#And the yawning void of death beyond

[strangelittlestories]

Once upon a time, I was a Chosen One.

—

The spell spins through the air and I duck just in time. It turns a section of the wall behind me into a fractal skeleton of brick-shards.

—

Since all that was taken away from me, I had always expected to die forlorn, wistful and alone. But I had hoped that it wouldn’t be *today*.

—

The brick skeleton opens its red ribcage to swallow me and I scramble away.

The second mage's spell catches me in the shoulder. My tendons unwrap and attempt to burst out of my skin to strangle me. I push them down with my dwindling anima and they settle grudgingly back into place.

—

I’m getting ahead of myself. You may be wondering how someone becomes an ex-Chosen One. Well, being a Chosen One does not - contrary to popular opinion - make me special. 

I feel the absence of The Embrace constantly; like I’m stuck in the moment on a rollercoaster where your stomach falls away. This does not make me special either. There are a handful of other former avatars scattered about and I know they’re not doing well either (I scry on them from time to time). And besides, we hardly have a monopoly on the churning loss of purpose. 

—

I throw my anima into my fists. I don’t really have any to spare, but I’m done for if I just play defence.

There’s no clever working here, no cunning curse or complex incantation. I just ball up my hand, crush my spirit until it’s solid, then punch it out. The air ripples in a line of force connecting me and the second mage. It catches her in the stomach. I feel agony erupt as she collapses in three different planes.  

It is not nearly enough.

—

I have learned since I left the Mycelial Coven that yearning is a warm and open hearth. All are welcome to sit by the fire at the centre of the yawning void, staring at the flames until they burn the whole world away.

It is worse because I still think it’s correct. We designed The Embrace to be a temporary measure. A distillation of collective power, drawn from a collective of magicians distributed  across continents and consciousnesses.

Sometimes a crisis demands a champion. A single point of focus. A locus of amassed anima from around the world. It is given freely, and this avatar is Embraced; girded in belief, love and enough magic to jumpstart a star.

—

A third mage arrives. He is holding a curse above his head that spreads across the sky like wispy cirrus clouds made of animos (that rancid slurry of tainted spirit). The strands descend and wrap around the three of them, propping up the second mage like a puppet.

They surround me. Strands of sticky, bile-black poison rear up to strike.

I reach for The Embrace to help me. Of course, it is not there.

—

When I accepted The Embrace, I knew it was a once-only deal. It’s too much power to let any one person wield longer than one catastrophe. You get one quest. One war. One singularity. One chapter of the story where you’re the most important person in the world.

And if you survive, you leave the Micelial. That’s the deal. If the collective relies too long on an individual, it makes them a king. If an individual stands above the collective too long, it makes them a god.

So you save the world. You get gratitude. You get support. You get therapy. And you get shown the door.

I still think that is the right call.

But it’s not exactly helpful when you end up back in the life-or-death tangle again.

—

The curse wraps around me like a lover dripping venom.

My tattered anima burns to vapour as I try to stop it seeping into my skin.

I keep reaching. The Embrace is not there. It never will be again. But I reach still, grasping for the place where power once was.

And *something* answers. It offers me infinity. It gives me a price.

There are many sources of strength in the world beyond those made by the Mycelial Coven. The Embrace is only special because it is *benevolent*.

But I do not want to die. So I say to The Something: “Yes.”

[eyesofthethrone]

So inspired by @meanbossart and his art of his durge Drow I wrote about 2k speculating on Drow's relationship and feelings towards Orin the Red and after showing it to him in private I now feel comfortable posting it publicly. Thanks for sharing your art with us man and creating such an interesting character xD

TW: Detailed descriptions of canibalism, suicidal imagery

The congregation all spoke of it, some were quiet, while some were too enraptured in the murder-bliss of Father staunch their words that spilled like blood and blood from the blessed sacrificed.

His sister, his cousin, his priestess, how could he not look upon her except with awe? How his eyes must shine like maggots in the torchlight, gleaming, following her. Obvious to all that look, even the hollowed out eyes of the skulls, fly-licked and stinking, could see it.

All did wonder did he take her to bed, did his mouth fall down upon her in reverent worship? Did she take her brother and lord inside herself? Might there not be a chance that the divine blood might mingle and quicken and the faithful might empty their throats into golden goblets so that they might be raised in celebration of a new Spawn?

Crass. Ugly. Short-sighted creatures. Pathetically mortal despite their feverance. None could ever despoil the most beloved and blessed Orin. Her changeling form was a gift from the Father himself and he had decreed that his daughter would never be violated or deformed in such a way. A beautiful doll, their Father’s perfect puppet. It was why she was perfect, for was it not anathema to their Father to give life? She could not, would not, thus she was purely a vessel for murder.

Oh how he loved her, dressed her in jewels, combed and twisted her hair till it coiled about them like intestines from a split gut. Her smile was the edge of the blade, her voice was the music of the last whimpered gasp of the dying. It seemed profane to him that it was he who was Chosen, and not her, for surely he was a mugger’s cudgel to her executioner’s axe, but he knew not the mind of their Father, could only thank him in prayers that he had deigned to make his sister live at the same time as him. To make his sister love him as he loved her.

Not to say he didn’t dream of intimacy with his beloved Orin, but it went far, far deeper than the dreams and lusts of these base creatures who clustered and fawned and crumpled so easily, so boringly beneath his fingers.

When all was said and done, and their Father’s war was won, they would be the last two living creatures beneath a dead sun, the blood of the graciously murdered would swim about their ankles and the yawning nothing of the void beyond the powers of the slain gods would rush to claim them and there, in that triumphant moment of annihilation would he finally be as of one with her.

Alas, that the moment of death was so brief, he would have just a second of her that way, when he snapped her neck. Perhaps as the last god of the dead world his Father might stretch out that moment of time so that they both might enjoy it, when he murdered her. To spend eternity holding her in his arms as the light left her eyes and the breath gasped between her teeth would be a reward beyond all riches, and while he did not serve out of a desire for reward, if that did happen he would be more than satisfied.

If not, there were still yet other intimacies available to him. He dreamed about it. He imagined what it would be like to peel her skin from her flesh, layer after layer, as fine and as translucent as silk. He might wrap it around himself, cocoon himself in her so that every inch of him was caressed by her. How paltry the pedestrian thought of running fingers through hair or gripping thighs seemed in comparison.

