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likealittleheartbeat · 4 years

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The Queer Platonic Love of Aang & Zuko

Friend. What a weighty and intimate word in Avatar The Last Airbender. The series’ “found family” is iconic at this point, and is literally established as a “family” by Katara in the third episode. She pulls Aang back from the outrage of the Avatar state, saying “Monk Gyatso and the other monks may be gone, but you still have a family. Sokka and I, we’re your family now.”

As I’ve said before, establishing this central safety net of trusted people is essential to Aang’s healing. Still, it’s interesting to me that they insist on this group as a “family” rather than something that might emphasize “friendship.” Something along the lines of ‘we’re your friends and we’re here with you.’ I can think of several animated shows that have done as much successfully. The show withholds the word “friend” for another purpose. I’ll happily admit that Aang and the others describe each other as “friends” throughout the series, but rarely is the use of the word (through pacing, repetition, or emotional context) given a sense of gravity in those moments.

However, three scenes in the series rely heavily on the word “friend,” and each scene connects Aang more and more profoundly with Zuko, eventually revealing that the show’s entire plot hinges on the friendship between these two boys. In a series so latent with symbolism, what do we make of these star-crossed friends? The relationship between Aang and Zuko, I want to suggest, is meant to explore Platonic Love in all its depth, especially within a masculine culture that not only devalues it, but views its queer implications as inherently dangerous to the dominant power structures of an empire.

Get ready zukaang fans for a long-ass atla meta analysis...

“If we knew each other back then, do you think we could’ve been friends, too?”

The first time the word “friend” is uttered between them, Aang is perched on a branch, waiting for Zuko (who is laid out on a bed of leaves the Avatar made for him) to wake up after his blue spirit rescue. “You know what the worst part about being born over a hundred years ago is?” Aang waxes, “I miss all the friends I used to hang out with. Before the war started I used to always visit my friend Kuzon. The two of us, we'd get in and out of so much trouble together. He was one of the best friends I ever had...and he was from the Fire Nation, just like you. If we knew each other back then do you think we could have been friends too?” The scene stood out for me when I first watched it for the melancholy and stillness. We are not given a flashback like we did when Aang talked about Bumi or Gyatso in earlier episodes. We have to sit with Aang’s loss of a male friend. It echoes a veteran’s loss of a war buddy more than anything a western audience would expect in a children’s show about the power of friendship. Instead of simply mourning, Aang invites Zuko into the past with him. He invites Zuko to imagine a time before the war, a land of innocence, where they could live together. And between them there is a moment of reflection given to this invitation (...until Zuko shoots a fucking fire blast at Aang).

The wistful mood returns when the two boys arrive back to their respective beds. Aang is asked by a loopy fevered Sokka if he made any “friends” on his trip, to which Aang sadly replies, “No, I don’t think I did” before tucking away to sleep. Aang’s mournful moments often stand out against his bubbly personality, but this moment stands out moreso because its the final moment for Aang in the episode. For the first time, he doesn’t receive comfort in his dejection. He doesn’t even confide in his peers. The solemnity and secrecy of this failed “friendship” is remarkable.

It’s in the next symbolic gesture that I think Avatar reveals what’s at stake in the concept of “friendship.” Zuko, in the next scene, lays down to rest after his adventurous night, looks pensively at the fire nation flag in his room, and then turns his back on it. We realize, especially after the previous revelations in “The Storm,” that Aang’s gestures of “friendship” have caused Zuko to doubt the authority of the Fire Nation.

Now all three remaining nations have misogynistic tendencies, but the Fire Nation celebrates a specific brand of toxic masculinity, and Zuko longs to emulate it even after it has rejected and scarred him. In the episode, “The Storm,” which directly precedes “The Blue Spirit,” we see how Zuko failed to replicate masculinity’s demands. In a room of men, he disregards honorifics to speak out in the name of care and concern for people’s well-being over strategy. Though the war room was all men, we later see that The Fire Nation does not exclude women from participating in this form of toxic masculinity. (Shoutout to Azula, one of the best tragic villains of all time!) This gender parity prevents disgraced men, like Zuko, from retaining pride of place above women. So Zuko’s loving act and refusal to fight his father puts him at the lowest of the low in the social hierarchy of the Fire Nation, completely emasculated and unworthy of respect.

Since then, Zuko has been seeking to restore himself by imitating the unfeeling men of the war room and his unfeeling sister, barking orders and demands at his crew. The final redemptive act for this purpose, of course, is to capture the Avatar, who’s very being seems to counteract the violent masculinity at the heart of the Fire Nation. In most contemporary Euro-American understandings, Aang is by no means masculine. He’s openly affectionate, emotional, giggly, and supportive of everyone in his life, regardless of gender. He practices pacifism and vegetarianism, and his hobbies include dancing and jewelry-making. And, foremost, he has no interest in wielding power. (@rickthaniel has an awesome piece about Aang’s relationship to gender norms and feminism).

In addition to the perceived femininity of Aang’s behavior, he’s equally aligned with immaturity. Aang’s childishness is emphasized in the title of the first episode, “The Boy in the Iceberg,” and then in the second episode when Zuko remarks, “you’re just a kid.” Aang, as a flying boy literally preserved against adulthood, also draws a comparison to another eternally boyish imp in the western canon: Peter Pan. This comparison becomes more explicit in “The Ember Island Players.” His theatrical parallel is a self-described “incurable trickster” played by a woman hoisted on wires mimicking theatrical productions of Peter Pan. The comparison draws together the conjunction of femininity and immaturity Aang represents to the Fire Nation.

When Zuko is offered friendship and affection by Aang, then, he faces a paradigm-shifting internal conflict. To choose this person, regardless of his spiritual status, as a “friend,” Zuko must relate himself to what he perceives as Aang’s femininity and immaturity, further demeaning himself in the eyes of his father and Fire Nation culture. The banished prince would need to submit to the softness for which he’s been abused and banished. This narrative of abuse and banishment for perceived effeminate qualities lends itself easily enough to parallels with a specific queer narrative, that of a young person kicked out of their house for their sexuality and/or gender deviance.

I want to point out that Aang’s backstory, too, can be read through a queer lens. Although the genocide of the air nomads more explicitly parallels the experiences of victims to imperial and colonial violence, I can also see how the loss of culture, history, friends, and mentors for a young effiminate boy can evoke the experience of queer men after the AIDs pandemic and the government’s damning indifference. In fact, colonial violence and the enforcement of rigid gender roles have historically travelled hand-in-hand. Power structures at home echo the power structures of a government. Deviance from the dominant norms disrupt the rigid structures of the empire. Aang’s background highlights how cultures based in something besides hierarchy and dominance, whether they be queer cultures or indigenous societies, threaten the logic of imperialism, and thus become targets of reform, neglect, and aggression by the expanding empire and its citizens. Survivors are left, as Aang was, shuffling through the remnants, searching for some ravaged piece of history to cling to.

We begin the series, then, with two queer-coded boys, one a survivor of broad political violence, the other a survivor of more intimate domestic abuse, and both reeling from the ways the Fire Nation has stigmatized sensitivity. But the queer narrative extends beyond the tragic backstories toward possibility and hope. The concept of platonic love proposed here, though it does not manifest until later, is a prospect that will bring peace to the two boys' grief-stricken hearts and to the whole world.

“Do you really think friendships can last more than one lifetime?”

“Do you really think friendships can last more than one lifetime?” Toph asks before the four members of the group hold hands. Since Toph previously mourned her friendless childhood, it’s easy to appreciate this line for its hopefulness regarding the four central members of the Gaang. They long to appreciate that they’re all connected. As touching as this is, the soul-mated ‘friendship’ concept is actually uniquely applicable to Aang and Zuko.

When does Toph ask the question specifically? It’s after hearing the story of Avatar Roku and Firelord Sozin: how their once intimate friendship fell apart; how Fire Lord Sozin began, undaunted, the genocidal attack on Airbenders. After recounting the tale, Aang, the reincarnation of Avatar Roku, excitedly explains to the group the moral that every person is capable of great good and evil. While that moral could easily be ascribed to many people in the series, the connective tissue is stretched directly to Zuko in a parallel storyline. Reading a secret history composed by his grandfather Sozin, Zuko discovers that he is not only the grandson of the empirical firelord but of Avatar Roku, as well. We see how the rift between the Sozin and Roku echoed down across history to separate the airbending culture from the fire nation, and, on a more human level, to separate Aang from Zuko. The two boys find themselves divided by their ancestors’ choices— and connected by Avatar Roku’s legacy.

This is what takes their “friendship” from simply a matter of the character’s preferences to something fated, something unique from the other friendships. The rest of the found family is positioned as circumstantial in their relationship to Aang and one another. Yeah, it’d be cool if they were all connected in past and future lives, but the audience receives no indicators in the series that it’s necessarily true. Only faith holds them together, which allows room for an appreciation that your “found family” friendships might simply be the trusted people you discovered along the way.

Zuko’s friendship is characterized differently. Both his struggle to befriend Aang and his eventual “friendship” are explicitly destined by the story of Roku and Sozin. After this episode, the series depends upon Zuko’s ability to mend the divide inside himself, which can only be done by mending the divide between him and Aang. Their inheritance symbolizes this dynamic exactly. As the reincarnation of Avatar Roku, Aang can be understood as the beneficiary of Avatar Roku’s wisdom (he should not, as many jokingly suggest, be considered as any kind of biological relation of Roku or Zuko). Zuko, on the other hand, has inherited Roku’s genealogy in the Fire Nation. These two pieces of Roku must be brought together in order to revive Roku’s legacy of firebending founded on something besides aggression.

In addition to making the ideals of Roku whole again, the two boys must tend to the broken “friendship” between the two men. As the Avatar and the Crown Prince of the Fire Nation, Aang and Zuko parallel Avatar Roku and Firelord Sozin precisely. The narrative of the latter pair places destiny precisely in the hands of the former. And since both Aang and Roku expressed the desire for “friendship,” it falls in the lap of the corresponding royal to give up their imperial dreams so they can gain something more peaceful and intimate. For Zuko, this now can only be accomplished when he heals the rift within himself.

Importantly, both the previous friendship and the destined friendship between Zuko and Aang are between two men. The coming-of-age genre has proliferated the trope of homosociality (friendship between individuals of the same sex) and its eventual decline brought on by maturity and heterosexual romance. (Check out the beautiful and quick rundown of classic examples, from Anne of Green Gables to Dead Poet’s Society, made by @greetingsprophet ). The story of Avatar Roku and Firelord Sozin replicates this established narrative.

We see them playing, sparring, and joking intimately with one another. The two as young adults were intimately connected, the series explains, “sharing many things including a birthday.” Eventually their intimacy is interrupted by their worldly responsibilities and the spectre of heterosexual romance on Roku’s part.

Now, It’s not a huge leap for one to wonder if Sozin longed for something stronger in their “friendship.” We see no female romantic interests for Sozin. Instead, he continues to demonstrate his platonic allegiance to Roku. When Roku prepares to leave for his Avatar training, Sozin walks into his room and gives him his crown prince headpiece, a gesture of unique devotion that positions his friendship above his politics (which harkens to Plato and EM Forster’s ideas about platonic love that I’ll discuss in Part 3).

One might note, too, how the wedding between Roku and his childhood sweetheart provides the setting for the escalation of Sozin’s violence. “On wedding days,” Sozin writes, “we look to the future with optimism and joy. I had my own vision for a brighter future...” He then pulls Roku away from his bride for a personal conversation, briefly recapturing the earlier homosocial dynamic with his friend. Sozin describes his affection for their intertwined lives. Then he links their shared happiness to the current prosperity of the Fire Nation. He imagines the expansion of the Fire Nation, which would also expand on the relationship between him and Roku. But the Avatar refuses the offer and returns to his wife, insisting on the value of traditional boundaries (both the pact of marriage and the strict division of the four nations). The abandonment of the homosocial relationship by Roku sets the site for the unmitigated empirical ambitions of Sozin. One wonders how history might’ve been altered had the two men’s relationship been sanctified and upheld. How might’ve Roku persuaded Sozin in his empirical ambitions if he had remained in a closer relationship to his friend? In their final encounter, Sozin reacts vengefully to his former platonic love: he lets Roku die protecting the home the Avatar shared with his wife. Sozin’s choice solidifies the divide between them, and makes the grief he’s experienced since Roku left him into actual death.

Instead of Avatar Roku and Firelord Sozin finding a resolution, Aang and Zuko are ordained to reverse their friendship’s disintegration. Yes, they must heal the rift in the world created by the Fire Nation’s aggression, but Aang and Zuko must also reverse the tradition of lost homosociality within a culture of unrelenting machismo. Despite Avatar: the Last Airbender’s ties to the coming-of-age genre, the arc of Aang and Zuko’s “friendship” counters one of its most prominent tropes. “Some friendships are so strong they can transcend lifetimes,” Roku says, and it’s precisely this platonic ideal that draws Zuko and Aang towards one another in ways that are revolutionary both in their world and in the traditions of our’s. To come together, as two matured boys, to form an adult platonic love that can persist into adulthood.

“And now we’re friends.”

Which brings us to the consummation of Aang and Zuko’s “friendship.” Having resolved their previous hostilities and having neutralized the outside forces that would rather them dead than together, Aang and Zuko can finally embrace and define their relationship as “friendship.” Now, if we look closely at Zuko’s expression, we’ll notice a pause, before he smiles and reiterates Aang’s comment. My initial response, with my zukaang shipping goggles on extra tightly, was that Zuko just got friend-zoned and was a little disappointed before accepting Aang’s friendship. When I took a step back, I considered that we are given this moment of reflection to recognize Zuko’s journey, his initial belligerent response to the idea of befriending the Avatar. When he accepts the term of ‘friend,’ he reveals the growth he’s undergone that’s brought peace to the world. With these two possibilities laid out, I want to offer that they might coexist. That the word ‘friend’ might feel to Zuko and the audience so small and limited and yet simultaneously powerful. The pause can hint at the importance of “friendship” and signal something more. This reading emboldens the queer concept of “friendship” that undergirds their relationship. That the hug that follows might be meant to define the depth of the platonic love that is at the very heart of the series.

Saving a hugging declaration of “friendship” for the announcement of peace in the series is quietly revolutionary. In the twentieth century, male characters could connect in battle, on competitive teams, and through crime. “In the war film, a soldier can hold his buddy — as long as his buddy is dying on the battlefield. In the western, Butch Cassidy can wash the Sundance Kid’s naked flesh — as long as it is wounded. In the boxing film, a trainer can rub the well-developed torso and sinewy back of his protege — as long as it is bruised. In the crime film, a mob lieutenant can embrace his boss like a lover — as long as he is riddled with bullets,” writes Kent Brintnall. Aang and Zuko’s hug starkly contrasts this kind of masculine intimacy. The show suggests that environments shaped by dominance, conflict, coercion, or harm, though seemingly productive in drawing people and especially men together, actually desecrate “friendships.” Only in a climate of humility, diplomacy, and peace can one make a true ‘friend.’

In situating the’ “friendship” between two matured males in a time of peace, the writers hearken back to older concepts of homosocial relationships in our fiction. As Hanya Yanagihara has described the Romantic concepts of friendship that pervaded fiction before the 1900s. In her book, A Little Life, Yanagihara renews this concept for the twenty-first century with a special appreciation for the queerness that one must accept in order for platonic love to thrive into adulthood. She writes, “Why wasn’t friendship as good as a relationship? Why wasn’t it even better? It was two people who remained together day after day bound not by sex or physical attraction or money or children or property, but only by the shared agreement to keep going, the mutual dedication to a union that could never be codified.” Aang and Zuko’s relationship, despite a history that would keep them apart, reclaims this kind of friendship. Their hearts, bound together by an empyrean platonic love, are protected from the political and familial loyalties that would otherwise embroil them.

In addition to Yanagihara, another author that coats the word ‘friend’ with similar gravity and longing to Avatar is E.M. Forster, who braids platonic friendship in his writing with homoeroticism and political revolution. In Forster’s novel Maurice (originally written in 1914 but published posthumously in 1971 due to Britain’s criminalization of male homsexuality), the titular character asks a lower class male lover lying in bed with him, “Did you ever dream you had a friend, Alec? Someone to last your whole life and you his? I suppose such a thing can’t happen outside of sleep.” The confession, tinged with grief and providence as it is, could easily reside in Aang’s first monologue to Zuko in “The Blue Spirit.”

Platonic love as a topic is at the heart of Maurice. Plato’s “Symposium,” from which the term platonic love derives, is even directly referenced in the book and connected with “the unspeakable vice of the Greeks”— slang for homosexual acts. For Forster, the sanction of platonic love, both the homosocial aspect and the latent homosexuality, reveals a culture’s liberation. “If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend,” Forster wrote in his essay “What I Believe,”, “I hope I should have the guts to betray my country.” This echoes a sentiment of philial love described by Plato.

Rather than revolutionary ideals, for Forster friendships, and specifically friendships that disregard homophobia, provide the foundation for peace, equality, and democratic proliferation. When Aang and Zuko embrace, they are embodying this ideal. Platonic love and the word “friend” have a history intertwined with queer romantic love, and, while I won’t argue that Avatar attempts to directly evoke this, I will suggest that the series consciously leaves room for this association. Now, the show certainly makes no attempt to imply anything romantic between Zuko and Aang within the timeline we witness (nor any same sex characters, which reflects cultural expectations in the 2000s). And for good reason, the age gap would be notably icky, to use the technical term. (You might note, however, that the show actually allows for crushes to extend upwardly across the same age gap, when Toph accidentally reveals her affection for Sokka to Suki in “The Serpent’s Pass.”) Despite connecting queer friendships to the history of ‘platonic love,’ Avatar provides two critiques to platonic love for audiences to absorb. One is the pederasty with which Plato defined his ultimate form of love in his Symposium. Fans rightfully comment on the age gap between Aang and Zuko as something preventative to shipping them together. And beyond the fact of their ages, Aang’s youthfulness is emphatic, as I remarked earlier. Aang and Zuko are prevented from consummating their platonic love until both are deemed mature in the last moments of the series. And even then, their relationship is directed toward future development rather than conclusion. Instead of cutting away, they are allowed to exit their scene together toward a speech about hope and peace. This stands in stark opposition to the permanence of Aang and Katara’s kiss. The platonic love in Avatar, the kind EM Forster cherishes, is relegated to adulthood as opposed to other kinds of boyish friendships. The conclusion of Avatar, at least for me, actually feels especially satisfying because it settles our characters in the “new era of love and peace.” It is a beginning, and it feels more expansive than the actions the characters choose to take in the episode. Even as our characters conclude three seasons of narrative tension as the sun sets and “The End” appears on the screen, it feels instead as if their stories can finally begin. The characters are allowed to simply exist for the first time. Yes, Aang and Katara or Zuko and Mai are allowed to embrace and kiss, but it’s because the pressures of empiricism have finally been banished. They are now allowed to try things and fail and make mistakes and explore. Things don’t feel rigid or permanent, whether that be one’s identity or one’s relationships.

Ideally, within the morality of the series (at least as it appears to us with no regard for whatever limits or self-censorship occurred due to its era of production and child-friendly requirements), “friends'' are maintained alongside romantic partnerships. Both Zuko and Aang’s separate romantic relationships blossom within the same episode that they declare their “friendship.” In fact, a vital plotline is the development of Zuko’s relationship with Aang’s romantic interest. While anyone in the fandom is well aware of the popular interpretation of romantic affection between Zuko and Katara because of their shared narrative, I have to point out that romantic feelings across the series are made extremely explicit through statements, blushes, and kisses. Zuko’s relationship with Katara can be better understood in the light of the coming-of-age counternarrative. While the love interest often serves as a catalyst for separation for a homosocial relationship, the friendly relationship with Aang’s love interest—seeking her forgiveness, respecting her power, calling on her support, etc—is vital for Zuko to ultimately create an environment of peace in which he and Aang can fulfill their destined “friendship.” In fact, we can look at Katara’s femininity as the most important device for manifesting Aang and Zuko’s eventual union. It’s her rage against misogyny that frees Aang from his iceberg, midwifing him into the world again after his arrested development, the complete opposite of a Wendy figure. It’s her arms that hold Aang in the pieta after his death in the Crossroads of Destiny, positioning her as a divine God-bearer. Afterwards, its her hands that resurrect Aang so that they together can fulfill his destiny. It will be these same hands with this same holy water that resurrect Zuko in the finale. Only through Katara’s decided blessing could Aang and Zuko proceed toward the fated reunion of their souls.

The importance of this critical relationship to femininity becomes relevant to a scene in “Emerald Island Players” that one might note as an outstanding moment of gay panic. Zuko and Aang, watching their counterparts on stage, cringe and shrink when, upon being saved by The Blue Spirit character in the play, Aang’s performer declares “My hero!” Instead of the assumption of homophobia, I wonder whether we might read Aang and Zuko’s responses as discomfort with the misogynistic heterosexual dynamics the declaration represents. Across the board, Avatar subverted the damsel in distress trope. There’s a-whole-nother essay to be written on all the ways it goes about this work, but the events in “The Blue Spirit” certainly speak to this subversion. It’s quite explicit that Zuko, after breaking Aang’s chains, is equally dependent on Aang for their escape. And, by the end of the actual episode, the savior role is reversed as Aang drags an unconscious Zuko away from certain death. To depict these events within the simplistic “damsel in distress” scenario, as The Ember Island Players do, positions Aang as a subordinately feminized colonial subject, denies him his agency, and depicts the relationship as something merely romantic, devoid of the equalizing platonic force that actually empowers them. The moment in the play is uncomfortable for Aang and Zuko because it makes Zuko the hero and Aang the helpless object. Aang is explicit about his embarrassment over his feminized and infantilized depiction in the play. And Zuko, newly reformed, is embarrassed to see, on one hand, his villainy throughout the play and, on the other hand, see how his character is positioned as made out as a savior to the person who has actually saved him.

At the heart of the series is not the idea of a chosen one or savior. Instead, we are saved by the ability for one person to see themselves in another person and to feel that same person equally understands their own soul. This is the ideal of platonic love. Platonic love between two matured boys—two boys with whose memories and bodies bare the scars of their queer sensitivities—is an essential part of the future of peace. Many fans have a sense of this, labeling the relationship as “brotp” and “platonic soulmates.” I simply encourage people to acknowledge that platonic love, especially in this context, is not a limit. There is no “no homo” joke here. When we remark on the platonic love between Zuko and Aang (and across media more generally) we are precisely making room for friendship, romance, and whatever else it could mean, whatever else it might become. While I find Legend of Korra lacking and in some ways detrimental to appreciating the original series, it’s finale interestingly parallels and extends this reading of platonic love in a sapphic vein. And most recently, She ra Princess of Power was able to even more explicitly realize these dynamics in the relationship between Adora and Catra. Let’s simply acknowledge that Aang and Zuko’s relationship blazed the trail: that peace, happiness, hope, and freedom could all hinge on a “friendship,” because a “friend” was never supposed to be set apart from or less than other kinds of relationships. For the ways it disregards gender, disregards individualism, disregards dominion, platonic love is the foundation of any meaningful relationship. And a meaningful relationship is the foundation for a more peaceful world. *Author’s note: I’m just tired of sitting on this and trying to edit it. It’s not perfect. I don’t touch on all the symbolism and nuances in the show and in the character’s relationships. And this is not meant to negate any ships. It’s actually, quite the opposite. This is a show about growth and change and mistakes and complexity. Hopefully you can at least appreciate this angle even if you don’t vibe with every piece of analysis here. I just have no chill and need to put this out there so I can let my obsession cool down a bit. Enjoy <3

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spidernerdsblog · 4 years

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Love Is The Biggest Spell : Prologue

A/N: This is a complete fantasy based series. The magical elements are just used for setting the environment and for the entertainment of the reader, any form of superstition is not promoted. Hope you like this. Feedbacks and suggestions are always welcome.

Pairing : Warlock Tom Holland x half mortal reader

Summary : Witches are forbidden to fall in love with mortals. But what if your long lost love returns to you as a mortal, can you defy your heart? Any spell any magic seems useless in front of the magic of love. Let's join our lovers in their magical conquest beyond life and death as they fight for their love unravelling dark mysteries of the past along their way.

Warnings : mention of blood, murder.

For onlookers the town of Runeshire may seem as a peaceful and prospering town bustling with life and energy situated amidst lush green valleys and surrounded by a mystical forest. People here are kind and generous leading simple lives. But the town is a lot more than it appears to plain sight. For generations it has been the home for humans as well as witches. This is no ordinary town, this is indeed a magical town. Every corner of the town has a story to tell. Even though with a glorious past where witches and humans lived in harmony the town also stands witness to one of the darkest past in its history that haunts the lives of the people till date.

During the witch trials of Salem, several witches and warlocks fled to different parts of the world in order to save their lives. Runeshire was one of the places where the Hecatean witches sought refuge. Initially the people of Runeshire warmly welcomed them and provided them shelter in the mystical woods of Runeshire. For decades witches and mortals coexisted peacefully. The Hecatean witches worshipped the goddess, nature and drew power from the four elements. Humans used to seek help from them for healing potions and protection spells for their loved ones.

But the peace was short lived after the Church of Dark came into existence. A new coven that was set up by a group of power hungry witches and warlocks in the mystical woods at the outskirts of the town where prayers were offered to none other than the devil to seek unlimited powers and immortality in exchange for their soul. A rift formed between the Hecatean witches and the witches of the Church of Dark. The Hecatean witches didn't approve of the path of dark and use of dark magic. But more and more witches and warlocks in the greed of eternal youth and unlimited power shifted to the new coven. Satanic rituals came into practise.

Meanwhile the witch hunting phenomenon spread like wildfire in every part of the world, witches were being publicly executed or brutally murdered by witch hunters. At the same time plagues and famines started to hit the town of Runeshire. People were dying for some unknown reasons. Tensions rose between mortals and witches as the humans started to suspect the reason behind these mishappenings is due to the dark magic the witches practised. There was a growing atmosphere of mistrust and hatred towards witches among people of Runeshire. Rumors spread out that the witches are practising black magic to steal the life essence of their children to remain young. The people of Runeshire decided to take the matter in their hands and execute each and every witch and warlock living in the town.

Most of the remaining Hecatean witches fell victim in the hands of the enraged hunters. The witches of the Church of Dark went into hiding using their dark magic and sealing the coven with powerful spells that restricted the entry of humans.

But everything changed on that particular cursed night. Falling under some wicked conspiracy humans killed an innocent powerless witch. Since then the witch clan were forced into hiding their true identity from the mortal world. They stopped practicing witchcraft in public and made minimum contact with humans. New rules were set for the coven and the first and foremost was no witch or warlock can establish any kind of contact with the humans. If they are caught and found guilty they will be banished from the coven and stripped of their powers.

"Witch!" A man growled in a hoarse voice.

"Please let me go, I'm not going to hurt you." You begged.

"Let you go and you suck out the life out of our children!"

"I'm a mortal just like you. I gave up my powers. I can prove to you."

The angry mob didn't pay a heed to any of your pleas as the witch hunters surrounded you with pitchforks and blazing torches in their hands. Your mouth felt dry, body weak and exhausted from running all the way to save your life but still you didn't want to die not like this, so you gathered the little bit of energy left inside your body and ran into the direction of the woods.

"Don't let that witch get away!" someone yelled.

"Don't worry she is not going to see tomorrow's daylight." a middle aged man said in a hoarse voice,a devilish grin forming on his face as he loaded his rifle.

A shot was fired, the echo reverberated in the woods as the bullet hit straight at your back perforating through your chest. Blood oozed out as you winced and screamed out in pain. You didn't stop though you kept running as fast as possible in hope of getting away from those hunters.

"Y/N! Y/N! Wake up!" You heard a feminine voice calling out your name.

"No! please don't kill me! I don't wanna die" you mumbled in your sleep your face contorted as if in some kind of pain.

"Y/N wake up! You are having a nightmare again!" This time someone shook your body violently.

You woke up abruptly gasping for air, eyes blown wide fear prominent in them, beads of sweat forming on your forehead, body trembling. Out of instinct your hand went to your chest to check for any traces of blood. You heaved a sigh of relief when you didn't find any.

"Y/N are you okay?" your cousin Erica asked with concern in her voice.

"Yeah, yeah I'm-I'm fine." You nodded holding your throbbing head.

"Again the same nightmare?"

"Yeah" you sighed deeply.

"Here drink some water." You took the glass from her hand and drank the water.

"Don't tell mom about this please! Or she will freak out again."

"We will see that in the morning now go to sleep." Erica made you lay down whilst gently stroking your forehead.

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Tagging all from the previous series if you want to be removed kindly send me a message I’ll remove you.

@sleepybesson @sophs-library @spideyparkerstark @itstaskeen @milli86 @biebsmylife95 @quaksonhehe @hannahholland1811 @awhollandx @joyleenl @greatpizzascissorstaco @tomhollandsotherpinkytoe @jjandreidsgirl @brighterthanthesunx @devilaiithetime @panicattheeverywherekid @onewithnomightypowers @itsnotmeh24 @bitchinwpei @astridcommings @hollandprkr @hollandsobrien @timotayswriter @kiki-hines @casualprincess77 @spideyth @perspectiveparker @thevelvetseries @tempo-rary-fix @onebigolemess @itsbqueenthings @chingonaconcha @yoongi-holland

Taglist:To be added send me an ask I’ll be happy to add you in the following chapters.

#tom holland #tom holland imagines #tom holland imagine #tom holland smut #tom holland fluff #tom holland x reader #tom holland x you #tom holland x y/n #Warlock! tom holland

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grimmjowkurosakidrake · 3 years

Text

Can’t stay the same

Summary: Part five of my Time travel fic: The end is were we begin

Relationships: Haruno Sakura/Uchiha Sasuke, Uchiha Sasuke & Uzumaki Naruto, Uchiha Itachi & Uchiha Sasuke

Lenght: 2,024 Words

Quick disclaimer: This chapter was commissioned by the always great @birkastan2018 who actually helped me with my grammar and spelling in the fic!

@witcheswritings !

Feel free to DM Aquelarre if you want to commission a fic even if it’s not Naruto related

Sakura being trained by Itachi and Shisui feels wrong.

But Sasuke can’t deny that she’s getting stronger. Her stamina has increased under his cousin’s merciless training regime, and even her prior, almost inexistent tolerance to pain has developed in a way he could have only dreamed of under his (or even Kakashi’s) tutelage.

Their sensei had always been far too soft on her; always hesitant to really push her because he was afraid that she’d get hurt.

Naruto and Sasuke always went along with the idea that they could protect their female teammate no matter what happened.

And they could, they were strong back then and Sasuke is sure they will become even stronger in the future.

But that was not the point then and it isn’t the point now.

Sakura is a shinobi, a kunoichi. If she at some point wanted to be the sort of person that needed to be saved or protected, she would’ve stayed a civilian. She wasn’t obligated in any way to continue her life as a Shinobi, Sakura didn’t have any ties to the shinobi world in the sense that she didn’t come from any clan.

She chose the life of a kunoichi.

It took years for him and Naruto to understand this, and allow her to bloom in her own right.

Kakashi is another story entirely. Sasuke could never understand the man, even as an adult the roots of his teacher’s trauma were always a mystery to him.

Maybe he just didn’t know how to train a girl. Or he probably didn’t even know how to train anyone if the rumours of him never taking on a team were true.

Maybe he simply wasn’t interested in training a young civilian girl with no foundation other than the academy’s sloppy teaching methods. Especially when he had the only survivor of the Uchiha massacre and the Kyuubi’s vessel to deal with.

Maybe she reminded him too much of Rin, his first teammate. A girl that was said to be bright and sunny; always happy and ready to help her team in whatever way she could.

A girl eternally in love with her cold teammate Kakashi, even though their loving and kind third teammate would have given her the sun and the stars if she so desired.

Whatever the reasons behind Kakashi’s negligence of Sakura, the truth was she could have never truly bloomed as a kunoichi under the care of their team.

It wasn’t until he left the village, Naruto followed Jiraiya to advance his own training, and Kakashi completely disappeared from her life until Naruto’s return, that she finally set out on her own path as a ninja.

Now she trains her stamina and speed with Shisui every other morning. She wakes up at dawn on the days she meets with his cousin to challenge her body to the brink. Shisui has her running endless laps and sparring with him, and even though she has no hope of pinning him in her current state - Sakura keeps going. Sasuke even found her carrying Naruto on her back as a way to build up her strength.

Or so, Shisui said with a smirk dancing on his mouth.

In addition to her training with Shisui, Sakura joins her team on small missions and sometimes works one-on-one with Kakashi, who has started to take a more serious approach to her development.

