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silverskye13 · 1 year

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Mortals are insane. That goes without saying, but Cub likes to remind himself every once in a while, just in case he’d somehow forgotten. Mortals are insane. Granted, most mortals think he’s insane, but that’s just the baffling way mortals perceive the vex. In fairness, vex are insane. He knows this about himself. It's just that he’s insane in a very different way to mortals. The word “crazy” is a lot more fluid than people think it is.

For instance, crazy mortals will see a massive crack in time and space growing beneath Grian’s base, and they’ll walk right in. A crazy vex will follow, just to see what happens. Mortals are crazy because they’re daring and curious. Vex are crazy because they want to see what chaos ensues. See? Very different. It’s not that Cub isn’t excited to see what’s on the other side, it’s that he’s more excited to see how what’s on the other side is about to break, irreparably, because his pack of mortals sauntered in. It puts a smile on his face, like watching an artist make a new painting. It’s exciting. It's unpredictable. It’s insane.

The world on the other side is beautiful. It’s a world of empires. It's full of glorious, wondrous things, and people, and places, and all of them Cub comfortably calls insane. There are not-mortals living here. None of them are vex, but some of them are incredibly not-mortal. Granted, some of the friends he follows are not-mortal, but they’re not-mortal in a familiar way. He's defined their edges. This is an edgeless world he's walked into, off the side of the familiar into whatever's beyond it.

Katherine is mortal, he thinks. The colorful ruler of Chromia, Scott, is barely-mortal. Pearl is not-mortal in a fundamentally different way to how she normally is back home, and Cub thinks that’s fantastic. That’s the kind of chaos he’s here for: irreparable changes, the fabric of the world reweaving itself.

Katherine's kingdom, Glimmer Grove, is beautiful. Cub immediately takes in the clash of black and gray against pink and white, some curse, he thinks, spreading through her lands. If he really tapped into the magic of it, he might be able to tell what it is, but there's no fun in that. Secrets are at their best when they're unspooled slowly in their own time, sowing their little seeds of chaos. So Cub instead walks with the others and feigns ignorance when Scott points out the oddities in the architecture. He can't tell if Pearl and Impulse are playing along too, or if they really can't see it, but that just adds to the fun. How long can they dance around what each other knows?

Insane.

Katherine gives a flourish of her pink dress as she stops them before a building. She's bouncing on her toes with excitement. Cub thinks she's terrible at keeping secrets, and those are the best kind of people. She leans in toward them, grinning, "Can you keep a secret?"

She is the best kind of people.

Cub plays with a humble smirk, "I can keep a secret, yeah."

Impulse gives him a sidelong glance that Cub pointedly ignores. He's too busy looking trustworthy. The rest of them agree, yes, we love secrets. Katherine, in that lovely way the best kinds of people do, believes them only because she has a secret she desperately wants to tell. She laughs and beckons them after her, leading them to a false door in her keep. It's a secret base, she tells them in an exuberant sing-song, a secret she's never told anyone, that she's giving to these complete strangers. Mortals are insane.

Impulse shoots Cub another look, this time disapproving. Cub shrugs. He can't explain to Impulse that, vex or not, he hadn't coerced this with magic - though Impulse is right in thinking that's something he'd do. Explaining this would mean telling Katherine and Scott (and maybe Pearl, if more than just her not-mortal-ness has changed without her knowing) that he's vex, and he doesn't want to do that. Not yet anyway. You can never really tell what people think about vex. Besides, Katherine isn't done sharing secrets, and it would be bad form to reveal his own secret while listening to another. It makes him look less trustworthy, and it takes away from the impact of a well-placed reveal. He’d never steal another secret-sharer’s thunder.

"So the real secret," Katherine grins as she closes the door behind them, "is I'm a monster slayer."

She takes a wicked looking battle ax down from its mount on the wall. The blade is sharp as shattered glass, and carries the dangerous aura of a weapon lovingly and frequently used. Cub thinks, maybe, it could kill him. He tries to hide his grin.

There is a noticeable silence after Katherine reveals the ax, a pause that breathes just a moment too long. Scott looks bemused, like he'd somehow expected this. His magic eye glitters, trying to decide if it's monstrous. Pearl looks excitedly curious, like this is the most interesting thing she's learned all day. Impulse looks at Cub again. This time instead of being suspicious, he looks nervous. Cub squints his eyes and smirks.

