obviously, it’s bad to keep people locked up in a tower for life. So i guess i’m more for reforming the circle with mages being treated as humans and not walking time-bombs, templars not being taught to be antagonistic towards mages, but rather their partners(?) bodyguards(?), mages having right to employment once they prove they’re capable of handling magic well, and if needed take one templar with them so people can feel safe. The Circle is already institution made for the rights for the mages, it just needs a lot of work on it. Idk. there wasn’t much of the ~what’s it like to live in the circle~ since you walk into a disaster, so i don’t want to be all in for the mages or all against the mages. I’m a dwarf. Magic is domain i don’t bother to understand.

Orzammar social problems

Tradition vs. reform, at the cost of a monarch or a dictator. That was actually a really easy choice if you’re playing a dwarf. If i played a noble dwarf, i’d defintely choose Harrowmont bc he’s 1) nicer, 2) looks more capable, 3) doesn’t seem that powerhungry. But this also means that current system based on castes. Equality is not even a myth there, it’s an apocalyptic outlook. Which takes another form of a bad side when you have the ostracized casteless dwarves, stripped of all rights and treated like dirt (and that was my warden). So, harrowmont is the safe choice for a current state. Nobody really cares who’s on the throne bc nobody expects the system to change. But if you choose Behlen for a king (who’s accused of murdering his father), you get a reformist who is open to including the casteless in some form into the system. As canon fodder. Despite the grim outlook of being used as a canon fodder, it does open a possibility of upping your status based on the merits. The paragon system is already such a leeway to better your status (bc if you do something outstanding that the drawves, you are revered as a god), but it’s virtually impossible to do something of that scale as a casteless (unless you.. finish the game). On the other hand if you choose Behlen, it’s pretty obvious he’s powerhungry dictator. But i chose behlen bc my sister was his concubine and prospect of including casteless in any form would be a good offer for a casteless dwarf.

Kill/let the mother kill the child or do this bloodmagic-not-so-bloodmagic(?) ritual to save him?

Ah, my disaster. So, of course, i wanted to help the kid, and when the bloodmage said there’s a ritual that can be performed, i just needed to get other mages there, i chose that, i went to the circle tower, i did the whole damn mission there, got back to the kid and, like the fool i am, went straight to the boy instead of talking first to mages, which resulted in me alone dealing with him, which resulted in me making his mother kill him, get yelled on by alistair and there’s no option “it was on accident” to say to him (which frankly would be a terrible thing to say), and then he starts putting himself down bc now my warden is trying to justify herself, which is another level of misery bc i’m fighting a really nice guy who hates children being killed and feels bad that he’s angry about that. anyways, that was a mess from start to finish.

speaking of other messes,

Haven village mission

well, there’s no hard choice in this mission, it’s “side with fanatics who worship a dragon or be reasonable and find the urn”. (i do wonder what do you get from siding with fanatics now). but this mission was such a rollercoaster for me. I did everything backwards. You come into this creepy little isolated village where nobody likes you and they are some kind of fanatics of older gods. So it turns out that first you’re supposed to walk into one house and find a corpse there, which i totally overlooked so instead i killed the merchant in the village, went to the church, killed everyone there, then went out and killed everyone in the village, i found genitivi (a researcher who got captured there), but i still couldn’t finish the mission until i got into that villagers house and saw the corpse that was supposed to be my first inkling of supicion for the village. So the whole storyline didn’t make any sense. And later, when i was supposed to walk humbly to the urn, i was supposed to first leave all my belongings on an oltair, so i did, but didn’t realise i was actually supposed to do that so i took them back and then i couldn’t put them back again on the altair, so i had to fight that guard there and died lol. I hated every part of that mission. it was creepy, hard and i’m lucky i didn’t smash the urn in the end.

The werewolf problem

That one was easy, like, the whole problem of werewolves is bc the head elf lives for too long and there’s nothing so fitting as holding grudges for eternity which endangers the whole clan. I have only one complaint and that is my god the forest is confusing. Each time i go into the forest i get lost.

The golem quest was fun bc that end with Shale randomly killing a chicken always gets me. I love it. Return to ostagar was on the other hand very uneventful for me, but i did see a video with what banter you have if you have wynne and loghain in your party and it’s really intense how wynne keeps attacking him.

Random thought, but today i watched this video about dragon age origins and the guy said that mages are best for combats bc they can do most damage in range, which is probably true, but tbh most of the time for me it was usually the mage who dies in the battle. Morrigan is super useful for attacks, and Wynne for defense, but they’re both as frail as daisies and i’m left with low-stamina melee fighters. And that happens when you’re fighting an archdemon. You’re crying as you drink your last health poultice. You wish you brought wynne. But wynne had been dying just as often, which renders her power of revival pretty useless.

And now, the characters. Lets start humbly with my own.

This game made me realise i’m bad at roleplaying. I scroll through tumblr and see how people just love the character they’ve created and they are so cool and seem so interesting. Me? let me show how i create my character: i don’t like using magic bc magic is often complicated so mage is out of the question. warriors are usually strong so i can’t relate, so i’ll be a rouge and talk people into doing the dirty work for me. i loved elves so fiercly as a kid i got fed up with them and can’t stand them so i’ll not be an elf, but humans seem boring so i’ll be a dwarf. After all i’m short, i can relate. Bonus points, they are imune to magic. Since i’m casteless, i decided to look ugly (i’ve been told my warden looks like the crying cat meme). In the end, compared to the rest of my warden’s family, she looked like an adopted child. At the beginning i had the idea that i would make this character grow from “in it for herself” to “a hero” bc it’s a typical hero story anyway, but in the end it was just a self insert with really dumb mistakes who doesn’t get what she’s signed up to. I guess it’s easier to actually make interesting characters once you already know the stories and the choices so it’s easier to choose according to the characterisation you make and not “what if i screw up?”.

Alistair

So after you get chosen by Duncan (a cool honorable guywho gives you chance to make something of your casteless self and then makes you drink poison), the first guy you meet is alistair - a fellow grey warden who used to train to be a templar (which is as far as we go in meeting templars) and happens to be a king’s bastard son. He is dorky, funny, a genuinely nice person and on level of insecurity that even surpasses mine. He’s impossible to dislike. What i really like about the characters is that they’re super simple, which makes them both their charm and their annoying trait. for example, he often puts himself down, which i relate and am symphatetic and am all “nah you’re really nice”, but the next time he does that i’m “mate, you gotta stop doing that”. But it’s still kinda cute.

What did irk me throughout the game is him being my senior, but making me the leader. I literally pass the test 1 day before everybody gets killed and he is the only grey warden who knows what grey wardens do. Not only that, he’s like the only guy with me at the beginning who knows where’s what and knows the culture. I’m a friggin dwarf who is afraid that i’ll fall into the sky, have no interest to get myself killed, but now i’m a leader. But that’s not even the issue, bc i am already the main character. The problem is when every character in the game acts as if i’m the only surviving grey warden when alistair is right there. “Only you can do that, oh you’re a grey warden”. Alistair knows more about grey wardens than i ever will. I wish they just mention “can either of you two”. It’s like he doesn’t exist lol. I didn’t take him often to missions and pretended he’s doing some grey warden business i know nothing about. The only character who makes sense to completely ignore alistair as a grey warden is anora. But whatever, he doesn’t want any spotlight, so i guess he’s happy being considered “that sidekick grey warden”. Even as frustrating as it was, i really liked his avoiding of responsibility whatsoever and his low confidence, it really makes room for character growth.

Dog

the best character in da:o.

Morrigan

She’s obviously a polar opposite to alistair - overconfident, kind of mean, kind of selfish, her jokes are mean. I mean, when i imagine alistair i imagine a dog, when i imagine morrigan, that’s a cat. And while as a person i don’t really like her that much, but her dynamics with other characters are really fun. What really made me love her is that mystery “is she evil or not”, ( which I guess she’s not considering she’s still a buddy in later games(?)), but combined with her relationship with flemeth who also might or might not be evil. she keeps opposing her mother while being compliant to her. She does what flemeth asks bc she knows that flemeth is more powerful. It makes you wonder how terrible her upbringing was if you’re certain your mom has some fishy plans in which you might get killed in the process. But instead of just running away and doing exactly the opposite of what flemeth commands, even after hearing she’s dead, she still goes on with flemeth’s idea, so i’m guessing she just wants the demon baby for herself(?). In any case, her (justified?) paranoia with flemeth makes her really compelling.

SPEAKING OF DEMON BABY, turns out the reason flemeth saved the warden and alistair was so that the warden could convince alistair to have sex with morrigan. which means that if the warden is a guy, and let us assume a straight guy, she’s counting on at least 50% chance of the male straight guy hating morrigan so much he would sooner convince the other guy who definitely hates morrigan to have sex with her than doing it himself. Yikes.

Sten

Sten is a character you respect. Some things he said really resonated with me and it made me think a lot. His regret over killing that family totally flew over me at that time (bc zevran was talking his head off how he killed this guy and that guy so who cares about sten killing some family, i’m already going to hell for tolerating assassins and making a mother kill her child), but later it was quite peculiar that he’s so ready to kill me and he’s pretty ruthless at everything he does, so you’d think this big guy has no problem getting over this. His regret made me more interested in his culture and his rigorous honour-code. I’d really love to see Par Vollen. At the end i even told him i was going to be joining him on his way back to Par Vollen (i wanted a new character for awakening), but that didn’t work out sadly :(

Leliana

I think most endearing part of Leliana is that she truly seems to believe all the right things, even though you’re made suspicious considering she was (or is?) a spy. That woman talks so much. And she’s always in the right. Always. Making a spy become a hardcore believer in god is cool, bc i always doubt her. She knows her way with words, she always says what you want/need to hear. Of course she would be playing a religious girl if that meant she could convince me that she’s harmless. But it’s also fun that she truly believes it and has a hard time convincing you that considering you keep doubting everything she says. I really like her.

Zevran

I was really surprised when i saw that Zevran is a fan-favourite. I guess it’s that he has a tragic-slave-turned-assassin backstory. I... am completely indifferent towards him. I’m sorry. He was just that one bisexual hedonist assassin who happens to have been a slave long time ago. I guess, by the time i got his backstory, i was already immune to angst... But thinking back, i really like that he’s the bad guy in his backstory, he’s the one doing betraying, while leliana for example got betrayed. And i’m a little bit sad that all he learned from that episode was that assassins are expandable, while, when you look at it, he fails to realise everybody in antiva is expendable. That’s a really crazy country right there. I mean, he’s killing people right and left, and never really thinks back about them. Even if he doesn’t like to do it (which he never really said he does, but it’s not like he had a choice so let’s give a benefit of the doubt), he never really thinks about his victims. The only thing that made him realise that he was expandable was his killing of his partner/lover. (or if he figured that out, i didn’t notice it). But yeah, bragging about sex and death doesn’t do it for me i guess. I did love his banters with Wynne. You can see how she’s trying to get him to open up, to see that there’s more to him than a hedonist, and she just giving up every time when he makes it about sex.