Maybe he is being possessive of his “cute little genin” as he likes to call them, or maybe he’s finally realized that he can’t just ignore one of his students.

Sasuke doesn’t really care about his reasons. The important thing is that his team is acquiring the tools they need to defend themselves, to survive, and to hopefully beat the odds they will face in the future.

Someday, he will take more time to consider Kakashi, the man who passed down his most powerful jutsu to him... just as his own father taught him their clan’s signature giant fireball.

But for now, with his brother safe and actually happy beside him everyday, Naruto and Sakura are his only worry. They are his most precious people; warm sources of light in his otherwise dark life.

Sakura also trains with Itachi when he has the time, but she doesn’t seem very keen on sharing what they work on.

“We’re trying to find her strengths,” shares his brother one night after Sakura leaves their house, refusing both his and Itachi’s offers to scort her home. “Something to make her stand out, like Naruto-kun’s Multiple Shadow Clone Technique or even our own Sharingan.”

Like her enhanced strength or her excellent chakra control.

“And have you found anything?” Asks the black haired boy, eager for results, “Her chakra control is excellent and I think she has an affinity for water.” he supplies, trying to sound nonchalant, but if his brother’s smirk is anything to go by, he’s not doing a great job of it.

Itachi shakes his head with a grimace. “Even thought her chakra control is better than average, her actual reserves are not nearly enough for her to sustain any form of actually damaging attack.”

Admittedly, Itachi was never really a teacher to begin with. He was a prodigy to his very core, and the only actual experience he ever had at teaching was with Sasuke (another prodigy) and Naruto, the host of the nine tailed beast.

“But there has to be something!” Sasuke recalls his wife’s monstrous strength, her unparalleled medical jutsu, her strength of a hundred seal... Sakura has so much potential.

“We are working on genjutsu at the moment,” concedes Itachi, black eyes looking at the koi pond their mother used to take care of before her banishment with the rest of the Uchiha traitors. Now, only Sasuke has time to spare for such things. “Not enough for her to be at an Uchiha’s, or even a Yuhi’s level. Just sufficient for her to break through one, or create a distraction for up to a minute tops.”

“That’s…” Mumbles Sasuke.

That’s not enough.

She’s stronger than she was at this point back in his original timeline, and she’ll probably be able to defend herself against the sound ninja better than she did last time. But her confidence is just as low as it was weeks ago. She still thinks she’s weak, and she still hesitates before every punch she throws at training.

She needs Tsunade, Sasuke finally realises.

There’s no way Itachi or Shisui can offer her the confidence or the tools that the slug princess passed onto Sakura as if she was her entire legacy.

Of course, for Sakura’s sake, Sasuke will make sure that the woman comes back.

But at the moment, there’s nothing he can do to force the sannin’s return to the village.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Today, Sasuke wakes up later than usual. He has a mission at noon, sharp. But he knows that Kakashi will take a four hours long detour to visit his dead teammates, so he’s not worried about it.

He arrives at their meeting point, a quarter after one in the afternoon where a restless Sakura and smug Naruto are waiting for him.

Sakura is leaning against a tree, looking at him with clear disappointment. But she’s not bold enough to voice her thoughts.

Naruto on the other hand, would never miss an opportunity to scold Sasuke “Sasuke!” He screams running from his place at Sakura’s feet to stop right in front Sasuke’s face. “You’re late!” Accuses the blond pointing a finger at him.

Of course, Sasuke is unfazed. “Is Kakashi here?” He asks in his usual bored tone, his dark eyes boring into Sakura.

She blushes at his stare and breaks eye contact before answering. “No,” she sighs, letting her body fall to a sitting position on the grass. She tucks her knees under her chin and hugs her shins with her delicate arms.

Watching the boys growl and snap at each other like a pair of two misbehaving little puppies, she probably wishes her teacher will arrive anytime soon.

When Kakashi finally arrives is not particularly relevant, they end up doing some chores for people around the village. Memorably, Sakura manages to lift an entire barrel of beer for the owner of a bar down the street from Naruto’s apartment.

And when all of their work is done, she carries Naruto on her back as he complains about their day, even though he was the one who asked Kakashi for harder missions.

Sasuke can’t say that he would like to be carried by a girl like this but he doesn’t like seeing Naruto taking advantage of Sakura’s kindness.

“This is because you pushed yourself too much,” complains Sakura as Naruto groans once again from the pain.

“You can’t even take care of yourself?” Snipes Sasuke, grumbling from behind the pair as Kakashi ruffles his hair affectionately.

Immediately, Naruto hops from Sakura’s back and tries to fight off Sasuke. The girl, of course, doesn’t allow it and hold the blond by his right arm.

“Do you have to do this every single time?” She struggles to pull Naruto back. “You’re supposed to be friends,” she snaps, clearly annoyed.

It’s true, Sasuke thinks. They are friends, and nothing can break their bond. But Naruto is still a child, and Sasuke is supposed to be one as well.

“Your teamwork seems to be suffering lately,” quips Kakashi.

“It’s Sasuke’s fault,” accuses Naruto, “always showing off and acting like he’s better than us,” he complains.

Sasuke smirks. “Become stronger than me, then,” he challenges the blond, “if you want to stop me from making you look bad.”

This time around, is Naruto’s turn to smile at him, clearly pleased with his words.

Kakashi sighs, finally looking up at them from his book. “Ok, that’s it for today,” he declares. “I have to fill out our reports, anyway.”

No one complains as their teacher leaves them. They’re already used to Kakashi disappearing on them to fill out reports or attend meetings with the Hokage or other Jounin.

“We should train some more,” offers Sasuke, already walking in the direction of their usual training grounds.

Naruto and Sakura are obviously unexcited about this. They’re already tired from their morning training and the missions they completed that afternoon. But neither of them have the heart to deny Sasuke. They know he’s right.

“Yeah,” sighs Sakura hesitantly trailing after the black haired boy “more training will do us some good.”

Naruto, never one to deny an opportunity to train, follows them promptly. “Of course!” He smiles, “Sakura-chan and I should fight Sasuke!” Exclaims the blond planting his right hand of her shoulder in a friendly manner. “I’m sure we can take him.”

Sakura, for the first time in a long time, ever since he left his wife back in his timeline, smiles confidently. “That could be fun,” she smirks. “I’m sure Sasuke-kun is up for the challenge.”

“I’ll tell you what.” Sasuke smirks, stops in the middle of the street and looks squarely at his teammates. “Loser pays for lunch.”

Sakura and Naruto grin at each other, ready to fight him as soon as they reach their designated training area.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sadly, just like last time, they are distracted by the Hokage’s grandson and his little friends as the children try to rope them into one of their games.

Ninja playing ninja sounds ludicrous, but Sasuke knows this is exactly what they’re doing. Just a group of kids pretending to be adults.

As he senses the sand sibling’s chakra getting closer, with each signature more menacing and powerful than the one before - he realizes that they were never ready for this encounter. Up until this point, they were never anything more than children playing ninja.

They thought they’d already experienced the worst the shinobi world had to offer, but...

They couldn’t have been more wrong. They didn’t know it then, but even people like Gaara were nothing compared to the dangers that awaited them in the future.

As these Suna chakra signatures become stronger, Sasuke makes sure to stand protectively in front of his teammates when they finally come face to face with Temari and Kankuro.

Gaara’s bloodthirsty presence hides above them. I hope you like this chapter and I specially hope @birkastan2018 likes it!!!

#Sasusaku #Sakura Haruno #Sasuke Uchiha #naruto fanfiction #time travel fic #the end is where we begin #commisionwork #taking commisions #commission #fanfiction #fanfic commissions

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jarienn972 · 3 years

Text

La Sirena - Chapter Nine

Captain Swan Supernatural Summer

We're nearly to the completion of this little @cssns tale but we’re not quite there yet. This chapter started to get really long so I decided to break it up and create a bonus epilogue chapter that will wrap everything up! Writing my first complete AU has been quite the challenge, as well as quite a learning experience. Thank you, @kmomof4 for all of your encouragement and beta assistance along the way! And thank you, @courtorderedcake for the beautiful artwork that has graced every chapter.

So here we are at huge turning point. Poseidon sided with Emma and intervened to stop Regina's evil "test" but is there a future for our heroes or did rescue come too late for Killian this time? Catch up from the beginning at AO3 or FF.net or on Tumblr: One Two Three Four Five Six Seven Eight

*********

The immediate threats may have gone away, but Emma knew the ordeal was still far from over. Regina's menacing presence no longer lingered over the bay as a pleasant breeze ushered away the remaining dark clouds and the dulcet melodies of the songbirds returned to the trees, yet she couldn't relax. She scarcely noticed the school of colorful fish darting to and fro around her as she swam for the shore. Her attention was singularly focused.

Gentle waves lapped at Killian's motionless form as he lay prone in the damp sand. Morphing back to human legs, Emma clambered awkwardly out of the shallows, crawling her way up to the shore to reach the injured human. Her eyes were welling up with tears as she feared her efforts may have been for naught.

Please, let him be alive, was the only thought on her mind as she reached for his arm, tenderly caressing bare skin exposed beneath the torn black silk. Angry red welts covered his upper arm where the kraken's suckers had latched onto their victim, and while Emma was apprehensive about moving him, she also feared that if he were still breathing, he'd suffocate if she didn't turn him over.

She placed her right hand behind his head and gently cradled it against her palm as she used her left hand to lift his torso slightly and roll his limp body toward her, allowing his back to rest upon her knees. His eyes were closed and barely fluttered when she brushed away the sand that marred his face, noting quickly that the sand was covering up the bloody evidence of his reopened head wound.

"Stay with me," she pleaded. "Stay with me, Killian…"

A weak moan and a dribble of sea water escaped his throat, reviving her hopes as she lowered her head over Killian's and pressed her lips against his bloodstained cheek. Her golden tresses draped across his face as if to shield him from the world as she momentarily forgot that they were being watched by the god of the seas.

"Can you save him?" she implored the deity who'd remained offshore. "Please don't allow all of this to be in vain! Please don't allow Regina's hatred to win!"

"Emma, my realm is the sea, you know this," Poseidon reluctantly reminded her. "Nothing I do can save the life of a human if it is their time. Only my brothers, Hades, ruler of the underworld, and Zeus, supreme ruler of Olympus, could intervene, but I am fairly certain that neither is likely to be interested in the fate of a single human."

A despondent Emma wasn't about to take his deference as an answer.

"But it is not fair! If not for Regina's interference, Killian would have been fine. He would have survived and…"

"And?" Poseidon interrupted her. "He would have survived to be trapped here on this cove with you. How long before he longed for his own world again? Would he have felt imprisoned here with only an immortal siren for companionship? I'm not trying to be unkind, but truthfully, what is best for this young man?"

"Certainly not death," Emma rebutted angrily, her emerald eyes staring intently at Killian's unconscious visage as she challenged the deity. She didn't understand why this one human's fate was so important to her, why he held such a tight hold on her after so short a time… "Why would he be allowed to escape the sirens only to die from Regina's awful conduct?"

The god sighed and shook his head as he lowered his trident to his flank. "Ah, Emma… You remind me so much of my Ursula…" He tread a little further into the shallows before pushing himself up atop a large boulder, curling his glistening platinum tail around the rock and scratching at his beard as he formed his next words inside his head. "Like you, she possessed a compassion towards the human race that I failed to understand for many centuries. It wasn't until that fateful day that the first human sailed beyond the isle of the sirens that I ever had reason to converse with one. I confronted that man, trying to determine what ruse he'd employed to get past my protections and what I discovered was a young man who was simply trying to return home to his ailing mother.

"That man had fought through attacking enemy ships and fierce sea creatures until he was the sole survivor on his vessel. He'd tried in vain to return to his homeland, but he wasn't yet a skilled sailor and had navigated himself in circles before crossing into our realm. He knew who I was the moment I appeared before him, and I could sense his fear and reverence. He was a humble man with a good heart, and it was that humble, pure intentioned heart that my daughter sensed and eventually fell in love with. She urged me to aid the man's return to his land but after being gone so long, there was little left for him to return to. He banded with a few survivors and formed a new village on an island near our realm, eventually marrying my daughter.

"The reason I'm telling you all of this, Emma, is that you clearly felt that same compassion because, like Ursula, you sensed this man's good heart. I never believed it would be possible for a siren to sense such emotion, but from the day you separated yourself from the council, I have known that you were different. A creature birthed to enchant and entice humans to their death wasn't intended to possess compassion - let alone the emotion you're feeling right now."

"And what might that be?" she asked with a sniffle while shifting her position ever so slightly so that she could see Poseidon's face.

"You've fallen in love, Emma, and that is a most powerful emotion."

"Love?"

"It's what is driving you to want to protect him. It may perhaps be part of the instinct that compelled you to rescue him in the first place. But I say that with the warning that I can not promise whether the emotion is reciprocated. Only he can answer that question."

"Is that the reason for these tears? Are sirens even able to cry?"

"You may be the first."

"Is love the reason I feel like a piece of myself may die with him?" she questioned as her fingers unconsciously laced through the matted, scraggly dark hair at the nape of Killian's neck. "If Regina's treachery has taken him from me, I swear, I will find her and…"

Poseidon cut her off before her anger overshadowed her present dilemma. "I promise you, Regina will be dealt with, swiftly and surely. Once I determine my brother's role in this debacle, Regina will likely be stripped of her powers and if I see fit, banished to the Forbidden Isles."

"Banishment to the Forbidden Isles seems harsh, even for what Regina did…" Emma sighed, hugging Killian even closer to her breast until she recalled the damage the kraken had presumably inflicted upon the man she loved and loosened her embrace. "If I am to be truthful, all I really want is whatever is in Killian's best interest."

"If only all sirens were blessed with your wisdom," Poseidon smiled. "Perhaps it is time to grant all of your kind the full range of emotions?"

"Or perhaps it is simply time for us to mend our ways? All humans are not evil, and some of them out there are still your descendants - maybe even Killian here."

"It has been so many generations since I've kept track of my descendants," the deity lamented. "I'm afraid that there is so little trace of my lineage left that it would be nearly impossible to determine. Being a descendant of an Olympian god doesn't necessarily grant that good heart that makes a man immune to the siren song either. Many of my grandchildren's grandchildren succumbed to greed, avarice and other sins of humanity, but as you've said, there are many good ones out there. Perhaps you are right that it is time for the gods to amend our perception of humanity, but I fear the likelihood of that happening is negligible."

"I was afraid of that," Emma responded as her gaze cast downward.

"However," Poseidon continued, "while I cannot directly heal this human, I do have an idea that could expedite his return to his own ship, where he belongs."

"May I go with him?" Emma asked impulsively, her query catching the god off-guard as she raised expectant eyes to meet the god's gaze.

"Emma, are you certain?" the flabbergasted Poseidon inquired.

"I am quite certain. If there is a way to return Killian to his ship and to his family, I wish to go with him."

"To do so, you would have to give up your immortality and all of your magic," he explained.

"Lord Poseidon, I have spent centuries alone. I never desired any companionship until I spoke to Killian. If there is a way to save him and for me to accompany him, I will gladly surrender my immortality."

"I can arrange that, but I do remind you that I cannot guarantee that your emotions will be returned by him. There is no way to make someone love you…"

"It is a chance I will happily take, Your Majesty. My instincts are telling me that he shares my feelings and I can no longer imagine spending an eternity here without him. If he is to return to the land where he belongs, then I know I belong there at his side."

Poseidon nodded as he raised the trident, pointing it skyward. "Then so it shall be," he stated as clouds gathered once again above the bay, swirling into a mighty vortex before the god vanished in a blinding flash of lightning.

*********

A warm, tropical breeze tickled his cheek as Killian shifted his aching body. He could feel the sun on his back as he felt around, grasping and then releasing a fistful of sand. His memory was sketchy as he struggled to lift his head and force his eyes open, not yet certain if he was alive or dead. Maybe somewhere in between?

His head was throbbing too much to hold up so he slid his forearm beneath it and just let it rest there. The simple act of drawing breath was agonizing. Did the dead still experience pain in the afterlife or was this his purgatory? Left broken and abandoned on a deserted beach with the sea just beyond his reach?

Bits and pieces of memories (or maybe, hallucinations) came and went when his eyes would fall closed. Pirates and sinking ships. Palm trees and some subterranean lagoon. A mermaid with long, golden hair and a tail that shimmered like pearls in the sunlight. A huge sea beast with tentacles that were as long as the Jewel from bow to stern. He even pictured a gigantic trident reaching out of the waves.

How hard had he struck his head? he wondered as the fingers on his left hand gingerly touched the open laceration at his scalp, noting the crimson stains on his skin as his hand fell away. Sucking in a deep breath that he immediately regretted, he almost wanted to laugh at his unbelievable situation. What a fine mess you've gotten yourself into, Killian Jones, he thought.

His gaze drifted back to the bay, staring out at the horizon as his vision began to blur and he found himself fighting to remain conscious. He squinted in an attempt to make out a faint blob off in the distance and assumed he was imagining the peal of a ship's bell and approaching voices when he succumbed to the pain-free peace of the darkness.

*********

The familiar bob and sway of the sea was a welcome sensation as Killian began to come around. Breathing was still a chore but even before his eyelids began to part, he knew something was different. The recognizable scents of musty books and linens filled his nostrils along with some sort of strong alcohol - although definitely not the drinking kind. The creaks and squeaks of wood battered by wind and waves was a familiar reverberation in his ear.

He threw his eyelids open and lurched upright, only to be halted and eased back onto the bunk by a large, calloused hand adorned with a single, hefty, carved silver ring.

A ring that even in his discombobulated state, he noticed and identified instantly.

"Liam?" he choked out, his throat dry and burning as though he'd swallowed much of the sand back on that beach.

"Aye, little brother," Liam smiled broadly as Killian's eyes finally focused on his elder brother's bearded and clearly anguished face. Liam's typically perfectly pressed uniform was rumpled, wrinkled and as deeply creased as his face, but Killian didn't yet know that it was the product of days searching for, and then worrying over his younger brother. "Now, will you please lie back down? Doc says you still need a lot of rest to recuperate."

"Liam, I can't believe it is really you. It has been an eternity, it seems… I thought I'd never see you again…," Killian excitedly babbled as clarity slowly returned. The comforting sight of his own first officer's cabin, paltry as it might be, helped him relax as he settled back into the pile of feather-stuffed pillows propped against the stateroom wall. Scratchy as it was, Killian didn't even protest as Liam draped the Royal Navy-issued charcoal grey, woolen blanket over top of his heavily bruised chest. "It is really you, isn't it?"

"Yes, it is really me, brother," Liam replied as he fretted with the bedding, trying to make the narrow bunk as comfortable as possible for his only sibling who had seemingly just returned from the dead. "I was warned you might be a little out of sorts for a couple of days from your injuries, but yes, I am really here and yes, I am beyond happy that we located you alive. It took us days to locate you on that tiny island. You were bloody lucky that the other survivor was one of the prisoners and not one of those pirates."

"Prisoner?" Killian repeated with his face scrunched in confusion and obvious discomfort.

"You really need your rest, Killian, and I need to go make my rounds. We can talk more later…"

"Brother, I don't understand… There was no survivor from that ship, save for myself." Killian became increasingly agitated and shook his head at the wrongness of it all. That motion, of course, only made his achy skull hurt more and loosened some of the bandages Doc had wrapped around his cranium to cover the jagged wound and the uneven stitches he'd used to hold it closed. "I was the only one who survived… I failed all of our men…" Killian squeezed his eyes closed as his wavering voice cracked with melancholy. "I'm so sorry, Liam, but I'm hardly fit to be your First Mate…"

"Brother, please just rest. You're spouting such nonsense. I'll send Doc right in to examine you. Your head injury must have been far worse than he thought to have affected your memory so severely."

"My memory is fine," Killian stated bluntly. "Far better than my performance as an officer…"

"For allowing yourself to be captured so your wounded crew could escape? That's hardly a failure, brother. I recommended you for a commendation for your bravery and I truly feared I would never have the opportunity to pin that medal on your uniform myself."

Liam's words made no sense. No one awards a commendation to a man who failed his mission and lost his entire landing team. He knew he must be dead and this purgatory was a cruel end to his fantastical journey.

"I'm sorry, I've been such a failure, Liam. You do not need to cover for my sins. I am only alive today through the mercy of the gods who sent down an angel to rescue me…"

"Bloody hell, Killian…," an exasperated Liam sighed. "Whatever are you rambling on about? I sincerely hope that either Doc or the lass can talk some sense into you…" Liam snatched up his plumed uniform hat from the writing table as he rose from his chair at his brother's bedside, doing his best to straighten his overcoat to look proper and authoritative, as a Captain should be.

"Lass?" Killian asked in bewilderment. What lass? He could only picture one lovely lass with flowing, blonde hair and emerald green eyes, but she could hardly have followed him here…

"The other former prisoner of those cowardly pirates that we rescued from the island with you, you git," Liam muttered, flopping his hat back atop his head as he shoved aside the heavy canvas curtain that provided Killian's quarters a semblance of privacy from the rest of the crew berths lining the narrow corridor that dissected this deck. It was far more crowded and noisy than his own quarters which were a deck above, spanning the width of the stern, not that he had occupied them for the past few days.

Liam's footsteps resounded heavily on the oak planks beneath his feet as he lumbered down the passageway and rapped on the wall outside of another curtained compartment. The ship's doctor, who's face looked nearly as haggard as the Captain's, drew the curtain open and immediately straightened his posture at the sight of his superior officer.

"At ease," Liam grumbled, letting the doctor know with a casual wave of his hand that military decorum wasn't necessary.

"Sorry, Cap'n. Taking a break from your vigil over the young Lieutenant Jones?"

"More like taking a break from Killian in general."

"Has he awakened?"

"A short time ago - yes. He isn't making a bloody lick of sense, babbling on about being a horrible officer who failed his crew and was saved by some mythical angel. How severe was the injury to his head?"

"How wonderful to hear that he's come around, but his head injury appeared largely superficial. I'll happily give him another once over now that he's awake. Maybe those pirates poisoned him or something that is affecting his mental state?"

"I hope it is something easily remedied or I fear his career may be in danger. I'm going to go fetch the lass we rescued along with him. Perhaps hearing her tale will help sort his head out…"

"Sounds like a very good idea, sir," the doctor responded as his troubled captain departed without another word, trudging tiredly towards the ladder to the upper deck.

*********

The visit by the ship's doctor only left Killian more irritable and baffled by their blatant dismissal of his miscarriage of his duties. They must all be daft, Killian thought. Or they think I am? Maybe he was merely imagining all of this?

Had any of this been real?

As the doctor had replaced bandages and prodded him in every tormenting and unpleasant place imaginable, Killian saw the very real evidence of his injuries. He was peppered with cuts, scrapes and contusions in various stages of healing. Some of the more painful ones were deep purplish while others had begun yellowing. There were red welts on his arms and across his torso that Doc couldn't identify, suggesting they might be burns or some manner of rash, but Killian's mind recalled a vastly different source. He'd been quickly shushed at the mere mention of encountering a kraken.

Doc offered him medicine to ease his discomfort which Killian knew meant the potion they'd sourced in the Far Eastern realm. He didn't know much about the substance, but he declined, preferring to keep what remained of his wits about him. The exasperated doctor muttered something unintelligible under his breath and shook his head at the young lieutenant's stubbornness, but Killian did overhear him mention that Liam had gone to fetch the supposed other prisoner from the pirate ship before departing Killian's quarters.

Killian knew with absolute certainty that no one else had escaped that ship with him, whatever had led to its sinking. Whomever this mysterious woman was that Liam had mentioned, she must be the key to unraveling this insanity. He was anxious to meet her, although he was also embarrassed to have a lady see him in such a disheveled state.

He also couldn't get the image of an ethereal presence to depart his head - one with flowing, pale blonde hair, porcelain skin that nearly glowed in her state of undress, and a supple, shimmery tail fin that playfully flicked water towards him.

No, he scolded himself. She didn't exist. Just a dreamy figment of his overactive imagination…

The sound of hushed voices in the corridor beyond the curtain snapped his attention back and Killian strained to hear what they were saying.

"Seems to be healing well, but his head's a bit out of sort…" Killian heard Doc telling someone that he soon realized was Liam when he heard his brother respond.

"It's unorthodox…," he heard Liam say, but he could only make out portions of the rest. "Doesn't remember… Miss Swan, we're hoping… We realize this is a highly unusual request, but given your time together…"

Miss Swan? Killian knew no one by such name, but why would Liam bring a stranger to visit him in his convalescence? Perhaps he should just pretend to be asleep and they'll go away, not that the ruse had ever worked to fool Liam. He closed his eyelids anyway as he heard the rattle and squeak of the curtain being drawn, determined to ignore his unwanted guests anyway.

"Should I return when he isn't asleep?" a feminine voice asked shyly.

"I swear, he was awake a moment ago, Capt'n," Doc said with an echo of concern in his voice, although Killian wasn't certain if it was directed toward him or if Doc feared the Captain's ire.

"I apologize, Miss Swan," Liam muttered with an audible sigh. "I thought it would do him good to see you - that it would aid his recollection, but he's a stubborn arse…"

"No apology necessary, Captain," the woman replied. Her voice was tantalizingly familiar to Killian, but he couldn't place why. He almost wanted to secret an eye open to catch a glimpse but he didn't dare. "Would it be alright if I sat with him for a spell?"

Oh, bloody hell, no! Killian screamed internally. Liam would never permit such a thing. Having a woman onboard was scandalous enough…

"I'm hesitant to allow that since this deck is less secure than my quarters, milady," Liam answered, only Killian could hear the but coming. "But since this is an unusual situation, I'll allow it. I'm sure I can find enough chores to keep my crew occupied for a bit and keep them away from this deck."

"Thank you, Captain," she responded and Killian could hear her smile in her voice. He was disappointed in his brother and was nearly betrayed by the frown he fought from forming on his own lips.

"I shall check back in a short time, lest my brother or any other sailor here attempt to take advantage of you."

"I am sure your brother will be a perfect gentleman, as he was while we were awaiting rescue. He could scarcely glance at me without blushing…"

Wait… What did she just say? Killian's brain was swirling with new questions as Liam bid the mystery woman farewell for the moment. He wanted so much to look upon her face, but he must wait until he heard Liam's heavy footsteps trailing away.

Could this really be…?

#cssns #captain swan supernatural summer #cssns20 #cs ff #cs au ff #siren emma #sorry to break it there #but there was a reason for that

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angelthefirst1 · 3 years

Text

Diverged 2021, and converging.

We are getting very close to Beth, the symbolism in Diverged is extremely exciting.

What are we watching? A combination of many things... 1. Mostly Beth's missing funeral story (symbolically) 2. Repeats from 510 Them, 506 Consumed, Grady and many more... 3. A recap of Carol's past including her constant desire over the years to run away... Beth as Jesus = Light, salt, water symbolically, remember that as we go. And also Leah's knife = Beth. The previously on clip is showing the past and future at once. It's a play on Carol at Terminus saving the group while covered in walker slim, her family took her back in then, because of what she did to save everyone at Terminus, even though she was banished for killing Karen and David.

But...Carol here is also a Beth repeat and Lydia becomes Daryl. Daryl will do something to stop Beth's body being eaten/killed after Grady/The tower (which was the hospital) He will put/pull her somewhere safe just as Lydia does here with Carol, stopping her from dying.

Carol then talks about food being scarce, and Maggie's people returning, so there are more mouths to feed. Repeating season 5 when Carol first comes across Maggie's new group (Abraham and co)

Terminus had just been destroyed and the group had no supplies. Its also repeating the second time Maggie's people return...to the church after the failed trip to Washington because Eugene lied. Not long after returning with her people the second time, Maggie finds out Beth is alive.

Carol talks about the decisions she's made being all to protect them. Repeating her season 4 self killing Karen and David to "protect the group".

Back then Rick banished her effectively separating Daryl and Carol, which is re-done here in Diverged, because she “killed” Connie. Carol leaves Rick in a car with a "I love my dog" sticker...

Repeating her-this time leaving with actual Dog... As I mentioned in my previous post on Diverged, Carol leaving at the crossroads with Dog is also a representation of Beth and Carol both ending up at Grady.

They are combining and converging every scene where Carol/Daryl, Beth/Daryl go in different directions... The opening scene shows Carol and Daryl walking together, Carol struggling to open her water bottle. Daryl offers to help, but Carol won't let him, just like this scene below from season 5, after Terminus.

Daryl offers to help carry the water, he even spills water on the ground, which he repeats when he gives Dog a drink.

Daryl then offers "Leah's" (Beth's) knife to Carol to help get into the water bottle, inverting Carol giving Daryl, Beth's knife in 510.

This scene is a combination of Carol following Daryl when looking for water in 510, giving him the knife and then leaving. In 510 Carol asks to come looking for water, Daryl says no but Carol says "You gonna stop me" repeating her jumping on the back of his bike in "Find me" even though he didn't want her to come...

He didn't stop her then or now, and we see them exchange knives and Carol go a different way, while Daryl wants to stay out longer to look. Just like 510, when they don't find water Carol says " We should head back" Daryl says "nah, I'll stay out a little longer" and then the knife exchange happens, it's reversed.

All this, is about repeating and converging the events leading up to Beth's Death, inverted they will lead to Beth alive... Past, present and future combined = infinity When Carol first gets back to Alexandria she comes across this scarf...

This scarf is a call back to her head scarf in 304, the episode Rick (Daryl) loses his wife (Future wife Beth). Carol lost this head scarf while in the tombs...

Carol and T-(dog) get stuck together while in the tombs where Carol loses her head scarf, which Daryl eventually finds and throws away on the floor.

Carol finds it on the floor and eventually puts it in the trash, at the end of this episode... Carol and T-(dog) in the tombs with her head scarf is also repeating Beth and Noah at Grady trying to escape.

Surrounded by walkers Carol/Beth shoot at them in the dark. The lights go on and off, but the opposite happens in that Beth doesn't escape Grady just like T-(Dog) while Carol/Noah do. The lost head scarf will eventually become Beth's, in that it will be used to wrap her head wound after Grady, but she then gets "lost in the tombs" or goes missing for all these years...

The one Carol finds even has a "gun shot hole",and she wants to "Fix it" because somebody (Daryl) loved it!

She finds the head scarf which someone dropped during "The evacuation" basically repeating Carol "evacuating"-running into the tombs from the past and in the future it will come off Beth's head when she "evacuates" or leaves her "tomb" because of walkers-around the time of her funeral. Carol offers to make soup (so around the time Beth's funeral/body is lost, someone tries to make food for the group) Stone soup is a story about strangers convincing a village to share their food to make soup for everyone.

Part of me thinks this will possibly come into play after Grady at the White houses, possibly with Chase, who was seen filming at the houses. Strangers will want some of the supplies the group found at the food bank before Coda and I have a feeling they will probably "pirate" the food, not so much "share it"-like the stone soup story depicts.

More like the book Carol picks up, mid way through making the soup would suggest...

So... we have: 1. A lost head scarf/bandage 2. An offer to prepare food. Possibly by a stranger. (Stone soup story) 3. A "rat" causing a... 4. Lack of food. 5. And Carol/Beth going missing into the "tombs" Beth like Carol will lose her "head scarf" or bandage as she "disappeared" into the dark "tombs" after her "funeral". Opposite to Carol

It’s during the time Carol is in the tombs, that Rick hallucinates Lori, the three stories combined (Carol, Sofia and Lori) will lead to Beth

Carol offers to make the soup with mushrooms...

Which could be what leads to Daryl hallucinating. As I talked about in Find me 2018, when Daryl was hallucinating Merle during his search for Sofia, Merle accused him of eating special mushrooms, which made him "see" the Chupacabra a blood sucking dog ("Walker" Beth after her funeral).

Daryl in the episode Chupacabra is looking for Sofia so it's fitting that this is repeated with his search for Beth (Sofia 2.0) If this "Rat"/"Stranger" convinced the group to let them make food for everyone, they could have "spiked" the food with special mushrooms. Leaving the group especially Daryl in a vulnerable state, unable to fight back and making it easy to steal their supplies and leave. Meanwhile Beth gets out of her "resting place" whether that's in a car or coffin and she leaves or gets taken away. (I'll explain this more soon)

Daryl then sees what he thinks is "Walker Beth" the blood sucking dog or Chupacabra fulfilling season 2 episode 5.

