#(but the body matters not as it suspends itself in its own fluid broken in the loam)

[interrogatormentors]

No, he wouldn't blame you, would he, Helmsman. He doesn't even blame Her. How long do you think She will keep him alive? Seadwellers are sturdy. I can't imagine how much pain She could subject him to before his body gave out. Would you keep him there with you until he takes his final breath? Would you watch him bleed and shatter and rot beside you just so you don't have to be alone?

He wIIll la2t a2 long a2 hII2 mIInd doe2

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but he ha2 two play hII2 part. PaIIn

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II2 a me22age he II2 learnIIng two IIgnore. II am

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lucky two have hIIm for what 2hort perIIod he wIIll yet lIIve

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and that II2 that.

[thepilgrimofwar]

The Hanged Man

Art by Leandro Henriquez 

The Hanged Man is one of the most mysterious cards in the tarot deck. It is simple, but complex. It attracts, but also disturbs. It contradicts itself in countless ways. The Hanged Man is unsettling because it symbolizes the action of paradox in our lives. A paradox is something that appears contradictory, and yet is true. The Hanged Man presents to us certain truths, but they are hidden in their opposites.

The main lesson of the Hanged Man is that we “control” by letting go - we “win” by surrendering. The figure on Card 12 has made the ultimate surrender - to die on the cross of his own travails - yet he shines with the glory of divine understanding. He has sacrificed himself, but he emerges the victor. The Hanged Man also tells us that we can “move forward” by standing still. By suspending time, we can have all the time in the world.

In readings, the Hanged Man reminds us that the best approach to a problem is not always the most obvious. When we most want to force our will on someone, that is when we should release. When we most want to have our own way, that is when we should sacrifice. When we most want to act, that is when we should wait. The irony is that by making these contradictory moves, we find what we are looking for. -Macauley Williams

Sederis wandered the grounds of the Sunguard encampment, dressed and ready for war. Though it was only the eve of battle, he wore his armor all the same. It was his way, this fine line between safety and paranoia; a paranoia that had, so far, kept him safe. He approached the tent of the Lifespeaker. It had been long since they last spoke. Too long. Not only as friends but even as colleagues. He had been so caught up in bringing order to the Emberglades and preparing it for war that he had neglected the world. It was time he changed that.

“Miss Stormsummer?” He asked tentatively at the entrance to her tent. But there was no response. He moved closer, lifting one of the flaps to her tent and saw only trees. Old and gnarled, reaching for light that did not exist.

I’m in a dream.

He stepped inside, into a dark forest where trees grew twisted and tall. The tent had fallen away, in its place, was Elleynah. She stood at a crate, at a crossroads. Her hands were still, and before her; a spread was a silk cloth... and a deck of cards.

"You have great need of the cards." The voice that came was flat and even; but its speaker still bore the shape of his friend.

He was taken aback at first, expecting the bright-eyed and cheery girl who he had spent his off-time with in Dalaran. But the sensation quickly passed. He understood. Times change, and so do people. Light knows that he had. "I do," he replied, low and even. "I do have a great need of the cards, and so does the realm. More than ever."

Elleynah nodded, two shining lights glowed from beneath the hood the woman wore. "Fate-filled times. Much is needed." The voice, hollow and unalive seemed to shift. "Speak, soldier, seeker. What would you ask, of fate?"

Sederis gave himself a moment to think. Of some things he was certain, but of others... Old and eldritch like the copse of trees he stood in, or the... Thing, that handled a deck of little windows into the unknown before him... Perhaps it was time to indulge an old belief. One that Sederis had thought he forgot. "How do I best venerate Lady Death. I am done appeasing her, slowly bleeding my life away, living in remorse for sins I can never atone. How do I best pay tribute?"

The Lifespeaker paused, and her fingers moved over the cards. "Oh, a worthy question. Worthy indeed." There was a thread of something in the tone, and then-- the woman's body shuddered, as though something was struggling within her flesh. Something made her flinch, and then... its over, and she is still once more. Her hands moved to the deck, and lifted it, sending the cards rolling through her hands like fluid. "Tell me when to stop."