Wynne

Wynne is my top 3 faves. She’s also the reason i’m not against the Circle. Before i met her, i was all “yeah mages should be free and don’t need any control” bc there’s just morrigan and a bad case of not-taking-care-of-your-child-mage posession thing. But then Wynne starts talking about her life in the circle and you see that it’s not just “we hate mages so we keep them imprisoned”. You see that learning magic is hard (morrigan makes it look easy, ok?) and disaster can happen in a blink of an eye. And you find out how flawed she was, and it feels like she really learned from her experiences. And she’s so openminded and genuinely nice, typical granma-mentor-character. Best human in the camp.

Shale

Another one of my top 3 faves. Shale won me over the moment they murdered that poor chicken. I love having shale in my missions, they’re useful, they’re snappy, they’re perfect. And finding out that shale used to be shayle, a dwarf noble who willingly became a golem was one of my fave missions. I was so focused on the myth & legend of branka, that shale took me by surprise. And imagining a dwarf lady with shale’s personality makes me want to go back in time and meet shayle ;__;

Oghren

He’s pretty much like zevran: i like him, but too many alcoholic-jokes. Out of all characters, he looks like the biggest comic-relief. I like how insanely loyal he is. And I liked being his wingman x)

Loghain

I really like him. I shouldn’t like him as much as i do. i wish he could have been in a party earlier or without alistair-walking-out consequences. You start seeing that he’s not just a bad guy when you see that he’s always sad there when anora is scolding him. And I really loved that anecdote with him ruining every rose he touches so he found a rose and brought it home himself. Awww. If he didn’t order me executed at sight, i’d be his best friend. His paranoia (or justified fear?) of orlesian invasion made him do lot of political mistakes, but you can see he has good intentions. He’s not a bad guy. And he’s really clever. But also i will never understand how he didn’t get rid of Rendon Howe.

I’m so conflicted over him abandoning Cailan. I hated cailan, but to him, cailan was almost flesh and blood(?) I mean, he’s everything that’s left of two people he loved so abandoning him must have been terrible. I’m still trying to wrap my head around why he would go to that length to betray cailan rather than forcefully take him back by the means of drugging him and carrying him back to denerim. Maybe cailan was so problematic with his ideals before and this was just one decision too much. But then again, loghain was dealing with idealistic maric since forever. I don’t know. He’s just such a compelling character to me. I wouldn’t recruit him storywise bc i feel like his time was over. He had to die there. you know how in stories, the hero can’t live too long, bc there is no being the hero the second time. They’re always tragic. And since he attempted to be the hero again, he had to pay the price and become a villain. And he needs to tragically die. Which makes him more memorable than saint marric.

Also i watched a video with what happens if you go back to ostagar with loghain and wynne and it’s whoa... wynne is merciless with her attacks on loghain.

Anora

MY QUEEN. I was debating a lot whether alistair should be a king or not and then anora showed up and everything became clear. She’s such an amazing person. You can see her as righteous, as powerhungry, as manipulator, as terrible or wonderful and all of that would be true. She’s ready to do everything to keep that throne. You can see she loves her father, but she is going against him and is relying on your mercy for his life, and accepts his death so quickly. She implies that, while she did love cailan, her marriage was arranged and her husband an idealistic fool and she’s not surprised how he ended up. And sure, she’s telling you all you want to hear: that she loved him, that she was warning him about what his idealism will get him to, but can you really trust her? Especially with cailan’s correspondence between arl eamon, where eamon is trying to get rid of anora, and empress celene, who’s suspicious to say the least. I could easily imagine she did not warn, but support cailan in his idealistic views bc he hinders her rule with his blind idealism. I could just as easily accept that she truly did love him, and she did warn him, but alas, her husband is a fool. Everyone is against her in the game, and if i didn’t get her to win that throne after everything she’s done to get it, it would just be sad to watch. which brings me to the mission:

Choosing a ruler

Anora proved more than anyone that she’s the best candidate. Setting alistair on that throne would feel so ungrateful, he had no agency whatsoever in becoming a king and if i married him to anora, then i’d just get another pawn in her - or eamon’s - hands bc it’s obvious who’s playing the game here. I’d feel bad for alistair. He should get his own development based by his own merits rather than ~king’s blood~. Also with setting him on the throne you change nothing bc he can’t have kids anyway (unless you count the demon baby which would get this to another level of really messed up succession stories), and anora (according to eamon) seems to not be able to have kids(?) so they’re basically the same. Also, anora has unlimited time to rule, while alistair will die in what like, 10 years? and what then? Morrigan becomes queen regent bc she’s the baby-demon’s mother? That’s a disaster. And anora is right when she says that setting up a grey warden after they’ve been proclaimed enemies of the state only makes it look bad. I have learned that grey wardens, it turns out, are very political, but i just didn’t want to be. Also, alistair devotion was literally never towards marric and only for duncan. He even kills Loghain for duncan, and not for cailan. I really like anora being a queen. I know i can’t count on her bc she is ruthless like loghain, but also loyal only to the kingdom. It feels like, that’s the only thing she got to choose in her life and she’s willing to sacrifice everything for it. And that makes her a good ruler.

the ritual

oh man. that was... awkward. I knew it was gonna happen but... you know what i think? Sure, flemeth told morrigan what she’s gotta do, but, i doubt morrigan really knew what she’s getting into. I know the kid is a normal kid in the end, but i like to think that at the time, morrigan had no idea whatsoever what is this ritual going to turn up with. First, this this ritual feels like a fanservice. Second, on the matter of dub-con, i’ve seen a lot of people saying that alistair was non-con and morrigan is... a bitch? i thought about it and all i saw was this: your mom, whom you hate and are convinced she’s going to kill you one day, tells you you’re going to have a sex with a guy you don’t know, who hates you, and have his child, and you probably don’t want children, who will definitely be possessed with a god-spirit-thing. So, you got two choices, while you’re traveling with your merry band: you won’t do it or you do it for yourself. So i guess morrigan saw an opportunity and decided to go along with it, but use it against flemeth. Which is a really sad thing bc the moment she decides to have the baby for the power for whatever reason, she is basically becoming flemeth herself (or at least her idea of flemeth: someone who uses children for her own gains instead of loving them). So knowing that, i can’t see morrigan being a bitch either way for deciding to take the ritual. She definitely doesn’t like alistair after all, and she’s becoming the person she hates the most + she acts like she doesn’t care about anything, but she also wants to save the warden. So yeah, i definitely went overboard with this, but i don’t see morrigan enjoying the ritual.

I do wonder what she’s planning to do with the demon baby tho. or how terrible is she at raising a baby. I mean, her tolerance and patience levels are really low. I also wonder whether she’s right to be wary of flemeth or is she only paranoid. Flemeth seems like much wiser and sees morrigan as a kid with her paranoia. She pretty much dominates. I would love both morrigan being totally off the track with her suspicious about flemeth and her being right to be wary of flemeth.

So yeah, that was a huge ramble. If you made it this far then i bow to you. Idk where i was going with this... i just wanted to get out my thoughts and have it in one place. I probably said bunch of things wrong and misinterpreted the characters, made typos, forgot to say bunch of other things so, sorry for that. i’m a newb. But i loved it! It made me go into fantasy mood.

#i'm just rambling about dragon age #and it's really long and i don't say anything interesting

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fightevilandthengetblownup · 6 years

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My Design Verse

It always started the same way - Jack would burst into his lecture room and detail the facts of some new crazy murder spree that just wouldn’t be able to be looked into by anyone else.

Only when Jack needed him though; needed his eyes, his smarts and his empathy. He was Jack’s special tool, for the special cases where no other tool would do the job. And this case was no different, at least in that first explosive entrance into Will’s second lecture back since getting out of the hospital. He’d been promised a week but…

”We know her name, and her face, but we don’t know why she does this. This is where you come in, Will.” Jack’s voice was as strained as it had been every time they’d spoken since the FBI department head had begun to believe Will’s innocence after doubting him for the time. “There’s questions we need the answers to.”

“There’s no pattern that you and your interns can follow, you mean. You need someone who can find her.” The faint smirk that graced Will’s face was beginning to feel at home for him, being able to see through Jack’s façade of concern and to the cold hard facts that he was a tool to be used when necessary and thrown back into the box out of sight and mind when it wasn’t. An old tool with dents and bends that shouldn’t be there, but will do the job until it completely snaps. “You need me.”

“I need you, Will. Yes.” The resignation in Jack’s voice, his wife’s situation must be getting all the worse that he wasn’t arguing further - not enough spare in the older man to worry about placating his best professional investment when so much is tied up in his personal investments. “Just find her before we have another bizarre ritual slaughter or desecration to add to that file.”

The file had been laying closed on his desktop since the boss had left, the feeling of the classroom slowly seeping out the quiet fear and confusion that his classes had begun to fuel into him and his space. Maybe coming back to work wasn’t the best idea for the empath, but Hannibal had looked surprised at his determination to return - and if Will wanted to clear his entire reputation as well as Chilton’s then he needed to get his hands back into the FBI and their grasp, even if it was firmly turned from his psychiatrist at the moment. Will could not visualise until the tense atmosphere had lifted, or else he would just relive the hours just before as he ran through the mentality of those who weren’t mentalities any more for the class.

It wasn’t passing, that much was clear, and as he fumbled the pages into his messenger, Will Graham rolled his sleeves down and shrugged on the tweed jacket. As he made his way from the room, home and away from the stares that were still not sure they could believe his innocence despite it being cleared in all but reputation, the click of heels caught his attention further down the opposite end of the corridor. A familiar sound that was too much. If Will had to look, he could not look and speak to her in the same day. Not after Hannibal.

He could hear her calling, though he just sped onwards leaving her behind. Leaving the whole area behind in his rear view mirror. It was only holding him back so long as the monster was free. He could not see there. Especially not the woman outlined in the pages in his bag.

She would not be in that building, at least not by choice, and Will did not think she would be caught in such a way to bring her in any form but on a metal gurney. There was a challenge in her file, the deranged mind that would behead one victim, stab another in the neck and then turn around to shoot a third through the heart within a week of each other - and yet was still at large and not once trapped in a spiders web the way the closest files to her own had ever been by some special agent three times over. Insane yet in control of the sane world around her. She would be a challenge and a conquest all over.