This delusion could also be in part the reason for the episode we now know as 2018 Find me. If he is somewhat intoxicated with some form of poisoning and then tries to find Beth, it could make some sense of 2018. Jerry says to Carol

Which is symbolic of Beth the "Light of the world" being broken or gone. Biblically it represents Jesus and his followers “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden" "Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven” Carol later in the episode fixes the lights with the solar panel using Leah's knife (Beth) but it ends up flashing on and off again too, when the rat gets away. Which would also = Beth leaving, because the two are connected, which I will go through soon...

Carol adds salt to the soup, and she uses "Beth's" knife to get into it just like the water bottle.

Jesus who we all know Beth's story is paralleling, is not only called the light of the world and the living water that wells up to eternal life...but his followers are called the salt of the earth. Jesus said: You are the salt of the earth, but if the salt has lost its flavor, with what will it be salted? It is then good for nothing, but to be cast out and trodden under the feet of men. Salt is used as a preservative to save meat and food from spoiling, as Jesus saves and is the cure to mans soul being separated from God for sinning and falling from grace. This is why Beth is going to bring a cure at some point, because just as Jesus provides a cure to mankind, she will too... Beth the (knife, salt and light) is in the same location as the food and Carol. Carol adds salt to the soup but also throws salt over her shoulder which is something done as a superstition after a funeral, to keep away bad spirits.

Depicting this is about Beth's funeral. Carol then hears dog (Daryl) going crazy in the next room he is destroying the room trying to find the "rat". When Carol goes to check on Daryl the dog she leaves the knife (Beth) with the food. It's while Both Carol and Daryl are not around that the rat runs into where Beth and the food are kept. Someone in those 3 missing weeks is a "Rat" that compromised Beth and the group, leading to her going missing... This theme was backed up by Father G saying that they sacrificed one of their own, referring to the aftermath of events with Beth.

As Carol is trying to settle dog (Daryl) Carol picks up The Golden Age Of Piracy, a book about:

Whomever they come across during Beth's "funeral" and while food is being prepared will be a "pirate" or thief. But it's also referring to 509 when Ty on the radio hallucinates hearing about inhabitants of coastal towns being plundered and attacked. This will come into play again when Beth is back but a version of it would have happened back then too. Carol is telling Daryl the "dog" off, for going crazy because of this "rat".

The rat has chewed through or compromised Daryl's lamp or "light" (Beth) and Daryl the dog is not happy...

Dog then runs after the rat and in the process the little food Carol had gets destroyed...

Sirius reference is always about Beth, but it also now links Beth to the “missing” food.

I’m thinking that the car Beth will be left in will also have the groups supplies in it and the rat will take off with both.

The rat gets away, Carol banishes Dog (Daryl) and Carol tires to catch the rat so she makes a trap using Leah's knife (Beth), but then she needs butterfly pliers to finish it, so she goes and gets a set in Daryl's room.

The funny thing is that Daryl is doing the exact same thing on his mission, because the tubing on his vehicle has been “Chewed through” just like the lamp.

Carol then lays the trap for the rat and says:

Daryl repeats and inverts this later on when he kills the soldier walker... linking the "rat" to these "soldiers" So Daryl goes looking for this "soldier/rat" and finds it stuck in "a trap"... He looks for this soldier rat on foot because his ride is not working, and he doesn't have the knife (Beth) which he panics over losing...

He kills the "soldier" and takes back what the soldier/Rat "stole"... Food, ammo and a set of butterfly pliers...which is what Carol needed to finish the trap.

And again, along the way he sees "walker Beth" the Chupacabra...

Which he doesn’t put down...

They are repeating and inverting this, going one way with Carol and another way with Daryl, but Daryl and Carol's stories here are the same. Prior to this we see Daryl is out in his own and his main mission is to get his broken down ride (motorbike) going...

He is searching high and low through cars for a replacement tube. As i said before the tube has also been "chewed" from the looks of it, just like the lamp wire, by the rat.

His search though cars is not only repeating he search for the car with the white cross that took Beth originally, but it seems Daryl after Grady, will repeat this search for Beth who gets taken in a second car.

This bottom picture is from 509, while the top two are from 1021

The "Rat" not only drugs them and steals their supplies and Beth’s body, but also stops them following by "chewing" through or messing with their vehicle so it doesn't work... Again linking the "rat" to the problem's with Daryl’s vehicle... Daryl can't find Leah's knife (Beth), because he left it with Carol...

Carol does catch the rat, in her trap for a time, but it gets away, and runs into the hole in the wall which she then blocks up with the scarf...

So Carol may well have this rat trapped but lets it get away, leading to the events above and Daryl trying to follow and kill the rat to get Beth and the supplies back.

The hole in the wall = Beth's bullet wound which gets covered with the scarf... Symbolically I believe the wall with hole/scarf and the rat hiding behind it, is Beth in a car possibly being driven away and used as a “shied” by the rat...

So Daryl hunts the rat and sees the Beth walker at a distance but can’t get to her. Once he has killed the solider rat (there ends up being 3 of them) and gets the tools he needs, he starts fixing his bike.

This takes all night and while he works we hear wolves howling in the distance. A good sign that Beth is close considering she is the Wolf that will come home.

And a call back to 509 where Michonne stands in front of the Wolves not far sign. Carol and dog share a bed for the night and it's telling future Beth/Daryl romantic story, but also Daryl with Beth's “body” wanting to be close to her and possibly kissing her, because "the fights gone out of her"...

It's also depicting Beth and Carol at Grady with Dawn. Dawn talks about Noah coming back, because they always come back...

Obviously it’s a callback to Beth saying “you miss him don’t you” to Daryl regarding Merle.

And...Carol leaving the group after Terminus, Daryl comes along to stop her leaving and that's what leads to them taking off after the car with the cross and finding Beth.

Which is then depicted in the very next scene as Daryl gets his bike going and takes off along this road repeating this...

Carol and Dog (Daryl) then go down stairs with flashlights and look for the hole in the wall with the scarf (Beth) and the rat. Repeating but reversing Daryl and Carol back in Consumed looking for Beth when they sleep at an emergency accommodation at a place that Carol had been before.

Carol fighting through the wall, will be inverted with Beth fighting to get out of a car or coffin and that's why we see through it from the other side.

It's will also be what causes Beth's head scarf covering her bullet hole to get caught and left behind.

Carol sits down exhausted after trying to get through the wall and dog comes and sits next to her...

Repeating Carol being found in the tombs by Daryl, exhausted but alive-but not wearing her scarf.

Carol tells Jerry she had a bad day and Jerry figures out its because she didn't come back with Daryl, repeating Carol being taken to Grady and not coming back with Daryl. Jerry says 2+2 = Eureka

2+2 episode 22?

Let's hope! Carol tries to give Daryl Leah's knife back (Beth) But it stays with her because Beth the knife and Carol are symbolically both at Grady.

In the future we may see Daryl try to return Beth's real knife to her. Daryl and Carol end the way they began by going separate ways, but this time it's with doors closing.

Daryl and dog (Carol) go one way and Carol (Beth) the other. Carol goes into the “Car” garage, repeating Beth getting in to the car on the way to Grady. All why the music plays "Oh oh oh" (oh moment)

In the future we will see Daryl and Beth together and Carol go a different way. One last thing I want to talk about is this drawing in Daryl's room. While it's "Dog" front on, it's also a side portrait of 2 creatures touching noses or kissing...

Aw....

#team delusional #team defiance #bethyl #beth greene #beth is alive #beth is coming

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sondepoch · 4 years

Text

Chapter 8

Written in the Stars (Lucifer x Angel!Reader)

Four thousand years is a long time. In the absence of your most cherished friend, it feels even longer. But when a certain student exchange program in the Devildom reunites you and Lucifer, things aren't the same. Because four thousand years of separation is a long time. And the love you once felt for Lucifer has changed into something different—something forbidden. But that might not even be your biggest problem, because with each passing day, your holy wings are turning blacker and blacker.

MASTERLIST

Simeon cannot see the shackles that bind him.

He's not sure if that makes it better or worse. On the bright side, it allows him to forget that he is being held prisoner. On the downside, it forces the painstaking realization back down on his heaving shoulders every time he tries to lean forward.

He flinches against the wall, holding himself back as a cold sweat breaks out on his forehead. Give in, a part of him says. Give in, answer all the High Seraphs' questions about MC, and be free.

But the angel knows that, even in this torture, he'll never be able to bring himself to spill the secret that you've tried to hide so desperately. After all, if Simeon tells them the truth, he may go free; but then you'll be brought down to this very room to be put through the same torture he's enduring.

And he'll never do that to you.

Simeon groans, eyes opening to see the six glasses of holy water in front of him. They're crystal clear, shining oh-so-softly in the darkness of this room, but after well over twenty-four hours without drink, he seeks them like a moth to a flame. He doesn't just want water, he genuinely needs it, and he can't help but wonder what the seraphs will do to him when this torture of dehydration becomes life-threatening.

At the back of his mind, though, he suspects that it won't come to that.

Slumping against the wall, he recalls the dream Father had sent him. Or rather the vision that had been sent to all of you. It was far from the first time Simeon had been allowed to sit in on one of the conversations between the High Seraphs and Father, and he'd almost wondered whether the Celestial overlord was going to demand that he be freed from this cruel imprisonment. When the subject of discussion turned toward your fate, though, a smile bloomed on Simeon's face.

Gods be good, he had thought, realizing that he had the truth of it. Father is merciful.

Even now, as Simeon sits, he can hear the sound of you arguing with the High Seraphs, demanding your freedom. He hears your terms echo down the halls, reaching his ears long after you've said them: orders to allow you the right to return to the Devildom, to freely see Lucifer for not just the remainder of the year but for the rest of your life, to not be held captive in these towers ever again.

A soft smile finds its way onto the angel's face when he hears you demand that he be released, wherever they're keeping him.

You're too kind, little lamb.

Not that Simeon is complaining, though. He had been passed out when Father sent him that earlier vision, and the same fate threatens to arrive in the near future if he doesn't get some water and soon.

Simeon reaches another weak hand forward, testing to see how far he can go before the invisible shackles snap him back against the wall.

The sudden darkness causes him to stop.

His breath hitches in his throat, quietly trembling at the unexpected absence of light. It returns not a second later, and his muscles relax, smiling when he realizes that it's you causing these fluctuations.

Simeon's not sure if he should be proud or worried.

A broken laugh spills from his dry lips—interrupted by hoarse coughing—and he tries his hardest to recover, but he must pass out from the effort because when he next comes to, the sounds of your continued conversation echo down and fall upon his ears once more.

It's weak, but he can just barely make out what you're saying.

"You promise?" The sound is distorted, but it has the unmistakable inflection of your voice, filled with a hesitant hope. "Do you mean it?"

Simeon raises his eyebrows, wondering what you're referring to.

"Yes, child." Ah, that's a High Seraph speaking. "You've left us with no choice. You'll only continue throwing this tantrum for the rest of eternity if you don't get your way, so be on with it and do not return, you aggravating child."

Simeon's eyes raise. The High Seraphs are giving in? A part of him wants to laugh, that you've managed to disturb them so greatly with your "tantrum" that you've actually managed to achieve your demands, but another part of him is worried. Only Father has the explicit right to banish people from the Celestial Realm, but the way they told you to "not return" is awfully concerning.

"You—you mean it?" Your voice again, though the hopeful tint from earlier is more prominent. "You swear? Do you swear it, by the eyes of Father and all that is holy?"

"Yes, you obnoxious child of light. We swear, before the eyes of Father, the light within our hearts, the holiness of the Celestial Realm, that you may join your wretched union with Lucifer. Curses be upon you both, if Father ever understands how foolish this is."

Simeon's eyes widen. The words are riddled with jabs and mocks, entirely deriding as the High Seraphs speak to you, but they've said everything that needs to be said. The seraph who just spoke gave you explicit permission not just to see Lucifer but to be with him, having sworn a blessing (riddled with insults) before the eyes of Father, the light in their hearts, and the holiness of the realm.

They've given you the permission to do the very thing you desire.

Be with Lucifer.

A warmth blossoms in Simeon's heart, overwhelmed with relief and happiness for your sake. A liquid joy spills from his eyes, and he doesn't even wipe it away as he understands that the little girl he's spent the past four thousand years protecting is in love, and that you can finally act upon those feelings without it being a sin against your nature.

The High Seraphs have sworn it, after all.

He rests his head against the coolness of the stone wall, not even hearing the sound of wings approaching. He's about to give in to the temptation of slumber when the door on the far end of the room is kicked in, revealing your holy form as it crashes (rather ungraciously) inside the room.

"Simeon!" You call, first in joy. But when you see the disheveled state the angel is, your second cry of his name comes in concern.

"Simeon?! What have they done to you?!" You run forward to cup his face, brushing the tears from his cheeks. "You're crying!" You exclaim, lip trembling and eyes threatening to leak their own tears.

"Not for pain, little lamb," Simeon murmurs, running a hand through your hair. "I...I heard what the High Seraphs said. For you. And Lucifer." He summons all the strength he has left to flash you a smile. "It is the most wonderful news in the world."

"I'm so sorry for not telling you about Lucifer," You whisper, eyes searching deeply for anger or resentment on Simeon's features. "I never should have kept secrets from you."

"Shh, little lamb." Simeon shakes his head. "It's alright, you did what you thought was necessary."

"I know, but you're my guardian, and all this could have been avoided if I just told you the truth! If I had, you wouldn't be down here, being punished for my wrongs!"

The angel shakes his head, sighing softly.

"This is the best outcome either of us could have hoped for. If you had told me the truth, this might have all been avoided, but then the High Seraphs never would have allowed you to partake in any union with Lucifer." His eyes soften. "And you mean to…"

"I mean to marry him," Comes your response, slightly abashed at the words. Everything after is said with burning cheeks, rushed and choppy. "One day. Far in the future. When we're both ready. If you allow it. If. And only if we have your blessing. And if—"

"Little lamb," Simeon shushes you, a finger on your lips. "I told Lucifer, but never you. The two of you already have my blessing."

He smiles, resting his head against your forehead calmly while you sputter in shock, trying to understand when all this happened. Alas, as much as Simeon wishes to answer your questions, the burn in his throat is growing too strong for him to resist any longer.

"Little lamb?" He asks, finger pointing to the six glasses that have been kept just beyond his reach. "Would you be so kind as to fetch me some water?"

You comply instantly, making three trips to bring all the glasses back. Simeon hardly waits once they're within an arm's reach, and he downs the first glass in mere seconds. He raises the remaining glasses to his lips so suddenly that much of the water spills onto his chin and chest, but by the sixth glass, his thirst is quenched and he can bring himself to put it down before turning back to face you.

"Go, little lamb." He gestures toward the door. "The High Seraphs will be down here at any moment to free me, now that you've confessed to everything. And Lucifer will be waiting."

"Lucifer? You want me to return to the Devildom without you?"

"If I know him, he'll be long gone from the Devildom," Simeon chuckles. "Follow his light. Sense his aura. You'll find him, little lamb. No doubt, he's nearby."

You motion to get up, still hesitant to leave.

"Go," Simeon repeats. But this time, he's not saying the words as your doting friend. They're an order, his first and his last command to you as your guardian, to go to the arms of the man you love.

You heed him.

***

There's absolutely nothing Lucifer can do.

He floats helplessly, teetering on the border that marks the heavens, staying hidden in the clouds as he remains just outside the Celestial Realm. He's close enough to the tower of High Seraphs that he could see the flashes of light and occasional bouts of darkness as you fought with them earlier, so close that he could even hear your enraged shouts every now and then—but the tower has been still for nearly the past half hour.

He bites his lip, hating how there's absolutely nothing he can do for you.

What if they hurt you? He wonders, flapping his wings hesitantly as he tries to get closer to the tower, to no avail. What if they've locked you up again?

The endless questions plaguing his mind never seem to end, and he's certain that if he's left waiting any longer, he'd actually go crazy. But then, right when he needs it the most, his eyes detect movement.

You.

There's no denying it, the signature splash of (h/c) tresses battling the wind as you approach, (s/c) against the pale fabric of your clothes, wings turned white as you grow closer and closer to Lucifer, a beaming smile on your face.

He isn't a man to cry for joy, but Lucifer truly feels like he might in this moment, and he holds nothing back when you fly straight into his arms, the momentum of traveling at top speed hitting him hard as he flies backward with you in his arms. But that doesn't even matter anymore, because you're finally back by his side.

"Lucifer," You murmur, arms wrapped around him tightly as you bury your head in his shoulder. "I thought they'd never let me go."

"They let you go?" Lucifer asks, disbelief prominent in his voice. "The High Seraphs? Willingly?"

You giggle and hold him tighter, and he watches as you pull back just the slightest. "They couldn't say no after Father yelled at them for making me unhappy." You peck his lips. "They've given me permission to be with you, Lucifer. Forever."

The breath hitches in Lucifer's throat. He expected, if you returned, that you would be permitted to spend the remainder of the year with him at most.

But…

He holds you numbly, too overwhelmed by this news to do anything when you laugh sweetly and wrap him in another tight embrace, closing your eyes and resting your head atop his shoulder as you pull him as close as possible to let him know that this is real.

The demon returns your embrace, staring into the clouds in a strange mix of shock and wonder. He's no longer the Morningstar, no longer the pride of the Celestial Realm. What has he done to deserve such happiness, such a wonderful fate?

Tears form in his eyes, though he never allows them to fall, and it's in that moment when his vision is compromised that he makes out the familiar shape of Father in the clouds overhead. His eyes widen. The lord's gaze isn't forgiving as he stares at the son he banished, nor is it kind. But Father's eyes are soft as he watches the two lovers embrace, as if—though he may not love Lucifer the same way anymore—he does love MC, and he trusts Lucifer to make her happy.

He blinks, and then the vision is gone, the clarity of the clouds and his Father's face dissipating as a Celestial breeze pulls it all apart.

But Lucifer knows what he saw.

It's for you, he understands. The future he's been given, the right to spend eternity with the love of his life—it's entirely unsuitable for a demon, one who's been banished from the heavens and sent to the land of eternal damnation. But a life of love is wholly fitting for an angel. It is a life you deserve, and the life that Father has given you. This union is entirely for you, not for Lucifer in the least—but the fact that Father has trusted Lucifer, of all people, with your heart speaks volumes about your shared future together.

Trust, he thinks. After everything he has been through with Father, the god still trusts you with Lucifer. Is that a testament to the god's previous love for the demon, or a statement about his love for you?

Lucifer does not know. But the one thing he is certain about is that this eternity he has been given to spend with you will be perfect. He will ensure that much himself.

Lucifer quietly pulls your head off his shoulder, and a single look into each other's eyes is all it takes for your lips to connect, pressing firmly against each other in a passionate molding of love, lust, and warmth.

"I love you," He whispers, suddenly realizing that he's never said the words.

"I love you too, Lucifer," You murmur, recapturing his lips in another ardent kiss.

He can hardly say how much time passes like that, the two of you wrapped in each other's arms and kissing each other over and over again, as if neither of you can quite believe that you will no longer need to separate at the end of this year. It's still so impossible to wrap his head around: the notion that, just as he had you for eternity in the Celestial Realm, he now has you by his side for eternity once more.

Never has he felt so blessed.

"MC," He murmurs quietly, once he notices that the sun has begun to set. His eyes widen when he pulls apart, noticing your altered appearance. "Your wings. I've…" Ruined them, he wants to say, but he holds back because he knows how much you hate it when he insults the facets of demon appearance.

"I didn't even realize," You murmur softly, glancing your black wings. You raise a hand to Lucifer's cheek, and a strange sensation powers through his body. He watches as the feathers on your back turn from black, to gray, to white, and then realizes that this is the very power Father talked about in his vision. Your power to radiate light.

Lucifer's eyes widen as you return his own dark light back to him, the aura he usually emanates fluttering through his veins as he's forced, by your hand, to absorb his light for the first time.

By the time you're done, your wings are paler than snow, your holy halo shining brightly to match.

"I can control it," You say, giggling. "I wonder, can I make your wings change color the same way?"

Not even waiting for his answer, you turn to Lucifer with a cheeky smile and continue radiating light. This time, though, it's not Lucifer's aura pulsating through his veins but yours, holy and precious as it beats in tandem with his heart.

The demon isn't quite sure how he feels about the sensation, but he finally decides that he'll put up with it if it makes you happy. As predicted, he sees his wings begin to turn gray, but the sight of four wings no longer black prompts him to stop you.

"MC," He murmurs, a hand flitting onto your shoulder. You cease your ministrations instantly, and the moment you're not actively balancing his inner darkness, it comes rushing black, his wings bursting ebony once more. At the sight, he sees your own wings begin to darken, as if when you're not radiating light, you instinctively begin absorbing it. He chuckles. "It's not meant to be. Just like you," He strokes your cheek tenderly. "Are meant to have white wings."

You pout, resting your forehead against his. You make no move to halt the spread of blackness over your feathers, and Lucifer suspects that you're consciously willing to happen faster. "But I like it when we match, Luci."

"You'll make Luke scream again if he sees you with black wings."

"Luke can scream all he wants. He'll have to get used to it when I return to the Devildom."

"You're coming back?" Lucifer pulls back, eyes slightly wide. "You'll be returning for the remainder of the exchange program?"

"Of course, Luci," You chuckle, pecking his cheek. You beat your wings once, spinning the two of you as you continue to float gently in the air. "The High Seraphs basically told me to get lost and do what I want, as long as I stop disturbing them and don't run to Father to complain. So…" You trail a finger down to Lucifer's chest. "I can stay for the year. Even longer, if you'll have me."

"Of course I'll have you," Lucifer whispers, a smile spread out on his features once again. Truly, this day cannot get any better. He presses a kiss to your forehead, tugging you with him as he spreads his wings out atop a cloud that hangs just outside the Celestial Realm. Fingers intertwined, you join him, curling up on his sides as you rest your head on his chest.

"I want to stay here forever with you," He hears you whisper. "Right here. Right in between the Celestial Realm and the Devildom. Under the stars, with no one other than us."

Lucifer smiles.

"I'll make it happen."

You raise your eyes at Lucifer's words, staring sweetly into his eyes.

"I'll build us a house, right here. A house in the clouds, where no one from the Celestial Realm or the Devildom will disturb us."

You laugh, and Lucifer feels almost insulted that you're finding amusement in his declaration. He's being honest.

"What?" He asks, ears a light pink. "You said you wanted to be here forever."

"How would that even work?" You retort with a giggle, pinching a lock of hair and tracing patterns with it along Lucifer's chest. He'd ask you to stop, but the adorable smile on your face prompts him to let you do as you please. Even if it tickles. "We'd have to fly an hour just to get to our home."

"Or we could enchant a door so that it takes us here, straight from the Devildom. I'm sure Simeon wouldn't mind erecting one in the Celestial Realm, as well."

"Hm," He hears you mutter, thinking. The demon can practically sense your complaint, that you're no good with object enchantments and something like that is far too complicated, but much to his surprise, all you say is: "Alright."

"Alright?"

"Let's build a house here. On this very cloud. And someday, when you're not as busy with Diavolo's work and Simeon is no longer my guardian, we can live here for the rest of our lives."

Lucifer smiles. It's a plan that can hardly be achieved within the next twenty thousand years, but the two of you are in no rush.

He silently watches as you mark the cloud with your light, radiating it smoothly until the cloud glows gently, setting it apart from others. "There," You say with a triumphant grin. "Now, we'll always be able to find this cloud."

You giggle softly, and Lucifer pulls you even closer, wondering how he managed to obtain such a wonderful lover.

It would be a stereotypical date, if not for the unique nature of the series of events that brought the two of you here. You're cuddling together, Lucifer's head resting just barely atop yours and your eyes are always locked on each other or on the mesmerizing scatter of the stars above you. The two of you have already spent so many nights at the House of Lamentation in the observatory doing the exact same thing, but nothing can compare to this moment.

"Do you think I can make a star?" Lucifer suddenly hears you ask. He blinks down at you, his hand brushing against the feathers of your wings in wonder of where this thought came from. "I mean, do you think I can radiate enough light to make a real star?"

"Of course," Lucifer answers. "But it might be a lot of physical exertion, so don't push yourself too far."

He glances down at you encouragingly, smiling as he senses you begin to channel your energy outward, and he can see a thin line of light stretch out of your figure. In your focus, you hardly notice when your wings fade to black, changing to match with Lucifer's own, and he doesn't comment on it either, opting to watch as a faint but unmistakable mark forms in the sky: a star. Tiny, and almost invisible if he's not explicitly searching for it, but it's a star.

"Lucifer," You gasp, fingers tightening around his hand. "I did it!"

"It's beautiful," He whispers into your ear, kissing the top of your head as you try to create another one. He doesn't complain about your changing the sky, knowing that the stars you send forth are so small and delicate that the humans probably won't even notice it.

But when you finally stop creating stars, he can't help but chuckle at your antics.

"Really, MC?" He raises an eyebrow, acting unimpressed. But in his heart, he finds it incredibly endearing. "A smiley face?"

"It's cute!" You exclaim, laughing into the demon's chest. Then, an idea seems to pop into your mind. "Close your eyes, Luci!" You exclaim, casting a glance up at him to confirm that he's following your instructions. "Don't open them until I say so!"

He hums quietly in agreement, taking this as an opportunity to continue tracing your body with the one hand that isn't intertwined with yours. He goes from mapping the outline of your wings to tracing the curve of your hip, quietly running his hand over the dip of your collarbone and then outlining the angles of your face. He keeps his eyes closed as his mind completes the visualization of your body.

Eternity, he thinks, a strange giddiness overtaking his heart at the word. It's still so hard to believe, but finally has you for all eternity.

And to think, I have Father to thank for that.

The demon suppresses a laugh, wondering how he'll tell his brothers.

"Lucifer?" The demon turns his head downward, eyes still closed. "Lucifer, you can open your eyes now."

He opens them, blinking down as you smile up at you. He almost wants to stare at you for longer, but your impatient gesturing up at the sky above prompts him to finally raise his eyes.

And when he does, he practically chokes on his own breath.

"You…" He mutters, eyes wide. How did you manage to do so much in so little time? "It's beautiful, MC. Truly beautiful."

He laughs in disbelief, his eyes smiling as he stares up at the stars above.

The sky is a work of art.

He has no idea how you managed to create so many stars in such little time, but you've created a constellation of your own, put together exclusively by stars of your own light. They're the faintest ones above, but they burn with the familiar light Lucifer adores. To his eyes, they stand out bolder than all the rest, proud and distinct against the blackness of the sky.

He smiles, his hand raising to trace the shape of what you've so meticulously laid out. "I love it," He whispers, staring even longer.

There, in the distance, hundreds of thousands of miles away but there nonetheless, is the constellation that outlines both of your figures in the night sky: your arms reaching out to Lucifer, wings outstretched behind you, and his own demonic form flying up to greet you.

Perfection, he thinks, wondering when in these past years you learned the mechanisms of art. Because what you've laid out for him in the stars is that: beautiful art, more stunning than any painting he has hanging in the House of Lamentation.

It's a scene that speaks not with the image it presents but the emotion it evokes, four thousand years of separation manifested in the yearning on both your faces; the joy of reuniting after so long hidden in the way your arms beckon to touch each other; the pain at being ripped away from each other once more locked in the desperation of your gazes; the sheer happiness at the prospect of the remaining eternity the two of you have together conveyed in the finality of your pose, as if you're about to embrace for the final time, never having to pull apart ever again.

It's your entire love story written in the stars.

Lucifer can't hold his pride over your skill as he marvels at your work. It's a perfect rendition of everything that has brought the two of you to this moment where you can finally be together, after thousands upon thousands of years of love and separation and more love.

It is, without a doubt, perfection.

Lucifer sighs softly when you raise your hand to his, slipping your fingers amid his and intertwining them so that his attention is focused not at the masterful constellation you've just created but on the sight of your hands locked together.

"I love you."

He's not sure who says it first, but neither of you bother repeating it. Why bother? The proof is in the stars, in the light you both radiate—dark and pure, holy and corrupt, love and lust.

It's a union unnatural, countering every instinct known to both angels and demons. It would even be a sin, if it weren't explicitly pardoned by Father.

This match is wholly aberrant, strange and twisted in the way this love has wedged its way into both your hearts, rooting itself so strongly that Lucifer wouldn't be able to get rid of it if he tried.

And yet, he wouldn't trade it for the world.

MASTERLIST

Word count: 4.6k

Notes: I'm going to be straight with you guys, this is essentially the ending for this fic! the next chapter will be told from the POV of an outside character looking in on the evolution of MC and Lucifer's relationship. it will serve as an epilogue, if you will, and i currently plan for it to be significantly shorter than the usual chapters in this fic - so i want to take this opportunity to thank everyone for reading! this has been such a wild ride, and these past two weeks have been especially rough for me, just personally! being able to escape and write a soft, wholesome love story has done so much for my mental state, and i want to thank everyone who has shared this journey with me <3 the end is coming very soon, and i have enjoyed every step of this fic, from the annoying process of scrapping thousands of words to rewrite them (often multiple times in a row, god - my drafts for this series tell such a wild tale) to scrolling through every comment you guys have left, this has been an absolute pleasure and i thank you for joining me on this journey, whether you're reading this today as i continue to write or far in the future!

Comment & Like

Next Update: 6/16/20

I do not own the rights to Obey Me! or any of the characters within it.

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killiansprincss · 3 years

Text

Never Forget You ch. 15

Season 6A Canon Divergence.

Emma is happy. Finally happy with her parents, son and boyfriend. But this happiness is taken away from her when the Evil Queen curses her and turns her into a toddler.

Heartbroken and angry, Killian and Henry run away to Neverland to wait for Emma to break her curse. But when she does break it and comes looking for them 25 years later, she soon realises this Neverland is very different now it is no longer under Pans rule.

Will she be able to save Henry and Killian in time, or will this new ruler of Neverland keep them hostage forever?

Chapter 15 of my Neverland fic is here, I hope you enjoy it! Leave a comment if you liked it, they mean the world every comment I get :) AO3 Link

Previous chapters

Verena was worried about Cecelia. This was a dangerous plan to begin with, even before Hook and Henry’s family came for them. She’s proven that she will do anything to make sure the two of them stay on the Island. The Echo Caves were a dangerous torture device, once used to drive the darkest secrets out of fairies, so they could be exiled or executed. And she feared this was exactly what she planned to do.

Verena was worried, no, scared for what her sister was doing. She was afraid for her life, if she stayed by her side she could end up dead, if she betrayed her she would equally end up dead. She needed a way to help Henry’s family while making Cecelia think she was helping her.

_____

She watches the family as Cecelia does. Cecelia thinks Verena is watching them in the same way she is, searching for a weakness in them. She’s a smart fairy, but also very passionate about what she wants so could be willing to let a few pieces of information slip from her mind.

“Anything new?” Cecelia asks one morning.

Verena shakes her head, “Not at the moment. They’re mainly talking about their lives, what’s been happening in their land over the past 25 years. But I’ll keep watching, there may be something in here we can use.”

And then it hits her. She’s watching the boys grandparents talk about their journey, they had been through a lot during the Enchanted Forest with corrupt Kings and Queens. But there was one part of their story that stuck out.

A sleeping curse.

Verena knew of her sister's plans for the pirate and the boy. And if she could give their family time, time to defeat Cecelia, she would keep the pirate safe under a sleeping curse, that way Cecelia would not be able to touch him. Her sister would be defeated, and then Emma, if she loves him as she says she does, she will wake him up.

Verena doesn’t tell her sister of her plan, afraid she will do it herself with some sort of twist. No,she does this independently, and will show her sister the outcome.

____

Despite never being the biggest fan of Hook to begin with, he was his daughter's true love. And he had shown countless times how far he was willing to save her, and Emma for him. They all went to hell, the Underworld to save him. So it shocked him when Emma told them he was sleeping with the fairy. There was no way he would do that, he knew how much he loved his daughter.

“I think I need to have a little chat with our Pirate. Find out his intentions.” He tells his family. He wanted to speak to him alone, find out the truth about him.

Emma doesn't even bother to stop him. She’s still angry, hurt and upset with Hook. Nobody stops him.

/\/\/\/\

If there was one thing Killian Jones associated with Neverland, aside from Pan and the fairies, it was Rum.

Rum in some senses had been his only companion during his years in Neverland. When he had handed Bae over to Pan many years ago, he greatly regretted this decision every day and it haunted him. So he turned to Rum, and he drank it every day to make him forget what the horrible consequences of that decision was. He couldn’t run away from his problems, he was in Neverland and needed the eternal youth it provided him with, so Rum could help ease his mind and put those worries to the back of his mind.

He doesn’t sleep. He made that mistake enough times to know it’s a bad idea. In his first days of Neverland before he met Emma he would see Liam. And if he didn’t see Liam, he would see Milah.

“Killian. Killian.”