Sederis waited, and waited until the forest is still. Silent. As if a predator had stalked amongst its ancient roots of the wood. "Stop," he said at last.

The girl seemed to shimmer before his gaze- hands too fast to follow- cards flowing like liquid shimmering light, and then at the word, they stopped. The world stopped. Everything; his heartbeat in his ears, the rhasp of breath. Cards exploded in every direction, catching alight, flames raining down around the pair like a storm. All cards, save five, which glowed in his face, floating, before rotating around him. He could see them, for a moment, and then- he was washed in bright and brilliant light, the forest fading into a battlefield; the undead charged against a line of bannermen, and then- on another flank, the elves of Teldrassil and Stormwind against the Sin’dorei, and on another flank- there, infernals and demons of all kinds against the Deathseeker. Chaos- confusion- every war. Every battle. Before Sederis, was Riah; she wore red and white, a wedding gown and banner both. She held Stenden in her arms; he was bleeding from a wound in his brow.

Suddenly, Elleynah was at his side, and her words were somber, soft. “You are drawn in too many directions- overcommitted to each act and war, to every part of what you have broken and forgotten.” Her voice wove, and the fighting stopped- freezing as a moment in time. “You will learn to choose your battles- or perhaps you have. But was it soon enough?” Riah crumples, Stenden with her, but before Sederis can so much as reach for them, he is swept into the Dawnspire halls.

He stands next to Telchis, and there is a wartable in front of him; across, Lor’themar and Kaelthas nod as the pieces move- a living Sylvanas lays a hand over the shifting map. Sederis feels the weight of his mantle and cloak; the age of him now. He hears Elleynah, but cannot see her. “To satisfy death is to feed death. To give it what it wants; to consume. Destroy. The end of living is a force that can be woo’d, can be turned in the direction of your foes for great effect, but she is a monster.” The table changes- Sederis stands with none but the wounded, ancient veterans and fresh-faced youths. The doors reverberate with the sound of the enemies that pound at them. Sederis is not himself; he is a young man, lost, alone, knowing that those gilded halls and great elven lords have set this fate upon him. The walls are breached, and he is then on a familiar hill.

He turned, expecting to see Riah, but instead it is a fairhaired woman. It’s Lirelle. She turns to him with her gleaming smile, but it is Elleynah’s voice that pours out. “You rely too much on those who wish for your life to continue. You have promised too much to both the living and the dead. You will never keep your promises. You must learn to accept you cannot be everything… not even to those you wish you could be. A lesson offered many times. Never learned. Choose truth; true clear sightedness. Choose what it is to be both man, and to be leader, but know you cannot always hold both masks.”

Lirelle shifts, and the starry night begins to burn again, the stars falling in flames like the cards had, until suddenly he was alone in the black. Alone, and the world was silent. For ages- aeons- it was nothing. And then, a single star broke from the nothing, and he once more beheld… someone. She was lovely; she was Elleynah, and Keltressa, and Lirelle, and more than that Riah, Caeliri, Azriah, Thanidiel- every woman. Her eyes glowed. She radiated heat. She spoke. “Death above all, is peace.” Her hand reached out, and she placed a fingertip on his brow. “Death is quiet, in the end. It is the peace of the battlefield, a hundred years after the dying is done.” She dimmed, a moment, and collapsed into his arms.

Sederis caught her, and the world dropped out from beneath him; he turned, inverted, and saw that this was a Lirelle as he had never seen her before. What she was- and all of the changes he bore witness to- were lost to him. For now he saw the war, the battles, the golden room and the starry hill in a new light; and understood everything. Then he saw himself, upside down.

“Now, you see.” The other Sederis spoke. “Welcome to perspective.” It offered him a sketched salute… and then he was in the dark forest, and there was no Elleynah, and the dream began to fade. Later, when waking finally caught him, he would remember this, in parts. But for now, waking from a daydream within a dream, he shifted to move, and a single card flittered to the ground; a man, suspended, seeing the world in a brand new way.

Sederis blinked once, twice, and then called out into the darkness. "Elleynah?" He never used her first name.