The family were all there - welcoming and happy, tails aloft and voices high - as he got home, the joyous feelings and warm, /safe/ waves of his home where it was peaceful and he was king like Chilton at his hospital or Hannibal at his table. It wasn’t a pleasant comparison, but unlike the other psychopaths, Will’s kingdom was not built on other’s misery. He had had enough of that of his own and living through other’s that his dogs, his family, were the safety blanket of love and gentleness to soothe the balms of his work that his world at home was just that instead.

Maybe reading the process of a madwoman in such an environment - his one safe place in the world - was a bad idea, but as his fingers brushed the file and pulled her identity out of his bag it felt right. Like she would be at home here. Like her home was just like this. She /has/ a home like this; a singular stable point in a mad world where she was safe and loved by those that knew her more than the faces of the people she would meet outside each day. The problem with empathy was connection, a stark problem as Will opened the file across his lap (Winston’s nose snuggly pressed into the crook of his elbow as the rest of the family went about their business) and scanned over the dark eyes that stared up at him from the grainy images of the woman’s face, feeling a connection to his prey - or rather his catch, prey is Hannibal’s domain - as he slips into their world and feels it reach out and tug at his.

She was like him, but different too. That much was certain as his eyes closed and the wipers of his mind flicked away his own world and built up her own around him. There was life around her, happy and simple, but much more than the surface domestication - things that would be out of place in other houses; like his bed in his lounge room and her locked trunk as a coffee table. It was new. They’d been arguing about it, the contents something distasteful or disapproved by the other. She didn’t know what the problem was, and Will didn’t either. She needed more space, she needed more access. She needed it to make them safe.

Will sighed as she did - boots kicked up on the lid as the laptop laid precariously across their lap. The soft huff of air beside them was comforting though, their dog always knew when their mind would drift over things that would upset them. Bobby always said love was hard-

The empath jerked from his mind’s image for a moment and flipped haphazardly through the pages until the name made sense. /Bobby Singer/, the owner of a junk yard in South Dakota who had been linked in several investigations of strange behaviours as well as the pair of brothers that most resembled the young woman’s file. He was reported to have been investigated and found clean, phone tapping opportunities had drawn no conclusions and all attempts and other surveillance had been inconclusive at best, and completely useless at worst. The blonde had connections through her mother to the junkyard owner, the mother having been reported to have joined the older man a few years back. Nothing had come up suspicious other than her husband’s disappearance some decades back.

He turned the pages back to the collection of old motel and 7-11 security camera shots, blonde hair bleached white on the page as the woman’s face and head splattered the page and he delved once more into the world he’d been creating for her. Borrowing from her.

-but that was just what it was supposed to be like. And they knew he knew they were right. They needed to have those weapons right there, in easy reach. Just in case one of the other defences failed. Or someone who wouldn’t be trapped by the salt or symbols was the one to stop by. They needed to be able to protect him, keep him safe, because he wouldn’t do it for himself if they were in trouble. They’d both learnt that much after the last catch, and they couldn’t take it if he got hurt on her behalf again.-

The love she felt wasn’t what Will had expected, a psychopath with an obvious blood lust and disregard for human and animal life (given the slaughtering that would precursor some of their killings) in such barbaric forms was not someone who could - or rather, should - feel that way. That was not what he had thought was to her. It was not what the evidence suggested. The words on the page and the evidence in the crimes could be wrong though, that much Will was an expect in the field on, but even his case there was a glimmer of confusion and potential with his illness and psyche so twisted from his time under Hannibal’s eye. There wasn’t that confusion here - the murders were her handiwork, there was images of some even that placed her right there, blade in hand and blood all across her - and yet it didn’t match.

-Their hands danced their way across the keyboard, stroking letters and tapping away deftly as page after page of websites popped up. News articles. All places they had been, or were going to go -as some of the locations and dates matched to their most recent murders while others were days to come. They jotted some of the town names on one piece of pad, rested against the shaggy dog’s back as they added notes of words Will did not understand the connection to. Wolf, shifter, brother, rug, suc - the names went on and on, and they knew exactly what went where within a few clicks and articles at each place. Those that they didn’t know got scribbled on the next page alongside a book mark to the url, their lip bit tightly between their teeth. There were so many new ones that they didn’t know, and that shook them to the core. It had been weird enough learning about him and his kind, but the range that had escaped through the cracks again as the light got forced back in? It terrified them.

This was their routine, their way of selecting victims, Will could see that now. It was the pages and pages of local and national newspaper articles, the Twitter updates of weird noises or terrified teens, and the patterns in communities that made no sense to anyone or wouldn’t even be considered as a pattern by even a typical statistician. John’s work, shared with them by Ash all those years ago, had been good for flexing their mind to see the unusual - or rather, the haystack full of invisible needles out of the rest.

“Finding my prey quickly and quietly, unobserved and unpredictable - this is my design.” Will murmured the words to himself as his eyes opened, taking in the fireplace across from him and the curious glances a few of his family sent him. “I find my work, I know what I want, /no/ what I /need/, to do to each as I locate them. Geographically plotting their disposal along a route to lead me back home again, where I will being again. I will not leave until I am prepared, though my work will be done without me. This is my design..” His finger brushed across the stubborn chin, jutted out as a bowie knife bigger than her forearm slashed through the throat of a victim months ago behind some run down bar where other victims had disappeared for weeks and blood had rained down on her in later shots despite her victim eclipsing her by a foot and what Will would hazard was at least 100lbs, the burning desire to find her - to stop her, to understand her - forcing the empath to slam her file shut before he could sink back into their world.

"She will hunt regardless of my finding her. I can look tomorrow.” He spoke aloud, as though he had to convince someone around him - the thin air that surrounded him and the ghost of the monster that loomed over his every thought until he caught it - as he slid her file back onto his night stand. She could wait, he would have forever to find her before any one else did.

—-

It had been a week to the day since Jack gave him the file that Will Graham returned home to find his house broken into. Not the typical kicked in door with broken chip marks that spoke of an amateur burglary, but the two thin pieces of wire hanging out of the keyhole marking the perpetrator as a professional. A greeting, and a warning, as his hand reached out for the doorknob. He hadn’t been allowed to retain his gun since being released, despite his innocence and charges being dropped. And yet his fingers itched at his hip for his holster, as if wishing hard enough would bring it into existence. He considers not entering. It could easily be a trap, set to ensnare him yet again like the twisted fishing hooks - though it’s the bark of his jack russell which prompts him forward.

As Will pushed the door inwards, he was overwhelmed as always by his family’s welcome back - the joyful, happy reunion not at all darkened by the presence of the woman reclining on his bed. /Joanna Beth Harvelle/, the deranged ex-waitress from North Dakota, shows signs of severe detachment from the suffering of others and unpredictable murderous intent. Legs crossed and stretched out along the cover, her socked feet hung off the side of the bed - her mud-coated shoes were politely set by the door as her dark eyes raked over him. The petite woman was not what most would consider to appear like a serial killer, and Will found himself staring down eyes that could be as sharp as the knives that she was fond of or as soft as he had imagined her voice to be.

There she was. His prey, his lure, his shiny bauble that caught his attention and confused him until he’d just reach out and bite down on her sharp hooks. The demin-clad woman who he’d spent the last week trying to get into. He was determined to figure her out, as every time he tried to push himself inside of her he came up with another layer or more confusing. Every attempt to look through her had uncovered something new, something unexpected, and Will had been afraid to dig deeper as her world began to bleed into his like Abigail’s father had.

He had seen into her, felt her heart beats in his ear the same as his as he tried to find her pattern, her way of determining who to kill and who to save. Will had seen how she took after her mother, the way she would cock her hip out in a fight the way she used to see her mother do through the crack in her bedroom door. And her choice of relaxation methods from the weeks of cake slices she would take to school with her when her father went away. The way she inherited her love for knives under her father’s encouragement before his passing. Her favorite bands came from the faded posters and the dull thrum of music that would seep through the wall from her friend’s room from the time she was a pre-teen. The way her hands would shake as she would throw the last of the dirt over a shallow grave. None of it lined up with the cold-blooded killer he was supposed to be after; the same way he was unlike the copy-cat in anything but circumstance.

“I hope you don’t mind that I let myself in, your friends were going crazy when I was waiting outside.” Her voice, more gravelly than he had thought it to be, caught his attention back from staring her down as the dogs turned about to sniff at her heels and return to their regular resting spots as though not at all concerned the woman who surrounded herself in blood was reclined in such a possessive fashion upon his bed. If his silent appraisal, drawn in again to something so deranged and convoluted as the file turned form before him, had upset her at all she didn’t show it. Every person around him always reacted to his detatchment in some way - Jack with frustration, Alana with concern, Beverly with attitude, and Hannibal with fascination - but all he found in response to his continued silence was two big brown eyes blinking slowly at him as though they were both poised upon a knifes edge. Somewhere she was the one in control and comfortable with, in equal measure to the comfort Will felt within the sturdy walls of his home.

He could feel the questions bubbling within his mind, each needing an answer, a reason, an explanation that he couldn’t reconcile for himself even as he delved deeper into her with every try in that last week. Living inside of her had gelded no answers, only more questions - and as Will slowly pushed the front door shut behind him, he was certain she knew them all. “You were on the stoop of their home uninvited. That’s not usually well received.” His defensive tone, as though probing and poking to get a reaction from her that he could use to get in again and get his answers, delivered no results other than a small smile. “You had invaded their home and they had questions of you.”

“Seems to me that they’ve forgiven me though, such lovely little boys and girls. I’ve a dog at home myself just like the big doofus over there.” There was something about the familiarity, the comfortable way she spoke about his own family that pushed him along that edge. Will’s eyes flicked over towards the bernese dog curled before the dead fireplace, its tail wagged as though aware he was the one being spoken of, and he found yet another bridge begin to form between the two of them. Two mistaken murderers with a penchant for dogs. Animal cruelty was a common sign of a psychopath, and yet there she was with Winston’s head rested against her thigh in a way even Will’s- or he should say Hannibal’s, now- darling Alana could not succeed with. Her fingers brushed through his chesnut fur with deft practice. “And this big sweetheart wouldn’t rest until I’d given him some attention.”