He kept hearing a voice, it sounded an awful lot like his brother. But he knew better than to think his brother came back to life.

Except he kept hearing it. He opened his eyes to see Liam Jones standing in front of him.

“Liam?”

“Little brother what are you doing?” His voice was hoarse and bitter.

“Liam? Is it really you?” He was shocked to see him just walking around like it was nothing.

“Of course it’s me you bloody bastard! What are you doing with your life, little brother? This isn’t what we planned.” He was angry with him, that was sure.

“I’m sorry. Liam. You died. I messed up. I can’t trust the Navy, they killed you. I had to avenge your death.” It was true what Liam was saying, this wasn’t Killians plan-they planned for Liam to captain the Jewel of the Realm for a few years with Killian as Lieutenant until Killian would Captain his own ship one day. They would sail under the Kings Realm as the Jones Brothers, 2 of the finest Captains their kingdom had seen.

“Pirate, Killian? Really? Pirates were our worst enemy, and is that Rum? After all your talk of Good Form? The moment I’m gone, you become a drunk pirate?” This wasn’t Liam, or at least the Liam he knew once.

“You’re not Liam are you? What are you? Demon reveal yourself?” He could tell it wasn’t him by the way he spoke about his choices. Yes it wasn’t their original plan, but he wouldn’t judge his decisions so harshly considering what happened. And he would never call him a drunk. Never.

The demon was revealed to be a shadow. The shadow demons would take the form of another to try and trick you, or reveal dark desires. He learnt that the hard way when Pan when he revealed a dark secret about Milah.

“We wouldn’t want poor Bae finding out his mother’s darkest secret now do we?” Pan taunted him, he was unsure whether it was 50 years into his time in Neverland or 200.

At the time he had no idea how he found out. “Captain you can’t be so foolish as to speak to every shadow demon you see. O matter how many times it appears as Bae’s mother.”

When he realises it was just a bloody demon and not actually Milah's ghost or spirit, he goes back to his ship and drinks as much rum as it takes until he passes out.

Passing out from too much rum had become a regular occurrence for Killian, and slowly turned into a habit. The only way he could get through the days and nights which along with the time moving differently that had turned into a blur.

When Killian arrived back in Neverland with Henry, he told himself he wouldn’t use rum like that again. But that changed when he realised the shadow demons were Neverland speciality, not just Pan’s.

He sees Emma. He’d recognise her face anywhere, her blonde hair loose, green eyes shining as they always did, and her red jacket.

“You left me.” Emma grumbles.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry love. I didn’t know what to do.” He apologises and apologises to her, but she won’t hear his cries or his pleas, she just keeps repeating

“You. Left. Me��

It takes a while for him to understand that this was a demon. The demon looked so like Emma, and he so wanted to see her, to bring him home.

But that was a long time ago. 1,000 years could’ve passed, that’s how Neverland works. And the only thing that could help him see past the demons was Rum. And lots of it. Neverland had an unlimited magic supply of the stuff so it was an easy fix to his daily problems. Especially after what happened with Eli, he couldn’t bare to look at his brothers face without feeling an enormous sense of guilt, so he would drink and drink and wake up the next morning with no clue what happened. It was best this way, just drink the pain away.

He pushes Henry away too. And he hates himself for it. But the poor lad looks so like his mother, he’s only reminded of the blasted reason they’re here every time he looks at him. He came aboard the Jolly one day with his ever present smile and boyish grin, ever the positive lad. He tells him to get off his ship, raising his voice at him.

“I-I don’t understand.” The poor lad trembles.

“I want you off my ship. Don’t ever come back onto my ship without a direct invitation from me first.” Killian snaps at him. He cringes at the memory, but he was angry once again at the universe and he took it out on Henry who was a painful reminder of the woman he lost.

Emma would be ashamed if she knew how he had been treating him, he made a vow to protect him and he had broken it. He’d done worse than broke the vow to protect him, he banished him from the only familiar place on the damn Island.

He only sees Henry in the Lost Ones clearing each night. They don’t ever say more than a few words to another at first. But then as time goes on in Neverland, and Henry forgives him, well he doesn’t outright say he forgives him, but he asks how he is. Henry knew better than to ask about his mother, Henry was having his own awful dreams of her, he knew it would only be worse for Killian. They keep their distance but Henry knows Killian isn’t okay, he notices how he drinks and drinks, each night, sometimes he will sit down and say nothing the entire night except mumbles which Henry can’t make out. He drinks his flask of rum, some nights he even has 2 flasks.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

“Emma that you?” Killain asks as he hears a knock on the door to his hut.

“Sorry to disappoint.” Oh it was Dave, “She’s not coming.”

“I didn’t sleep with Cecelia. I don’t know what she showed Emma, but I swear on my life that nothing has happened since I returned to this blasted Island.”

“I know.” David knew, he knew fairies, especially darker fairies were unpleasant creatures who created a web of lies and deceit to fulfil their desires.

“You do?”

The Prince nods at his once almost son in law. “You love Emma, I see it. I saw how it broke you when she was cursed. You ran away to Neverland, with Henry to protect him against seeing the person you both love not recognise you. The place that is filled with your own personal demons and nightmares. You came because you love Emma. I’d do the same for Snow.”

Killian breathes a sigh of relief, “you have no idea how much it means that you believe me. I just wished there was a way to show Emma.”

“You know what she’s like, stubborn as hell.” David laughs. “Give her some space. She’ll realise soon enough that the fairy is messing with her. Just stay on our side and we can figure out how to defeat -“

He is cut short as he senses movement outside Killians window.

“Verena!” Killain says as he and David grab their nearest weapon as the fairy poofs in front of them.

“I’m so sorry. I swear I’m on your side, my sister has much darker plans for you so this is something I have to do. If the woman you love truly feels the way you do, then she’ll wake you.”

One moment Killain is pointing his sword at the fairy dressed in red, and the next moment he suddenly feels sleepy and hits the ground as slumber.

“What the hell did you do to him?” David asks, sword pointing at the fairy.

The fairy clicks her fingers causing the Prince to fall to the ground,

“I’m afraid it’s for the best.” She whispers as she takes the Pirates body and disappears in a puff of red smoke.

#never forget you #my writing #captain swan #cs ff #cs fic rec #captain swan ff #fanfic #Emma swan #Killian jones

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luthien-t · 4 years

Text

Resurfaced Memories. chapter one.

Loki x Female reader

warning: swearing, use of tobacco, angst slightly

Summary: Being the goddess of Victory, Sigyn. You Devoted your eternal love to Loki, but ever since his reveal of being the Jotun, Odin decides to separate you both to prevent all chances of him seizing the throne. Casted -More like banished- to Midgard with no memories of your previous life, you believe you are the same as the ones around you, the midgardians. You gave yourself the name Y/n. With plenty of help and guidance you finally have a life, what will it be of Loki when he finds you during his trips with his brother?

word count: 1.6K+

(Im going to pretend that Thanos NEVER happened, so loki 2012 never happened -the avenger did happen tho, just not bc of loki- loki is on good terms with them, him and thor come visit every once and a while, thank u thank u)

A/N: Tell me what you think! Send me a message if you want to be in the taglist and thank youu! Happy readingg

1945, New York.

You are walking, where? You don’t know, you don’t recognise half of the things you pass. People are dressed differently than you, looking down at your gown, it was muddy and damaged, your hair was out of place and your bare feet cannot handle any more of the wet mud you’ve been walking on, it was raining, heavy. You find a house with the lights turned on and walked towards it. Your mind was spiralling with thoughts, unsure of what happened or where you’ve been before, you knock on the door once, tears start to dwell in your eyes, you can’t deny how terrified and confused you are. Knocking again on the door, you were greeted by a woman, a shotgun in her hand earning a gasp from you.

“Who are you and what are you doing on my porch?!” She had the gun aimed directly towards you, as soon as she noticed your tears she put down the gun, scanning you from head to toe, a frown appearing on her face as she noticed the ripped and muddied clothes before pulling you in and looking around outside the house, trying to find any sign of danger. You stood behind her, mouth dry, your brain can’t even comprehend the situation you are in, you are trying so hard to remember but all you get is headache.

“Darling, are you safe?” She locked the door before turning to look at you, concern visible in her face and you only shrug, words won’t come out, almost like you have forgotten how to think or use them. She walked to the living room behind you, telling you to follow her as she grabbed a blanket to wrap around you. “What is your name?” She asks, quietly. You look up at her, trying to remember, your eyes moving around and closing them as if you will remember, but nothing comes to mind. Growing frustrated a sob escapes and your body shakes, she frowns and sits down on the couch in front of you. “Have a seat, sweet heart.” She said in a soothing voice, you sit down and violently wipe your tears before looking down at your hands resting on your knees.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have bothered you.” You hear yourself say, although it came out through your gasps and broken sobs. She shook her head and leaned forward. “Nonsense, as long as you’re here, you are safe. No one is going to hurt you” She rested a hand on your knee, leaning her head down to look at your face.

But that is the thing, you don’t even know if there is anyone or or anything, you can’t remember where you were or how you got here, your eyes locked to the woman in front of you and you nod. “I don’t remember anything” Thats the only thing you are sure of, you don’t remember.

“Parents? Family? Friends? Anyone I can call?” She asks slowly and you shake your head. “I don’t remember anything, I swear.” Your body begins to shake again and she tightens the blanket around you, trying to give you some form of security. “That’s alright, we will figure this out.” She smiles softly. “I’m Linda, Linda Johnson.” She sits back and watches you, unsure of how to handle your situation. You nod. “I’m-“ You want to say, want to know your name, but your mind won’t cooperate with you whatsoever, your tears appearing again and you sigh. “I don’t know.” You say and look up at her, a frown printed on your face.

She was wearing a plain white shirt and jeans, her hair was orange and she appeared to be younger than you could imagine. She tried to have a conversation with you, talking about her past in simple details, she used to work with the Armed forces. “You don’t look like you live here.”she said then told you that you are currently in New York in the united states, she is about 28 years old, lives alone ever since she left her job. You wanted to interact with her and tell about yourself but your mind won’t budge one bit.

“I will send papers about you, maybe a family or a friend will recognise you and call. We will check up with a doctor tomorrow to see if there is any thing they can do” She reassured you, all you can simply do is nod and thank her.

1947, New York.

It has been two years since you found yourself in New York, you’ve gotten used to the way things work around here. Living with Linda was making everything easier for you, everyday you learnt something new from her. A couple of months into your first interaction, she decided to give you a name.

“You’re not going to be cramped up in this house all day long, you can help me and I can help you,” She started, “It has been 3 months since I put the posters up about you, but we have to see every outcome.” She was starting to worry, she wondered if you even had a family around here. “How does y/n sound?” She said and you smiled wide at her. “I love it” You say and repeat the name, it was simple and easy to remember.

After a year or so, you started to have a life here, you also learnt the reason why Linda left her job, she talked about how a scientist named Abraham Erskine tested a chemical on her, she felt unsafe and had to leave.

“There was no effect, I didn’t feel a thing, he called it the super-soldier serum, I was there to help when he first started working on it. Which is why he tested on me, when nothing happened to me he realised that the serum needed more development, but I couldn’t risk my life for some bullshitted serum” She says as she lights her cigarette and you nod. “So you’re still the same? No effects?” You ask, stirring a cup of tea in your hand and she shakes her head. “Oh no, honey, I had some reaction, my wounds heal faster and I look like im 20 when I’m actually 47, I can run fast, the super strength ingredient was apparently the only thing missing, but I had to get out or else he would’ve kept testing and trying.” You nod again and take a sip from your cup.

“For all we know I might live past the normal human age” she chuckled and you smile. You wonder how old you are, the doctors who checked up on you all gave you the same answer. “Our machines are not that upgraded and we could only assume that you are in your twenties.” They were all amazed at how your cells regenerate quickly and how immune you are to diseases despite not knowing what a vaccine is.

Your days always passed quickly with nothing to do but help Linda in her house, you found a new passion towards gardening and reading, you spent your free time reading every book Linda had and sometimes you’d go to the library and read the books there, you enjoyed norse mythology the most and absorbed every knowledge you could have cramped up inside your mind.

Back in Asgard.

Loki spent the last two year, alone. Yes, he had his brother and his friends, but no one was able fill the gap that you left. He wondered if he ever treated you wrong for you to leave so easily, without a goodbye or a letter, his thoughts taking over him. He mostly spent his awakening hours in the library, sometimes in the garden under your favourite tree, hoping maybe one day you will return with an explanation.

“Still waiting, brother?” Thor said, looking down at Loki who was sitting under that wretched tree he loved dearly.

“That is none of your concern, Thor.” He replied as he flipped the page of the book he pretended to be reading, Thor knew him more than anyone, he was the only one who was able to see through his lies ever since you left.

“She will return, don’t fret, Loki. Everyone was envious of the love you two had for eac-“

“I would rather not talk about her, thank you very much.” He shut his book and looked up at his brother. Thor only chuckled and sat down next to him, anger started to coarse through Lokis veins, How dare he sit where my beloved sat before him!

“Father is as distraught as you are, you know.” Thor looked at him with amusement in his eyes, trying to calm his brother down. “She was the only one keeping you from causing all this trouble!” This time, Thor laughed and Loki looked away. “Father loves to pretend, Thor, you should know this by now.” He crossed his arm and remembered the last time Odin mentioned her.

“She forced heimdall to open the Bifront, Loki, she succeeded at treason. I would not want a criminal roaming this castle or this realm.” Odin told him calmly, Loki was drowning in his own guilt and pain that he was unable to see the lie presented in front of him.

“This is her home! What will happen of her if she is denied of returning to her own realm!” Loki protested, taking a step closer to Odin.

“I will not command Heimdall to bring her back, she may have left on her own accord but she will not return so easily! This is final.” His father stood up, his staff slamming down on the floor, Loki fought the anger and tears from appearing and left without another word.

Odin watched as Loki left and whispered. “One day you will understand.”

#Loki Laufeyson #loki odinson #loki fanfic #loki fic #loki x reader #loki odinson x reader #loki odinson x you #loki odison x reader #loki x you #loki x y/n #Loki Laufeyson x Reader #loki laufeyson x you #loki layfeyson x reader

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alphascorpiixx · 3 years

Text

Another Dream

KHUX Week Day 7

You return to Daybreak Town as darkness spreads across the world.

Ao3

Characters: Player, Chirithy, Ephemer, Nightmare Chirithy

Gen, 2427 words, written before last update, second person pov

Warnings: death mention, drowning

Shadows play on the copper wirings inside the cables. Your adventures in the data worlds are over, the darkness banished and Candy Kingdom saved from destruction. The tunnel echoes with the metallic clack of your footsteps. You carry your Keyblade in your hand, ready for any remaining Heartless lurking in the shadows. The data worlds may be safe, but the Darkling’s presence still uneases you. Who could be their real target?

So wrapped up in your thoughts you are that you almost miss the brief flicker of the cable lights. You stop and look around. No Heartless appear, but the shadows loom on all sides. Something stutters in your peripheral vision, like the edges of the world are being pulled apart.

You pick up your pace.

The tunnel ends at a point of light. The portal back to Daybreak Town ripples with bursts of static. This isn’t right, it should have stabilized since you cleared out all the bugs. The glitched gateway twists and contorts more violently than before, at risk of closing any second. You sprint the last few steps.

You emerge where you and Ephemer started in the clocktower’s computer room. You catch your breath and look around, expecting Ephemer and the others to greet you. But the room is empty. The monitors, once displaying glimpses of all the various worlds, reflect you on their dark screens.

“Ephemer?” you call out.

Chirithy pops up beside you. “They’re probably in the Foretellers’ room. Let’s go report back.”

You leave the computer room and take the elevator down. Chirithy sits at your feet, and you rub your arms. The air in the clocktower is so cold, like something leached away all the warmth.

The ride is silent, save for the clicking of the giant gears. You cast a sideways glance at Chirithy. “How do you know where that is?”

“I—uh.” Chirithy’s ears curl in, and they won’t meet your gaze.

“I know I’ve been here before, in the memories you’ve been suppressing.”

“I didn’t—”

“It’s okay.” You bend down and rub Chirithy’s head. “I know you just want to protect me. But I can protect myself, too.” You give Chirithy a soft smile, and they press their nose against your leg. “You’re my friend, and friends don’t keep secrets from each other.”

“I know,” they murmur against your calf.

You give their head one last pet and straighten up. After a few minutes, the gears click into place, and the elevator shudders to a stop. You hurry to the Foretellers’ room, shove the door open, and find the remains of a battle.

The stained glass window is smashed, and the grand table is splintered into pieces. Books strewn on the floor, their pages torn and scattered. Shattered vials, broken chairs. In the chaos, you almost don’t notice Ephemer leaning against a toppled bookshelf.

“Ephemer!” You run to his side. His jaw is bruised, and he gives you a lopsided grin.

“Hey, you made it back all right. Everything go okay?”

“Me? What happened to you?” You cast a Cure spell, and a soft green light washes over Ephemer. He closes his eyes for a second and exhales. You help him to his feet, and he explains as you two head to the elevator.

“We were attacked by a creature, calls itself Darkness. It had possessed Ven to get inside this world, and then came after the rest of us. It escaped out the window,” he nods to the remains of the glass, “so Brain and Lauriam chased after it. Skuld’s looking after Ven, and that’s about it.” He gives a dry laugh. “Usual stuff.”

Your mind reels with questions, but Ephemer grimances and rubs his side. Questions can wait.

The two of you make it to the elevator when the walls glitch. Black tendrils spread over the gears and extinguish the lights. They twist and surge, something between smoke and shadow.

“It’s back,” Ephemer whispers. He pushes you toward the exit. “Go! You have to get out of here!”

“Not without you!” You reach out, but the shadows separate the two of you. A flash of light accompanies his Keyblade summon, but it’s not enough to break through the darkness.

“Ephemer!” you shout, but the storm swallows your words. You throw your arm in front of your face. The shadows coalesce into something vaguely humanoid. A Darkling?

It advances toward you. You summon Starlight and draw on your lux reserves. A familiar burn runs through your veins as lux dances around your body. Walking through the clocktower’s halls sparked something in your mind. Memories swirl in your head—pouring rain, a muddy battlefield, the burning light at your fingertips—but you push them away. You want to remember, but you can’t be distracted now, with the darkness bearing down.

“It’s you,” the figure in the dark says. “The last of the Dandelions.”

“What did you do to Ephemer?” you demand. Your body glows like a star against the dark.

“He’s lost now. Adrift like the others.”

No. He can’t be.

You blaze up the room with a Firaga spell, but it doesn’t burn away the darkness. Tendrils rise out of the floor and slice at your face. You hit them away with your Keyblade and lunge at the figure in the shadows.

They shy just out of your reach. “This fake world is nearing its end. You may have survived the end of the world once, but I wonder if fate will bless you a second time?”

Shadows gather at your feet, restraining you to the floor. The tendrils cling to your body and force you to your knees. You can’t raise your Keyblade, and the last of you lux snuffs out. Someone calls your name. Chirithy, still by your side.

“No! You can’t take my friend!” Chirithy cries.

The Darkness lashes out at Chirithy before they can flee. Shadows bind their little body, and pain strikes your heart.

You scream, and everything goes dark.

“Hey.”

You blink. Sunlight fills your eyes.

“Get up.”

Your back is wet. You roll your head to the side and see you’re lying on a shallow ocean that stretches out to eternity. Your eyelids close again. You can’t find the energy to stand up. The sea is so peaceful, and you just want to sink beneath the surface.

“Hey. You’re not dying here. So get up.”

A paw prods your ribs. You grit your teeth and force yourself to stand up. Water ripples at your feet, but you remain standing on the surface.

You finally see the speaker, and your hand extends for your Keyblade. But nothing comes, and the Nightmare tilts their head.

“What are you trying to do? You don’t have any power here, you know.” Red eyes stare at you from an emotionless face. You remember when that face transformed into a monster bent on your destruction.

“I defeated you. What are you doing here?”

“I’m still bound to you, unfortunately. And then you went and died like an idiot fighting the Darkness, so I found what’s left of your heart and brought you here.”

“I’m—” Your heart stutters, and you can’t finish your thought. You look down and notice yourself in the water’s reflection. You’re barely a figment, a translucent form as fleeting as the clouds above your head. You hold your hand in front of your face and see sunlight pass through.

“Oh, and I couldn’t save your body. Sorry,” the Nightmare adds, almost as an afterthought. You drop your hand to your side and look back at them. They haven’t made a move, but you long for the heft of the Keyblade in your grip.

“Where am I?” you ask, trying to keep your voice steady. “And where is my Chirithy?”

“So I guess I’m not good enough for you?” they grumble. They turn away and look up at the sky. “This is called the Final World, where fallen hearts go when they can’t move on. And like I said, you’re dead, so your Chirithy’s gone, too.” They look back and see your stricken expression and roll their eyes. “Your other Chirithy is still around. Wielders and their Dream Eaters are not separated so easily. They still exist as part of your heart.”

The Nightmare’s words bring relief. You’re still wary of their intentions, but you press your hand to your chest and feel your heart stir. In this world you have no Spirit or Dream Eater materials to give Chirithy a new form, but you take comfort in the knowledge they are still with you.

You walk around this empty world, water splashing with every step. “Ephemer and Skuld are in trouble. I need to get back to Daybreak Town. How do I leave here?”

The Nightmare skips behind you. “I dunno, I just saved you from passing on. You’ll have to figure the rest out yourself.”

“You could still help me. If you’re a part of me, you can’t go back to the real world either.”

“Actually, I can.” And without another word, the Nightmare flips into the air and vanishes. You wait for them to return, but they don’t.

In this world you can’t even tell how much time passes. You walk on and on but never come to any shore, only endless ocean and sky.

You stop and sit down. The memories that overwhelmed you before now feel like an age ago. You remember the war between the unions and your own battles against the Foretellers. In your incomplete state, every emotion is dull and hollow. You should be angry. You should scream and rage and mourn the loss of Chirithy and the unknown fate of your friends. You bite back a hollow laugh. These are the memories you longed to recall, flashes of a battlefield strewn with broken keys, and they barely stir any shadow of grief.

You press your forehead to your knees and stare at the water. The ocean reflects the eternal sky, a mimicry of Daybreak Town’s seaside. The ocean of your home was a living thing, mostly calm but rising like a wild beast in the occasional storms. The sunlit surface rippled green and blue, never a single color and always hiding secrets in its depths. This world, despite the reflection of the sun, is stagnant. A mirror to hold lost hearts, not a sustainer of life.

But it might still hold its own secrets.

You place your hand on the surface, and your fingers disappear under the water. So there is something lurking under the ocean. You push your hand down. The water comes to your wrist, and you can’t see past the reflection. Your hand meets no resistance as in sinks deeper.

Sink down and down and—

You stand up. Ripples disrupt the reflection. You lift your head to the sun and close your eyes.

Then you fall backward. Water crashes around your body and closes over your head. Your eyes blink against the pressure. Bubbles race past your face and disappear into the blurry sunlight. That light’s warmth fades the further you fall, until the last trace of the surface vanishes and leaves you cold.

You sink.

Down.

And.

Down.

The weight of the ocean presses against your body, and your chest begins to ache. Air bubbles escape your lips, and your lungs seize up. You scramble for something to cling to, but there’s nothing but water.

“You’re finding all sorts of new ways to die, huh?” The Nightmare’s voice enters your mind, undisturbed by the water bearing down on you.

Help me, please.

“You got yourself into this mess. Why should I help you?”

Because you’re part of me. You reach out with your mind for the Nightmare’s presence. You feel them at the edge of your awareness. You know the truth of your words, and so do they. No matter where they go, they are part of you and you will find them. And if I pass on so will you.

The Nightmare doesn’t answer. You gulp for air but swallow water instead. As your arms flail and you sink into the depths, you realize the Nightmare was wrong earlier. You couldn’t be dead because of how hard you are fighting to live.

Something solid brushes your hand. You reach out and grab fur. You wrap your arms around the body of a beast and let it carry you back to the light. Your head breaks the surface, and you gasp in air. The creature drags you to the shallows, and you fall onto the sand of a dark shore, coughing up a lungful of water.

Nightmare Chirithy settles beside you, still in their beast form. Their fur dries unnaturally quick. You lie on the sand and let the waves wash over your legs.

“Where are we now?” you murmur. The black sky reminds you of the corridors of darkness you’d often travel within to fight Heartless. But the shore is empty of monsters, and the shadows don’t writhe.

“The Realm of Darkness,” they state. You sigh. “Well, at least you’re not dead anymore,” they add, and you raise your eyebrow at the touch of optimism.

“So if I’m not dead but I made it here, am I part of the darkness now? Am I going to turn into a Darkling?” The possibility doesn’t scare as much as it would have before. A creature of darkness is the reason why you lost yourself in the first place, but another one saved you from the abyss.

They shrug. “I guess you’ll find out eventually.”

The Nightmare’s body contorts and transforms back into their usual form. They fix their red eyes on the sea, and you can’t help but think of your other Dream Eater. In the faint light of the distant sun, you almost convince yourself it’s you and them sitting on the hill watching the sunset.

You muster the energy to sit up. “We’ll have to help each other now, if we want to get out of this.”

Nightmare Chirithy huffs. “You’re the one who got us here. And I’m not doing this for you.”

“I know.”

You place your hand on their head. Chirithy tenses for a second but relaxes as you scratch their ears. They lean into your side. Eventually you’ll have to find a way out of this realm and look for Ephemer. You know in your heart he isn’t gone, and you hold onto the certainty that you will meet again.

But for now the two of you listen to the slow hush of the waves.

#khuxweek #kingdom hearts #khux #player character #chirithy #ephemer #nightmare chirithy #death mention #drowning #my fics

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lillaxtrigger · 3 years

Text

Young Hope: Chapter 38

The open cloudless sky above begins to lose its orange shade as the twilight sun starts to sink down past the horizon and welcomes the stars and lunar glow of the full moon; their heavenly light gleaming upon the golden spire that towers past the sea of clouds. Along the edges of the golden warp gate are the three search nods that the angels had faced trail after trail to retrieve were tucked firmly within all three of their proper holes; the eyes and wings that make up their outer rims glancing around and flapping as they twirl in place. In the middle of the rings was a platform of glass sat in the middle of the golden top floor; Tore wondrously gazing to the rings as his cosmic mentor works on a holographic interface that protrudes out from the glass beneath their feet. When a distinct light shines down above them, the indigo angel aim’s his gaze skyward to behold the massive halo that hovers above the tower; the ring that hangs over them beginning to spin with a growing heavenly glow. The rings angelic glow slowly, but surely growing, Mall put away the holographic panel had been tinkering with and peers up to the halo above to state: “Good, the coordinates are finally set and the warp gate is pinpointing to my kind’s dimensional prison. It only be a matter of time now.” A warm smile permeates along his cheeks as he stares upwards, break his site away from the halo above and down to his blue ward before him; Tore gazing back to his cosmic mentor as Mall commends how: “I don’t think there is any way I can express my gratitude to you for aiding me in this long awaited noble endeavor. At long last, after millions of millennia, the Kybr shall return home. At long last, they shall be reunited with their own kin; and we have you to thank for it all, Tore. ... For the longest time, I only had the stars surrounding to call upon for comfort in my times of depression and isolation; to mend my sorrows with their gaseous light. Not once did I think that I would soon feel the warming welcome of another Kybr, another he could call his own kin to glide through the universe with. For that alone, I’m more than happy to have taken this journey with you.” “No prob, Mall. Bein on this whole adventure with ya made me realize what I’d been missing from my life; somebody I could really look up to help just guide me through all the stuff about life. Like a….you get what I’m saying?” “Hmm mm mm. Tore, I simply cannot wait to introduce you to the very people that you have stemmed from and behold in their majesty; to glide throughout the universe alongside our fellow kin. There’s just so much more of this reality I wish for you to view.” the cosmic angel describes, kneeling down to the blue boy’s level. “Honestly, it don’t matter to me a bit where ya wanna go; I just still wanna have ya around. There was seriously so much you taught me about myself that I didn’t even know I could do; stuff that I probably never would’ve realized my self if I didn’t go with ya. Really, if anyone’s to thank here, it’s you.” “Oh believe me, youngling; there’s still so much of yourself I can show you, so much of yourself that will surpass your human expectations. It’s my hope to one day cultivate you into a Kybr just as powerful as those in the days of yore; perhaps to even pass them. Before the cosmic Kybr could speak another word to his blue ward, the indigo angel reaches out for a warming embrace; Mall hugging the boy back in kind as Tore’s tear drip down from his face and stain his sparkling toga. “I can’t to show you all my friends and family. You’re gonna love em.”

Upon declaring this to his spacial teacher does a related thought pop into the blue boy’s mind, one that causes him to pull away from Mall’s grasp and stress how: “My fam! Oh god, its been around two weeks since I last talked to them! They must be worried outta their minds wondering where I’ve been this whole time. I know you said that using my phone might attract attention, but is it alright if I phone them up real quick and tell em I’m alright?” “Go ahead, Tore. Tell them...tell them of the wonderful news.” “Thanks Mall.” the indigo angel yips to his cosmic mentor as he strolls over towards the wayside and pulls his phone out from the depths of his pants pocket. After powering on his device, a wave of astonishment crashes upon him when first finding over dozens of notifications concerning calls that he had missed. Whoa! Holy crap! There’s seriously like 54 missed calls on here. Most of them from Mally too. Guess outta everyone, she’d be nearly on the cusp of exploding with worry. Better not keep her waiting any longer.

Without hesitation, the blue boy taps the last phone call his sister had attempted to reach through to him with; Tore putting his phone up to his ear as it starts to dial and waits as he hears the tone ring. Shortly after does he then hear the orange skater on the other end, yelping out to him: “Tore!?” “Hey, Mal. Sorry I didn’t really phone in for a while, had to turn my phone off cause I was helping-” “Oh my god, where are you!? What’s that guy you’re with doing!? Do you know what he’s about to do!?” “Whoa, easy there, Mal. Slow down a minute, w-what’s up with you?” the blue boy questions. “Tore, I need you to listen to me and answer; do you know what the Kybr were?” “Uh, Mall said they were powerful beings that could manipulate elements of the universe who shared their powers with humans and built cities to help teach em how to use em.” “Is that all he told you?” “Kind of, why? You figure out something?”

Above the very spire both the angels stand within, the tangible picture begins to come into focus within the golden halo; the outer rim of the ring surging with an otherworldly power as it starts to further twirl more rapidly. Tears begin to well underneath Mall’s very eyes as he peers deep within the transparent picture held inside the halo. Soon. Soon we shall be reunited. No more will this soul have to wander this lonely cosmo’s for eternity. We’ll be together. We’ll be home.

Among his mentor gazing up to the portal above them both, the indigo angel ventures back towards stargazing Kybr; a deep somber frown painted along his face as the light from the halo overheads casts their shadow over the blue boy’s eyes. “Mall…” Upon hearing his wards slightly meek call, Mall breaks his teary eyes away from the forming portal above and hears the boy before him request that: “Can I ask you some stuff...before Kybr come?” “Of course, Tore What do wish to know?” “Were there really no limits to what the Kybr could control in this universe?” “Indeed, there were none. The very forces of this universe were at our beck and call.” “Is that why the gods banished all of you?” “Sadly so. They couldn’t accept the control we had on what they claimed to be their dominion. But why ask of this?” The blue boy standing before the cosmic angel takes a moment to calm his shaking breath before he questions further on the matter with: “Was that the only reason?” “Pardon?” “What did Kybr do to warrant getting imprisoned?” “Tore. Let us not worry about such mysteries, not with our reunion so close.” the spacial angel attempts to thwart with.

“Mall...were the Kybr bad?” Such a question piercing the air causes every single hair along the cosmic angel to stand on end, Mall attempting to veer away from answer by uttering: “Tore, lets just drop the-” “Did they hurt people?” The blue boy’s burning hunger for these answers drive the cosmic angel to a dreading silence; one that only fuels his ward to push further. “Mall...Mall, what did they do? How many others wanted them gone? Why were they so hated?” Despite Tore’s constant push for tangible answers, this only drives further silence from the starry angel standing before him; his mentor’s refusal to answer drawing out only frustration and tears as he continues to shout: “Mall...Please just answer me already! Why won’t you say anything!? Have you just been lying to me!?”