Then with her tender lamb flesh beneath bare, then, oh then would he begin to know her as a lover might. He would run his tongue over every strand of sinew, carve the path of each individual cord into his own unworthy heart. The flesh would be wet and warm as he peeled back each individual layer, quiver in necrotic anticipation of each touch of his lips. The fluids spilling forth her he would suckled and lap at. Just imagining the noises that would make made his spin tingle and his loins ache.

The thought of where he would make the first bite on occasion paralysed him, so many wonderful, tender spots. Her throat, the thin, soft film of flesh before the tough gristle of her larynx. Was that not a perfect metaphor for her? At first glance she seemed so small and delicate, but she was hard and tough, gristle and bone.

Her breast? The softest of meat, full of shimmering fat and so tender it would melt between his teeth and slide down his gullet without him even needing to swallow. To devour her there, to take sustenance would be poetic in a way, to draw nourishment like a child never would.

(Not that he didn’t consider a child, in the darkest and deepest places within him. That their Father might somehow bless them with his seed, and her belly might grow where he could kiss and worship it. That he might be privileged to hold a daughter of Orin in his arms who gazed up at him with his own eyes. But such a thing was anathema to their Lord, so he only held those thoughts in the dark, hidden cracks within his very soul where the Blood of Bhaal might not reach.)

The belly was traditional, of course, a knife parting the delicate sack of her guts so that they might lunge out of her towards him, tangling him up in an embrace, her miles and miles of intestines wrapping around him and holding her closer to her than a woman had ever held a man. Now this, this was true intimacy, close to it. The breathless rapture of holding her where no one else had even seen, let alone touch. He imagined wrapping them around him like a girl with ribbons, wet, soft and supple. Sometimes he thought how wonderful it would be to choke himself with them, to hang himself from the hooks of the temple. The poetic symmetry spoke to the romantic in him, for her to kill him after he had killed her and be left for all eternity as a symbol for those who would follow after. Bhaalist couples would point to their remains and coo “Oh, the greatest of romances, the most ardent of lovers,” for what could be a more perfect devotion of love than to die together in that moment of bliss, a perfect moment that would last an eternity, a true blessing from their Father.

He never would, of course, because as poetic and fairy-tale as that would be, it would be disrespectful to her, to her death and her body and he worshipped her (not as he worshipped Father, of course. People could be so foolish when they said you could only devote yourself to one thing, as if love was finite and not a wellspring eternal in your throbbing meat-heart?)

For the truest expression of his devotion would be to consume her, to catch the edge of a sinew where it met the cartilage, between his teeth and gently, lovingly pull it from her bones. He would not be as crass as to use a knife or even his hands. Only with his kiss would she be defleshed, the long, arduous work of days, even months, but he would do it, he would do it for her. Swallow down every inch of her and hold her safe in his belly like a child, perhaps his gut would even swell up and become round and gravid? That he might place his hand upon it and feel her within him. He would cradle her, sing to her, dream of her, all those things that a mother might do with her unborn child. For such was the depth of his love for her that it moved beyond the common and mundane categories of mortals. Sister, mother, daughter, lover, it was all the same to him, to them.

Her meat would be sweet and lean, soft and easy to swallow, like lamb or veal. He would lick her bones clean of all specks of flesh, he especially looked forwards to the feeling of her eyeballs popping between his teeth and then running his tongue around the inside of the socket. Then her brain, her wonderful, clever, cunning mind, always scheming and plotting. He loved her mind and her thoughts like rot loved the damp. He pictured her seeping into him like mold in a cellar, little black dots swarming over his insides. Would he know her better, understand more once he had finished eating her brain?

The heart was cliche, but cliche for a reason. Before he had come to know his sister a little better and her preferences he had tried presenting her with the hearts of his murder victims like a cat with a broken bird. His beautiful, untouchable Orin had not understood the suggestions of his actions but had accepted the tokens as offerings to their Father. How could he not love her for that? For her clear-minded devotion to something greater than herself. There was so much to be admired in that. When he eventually drew her own heart from behind the lattice of her ribs he would show it just as much reverence.

Her tongue would be another delicacy, when she lived it was sharp and acidic and honest. He loved her mouth, her tongue, her words. Words were just pieces of your soul fleeing your body to try and crawl into others like carrion flies. If he ate her clever tongue would he consume her soul completely?

No, no, he was getting ahead of himself. Not yet, not that yet. First he would have to eat the difficult parts. Not even a drop of her blood would go to waste and that meant he would have to eat her hair, her beautiful, long hair that shimmered like gold in the moonlight, always wet and healthy from the blood that sprayed into it. It would be an ordeal to swallow it all down, he knew he would gag and choke, be forced to swallow down his own bile again and again from the texture but he would do it, he would do it for her, a sign of devotion.

But her bones, her lovely, graceful bones would be the real test. Were he less faithful, less devout he would snap the cartilage and suck the marrow from within but he would take all of her into himself. He could cheat by waiting for them to dry out where they would break apart easier but no, every second wasted, every moment he made her wait would be an outrage. His lips and mouth and throat would be torn open by the shards, they would churn in his belly like, tumbling over and over like stones till they were worn down by the acid, lacerating his insides in the meantime. The agony would be exquisite, each spasm a kiss from her. Perhaps the agony would make him wish for death, perhaps it would actually kill him? It would be poetic for her to kill him from the inside, burrow her bones through him like worms.

Once she was consumed, once he had fully taken her into his body, he would lay down in the bed he had once wished to share with her in the heart of their Father’s temple and hold her within himself. This was why Bhaal was the god supreme, why their Father would one day rule the cosmos as was his right, because what other god permitted such an expression of love like this. This, the most blessed and perfect of unions. His stomach would not swell but shrink, his lovely living in his gut would not be expressed out but absorbed within.

When his stomach was empty, their matrimony would be complete, he would have unified with her completely. Her flesh one with his flesh, her blood running through his veins. For what we eat nourishes us, becomes part of us. He pictured her body dissolving into him, strengthening him. He would never have to eat again he knew because their love, partnership, sibling-hood would be all the sustenance he would need for the final act. He would be privileged that she was going to be the last thing he ever tasted.