Will’s brow creased deeper as he tried to reconcile his world to hers again, or possibly rather separate them, his feet making muted scrapes as he shuffled his feet a little closer. He expected to feel open, broken into and rifled around in the same way he did with the first killer to break into his home. But he didn’t. The same way the dogs were not gorging themselves on sausage meat made of whatever car sales man had offended the Chesapeake Ripper that week. He shrugged that thought away, another time and another place he would consider it but not now, and moved to reach for one of the piles of file pages spread across the bedspread before her. “Perhaps they do, but not to sound rude in my own home that you’ve gone and broken your way into, I’d like to know what else you’ve rifled away in. Besides these and endearing yourself to the rest of the family.”

He thought she had been smiling before, the soft warm looks that she had been giving to his furred housemates so the same as what those Will was surrounded by at work would deliver as a smile, but he was proven wrong regarding her yet again as she smiled brightly despite his aggressive response. She seemed to find his surly attitude and snappish tone amusing, if the choked back noise in her throat before she replied was anything to go by. “Ah yes, of course you worry about that. Not that I’d blame you one bit for it - I got broken into a while back, or rather stalked and a rather disgusting show of racist bigotry that followed, so I know how that feels. But that set up by the doc of yours?” The blonde let out an appreciative whistle, whether admiring Hannibal’s work or the fact Will was still standing despite it he couldn’t tell, that perked the ears of each of his dogs’ ears for a moment before she continued. “That was rough. See that’s exactly why I refuse to go to some sort of therapist bullshit, no ‘fense, cause the real coo-coo’s are the ones with the degrees if you feel me.”

He wasn’t the type to find such comments offensive any more, not after the monster had shown himself behind his smiling face, though that wasn’t what froze him like a lightening bolt as his fingers brushed against hers over the tops of her file. She knew about him. She knew about Hannibal. She knew about this file, and his psychosis, and his claims. She knew about it all somehow and she saw him. /See you/. She was no Garret Jacob Hobbs, but she saw him all the same. She /believed/ him without question unlike every other person he’d presented his theory to. Pleaded his innocence to. Raved his accusations to. “H.. How do you know about that?” The tremor Will heard in his voice was so like him before, before staring down Hannibal and calling him Ripper, but he felt just as out of control and his depth as he did back then as his mind had betrayed him.

“This fantastic invention called 'the Internet’?” The blonde smirked knowingly back at him as he jerked away from her, hands fisted tightly around the pages and pages detailing every sick thing that had been attributed to her smaller ones. His rejection seemed to finally find a chink in her act, though Will could not work out what that would symbolise in such a woman. Or at least the woman on paper. “You know, I think that Freddie Lounds has a bit of a crush on you? She covered your case and your claims and everythin’, even the stuff struck from record, about you down. Or did you mean how did I know you were trying to hunt me down?”

“Both really.” He grunted the words out, the flood of arrogance in her own question rubbed his hair the wrong way. Will would have expected his newest assignment from Jack to be somewhat classified. He’d only glimpsed the type of file she had a few times in past, and they passed over so few desks. Only the profilers and agent attached. Will would not be surprised if he was a last ditch attempt so far as she was concerned. The brothers he’d heard of before were easier to find, always travelling and frequently found involved in other crimes - but this one? He couldn’t tell why that didn’t occur for her as well, though he attributed it to the same reason she felt like she belonged there. Right where she was. “Freddie Lounds may be a good reporter, but she does not have the kind of reach to know about this.” He rustled the pages in his fist at her, an echo of a threat that she needed- no, he wanted- her to explain herself. And what may happen if she did not comply.

Winston’s growl was not something Will was used to hearing, as the woman shifted in her spot and twisted away from continuing to stroke him as she turned her attention fully to Will himself. Obviously he and she both had been spoiling him. “In that case. I have an IT guy. He lets me know if I pop up on anyone’s radar.” That smirk, it was almost as infuriating as Hannibal’s though for a completely different reason, almost made him embarrassed for questioning her. She was playing a whole different game than Will knew the rules for - serial killers, sociopaths, men with god complexes and those who had lost their minds somewhere down the track, who saw the same world that Will did but from a different light. Those were the people he could consume and become, almost too far sometimes. But this game was in a different world - her settings were the same, but the characters and rules called for things outside of what he could predict or understand.

“Robert Singer, of South Dakota, correct?” The affection she spoke about her 'guy’ made the assumption an easy jump. Even if her madness was still outside of his sight, the connections, the human elements that were clear as day within her from the moment she first spoke, were not hard for him to hazard out. The man’s name had been in her file, he was with her mother, a woman she desperately tried to resemble unconsciously beneath the active and aware disobedience and refusal. It was a logical step, an emotional leap, a rational response; as he moved towards his desk to smooth the papers to be put back in the manilla folder.

“Bobby?!” He almost jumped at the sound of laughter behind him. It had been a long time since there had been more than a huffed noise or sarcastic chuckle around him. It sounded like music in comparison, as Will stared back at her over his shoulder. It was strange to hear, and stranger to realise the lack of such a sound in his life. And how he didn’t want that sort of normalcy to leave. Even if it was from the mouth of a murderer. “No, not Bobby. I didn’t see him on any of the accurate pages in here..” The speed in which she flipped through the pages was the first show of her even being more than a normal woman. He couldn’t let that get away.

There was no way that she could be normal. Nothing about her could be allowed to be normal; no one normal and stable could cause the desecration that she did. Even he had slipped and slided to the point that he was visually not normal. /Unstable/. Will had to find the holes in her armour, the edge to her mask. There had to be something inside of her to corrupt such a normal, beautiful girl all those years ago. Perhaps it was the brothers. The older man. Her mother. Her absent father. There was too many and not enough; he could not see her yet. He wanted to see what was underneath it all and find all the marks of the darkness she wrought. He had to see her. Find her. Be her.

“So what exactly made you decide that breaking into the home of the agent hunting you?” With a shake of his head, dark whisps fallen across his vision as he turned away from staring longingly yet again, Will’s tone was edged in a way that held a threat that he didn’t know he could follow with. A threat she would not care if he did. “To see what I know about you. What that file says about you.” His hand smoothed carefully over the page before him -/JH pictured in Act #45 with victim #73 also pictured/. Her hair was darker in the photograph, stained grey from the shoddy security camera as she pressed the man, victim #73, against a wall in one shot before her hand became filled with a bowie knife the size of her arm and the knife disappeared within the victims neck in the third image. Her eyes held the same life and balance, awareness and stability, that they did now as he turned to face her again. “To…correct it?”

“Well first off, you’re not a real agent. But well done.” He didn’t want that tone to disappear, the lightness and amusement breathing into the house in the same way his dogs did and his fly hooks did for him. It was life, even as he turned his back on the proof that she dealt and spent in the exact opposite of it. She wasn’t mocking him; Will could see that much of her. She was mocking the agency, but not him. “You’re not just a pretty face then, was startin’ to think I’d have to be sweet on you with that sad puppy look. I’m here to correct you on a few things, and make a very clear point as well…”

Will froze in position as her feet dropped off the side of the bed with a thud, the almost predatory way she moved so alike but unlike the monster’s gaze sent a shiver along his spine. He was like the deer in Hobb’s crossfires; the next 'pig’ to Hannibal’s sounder. He was the fish he would catch and she was the lure. Helpless, weak, outmatched; but captured and captivated without a sound. She didn’t move like she was hunting her prey though, she moved like a lioness stalking around her cubs - the alertness there but none of the intent.

“Now, I was just stoppin’ by to tell you to stop trying to catch me. I’m not what you think I am, I’m /protectin’/ people out there - not killing them.” He had been wrong to think her voice would have been soft before, there was very little about her that was now as they stood toe-to-toe - him blocking her way from the building and her crowding him back as though to pull him in instead. Will’s fingers itched, though he wasn’t sure if it was for the missing holster at his hips or to reach out and touch her - to see if she was real and really there, or a return to the fever dreams of confusion and disillusionment that he’d had before. “If you don’t believe me about that, then believe me when I say that if you come after me you will disappear in a way none of your Federal buddies will be able to find you. But if you do believe me, then read through these carefully,” Her voice dropped, softer and huskier than the threats before them, as she pressed a hand to his chest. His own covered hers. It was warm, small; /soft/ like he’d thought. The papers remained as she slipped her hand from his, brown eyes wide as she stared up at him. She reeked of desperation. For him to trust her. Like she trusted him about Hannibal. “Follow the patterns and you’ll be able to find me amongst the truth of it.”

There was a frown on her face as she stared back at him, as though expecting his response to match her when all he could do was stare and gulp at her. His throat was dry. He couldn’t do anything but watch her, observe her, find her somewhere in the moves she made as he clung to the pages and she bent to tug her boots back on. Jack would want him to nab her here and there; she was a menace, a danger, unstable. Hannibal would have had a place for her on his table the moment she entered his house uninvited. Alana would never have stepped over the threshold. But Will saw something, nothing and he had to see what it meant. He couldn’t see if her words were honest and truthful or just a carefully concealed lie from behind a mask of innocence and assurance. He couldn’t see what was her reality and what was his, and how they could ever align to make her stability make sense within his world.

It wasn’t until Winston’s head butted against his calf that Will blinked his way out of the void between his world and hers, to find she had vacated his completely. The faint smell of vanilla, metal and chocolate in the air, a scent he’d not identified until she’d brushed past him and out of his door across the fields as being the smell of her, was all that lingered in the wake of her visit. His hand tightened across the pages she’d left him with, the rest of her file fell across the bed haphazardly and onto the floor aside from his rescued pictures of her. This was what she said was the answer. Would be his answer. Would point him to her, to find her, to understand her, to /see/ her. As he unrumpled the page between his hands, Will frowned at the post-it note within it with a city and date scrawled across it – ‘/Carthage, Missouri. 11/19/2009/’

---

A little town in the middle of nowhere. Population of approximately fourteen thousand, with two schools and enough quaint charm that those who grew up there would return after college with a partner and two children but isolated enough to create the ‘small town angst’ for every teenager and high school drop out to harbor deep inside until they were old and jaded, in November, 18th, 2009. Carthage was a sleepy hollow on the edge of Missouri that would be a pleasant detour when travelling across the country. The township is best known for its maple trees. /Was/ best known for them.

The post-it note had led him to a dead end, of the literal kind. It had taken longer than he cared to consider to find his way there. Jack had found cases he needed Will’s special expertise for left and right, and the number of students who had begun to turn their attention to his classes and field had begun to grow as his infamy settled into curiosity rather than terror. He’d not heard a word about how his profiling was going on the young woman, and he’d not turned his thoughts to her consciously until the several weeks had passed.