"That's amazing," he says, and he means it. Mortals are full of wonders. She also reveals to them a deadly looking bow, and tells them about a magical transformations she does to “murder the bad guys”. The room is peppered with applause and praise, and Cub is grinning wide and excited, and he hopes it doesn’t look too terribly vex of him. He loves heroes. He loves seeing what they’ll do. Chaos. When he was an evoker-tied vex, he loved watching them suffer too, but he’s shaken that part of his vex-ness at least. He does think Katherine is the most interesting person he’s met today. Katherine swears them into secrecy and they leave, and Impulse watches the spring in Cub’s step dubiously.

“You should stay away from her, buddy,” Impulse cautions. “You’re a monster. She's a monster slayer.”

“Oh definitely, definitely,” Cub chimes a little too enthusiastically, and Impulse frowns at him. “But Impulse, she kills bad guys, and I’m on my best behavior.”

“Cub we just got here,” Impulse groans. “You need to stay out of trouble until we feel these people out. Some of them are scary, and they have their own agendas they’re pushing.”

“When have I ever started trouble?”

Impulse pauses to think about this. The answer is “often”, but people are rarely around to watch Cub start trouble. They’re generally only in the know when he escalates and finishes it. Impulse shakes his head, “You should still be careful.”

“I’ll be careful.” This, at least, is truthful. It’d do no good to go and get himself killed by a monster slayer two days into this new wonderful world, especially when it’s very possible vex magic will be needed to fix the portal. Vex have unpredictable magic; there’s no telling if it’ll help or harm a situation. In truth, Cub isn’t completely unconvinced his magic broke the portal in the first place, just by merit of him stepping through. What he does know is that he doesn’t want to leave. Not now. Not when there’s so much going on here. This world, he decides with the utmost fondness, is insane.

They take a tour. They meet gods and goblins, a witch in the woods. None of these, Cub notes to himself, are considered monsters by the monster slayer. Katherine speaks of them fondly, with no signs of magical transformations or smiting. Of course, it is daytime. Who's to know what will happen when the moon rises?

He's to know, as it turns out, because Katherine calls him, Impulse and Pearl back to her place. She's a little more nervous this time. Cub can't smell mortal fear -- that's not really a vex trait -- but he's known mortal fear enough times to know there's a little bit of it here in Katherine. She wants them to prove their loyalty, and then once they prove it, to give them an ax and a uniform. It’s insurance, Cub thinks. It’s a lot harder to share a secret once it’s yours. Not that he was planning on sharing it anyway. He wants to see how this plays out. Impulse keeps throwing him sideways glances, getting increasingly nervous as the evening goes on. Cub remains unflappable, smiling, because why wouldn’t he find this fun? A vex that’s a monster slayer.

The moon rises.

As it’s rising, Katherine gives them a challenge. Prove you’re a monster hunter. Bring back the head of a monster. The vex in Cub goes to war with itself briefly, while it ignores another of Impulse’s furtive glances. He thinks it would be incredibly fun, incredibly chaotic, if he gave his own head to Katherine. But then again, that goes back to the problem of Cub wanting to know how all this plays out, wanting to chase the chaos of a new world, and needing to be alive to see how the Rift gets fixed. So he does something better.

The moon rises, and Katherine turns her back on them and raises her ax to begin her transformation. Pearl and Impulse start to scurry into corners to change into their uniforms. Cub waits until the Monster Slayer is mid-transformation, too caught up in her glitter and moonlight to watch. Then he snaps his fingers.

He, Impulse and Pearl are showered in glittering moonlight. Music only they can hear strikes up to the sound of rock guitar and drums. Who doesn’t love a good anime magical girl transformation? Cub finds himself laughing through his.

They land back on their feet, decked out in Monster Slayer regalia. Pearl is beaming. So is Cub. Impulse looks even more unsettled than he did before.

“Alright Monster Slayers!” Katherine calls, before Impulse can chastise Cub for the reckless use of vex magic in front of someone who probably kills vex in her spare time. “Bring me some monster heads!”

"Cub," Impulse whispers to him just before the all scatter in different directions. "You're insane."

Cub thinks that's funny, coming from a mortal. He grins. "I know."

#the barking writer #hermitcraft x empires #katherine elizabeth #esmp katherine #cubfan135 #impulsesv #empires s2 #hermitcraft #hermitcraft spoilers #empires smp spoilers #vex!cub #i just love that cub is working with katherine okau #i feel like its pleasantly ironic

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