Whatever had been there was gone; though an echo in the wood followed, just a moment; like the girl was crying out from far away... and then nothing.

Sederis reached out into the darkness. Leaving the card behind him, turning his back on what the fates had revealed to him. True. False. It did not matter. Not to the man who had forged his destiny and the destinies of others with the edge of his sword. Lady Fate could wait, and if she was truly who he thought she was, it wouldn’t matter. They’d always come back to her in the end, whether they liked it or not. So he stepped into the darkness, deeper than anything he had ever known. "Elleynah," he called again, travelling through woodlands undone; the world was trying to steal him awake before he could find her, evict him from the dream. But his Patron was already too clever, too quick, and he slipped the reigns of the dream, pulling himself from the magic by knowing where it began, instead of ended. And he... found her.

Unlike the creature in the woods, this was Elleynah as she was; her face scarred, empty socket black and open, caul-covered frame a litany and hymnal of scars and freckles. She sat alone, staring into nothing, shaking. Her fingers bled, and they bled onto cards- her palms cut deep, strange and alien runed burned into the backs of her hands and up her arms.

Sederis approached, slow and cautious as if approaching a wounded animal. The girl he had sought out the find, the girl he remembered, was here. Beyond the waking world, trapped in a dream wreathed limbo of blood and darkness, here she was. Alone. A conduit- no- a vessel to things both great and terrible. "If I cheat Lady Death of what she's owed. If the fates allow it. I'll come back for you. But for now, this is all I can do." Sederis whispered, taking her bloodied hands into his, in the same way he did long ago when the dream had first begun to take hold of her in Shallowbrook. Just like he did then, he placed his hands over her rended palms, and channelled whatever he could into her. Chi. Life. Whatever the gods and mortal men gave names to things older than hunger itself. He shared it.

Elleynah had been still as he spoke, still as he neared. But as he touched her, her face jerked upward, and he could see the tears running down her face. She looked at him- really looked- and he saw the moment she realized. "You're real." Her voice broke. "You're real. You aren't-" She seemed to break down, bowing over their hands, the magic he gave her; it was and was not his own; he had tricked the Dream, and in so, taken some of it with him. It flowed into her, seemed to push her away- the more he gave, the less she was caught in this hell. He saw her skin clearing, cuts closing, burns fading.

Feeling her slipping away from the dreamscape, and unsure of what it meant, his grip softened. But she grabbed for him with ephemeral hands.

"No-- stop, don't go!" She cried, and he saw the torture; she did not know she was asleep. She did not know she could wake. She was alone, when the magic took hold; unknowing when it would ever let her go again.

So Sederis stayed. Determined to stay as long as the Dream allowed. Mending what wounds he could. Wounds of her dream wreathed flesh. Wounds of her dream addled mind. "I don't think it's up to me," he began, looking out into the darkness like he had done many times before. "But I'll stay with you. As long as I can." Sederis gripped harder, continuing to bleed into her. "You're in a dream," he said, in an attempt to calm her.

Elleynah 's cries grew weaker as he healed her, brought her back from this hell and pushed her out of the Dream. She gripped at his arms though her fingers grew translucent, reached for him, her sobs almost whispers as she tried to hold on to the only real thing she had ever seen here. The only thing that wasn't the magic, the whispers, the visions and sights. “Sederis!” Her voice was a scream, turned so low as to be only a breath in the silence. “I’m sorry, don’t leave me…” Pain, fear, it etched her features, and then… she was gone. Awake, somewhere far from here.

And yet… a voice remained. “She is young. She will learn.”

Sederis looked up and around him, not fully comprehending it all, but understanding that the voice belonged to something old. Older than anything he could imagine. "She will learn if she chooses to. Actions can be forced, but knowledge cannot," he spoke into the darkness. "She isn't yours to claim."

The dream vibrated with some emotion between laughter and indignation, huge and uncanny. He felt it roil, and a shadow appeared to him, briefly- so much like Elleynah, and yet not, her hair long and tangled, body softened by motherhood. Her eyes were empty, shifting, myriad colors within. "Some fates cannot be changed, Deathseeker. You will see." The being smiled, and smiled, too wide, too many teeth... and then in a thunderous roar came, tore the world, tore the woman, and the Dream was done.