Unconsciously however, she filled his dreams the same way Garret Jacob Hobbs had as he tried to puzzle his way into her. His mantle piece would be covered in severed heads with closed eyes, blood dripping its way over the edge of the wood to drip onto the floorboards or run down the wall until a pool would surround the angel of death – her blonde hair darkened as the blood coated the outside edges and around the rest of her frame. Dark brown eyes would stare up at him, a silent scream for help or a warning he couldn’t tell, before her arm and blade would rise to point at the heads, the silver bowie knife in her grip dripping with the same red liquid that stuck to her and ran over his feet. When he’d look back to the mantle the heads’ eyes would be open and focussed on him before their mouths opened in a deafening hiss, fanged teeth coated in thick blood right before he’d awaken in a cold sweat again.

It had taken him five weeks before the nightmares finally were beyond ignorable. He’d slipped up in one of his so called therapy session the previous week about them to Hannibal – a wrong comment about his thoughts on the doctor being far from the most disturbing in his mind brought the entire conversation around through twists and turns like all their discussions did – and despite Will’s promise to himself to avoid playing the same runs that the other wanted or suggested for him to do, he found the post-it note pulled from its place amongst photographs of the woman and the researching beginning anew as Hannibal had suggested. The other psychiatrist suggested that the dreams, or more importantly the fear he felt upon waking up for her, were his way of seeking out an answer, a meaning or some logic to her actions that Will needed. Closure for brushing against her so frequently, tugging and pushing and pressing into her all that time before she breezed out of his door. For him to be able to understand a puzzle he couldn’t make out, the same as the puzzle Will was still unravelling with Hannibal himself. And that was what he found himself attempting to follow, the same way Alice followed the elusive white rabbit down the rabbit hole – though he hoped to retain what little remained of his sanity.

He had started with the file itself, pouring over the names and places the blonde woman had struck until the deeds she’d committed barely made him blink or shocked. Until they were just words on paper rather than bodies in alleyways or heads on the mantle. Blood in her hair. Will plotted her movements, the dates and the times, the start of each new string of horrors that culminated in deaths or property destruction or the desecration of bodies. He wrote her name and her cities, he breathed in her movements across time and country as though it would tell him where she would go next, how she came to hand him that puzzling piece of paper with that town she’d never been to scrawled across it. He’d had to pause and take a pill for the headache he was developing as the times started to smash together; a jumble of times and places all at once or stacked on top of each other. His glasses felt tight and the truth of the matter seemed further and further away the more he pried into what was hers, the confused jumble of times she would be killing a man with a silver bullet on one side of the country at midnight and leaving another mutilated and missing a heart on the other just six hours later, and so forth felt like a shock to the mind to reconcile them both to the same person. Especially the small woman who’d smelt of desserts.

The timeline was the first chink in his belief for the file over her though, where she’d had no holes or gaps, the story the reports painted was as riddled with them as the bodies shot though with bows and arrows and bullets in her wake. Will didn’t believe she wasn’t capable of murder, that her hands were clean or that she was framed the way that a tube down the throat packed with the ear of a loved one was, but something was wrong with the picture the FBI was trying to interpret her from. Perhaps he was too close, perhaps her personal greeting had twisted him with her laughs and her smiles. Or perhaps he was again seeing what others at the bureau didn’t.

Papers and police reports, census data and Wikipedia, were next yet none of them explained what would be of interest for a serial killer in the small sleepy township. Other than a few unexplained home invasions and the typical drunk-and-disorderly reports the town was clean. Perfect. A small slice of the traditional and kitsch that had fallen through the cracks of time to retain its’ charm. The aging population was not a concern, and the local newspaper would drag on about the local college football’s team chances against others. There was nothing suspect or concerning at a cursory glance to the place. Carthage may have been built on a field drenched in blood, but Will could find nothing of it being that way now as he searched.

It wasn’t until that thought had crossed his mind that Will noticed the detail missing. The one clue amidst so much additional white noise that it had almost slipped right past him. In the same way that he found Garret Jacob Hobbs from a missing address – one small detail that would have made him another face in the crowd to Will if it weren’t for it. The quirk of a man out of place, and a place out of time. Nothing existed of Carthage, Missouri after November 19th, 2009. No newspaper articles, no census details, no police reports; even taxation records showed nothing from the town after that date. Will had even taken the weekend to fly out and visit – only to see the ghost town in the flesh as clearly as it was on paper. A town that disappeared in a day, the way that Rome fell in flames and Atlantis was said to have sunk beneath the waves. It was no more from that point, and nobody appeared to be concerned or know about it, except the writer of the note and her now curious counterpart.

—

The dead bodies were piled high across the yard, their carcasses all that was left after the scavengers had finished plucking every useable part from the corpse, forming a weaving labyrinth between the house and the collection of tin rooves and sheds across the property. It was a place that Will would not have been surprised to have found himself arriving at after a call from Jack. The rusted skeletons littering the grounds would inevitably end up filtered through into his nightmares tonight – the stag would prowl proudly amongst the wreckage while the angel would be pinned down somewhere or dashing before Will, always just out of reach whenever he grabbed for her. Last night he brushed the back of her red dress and smell of chocolate had haunted him into the waking world.

The dark haired man had weaved his way through the junk yard until he reached the old farm house. The boarded up windows on some of the rooms made him believe this would be another dead end, just like the one that led him to the abandoned town filled with parked cars, empty houses and rotted food throughout the stores with nobody to use them but ghosts. The only thing that didn’t fit the picture was the blown out wreckage of what appeared to be a hardware store by the collection of melted tools and nails. It would have all been pointless, a wild goose chase, in his mind if he hadn’t found a knife embedded into the wooden street lamp post outside of it from the blast. That dagger was the only suggestion he was on the right track and that something more had occurred, something that no small woman could do on her lonesome if she even did. It was her knife though, Will knew that much.

His first impression that the junkyard and house were abandoned was proven wrong as he moved to head up the small set of steps to the front door as the door opened at his approach. There was something all too familiar to him in the suspicious glare being levelled at him and the defensive stance of the older man as he stepped out the doorway. Robert Singer looked exactly like the grainy photographs of the man in the file, the lines above his brows a little deeper and the depth of age and wear in his eyes the only differences that reality could give into the man’s life that a long-shot lens couldn’t. “Mr. Singer, right? My name’s Will Graham, I’m with the F-”

“The FBI, I’m aware of who you are. Face splashed all across the papers not so long ago.” The gruff tone was not at all unexpected, though it took care for him to keep his face from hiding the surprise at the straight awareness. Sure he’d been outed nationally as the possible Copy Cat Killer, but that had been weeks since dropped, and to remember a name and a face so long when so unrelated? The strange awareness and calculation that the blonde had had cloaked the older man as well, even more tightly wrapped around him from what had to have been years longer. “What I’m not aware of is why I’d be getting’ a visit from the Feds.”

The accusing tone behind the words made Will want to run back down the stairs and tell Jack to forget about it, that the blonde was one crazy no one would be finding any time soon, that there was no chance, no logic, no reason to her and the whole world she existed in outside of their own. That even he couldn’t see into her like he could the other brands of crazy and murderous. That perhaps Hannibal would be a better suggestion. Though the second that that thought crossed his mind, he wanted nothing more than to stop that ever becoming a reality. There was too much life to be lost there, and Will gave a soft sigh at himself for even thinking it; Hannibal was someone to wish upon himself and nobody else, that torment was Will’s to bear, not the sprite. He could already see what an elaborate masquerade would be made to display her – warm eyes dulled and lips stained red from blood as she was laid across the alter, hands clasping the bouquet of her knives as the empty fired shells surrounded like rose petals and the gap between neck and chest gaping wide like some she’d leave behind, all to disguise what part of her the other psychiatrist had stolen away from her – and it made his stomach turn to consider just what private showing that would be put on as well now he knew of it.

He swallowed down those thoughts as a sharp knock of metal on wood jerked him back out of his mind, a round of blinking before Will reconciled that the rap was from the barrel of the old shotgun against the door frame that caught him back. The other man’s comfort with the weapon as well as considering look made him want to shudder as he tucked his hands awkwardly into the front pockets of his dark denim jeans. If there was a moment to wish he had worn a jacket he could fumble with it was now. “Ah, well, I’m not here officially speaking – I..am trying to find an acquaintance of yours.” Will got the words out as clearly as he could, the loathesome look upon Robert’s face did nothing to calm his thoughts and the thought to lie about his reasons vanished alongside it. “Joanna Harvelle, I’ve… I’m supposed to be creating a criminal profile on her, but I can’t.”

“And you thought comin’ to an acquaintance of someone you’re huntin’ to get inside their heads was a good idea?” The look in the other’s eyes sent a shiver down his spine. It was almost like staring down the stag, facing the monster and looking unblinkingly into its face. Almost. There wasn’t the lack of warmth deep inside, the cold detachment from humanity like the cool icy-blue behind Hannibal’s eyes was missing within the older man’s. “Boy, you’re well out of your mind.”

It wasn’t hard to imagine this man being close to Joanna, the same hard edges jutting out sharply underneath it all amongst the same smooth corners, worn away from years of abuse and hardship. Will could see this man clearer than his lure though, the way his entire house seemed to have build and grow and age alongside him, the wear of the world toughening his skin, hands and mind while the pains he’d seen come and go left his heart scarred yet open. He wanted to protect, defend, save…father those around him, in a way he had never been cared for, and yet the aggression was still there, the same drive to find and destroy and underlying current of dangerous energy was still the same as the blonde’s if only dulled by time, age and wisdom. They were from the same cloth, that same world Will couldn’t understand, but at different points; she was consumed within it, while Robert had slowly let it slip back again. The absent thought of just how many unsolved murders years ago in the records room could be tied up to the man before him crossed his mind before shoving that aside for another day.

He coughed slightly, a faint worry that perhaps his encephalitis might have flared its nostrils again, as he averted his gaze at Robert’s brushing against the truth. “If you read TattleTale, you’d know better than the question it.” Will reached up, fiddling with his glasses for a second as the older man shifted his weight. He couldn’t quite find the words to explain it, why he was here, what he would do with whatever he found, who he would tell it to; that all he wanted to find out was why the blade engraved with her last name found amongst the rubble was iron unlike most. He leant down to slide the blade under the door, facing up and the small sliver of light making her name shine. “I might be mad, but if anyone’d have answers about her it’d be you. And... I have something of hers, I- I think she needs it back...” He trailed off awkwardly, the confusion he could feel bubbling through him was the same in his voice, and he was surprised to realise his voice didn’t crack of waver as he waited. Baited breath and half expecting the door to be slammed in his face or the barrel of the gun to rise between his eyes, Will closed his eyes as he awaited the older man to play his move in return.