For once it was done, Father’s plan realised and he truly was the last living thing in the universe, he would lay down amid the blood and gore and the dead, take his dagger and with a single strike through his own heart commit the final murder and thus murder all of reality, where all would be united in oblivion. No past, no future, just that single shining moment where he was Orin and Orin was him and that would be all he would ever know.

It was beautiful, perfect, poetry, more transcendent than the dreams of lesser mortals who desired such carnality, who believed that a mere exchange of fluids was the ultimate expression of ardour. No vision, no imagination.

What could be better? Except perhaps if the roles were reversed?

Sometimes, in the dead of night, when even the rats and ghosts slept, he would creep over to where Orin lay to watch her sleep, and pray over her, pray that one day it would be she who would eat him.

[sheepheadfred]

Ectoberhaunt Day 17: Cosmic Horror

Summary: All that exists continues to grow out of control without Balance. Human mortals threaten that in order to control for themselves.

Ao3 link

The endless expanse continues to stretch and yawn. Bigger and bigger yet never thinning. Never stopping.

A never ending hunger to grow.

All encompassing voids and those that fill it existing in every realm and dimension. Forever at war. Forever in a dance.

The void wanting to exist and expand and the something else desiring the same.

All things exist in twos.

Time and Space.

Matter and Void.

Light and Dark.

Life and Death.

The twos became a three to keep them from overtaking the other.

All existing yet in balance.

And sometimes Balance is given form to help the two opposite yet equal sides not overtake the other.

Those smaller things that cannot grasp Balance will always seek to harness one or the other. Sometimes both.

If they disrupt Balance too greatly, all will collapse for their section of reality. Reality as a whole will continue, but the wound may take a long time to heal.

Parts of Balance exist in smaller parts, unique shapes to the different realities.

Time can be in any form. In this reality they call themself Clockwork.

Clockwork is aware of the infinite, at least their section of it, and waits for Space to catch up. They can wait, as it will happen as it has many times before.

It only makes sense that Time's Balance, Space, will be in the mirror realm connected to theirs.

Space, Time's Balance, was reclusive like their counter. Reclusive, yet all encompassing. You cannot escape space just like you cannot out run time.

The small things inside Space, the ones calling themselves humans, wanted to break the delicate barrier into the realm that Time resides. The realm of the dead filled with the energy of death.

Mortals who lack understanding already thought they knew all about such matters. Assigning 'Good' and 'Evil' to things and belonging to a morality they themselves invented. When it is just the natural way of things. The expanse of Infinite does not account for things like 'Fairness' and 'Justice', only 'is' and 'must' and 'what never will' and potential. So much potential lost or gained from many variables.

The two mortals who had sought to understand and even erase the 'Evil' from death's hand. They managed to search into the unknown for answers and the speck they managed to see gave them none but a hunger for more. An unknown that was seen by three before death touched him and he drifted away.

The mortals slowly lost themselves in this worsening obsession. A portal. A permanent gateway between! This realm gained Time's interest from the beyond in them wanting to do so. A chance to understand death and appreciate life! Space was curious but Time was not so hopeful.

This gateway did succeed, but not in the way the mortal couple hoped for outside of their knowledge.

A young mortal, still and already but a boy had come into being as a paradox Time was fascinated with him long before they realized what it meant.

Balance had chosen an avatar.

Balance's avatar was a perfect balance between Life and Death with a love of Space and is loved by Time.

The boy, both mortal and dead, does his best to bridge the gap between both worlds. Allies and friends gained as he slowly unlearns the bias his parents forced on him.

But one boy is not enough to change the views of the world where adults assume they always know best.

Sad but true. Especially for him.

Tragedy of powerlessness in the ways that matter.

Time would see this coming and it still greatly saddens them.

Time and Space do their best to protect their Balance, a child blessed by both yet burdened by hardship. Force him into a new reality, one far from their corner of the infinite with only a few blessings and keepsakes from his allies before the end.

For now, a child sleeps in a state between all until it is safe for him to wake.

Humans always assume they know best.

The ones who have sway at least, in any case.

When they can't know or understand something they perceive as dangerous, they seek to destroy it.

They could always try to understand, but these humans who 'pulled the trigger', as their own kind would say, already made up their minds before trying to know the unknown and 'other' besides 'how dangerous' and 'how to destroy' and 'rip it open to see what ticks'.

When they set their sights on the infinite, it was bound to end badly. The only window they could see was their mirror world, home to the restless dead whom they have already labeled as 'Evil'.

They could only see 'Evil' in the dead without care to understand it, only wishing to destroy the 'Evil'. The mortals who ripped a hole between the veil were not the only ones who sought their own doom.

Balance's Avatar stopped it the first time they tried to erase their mirror realm, but they were more secretive and had more power to do so for the second time.

Mortals wearing white, a color of order and cleanliness, acted as if their souls were bleached of compassion as well. Empowered by the Orange and Teal veil rippers, instead of a human missile they used an insidious flower as a key component to aid their self destruction.

No matter how much the child of Balance tried, nothing could be done. No ally or former enemy alike could stop it.

They launched their weapon and ceased.

Between the milliseconds, Time- no Clockwork- could grab their precious chosen of Balance and save him of this fate.

Clockwork, the fragment of Time for this small corner of the infinite, was able to make one choice not pertaining to anything but affection for the child.

A favor? Mercy? Or a cruel sentence?

Maybe an act of Love?

Too late to wonder.

It's over.

The mortals and the dead in this corner of the infinite cease before anyone knew what had happened.

In between the seconds, only able to be counted by Time, faster than a thunder clap. Nothing could be done.

By trying to cut themselves off from death, to refuse it and any understanding that could be gained, they severed life. For how could a mortal understand or appreciate life without its cycle of grown, change, and decay as life comes to meet death if you erase the finish line that exists so new can replace the old?

All the death energy and the force of stolen life, the energy of life left to live for so many, backfired on them.

This section of eternity screamed in agony as it was ripped apart, yet the larger unknown reaches felt it more akin to a mosquito bite. Small and insignificant. A mild irritant that could bring greater agony if the fates were cruel enough.

Time's larger being felt bad for its partner, Space, but it knew for that small realm it was only a matter of 'when' and never 'if'. Not unless major changes were allowed.