At last can the cosmic Kybr not keep himself silent another moment longer, Mall finally responding to his angered ward outcries with: “We chose humanity to carry on the legacy, to mold this very universe accordance to their whims and to plot its very future alongside us. Tore...All that Kybr had done was to shape reality for the better and share in what we’ve created with all; even if it meant steering those who lived in this universe in a different direction. I myself couldn’t care less for what they plot to form this reality into...I simply couldn’t bare it anymore. The countless millennia of isolation and utter hopelessness I had toiled hiding from those who wanted us gone. I felt my very consciousness dull from the ever going loneliness. The life that I had felt when gliding alongside my kin, the joy I had partaken upon seeing a child of my own flourish had been left dimmed and withered to the merciless flow of time. I had resigned to such a fate. But a single spark was what had illuminated the hopeless void that had clouded my mind. Word of humanity, sparse human’s, growing to possess power those were bestowed by us once more. And lo and behold, the life within me that had hollowed had been restored upon seeing with my own vision those claims ring true; the future of the kin we had left behind. And during my journey alongside you, my boy, that very same spirit began to grow again. Bringing forth a dream I thought once impossible to achieve now on the cusp of coming true.” Midst declaring all of this, the cosmic Kybr approaches the young angel that stands before him; Mall kneeling down to his level once more to gently grasp his shoulder and begs out of him: “Tore, please, let us share this long awaited dream together. Let us welcome our kin home.” A long pause of quiet passes between the two angel’s as Mall awaits for the boy’s answer; all with nothing but the energy of the warp gate whirling through the air to fill the ambient silence.

But at long last does Tore finally bestow upon the lonesome broken man his answer as his hand balling into a quaking fist; the blue boy driving his knuckles straight into the cosmic angel’s face hard enough to send Mall careening across the top of the spire; the golden wall he slams into fracturing from the incredible blunt force. As the spacial bound Kybr starts to recover from the unexpected blow, a low groan utters out from his maw; the angel directing his site to the very boy who had struck him down. “Agh!...Wh-what the matter with y-” “You lied to me! You knew very well what the Kybr would do if they were freed; you knew they would terrorize the universe again and kept that from me! I trusted you! I fought alongside you! I looked up to you more than just a teacher; I wanted you to be like a dad, one I could actually stand alongside with. I cried when you offered me that. If you really cared that much about me, if you looked up to me like I was one of your own; you wouldn’t have kept me in the dark about something crucial, something that would’ve affected everyone I knew, what could doom everyone in this universe. I could’ve helped you. My family could’ve helped you. I bet even my friends could’ve helped you cope with being so alone and sad in this universe. You didn’t need to unleash an entire army of super beings that would destroy so many others…You didn’t need the Kybr to feel loved. But instead you chose this. Chose to try and release them. And chose to lie to my face!” Witnessing a flow of tears streak down from the boy’s enraged glare, Mall attempts to push through to him by uttering: “Tore, I didn’t-” “Shut up!...If you actually care. If you actually wanna still look at me like someone you care for,, then you’ll shut off the portal and keep the Kybr from breaking into this world.” Let utterly silent by the indigo angel’s ultimatum, the cosmic angel finally stands and hovers off the golden floor; glaring to the boy with determination and firmly declares: “No...I shall not let my kin suffer within their prison another moment longer, not with just a few more steps from opening the gates.” Knowing the Kybr’s ultimate decision left set in unbreakable stone, Tore’s entire body trembles alongside his breath; struggling to stand from the overwhelming heartbreak. But the indigo angel soon regains his composure to wipe away the river of tears from his eyes; staring on to cosmic angel that hovers before with his own branded determination and readies to face his former mentor. “Fine...But I’m not just gonna stand and let you doom the universe...To doom countless others...to doom my friends, my family, everyone I love!”

Its upon proclaiming this that Tore finally lunges forth towards his former mentor, dead set to deliver yet another betrayed fuel strike right to his face; what tears hadn’t dried at this point streaking off his cheeks as he approaches the cosmic angel. Moments as the indigo angel throws his fist straight out to the Kybr’s face, Mall holds his palm before the nearing blue boy and stopping him dead in his tracks; Tore feeling as if he had just hit an invisible solid wall. Its in that very same time that same space thrust him away with what felt like the force of a runaway semi truck, the blue boy sliding across the spires golden floor; Tore clutching the edge of the tower before he could be sent flying straight out into the sea of clouds behind him. Pulling out over the golden edge, the angel throws himself straight into the air above with a pale light gathering in his hand; Tore casts forth a beam of pale power down towards his spacial foe. Just as the ray was about to hit, the very space surrounding Mall redirects the beam to twirl around his very figure and splits apart under his command; the cosmic angel sending back the fracture pieces of pale white back towards their very sender. The blue boy delves right underneath the returning ray cluster as he swoops down towards his former master, Mall erecting a wormhole behind him to retreat from the blue boy’s diving assault.

Once sliding to a stop across the golden floor, Tore frantically peers to his surroundings for any sign of where the space manipulating angel had vanished to; failing to find even a single sign of his starry feathers anywhere in site. Midst wondering where the angel had disappeared to, Tore suddenly feels an invisible force squeeze his entire body from head to toe; almost as if the very space surrounding him was constricting the boy like a snake holding its prey. Slowly forcing his head to turn back, Tore discovers the cosmic angel emerging out from another hole with his clutched palm reaching out to the boy. With nothing but a swift swipe of his very hand, Mall commands the very space holding his pupil to fling him straight into one of the flora decorated golden walls that make up the top of the spire; some of the angel trumpets that hang from the swirls plucking off their stems and fluttering down onto the boy. Peering down does the blue boy see one of these flowers land cleanly onto the palm of his hand, a site which causes the gears in his head to start turning.

As he continues to face the young angel, Mall lets out a collection of stars from his very palm as he waves his hand through the air; every single twinkling star that the cosmic angel had conjured all thrusting themselves out to the blue boy all at once. Upon witnessing the stars incoming does Tore push himself off the wall of withered flowers and out towards the volley of glittering constellations Tore blocking them all with a single arm as he forces himself through shower of stars Powering through the barrage of twinkling bullets does Tore face the spacial Kybr once more; his fist glowing a rainbow of lively colors as he lobs it upwards towards the angel’s chin. Though Mall erects another wall of space between him and his blue ward like before, the solid space breaks apart upon the boy’s rising assault and is harshly struck right in the jaw hard enough send him skywards. Having uppercut his former mentor straight into the air, Tore rockets up after him to follow up with a hammering spike back down towards the spire floor; the glass platform Mall crashes into shattering from the impact.

While the blue angel hover back down onto the golden floor, he watches as his cosmic foe levitates right off the broken glass he bestows an applause; remarking how: “Using the life force of these flowers to power through. Excellent resourcefulness Tore. Seems I’ve trained you to use your abilities quite well. Bravo.” Despite his proud applause upon him, Tore keeps his glare locked upon the spacial angel; Mall himself ceasing his clapping to warm how: “However, if you believe that is enough to stop me. Then you are sorely mistaken.” On this very declaration does Mall then reach out to their surroundings and offers to how his own prowess with: “Allow me to show you what sort of influence the Kybr have upon this universe.” From the palms of his hands does the cosmic angel unleash an incredible bout of spacial power from his very depths; a monumental wave that bends and twists the golden spire they stand upon and until beginning to change into another location entirely.

Before the blue boy’s very eyes does he witness the golden walls of the spire transform, ditching the shimmering sheen of their swirls in place of rows and rows of faintly painted metal lockers. Peering down beneath his feet, Tore sees the glistening floor he stands upon loose its sheen as it’s morphed into slightly dirt ridden marble tile. Drifting his gaze skywards does Tore also watch as the starry night sky above is blanketed by popcorn ceiling donning flickering florescent lights. Between the lockers stood door after polished wood door, some of the cracking open to let some teens within peer out to the scene that plays out. “The Hell?” “What’s happening out there?” “Who the hell are these guys?” “Hang on. Isn’t one of them that strange blue dude with the angel wings?” Upon some of the students recognizing him does Tore himself realize where his former mentor had transported them too; this very hall being the very same hallway he walks through everyday in Townsville’s public school. “So this is my...Why did-” Right when the blue boy was about to question the cosmic angel why he had sent them here, the indigo angel puts his question on hold as he sees his former master continue to wave his hands through the air. All the kids that had peeked out from their classrooms are forced back inside before the hall that both angels stands begins to extend outwards; the end of the hall retreating into the horizon until vanishing into an infinite plane. Once commanding the space of the hall to extend endlessly, the spacial Kybr leaps back to retreat down the depths of the never ending corridor; Tore immediately pursuing after the retreating angel.

Amidst gliding away from the indigo angel, Mall turns back while continuing to retreat to unleash a salvo of stars that erupt out from the depths of his wings; Tore swatting away all the stars that streak out to him in his chase after Witnessing his spread of stars doing little to slow his blue wards feverish pursuit, Mall reaches his arms out towards the never ending rows of lockers that stretching out along the sides of the hall; their very metal stretching past their hinges and clustering together just before the boy. Left caught off guard by the unexpected blockade, the indigo angel slams straight through the barrier of cheap school grade steel and fumbles along the marble tile; but soon enough regaining himself and leaping off the floor in the middle of this blunder to resume the chase. As more and more of the lockers before him stretch out in an effort to block his way, Tore flies right over, under, and side to side every set that burst out from the walls; some dust flying out from the walls as the lockers protrude out. Upon watching the blue ward weave himself through every single set of lockers he stretches out, the cosmic angel clamps his hands together to command the lockers before him to all clamp together to form a wall of steel. A single lunging tackle is all it takes from the blue boy to bust straight through he blockade of cheap school grade steel; a couple of cobwebs flying through the air as Tore charges ahead.

Yet despite having broke straight through his former mentor’s barricade, the distance between the pair of angels continues to grow; Tore pondering of a way he can burst through the numerous lockers and close the gap. Not really any plants here to sap, though. Gotta be something here to take advantage off. Its in think of a way to draw out power that he feels something tickling his arms, the indigo angel glancing along his limbs to discover a couples of spiders and bugs scuttling along the surface of his skin. Bugs? Didn’t someone say that the school needed some sort of fumigation? Wait a sec, that’s it!

With an idea running through his blue noggin, Tore stretches both of his arms out to the endless row of lockers that sit along the side; his mind focused on all the numerous insects and arachnids that dwell within the cracks and crevices of the school walls. Come on… he concentrates on the dozens of vermin and insects that do swaths of color all seep out from their bodies, their very life gathering around the blue boy and surrounding him in coating of lively aura. Got it! “Excellent work Tore.” In hearing this come from his former mentor, Tore stares back to the gradually retreating angel; Mall further praising him on how: “Drawing out your aspect from the creatures hidden around you. But can you use such gathered power effectively?”

Its in that moment that every single locker that stands between them burst out from the wall and cluster together before the young angel in hopes of halting his pursuit; all the colorful life that the blue boy had gathered all coating his fists as he nears all the thicket of metal. With his very fists alone does Tore break through the rows of stretched steel as easily as ripping through paper; shards of the lockers metal scattering through the air as the boy breaks through every single wall that stands in his way. Seeing his pupil punch straight through the numerous barricades, Mall thrusts his palms out to the hall’s very walls and starts to pull them together; the cosmic angel warping the space itself into one blockade of solid stone and metal. With little time to stop himself from smacking straight into the twisted cluster of school brick and locker metal, Tore utilizes what energy he had gathered from his surroundings straight into the palm of his hands into a colorful orb of light; firing it all out in to the blockade in a stream of pure life. Effortlessly does the massive beam pierce straight through the thick rock and steel and striking the cosmic angel harboring behind; Mall letting out a pained grunt as his entire body is engulfed in the colorful glow.

Right then and there does the infinite hallway come to an end as Mall is sent careening straight through a set of door; the polished wood floor breaking underneath as he scrapes across the gym. From this crashing halt does every basketball player and P.E teacher suddenly stop dead in their track and gaze upon the spacial angel as he levitates himself off the middle of them floor. Following this do they then witness the blue boy break down the gym doors and land before the levitating man; a site which proves a good enough queue to go scrambling out for they realize that shit was going down. Once seeing every single coach and student all race right out through the corridor, Tore returns his site back to his former mentor; remain cautious despite Mall displaying a warm smile. “I must say, Tore. You’ve shown truly promising results thus far. But this examination is far from over.”

Upon this statement does Mall thrust his arms upwards towards the gym ceiling, the blue boy peering above and watches the support beams holding the roof up darken and morph from steel to stone. His attention is then drawn out to the walls, bleachers, and equipment that make up the gym all go through a similar transformation; some of the rock bursting into flames in the process. Its in witnessing all of this that he notices a bright orange light shinning out from the floor and peers down to discover the polished wood he stands on melting into hot molten liquid. Tore leaps right off the transforming floor as it fully forms into a lake of boiling lava and comes to find what he saw were airborne demons and drifting spirits sharing the blistering hot air. Soon enough is the site that Tore once saw as his school gym fully converted into the very depth of hell; both angel’s hovering just above a stretching lake of lava with a couple of brimstone islands decorated across the surface, all with little scales hopping out from the fiery molten depths.

Just as the indigo angel was curious why his former mentor had transformed their surroundings into this hellish lake of molten liquid, he returns his gaze to the cosmic Kybr to find Mall slowly bending his arms upwards; the lava lake they hang right over curving inwards alongside his limbs until covering the hellish skies above in a blanket of blistering hot magma. The lake that Mall had summoned forth had now been bent inward in an inverted sphere that now trapped them both in its twisted cage of molten goo and scorched brimstone; the lava within remaining suspended in the air as if the gravity itself had been twisted.

Once finished with their scorching hot cage, the cosmic angel then thrusts his palms down towards the very brimstone upsetting the lava; the piece of burning rock trembling for a moment before being uprooted from the molten goo. Raising the piece of scorching earth out from the depths of the magma lake, Mall clasps his hands together to command the rock to burst into pieces; the numerous remains of this very brimstone scatter through the air and chaotically revolve all around within the angel’s molten cage. One after the other does Tore swerve and evade all the directionless chunks of burning brimstone, navigating through the ongoing chaos as naturally as the winds traveling through a craggy canyon; the blue boy twisting about the storm of rock as he heads straight for his former mentor. Tore readies to deliver a swift spinning punch right to the spacial Kybr’s side as he closes in, the space around his former master twisting his body as he is fluidly veered right out across the angel’s side like a redirected stream of water. His assault having been thwarted, the indigo angel is but seconds away from taking a molten dive right down into the spherical wall of blistering hot goo; the blue boy stopping himself just short of the lake’s surface and makes a complete U-turn back towards the cosmic angel.

Witnessing his blue ward on the return, Mall commands the space around him to halt what burning brimstone happens to pass by and launches them all out towards the approaching indigo angel. With the barrage of fiery rocks raining down upon him, the blue boy thinks little as he simply breaks one of them to bits with just one kick; left caught off guard when bits of molten lava trapped within splatter out. Tore covers his face as the fiery hot goo splatters onto him, the blue angel continuing to swerve through the brimstone storm despite feeling the burns inflicted by the red hot lava across his body. Uncovering his face does the blue boy then see his former mentor simply direct more and more passing stones his way, the indigo angel taking little chances as he simply fires out sphere of his own power out to the approaching pieces of brimstone; with not even a single drop of the magma stowed within splashing into him. But when does his former mentor simply summon more and more burning chunks out after him, the blue boy hatches a little idea on how to use the hellish meteors against their caster and veers off along the lava prisons edges; all the pieces of burning brimstone giving chase after him as Mall himself watches closely. Soon does the cosmic angel witness the blue ward veer away from the lava side and start to near once more, Mall preparing to counter whatever sort of assault his pupil was planning. Yet at the very last moment does Tore suddenly ascend right over, his former mentor keeping his sites locked to him as the swarm of burning brimstone continues to follow. Once right hovering overhead, the blue boy quickly turns back and blasts out his own volley of pale power upon the pursing storm of hellbound rock; the magma that bursts out from within all splattering down toward his spacial foe. The lava threatening to rain down upon him, Mall keeps the descending drizzle from pouring onto him with a layer of solid space above; not a single drop able to even touch the starry angel’s very skin. Left distracted by the molten downpour, Tore takes this chance to steer right behind and rocket right towards his backside at breakneck speeds ready to strike with all his might.

Alas on the last moment does his swinging fist suddenly stop dead in the middle of the air, his knuckles just centimeters away from touching the cosmic angel’s back. Left paralyzed by the very space around him, all Tore could do was watch as his former mentor peers back into his very eyes; the last of the lava downpour dripping down behind him. “A valiant effort.” With this bit of praise however does Mall lift the blue ward up over his head while then criticizing how: “But physicality alone shall do little to aid you.” Upon declaring this, the cosmic angel thrust his palm downwards and sends Tore hurdling down towards one of the brimstone islands breaking up the lava lake; the blue crashing down and slide across the rough rock before stopping just short of the blistering hot rim. Though the blue boy attempts to stand back off the heated stone, his rise is ultimately cut short when his former master lands right onto his very chest and keeps him pinned to the hellish earth with just a single foot.

Struggling to escape underneath the spacial Kybr’s heel, the indigo angel gazes up to the lava behind him in his squirm and discovers something of note that he just now finds. Small schools of fish dressed in scales of pure bedrock leap right out from the depths of the lake, lively swimming through the lava as easily as freshwater. This only way outta this mess clear to him, the boy’s face tightens as he reaches out towards the rim; a sharp hiss sliding through the boy’s teeth before he swiftly dunks his limbs into the hellish molten goo. A sharp scream escapes from the boy maw as he keeps his arms submerged in the fiery lava, the odd and unpredictable act causing the cosmic angel’s guard to waver. Midst his agony do the pupils of his eyes start to glow a rainbow of color, Tore taking the moment to thrust his legs against Mall and kicking his former mentor off of him; bringing his arms back up to the surface as lunges after. His hands coated in a radiance of shimmering color, Tore reaches out to his fumbling foe’s head and clutches Mall’s very face; the indigo angel unleashing the life force he had somehow gathered into a point blank blast of radiant colors. The force alone was strong enough to send the spacial Kybr hurdling across lake, his body skipping across the surface like a tossed pebble until crashing right along side of a brimstone column.

While the hellish stone dust settles before him, Mall is left to ponder of the circumstances with utter: “That power. Where did-” While curiously questioning such does the angel direct his attention over to the very island he was blasted from, seeing the numerous scaly fish that had once jumped across the molten lava behind his ward now left bellying up; a proud smile stretches between his cheeks as pries himself out from the brimstone. “That’s much better.”

Whilst using what power was left to heal the numerous burns he had suffered, Tore watches as the man he once called his mentor hovers out to the very center of the lava cage and clasps his hands together; the space they both occupy once again contorting before his very eyes. The blue boy beholds the blister hot lava and brimstone that made up the environment now solidify and freeze as it starts to break apart; scorching heat of hell itself dipping into a deathly cold in a matter of just seconds. Tore starts to shiver and hovers upwards as the ground beneath him gives away, all the fiery light that shined from the lava disappearing and is replaced and coldly blue hue; the blue seeing his very breath permeate the frosty air. Within a matter of seconds does the indigo angel find himself floating within a frozen cavernous valley made up of thick icy paths, frosty slides, and arctic formations that stretch across the wide open cavern. Not this again.

Its in his shivering that Tore then peer out to the side and finds his cosmic foe floating in the middle of the freezing air, the spacial angel clasping his hands together before hammering himself straight in his very stomach; the impact causing dozens of cracks to rapidly grow along his figure. After this does Mall’s entire body break apart in a burst of glass, every single bit flying across the caverns and seeping into the icy formations that surround them. Despite this display of self destruction, the blue boy keeps his guard held high as he floats through the icy valley and prepares for whatever strange attack the cosmic Kybr has planned for him. Yet among his alert awareness does he fails to notice a faint light glimmering from the ice behind him; a reflection of his galactic foe’s figure sliding across the surface and sticks his arm right out to cast a star straight out to the blue ward. The starry blast hits the young angel’s back in a glittering explosion, sending Tore careening through frosty air. When finally stopping himself just before crashing straight into a hard icy wall, Tore peeks back to try and find what had thrown the glittering blast, but ultimately failing to find a single soul among the blue hue.

Its when seeking the culprit that he hears the strange sound of crackling ice behind him, the blue angel swiftly glancing back to discover his mentor within an icy slide behind him; Mall on the verge of tossing out another starry assault. In the nick of time does the blue boy evade his former mentor’s starry blast and chucks out his own pale energy straight out to Mall’s reflection; the icy formation he had dwell within shattering into glittering shards from the explosion. Even within the ice left into pieces, the young angel cannot find even a single sign of his former mentor among the frosty dust. While midst his confusion, Mall emerges out from the twisting icy pillar aside and rockets forth towards the blue boy; Tore himself glancing out just time to witness his former mentor on the approach. In the few seconds he had does the blue angel manage to evade the cosmic Kybr’s striking assault, his galactic foe just a few inches apart as he streaks right past. Even when having cleanly dodged the cosmic man’s surprise attack, the blue boy feels the very space behind him solidify; Tore looking over towards his former master and seeing him reach out to him with but the palm of his hand. Swinging his arm outwards does Mall cast his ward out through the icy cavern valley; Tore sent through icy paths and slides alike until crashing right into the valley’s hard ice wall.

Pulling himself straight out from the cavernous wall, the blue angel shakes off the ice stuck in his hair; his eyes widening when gazing ahead and finding the cosmic Kybr’s very image plastered across the icy formations making up the valley. He frantically looks through out all the ice paths, pillars, and slides in hopes of telling which of the many images of his former mentor be the right one as the slide across the surface like a pack of serpents; yet every single one he see’s prove completely identical to the rest. This isn’t good. Even if he comes out, there’s no way to physically touch him, not without something alive to draw power from. But what in the world could even survive in a place this blistering cold? Okay Tore, just think for a sec here. Think back to science class. The teach was going on about biology, right? Something about bacteria and micro organisms. She said that they were nearly in everything around us, even in like super extreme places like hot caves, hot springs, the depths of the ocean, even in Antartic- Its in pondering of his school teachers words that he snaps his sites over to the icy path that stretches beside him. Ice! That’s it! Upon this very revelation, the indigo angel glides down along the narrow icy path and slides the palm of his hand along its chilling cold surface; his mind focused on what microorganisms and bacteria could be dwelling underneath the frost. Its in his trip across the frosty narrow that bits of color start to slither through the solid ice and gather in the palm of his hands. When beholding all the life he had gathered from the microorganisms living within the ice, he’s left a little disappointed to find the size of a marble, one not even bigger than the palm of his hand. Huh. Guess this much is about what you’d expect from bacteria.

Venturing his site back towards the rest of the cavernous valley, the blue boy comes to find dozens upon dozens of his former master very image streak across every icy surface; each reflection moving of its own independence. Ain’t got much to work with here. Better make it count. Whilst keeping his eyes on the numerous pictures of the cosmic angel does he see them all suddenly disappear all at once; not a single trace of Mall left showing anywhere among the ice. Where...where did- In his frantic search for where the spacial Kybr could strike does he take a peek back just in time to see the cosmic angel charging out; mere moments away from ramming into him. With what life force he had gathered from the bacteria within the ice, the indigo angel coats the base of his foot its its colorful glow as he kicks out to his nearing foe; Tore kicking Mall straight into the roof of the icy cave. The very moment that the galactic angel crashes through the ceiling does the blue boy witness the icy valley he floats in crumbling like broken glass; all of their shards descending down into the deep black abyss set below.

In gliding through the void does the blue angel soon unintentionally flops down into solid ground; Tore prying himself out from the solid rock and discovers veins of bright lime green running across the rugged curving surface. Veering his sites upward does he find himself standing dead in the center of a wide crater that rival the size of several football fields. Along the surface of the crater do his pupils shrink when finding what were remains of colorful brick among the ruins; their once vibrant color having faded away from the anneals of time. This very site bubbles a powerful mix of dread and despair what was once buried within his very core; a feeling of sorrow that not only makes his very soul tremble, but makes him fall to his very knee’s. This place…

Before the boy could partake in a single moment of lament, his gaze is drawn upwards as an angelic shadow slides past his body; Tore gazing skywards to the very top of a long and towering flagpole where a torn banner holding what seemed was once a platypus. The blue boy see’s Mall perch himself at the very top end of this decrepit and ruined symbol; the galactic angel gazing down upon his wards as Tore slowly starts to rise back on his feet. “Magnificent show Tore. You’ve truly demonstrated greater promise that even the humans we had cultivated in the days of old. But this demonstration is not over yet. For now we reach the finale.” Declaring such does Mall suddenly rocket up high in the night sky, his cosmic trail overtaking the earthly stars. When hovering in the middle of the starry sky, the Kybr’s cosmic wings starts to vastly expand out; Mall blanketing the once peaceful starry sky above and transform them into the deep cosmos that reflects within his angelic wings. Swirling galaxies, leviathan sized planets, bright scorching suns, burning meteors, and billions upon billions of stars. Some of these stars gather onto the galactic angel’s back and bond together to give the angel a new starry set of wings as he descends down upon the glowing green earth; opening his eyes to face the blue angel that takes his stand against him with a determined and ready glare.

In just but a single instance does the entire length of Mall’s very figures stretch right out before the blue boy, the back of his body following after and catching right up as the cosmic angel stands before his pupil. Left caught off guard by his former mentor’s strange lunge out to him, all Tore could do to react was to leap back as he tosses out a ball of pale white out to the spacial Kybr; the retreating assault proving utterly fruitless as Tore’s blast scatters into pieces before even touching his foe. Witnessing his blue ward attempting to gain some distance, the cosmic angel reaches his arms up towards the cosmos that hangs above them both; some of the galaxies above drawn out from the reaches of space and shrinking as they near the planets surface. Though their immense size had been reduced significantly, these swirling galaxies still boasted the size of apartment complexes; the angel who had summoned them having next to no trouble hurdling them both out to his blue pupil.

Beholding these massive disk shaped celestial bodies swiftly glides right out at him, Tore up and decides to lunge out to them as they twirl his way; the light from their numerous stars glistening along his body as he squeezes right between them both. Finding his cast out celestial bodies having missed, the spacial angel thrusts his fingers out to both of the hurdling galaxies and commands them both to veer back towards the blue boy; Tore himself noticing the light from these galaxies and peering out to discover them both hurdling out to both of his side. With the pair of twin galaxies pinching out towards him, the blue angel stops dead in his track moments as they near and lets them both pass in front; their starry surfaces shining their glisten along the boy’s face as they pass through. Keeping his sites locked to the twin celestial bodies does he see them both steer themselves back out for another go at him; Tore seeing his moment when finding one of them approaching faster than the other. Just seconds before the edge of one of these celestial bodies could strike the indigo angel down, Tore clasps its very rim with nothing but his bare hands; the stars scraping against his palm as the impact drags him across the irradiated crater. Glancing past the galaxy trapped in his hands, the blue boy witnesses the other follow after the first, something that he had fully expected as he starts to lift the one he holds upwards and tosses it back to its twin; both of these galaxies colliding together and exploding in a shower of glowing stardust that lights the entire crater and the land behind.

Once the bright aftermath of the collision finally dims, Tore uncovers his eyes and glances around for any sign of his galactic foe; finding next to no sign of the spacial angel anywhere among the crater rubble. Its in that moment that he see’s the very sky itself start to glisten and aims his eye site above to find his former master hovering above; the fields of stars behind him rapidly twinkling as he points a single finger down upon the earth. From the cosmic skies above do all these thousands of stars all descend down from the very heavens akin to divine beams of light; every single one streaking down towards the blue boy in rapid fashion. The indigo angel glides across the green glowing crater as these numerous galactic rays crash down upon the earth in their attempt to strike him down; each descending star crashing down onto the earth he flies behind. Gazing back does Tore begin to see all the twinkling stars descending closer and closer as they all plummet from the skies above; some of them crashing down right behind his very feet. Aiming his sights towards his former mentor above, the blue boy watches the cosmic angel above and notices all the stars that rain down from the heavens streak right by him, as if commanding every one he summons from the depths of space to steer away from him. Doesn’t seem like he’s paying that much attention to them though. Wonder if…

Noticing this detail from his former mentor, the indigo angel peeks back and lobs out a bit of his own pale power out in a dynamic curveball; the sphere of white streaking along the surface of the crater as he ascends skywards across the cosmic sky above. Soon in its short journey through the sky does it blend in alongside the stream of descending stars and start to streak down towards the cosmic angel’s backside. Moments before the blue boy’s ball can strike the spacial angel down, Mall swiftly does a complete 180 to waft his pupils attempt of a sneak attack aside; the stars that streak past casting their light upon his disappointed glare. But in that very moment does the cosmic Kybr then feel something strike his very back, a second ball of pale light having exploded against Mall’s behind while his back was turned. All the stars from the cosmos above finally cease their torrential downpour as the angel who had commanded them himself plummets down towards the lime green crater in a smoking descent; the blue boy rocket right out towards his former master as he falls towards the earth.

Mere seconds before Tore could follow up his successful assault does his spacial foe suddenly stop in the air just before crashing into the glowing earth; Mall reaching his palm out to the approaching blue angel and halting him dead in his tracks. Before the indigo angel could even fight back against the space holding him in place, the cosmic angel casts him out from the earth and sends him skywards out to the cosmos above. Shortly after being flung skywards does Tore manage to regain his aerial balance, the blue boy peering back from whence he came to discover the scorching surface of the sun having replace the very earth he had been tossed from; its sheer light nearly blinding the boy as he hovers several feet above its blistering hot surface. Gazing away from the giant star’s fiery bright surface, the blue boy discovers the very angel that had sent him up now hovering above; the cosmic Kybr starring straight down upon his very ward despite the blinding sunlight behind him.

With nothing but a wave of the angel’s very hand does Mall push the blue boy out towards the blistering star set behind him; the gravity of the sun strengthening its pull towards what hovered around it and starts to drag the indigo angel towards its blazing hot surface. And though Tore fights back against the sun’s overwhelming gravitational pull, the incredible spacial force continues to drag him tick by tick towards his fiery doom. Among resisting this near dominant spacial force does the indigo angel see numerous flares spurt out from behind, Tore peering back to discover pillars of flame erupt out from the fiery surface and streak out towards him. While evading all the solar flares that burst from behind, all the blistering spurts send out a strong solar wind that starts to push the blue boy away; enduring the overwhelming sunny heat that bellows behind and glides him away from the surface. Watching his blue pupil begin to escape from the fiery star’s gravitational force, Mall reaches out towards the depths of the cosmo’s set behind them; the angel calling forth a shower of asteroids that all rain down towards the surface of the sun. Slithering around both the comet torrent from above and the pillars of flame that spurt out from below, Tore once again starts to be pulled towards the fiery sun; the gears in the blue boy’s head turning as he attempt to think of a way outta this mess. Midst pondering of such do his eyes manages to catch the site of one of the meteors that had been cast down towards the sun caught within a pillar of fire that spurts out from the surface; the intense force of the bursting combustion strong enough to send the asteroid flying back out to the depths of space. There it is. The ticket outta this mess.

Continuing to weave around the dozens of rising flames and falling boulders all around him, Tore keeps watch of all the rocks that plummet down towards the star set behind him; most of them disintegrates from the incredible heat as they reach the top of the simmering surface of the sun. What are ya trying to be polite now? Come on, just let one loose already! Watching among all the meteors that descend down towards the face of the sun that he see one of them plummet down towards a spot of the surface on the verge of bursting; the indigo angel chasing down the very asteroid as it plummets. Hovering from above does the spacial angel watch all this play out before him, Mall left perplexed as his blue pupil simply stands atop one of the falling comets that fall towards the gigantic star; both Tore and the rock swallowed by the sun’s intense light.

Meager moments just before the rock that the blue angel stands upon could touch down onto the fiery surface, an incredibly powerful solar flare bursts out from its very surface and erupts onto the bottom of the asteroid; the insane force of the rising flames shooting the rock and the boy who stands upon it out from the sun’s pull and through the torrent of comets. When seeing his indigo opponent rocket right out towards him, Mall redirects the path of a pair of asteroids that plummet beside him straight out to the rock his pupil rides; the spacial angel watching as the three comets collide into each other in a violent explosion of rock dust that blankets the light of the sun. Out from the asteroid dust does a lone hand emerge out from its very depths clutches tightly onto the cosmic Kybr’s very neck; the rest of the cloud scattering to reveal the very hand to belong to his unscathed blue ward. Having caught the cosmic angel in his clutches, the blue boy turns back towards the leviathan star that burns underneath them both and hurls his former mentor down towards its fiery hot surface; Tore watching as Mall hurdles towards the bright sun like a descending meteor. The bright sunlight from the star grows brighter as the cosmic angel falls closer to its very surface, the sun soon enveloping the very space they occupy within its solar warmth.