The door thunked back open in response, as the older man turned, gun at his hip now rested back in the umbrella stand and the quiet stillness of the house reached out, beckoned to him to come inside. “If I’m goin’ to be answering whatever questions you got, we’ll need some coffee.” Robert’s voice echoed out of the hallway as he disappeared from sight somewhere behind the air motes and faint sunlight that floated down from the landing window before Will finally moved. He rose awkwardly as he stepped through the threshold, decision made to follow the shiny lure up out of the murky confusion and darkness if he could, and if the older man could provide the push, he’d take it. The sharp cold of the steel in his hand catching him as it’s true owner had, pulling him deeper through the dark.

#fic #for lexy #my design verse

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ernmark · 7 years

Note

jupeter pushing daises type of power au (Juno is a detective who can bring the dead back to life with a touch but if he doesn't touch them again within a minute to kill them again, someone else dies in their place)

I’m particularly happy with how this one turned out.

Warnings for referenced gore and child abuse. And, you know, death.

He’s dragged out of the car by a pair of shaved yetis and thrown onto the diamond-studded lawn of a house he’s only ever seen on the streams.

He knew this place existed, but he didn’t think it was real– just an elaborately-painted set, all caricature and cheap imitation.

Boy, he was way off. This place is real, alright. But it’s a whole other kind of rabbit hole than the one he’s used to. The mansion is floating over the city, suspended by the same anti-grav thrusters that keep cars in the air. The grounds unfold from the main house, split with hedges and decorate walls in odd, sharp angles that might be great for getting a good camera angle but make him dizzy to look at. The house itself is too big to make any sense, perfectly balanced for ambient lighting and acoustics, but not for actually walking through like a regular human being. So when he’s dragged into the emergency wing, he’s half wondering how they got the body here in the first place.

Because it’s just that: a body. Shot up by lasers and shredded by shrapnel. The poor bastard is in so many pieces that he’s better off dead.

Which is why Juno’s heart sinks at the sight of him.

There are plenty of reasons somebody might drag him up here– his bookie might have sold his debts to a higher power, for example, and the Kanagawas might need a guest star for their next ritual execution program– but there’s only one reason they’d bring him to look at a corpse.

The room is empty, besides two women and their bodyguards. One of them is slight and small, pretty but in a way that would get lost amidst all the glitz and glamour of a place like this. Juno doesn’t think he’s ever seen her on the screen, but everything about the way she stands says that she belongs here. This place is her domain, and everyone knows it. But right now her face is gray, her brow furrowed in a way that wouldn’t be flattered by cameras if they ever caught her face. It’s the face of a strategist who just found out she had to rearrange all her pieces.

The other woman he’s seen before. She’s powerfully built, with imposing muscles stacked on an already intimidating frame. Most of her streams focus on the gym or the shooting range, though she inevitably makes guest appearances on other shows when she gets in one of her rages. Cassandra Kanagawa.

But he’s never seen her like this before. He’s never seen her look small before. But she’s shrunken into herself, her broad shoulders slumped, her knees hugged tight against her chest, her head bowed.

“Ah. Mister Steel,” says the strategist, stepping forward. “What a pleasure to meet you. I’m glad to see you could come so quickly.”

“I didn’t get much of a choice,” Juno says warily.

She doesn’t seem to hear him. “You’re quite a difficult man to find, Mister Steel.”

“Funny, I have a website and everything.”

“Oh, of course, that little investigative business. It’s darling, really. But your more specialized talents were harder to track down.”

“That reminds me, how did you find out about me?” He’ll need to know whose nose to break later. Already he’s compiling a list of people who know his secret. Sasha knows, but she wouldn’t tell anyone. Mick-- well, he was young when he let that one slip. Rita... he wouldn’t break Rita’s nose, but he’d definitely do... something.

But before he can get an answer from the strategist, Cassandra Kanagawa unfolds herself from her fetal position. She’s shaking when she strides toward him, but it reminds him an awful lot of the rattling of a tank under fire.

“You’re him, aren’t you?” she says. “The guy who brings people back?”

Juno tries to inch away, but he only gets so far before he crashes into one of the men who dragged him here in the first place. There aren’t a lot of places to run to.

“Listen, lady,” he says. “I don’t know what you’ve heard about what I do, but it doesn’t work like that. There are rules--”

“Screw the rules,” she snaps, and her voice sounds all too familiar. “My brother is dead, dammit! If you can bring him back, then bring him back!”

He wants to say “I’ve seen your streams-- did you even like your brother?” but he can’t. Because it doesn’t work like that. He didn’t like his brother half the time, either, but that never once stopped him from loving him with everything he had. That didn’t stop it from hurting when their mother killed him. That didn’t stop Juno from trying to bring him back. And it didn’t make it any less devastating to lose him again.

Cassandra’s hands are wrapped around Juno’s biceps. She’s got the kind of grip that could break bones if she wanted to, but she holds him gently. There are tears welling in her eyes.

“Please,” she whispers, and his heart breaks all over again. “Please bring him back.”

He should say no. He knows he should. That’s the responsible thing to do. What she’s asking for is wrong, and he knows it. But looking at her, he can’t. He just can’t.

“Okay,” he says. “Okay. But there are rules--” He’d like to get further than that, but right then the air is crushed out of his lungs by a violent hug.

There’s an upside to working with the Kanagawas: they live and die by the contracts they sign. They’ll never double-cross what they’ve put down in writing, and all the tricks they intend to pull on you will be spelled out in black and white (even if it is two-point font and written in invisible ink).

Cassie handles his side of things, and she knows all the tricks, and she writes in protections into his side of the contract. A healthy compensation package, for one. A promise of protection by the Family from its enemies, in exchange for an exclusivity agreement (”that’s to make sure nobody else can force you into this kind of position,” she explains). They’ll keep his secrets, and reinforce that nobody else spreads the word, either. Cecil won’t be revived until he’s outfitted with cybernetic implants, so he won’t die on the operating table. And then there’s the matter of cost.

Somebody has to die. That’s just how it is. Juno can bring people back for a few seconds at a time, but if they’re going to stay any longer, he has to exchange their lives for someone else’s. A dog won’t cut it-- he found that out the hard way. A rabbit might, but the poor things don’t deserve that, and besides, there’s no way of telling if they’ll work to revive a human anyway.

It’s got to be another human.

Not a kid, he has Cassandra write into the contract. Not some innocent nobody off the street. Cassandra’s the one who suggests they pull from the people slated for a ritual execution. They were going to die anyway, she argues. And at least this way it’ll be quick and painless, instead of whatever her father’s got planned for them.

Juno doesn’t like it, but he’s already agreed to take part in this, and there’s no turning back now. It’s the best option he’s got.

And Cassandra agrees. Which is why she-- well-meaning, he’s sure-- takes him to a sub-basement one night.

“We found him,” she says, excited, throwing open the door. “He’s a thief who tried to make off with one of Father’s favorite sculptures a few weeks ago. He’s slated for dismemberment for our Shark Week special, but I talked Father into letting us use him for Cecil.”

Juno wishes she hadn’t done that.

The man is maybe Juno’s age, but tall and willowy. Imprisonment hasn’t been good for him-- his shiny dark hair is disheveled, his glasses are broken, and his skin is starting to look sallow from lack of sun-- but he stands with a grace so deliberate it’s nearly defiant.

“A visitor,” he muses, but there’s a sharp edge in his tone. “I do wish you’d given me some warning. I would have made myself presentable.” He extends a hand, and Juno notes with dismay that one of the fingers on that hand has already been broken. “Rex Glass.”

“Would you cut that out?” Cassie snaps, but Juno takes Rex’s hand, careful of the broken finger.

“Juno Steel.” He lets go, but Rex’s hand lingers on his for a moment. This might just be the first gentle touch he’s felt since he got caught.

“Not a Kanagawa? What a surprise.” He flashes a cherubic smile, and Juno’s insides twist a little. “Tell me, Juno. What brings someone like you to a place like this? Not my new bunkmate, are you?” His eyes flick up and down Juno’s body just once, appraising what he sees there-- and apparently liking it, if the curl of his lips is any indication.

“Your executioner, actually.”

Rex sighs. “Oh, how dull.” It’s a good act, but it’s an act all the same, and Juno knows it. This is a man who has lost everything but his dignity, and now he’s brandishing it like a shield between himself and everything the Kanagawas throw at him. “Ah, well. It’s a pleasure to meet you all the same, I suppose. Though I imagine our parting won’t be nearly so pleasant.”

But any shield can break. Even the most dignified man can be broken to grovelling with enough pain. And being cut into chum while you’re still alive and kicking-- that’s enough to make any man beg.

“Probably not,” Juno agrees grimly. “But there’s been a change of plans. Your Shark Week debut’s been cancelled. You’re still going to die, but it looks like you won’t be snuffing it in front of a live audience after all.”

“Oh. Well.” He tries to act dismissive, but it takes him a few moments to catch up with his act. The relief on his face is gut wrenching. A man shouldn’t have to be grateful to not be tortured to death. “I do appreciate the change in schedule. Might I ask what brings about the change in plans?”

“Family matters,” Cassie growls, and Juno almost jumps. He forgot she was still here.

“You’ll be needed for something else,” Juno says, because he he has to say something. “You’re still going to die, but it’ll be quick. And it’ll be private.”

Rex’s smile is soft, and so sincere that Juno suddenly wants to grab him by the wrist and run. Out of this mansion. Out of this city. Out and away and safe, because he doesn’t deserve to die like this. He doesn’t deserve to die here, now. By all rights he should be angry and railing against the world, but all he does is smile. "What more could a man ask for?”

Even with all their fortune speeding up the process, it takes almost a week to get Cecil outfitted with all the necessary cybernetics. In that time, Juno is a mandatory guest of the Family-- a safeguard in case something happens to him between now and the big event. He was only allowed a single trip off the grounds to gather his things and lock up his apartment.

He spends as little time as possible with members of the Family besides Cassie, and not just because of all the cameras. Being here dredges up uncomfortable memories of his own family, and it reminds him why he spent so much of his childhood running away from home.

On Cassie’s advice he keeps to the backstage tunnels reserved for the technical crew. He gets lost once, and finds himself in the sub-basement that holds Rex.

When he goes back, it’s intentionally, and with a finger splint he’s stolen from a first aid kit. The bone won’t have time to heal, of course, but at least that’ll keep it from getting painfully jostled every time Rex tries to use his hand.