Many different timelines continue on past that point, simultaneously ended, because mortals dared to see death and wish to conquer and destroy it. Gone mad from only a small fragment of the vast expanse.

They obsessed yet the beyond did not care.

It was only one fragment of the ever expanding whole.

Only Balance's Avatar, thrown far away from demise, was ever proof the doomed realms ever existed.

[ladyofrings]

Saurons Fall

This is the first part of what lies ahead for Sauron and his redemption. Set immediately after the destruction of the One Ring in the fires of Mount Doom, it serves as a prequel to the story that will follow, written by Carley. TW: None The next Part is here My 🖌️ AO3 -> My Masterlist

The foundations of Barad-dûr shuddered, deep cracks rending its blackened stones. A great roar of flame and fury rose from the heart of Orodruin as the Ring, his Ring, his very essence, was consumed by the fire that had first wrought it. In that moment, Sauron felt the full measure of his doom.

A terrible cry, vast as a storm upon the mountains, tore from his being, echoing across the ruin of Gorgoroth. The Dark Tower, built through ages of malice and will unbroken, groaned like a living thing in death-throes, its battlements crumbling, its foundations unbound. The sorcery that had bound its stones faltered and failed, and Barad-dûr, seat of his dominion, was no more.

Sauron’s form, once great and terrible, wavered as if caught in a wind unseen. His being, once bound in iron will, was now undone, its threads unravelling, the essence of his power torn asunder. No hand could stay his fall, no voice could call him back from the abyss that yawned beneath him. The world reeled, and he was cast from it, as a shadow burned away by the sun.

Then came the void.

No light. No shape. No sound.

Only thought remained, and even that flickered like a failing flame. In the darkness, he reached, but there was nothing. No substance. No form.

He did not know how long he lingered in that place, if time had meaning in the abyss. It was neither torment nor peace, only unbeing. A formless existence, a drifting shadow, stretched thin and worn. The might of Mairon, once Sauron the Great, was naught but a whisper, lost in the nothingness.

He drifted in the void, disembodied, a formless thing cast beyond the living world. Darkness enfolded him, not the comforting shadows he had once shaped to his desire, but a void colder than the deepest pits of Angband, vaster than the chasms of time. He could not move, nor could he see, nor could he grasp at the world he had sought to master. He was nothing.

Was this death? No, for he could still think, could still feel, though his being was but a wisp of what it had been. His presence was sundered, diminished beyond reckoning. He reached for his power, the dominion he had once wielded over stone and will alike, but found nothing. The strength that had shaped armies, that had crafted the Rings, that had whispered into the hearts of kings, was gone. The golden chain of his might lay broken, its links melted in the fires of Orodruin.

And he was alone.

How long he drifted thus, he could not say. Time was without meaning. The void stretched ever onward, a place where no voice spoke, no sound stirred. He had once feared this fate—more than the wrath of the Valar, more than the blades of his foes. To be reduced to shadow, to be scattered upon the winds of Arda, never to take shape again—this was true ruin.

Then, a pull.

It came not from within, nor from the world he had left behind, but from some power beyond his reckoning. A summons, silent yet irresistible, took hold of his spirit, drawing him forth, dragging him through the unseen fabric of existence. The void gave way, light breaking upon his formless sight. It was not the light of the world he had known, nor the cruel fire of his own forging, but a pale and distant

The world took form once more, though it was unlike any he had known. He knelt upon cold, unyielding stone, and the air was still as death. The vast halls stretched beyond sight, their form shifting beyond the grasp of mortal perception. Here, time did not flow, for here was the realm of judgment, the place where all things were seen as they truly were.

Mairon raised his hands before him, and for the first time, he beheld himself. Gone was the dark armor, the terrible majesty of his former shape. The form he now wore was diminished, veiled in the dimness of a fading star. 

His radiant form, once blinding in its splendor, had dimmed to the barest ember, as though he himself barely clung to existence. The weight of ages and ruin pressed upon him, his body bowed, his hands splayed upon the cold floor—hands that had shaped wonders and wrought devastation alike. One bore a grievous absence, the missing index finger until the second knuckle a stark reminder of his folly, his defeat, his loss.

And for the first time in all his long existence, he felt the weight of sorrow, deeper than wrath, sharper than despair.

A presence filled the hall, vast and unmovable as the mountains at the dawn of the world. Mandos, Doomsman of the Valar, regarded him with eyes that pierced beyond the veil of flesh and spirit alike. No word was spoken, yet Mairon felt the full weight of his judgment. He bowed his head, not in defiance, nor in feigned humility, but because he could not bear the sight of such truth.

Then, he spoke. His voice, once a thing of command, was now as a whisper upon the stone.

“Lord Mandos,” he began, and though the words felt hollow upon his lips, still he spoke them. “I come not to seek pardon for myself, for my sins are beyond measure, beyond forgiveness. My name is cursed across Arda, and rightly so. Yet, I beg an audience—not for myself, but for her.”

The silence deepened, vast and impenetrable. Mandos did not answer. But Mairon felt his presence, an immovable gaze that laid bare all that he was and had been. Still, he did not falter.

“She was innocent before I touched her life,” he said, and now his voice trembled. “Before I brought ruin and darkness to her path. Her soul bore no stain until I, in my arrogance, marked it. If ever there was one deserving of peace, it is she. I beg you—allow Lothien to find her place in Valinor. Allow her the joy that my love tainted, the peace that I stole.”

Slowly, he raised his maimed hand, the absent finger stark in the dim light. “This—this is but a fraction of what I deserve. Let me bear the memory of my deeds for eternity, let me carry the burden of guilt. But let her be free of it.”

Long was the silence that followed, and Mairon, for all his past might, felt the weight of it upon his soul. 

The silence that followed was vast, an endless chasm. Mairon, for the first time in his existence, feared that his words would vanish into nothingness, swallowed by the unfeeling halls. But then, a voice, soft yet unyielding, filled the chamber—not Mandos’s, but Vairë’s.

The Weaver stepped forward, her presence suffused with infinite sorrow. “Mairon,” she said, her tone both gentle and piercing, “your love for her speaks of a change in your heart, but love cannot undo all wounds. Redemption is not a plea—it is a path.”