This incredibly blinding light eventually dims to show the blue boy fluttering back down within the glowing green ruins; Tore left peering along the sides of the crater for any sign of where his former mentor is. During this little look through these very ruins does the indigo angel notice a deep shadow beginning to loom over the irradiated earth, peering up to see what could cast such blanketing darkness; Tore’s left in astonishing horror when discovering what hangs above. Several thousand feet above earthly surface does he find Mall peering down upon him, a lone planet of which outclasses the very Earth itself dropping down from the depths of the cosmos behind him; its sheer size rivaling that of Neptune. The very angel that had summoned the descending planet disintegrates into stardust as its face passes through him, only leaving the earth itself right in the midst of its destructive path. Tore falls to the Earth as he watches the leviathan planet plummet; his knee’s trembling as he lands in the middle of the crater. Wha-what can I even...No...I won’t let it end like this! There’s gotta be something here, something to work with. But this crater, its all lifeless. Everything’s dead. Where on Earth can there be anything alive left around...Oh my god. That’s it!

Its in figuring out an incredible realization that the indigo angel thrusts his legs deep into the tainted soil; the blue boy punching his arms straight into the rock as the planet above grows ever closer. Just please work with me. There’s not much time left. The boys pleading thoughts pierce the craters irradiated soil and echo throughout the Earth, reaching the very essence of every living thing that dwells within and upon the planet. Bits of life from every person, every plant, every creature, every living organism starts to seep through the ground they stand or hover over; none of them even realizing the minuscule pieces of their lives were escaping from their beings. Even the energy of the planet’s core itself travels out from beneath the earth to reach out to the blue boy; every bit of life that burrowing through the earth at blinding speeds. The very sky and ground that make up the planet is glown alight as all the pieces of life gather towards the very point they had been called upon; all to gather within Tore’s very body. The crater that the boy has rooted itself in starts to let out a powerful glow as more and more power gathers within minutes.

Soon enough is the entire once dead crater proves ready to burst forth with all the life that had gather throughout the entire planet; the deathly lime green that had cursed the earth merging alongside all the color that had been collected. All at once does the collection of life spurt from the Earth in a ray of colorful light, the blue boy that had called upon it all leading it straight through the sky and to the oncoming planet above. Midst passing through the Earth’s atmosphere does color coated angel begin to feel the intense friction blister his very skin, the blue boy hissing in pain as he endures spacial entry. Can’t heal...Gotta put everything into this… His burning flight straight from his home takes him speeding towards the planet that plummets above; the indigo angel soon entering the stratosphere of the leviathan. In an instant does Tore pierces straight through the giant planets surface and continue through its rock like a bullet; tearing straight through towards its very core.

Hovering over all of this, the cosmic angel watches in awe as the colossal planet he had summoned forth, breaking apart as multiple colors fracture across its surface and exploding a burst of bright color. Peering past this glowing spurt does Mall discover a lone figure erupting out from the light at astounding speeds; Tore approaching from the planets remains with little lively color left streaking along his body. What powerful life he had left to spare, Tore cocks his arm back as far as possible while coating his very fist in the lively glow he nears his former mentor; ready to put everything he had gathered from the Earth into a single attack. The indigo angel eventually reaches his former superior and thrust what life he had left straight into his foe’s very stomach; both angels enveloped in a brilliant colorful glow stemming out from the point of impact.

Eventually does every piece of the lively glow fade away as the cosmo’s erected disappears; Tore left slowly hovering downwards as the space surrounding him is restored back into the very top of the golden spire where the feud had begun. Heavy breath pass out from his lips as he touches down onto the broken glass beneath his feet, the blue angel using what strength he had left spare to keep from collapsing onto the shards. Keeping stable enough, the boy gazes skywards up to the halo above and discover the picture of another dimension held within that’s halfway transparent. Still not too late...Just...Just need to…

Among this brief moment of respite and all the needed relief that it had given to the indigo angel is sudden shattered in but an instant when he starts to hear clapping; Tore’s pupils shrinking when peering back out to the side and discovering his former mentor alive and well, wearing a smile as he gives the boy an applause. “A magnificent performance, Tore. You’ve proven the potential to wield your aspect as as effectively as those in the days of old. Even with how much I had restrained myself, you’ve surpassed every single one of my expectation; I really couldn’t be more proud of you. You’re on your way of becoming a fully fledged Kybr.” “You’re...kidding...All that….was holding back to you!?” the indigo angel questions as he trembles. “Oh ho. Unfortunately so.” Mall confirms, commanding the space around his pupil to make him fall to his knee’s.

“Why then.. Why did you put me through all that? Why didn’t you just get it over with and finish me?” the blue boy demands to know, the angel he questions floating towards him. “I don’t want our bond to end in nothing but bitter blood; I meant it when claiming how you brought life back into my very existence, giving me the motivation and desire to continue. I am truly regretful to have kept the truth from you during their time together, afraid that it would drive you away. I couldn’t bare to be alone anymore, not in a universe that had cast our kind away. I truly did treasure the experiences I had shared with you Tore; I don’t wish for it to end like this.” In his struggle to arise from the shards of broken glass does the indigo angel peer up from the ground to witness a hand be extended down to him; Mall offering a welcoming arm as he pleads to the boy: “Please, Tore. I beg of you. Cease this hopeless struggle so that we may welcome the Kybr, our kin back to their long lost home.”

Nothing but the ambient winds are all that are heard for a couple moment before Tore finally starts to reach his hand out to the cosmic angel; Mall’s hopes beginning to rise as the boy’s as the boy’s hand nears. When just an inch away from him, Tore smacks his former mentor’s palm aside, at last responding back. “You don’t know how much I wanted something like this so badly. To have someone I could look up to in my times of need when I felt like every bit of hope was lost; somebody my dad wasn’t. I was starting to think at long last that wish was coming true. But all that wishing just led me straight to this! I can’t go down his road, Mall. There may be people you loved then trapped in there, but there are people now who love me here. If the Kybr are freed, there’s no guarantee the world I’ve come to know and love will live...If everyone in this universe will live. The existence both of us want...they can’t both be true.”

Despite the blue boy’s word of rejection leaving cosmic angel heartbroken, despite the stream of tears that flow from his eyes: he claims to him how: “I understand…” Mall aims his palm right above his blue wards head as glittering stardust starts to gather within his hand; the collecting cosmic power glistening against the boy’s face as a star forms before him. “The time I spent with you is something I will always treasure. I thank you for our time together.” As the light in the man’s hand grows its brightest, Tore shakes away what tears were left within and locks his eyes to the end; refusing to look away as he prepares for his former mentor to finish him then and there. Unyielding, to the last bit of life.

Right before the end could come upon him, Tore witnesses a gigantic pike of pure black thrust itself straight through his former mentor; the spear piercing most of the cosmic angel’s chest. A short breath escapes from Mall’s mouth as he displays a haunting mixture of shock and dreads; the stars that had gathered within the his palm dispersing as the pike within his very chest starts to withdraw from whence it came. The gravely wound the spear of black leaves behind shows the inside of the Kybr’s body reflecting the cosmo’s itself, the starry sky leaking out from the head sized hole like thick glittering blood, blood that splatters across the golden floor as Mall falls face first before his blue ward. Tore arises from the cracked glass floor as his former mentor falls face first, confusion and remorse easy to see across the boy’s eyes as he reaches down to the downed angel. “Mall?...” “Yo.” he hears a familiar voice grab his attention with.

His site drawn out towards the very edge of the spire, the indigo angel discovers the pike that had impaled his former master to withdraw to his purple brother’s side; both Roy and Mally standing atop the golden staircase as they gaze upon their blue brother in relief. “Glad to see we made it just in time.” the orange skater states. “Guys...Wha…what are you-” Tore is left to utter the blend of astonishing disbelief still fresh on display. “That shit should be obvious, ain’t it. Came all this way to see ya.” the merc obviously states with a pinch of sass, the two of them waltzing to their brother’s side. “Gotta say, Tore. You seriously wouldn’t believe the sort of sites we saw just trying to find you. Like I got some stories here that’ll make ya question what the hell we were even doing.” Mally remarks. “Seriously, it was already a pain in the ass to try and figure out where the hell ya went, you should see what sort of rowdy maniacs we had to bring along for the ride.” Roy adds. “Oh please. Like you’re in any position to judge anyone’s character without hypocrisy.” somebody from behind brings up.

Curious of who had given this very statement, the blue boy peers behind his sibs and sees a collection of five climbing over the golden steps that they had risen from ;Alex, Hank, Melvin, Vivi, and Ryan all stepping/hovering up to the top of the spire and taking in its glorious golden site. “Sweet plastic propellers, just look at all this! The blinking rings with wings, the golden swirls along the sheen, the halo spinning above. It all seriously looks like something straight out of a sci-fi novel. Don’t it make ya wanna dig straight in and figure out what sort of tech something like this could even be running on?” Hank geeks out with. “Meh, just looks pretty tacky to me.” Melvin beside him simply states.

Standing along the very rim of the spire, both Vivi and Ryan stare out into the blending site of the starry sky above and the sea of nightly clouds flowing below; the half skeleton left utterly star struck from the view alone. “Fucking sweet Jesus, look at all we be up in here! Its like the heaven went and decides to slip us a little site of the heaven underneath the skirt. We taking in the sweet shit, bitch.” “I just can’t imagine how we’re still even breathing all the way up here.” Ryan simply ponders aloud.

“I-I can’t believe all of you are even... How’d all of you even figured out where I was?” Tore questions his siblings. “Sure as hell wasn’t easy. Mal here kept following trail after trail of breadcrumbs in, out, and all around all over the fuckin place. Like we deadass found a hidden prehistoric land full of dinosaurs just trying to find ya.” “Wha! Aw, lucky. The only highlight of my trip was going down to hell.” the blue boy retorts. “Bruh, you fuckin serious?” While her bro’s continued to discuss points of their adventure, Mally’s gaze drifts over to the winged man that lies before them; the orange skater cutting through their conversation to question her blue bro if: “Uh, Tore. This guy do anything to ya to drag you with him?” The indigo angel ceases to speak for a brief moment as he gloom’s down to the remains of what he once called his spacial master; Tore taking in a deep breath before finally admitting how: “Nope. Went with him on my own?” “You’re kidding right? The hell would wanna make ya leave everyone behind after surviving a life threatening explosion just to pal around with this starry asshat ya barely know?” the purple merc questions him with. “I...I just felt...I just wanted someone with powers like mine to look up to, okay. Maybe to gimme some pointers on how all this works and what else I could do, I don’t know...What was I even thinking?…” Such a statement from their blue brothers draws out pity within their; Roy slightly shaking his head about as he peers down to the body of the cosmic angel.

“Hate to spoil this sentimental moment here, but can anyone enlighten us to what could be forming in the ring above.” “What!?” the blue angel utters, his sadness shattering into troubling alarm as he gazes skyward to the halo spinning above them all. Held within the twirling ring does the picture of the other dimension start to lose transparency, showing more and more of a solid picture depicting numerous angelic beings held within. “No!” Rushing right beside both his siblings does Tore race right to the center of the broken glass platform dwelling in the middle; the blue boy kneeling down and repeatedly slapping the palm of his hand against one of the chunks of glass. “Come on! Come on!” Despite repeatedly beating his hand against the glass, not a single sheen of light comes protruding out from its surface; the indigo angel letting out a frustrated groan before claiming aloud how: “Agh! The panel is completely broken! There’s no way to shut it off! So how else can we stop the warpgate from-...That’s it!”

Almost immediately does the blue boy race back towards his siblings side; the friends that they had gathered coming together as Tore proclaims to them how: “Guys, listen. If the control panel is down, then we don’t have much other choice then to head down in the center of this warpgate and destroy the Orphan.” “I like where this is going.” Alex remarks. “Say again?” Hank requests. “You seriously wantin us to fuck up an orphan, mate?” Vivian questions. “No, I- Th-That’s what they just call the core.” “Fucking call it the core then for god sake! Why ya gotta name it something so ominous?” Ryan blurts out. “But we didn’t find any other hall climbing up here. How the hell you expect us to find it?” Melvin asks. “Only a Kybr can use their power to open the way down into the center. But we gotta hurry; there might not be much time left.” Upon this desperate plea does Tore start to follow the others as all of them sprint out to the stairs they came up from; every single one of them stopping straight dead in their tracks when all of them hear a voice demanding that they all: “Stop!”

This very call withdraws their attention back towards the center of the spire; all of them beholding the man that Roy had struck down slowly hobbling right off the broken glass beneath his feet, despite harboring the gaping hole in his chest that continues to bleed out the cosmo’s. In between his breaths does he aim his piercing glare to them all as he claims to them how: “I refuse to let it end like this...I refuse to spend another waking moment in this world without the warming embrace of my own kind.” With this declaration cemented, an incredible wave of spacial power begins to envelope the angel’s wounded body; his once human like skin beginning to reflect countless planets, stars, and entire galaxies. “The Kybr are coming home!”

This commitment set, a monumental torrent of cosmic energy bursts out from Mall’s very being; a powerful shock wave that nearly sends everyone flying right off the spire. The earthly night sky is rend apart to reveal the depths of the cosmos underneath the blanket of stars, all while Mall’s body starts to implode in order to start metamorphosing into an entirely different being. Midst this transformation do both Roy and Mall cast forth a beam of dark purple and the yoyo gadget respectively; their desperate assault however repelled back by the incredible spacial gravity that floods out from their foe.

The angel’s drastic transformation proving to be utterly unstoppable, the boy that Mall had once called his own ward turns back over to all to his friends and family and demands that Roy: “Roy. I need you to lead everyone down into the hall and slap your hand against the inner side. You’ll open up a tunnel that leads down to the very center of the warpgate. You’ll know you found the core when you see a glowing baby floating in the middle of a bunch of spinning golden ring.” “Is that seriously why they call it the Orphan? What the f-” “Just go now! Before the portal opens!” All but the blue angel start to races straight down the golden step dash through into the hall without so much as another word; leaving Tore to face the mass of cosmic space he had once knew as his master, watching as countless wings start to sprout from the collection of cosmos. It doesn’t matter if you can’t be beaten, it doesn’t matter if you have the entirety of space under your beck and call. Just need to buy time for them all to go down and stop the warp gate from opening. If they can do all that, then it’ll be all worth it. It’ll be all worth it. It won’t matter if this is how things end.

Among his moment of preparation for what he may presume to be his final moments facing immeasurable odds, Tore then discovers both his brother and sister coming to his sides; the indigo angel demanding to know: “What are you two doing!? If the core isn’t destroyed then-” “Relax. Our pals down there got it all covered. And beside, you need more help up here than they do down there.” his orange sister informs. “Nrr! Do you know what’s even at stake here!?” “You seriously think we don’t know? We didn’t wind up following this trail of vague clues just to be told to piss off. We fought through the worst sort of shit nature could possibly hack up from every one of its holes just to find ya, and were damn well not gonna just up and leave like that.” Roy boasts out. “We started this hole journey separated, so now were gonna finish it together. You’re stuck with us weather you like it or not, and their ain’t a damn thing you can do about it.” Mally protests. “Guys…” Despite this nigh upset tone, a river of tears begin to flood out from the ducts of his eyes; Tore letting out a small snivel before crying: “Thanks. You two are the best pair of siblings anyone could ask for.” After their blue brother wipes away the tears from his eyes, he joins his purple brother and orange sister as they steel their conviction against the outer worldly foe before them; taking their stand against such immeasurable odds together.

The mass of unfiltered cosmic space finally takes its tangible form before the trio; hundreds upon hundreds of wings stretching for miles on end all swirls out from the center, their flesh made from the twinkling stars and galaxies of the universe as countless eyes all open upon from beneath its very skin. In the very center of this celestial body where the countless wings swirl from, a massive eye opens that twinkles and glows like the depths of the cosmos itself. The angel’s celestial transformation finished, Mall lets out a heavenly holy roar from the depths of their very soul; an incredible howl that shatters the very space they all dwell in. The scene of the golden tower breaks apart into thousands of pieces, the very floor they stand on crumbles away, the sky itself shatters until none of it remains; all of it swallowed by the scene of stars, planets, galaxies all floating within the depths of space. Tore, Mally, and Roy all now hover within this very cosmos with their holy foe floating before them, every single eye along the angel’s body staring down upon them all.

The first assault that the holy abomination throws out against the trio be an entire wave of numerous planetoids that all streak out from the cosmo’s held withing Mall’s very wings; all of them boasting unique shapes as they hurdle out towards the three. Seeing the storm of approaching planets close in, Tore grasps his sisters hand as both Roy and he glide out to the approaching barrage of worlds; soaring along and over the surface of not just spherical planets, but flat discs, waning crescents, leaning parallelograms, and numerous other strangely shaped polygons that careen in their direction. While holding onto her brother as he soars through the stream of small planets, Mally feels the light gravity of each beckon her to their almost smooth, polished surfaces; their gravitational pull giving the orange skater a clever little idea. “Tore!” she alerts her blue brother with. “Yeah?” “I think I know a way to close the distance. Fling me to one of those planet.” “What!? What are you even-” “Just do it!”

Despite his initial hesitation, the indigo angel flings his orange sister out towards one of the approaching disc shaped planetoids; Mally reaches out from behind to pull out her skating gear and swiftly starts to strap on her skates. The lass manages to don her skates moments before she approaches the planets surface and glides across its very face as smoothly as a knife cutting through silky smooth butter; the orange skater taking out both her hockey stick and grapple yo as she nears the end of the planetoid. Reaching the very edge does Mally leap right off the planet and out towards the next, flipping across space as she escapes the gravitational pull of the previous world and let the triangular one ahead pull her straight in. Gliding right across one of the triangle worlds sides, the orange skater sets her sites outwards towards a nearby waning crescent and leaps right off towards the moon; feeling the gravity pull against her body as she jumps between these planets. Mally glides across the inner edge of the waning moonside as naturally as a halfpipe, weaving around large worms that burrow in and out from the moon’s very rock; her sites drawn over towards a hexagram world made from crystallized tungsten and keeps her grapple yo handy when nearing the end of the crescent she skates on. Launching herself straight off the side of the moon, the orange lass drifts out towards the tungsten hexagram and cast her trusty gadget out to one of its pointed ends; the grapple yo’s string wrapping around the rugged point and letting the girl twirl around and around, constantly using the momentum to keep building speed. Upon finally unraveling her string from the point of raw tungsten, Mally flings herself out at breakneck speed; making a complete beeline straight for their celestial foe.

Closing the distance between her and the angelic horror, the orange haired girl swings her hockey stick towards the monstrous angel’s center eye; her tip of her weapons head stopping just short of Mall’s starry sclera. The orange lass is forced to a stop right before she could strike her leviathan foe, Mally struggling to push against whatever force is stopping her short of smacking the eye of the holy monster. Midst her struggles is she ultimately catapulted away from the abominations twinkling eye by an incredibly strong wave of space, one that Mally blocks with the neck of her weapon. Though she is mostly spared from the overwhelming spacial power, her precious hockey stick is scrambled to pieces under the powerful wave; Mally threatening to drift out towards the depths of the cosmo’s.

Before the young girl could drift too far out into the depths of the infinite, a streak of black and violet sweeps her away; Mally opening her eyes to find herself resting in her purple brothers arms. “Damn, took one helluva blow there, huh. Shocked your still in once piece.” he comments. “But, but my hockey stick…” she utters, peering over her brother’s shoulder. Glancing back to where his sis stares does he see what was left of her once treasured weapons; its remains threatening to drift away into the cosmos. “Hang on a sec.” the purple angel request as he casts his newfound dark arm out towards what was left of his sisters weapon. Upon nearing the scattered pieces of wood does the arm split into dozens of strands that all reach out to every single fractured splinter that once made up the hockey stick; all of its chunks cobbling together among the mass of darkness as it retreats back to its very sender. When returning to their side, Mally finds her destroyed weapon now glued back together by the very matter that makes up her brother’s arm; Roy himself handing the rebuilt hockey back into his sisters hand as he ask her how: “You remember how I get my arm to transform?” “By thought, right?” “Think of a weapon while ya hold it.” Like her brother instructs her to do, Mally starts to concentrate on a particular new weapon different to the one in her hands; the orange lass witnessing the head of her hockey stick engulf in the black matter that holds it together, stretching out into the long black blade of a great scythe. “There ya go.” “Nice.”

Its in this very moment that the stars within the cosmic angel’s center eyes start dim, Mall’s entire pupil and sclera darkening as black as coal, the rest of the eyes decorating the holy monsters wings following suit and dimming into darkness. The trio watch as their galactic foe splits themselves straight in half, both fracture pieces parting ways to unveil a tiny black dot that begins to draw in the nearby stars; the hole quickly growing to threaten to pull all of them into its void. Amidst being dragged straight into the darkness, Roy tosses his sister away from the hole’s monumental pull; the strength of the merc’s throw letting Mally escape towards a nearby planet as both he and Tore are threatened to be pulled into the black holes depths. Among gliding across the stars, the orange skater acts fast and flings her trusty grapple yo out towards her retreating blue brother; grabbing the blue boy’s attention with: “Tore!” Peering out where his orange sister floats away, the indigo angel sees the girls yoyo wrap itself all around his leg and further hears Mally demand that he: “Grab Roy!”

Without so much as another word does Tore start to race out towards their purple brother as he threatens to plunge into the void, all while their orange sis drifts off towards a nearby planet with her weapon at the ready. Upon touching down onto the planets surface, Mally digs the head of her transformed weapon straight into the worlds very soil; strands of the blade breaking off and rooting themselves into the planet. As her blue brother clutches their violet siblings arm moments as they were nearing the abyss, Mally wraps the steel string of her gadget around her very arm and keeps a tight hold of them both; fighting against the overwhelming strength of the black hole’s pull. Amidst her steadfast struggle does the steel string around her arm harshly chaff her, the incredibly tight friction cutting through her skin and causing her arm to bleed; the orange lass refusing to let go despite the overwhelming pain. For about half a minute straight does the orange girl keep her brothers from falling into the depths of the black hole, even as space around her is rend into its lifeless void; Mally’s pupil’s glowing a distinct blood red as she keeps hold of the pair of angels.

But at long last does the strength of the void finally dissolve away and its very pull fading from the space around them; Mally jerking her brothers back out towards her as the black hole finally putters out into nothingness. Rescued from their doom, Tore lets out a sharp hiss when discovering the orange girls arm left cut and torn as the blood that leaves it hovers out into the depths of space. Aw, that ain’t good. That seriously isn’t good. While unwrapping his sister gadget from his own leg leg, the blue boy notices the yoyo’s shell glowing alight; the crystal held within reflecting a glow quite similar to the life he’s pulled from other sources. Think it needs a tiny bit more juice. Clasping the shell of the gadget into the palm of his hand, the indigo angel disperses a little more of his power into the crystal with; his sisters grapple yo glowing brighter with a multitude of colors. Once beaming bright with life, Tore flings his siblings gadget back into her side as its string retracts into the shell; some of the power kept with splashing onto the girls arm as the grapple yo returns into her hand. This very power closes Mally’s bleeding wound and mends the pain throbbing across her arm; the skater herself recovering from the agonizing suffering and peering over to see her gadget to find its shell beaming with colorful light. “We got ya back, Mal.” the blue angel claims “Go ahead and beat this mofo down.” their purple brother tells her. Knowing her brothers got her back, Mally casts her colorful glowing gadget straight out to a nearby asteroid; the skater retracting the string back to fling herself out towards their holy foe.

Among gliding out towards the cosmic angel before them, the orange skater first comes across an entire cluster of solid stars and asteroids standing in her way; Mally drifting herself out towards one of these solid stars and leaping right across its crystallized surface and bouncing from star to star. Once making out of the dense star cluster does the girl then discover a planet with a ring around it similar to Saturn’s own; a big smile stretching across her face as she nears the very edge of the ring. With nothing but her own pair of skates does Mally grind right across the rings sharp edge, the sparks that result from grinding along the ring glowing a starry light as she slides right across the planets ring and leaps back out towards the spacial angel before them.

With the angel’s foes on the approach, Mall’s center eyes closes for a moment as its wings close inward; opening its pupil wide once more and flapping their wings to send out a visible pulse of cosmic radiation, a wave which reduces all that stand in its path. The threat of this radioactive wave ready to tear them all asunder, the pair of angels streak right past their orange sister and prepare to disperses the oncoming assault; the blue boy out of them shouting how: “Still got some life left in me!” Placing the palms of his hands upon his very chest, Tore draws forth colorful batch of power from the depths of his very body and unleashes it all into an intense beam of rainbows; the colorful ray cutting straight through half of the radiation. “That’s the spirit. Lets show this cosmic bastard why you shouldn’t piss us off!” Roy cheers on as he sharpen his onyx arm into the shape of a giant blade. With but a couple of swipes does the violet angel manage to slice straight through what remains of the radioactive wave; finally clearing the way and letting their sister streak right by.

With nothing else standing in the way towards the angelic horror, the orange skater starts to tie the string of her glowing grapple yo right around the neck of her dark matter infused weapon; commanding the very material to transform the hockey stick into a twinblade, one with a deadly swords protruding out from each end. With both her gadget and weapon tied together, Mally flings both of them out as she starts to twirl through the space before the holy horror; Mall themselves attempting to prevent the girls oncoming assault by stretching the space between them. In a ball of brilliant life and scorning rage, tied together by blood do the weapons streak straight through the artificially lengthened space and strike the angel straight into the center of its middle eye; pieces of the cosmic holy being breaking apart as he reels back from the overwhelming impact.

Shortly after the blow does Mall let out a holy screech that pushes back all that near; the skater that inflicted the blow sent flying back out to the depths of the cosmo’s behind her. Before she could be cast away into the endless infinite, a streak of white and blue zooms out and swipes the girl back toward their purple brothers side; Tore stopping right beside his purple brother just in time to witness their foe arise back up from the blow; its flapping wings distorting the very space it dwells within. “Didn’t like that too much, did it? Practically throwing a shit fit, tearing up space like a little tike shredding paper here.” Roy belittles. “If Mall doesn’t like this, then he sure ain’t gonna appreciate the rest of what we got to give him.” his blue brother expresses with clear vitriol in his voice.

Among venturing through the warpgate’s inner tunnels of numerous running veins and pulsing flesh, Vivi, Ryan, Melvin, Hank and Alex all finally come to the very core and behold the Orphan in all of its shinning glory; the child hovering in the middle glimmering brightly midst the rings that surround it. “Holy shit, man. You guys even consider for a sec the whole uncomfortable subtexts of this sorta bull might be; like fucking step back and think for a sec here. It’s all the theories with the final boss of Earthbound all over again about Giygas being a-” Before the young teen could finish his implicate thoughts over what they were about to do, the rest of them all immediately charge out towards the holy core all at once; Ryan himself letting out a small sigh before he runs after and proclaiming: “Sure whatev, just-...We don’t even have a plan yet!”

Hovering into the air before the shimmering holy core, Hank taps a few buttons along his armrest to unleash an entire cluster of missiles constructed from soup cans from his wheelchair compartments; a holy light beginning to glow out from the dozens of eyes that decorate the Orphans revolving rings as the missiles approach. In but a matter of seconds do all the eyes fire out a salvo of bright rays that curve through the air, perfectly striking out every single makeshift missile hank had launched out; reducing their aluminum to smoldering slag.

Among all the resulting smoke from the failed missile strike, Alex rockets upwards towards the very core of the Orphan in an attempting a beeline assault from below, transforming his arms into deadly weapons as he nears the outer rings. With the demon approaching, the outer rim starts to violently spin about as the light from its numerous eyes starts to glisten once more; the holy glow that glimmers from its pupils soon transforms into a solid shape and smacks Alex aside. Latched upon the veins hanging overhead, Vivian then tries to her luck in bombing down towards the core from below; the ring spinning in the opposite direction to swing its objects of solid light out to the skull girl and smack her aside like the demon.

Lunging out in the middle like a tried and true arrow, Melvin swipes through the ring’s solid light and reduces their glow to glittering shards that dissipate in the air; slipping by the rest of the rings and ready to strike the very core. Alas is the young man’s attempts thwarted when the Orphan lets out a Holy outcry similar to a crying infant; a wave of brilliant light that launches Melvin away.

While Hank simply hovers back to Ryan’s side, the other three roughly crash right before the two; Ryan taking in a little breath before asking the trio: “So, you guys wanna try charging out like a buncha eager jackass’s or do you wanna actually formulate a plan here?” “Fuck off!” all three of them shout.

Back up above do Tore, Mally, and Roy continue to thwart off the spacial assault thrown to them by the cosmic holy horror hovering before them; all three watching closely as the angelic being commands every star that occupies the cosmo’s around them to gather before him. Every single glistening star is collected out from the depths of space and is gathered before Mall, their numerous gaseous light collaborating together into an intensely bright and powerfully hot sun; this freshly born star’s very surface blistering hot enough to spew out flames from its very surface that all rocket towards the trio. The three split apart as the bouts of searing flames near them all, nearly avoiding being cooked alive as the purple merc among them states that: “Think it’s my turn to take a shot at this celestial asshole.”

Declaring such does the violet angel take off after the celestial entity set behind the very sun it had conjured, all while the sun’s surface continue to spew out dozens upon dozens of solar flares across its surface; both his brother and sister watching his back as he starts to move in. As some of these searing pillars of flame start to streak out towards the purple merc, his indigo brother swoops straight in with a lively power held in his hands; Tore casting out a colorful wave from the palm of his hand to disperse the approaching flare. When this beam of rainbows streaks right along his side, Roy feels something else irradiate from beneath this very wave; the violet angel peering back towards its very caster to sense that feeling coming from his very own brother. Set upon his face as clear as day could Roy see the seething anger painted across Tore’s face, showing the new found contempt he feels nowhere near being as much as what wells within the depths of his very soul; such a righteous fury making his new arm of dark black quiver.

Amidst staring out to his blue brother do numerous more flames come spewing out from the surface of the small sun; the fiery inferno’s streaking across space and towards the approaching violet angel. Just moments before these approaching fires could envelope the purple merc in their blazing fury, Roy feels a strand of steel string envelope his very hips and peers aside to see his orange sister pulling herself out towards him with freshly repaired hockey stick in hand; Mally swinging herself out before her violet brother to confront the approaching flame. Brandishing her trusty weapon does the orange skater start to rapidly twirl it out against the flames as the dark matter keeping it together widens out into giant fans, the black fan’s massive width quelling the solar flames away and reducing them to meager embers.

While his sis swings right out from his very flight path, the purple merc finds her donning a similar glare akin to their blue brothers anger; a potent rage directed towards their spacial foe. Tore looked up to this guy and in the end just wound up stabbing him in the back. And Mally here risked life and limb just to track him down and we come up to see all this shit go down. Ain’t hard to see why they’re so mad at this bastard. Sympathizing with his siblings unkempt fury, Roy feels his newfound limb begin to violently pulse upon these feeling of justified anger, the merc looking to the quivering arm as a sinister smile stretches across his cheeks.

Upon nearing the scorching sunlight, the violet angel thrusts his dark arm straight out towards the blistering bright star; the dark matter that makes up his hand growing to exponential size while its very finger start to twist and contort themselves into a recognizable shape. The cosmic angel’s sparkling pupil shrink when beholding the mass of darkness spread before him and very sun he had conjured; the mass of dark matter set before the holy being expanding into the leviathan sized head of a pitch black wolf. Mall left with only a few seconds before both them and the star they had conjured are devoured in a single bite, the sun vanishes underneath the black canines maw as the light that came from the sun is snuffed out; darkness starts to settle within the very space they all dwell.

Just meager seconds after this black void settles do pillars of pure light start to pierce straight through the head of the dark wolf and seep out into the surrounding cosmo’s; the wolf eventually exploding in a big bang as waves of galaxies flow out from the blast. From this brilliant supernova does the purple angel’s arm retract back to his side, all while he hand his siblings peering out beyond all the cosmic colors to behold the cosmic angel hovering in the center of it all; all of them noticing the numerous wings that the holy being had boasted reduced in numbers. “Doesn’t seem like this galactic jackass can take much more.” the merc claims. “We just need to get one more clean hit in and this angel will be down for the count.” the orange skater suggests. “I’m the guy that started this whole mess, seems only fitting that I go in and end it.” the blue boy offers.