Juno sits with him longer than he should, just talking. Apologizing for what he has to do. Rex tells him about the places he’s been, the wonders he’s seen, the people he’s met. It all sounds so beautiful when he describes it. There are entire worlds out there, and he’s genuinely in love with all of them. You can see it in the way his eyes light up.

How can his eyes be so bright all the way down here?

The day comes.

Cecil is thawed out and set on a hospital bed. The family is watching through cameras from well out of reach, their likenesses projected onto screens around the room. The doors are all locked, leaving Juno alone with Rex and the body and the growing hollow in the pit of his stomach.

“Ready when you are,” says a technician over the intercom-- one of an army of doctors set to come in and attend to Cecil once he’s revived.

But Juno can’t do this. He can’t.

He’s seen Cecil’s streams and feeds. He knows the kind of thing that man has done. And it isn’t fair. It isn’t fair. You can’t just trade a man like that for someone like Rex. But the goddamn universe doesn’t care about fair, it just cares about balance, and it doesn’t understand that there’s nothing balanced about this.

“Juno?” Cassie says, her voice tinny and hesitant. “Is there a problem?”

Juno doesn’t look to her concerned face plastered across the far wall. His eyes are on Rex.

He can’t do this.

“Somebody else,” he says, his voice raw. “Get me somebody else.”

There’s a frustrated sigh from a cousin whose name he can’t remember right now, but their voice is covered by Min’s. “Of course, Juno, dear. I understand. It can be so easy to get attached. Niko, darling, what does the Shark Week schedule look like? We’re going to have to make a last-minute substitution.”

For the first time since he’s met Rex, panic flashes across the thief’s eyes.

“Juno,” he whispers, so low the cameras can’t overhear. “Juno, please.”

Min is still making arrangements over the intercom. The substitute will be brought in, and Rex will take his place, where he’ll be sliced into pieces an inch at a time.

This is a locked room in the heart of the Kanagawa stronghold. There will be no daring rescue.

There is no saving him from anything except the sharks.

So Juno crosses the room and he touches Cecil under his remaining organic eye.

Cecil wakes with a gasp. He’s shocked, bewildered, grabbing at an arm and legs and half a face that weren’t there before. His family and medical team fill the air with their words, welcoming him back and asking his condition until the intercom squeaks with feedback. All the cameras are pointed at the risen man. Nobody notices when Juno sets his watch and trudges away from the bed.

A hand grasps his sleeve and slides down to take his hand. When he looks up, Rex is there. Fifty-three seconds to live, and his eyes are still impossibly bright.

“You did what you had to, Juno,” he says softly.

“I’m sorry--”

“Don’t be.” Another hand, warm and soft on his cheek. “There are secrets I swore to take to my grave. I don’t think I could have kept that promise with what they had planned for me. Now I can.”

“But you shouldn’t have to!”

“Thus is the way of things.” He smiles. He’s got such a beautiful smile. “It’s alright.”

It’s not alright. There’s nothing right about this. Rex shouldn’t have to die like this. He shouldn’t be comforting the man who’s just murdered him.

But he leans his forehead against Juno’s and squeezes his hand, and they breathe together in shared silence as the seconds tick by.

Thirty. Twenty-nine. Twenty-eight.

“I’m glad I had the chance to meet you, Juno.”

Twenty-two. Twenty-one.

Even after weeks behind a prison door, his lips feel like torn silk. His hands are gentle and soft. It’s the kind of kiss that should last a lifetime, but not like this. Not like this.

Juno wishes he could give himself entirely to the kiss, but a part of his mind holds back, counting down the seconds. There’s only five left.

Four.

Three.

He pulls back, out of Rex’s grasp.

Two.

Rex’s hand is still stretched out to him. His eyes are wide with fear, but still impossibly, painfully bright.

And then the light behind those eyes goes out.

If Juno never sets foot on these grounds again, it’ll be too soon.

He’ll get out of here the moment the support staff finish loading up his car. Mostly what he arrived with-- and a body bag laid across his back seat.

Cassie arranged to let him take Rex’s body back with him, and she was kind enough not to ask questions.

It’s only a matter of time before decomposition starts to set in, so Juno will have to move quickly, but he’s already got a destination in mind.

If he’s going to bring Rex back, he’ll need someone to pay the cost. Someone who deserves to die almost as much as Rex deserves to live. Someone nobody will miss.

He gets onto the freeway toward Oldtown and pulls out his phone. The number is programmed into it just so he’ll know never to answer it.

It picks up on the fifth ring.

“Who is this?”

His knuckles go white around the steering wheel. “Hello, mother.”

“Juno? What the hell are you doing calling me? Do you need money or something?”

“Just came into some, actually.” He glances at the body bag in the back seat. “Really got me thinking about the importance of family.”

#pnureyev #the penumbra podcast #fanfiction #writing prompt

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magnetar1 · 7 years

Text

Minotaur

Last time I saw him he wept for Nothing. Tempted to crush his skull in with the stone I wielded - I didn’t have the balls. Instead, I allow many years to go by before confronting him again . . .

Sorrow persisting in these final hours. I return to that strange & riddled land. Beneath a sea of hazy stars: Ghosts of Legend. Mapping out a course through the high, ragged peaks. Tinged in purple gloom where battles were fought: Blood of my conscience. Reclusive, but apathetic, murderer - Looking deep into their eyes before cutting their throats. After all the times I contemplated my own death. To escape the pride that washed over him.

Miasma of weakness in strength.

How did blood get on my hands while he remains in shadow . . ?

In this harshest of winters. Wraiths bust down my door. Letting cold in. I am reminded of my youth. Brandishing my intellect like an ice-shard. I hone it before it melts. Turning into a wave that washes everything I’ve learned away. To acknowledge the primordial in a less circumspect fashion.

Last I faced him he knew this, but maybe he’s forgotten by now. Light of Ages pass over his eyes - Slumbering kingdom. For what it is worth. Getting sicker by the day as it’s impossible to awaken. Glutted on offerings they bring: Human victims. Soon, the light goes out & I can see this leaden century which left him weak & sated. They say it is only part man, but I say that he is ALL.

Now, when I think of him as some kind of god, it makes me laugh. Even though the vital essence once moved through him as it now moves through me. Even though this world, depleted of its legends, sags. It is easier to sleep & wait for death than accept some token existence. Instead, destroy everything you mastered or tried to master you. He was born, too, like all of us. That is the true lesson. It remains tangible or observable. The notion I imagined it, yet was never born at all - Looping in my thoughts as I near the rubble he is locked inside. Once a vast maze of connected rooms & caves. Beneath a golden city that shielded him from the sun. Now, ruined, for as long as my eyes do see:

Pit of desolation. I’ve been known to go there. To embrace an alchemist’s lore. Dissolution of self in the chemical afterglow. I keep going back. So I can forget more & not get crushed under the same weight - Forgetting dead seasons. Stagnant atmosphere when captured by fog. Yet even from this disordered angle I know the way out. Fiery portal flanked by smooth, hairless demons.

Gazing back into the maze: Lidless, & eternal, pondering . . .

Let it out! I can only keep it in for so long. Before committing another violent act. Plagues I brought on myself. For not killing him when I had the chance. Now the stone sits at bottom of a dank sea - Backwash of humanity. Detritus of time. Sand & ash.

I became crippled with grief the day I left him there. I could see it in his eyes, too, that he was ready to abort the flame. Now he needed me to act swift & without conscience - After all the men you killed, he hissed - Mere abstraction, I say. This din that makes my head rattle. Noise of the gods . . . Followed by a deafening quietude. Meeting Adjourned. I sit outside the circle & think about going back inside. I sit there for years contemplating nature, ecstasy, ritual, death. Nor do I ever grow bored in my attitude of Silence.

Now it is like I was never there. Or possibly, after all this travelling, I was not born & could never BE. It was the only fear left & there was no amount of awareness that might defuse it. I knew that my many forms were fading.

Twining smoke-like through the jagged ruins of this broken city . . .

No longer did he hold it together. Nor did they sacrifice for him - Apostasy. Future war! Maligned for not telling them the truth. When he spoke, which was seldom, it was utterances of dismal allegiances or animal pride. Only until the majority became disillusioned did he acknowledge the shifting clime. Still, it’s too late to convince them otherwise - Staring at the door, waiting for darkness to remove its final stain. Marred by the unity of guilt & fear. He’s afraid to leave the hollow nest that’s sheltered him from an early grave. Built up over centuries by tribes who are loyal, but deeply paranoid.

Tiredness taking precedence over paranoia. I collect my molecules & enter the mouth of the labyrinth. Architecture of the soul rooted along a dark, aqueous path. Blood of myth flows through here. Crude, yet immortal, oil. Unconquerable toil of hidden legacies - Only aspects are destroyed. Those that no longer prosper from Nothing. Who cling to the vices of easy living: Unable to move beyond the threshold of its own gangrenous limb.

A monster that is made to die: Nature’s bilious offspring. Asterion! Whose hour of tribute has passed leaving it pale & wasted. For every night that they’re neglectful. Becoming absorbed by shadow & the neutrality effect of unmoving, unfeeling voids. Once a man, now distilled by colder, more distant, progenies. The greatest lie has always been Himself. Once a rampaging beast, condemned to a veil of impenetrable doom . . .

Ill-prepared for my return: Consequence for being half-asleep all these years. Picking clean the bones of its final offerings. Taunted by their ghosts. Absorbing an ever more ancient paranoia:

The man awakens to a reality he never wanted. Exposed to the truth when the moment has already passed - Cataclysmic life. Burdened by stoic grief. No longer sated by rage or warlike ethos of which he was the most viral symbol.

Following it back to its source. Through charnel corridors stacked with skeletal remains. Cannibalized. While in order to survive the beast ventured to the outskirts of its domain. Feasting on warriors who came to test their strength. Or sorcerers who stretched their blind eye to the fields of blackened energy gathered here. None knew the way; save priests, ordained, now long dead. For all the empty years I contemplated murdering him. Nature’s will & control, becoming my own, delivers me straight to his door . . .

So totally disseminated, I’d forgotten what lurks here: Journeying in my orbit to the outskirts of known space. To escape this affront - Further into Silence. With an easy conscience. Please help me forget . . ! Still, I must do something for her first: Nature’s executioner. Busting down the door with the last of my strength. Holding it inside, stone-like - Haunted memories not mine. I lived them just the same: By his side.

Sitting naked in shadow. I make out his beast-like mask; eyes, leaking profusely - Sit down, he says. There’s still time to rest before the end . . . Only there is no end as far as I could determine & all his utterances were just that.