“I will walk it,” Mairon whispered, voice breaking. “For her, I will walk it.”

Then Mandos spoke, and his voice was as the echo of the world’s first song.

“Your plea is heard, and her path shall be her own, untainted by your shadow. As for you—your atonement lies not in words, but in deeds to come.”

[darkdemeter]

NEPHS IN THE ATTIC

𝐻𝑜𝓇𝓈𝑒𝓂𝑒𝓃 𝐻𝒶𝓁𝓁𝑜𝓌𝑒𝑒𝓃 ◤✘DARKSIDERS FILED CLIPPINGS | CATALOGUE Death/Strife/War/Fury x Female Reader

NOTES ↳ My Phantom Of The Opera flare came out with this one a little bit I think. COLUMN CONTEXT ↳ Fluffy/angst mix — period(ish) piece around the late 1800s — depictions of a turned toxic family dynamic/childhood — happy ending! — I think that's it? ↳ This Halloween, explore the enchanting tale of how you befriended four unlikely attic dwellers in the prime of your wistful, bright childhood before finally reuniting after the fallen grace of a life splendor you once knew. Come to know that despite it all, they have always been there.

✎ 2.7k

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Mother never approved. Nephs in the attic, ghostly voices on the staircase, led up to the rafters. Childhood slumbers often disowned in search of the hauntings that stirred and groaned from above. So secret and strange yet so enchanting to a childhood dream. 

Did they still remain up there all this time? The home is far too old now, its state past its lively prime. A barren hall no longer welcoming residents, there are no children to fill these tight corridors and secret cupboards with laughter and explored adventure. Yet you hold on to that past tense of yourself. A dancing apparition in a flowing white gown that twirls over creaky floorboards turned rotten. 

Your hand runs the old and dusty railing, smearing clear lines to etch the trail of your steps. It’s been far too long. Do they remain as the shadows hovering near the final staircase, awaiting for your curious nature to take hold and join them?

You reach the second floor to be drawn in by the whirling memories that once took place. A fond day of your arrival, the first steps you took upon the landing and the way you danced in the window’s bathing halo of light. Ballet shoes escaped from your grasp in your mindless mapping, twirling and feet tapping. 

Childish wonder had you inside and wrapped up, invited by the hollow breath of this place you came to call home. When the sun no longer beamed through the second floor window and dinner was done, playtime on the living room mat concluded as the last note played on the scratchy gramophone, you were whisked away to bed on the second story. Past the window covered with inky blackness and tiny, twinkling stars. 

Under the covers, safe and snug, your mother read to you from an old book she inherited from her now passed matriarch under the soft assuring hue of your room’s candle. Father stands in the doorway, pocket watch silently ticking each passing moment that he collects to his memory. 

Her voice, the silken tender that nurses you, your head cranes to rest against her shoulder all the while, you suppress a yawn. She reads,

“Upon the night’s blackness ride four. To a tolling of bells, swirling mists carry them to trot the moors of the void without wilting duty. 

All things beautiful must encounter these four and lonely forms to test their merit and mettle. Eternal existence in a purgatory not of their choosing, a fallen and disbanded fortress hold, their affairs leave them yearning for a light that can only be found by that which seeks them first…”

You bend down before the final ascension of stairs. Beyond their rise the attic awaits. You blow a steady stream of breath over the covering of dust, your fingers brush the golden crest of letters of the storybook. Flipping through its contents, pages flutter in low, rumpled ruffles. Years of aging have been unfair, years of abuse have been unkind, hinted scratches and angrily plucked rips almost tear the book to ruin. 

Why do you feel that this very book had been a map to all you would experience in this place? Moved by the calm nostalgia of your mother’s embrace, before she had turned cold and cruel, you hold the story close to your breast, blouse dirtied by the ashy cluster of collected forgetfulness. 

There are times you wish it had all turned right between your family that grew into feuding parties. The only thing that ever felt right since the beginning… was them. The unseen haunters by your parents, but to your eyes, they were acquired friends. Held dear and close to you, only ever truly yours. They enveloped you with wonderful stories, with adoring carefulness and applauding devotion. 

That first night you laid sound asleep with dreaming splendor when you heard it. A faintly and rapid rapping. Soft and knocking on a wooden surface, on the boards above. It was a barrier between you and what you would come to find to be them. They communicate with intricate patterns, a secretive language invented that first evening. You laid awake all night to listen until the first rays rose to shine in the second story window with a peeking warmth. 

“My little love,” your mother had sighed the next morning, eyes evidently darkened and tired. “Please keep the excitement of your playful tappings for the morning. You kept your father and I awake all night with your little and gentle rappings.”

“But Mama, I didn’t—”

“Please…” Her voice sounding to plead. You meekly nod in response. “Good girl,” she applauds and continues to wash the finished dining of breakfast.

By the midday hour, the window was adorned by the sun's bright heat that showered a casing of disturbed dust in the swirling air. The Autumn season made sitting under the shine most wonderful as you play with toys. Dolls and stuffed animals sat together to watch you perform in your ballet shoes, unaware of the eyes of an audience that watched you from the shadowed and swallowing top of the attic stairs. A flight that rose into the darkened rafters, fleeing from the pour of sunlight, barely scarred on its first step by the invasive light. 

It was your dream to dance upon a grand stage, dressed in silky and flowy hues that sparkle, to have an excuse to spin and cradle your weight with expertise. Father played the most beautiful music on his piano. The rhythm of his foot patting the muffling carpet, the ringing of notes written to produce a melody you found inspiring. He always seemed to know your mood before you knew yourself, what it was your heart yearned to dance to. 

Many days were just like this. After breakfast, you’d gather your checkered play mat and toys and wait for your father to enter his study to begin playing the keys on his piano. And every single one of the many days like this, your secret audience would silently shuffle to the attic’s mouth to watch you perform. 

However, when your mother came humming up the stairs with a basket of laundry or other knick knacks to attend her duties around the home, her motherly charm extending a pat on your head or a kiss to your cheek in passing, the nephs in the attic would scowl and scamper away with a scuttle only your ears could hear. Your eyes would search the darkness for what was simply not there.

At night you’d hear the gentle yet persistent taps and knocking raps. Each sound a beat that traversed through the older stale of wood and rumbly pipes, echoing. Eventually, you came to knock back finally. And then they stopped. 