Sederis stirred, disoriented. But as he stirs, the card that was Chosen- or had Chose him- slipped from his bed and to the floor.

A Hanged Man, seeing the world... in a brand new way.

@retributionpriest  @stormandozone @thanidiel @thenaaru @dorksworn @curiouslich @azriah @forever-afk

[septic-dr-schneep]

JSE Fanfiction - In Time of Need (Part 18: Unreality)

Summary: While the others attempt to find their balance in the real world, what exactly is going on inside Jackieboy’s head?

A/N: Warning for violence, blood and emotional/psychological trauma.

Despair…

Poison…

Shadows…

Misery…

Broken…

Death, death, death, death—

“Help me! Somebody help me!”

Bitterly cold sweat clung to Jackieboy like a full facemask as he sprinted toward the source of the sound. He was more afraid now than he had ever been because he knew who he would find when he came to the end of this road. The screams were growing in volume, in fear—He could hear each cry in varying pitches, but they were all the very same voice. He would know that voice in any time and any place, no matter the age or the pitch, and no matter what it took, he had to save him.

The moment he turned the corner past the last building in a dark, powerless metropolis, he spotted him and a fresh surge of fear and adrenaline spurred him on. His strides lengthened, his feet pounding like thunder against the cracked, uneven ground.

He had to reach him, save him, he had to protect him. He had protected his people more times than he could count and they were the farthest thing from his mind. For an eternity now he had tried to find someone, anyone in the wasteland of Elvery Heights and now, on the farthest reaches of it all, he could hear him. No one else had ever mattered more. He meant the world and everything in it. Jackieboy had to make him safe and keep him that way; it was all he was created for—

When he hit the transparent barrier, it was with the force of a lightning strike and yet it didn’t break, sending him flying onto his back. Scrambling upright just as quickly as he fell, the hero flew at it again, slamming his fists against it and staring desperately at the little boy on the other side. He surrounded by shadowy figures on all sides—sticky, deformed masses that created an inky web around him, cornering him, hemming him in.

“I’m here!” Jackie called urgently. “I’m here! Let me save you!”

Pressing his hands against his face, little Jack only sobbed harder; if he didn’t look up, he wouldn’t see him! Punching the unseen barrier again with enough force to make his hands bleed, Jackieboy cursed and screamed at him, unheard.

“It’s all around me!” This cry came from an older Jack, a teen crawling out of one of the oozing black creatures, coughing and choking as its essence dripped down his face into his mouth, strangling him. The child Jack flinched away from him, another stuttered scream escaping him as he threw out his hands to protect himself.

“I can hear it calling!” A third Jack burst from the darkness on his left, tearing at himself, trying to peel the ooze away as it slid over the green crown of his head and streaked down his skin and clothing and hair.

Immediately in front of the child, there appeared a fourth—the present Jack, hair and beard darker and thicker, hospital gown flapping wildly in an unseen wind around his thin frame as he stumbled, hunched over, clutching at his throat and bleeding from the eyes and mouth.

While he never locked eyes with the Ego he’d created, he did lift his head, staring into the distance as his bloody lips formed words that never fully surfaced. Even without the sound, Jackie knew what he was saying.

“Goodbye.”

“No!” he howled, scrabbling frantically at the barrier as every part of his creator slowly melted before his eyes, pain and anguish the last thing to see on his inky, liquid face. At long last, the barrier cracked and with three more blows it shattered, but he couldn’t dive forward fast enough. As soon as he did, the scene changed and he had thrown himself into the middle of a battle. Narrowly he dodged a volatile blast of magic and gasped, hurriedly whirling around to pinpoint its maker.

Bruised and bloody, Marvin stumbled backward, his whole body heaving as he struggled to drag in air. As soon as the shadowy creatures started to remanifest, however, he snarled, his eyes igniting with green light so powerful that his pupils and irises disappeared entirely. The spell he hollered was unintelligible but Jackie could feel the rage and the heat behind it as it soared past him and burned the creatures away. When he glanced back, Marvin had crumpled limply to the floor, smoke trailing from his exposed skin. Jackieboy’s heart lurched in his chest.