Wilted fruit. Nature fondles: Bitter seed. Allowing chaos to wreak its ‘vengeance’ onto forms - Hostilities without cause. Shifts in consciousness that I have witnessed. Still, nothing has killed the beast. Unable to let go the fear & paranoia that surrounds it. Society! No pitying heathen or giant of myth among them. None who would rise out of the mist & take his head!

Time of monsters is coming to an end. All legends that metamorphose in darkness & lose the path to themselves . . .

I could see it in his eyes that he was lost. Even though I had no clues as to where I’d go from here. Only nature knew the way & for now she’s on my side - She created me, never him. Vision of Revolt. Twisting the horns on his head until his eyes meet mine - This time, I say, you will die! It’s what you have been waiting for so now I give it freely.

Removing the mask to reveal the man. I snap his neck & walk away. Also dead in many ways: Potential of becoming a legend myself. Or whatever symbol I choose. Or uncharted domain. Obscured by the same paths that led me there. Half asleep for years among the hostile spirits that I summoned. Eventually foretold by gathering tribes: A superstitious lot. Why so afraid of me when I remain indifferent? Too tired to be the monster they expect me to be - Glancing back at his corpse with a frozen look. No tear shed for the dawning purpose. Nature holds it in, but not for long: Rupture of consequence.

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quowreadspact · 6 years

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Was that why he’d left us be?

He stepped past the threshold, and he brought the gray-black snow with him.

Volcanic ash, not snow.

“This will do,” he said, surveying the area.

I felt strangely okay, better than I had before he’d left.

It wasn’t just having had the chance to talk. I felt okay because the weather wasn’t bearing down on me.

June had broken the effect, and the heat was taking its time to bleed back into our surroundings. It was still cold, but it wasn’t cold and hot.

That said something. I just wasn’t sure what.

I don’t know anything beyond the obvious either, Blake. And yup, ash, not snow. Volcano time instead of snow?

“Can I assume you’ll cooperate?” the Lord asked.

“No,” Rose said, in the same moment I said, “Yes.”

djghajfaf Blake don’t say those kind of things without some sort of qualifiers. Though I guess technically he is able to ASSUME that they will even if they wont.

And Rose don’t just say no like that either! Sigh.

We exchanged looks, annoyed with each other. Saying no did nothing except give him an excuse to act against us. The only option was to say…

“Yes,” I said, again, “You’re free to assume whatever you want, but I may rescind my agreement at any time. I presume you’ll punish me at that point.”

There you go Blake. Here are the qualifiers you need to say that kind of thing.

“Then I’ll discuss this with you,” Conquest addressed me. “What do you need, to summon a dark power to my realm?”

I thought, hard. Not about what I actually required, but the nature of the question.

“A hell of a lot more courage,” I said.

“Fear of me will have to do in a pinch,” Conquest said. “Do not be facetious. You are in my realm and under my thumb. I do not think you want to fight me. In terms of resources, materials, time, and location…”

Maybe…

“Books,” I said. “If I were to do this, I’d need books.”

Rose snapped her head around, looking at me.

“Which?”

“Texts from a building protected by a magic effect,” I said. “With names, rules for rituals, words for the contracts…”

“There is no need for these things,” he said. “You will summon the entity, and it will attack indiscriminately. Let me change my question. What is the bare minimum you require to bring one of these beings forth?”

Christ Blake is gonna do his dirty work. Or at least that is what he wants him to do. This is not going well.

Fuck.

I kept my mouth shut.

“You will answer, or I will punish your companion,” he said.

I glanced at Rose.

“You gave her your coat. You’re attached to her. I must assume you would be upset if she were disfigured or crippled.”

Fuck.

Fuck!

I clenched my hands at my sides. The locket’s chain bit into the webbing of my hands. But it wouldn’t be any use here.

“This is another step on your journey, diabolist. You will do as I say, and you will do as I say hereafter. Everything you do will reinforce my power over you. If you obey, then you will continue to obey. If one of you refuses, I punish the other, and that punishment resonates. Accept what is, and this will be relatively painless for you.”

“Not so painless for the bystanders,” I said. “The people you want to sic a demon on?”

“I am patient. I am effectively immortal, and torture is a part of my power and domain. Decide, one way or the other.”

“Can I have a private word with my colleague?” I asked.

“You’ve had your chance. Decide, or perhaps I will make both of you suffer.”

So we did talk in private after all, or was this another word trick? “When you say we’ve had our chance, do you mean here, just now, or do you mean in general?”

“Blake!” Rose called out. “Not the fucking time to quibble!”

He reached down and picked up Rose with one hand, gripping her wrist and hauling her into the air..

“Hey!” I hollered.

“You aren’t grasping the gravity of your situation, diabolist.”

“I’m grasping it,” I said, “I’m trying to adapt to it, and that means figuring shit out!”

“The only adaptation I require is your bending to my will. The only things you’ll want to figure out will be how to serve me.”

“Okay,” I said, “Fine! Cutting past the shit and the figuring… you can hear anything in your realm, so there’s no real point to me whispering and conspiring with Rose, is there?”

Cmon Rose let him figure stuff out and stall. Though that doesn’t seem to be working well.

He tilted his head slightly.

“Got any bright ideas, Rose? Because I’m running pretty dry, here.”

“I don’t have a lot,” she said.

“Because the alternative is that cliche line like, hey, you know what’s at stake, so you’re okay with making the sacrifice, in exchange for my silence.”

“Fuck that, would you say that?”

“No,” I said.

“Neither would I! Unless you’re saying that I’m a vestige, so I don’t count!”

“I’m not,” I said. “I’m saying I don’t know what the fuck to do.”

“You obey,” Conquest said.

I envisioned it. The flow of events, giving him Ornias’ name. The summoning… Conquest would become mightier, and as an Incarnation, he could deal with the fallout. Probably.

No. Wait.

“No,” I said. “How does this play out?”

“I believe you are stalling, diabolist.”

“I am not stalling,” I said. “Or I’m not just stalling. I’m raising a legitimate concern. You promised the safety of Toronto, its citizens, and the Duchamps of Jacob’s Bell.”

“Yes.”

“If I call something here…”

“It is sealed. This is my realm, and I can contain an entity.”

“Even when you don’t know the exact rules?” I asked. “The nature of the binding that’s required? The special qualities of these beings? I know of at least one that can tear through connections and enter a demesnes no problem.”

I would say that this tactic might work, but I really think Conquest would probably be able to overpower one demon if needed. I may be totally wrong though.

“They were bound once, they will be easier to bind again. I can expend power, shape my domain into a prison.”

“Right,” I said. “Except… I’m not sure the one I’d be calling has been bound before.”

He stared down at me with the black orbs in the midst of his pallid face. He wasn’t smiling that horrible rictus smile, now.

“The one I’d be calling would be strong, and the people who gave it to me, well, I can’t guarantee that any being they put me in contact with was necessarily bound at any point. From the description, this being could be one of the big names, someone who sits on a throne and bosses the others around. Looking for a way to get here.”

“You can’t guarantee that is the case,” Conquest said.

“I can’t guarantee it isn’t,” I said.

“Which means,” Rose said, still dangling from his grasp, “That you’d need the books as much as we do. Blake said he needed the books-”

She shot me a glance.

“I said I needed them because the extra rituals and precautions would keep me safe,” I said.

“Yeah,” Rose said. “And those rules and precautions are probably necessary to keep you safe, Incarnation or no.”

“Unless you really want to get straight into a one on one brawl with a dude that fucks with stars,” I said.

Oh wow. Blake does really well under pressure? I never could. Please don’t summon this guy though Blake. Better to let everyone you know die than let a demon enter and kill a lot of people or everyone.

He remained very still.

“Can you put me down?” Rose asked.

“I could break you for your impertinence,” he said, hauling her up until her face was level with his. “To give me orders?”

His breath in her face was enough to stir her hair.

She had the hatchet, still, but… god damn, I hoped she wasn’t dumb enough to swing it at his face.

In her shoes, I probably would have, but I processed things differently than most, when it came to personal space.

Lucky for you, Rose is... your opposite. Your Mirror Image*. *But Girl

“I humbly request that you put me down, sir,” she said.

Good Rose, be humble. Don’t die yet.

He let go, and she dropped a few feet to the ground. Not a horrible drop, but still alarming, and the stone underfoot was hard.

When she’d recovered, while Conquest paced, I met Rose’s eyes. I could tell we were thinking the same thing. If we could get him to enter the circle…

“I am older than swords,” Conquest said. “Older than man. I have existed in countless forms, evolving and changing. I rise to power, fall, and then find another environment, shape, and host.”

“As Conquest does,” I said.

“Yet you think I’ll fall for a simple trick? A petty trap? Things such as these do not go unguarded.”

“Actually,” I said. “We didn’t really leave any safeguards.”

“Your forbears,” he said.

“The standard demesne protections,” Rose said. “We can give you permission to enter the building, I believe?”

“Your allies, your enemies? I refuse to believe it would be so easy as that.”

Enemies, well, there was the rub.

He looked between us. I saw the realization dawn on his face, as we couldn’t deny it.

“You toy with me,” he said. He visibly changed, skin stretching tighter. His face shifted to that rigid grin, teeth bared. “I should mutilate you right now, so you remember the mistake of such insults.”

The fucking sky was changing in tune with his emotions. Plunging us into darkness. Black rage.

“If you’re immortal,” I said, “Then yes, there is a trap our enemies set before us, but it will barely affect you, while it could have some pretty grave consequences for us. You can go, get the books, bring them to us, and we could summon whichever sort of being you required.”

Wait, the only fucking books are in their house? Well, I guess it is just the only they know of. God this would be crazy if they could get him to enter. Careful Blake, you could get out of this if you word this carefully.

“You’re scheming, diabolist,” he said.

“At this stage of things, I’m just scheming to buy us some time.”

“To work against me.”

“More to get the two of us out of this predicament.”

“That is enough impertinence,” he said. He looked to Rose, “You, stay.”

A cage rose up around her.

“No,” Rose said.

“And you,” he said, looking at me.

“Don’t fucking touch me,” I said. I backed away a step, and I found a wall behind me. The wall hadn’t been there before. “I’ll come willingly.”

“Not when you see our destination. You forget what I am. If it’s a choice between your cooperation and your tears, dragging you behind me while you dirty yourself in fear, I’ll take the latter.”

Oh what the hell? I don’t even know what is going on. Ugh Rose is trapped AGAIN but now is in a lot of trouble. Aaaa

#text #collateral 4.3 #4.3

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