Down within the inner workings of the warp gate does Ryan continue to watch his four comrades continue to fruitlessly attempt to break through the Orphan’s defenses, watching as Vivian keeps recklessly charging out, Alex’s constantly shifting and morphing weapon limbs, Melvin’s leaps and bounds along every angel he could take; and Hank trying numerous weapons and gadgets; all of it deflected, smacked aside, and pushed back by the Orphan’s might. Thrust straight into the wall of veins and flesh, the demon gazes over to the core that they assaulted to find the results of their attack having done less than little; the rings spinning along the Orphan continuing to glow as bright as the heavens. Thought the frustration beginning to build within him over this seemingly unbreakable wall, all that anger starts to subside when he eyes the skull girl pulling her severed bone arm right out from between a set of veins; Vivi jerking her arm back to finally uproot her limb and tear through the squishy flesh. From within these torn veins does a strange liquid spurt out and spill onto the floor, Alex following where the torn veins would lead to and sees this fleshy pipe stretching to the center of the chamber; it and other pipes protruding up to the Orphan right above.

Its upon this very discovery that the orange haired demon starts piecing together a plausible strategy within his black horned head, first calling Vivi’s attention with: “Hey, you withered skeletal annoyance, I need your attention for a moment!” The demon’s call proves incredibly effective at drawing the huffed half skeleton straight to him, Vivian getting all up in Alex’s face as she growl: “The hell’s yo problem, ya fuckin whole horned cock head!?” Pushing the skull girl away, Alex then points out towards the walls of the chamber and asks her: “Please direct what little span of attention you can wield and peer out to the numerous pipes and veins that decorate these walls.” Gazing out to the very veins the demon points towards, Vivi responds back with: “Yeah, pretty damn disturbing if ya ask me. The hell’s your point?” “From what I’ve been informed, you’re at least decently competent with a scythe.” “Who the hell told ya that shit!?” she blurts out. “I need you to travel along these very walls cutting these numerous veins that pump out precious juices straight into the core. Like that, we can effectively cut off our foe’s support.” “Ya got two limbs that can turn into fucking swords! The hell’s stopping you from doing it?” “Because I am in the midst of formulating a plan. One that might just give us what we need to stop our encroaching doom, and I unfortunately need all of your cooperation.” Hearing the demon’s words, Vivian peers back over to all the fleshy pipes that the walls of the core’s chamber as a blend of worry and doubt washes over her. The girl takes a moment to take in a calming breath before she claims that she’s: “Fine. On it.”

Midst racing towards the very edge of the chamber, the skull girl stretches her boney limb out into the air while focusing on the very tool that she loathes; the very same scythe that proves as a reminder of her fate. In a flash of bright lime green does the scythe of death materialize in Vivian’s hand, the skull girl clutching its neck with both hands as she approaches the numerous precious veins that lend the core its very life. While racing across the side of the chamber, Vivi flails the blade of her scythe against the numerous veins that decorate its very walls; bouts of ooze bursting out from underneath their cut flesh. While watching his skeletal ally rend apart the dozens of fleshy pipes set across the walls, Alex finds all the color that flows through these veins fade away and drain the core connected to them of precious support; the light that shines from the Orphan slowly starting to dim.

The piece of his plan falling into place, Alex peers over to the wayside and finds both Hank and Ryan in the middle of reloading their crudely made weaponry; the demon appearing to their side in a puff of smoke as Ryan questions: “The hell is Vivi doing flailing her scythe around like a mad woman? Practically gonna lose more than an arm doing that.” “Your foul tempered pal there is busy weakening the core’s support in accordance to my strategy. I’m sure whatever she loses can be firmly glued back on.” the demon answers. “Ooh, a strategy? Just what sort of plan ya got cookin up in that horned head of yours?” Hank gleefully questions. “The next step of my brilliant strategy is to halt the numerous rings from rapidly twirling about in order to gauge closer to the core. Hmm...Alas, I don’t imagine much in here that could serve to slow their rotation.” “I think I got something here that might cover that.” the wheelchair bound genius mentions while reaching down into a compartment along the side of his chair.

From the pocket of his chair does Hank pull out a couple guns crudely made from discarded plastic and splintered wood; both Alex and Ryan gazing upon these presented weapons with their own brand of “are you fucking kidding me here”, the demon among them questioning: “What manner of shoddy craftsmanship is this?” “Am I glad you asked. These babies are specifically designed in mind to fire out a special quick drying adhesive I use when constructing any aircraft’s. This stuff’s seriously strong enough to take going through a raging twister and coming out whole.” “Where did you get something that strong?” Ryan follows. “Something that me and I couple of my workshop pal’s cooked up out of old chewed up gum, tree sap, glue, rhino snot and-” “Don’t care. Just use it to keep that things rings from moving another inch.” Alex demands out of them both.

Upon this very request does Hank toss Ryan one of these specially made weapons as both of them race out towards the sides of the chamber, the chairbound genius gliding out towards the left as his parnter jumps out to the right. When along both of the glowing Orphan’s sides, the two boys pull the triggers of their crude guns for their barrels to spurt out globs of white glue straight out towards the core’s outer rings; the child hovering in the middle letting out an irritated outcry as some of the adhesive lands straight into the ring’s eyes.

Midst partaking in the truly bizarre site of both boys constantly firing out globs of glue out to the angelic monstrosity set before him, Melvin is left in a sort of strange disbelief from this site laying out before him; the young man lightly shaking his head as he mentions: “I...I don’t think anything could’ve prepared me for the sort of shit I’d see today.” “Then I sure hope you’re prepared to follow my lead in the finale.” Alex demands as he glides right by, Melvin growls over while he joins the demon’s side; both of them lunge forth towards the shinning Orphan at breakneck speeds.

Out from along the reaches of the freshly created cosmos, Tore and his siblings start racing straight out towards the cosmic angel; discussing on how they’ll deliver the final blow as Roy ask: “Both of us threw all we got at this galactic son of a bitch, how ya wanna end things bro?” “I’m just about tapped out myself here. You guys don’t mind given me a bit of a boost here, do ya?” the indigo angel asks. “Whateva ya need, man.” “Yeah, big bro. What ya need us to do.” Mally agrees. “Okay, ju-just don’t panic if it feels like your dying. I promise I’m just gonna take a little here.” “Wait, little of wha-”

Before the merc could question what exactly his blue brother was on about, Tore slaps his palms along his sibs sides; the two feeling rather woozy as the indigo angel extracts some of their life forced from the depths of their bodies. “Whoo. Holy...What the heck was that all about?” the orange skater questions, shaking off her inherent dizziness. “It’ll be the parts of you guys I need to end this.” Tore proclaims, holding both bits of life he had collected from his siblings in both hands. In a single moment does he shove essence of their very souls straight through his chest, their life force surging through his body and melding with his with his own to create a burst of raw power; a rainbow of colors surging through his entire body. “Ready to go!”

With the very life force given to him by his siblings held withing his very body, Tore zooms out towards their celestial foe with both his brother and sister by his side; Mall twisting the very space before him to hinder their assault forth and creating countless wormholes around them. Though Tore manages to evade the reach of these numerous wormholes, both of the indigo angel’s siblings unfortunately fall through a pair of portals that swallow them hole; the two of them spat out far behind their blue bro. “Ain’t gonna get us outta the game that easily!” Mally warns as both her and Roy casting forth her grapple yo and his new dark arm respectively, spearheading through the cosmo’s to reach their blue brother. When the limb and gadget both wrap themselves around the indigo angel’s legs, the two of them shoot throughout the depths of space and start to close the gap between them.

From what remained of the Kybr’s true form, Mall expels out entire galaxies from the cosmos held within his numerous fractured wings; their starry edges their very edges cutting through the very space they dwell in like a galactic saw blade. As the indigo angel weaves around the solar systems that are launches his way, his siblings latched behind him smack away their very stars as they get closer and closer to their blue bro; each galaxy breaking into nothing but stardust open being struck. With just a few moments away from collision, the cosmic angel unfurls their wings and sends forth one last leviathan galaxy out in an effort and thwart their assault once and for; Mall’s blue ward left in awe from the sheer size of the sent out solar system that hurdles his way. Just when facing the end of his final assault upon his former master, the blue boy witnesses siblings fling themselves out from behind him and towards the oncoming galaxy; both the orange skater and purple merc using the dark weapons in their hands to slice the very stars into shards and giving their brother the way forth. “All you Tore!” “Go for it!” Both his loyal brother and sister having given him a way forth towards the end, Tore speeds out towards their celestial foe as fast as he could; packing all the power he had gathered into his fist as he nears Mall’s center eye.

Within the core chamber, all of the glue that both Hank and Ryan had shot out in their pinching barrage starts to stick to the Orphans spiraling golden rings and keeps them from moving another inch; their ammunition running out before they could shoot out to the last few rings closest to the core. “I’m out.” Ryan warns. “Me too.” Hank adds. “Shit, now what?” Melvin questions. “We keep moving!” Alex orders. The demon determined to finish the final step of his strategy, both Melvin and Alex lunge forth towards the glistening child like core.

Seeing the core itself unleash a shining ray out towards them both, the young man zips out ahead and powers straight through the burning light to reach towards inner rings protecting the Orphan. Upon landing right above the core does Melvin take an iron vice grip onto the few remaining golden rings, feeling their incredible holy light burn his demonic infused hands as he keeps the halo’s from moving another inch. “Finish it!” he screams out. Requested out from his partner, the orange demon prepares to deal the ending attack to the open infant shaped core among the still halos; Alex morphing his arm into a sharp tipped pike as he nears towards the end.

Putting every single bit of power he had left to muster behind his swing, Tore thrusts his colorfully glowing fist straight through his former mentor’s center eye; Mall letting out a loud, ear piercing shriek as the life his student had gathered breaks apart his celestial body.

Once before the child shaped core of the warp gate, Alex thrusts his transformed pike limb straight through its glowing body; the core letting out a loud outcry as the darkness from the demon’s arm spreads within and fractures it to pieces.

Upon both of these finishing blows are the space around them all engulfed in a brilliant light; blinding all who behold its majestic glory as both the cosmic angel and holy child’s forms break apart. This awesome heavenly light slowly begins to fade away from view, away from this very existence only for all to dim into darkness once more.

An exhausted groan escapes him as Tore starts to open his eyes, obtaining the first lovely view of the morning sun arising out from the cloudy sea; the blue boy pushing himself right off the golden floor and stands upon his very knee’s. Peering over does he discover not just his family that had aided him in his ultimate hour of need, but all their friends as well; all of them lying along the golden spire floor unconscious; the early sunlight shinning its warming glow upon their sides. We’re back...Does that mean…? His vision peers skywards towards the golden halo hanging above them all, the picture of the other dimension held within its very rim was no more. The boy’s head droops down to the golden floor as an incredible relief washes over the indigo angel; certain this entire ordeal, the threat of the Kybr, was stopped just in time. His eyes arising from his own relieved reflection along the golden floor, a forlorn stare spread across his face as a peculiar site catches the blue boy’s attention; the blue boy finally standing on his own two feet and stumbling over towards such.

When awakening from their exhausted stupor, each one of them find themselves laying outside the spire and take in the welcoming site of the morning sky; the fresh twilight breeze all the more relaxing after the turmoil they had endured. While taking in the wonderful site along with their well earned victory, Mally suddenly feels somebody tackle her back down upon the ground; peering over her shoulder upon falling to discover her skeletal pal giving her a tight hug as she shout: “Hell yeah, bitch! That whole fucking show was insane! Still can’t believe all of us stopped shit from hitting the fan here!” “You’re telling me. I didn’t think we were gonna make it. After all the crazy stuff we all went through, It’s hard to believe we stopped all this from going off.” the orange skater admits.

During their little celebration, Hank rolls along over alongside Ryan as the wheelbound genius takes in a much more intrigued look to their surroundings and claims that: “Now that we stopped all of heavenly hell from busting loose. I wanna take a real good look at the kind of technology that makes this big old tower tick. I wonder how many gadgets and gizmo’s I could make from salvaging its parts?” “Seriously hope yer not planning on using any of the nasty shit we saw down there; cause I ain’t touching any of that stuff as long as I live. The way that all that squishy meat felt under his feet is something I might haveta blow money at just going to therapy for.”

“From the way things sound, seems like all of you did a bang ass job without us. Bravo there, kids.” Roy applauds to both Alex and Melvin, who stand before him. “Well, it was mostly thanks to my strategic prowess that the day had been won. No need to thank me.” the demon boasts aloud. “Motherfuc- So all the effort we put in to stop all that from going down wasn’t that important, that what you mouthin off over?” Melvin barks. “Please. As if that’s what I mean’t. All of the components around me were what made my vision possible...Though I doubt any of you would come up with anything half as brilliant.” Its in this last comment that the shots had been fired and horses take off, both of them going off on each other like set off C4 explosives of screaming complaints and insults; Roy shaking his head as he peers away from the two and out towards his blue brother.

Midst watching her friends talk to themselves over what all they went through, Mally see’s her purple brother venturing over to Tore’s side; the orange girl parting from her friends to join Roy in checking on him. The two witness find their blue brother kneeling down onto the golden floor, noticing a strange light emanating from the blue boy’s front. “Tore, you okay there?” his violet sibling worries. “...I’m fine.” he answers with clear melancholy, keeps his eyes to the light underneath. Peeking out from behind him do both Roy and Mally find their blue brother staring down upon a glint of light that hover’s above the palms of his hands; the sparkling glow glimmering like the very cosmo’s. “Is that who we think it is?” Mally questions. “All that’s left of him. And all that might ever be.” the indigo angel answers, rising upon his own two feet.

Continuing to gaze down to the cosmic glow left within his hands, Tore walks out towards the wayside of the golden spire; friends and family alike gazing to him as he walks towards the very edge. “Tore.” Along his very back do the boy’s wings of white protrude outwards, the indigo angel finally leaping off the very edge of the spire; all of them venturing to the edge to watch as the boy hovers down towards the sea of clouds below. “He might have to think some things through, Mal. Think we should just give him some time to himself.” his purple brother suggests.

His saddening gaze is kept upon the reminisce of his former master that now rests upon his gentle palm, Tore continues to hover down to the fluff below with the golden spire at his back; the light of Mall’s remains shinning as they passing down through the clouds. The light of the morning sun continues to arise from the cloud horizon as he slowly descends downward; its twilight glow reflecting off the edge of the shinning golden spire. Alas can its light not overshadow the bit of the cosmo’s that rests within the angel’s hand; its glow reflecting within Tore’s own eyes. Finally does he descend down through the sea of clouds, the cosmic glow in his hands shinning past the numerous clouds before he passes down through the bottom. A flock of countless tropical birds rises right past the blue boy; Tore keeping his eyes glued to the glint of his former mentor as tears start to drizzle out down towards tropical jungle down below.

Among his lamenting descent does Tore gently land down onto the jungle floor along the base of the spire, the grass beneath his feet parting as he touches down on the earth. Tore parts his palms out from beneath what remained of his once beloved mentor, letting the last bits of the cosmic angel flutter down towards the ground and disappearing into the earth. A small snivel escapes as the indigo angel wipes away the tears that flow down from his very cheeks; the blue boy gaze out to the vast jungle set before him to behold the flora and fauna alike that bask in the welcome morning sun together. It’s a new day. A fresh start. Everyone wakes up to the lives they walk. I just wished you could’ve shared in it all with me...Thanks Mall, for showing me how much its all worth. A small breath leaves his lunges before he begin to walk away from the golden Kybr spire set behind him; his wings glistening with bits of colorful glitter trailing behind as he walks forth into the unknown beyond. Along the ground he left behind does a lone plant start to sprout out from the earth; the small stalk of a flower who’s petals show the depths of the cosmos.

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Words cannot simply describe how long I've been waiting to write this whole arc out. From its strange beginning all the way up to its dynamic and bittersweet conclusion. I've seriously been planning to make something like this along the lines of 2 years, but knew I had to simply pace myself and wait for the moment to do so. That arc of one of the main characters finding a rolemodol, but having them be someone that they would have to stop in the end. To those of you that have actually stuck around this long, thank you. Thank you for taking the time to read the sort of stuff that comes out from my brain. Writing this redo these past couple years have shown me ways to improve my writing techniques for the future, and I have a bunch of amazing characters created by so many others to thank for it. Thank you for letting me mold these stories.

#lillaxtrigger #Young Hope #next generation

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pamphletstoinspire · 3 years

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The Season of Septuagesima Are you ready for Lent?

Definition Septuagesima and Lent are both times of penance; Septuagesima being a time of voluntary fasting in preparation for the obligatory Great Fast of Lent. The theme is the Babylonian exile, the “mortal coil” we must endure as we await the Heavenly Jerusalem. Sobriety and somberness reign liturgically; the Alleluia and Gloria are banished

“The Sundays of Septugesima are named for their distance away from Easter:

The first Sunday of Septuagesima gives its name to the entire season as it is known as “Septuagesima.” “Septuagesima” means “seventy,” and Septuagesima Sunday comes roughly seventy days before Easter. This seventy represents the seventy years of the Babylonian Captivity. It is on this Sunday that the alleluia is “put away,” not to be said again until the Vigil of Easter.

The second Sunday of Septuagesima is known as “Sexagesima, which means “sixty”. Sexagesima Sunday comes roughly sixty days before Easter.

The third Sunday of Septuagesima is known as “Quinquagesima,” which means “fifty” and which comes roughly fifty days before Easter. Quadragesima means “forty,” and this is the name of the first Sunday of Lent and the Latin name for the entire season of Lent.

Throughout this short Season and that of Lent (next Season) you will notice a deepening sense of penance and somberness, culminating in Passiontide (the last two weeks of Lent), that will suddenly and joyously end at the Vigil of Easter on Holy Saturday when the alleluia returns and Christ’s Body is restored and glorified.”

From The Liturgical Year by Abbot Gueranger

The season of Septuagesima comprises the three weeks immediately preceding Lent. It forms one of the principal divisions of the liturgical year, and is itself divided into three parts, each part corresponding to a week: the first is called Septuagesima; the second, Sexagesima; the third, Quinquagesima.

All three are named from their numerical reference to Lent, which, in the language of the Church, is called Quadragesima, that is, Forty, because the great Feast of Easter is prepared for by the holy exercises of forty days. The words Quinquagesima, Sexagesima, and Septuagesima, tell us of the same great solemnity as looming in the distance, and as being the great object towards which the Church would have us now begin to turn all our thoughts, desires, and devotion.

Now, the Feast of Easter must be prepared for by forty days of recollection and penance. Those forty days are one of the principal seasons of the liturgical year, and one of the most powerful means employed by the Church for exciting in the hearts of her children the spirit of their Christian vocation. It is of the utmost importance that such a season of grace should produce its work in our souls – the renovation of the whole spiritual life. The Church, therefore, has instituted a preparation for the holy time of Lent. She gives us the three weeks of Septuagesima, during which she withdraws us, as much as may be, from the noisy distractions of the world, in order that our hearts may be more readily impressed by the solemn warning she is to give us at the commencement of Lent by marking our foreheads with ashes.

This prelude to the holy season of Lent was not known in the early ages of Christianity: its institution would seem to have originated in the Greek Church. Besides the six Sundays of Lent, on which by universal custom the faithful have never fasted, the practice of this Church prohibited fasting on the Saturdays likewise; consequently their Lent was short by twelve days of the forty spent by our Savior doing penance in the desert. To make up the deficiency, they were obliged to begin their Lent many days earlier.

The Church of Rome had no such motive for anticipating the season of those privations which belong to Lent; for, from the earliest antiquity, She kept the Saturdays of Lent as fasting days. The Gallican liturgy, it is true, had retained the Greek custom; but it was abolished by the zeal of King Pepin and St. Karl the Great.

At the close of the 6th century, St. Gregory the Great alludes, in one of his homilies, to the fast of Lent being less than forty days, owing to the Sundays which come during that holy season. It was therefore, after the pontificate of St. Gregory, that the last four days of Quinquagesima were added to Lent, in order that the number of fasting days might be exactly forty. As early as the 9th century, the custom of beginning Lent on Ash Wednesday was of obligation in the whole Latin Church. All the manuscript copies of the Gregorian Sacramentary, which bear that date, entitle this Wednesday In capite jejunii, that is to say, the beginning of the fast. But, out of respect for the form of divine service drawn up by St. Gregory, the Church does not make any important change in the Office of these four days. Up to the Vespers of Saturday, when alone She begins the Lenten Rite, She observes the rubrics prescribed for Quinquagesima week.

Peter of Blois, who lived in the 12th century, tells us what was the practice in his days: “All religious begin the fast of Lent at Septuagesima; the Greeks, at Sexagesima; the secular clergy, at Quinquagesima; and the rest of Christians, who form the Church militant on earth, begin their Lent on the Wednesday following Quinquagesima.” The secular clergy, therefore, were bound to begin the fast two days before the laity – that is, on Monday, as we gather from the Life of St. Ulrich, Bishop of Augsburg, written in the 10th century. Quinquagesima was then called Dominica carnis privium sacerdotum, that is, priests’ carnival Sunday, when the announcement we made that the abstinence from meat was to begin on the following day.

This usage, however, soon became obsolete; and in the 15th century, the secular clergy, and even the monks themselves, began the Lenten fast, like the rest of the faithful, on Ash Wednesday.

There can be no doubt that the original motive for this anticipation was to remove from the Greeks the pretext of taking scandal at the Latins, if they did not fast fully forty days. Whilst faithful to Her ancient practice of fasting on Saturdays, the Roman Church gladly borrowed from the Greek Church the custom of preparing for Lent, by giving to the liturgy of the three preceding weeks a tone of holy mournfulness. Even as early as the beginning of the 9th century, the Alleluia and Gloria were suspended in the Septuagesima Offices. In the second half of the 11th century, Pope Alexander II enacted that this custom be everywhere observed, beginning with the 1st Vespers of Septuagesima.

Thus was the present important period of the liturgical year, after various changes, established in the cycle of the Church. It has been there for more than a thousand years. Its name, Septuagesima (seventy), expresses, as we have already remarked, a numerical relation to Quadragesima (the forty days); although in reality, there are not 70 but only 63 days from Septuagesima to Easter. This is partly to represent a profound mystery connected with the number 70. St. Augustine speaks of two times: the time before Easter, representing our sojourn on earth, and the time after Easter, representing eternity. The Church often speaks of two places corresponding to these two times, Babylon and Jerusalem. Now the Babylonian captivity lasted 70 years; and it is to express this mystery that the Church, according to all the great liturgists, uses the name Septuagesima for this season.

Again, the duration of the world itself, according to the ancient Christian tradition, is divided into seven ages. The human race must pass through seven ages before the dawning of the day of eternal life. The first age included the time from the creation of Adam to Noah; the second begins with Noah and the renovation of the earth by the deluge, and ends with the vocation of Abraham; the third opens with this first formation of God’s chosen people, and continues as far as Moses, through whom God gave the Law; the fourth consists of the period between Moses and David, in whom the house of Juda received the kingly power; the fifth is formed of the years which passed between David’s reign and the captivity of Babylon, inclusively; the sixth dates from the return of the Jews to Jerusalem, and takes us as far as the birth of our Savior. Then, finally, comes the seventh age; it starts with the rising of this merciful Redeemer, the Sun of Justice, and is to continue until the dread coming of the Judge of the living and the dead. These are the seven great divisions of time; after which, eternity.

Holy Mother Church reminds us during this season that we are sojourners upon this earth; we are exiles and captives in Babylon, that city which plots our ruin. The Church wishes us to reflect on the dangers that beset us; dangers which arise from ourselves and from creatures. During the rest of the year She loves to hear us chant the song of Heaven, the sweet Alleluia; but now, She bids us close our lips to this word of joy, because we are in Babylon.

The leading feature, then, of Septuagesima, is the total suspension of the Alleluia, which is not to be heard again upon the earth until the arrival of that happy day, when, having suffered death with our Jesus, and having been buried together with Him, we shall rise with Him to a new life. Perhaps we could not better show the sentiments, wherewith the Church would have her children to be filled at this period of Her year, than by quoting a few words from the eloquent exhortation, given to his people at the beginning of Septuagesima, by the celebrated St. Yvo of Chartres in the 11th century: ” ‘We know,’ says the Apostle, ‘that every creature groaneth, and travaileth in pain even till now: and not only it, but ourselves also, who have the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption of the sons of God, the redemption of our body’ (Rom. 8: 22, 23). The creature here spoken of is the soul, that has been regenerated from the corruption of sin unto the likeness of God: she groaneth within herself, at seeing herself made subject to vanity; she, like one that travaileth, is filled with pain, and is devoured by an anxious longing to be in that country, which is still so far off… During these days, therefore, we must do what we do at all seasons of the year, only we must do it more earnestly and fervently: we must sigh and weep after our country, from which we were exiled in consequence of having indulged in sinful pleasures; we must redouble our efforts in order to regain it by compunction and weeping of heart… Let us not become like those senseless invalids, who feel not their ailments and seek no remedy. We despair of a sick man who will not be persuaded that he is in danger. No, let us run to Our Lord, the Physician of eternal salvation. Let us show Him our wounds, and cry out to Him with all our earnestness: ‘Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I am weak’ (Ps. 6: 3). Then will He forgive us our iniquities, heal us of our infirmities and satisfy our desire with good things.”

Brian Williams, from the “Liturgy Guy blog”, says “Thankfully, as more are introduced to the Traditional Mass of the Roman Rite, the brief season of Septuagesima is being reintroduced into the life of the Church. As this means more of the faithful can better prepare for, and enter deeper into, the season of Lent, it is an objectively positive development.”

#septuagesima season

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awesometheydontknowiamhere · 4 years

Text

Back Alley Back-Up

John Reese X Reader

Requested: Yeah, the voices in my head wanted me to write this.

Summary: Reader works at a diner and just around closing time a handsome, injured, mysterious stranger lands at her feet. This fic follows them through the night as she tends to his wounds. But will a man who resides in the shadow of anonymity stick around in the real world?

Warning: A bit of gunfight, some first-aid stuff. Mostly fluff, tried to make it cute.They don’t even kiss in this.

A/N: I was so pissed while writing this, which is why this turned out to be the LONGEST ONE-SHOT I’VE EVER WRITTEN.

Words: 2101

It had been the usual, tedious day for you at the diner. The boring monotony of endless transient customers and just enough regulars to keep it interesting, you had a love-hate relationship with your job. You were just about ready to get off your feet and go home. All you had to do was take out the trash through the backdoor.

You hummed a tune to yourself and pushed open the door with your hip, each hand holding a garbage bag. The night sky boasted of a full moon, but the competing neon lights dulled its effect.

You hauled the bags one by one into the dumpster. At the end of the alley, you could hear commotion. It was probably drunk idiots causing mayhem.

You thought about venturing forth to see what the commotion was about, but knowing these streets, it was better to return to the safety of the diner.

A rapid, incessant noise filled the air and its growing volume took you by surprise. You froze in place, half covered by the dumpster but still visible to anyone who entered the alley.

Two men tumbled over the wall, landing a few feet from you. That brought you back and you ducked behind the dumpster, unable to reach the diner without drawing attention to yourself. You pressed your palms against your ears, trying to drown out the sounds of what seemed like machine guns. You wanted to close your eyes and escape this completely, but you had to keep your wits around, lest they spotted you.

Your heart was beating a million miles a minute and it was hard to concentrate on anything with it drumming in your chest.

An eternity passed.

You realized everything had been silent for quite some time.

You crawled on your knees and peeked out, shocked to see one of the men lying on the street. You looked around, making sure that he was alone and approached him.

“Sir, can you hear me? Are you injured?”

He was moving and he opened his eyes, striking and expressive, looking straight into yours.

“You need to get out of here. They might be back with more people. Go. Run.”

You were taken aback. Here you had an injured man in the back alley of a diner and he was asking you to run.

“No way, you are coming in with me.”

You bent down and helped him up. He could walk, but you made sure that you could use you for support.

“I work in this diner right here, it is empty for the night and I am in charge of locking up.”

You instantly regretted blabbering. You had given a total stranger detail about your schedule, and more importantly, told him you were all alone.

What if he was the bad guy?

The time for questions would come later, it was important to patch up this handsome stranger before anything else.

You helped him into one of the chairs and went to retrieve the first-aid kit and a bottle of scotch.

“Don’t worry, I used to volunteer as a nurse, I can more than patch you up,” you said with a smile.

“My name is Y/N and yours?”

“I am John,” he offered.

“Well, John, not to be too forward and considering that this is the first time we’ve met, I am going to ask you to take off your jacket and your shirt.”

You felt your cheeks warming up and you looked away.

“Yes, ma’am.”

John smiled at you and tried slipping off his jacket, but failed as he winced in pain.

“Oh my God, exactly how badly are you hurt? Why don’t you relax and let me take care of this?”

You walked over to him and removed his jacket with practiced ease, mumbling words of comfort every time you heard a sharp intake of breath.

You then moved in front of him, holding his hand you inspected him. His white shirt was blotted with blood, especially at the left shoulder.

“John, you are bleeding from you shoulder. I am going to have to remove your shirt too, okay?”

A world of effort prevented your hands from trembling while they went up to the buttons on his shirt. The situation had you pumped with excitement, the consequences be damned. A tall, striking man, with an air of calm and mystery, lands wounded right at your feet and here were undressing him, right in the middle of your diner.

Your hands were under control and you mentally willed your heart to beat moderately, and not motor on erratically.

You decided to look at your hands as you moved on to the next button, you hadn’t realized how slow you were going.

“No, I am fine. I am not injured. Yeah, he got away-“

You jumped back and he instinctively wrapped his fingers around your wrist, gentle enough but they clearly didn’t want you move from the spot.

“Who are you talking to, John?”

He looked at you for a pregnant minute. You could almost see the lie forming in his head.

You hated liars.

“You know what? I don’t care. Your name probably isn’t even John and I am not here to get to know you better or whatever. I am just going to patch you up and toss you out and you can go ahead and shoot whoever you want.”

His finger flicked his ear and you looked at him in confusion.

“Y/n, I am wearing an ear piece, I am talking to a friend. And my name truly is John,” he said. He wasn’t even sure why he was giving you an explanation. To be completely honest, he had suffered worse injuries and walked away, but something about you had him hooked the moment he looked into your eyes. He made a split decision to follow you into the diner, to spend a few more minutes with you before he disappeared.

“So you are fed or a vigilante or something?”

“Something,” he said and you rolled your eyes.

“Okay Mr. John Something, I still need to look at your body. I meant wounds,” you fumbled over your words, mentally kicking yourself for making that mistake.

John looked like he was suppressing a smile and a warm feeling spread in your chest.

He let go of your wrists and you went back to unbuttoning his shirt, this time, not lingering on each one. You peeled it away from his chest, only to reveal a white undershirt with a bullet proof vest over it.

“Aha! At least you were wearing a vest. You have rotten luck buddy, the bullet skimmed past your skin exactly wear the vest ends.”

“I met you, how rotten could my luck really be?”

You lightly smacked his chest and laughed.

“Flattery will get you absolutely everywhere with me, John but right now you need to tell me how I can get you out of this,” you said.

He gave clear instructions and you helped him out of it, glad that this time he didn’t seem to be in pain.

“The final layer, so we can go about it in two ways. Either you let me take it off you, which might hurt like a bitch or you let me cut it off with scissors, that way you won’t have to lift your arms.”

“And which one do you prefer, y/n?”

“I actually prefer both, because then I can finally see what exactly the bullet proof vest was protecting.”

“You just had to ask, dear” John said and whipped off his undershirt.

You were gob smacked for a hot second; the expanse of skin had you rooted in your spot. You let your eyes roam freely, and when they finally landed back on his face, you were hit with guilt. His chest was bruised in two or three places but those were nothing compared to the site of blood slowly dribbling over his chest.

“God, I am such an idiot. Sorry, John. I was busy checking you out like a total perv,” you said, unfazed by your own choice of words.

You stepped closer to him, entering the V he had vacated for you between his legs. His thigh pressed lightly on both sides of you and you suppressed the shiver that touch spent up your spine.

You cleaned up his wound and patched gauze on it and informed him that it was just a surface wound. His gaze settled on your face and you basked in his attention for a minute before stepping out of his personal space.

You placed a hand on his cheek and excused yourself.

While you were rumbling through the pantry, John called his friend and partner, Harold.

“Where on Earth are you John? Your location places you at a diner near the target’s house,” Harold immediately launched into a series of questions.

“I will tell you everything later. Let’s just say I found a very caring lady who is helping me with my wounds. I called to tell you so that you wouldn’t worry,”

With that he hung up and you showed up with bags of frozen peas a couple of minutes later.

“Sorry, it took so long. I was looking for these. Now I don’t think you have any broken bones so I am hoping a cold compress and a Tylenol will do.”

You kneeled on the floor to be face to face with his torso and you missed the look of absolute fascination on his face.

You looked up at him and realized your position. You banished those dirty thoughts from your mind and willfully ignored his tall, lean, muscular form in front of you and how strong and solid his thighs felt under your palms.