“Mar—!”

He never reached the second syllable. By some unseen force Marvin was dragged up onto his knees, thicker smoke trailing from his eyes and mouth. As pieces of his mask fell away and scattered before him, his skin turned ashen, shivering convulsively as bits and pieces of his body dissolved away into dust.

Jackieboy had no time to process the shock or even to shout. Gunshots echoed from a few hundred yards away, ricochets ringing dangerously past his ears.

Not Chase. Not Chase!

Shrill, panicked curses shattered the air as Chase charged across the battlefield, sending bullets in every direction in some reckless attempt to defend himself as a half-melted, shadowed war machine tore after him, engines roaring as if the machine itself were alive. Dripping black limbs burst from sockets along its body, swinging and grasping and shattering the ground in Chase’s wake.

Before Jackieboy could move to intercept, a sepia blur passed him from the other side, sprinting toward the danger instead of away from it. No, not toward the danger—toward Chase.

“No, no, get back!” Chase screeched, flinging an arm out desperately to stop him. He was thrown off balance by the motion; the next swipe from the machine snagged him, pushing and pulling simultaneously to bring the vlogger down on the razor edge of its second limb with a sickly crunch. It speared through his chest, drawing a strangled, dying wheeze from him before the limb reeled back and flicked him off like an insect. As soon as he landed, Jameson skidded to a stop, quailing in horror as he saw the blood pooling under Chase’s still form.

As soon as his mouth opened, a hideous noise exploded from him, sending a shock of agony to Jackieboy’s core. JJ’s aura was screaming for him—harsh, distorted tones of old-timey tunes screeching brokenly up and down until they were little more than garbled reverberations, the sepia colors blurring with static and billowing like a storm away from him as he dropped to the ground and pawed at Chase’s body, sobbing into him. While he was distracted, the dripping black limb of the machine swung again, smashing into him at ninety miles an hour. It shattered him on impact.

Schneep was there to catch him, cradling his broken body as he sank onto the ground, curling around him and weeping bitterly into his hair. “Kleine…Kleine…”

As the machine crawled closer, casting a long shadow over him, the doctor lifted his head, weakly blinking away the tears brimming in his eyes as he stared death in the face.

“I know you kill me next,” he whispered.

“Run! Henrik, run!” Jackieboy bellowed. For the first time Schneep reacted to his voice, startling and turning wild eyes to him.

“Jackie?!”

“RUN!” he howled again and Schneep obeyed, scrambling frenziedly to his feet and bolting as the machine chittered and roared.

No matter how either of them ran, no matter the distance they crossed in less than a second, it wasn’t enough. Before they could close the distance, the floor distended, cracked and gave way beneath them. Stars streamed past in a frightening blur as Jackieboy tumbled into the blinding abyss below. After mere seconds of falling, he froze, his hood falling quite gently away from his face.

He hung suspended in midair, scarcely able to breathe. One by one, the stars around him flickered and died out until he was enveloped in complete blackness. The only thing he could hear was the thundering of his own heart in his ears.

The longer he dangled there, unable to move, unable to do anything but let his racing mind still, the further reality set in.

This couldn’t be real…

He couldn’t have…

They couldn’t be gone.

Ever so gradually, the shock and horror of everything he had seen up above gave way to helpless rage so deep in his core that he felt like a bomb frozen mid-detonation. Anguish consumed him, coursing through him like wildfire. Helpless tears scalded his cheeks and his harsh panting gave way to broken moans.

“Please…please, n-no…Take me instead…Just take me…”

It was then that he felt something course and thin tickling his skin as it tangled around his neck. A second slithered after the first, tightening, and a third came after that, each wrapping itself around his throat with more force than the last. He stiffened and gasped, straining to move, but his body wouldn’t respond, not even when the cords were starting to set bruises into his skin.