There was one day, a fateful sight beneath the window’s gloomy canvas, a bland and cold shade of grey with raindrops spitting on the glass pane. The study room was silent. No music played on this day. Father had gone out, bid farewell by your mother and yourself as he tugged on his long and dark overcoat to protect him from the rain, a briefcase filled with sheet music held firm in his palm. 

Mother was doting and worrisome to leave you behind most times, but today she assured she wouldn’t be long. Her mind had slipped and an unfortunate side effect took place, misplacing her memory of a few missing ingredients she needed. 

The placid tap tap tap against the window went ignored, but the intricate pattern of a rap rap… tap caught your interest the most. You paused in combing your doll’s raven hair to listen. 

Tap tap rap.

Rap rap tap.

The direction came from the attic. But of course… your mysterious chanters of the late night language, a form of passing notes between the barrier, finally sounds from their residence. You crouch at the first attic step and delicately — asking permission — you give a drumming tap of your finger and wait in sat silence. 

The roof tiles chink and twang with each hail of rain, old and rusty pipes hidden inside walls shudder with a ghostly breath. 

“Hello?” you finally call to the upstairs dark. It loomed so gloomy up there, no doubt fogged and cluttered with an old mess and infested with cobwebs. 

There comes a series of groans that roll and growl like thunder. Shuffling of heavy sounding things up there. You stare with a curiosity that glints sharply in the day’s duller hue, palm rested fully on the first shadowed step. 

You marvel at the size of your hand laying flat, comparing its timely measurement. This had been your first introduction. An insightful meeting that lured you to wander up these very steps with the footfall of a child so intrigued by the home’s top mystery. Where nightly dreaming was abandoned in the cool of your sheets, instead you found yourself whisked away up there to meet with them. You now ascend upwards, fingers loosely tousling the peachy fur of dust from the rail, invited by their ancient presence with the footing of a much more matured yet wishful woman. 

Don’t let them be gone as well, away with the rest of it all, remaining as only memories of this place; of your past. A silly, girlish belief to cling to out of fear of abandonment, you know, but all the same you follow blindly in that faith. 

Atop the attic landing you look left to right from where the shadowy apparitions would sit quietly, respectfully at a distance between where you danced at the bottom of their realm. Dolls missing eyes, stuffed toys sitting stiffly with limbs loosely stitched back together. The wear and tear must have caused your mother such headaches after a while.

Just as you suspected, the gloomy hollow of the attic is just as matted by the drift of dust and decoration of cobwebs. 

Centered in the attic’s stage, a large form of a drawn canvas remains fashioned into a tent reminiscent of the carnival. Nearer do you come forth to engage its opening, expectant to be taken back to its debut construction, surrounded by the flickers of small, wavering flames and cuddled in close together sharing stories and laughing and playing. 

But just as the rest of the estate’s health, it too is left dormant. A shade of its former and far more comforting self. A carpet of weathered, dullened pages cover the wooden flooring inside the tent and you delicately retreat your memory with the kindling of that which you have lost. 

When… times grew harsher down below, you’d flee up here in search of rescue. Father’s music sheets often became rejected for one reason or another. Mother would grow spiteful and bitter towards him, mocking him over the butt of a choking cigarette. Between the shattered glass of toxic indulgences thrown in rage and the overbearing raise of their voices that screamed horrid absurdities at one another, you would run up the stairs with tearful eyes, 

Only in their arms would you be safe and the mean creaking that chastised you for running would go away. 

“In this tent, nothing shall harm you. You are safe here.” 

Yes… pages. Drawings. Ones that make your lashes wet in past fondness. How small and silly you were, so carefree in the messy lines that portray yourself and the nephs. They took such good care of you, never once did you falter to the doubtful thought that they would harm you. Protectors harboured in the attic. 

It mustn't have been easy to see you leave them behind, to remember you only by the figments of your shared memories that collaborate a bond forged from the rappings you heard at night. 

You hold as many as you can to the closeness of your chest, nursing them as they had done for you in your time of need, again becoming that little girl in search of her rescue. Your voice stiffly rocks with contained volume, a disbanding grace and held in fortitude to guard your better fears internally. 

Tears soak a steady streamline of glistening crystalline, the dampen summit of your lashes beating furiously in contempt. Had they simply vanished, never once actual and instead all a figment of the imagination of your perhaps lonely childhood? A solemn expression and one you kept so guarded close, feigning their existence as naught but distant friends to passing business inquiries and acquaintances. 

They were your friends. 

Something in the pained longing of your throat erupts into a tight lipped scream as you fall, your knees catching the thudding brunt of your loss. 

“I lost you… I lost you all!” 

There, at the pointed back of your heel’s direction in the corner, something stirs. Its resolve unflinching, it curiously wanders in the fabric of shadows. Through the tearing smear you peer through it, suckling desperately at air as you force yourself to hush; your breath held. In your renewed, tearful gladness you sigh. Like candlelight, the prowling glow dances highly in the atmosphere most dark around you, they flicker and wave with a sauntering gaze that watches you. Stalks you. 

First the piercing stare of orange, followed by its lighter sibling of glimmering gold… then as a sapphire brightened from its rich hue, those eyes dance too in the darkness. And then the placid glow of white, so oddly plain yet adoring and filled with harnessed life and expression.

They hadn’t left you. 

His pale frame creeps outward from the shadows first, followed by his siblings. The clung of skin shrunken tightly to his deeper anatomy is awkward to shift, almost too stiffly than you last recall. Had he aged so terribly in your absence?

Over the crusted white of his vague, second face taken form of the deathly skull, his eyes look down on you with fondness and one that has never left you. 

You sense that those eyes have been on you this entire time. All their eyes have. 

“You never lost us, little dancer,” croaks Death from the encasement of a rattled hum. He states it so obviously, scolding your ease to submit to those insincere doubts and anchored flaws. 

By the bellow of his colourful scarf worn and ragged with age, tattered drapings trail behind him in dragged motion. He sits on the perch of his heels, legs pronounced with a squatted position as he extends his torso forward. 

“We have always been there. Watching.” Strife’s voice rings with a wistful kindness and behind the iron gilded of his own mask, you feel that he smiles sheepishly. 