You cleared your throat.

“So I am just going to feel around and see if anything is broken. I don’t know why I am telling you all this? You probably have had dozens of doctors go over you, considering the amount of injuries you have. I am just going to shut up.”

“No, y/n, please keep talking. It keeps my mind off the pain,” he said, the smile on your face not going unnoticed.

You placed on hand on his shoulder and the other over his last few ribs, directly over the developing bruise. He jerked back and you instantly apologized.

“Y/n, relax. Cold hands, that’s all,” John said and laughed.

“You scared me, I thought I hurt you. Do that again and I am going to throw a bag of peas at your head,” you said, shaking your head.

You ran your skilled fingers over his ribs, prodding and poking to find any breaks in the bone. You realized you had an ideal hand on his chest, and you were glad to feel his strumming heart under your palm.

“You’re fine. Here, hold this packet of peas over your ribs,” you handed it to him and rose up on your feet.

“I hope you like scotch,” you said as you poured him a glass, “it’s going to help with the pain.”

“Here’s to finding you when I needed you,” John said, his eyes crinkling with his smile.

He held your hand as he sipped the amber fluid, his thumbs rubbing the back of your palm. You didn’t want to ruin the moment with words. You just took it in, the dimly lit diner, the occasional beads of sweat glistening on John’s body, and his gaze consuming you.

Your phone trilled loudly, smashing the moment into shards. You walked over to your bag and answered your cell.

“Yes, Jules. I won’t forget, promise.”

Your roommate had a bad habit of guilt-tripping you into picking up groceries and running errands. You stayed on the call for a few more minutes, reassuring her every few minutes. She finally hung up and you sighed in relief, glad to finally go back to John. The whole time you were getting restless, it felt as if the time you had with him was limited and you didn’t want this to be the last time you saw him.

You walked back into the dining area, still and empty. Everything, from the piece of tape you had ripped with your teeth while fixing him up to the pack of frozen peas, it was all gone.

Of course, he would leave and remove all traces of him. So much for leaving behind a memory.

You gave the room one last glance before locking up, realizing something else was missing too.

You laughed out loud.

The bastard had even taken the bottle of scotch with him.

#john reese #john reese x reader #person of interest #person of interest fandom #person of interest fanfiction #jim caviezel #harold finch #sameen shaw #john reese x sameen shaw

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teacupfulofstarshine · 4 years

Text

the crossroad of our destinies book one: earth

summary: virgil isn't sure how he got roped into this crazy adventure. somehow, he's traveling around with the avatar, his blind earth bending younger brother, a chipper air bender, and a banished fire bender prince, and they're supposed to save the world? virgil can't even tell them he's a water bender. he's not cut out to save anyone. little did he know, they're cut out to save each other - and maybe the whole world in the process.

(OR: an avatar the last airbender!au, centering around a water bender virgil)

a/n: i . . . wrote the entire first chapter in one day . . . how i still do not know . . . the confusion is real. huge, huge, HUGE amounts of thanks goes to @lovelylogans for cheerleading me through this and also beta reading the first chapter. this wouldn't exist without her, and i love her, and i am so eternally grateful

CW: atla-typical fantasy violence, brief nonspecific allusions to child abuse, angst, background death of minor unnamed OCs, family angst, mentions of burns

wordcount: 5882

read it on ao3!

“This is gonna be so interesting!” Patton says, draping himself on his belly over the ball of air beneath him. “I’ve never seen real earth bending before!”

“That would imply that there’s such a thing as fake earth bending, which there decidedly is not,” Logan says, adjusting his shirt with a huff. Virgil glances up from where he’s sharpening his knife next to the fire, raising an eyebrow.

“I’ve done all kinds of reading about earth bending!” Patton says, seemingly oblivious to Logan’s indignation. “There are scrolls about it all over the Air Nation temples, but I’ve obviously never seen one! Earth benders went extinct so long ago that -”

“What?” Thomas says, lifting his head to stare up at Patton.

“The Fire Nation desecration reaches beyond our home?” Logan asks, one hand curling into a fist at his side. “They have burned more villages to the ground than ours?”

Roman pokes at the campfire with a stick, keeping his eyes cast to the ground. “The Fire Nation is trying to wipe out all other benders. They don’t want anyone left but us. Why do you think I ran away from home? My father told me that the other nations attacked us first, but . . .”

“Falsehood,” Logan snaps. The earth begins to shake beneath him. “We would never do something so horrendous! The Earth Kingdom is a peaceful settlement, we - we would never -”

“Calm down, Rocky, I’m not accusing you,” Roman says. The campfire flares up, and Virgil’s eyes flicker to the waterskin at his side. His hands won’t move fast enough if Roman’s temper causes him to lose control. Something else might, but he refuses. “I’m just saying, there’s a lot of propaganda in the Fire Nation. We’re not all heartless evil bastards. Some of us are just trying to protect our homes. I abandoned a lot when I saved you and your brother from my father’s army.”

“Oh, yes, like what?” Logan snaps. “Like a cushy life in the palace? Like your status as the next in line for overlord of us all and destroyer of my people? Like -”

“Like my twin brother,” Roman says coolly, tone betraying the way the fire surges and sinks in time with his heavy breathing. “Like my best friend, the boy I was to marry. I loved him so much, and he helped me escape, and - and my father probably killed him for his insubordination. I’ll never see him again, and whose fault is that? Mine!”

The fire surges up in a pillar. Before anyone can react in a meaningful way, a vortex spirals to life around the flames. In a flash, all the oxygen is sucked out of the fire. It dies instantly, leaving a pile of half-charred twigs. Patton lets his bending stance drop, and the vortex falls away.

“Everyone,” he says quietly, “needs to take some deep breaths. It’s going to be okay. Everyone here has suffered at the hands of the Fire Nation. Everyone here has lost something. It’s okay to acknowledge that pain, and hurt, but it’s not okay to blame each other or ourselves. Roman, you can’t control what your father did to you any more than Thomas and Logan can control the fact that they’re earth benders.”

“I am an earth bender,” Logan says quietly. “Thomas is -”

“The Avatar,” Thomas says. He studies his hands in silence, and Virgil slides his knife into his boot.

“Yeah, well, Avatar or not, you were born an earth bender,” he says. Everyone looks at him in a surprise that he mirrors internally; he’s not really one for speaking up during moments like this. There have been plenty since they all started traveling together, but Virgil typically keeps his mouth shut.

“What?” Thomas asks. Logan turns his head towards Virgil’s voice. His unseeing eyes bore right through Virgil, as though they’re peering into his soul.

“You were born an earth bender,” Virgil repeats. “That’s the whole damn point of the Avatar cycle, isn’t it? The Avatar spirit gets cycled through all the nations so that each Avatar gets a new and different experience to the one before. No matter what anyone says, you’re an earth bender. Just ‘cause you’re the Avatar too, that doesn’t change your birthright.”

His voice slips away from him, falling into the familiar cadence of his grandmother telling him stories as a young child. “You are an earth bender. You were born with the pull of Mother Earth in your bones. The Lion-Turtles have gifted you with an awareness of what is beneath us, always, a firm and unyielding constant in a world too fluid to appreciate it. You must hold steadfast to what is right and true, because no one else will do it for you. Air, flighty and fluid; fire, scorching and shifting; water, rapid and raging; all these will move from one form to the next as it suits their needs. You must anchor them, or no one will.”

He blinks, snapping himself out of the strange trance he lulled himself into, and becomes aware of the other three staring at him. “What?” he snaps defensively.

“That was . . . something,” Thomas says. “Where’d you get a story like that?”

“My grandmother,” Virgil says, pulling a knife from inside his robe. He makes sure that everyone catches the sharpness of its edge glinting under the half-full moon before he goes back to sharpening it. “She would tell me stories of the other benders all the time, how every element has its strengths and drawbacks. She told me that every element plays a role in keeping the world balanced, and that someone would have to repair what the Fire Nation was breaking without destroying the Fire Nation in the process.”

“And why not?” Logan asks - not accusing, genuinely curious. He shifts one foot a couple of inches and a rock springs from the ground next to Thomas, allowing Logan to sit down.

“Because if we lose fire benders completely, we lose everything we worked to rebuild. We need harmony between all four elements. That includes Princey and his fire bending.”

Roman thrusts a fist forward, and the campfire reignites itself as a small fireball bursts from his fist. “Thanks, Waterboy.” Virgil flinches a little. “What? You’re from the Southern Water Tribe, aren’t you?”

“What? Yeah. What about it?”

Roman just shrugs and goes back to the campfire.

*~*~*~*~*

Logan is amazing at earth bending.

Granted, Virgil knows next to nothing about the techniques, other than the fact that they involve a lot of foot movements and heavy grounding. It seems to be the complete antithesis of Patton’s air bending and Roman’s fire bending, both of which appear to center heavily on movement. Still, it’s plain to see that Logan is something of a prodigy. He moves as though the earth he bends is an extension of his own body, controlling it with an easy, fluid grace that belies his solid stances.

It’s hard to believe, watching him, that he’s the younger brother. It’s hard to believe that he can’t see anything. Roman comments as much, and Logan sends him flying with a blunted earth spike without so much as turning to face him.

“Ow!” Roman shrieks. He’s unharmed, of course; Patton had swiftly leapt into the air to catch him and return him to the ground. “What was that for?”

“I can so see,” Logan retorts. He barely comes up to Roman’s shoulder, but he’s solidly built, despite his young age.

“I thought you were blind!”

“I am. My eyes have never seen a day of my life. That does not mean I cannot see, you moron. I simply do not see with my eyes. I use my feet to see. The ground tells me everything I need to know. You, for example, are currently clinging to Patton like a terrified lemur, and he is hovering approximately as far above the ground as my forearm is long.”

“How do you do that?!” Roman says, dropping from Patton’s arms to land on the ground. “Also, there’s no way that you’re strong enough to take me down.”

“And why not?” Logan asks. “I could so take you down.”

“This is a bad idea,” Virgil says.

“You could not!” Roman boasts.

“This is a bad idea,” Virgil repeats.

“That sounds like a challenge,” Logan says, turning in Roman’s direction and tilting his head in a clear act of dismissal. “Unless you are afraid to face a young, blind earth bender, Prince Roman?”

Roman’s face changes from pride to ice in a split-second. He’ll tolerate Virgil’s “Princey” jabs, but he hates being called by his proper title. “You’re on.”

“Not here!” Thomas yelps. “We are standing in a very flammable forest, and none of us can water bend!”

“Aren’t you the Avatar, master of all elements?” Roman says testily.

“Only in the Avatar state, at the moment, which I cannot trigger on my own! If you guys set the whole forest on fire, people will come and investigate! We can’t risk being found - I can’t risk being found!”

The sound of his older brother’s voice seems to snap Logan out of it, at the very least. He shifts his left foot, and Virgil shivers as a small earthquake rumbles through the ground. It’s low-scale enough that anyone else who notices it will pass it off as normal seismic activity. For their little group, however, it’s much more than that; it’s Logan checking the nearby terrain.

If that isn’t enough to terrify Roman into surrender, Virgil seriously worries about the state of his brain.

“There is an isolated rocky plain not far from here,” Logan says. “I suggest that we have our battle there. Will tomorrow suffice?”

“Fine by me,” Roman spits, stalking away. Patton drops to the ground and begins to croon to his giant sky bison Remy, stroking his nose. Remy huffs out a breath that rustles the trees around them. Virgil is inclined to agree.

*~*~*~*~*

“I have said it before, and I will say it again. This is a BAD idea.”

Virgil tugs his thick jacket on over his loose tunic and pants. Logan sits next to him, controlling a small mound of earth like it’s wet clay. With every shift of his perpetually-bare feet, he changes its shape.

“I will not be injured,” Logan says. “Roman will not intentionally injure me. He considers me an opponent beneath him, and he is too gallant to harm a child.”

“How old are you, anyway? Not judging or anything, I’m just . . . curious.”

Logan’s earth mound trembles. “I am . . . twelve years and six months old.”

Virgil just blinks at him. He’d thought that Patton, newly fourteen, was the youngest member of their crew; he and Roman are both sixteen, and Thomas is seventeen. He’s assumed this whole time that Logan is around Patton’s age, maybe a few months older, despite his slight stature. “That’s . . . younger than I was expecting.”

“Are you going to remove me from your expedition?” Logan challenges. He clenches his fist, and the earth mound shatters into dust. “I will not abandon Thomas. He is my brother, the only remnant I have of my family. Of my village, my people, my culture. He is everything to me. I will not return to an ashen husk of my home because you do not consider me mature enough for this journey.”

“You’re the most mature person here, and anyone who says otherwise is an idiot,” Virgil says, holding up his hands in an “I-mean-no-harm” gesture. He says it because it’s true, because he believes it, but he also says it because he can see the way the earth trembles below Logan. It reminds him of the sea, in a way - calm and quiet, but constantly roiling beneath the glassy surface.

Logan takes a deep breath, air in and out, and the earth calms to stillness on his exhale.

“Thank you, Virgil.”

“You’re welcome. Now that the mushy shit’s out of the way - this is a terrible idea and you shouldn’t fight Roman. Not because you’re young or weak or anything like that, but because if one of you gets seriously injured, it’s not like we can waltz into the nearest village and ask for help.”

Logan shakes his head, smiling. He looks much older than twelve and a half.

“Trust me, Virgil. This will not be much of a fight.”

*~*~*~*~*

“If I could talk him out of this, I would,” Thomas tells Virgil. They’re sitting on a tall mound of earth that Thomas had bended up from the plain. Patton hovers casually behind them, sitting cross-legged on a ball of air. Logan and Roman stand facing each other, arms at their sides.

“The duel will end when one of the participants is unable to bend, or when one participant cedes to the other,” Virgil announces. He’s still not sure how he got roped into refereeing this crazy death match. Patton bends the wind so that his voice carries down to Logan and Roman, but he doesn’t have to. It’s so silent that Virgil could hear for miles. “No attacks shall be permitted which may result in death or grievous bodily harm. Are these rules understood by the participants?”

“They are,” Roman says. They’re different than the rules to a Fire Nation duel, Virgil thinks, judging by the slight confusion that crosses Roman’s face before he settles back to cool indifference.

“They are,” Logan says. He and Roman are an arm’s-length apart.

“Bow!” Virgil calls. Logan and Roman each take a step backward and bow from the waist, a sign of respect between duel participants. Despite their bickering, they do respect each other. (Virgil thinks.)

“Turn and walk! Ten or fifteen paces!” The traditional standard is ten paces, but Logan’s legs are much shorter than Roman’s, so he has to walk fifteen paces to cross the same amount of ground that Roman does in ten. They turn around and walk, and once they’ve made it the designated distance they turn back to each other.

“Ready your bending stances!” Roman squares his shoulders and lifts his hands, curling them into fists. Logan spreads his feet apart, planting them shoulder-width apart. Virgil raises a hand up high, bringing it down sharply to connect with his palm like a knife slicing through a fresh kill.

“Begin!”

Roman immediately launches a huge fireball at Logan. It’s red, the lowest intensity Roman is capable of producing. Virgil laughs internally; Logan was right. Roman is holding back. Thomas makes a worried noise, but Logan is unaffected. He shifts one foot, thrusts his hands out and flicks them up, and suddenly a massive wall of earth rises in front of him. Roman’s fireball slams harmlessly into it, singing the upper layer of dust but otherwise having no effect.

“I knew you would temper your attacks for me!” Logan shouts, dropping his wall. “If that had been your usual strength, my wall would have disintegrated!”

“And you took that risk?!” Roman says.

“Because I knew you would go easy on me! That is not the point of this duel, Roman! Fight me like you mean it!” Logan stamps his foot, and two massive pillars of earth rise up beside him, one on either side. Another stamp, and the pillars segment into disks. Logan begins to move, still between the pillars as he hurls the disks of earth at Roman.

Roman dodges the first few disks easily, but Logan is relentless. For every few disks he throws, he stamps his food again, and the pillars rise up again. He draws more and more earth up from beneath him, and it’s all Roman can do to keep himself from being crushed.

“Are you trying to kill me?!”

“I thought you were a prince! You should be stronger than this!”

Roman stands perfectly still, and Logan sends a disk hurtling towards him. Roman screams and throws his hands forwards, and a massive burst of golden-orange fire roars out. It engulfs the disk, pushing it backwards and melting it. Molten rock splashes to the ground, and Roman runs forward. He has twin flames clenched in his fists, like knives, and Logan grins wildly.

“Finally!”

The ground grows soft beneath his feet. Roman yells, thrusts a fire-knife forward like he’s going to stab Logan in the head, and Logan vanishes. He drops down, sinking below the earth, and Roman whirls around, confused. The pillars sink down into the ground, and Roman growls.

“Get up here and fight like a man!”

The ground rumbles beneath him, almost like Logan is laughing, and then a pillar of earth bursts up beneath Roman and sends him flying into the air. As he falls, another pillar flies up, smashing into him, and then another and another and another. Roman is knocked around like a ragdoll; he fire bends in the air, hurling jets of flame at the earth, but Logan is apparently so far underground that he is unaffected.

Finally, he slams onto the earth, flat on his back. Logan pops up from underground, covered in a layer of dust, breathing heavily. He takes a single step towards Roman and collapses.

“Logan!” Thomas shouts. Roman pushes himself to sit up, placing a hand along Logan’s neck. The earth bender doesn’t stir. Roman says something, but it’s inaudible. “Patton, please!”

“On it,” Patton says, bending Roman��s words toward them.

“He’s alive,” Roman rasps in their ears. Thomas stands, slamming his foot into the ground, and a curved chute carves itself into their observation mound. Another stamp, and a flat piece of earth appears at the mouth of the chute. Thomas leaps onto it and begins to surf down towards Roman and Logan.

“A little help?” Virgil asks Patton dryly. Patton offers his hand, pulling Virgil up into his arms, and then they’re flying.

*~*~*~*~*

Logan sleeps for about six hours before sitting up, rubbing at his eyes. “What hit me?” he groans. “Did I lose the duel?”

“You both lost, morons,” Virgil says shortly.

“You and I are the only ones here - no, wait, someone else is laying by the fire. Roman?”

“Yeah. He’s sleeping off what you two did to each other. Patton and Thomas are off by the river getting water, because if I have to watch Thomas mother-hen over you two anymore I’m gonna lose my fucking mind.” He stabs angrily at the fire. “You over-exerted yourself with that crazy tunneling move.”

“I . . . have never tried it on that large a scale before,” Logan admits, shakily sitting up. “Even now, my bending feels . . . exhausted. My vision is foggy. I - for the first time since I learned to bend, I feel truly blind.” He sounds like a scared kid, and it’s enough to evaporate what’s left of Virgil’s anger.

“Hey, you’re alright,” he says gruffly. “No one’s dead, and you two hopefully have a better understanding of each other’s power now, right?” Logan nods, silent. “Good. Just know that if you ever scare your brother and Patton -” ( and me, he doesn’t say) “- again, I’ll drown you in the fucking river.”

Logan cracks a smile at that, and it doesn’t fade, even when Thomas returns from the river and practically tackles him into a tearful hug.

*~*~*~*~*

Sometimes, Virgil has regrets.

Remy coasts through the sky, Patton seated on his head with a loose grip on the reins. Logan, Thomas, and Roman all huddle together, Roman in the middle so that his warmth exudes out to encompass them like a bubble. Virgil is starfished on his back, staring up at the sky. It’s so different to the one that he’s used to seeing over the Southern Pole.

He misses home.

He misses the familiar sting of ice and snow against his skin. He misses the scent of seal jerky drying out next to the campfires. He misses packing down the firm snow to create walls for the igloo, misses hunting with his friends and family.

He misses bending.

The Fire Nation thinks that they have eradicated water benders from the Southern Pole. They believe that Virgil’s father, whom they cruelly killed on their last raid, was the final water bender.

They think incorrectly.

Virgil’s father sacrificed himself to save his son. The pendant Virgil wears around his neck, carved from the rib bone of an ancient and mighty Lion-Turtle, was the only thing he was allowed to keep when his father’s body was prepared for burial. His mother gave it to his father when they were married. She died bringing him into the world, and the Fire Nation made him an orphan.

“Virgil?” Thomas asks, shifting on Roman’s chest. “Are you okay?”

Virgil exhales, rolling over so that he’s facing his sleepy friends. “Yeah, Thomas, I’m okay. Just homesick, you know?”

“I get that,” Thomas says. He reaches over and gently touches his sleeping brother. “At least I have Lo with me, to remind me of home. You don’t even have that. I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Virgil says easily. “It’s not like I have a family to go back to, anyway.”

A sad look crosses Thomas’s face, but he doesn’t push. Virgil can’t decide if he’s grateful or disappointed.

*~*~*~*~*

It’s amusing to watch Logan drill Thomas in earth bending. Every time Thomas messes up, Logan throws a pebble at him, and not with his earth bending, either. He will literally pick up the nearest chunk of rock and throw it at Thomas. He hits him in the arm without fail.

Virgil snickers from where he’s darning a tear in his pants. He has a bone needle in his pack, and it doesn’t take a lot of skill to find plants that he can twist into sturdy fiber thread. He’s already got a pretty sizable ball of thread rolled up beside him.

“You can sew?” Roman asks.

Virgil flinches at the sudden noise, nearly pricking his finger with the needle. “Don’t scare a guy like that, Princey!”

An upset expression crosses Roman’s face, but he brushes it off. “Still!”

“Yeah, I can sew. In the Water Tribe, you have to learn to do stuff for yourself.” Especially when the Fire Nation kills your parents, he doesn’t say.

Roman bounces eagerly. “Do you think you could teach me to do that?”

“Why the hell do you wanna know how to sew?”

“If something rips, I have to be able to fix it myself,” Roman says firmly. “Teach me, please?”

Virgil sighs. “I only have one needle, so you have to wait until I’m done with this actual work before I start teaching you. You will prick your fingers a lot, and you are not allowed to bitch at me for this. You brought this upon yourself.”

Roman just grins, sharp and wild. It’s the grin of a Fire Nation child, and it should strike terror into Virgil’s heart. He’s almost more terrified by the fact that it doesn’t.

*~*~*~*~*

Virgil quietly creeps away, after ensuring that everyone else is soundly asleep. They’re fortunate enough to have camped near a river this time, despite the fact that they’re still in the middle of the woods as they travel. What their endgame is, Virgil doesn’t know. For now, they’re just traveling so that the Fire Nation doesn’t catch them off guard, complacent in one place.

He steps into the river, and the feeling of water around his ankles is soothing. “Hello,” he breathes.

Virgil knows that his father wasn’t a water bender. He doesn’t think his mother was a water bender, either, although it’s impossible to say. The pendant that she gave his father was carved by water bending, tiny thin streams of water manipulated skillfully along the surface until they etched grooves. It doesn’t make sense that she would have trusted its creation to someone else, but if she had no choice . . .

Despite his insecurities, being in the water always makes him feel closer to both of them.

He slowly lifts a hand, and a stream of water coils up to meet him. It wraps around his wrist, like a vine, like a friend, coiling up towards his neck. Virgil exhales, tips backwards, and lets himself fall into the water. He moves his hands as he falls, bending the river water so that it flows around his head. The water rushes through his ears, and Virgil is at peace.

He stares up at the full moon, pretending he can see his father’s smile staring back at him in the craters on its surface.

*~*~*~*~*

“There are spirits in this place,” Thomas says. His eyes aren’t glowing the way they do when the Avatar State overtakes him, but there is an unnatural shine to his irises. “They are here, and they are angry.”

“Why?” the village leader asks. Thomas turns his head towards the village leader’s young daughter, sees the way she cowers away from her father. Virgil doesn’t have whatever supernatural perception Thomas does, but he doesn’t need Avatar State eyes (or whatever the fuck is going on) to see the bruises that litter her arms under her tight sleeves.

Thomas takes a step forward. The earth shakes beneath him. Logan shifts to a bending stance in a single breath, but Thomas puts a hand out to stop him. Ice-blue wisps of fog coil up around him, and Virgil takes a step backwards as a massive spirit-dragon appears in the village square.

“They are angry,” Thomas repeats, and his voice reverberates with a power well beyond his years.

Yeah. Virgil’s pretty angry, too.

*~*~*~*~*

“I didn’t know you could do that,” Logan comments idly, as they fly away from the village. He’s holding tightly to his brother; without the ground to, well, ground him, he tends to cling to Thomas. “With the spirits.”

“You could sense them?”

“Not with my earth bending. They’re not solid. But I could feel them. I knew they were there, and . . . and once you spoke, I knew they were angry.”

“No child should be hurt,” Roman says darkly. He’s slumped over the side of the saddle, watching the ground pass by below him. “No - no child. No child should be hurt.”

Patton is silent, clutching Remy’s reins with white knuckles. He’s been silent since they left, but Virgil is too attentive to miss the tears streaming down his face. They’d saved the day, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a pit in all their stomachs.

*~*~*~*~*

When the Fire Nation soldier bursts through the bushes, everyone moves in an instant.

Patton and Logan spring in front of Thomas immediately; Logan is in an earth bending stance and Patton has wind spiraling around his fingertips. Virgil draws a knife from his sleeves and grips it tightly. The soldier looks to be in his mid-sixties or so, with gray-white hair pulled back in a topknot and a beard flowing down his front. He has a round potbelly, but there is something sharp and militant in his eyes.

Roman is the only one who hasn’t moved. “U - uncle?!”

Everyone stops and stares at him. “Uncle?” Patton echoes. The Fire Nation soldier blinks at Roman, and his entire face softens.

“My beloved nephew.”

Roman throws himself at the strange soldier, and the soldier catches him, hugging him and holding him close. “Uncle! Uncle, you - what happened?! After I left, Remus, Dee - what happened to them?!”

“I will explain all in time,” the soldier (Uncle?) says. “But first, perhaps you should tell your new friends that I am not a threat before they kill me?” There’s a wry smile on his lips as he looks at them all, a bedraggled group of teenagers ready to fight and kill.

Roman just hugs the strange man tighter, and Virgil sheaths the knife when he hears Roman’s muffled sobs. Despite their constant bickering, he knows that Roman really, truly does miss his home, and now he has a small piece of it back. Virgil imagines he’d react in a similar way if a member of his family showed up right now (even though he has no one to show up). He can’t begrudge Roman this little scrap of comfort.

*~*~*~*~*

The Fire Nation soldier is revealed to be Roman’s Uncle Emile, brother of the current Fire Lord. “My brother,” Emile says, stroking his beard slightly, “can only be described as . . . a little bitch.”

“Remus,” Roman repeats, sitting next to his Uncle and gripping his hand. “My brother, Uncle, what happened to him? What happened to Dolos?”

“Your father was furious at them for letting you and the young earth benders escape the capital,” Emile says. “He dared not wound Prince Remus, but Dolos is only a noble’s son. He was spared no such courtesy.”

“Is he dead?” Roman whispers. He’s shaking; Virgil wonders if he should attempt to offer some sort of comfort.

“He is not dead,” Emile says. “Your father challenged him to an Agni Kai - a traditional fire bending duel. Dolos barely fought back. He knelt, prostrated himself, begged for forgiveness. The Fire Lord did not grant it. The left side of his face and torso are badly burned. But he will survive.”

Roman blinks, and tears pour down his face.

“Your father banished him, and you as well,” Emile says. “Remus has been sent on a mission to capture the Avatar - to capture you.”

“Where is Dolos?” Roman rasps.

“Remus insisted on taking him with him. He told your father that he would leave Dolos in an outlying colony somewhere, but he remains below deck on the ship. He is healing from his wounds. He will be scarred for life, but he will still have a life.”

“I want to see them,” Roman says.

Emile shakes his head. “Prince Roman, no. It is a bad idea.”

“Why?”

“If you are spotted on board the Fire Nation ship, the crew will have no choice but to take you back to the Fire Nation as a prisoner. You are a fugitive. It cannot be risked.”

“I’ll risk my own safety if I damn well please!” Patton flinches at Roman’s shout, but Emile remains calm.

“I will not risk your safety, Nephew. Will you risk the safety of your twin? Your betrothed? Your new friends?”

Roman’s fire-angry glare shifts to them, to Virgil, who meets his eyes coolly even despite his terror. He won’t let Roman know that he’s afraid. He knows how much Roman hates it when they look at him as though he’s a fire bender to be afraid of. Roman exhales, and the campfire flares but he remains calm.

“I . . . I won’t. But I miss them, Uncle.”

“I know you do,” Emile says. “My status as a disgraced general has finally come in handy, for I have been assigned as your brother’s advisor on this so-called fool’s errand. I will do my best to keep him safe and out of trouble.”

Roman fidgets with his hands. “Could . . . could I write them a letter?”

Emile hums, considering. “I suppose that could be arranged.”

Roman scribbles down two scrolls and passes them to his uncle. “Please take care of them for me, until - until I can come back and take care of them myself.” Emile nods, kissing his forehead.

“I am proud of you, my nephew.”

He disappears back through the bushes he came from, and Roman stares longingly after him. “Roman?” Patton asks. “Would - do you want a hug?” Roman stands stiff, back straight, shoulders pushed back. For a moment, he doesn’t look like their friend. He looks like a soldier.

Then he turns around, and his eyes are wide and wet, and there’s snot dribbling down one corner of his face. “ Yeeeeeeeees,” he wails. Patton smiles, opens his arms, and lets Roman come crashing into them.

*~*~*~*~*

Before they head out the next morning, a bird flutters down to land in front of Roman. He gasps when he realizes what it is, gathering the sharp-taloned bird into his arms and crooning over it. He showers its head in kisses. Virgil is lost.

“This is Dragon! He was my pet back home, he’s a messenger hawk!” The bird chirps, nibbles on Roman’s ear lobe, and presents him with the parchment tied to his leg. Roman snatches the scroll, unrolling it eagerly, and Virgil peers over his shoulder.

The upper half of the scroll is a near-illegible scrawl, with a splotched signature that Virgil can barely make out as “Prince Remus” accompanying some doodles and a splatter that looks almost like blood. The lower half is in shaky but beautiful calligraphy. The opening address is “My darling flower,” and the ending signature reads “Yours forever, Dolos.”

“My love,” Roman whispers, tracing his fingers over Dolos’s signature. “And my brother . . . I love them . . . so much.”

“You gave up a lot to be with us,” Thomas says. “I appreciate everything that you’ve sacrificed. Logan and I would be dead without you.”

“I’m glad no one is dead,” Roman says softly, voice wavering. “I just . . .”

“You love them,” Patton says. “We understand.”

Roman strokes the parchment. His fingers come away slightly black with ink from the upper portion that his brother scrawled, and he exhales. “I am going to write them back. I’ll send Dragon to them. I’m not losing touch with my family, not again. Not this time. Remus and Dolos aren’t going to leave my life, not this time. They’ve got just as big a bone to pick with my father as we do. They can give us usable information.”

“Will that endanger them?” Logan asks.

“Uncle Emile is there, too. He can help them be discreet. I’m not abandoning my old family for this one, but - but I won’t betray you to my father, either. That’s not what a prince does.” Roman squares his shoulders again, and Virgil blinks in surprise. Roman doesn’t look ridiculous, like a child-soldier, or militant, like an enemy. He looks proud and strong and regal.

He looks like a real prince.

“I support you,” Logan says, startling all of them. “You are a prince, even if you are not our prince. I trust your judgement.” Roman seems the most shocked of all of them by Logan’s bold proclamation, especially considering the heated duel they’d had just three weeks ago, but Logan’s milky grey eyes look like they’re staring into Roman’s soul.

Virgil is familiar with that look.

“If Lo trusts you, I trust you,” Thomas says, and he smiles widely. Patton nods, smile bright and bubbly, and Roman looks to Virgil. He offers a thumbs-up and ruffles Roman’s hair. Roman squawks and bats at him, pushing him away. Virgil laughs and falls over easily into a back-bend.

“Once you’re sure Thomas is solid on his earth-bending, we’re going to a sacred Fire Nation site on the fringes of the empire,” Roman tells Logan. “Fire comes next in the Avatar cycle, right? After earth?”

“I think so?” Thomas says.

“I know so,” Logan confirms. “And I think he’s ready.”

Roman nods, and the fire blazing in his eyes is the most reassuring thing Virgil’s seen in quite a while. (It’s strange to say, considering Roman is a Fire Nation prince, but Virgil’s used to people judging him by appearances. He’s learning to reconsider his assumptions.)

“Alright then,” Roman says. “I’ll write back to my brother, try and find out what sites might be relatively empty so that we can camp ourselves out there. Fire Nation, here we come.”

#starshinewrites #avatar!au #platonic TLAMP #sympathetic remus #sympathetic deceit #romantic roceit

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