Each mouthful of air receded further and further as one cord after another pulled taut around him, methodically, deliberately bearing down on his windpipe. His lungs felt elastic, falling slack where they should be constricting and searching for air. The more he struggled and flailed internally, the less air he found until all rational thought became a cloudy, oxygen-deprived blur of dizziness and his eyes fluttered, rolling back in his head.

He let the tightening threads take him, and keep him.

When he woke, the first thing he was aware of was the piercing, needle-like pressure drilling into his skull, just behind his ears. He cried out against it, mostly out of shock and confusion, and then a second time as the pain belatedly registered.

He was still hanging in midair, but now he was mostly upright—in fact, he was tilted slightly forward. Across his chest, arms and legs he could feel thick straps holding him in place against a cold, unrelenting iron rack. The lights around him were dim but as soon as his senses adjusted, he could smell the stench of old blood and chemicals that had never managed to wash it out. He could hear the dripping of unseen fluids far away in the hall and…

Now he could see the man on the other side of the room. His recently regained breath burned as it stuck in his tender throat.

“Hello again,” the Doll Maker purred in his thick, eerily familiar accent, scraping his scalpel in a leisurely circle across the tray in front of him.

“Not you,” Jackieboy croaked, his voice breaking as he flinched back against the rack he was tied to. “Not—not you—” Despite the words coming out of his mouth, deep down he couldn’t help but feel the smallest twinge of relief at seeing someone who was flesh and blood, alive and apparently well.

“Who else would you expect, hmm? One of your friends, yes? Oh, forgive me—I forgot they died up above.” Chuckling ruefully, the former surgeon shook his head, wiping a thumb over the edge of the scalpel and apparently uncaring when he sliced the skin open. He barely reacted; did he feel any pain?

“How…do you know…?”

“We are in your mind, ragdoll. You teach me everything I know whether you like it or not!” Behind his glasses, his old nemesis’ eyes scrunched up like merry crescent moons as he smiled behind his mask, wiping his bleeding thumb off on his apron and approaching. “Is time to have my fun with you before you’re taken back up there to watch them all die again! So messy, isn’t it? I will try not to make such mess.”

Shivering violently with unspent adrenaline, Jackieboy pressed as far back against the rack as he could, hissing in pain as the needles dug further into his skull. Unaffected by it, the Doll Maker lightly traced his cheekbones and jaw with the scalpel, drawing thin cuts.

“I never bothered sizing you up whenever we met, did I?” he questioned rhetorically. “Now I’ve just noticed: you have little smile lines around your eyes, ragdoll! But you don’t have much reason to smile now, do you?”

If he was in the mood to chat, Jackieboy would chat. Maybe the Doll Maker could reveal something he didn’t know, something he needed, he decided in a heartbeat. “Do you…” Biting his lower lip, he leaned his head forward half a millimeter, trying to ease up some of the pressure. “Do you know what happened to Henrik? He was still alive, he was with me…We fell.”

“Oh, I imagine the good doctor is with the Glitch. That’s where he always is when he’s not with you, isn’t it? Because the Glitch always takes him right out from under your nose.”

“S-Shut up.”

“Ahh, don’t shoot the messenger, hero. You know it’s true.”

“He’s—”

“Even here in your zany little brain,” the Doll Maker interrupted emphatically, “that’s where he is when he isn’t with you. Whenever you can’t find him, you know it means he’s in danger. You’d be joined to the hip with him if you could be, wouldn’t you? You’d be joined at the hip with all of them if you had enough hips!” He laughed then, appreciating his own joke, and then patted Jackieboy’s side reassuringly. “Once my little numbing agent works, you won’t have to worry about your hips anymore.”

“Numbing agent?”

“What did you think those needles behind you were, screws in the rack?” At Jackieboy’s increasingly nervous silence, the Doll Maker lifted one shoulder in a half-shrug, waving the scalpel dismissively. “Not my usual style, I know. I would like to cause you much more pain, but in your mind I do not—ah, what is it you say? I do not ‘call the shots.’ The Glitch does.”

The stricken hero’s breath promptly fell harder and faster at that. “Anti. Anti’s in my head,” he murmured hoarsely. “He’s controlling my dreams—”

“And he controls me too!” the Doll Maker reminded him, small patches of his body glitching faintly at the words. “I’m just a little avatar.”