Eyes bowing back and forth between them and the pages you hold, your nose rings with a sharpened, recoiling sniffle. “I-I thought… Well, I missed you all.” 

Unhidden behind his brothers by the mass of his size — you often giddily pondered how he balanced so carefully up here without one’s notice besides yours — War steadily nods, slowly. “As we did you.”

The white crown of his brow shifts and you just barely catch its easing beneath the pull of his crimson cowl. He stands taller over his brothers now than he ever has before, proudly. 

“We knew you would come eventually. That does not mean we weren’t with you all along.” Fury words it with a note of sorrow, almost losing grasp of the hope of your eventual return, but her voice becomes assured and lighter; like a motherly coo.

Beneath the press of her gaze that regards you much softer than your mother had in recent years past, the wispy flow of her hair wafts adrift in wayward and ghostly paths. With a tilt of her head, eyes brimming into thinned gladness, the quick lash of her hair follows like a flame. 

The whites of your eyes become wider, showing the fuller orbs glossy laced. A curt gasp is the sound you make in your confirmed revelation. 

“So… it was you four, all along,” your cheeks peel back to reveal a flustered smile, “watching me from the theater rafters. Leaving me those precious and thoughtful gifts no other could.”

Before you know and levelled to your height, they crowd you in their comforting presence, mingling and close. 

Death’s fingers comb closely to your cheek and brush away the still spilling tears. “We always were in attendance. Always watching you dance so wonderfully. So freely. Our dancer caught in her twirling and whirling footwork tappings.”

Their arms envelop around you as a cage you don’t fathom as overbearing. They dare not clip your wings, instead being of the encouraging heart that urged you to follow in your dreams no matter. 

“Oh, my Nephs in the attic… not so cramped up here anymore. You can join me. Come out of your purgatory. For I am your freeing light.”

[whalesongsblog]

A rock, a condition, and time being a never ending circle

Synopsis: Ominis and Mira as Orpheus and Eurydice. That’s it, send tweet (this is honestly one of my fav things I’ve written but also it destroyed me a little)

Enjoy!! 🩷🩵

One must imagine Sisyphus happy. 

Maybe there was a peace as his labor-worn feet shuffled over a path carving its way into his psyche. The certainty of defeat at a telltale lip of the crest promising a mirage of freedom eventually eroded, surely. 

The rock never would, but perhaps the hopelessness did. 

In the stretch of late dusk as he walks back down to a fate cinched tight as a noose- or a tourniquet, depending on how you want to look at it- one must imagine Sisyphus happy. 

—

The condition is laughably easy. 

Miradevi had leaned in close, her delicate fingers entangling with his, the brush of scented oil-soft hair and honey words overwhelming his senses. He’d heard her words, her lilting voice asking one sharp-edged question after the other but, no matter how she tried, she could not stamp out the inherent gentleness in her voice. All he could focus on was the curve of her frame fitted to his- a star returned home. The moments and hours and perhaps eternity it had been before he found her again had felt like- nothingness. 

An empty, yawning void stretching on forever that Ominis was destined to keep falling through. But he found her, despite everything, because how could he not? It was beyond cruel. In his warped place where dreams dragged hopeless feet and came to die lonely deaths, Mira should not have set a single foot here. But he found here, and he wasn’t falling anymore. 

He was rising. 

—

Godly verdicts of eternal suffering and tragically ironic punishments fall flat when faced with the human psyche. Bound to protect itself, the brain acts in a way the gods could never understand- and perhaps that is why they all fell and so many fell in their name because they did not understand. 

Sisyphus continues to roll his rock because, eventually, he forgets. Sigyn holds a bowl over her husband not knowing why. 

—

 The condition was not to look back. 

The verdict was delivered, judgment given by a deity ancient as the stone beneath his feet. And he’d laughed. 

In a moment of painfully human relief, he’d laughed. 

Bolstering his hope in a way nothing else ever could, Mira giggled softly, a little unsure, a little hesitant. 

I’m not sure that’ll be an issue. 

It was not the first display of hubris witnessed there, nor would it be the last. Far from it. And every witness there seemed to know it too, pity and reservation in their gazes as they looked at a man who’d done everything for the woman he loved, with nothing on the horizon but a rock waiting to be pushed up a hill. 

Again. 

Ominis had scraped and clawed his way into Tartarus for her, fallen and fallen so far with the wind whistling in his ears, wondering if he’d ever feel the ground beneath his feet again. And this was the price to pay. 

Not to look back. 

I think we can make it. Mira’s voice was soft, her heavily lilting accent a melody against his raw skin. We’ve made it out of worse. Do you trust me? 

With my life, he’d replied. With every cell in my body, every breath I take. 

And do you trust me? The darkness almost sounded kind, despite the death knell it delivered to the young man. The first seeds of destruction, lovingly watered with snaking words. Do you trust me to send her after you? 

No. 

Yes. His voice projected the right amount of misplaced confidence, the right little waver. Nothing was meant to be easy, and Ominis had a few handfuls of seconds to realize it before his world went dark. His hands flew up to his ears, desperate, panic slamming his heart against his ribs as he tried to push sound back into them. 

Endless, empty, and he was falling, falling all over again. The fragile thread tethering him to life around him, the sounds that kept him anchored dulled to a hopelessness worse than anything he’d ever felt. 

Mira? His voice was lost, his lips moving and returning nothing but a muted roar in his ears. He couldn’t hear her voice. And it felt like his soul had been cleaved in two.

No, please- his lips formed words that he did not hear, his rage and terror rising in equal measure. Not this. Not like this. Mira- Mira, MIRA! 

Nothing let him know he was alive besides the tearing sting of pain and taste of iron in his throat. He was still a person, still there, not lost somewhere- he was screaming, surely. Surely the blood coating his lips meant something- 

He was given two things. 

One, a command. Quick, brief, a moment’s reprieve from the nothingness his life had narrowed down to. 

Walk. And do not look back. 

Two, a touch of her hands against his. Her shaky, desperate grip against his palms, a touch he’d memorized and knew almost senseless. Gentle, jewel-adorned fingers gripping his like she’d never let go, and for a moment he swore her voice cut through the fog- a quick, wavering murmur of his name spoken like salvation. 

And then it was gone. 

And he had to walk, and not look back. 