“Then all of the others…they weren’t real? They didn’t actually—?”

“Oh, no, no, no. The others are still alive and well out in the real world!”

As he gradually became aware of the nauseating pins-and-needles sensation tingling through him, Jackieboy tilted his head, squinting at him. He would have expected relief at those words but instead the only things he could feel were bewilderment and unease. “Why…why would you tell me that?”

“Because the Glitch wąn̛ts you to know. All of those d͠eath͝s you saw for them may not have happened, but he’s soon going to fix̨ th̕a̸t. That’s what he has p͟l̶an͡n̢e͝d͝ for them in the real world—and you? You’ll still be here, knowing what’s to come without being able to do a thing about it!” the Doll Maker exclaimed.

Jackieboy’s eyes tried to widen at that, but it was too much of a struggle. The pins and needles were dragging weightily over him, encompassing his whole body, making his eyes ache, making their lids heavy.

“Oh, silly me forget to mention one more thing,” his nemesis called as he started to drowse. “The numbing agent only works for as long as you’re unconscious. I’ll work fast to doll you up nicely while you’re sleeping, but I make no promises! When the drugs wear off and you come to…you’ll probably learn a whole new definition of pain.”

[maliwarm]

@supernovatype2 Thank u very much for indulging me, friend! ;^; *breaks fingers* It’s headcanon-spewing time. 8) A blend of angst and fluff mostly, all under the cut for length. Sorry in advance for any rambly-ness or shittiness, I wrote most of this late last night and I’m still feeling sick from whatever stupid bug/virus I picked up on Thursday.

If I think of any more, I’ll add them! Feel free to add ur own or expand on any of these too; I’d love the excuse to blab more! (0v0)b

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*I think at least part of the reason K’ hasn’t made much progress in regaining his memories is fear. I have no doubt Igniz deleted most, if not all, of the information on him pre-abduction and DNA splicing before he and Maxima could access it out of cruel amusement, and of course that’s the main reason for the delay. But… I also feel that K’ is also probably stalling his own progress because he’s afraid to find out who he was beforehand, and just what exactly he’s lost because of NESTS; family members aside from his sister, the happy childhood that was snatched from him, hell, even the person he *could’ve* been. That’s not to say he doesn’t want to find out his past at all - because he still does, desperately - but the inner struggle between wanting and not wanting is keeping K’ in a frustrating stagnation that, short of a firm nudge or several to pursue his past by either Whip or Maxima, means he isn’t actively seeking out answers. One day though, he’ll finally be brave enough to break out of that stagnation. It’s simply a matter of time.

*In the meantime, he’ll approach Whip every now and again and ask about his past. Just small things mostly, like the sound of their mother’s laughter or if their house was near the beach because he’s gotten whispers of memory of things like that recently and wants confirmation that they’re correct… Whip also tells him any stories she remembers whenever they have a quiet moment alone to bond (usually in the very early mornings over coffee or late at night when he’s plagued by nightmares and can’t sleep, both of them curled up on the couch and wrapped in a thick blanket), tending to favour cuter and/or sillier memories. They’re rather plentiful, anyways, and K’ doesn’t seem to have any complaints with them.

*K’ has encountered his reject clones on *at least* one occasion when storming NESTS’ bases between ‘99 and ‘00 and the experience was…. Bad. They were all deformed in some way or another, due either to the Kusanagi DNA not meshing together nearly so well as it did for him, or something during the test-tube growth period going awry. Mostly physical deformities, but plenty of the clones weren’t nearly as mentally developed as he was either. The encounters (row upon row of copies, all suspended in green fluid, ready to be activated; and mirror images swinging their flaming fists at him wildly, their guttural screams - more animal than human - echoing through the lab) shook him. Badly. As did putting them all down, even if he considered it a small mercy (because all of them looked or sounded like they were in so much pain; it’d be far too cruel to force them to live like that). He and Maxima never talk about it, even if he sometimes still wakes up in a cold sweat (or screaming, though he’s less prone to that these days) from nightmares of the incident.

*Since learning she’s a clone, Whip occasionally (almost frequently) questions the authenticity of her own memories. For instance, she’s questioned if maybe she was wrong about Krizalid: that maybe he really was the original and K’ was the clone… Thoughts like these are usually hastily dismissed or quashed altogether, but she still can’t help but wonder sometimes if whatever “memories” she has were actually fabrications preprogrammed into her by NESTS. These are things she keeps incredibly private. In particular, she’s afraid that the truth about being a clone of the original Seirah will sour things between herself and K’, and he’ll coldly cut her out of his life for lying to him.

*Clark’s win quote against K’ in XIII (“You should stop playing with fire. Whip’s worried about you too.”), makes me think that every time K’ overexerts his flames enough to crack or break his gauntlet, it damages his hand. The hand itself is a patchwork of burn scarring, and the strain is steadily frying its nerves. If he keeps using his flames with that degree of recklessness, he’s going to lose the use of his hand.

*For all that he vehemently denies being a parent figure to Kula and K’, Maxima makes a great pseudo-dad and actually enjoys acting like it (when they’re not being difficult, that is). Kula is always asking him questions about various things, and he always answers patiently and without judgement, no matter how silly the question may seem. He also takes it upon himself to try with varying degrees of success to make sure both of them eat proper meals whenever they have the resources and time for it, since their diets are… pretty awful otherwise; takeout or fast food most days, if they eat at all, or copious amounts of icecream/sorbet or jerky. Carnivorous K’ is affronted by the very existence of vegetables lmfao but he’ll (reluctantly) eat (most of) them. And Kula straight up hates them because they’re not sweet, go figure. It takes force-feeding or plenty of gentle but firm coaxing from Diana, Foxy, or Whip for her to actually eat any. Maxima, of course, doesn’t necessarily need to eat anymore, at least not much, cuz of his enhancements so if he does, it’s usually a “just because” or “for the flavour(s)” kind of deal. Greasy foods and the tar in cigarettes aren’t good for his inner workings, as they can and will gum them up if too much accumulates (and it’s an annoyance for Dr Makishima to have to clean during repairs because it’s difficult), so he has those sparingly.

*Although both of them have knowledge of amazing/advanced things like speaking multiple languages, how to disarm bombs, etc, there are gaps in K’s and Kula’s knowledge when it comes to things that would be considered more common (Kula doesn’t know what a pop star is, for instance, and K’ might not have been aware that fire eats oxygen until he and Maxima were caught up in a cave-in situation or something), thanks, of course, to NESTS and their ideas of what would count as important in regards to educating their tools agents.

*Another thing Maxima misses before his cybernetic enhancement is ice skating and hockey, even if he never did it much in his adult years. His body is way too heavy to even entertain the thought of doing it anymore, so he makes do with wistfully watching Kula gliding around on the ice whenever the team has free time during winter. Kula’s teaching K’ and Whip how to ice skate (with debatable success; she’s not very good explaining things), and he finds the results amusing. He also puts in his own two cents, offering pointers when Kula’s explained something particularly badly or not at all, and it markedly improves the pair’s technique.

*Maxima is a big help in Kula’s efforts to repair Candy, offering her his expertise and knowledge of cybernetics, and also helping her search for parts or missing pieces of Candy’s body; his in-built scanners are incredibly handy for this, ofc. The knowledge he imparts is usually too advanced for Kula, even when broken down in more layman terms, but she’s making an impressive effort to make it stick.

*Animals avoid Kula, no matter how friendly she is to them. Whether it’s something about her scent (unnatural, wrong, dangerous!), or the aura she gives off, or whatever, they’re incredibly weary of her and will either flee or attack in self-defence if she approaches them.

*Maxima doesn’t exactly need to sleep anymore, but it does help prevent him from frying his brain from overworking it with all the calculations, readings, hacking, and what-have-you he does. Sleep for him is usually dreamless.

*K’ isn’t too good at swimming, so although he enjoys the beach, he tends to stick to chilling, away from the water, with Maxima instead. Or playing volleyball in the shallows if he’s in one of those incredibly rare good/playful moods and can easily be coaxed over to play.