—

Sisyphus thinks about the sunlight as he pushes his boulder. There is little of it in the Underworld, and he’d do anything to feel it on his skin again, which is perhaps what got him into this mess in the first place. He thinks not about the rush of victory after ta battle that made him feel like a god, once. No, his mind turns to the long stretch of ochre afternoon sun that lulls him into sleep, of grapes fat and sweet on his tongue. And he can faintly taste something tart as the rock slips and falls. 

—

Ominis thinks about Mira. He walks, and he thinks faintly about what they will do once they are out and free. After he has apologized till his voice is hoarse- how could he have failed to protect her, to let her get lost, how could he let her be taken so far away from him- he will put a ring on her finger and never let her out of his- well. 

Despite everything, a minuscule bubble of hope rises in his chest. Maybe, just maybe. 

And do you trust me? 

In the recesses of his mind, the voice echoes. The bubble pops and crushes under the weight of despair in his chest. How does he know, that this is all not just a trick? His best guide and worst enemy, his mind is rife with possibilites running amok like wild beasts refusing to be leashed. A shivering chill of wind whistles past his ears, rocks shifting beneath his feet. All he can do is take step after step, hoping that the faint scent of jasmine is not his desperate mind playing tricks. 

He can’t take another cruel trick. It would destroy him. 

A bead of sweat trickles down his neck and it’s the most wonderful thing because he feels the faint warmth of sunlight. Ominis Gaunt has spent his life chasing freedom and it is right there, so close that to let it slip between his fingers right now would have to be the work of a cruel and uncaring universe. 

But Ominis Gaunt has never been lucky. 

Like an opening book in an overwhelming orchestra, suddenly, his ears echo with sound—the crack of stones under his feet, his own shaky breathing. Life returns to his senses with the promise of a golden sunset on the horizon. But he keeps walking, and oesn't turn. He’s not going to ruin everything he’s fought tooth and nail for. 

One foot crosses the strange, gaping maw of broken rock- a gap between reality and the yawning pit where ancient gods lie. A film between here and there, and they’re so close- 

A foot slips, a soft rattle of stones, a soft, achingly familiar voice caught on the final recesses of the cold wind whistling behind him- and he can’t tell if she’s hurt, if she’s fallen, if he’s about to leave her behind. So Ominis Gaunt turns. A split-second instinct betrayed by the depth of love he carries, a decision he cannot help but make. 

He hears a soft gasp before his world shatters and falls apart. He hears her desperate voice telling him she loves him, she forgives him, and he’d rather tear his own throat out than hear forgiveness from her. He lunges forward, his beloved’s name a prayer on his lips, shaking fingers reaching for what he knows is already gone. His grip should have closed around soft fabric and smooth skin, around bangles wrists, but it closes on empty air. 

Ominis falls to his knees, and a wail of grief escapes him. Rain lashes the earth as the skies split open above him.

xxxxxxxxxxx

What is your name? 

… Mira. Miradevi, but I am called Mira by my friends. 

Is that what we are then, Mira? Friends? 

A laugh, soft and sweet and one he knows he must have heard before. Ominis leans closer, drawn by the scent of jasmine and a gentleness he has yearned for all his life. 

If you wish it. Who are you? 

Ominis. Ominis Gaunt. 

A very charismatic name. 

So I’ve been told. He offers her his arm, and she takes it without a second thought. The shock of fingers so strangely familiar nearly sends him reeling, but he steels himself. May I take you on a walk? I understand it is a lovely day outside. 

Oh- there is a badly hidden hint of delight in her voice, something so innocent and transparent in its joy. I’d love that. Give me a moment- you go on, I’ll follow. 

What, and leave you behind? His tease is light, so he does not know why he has to push down the strange, sudden ache in his chest. I could never. 

After tugging on an extra layer to shield herself against the bite of cold in the air, Mira joins him at his side. Shall we, Ominis? The world awaits. 

The cycle begins anew, the rock rolls down the hill. A beautiful but numbered hours of sunsets and stolen kisses weave into their destiny and brighten to life once more as they venture out into the rolling fields and sprawling forests. 

One must imagine Sisyphus happy. 

[crownofconvergencerp]

𝐖𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐓 𝐄𝐑𝐄𝐁𝐎𝐒 𝐌𝐄𝐑𝐈𝐃𝐈𝐀𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐑𝐈𝐅𝐓 𝐒𝐎𝐑𝐂𝐄𝐑𝐄𝐑 𝐋𝐈𝐁𝐑𝐀𝐑𝐈𝐀𝐍

soulless, the void-king, malgrin’s undoing, bastard of the rift.

37, he/him. Working tirelessly to build a real life, one his shadowy youth never afforded him, Wrest ignores the pain of his past and the well of cosmic power brimming inside of him. He fills his days with research, trying to distract himself from dark memories & the truth of his condition with every vice possible. The rift-scar within him grants him power, but it is a dangerous thing; one misstep, and he will collapse in on himself like a dying star, perhaps dragging all of the continent along with him.

who are you?

TW: Child Abuse, Torture, Patricide, Murder, Death.

Wrest Erebos Meridian was born beneath a blood moon eclipse, an omen his father, Malgrin the Pale King, took as prophecy. Malgrin, a feared and elite necromancer who ruled from his crypt-throne, Starspire, saw in his infant son a great, unbidden power. Wrest would not be a child to be groomed & taught in his father’s dark ways, but a conduit to fuel his journey toward Lichdom. Wrest’s first memories were of being bound in soul-runes, siphoned for his latent magic. He grew within the shadow of his unacknowledged agony, his body scorched by arcane burns, his mind fractured by endless, ritual torment. Where other young sorcerers gathered around lecterns to learn, Wrest only learned to bleed in rhythm to his father's chants. To survive this monstrous beginning, he buried his pain and let his mind dissociate, eventually finding himself in the astral. Mind awake, body asleep. This place that he would come to call The Twelfth World became his home, a mother’s embrace, a healing, nurturing sanctuary that answered his screams of torment with beautiful visions of a limitless universe.

By fourteen, Wrest no longer cried. He no longer feared his father. From his newfound kingdom of source, he planned the loathsome man’s demise as well as his own escape. Guided by ethereal spirits of the astral, a mythic spell was revealed to him, etched into the alabaster walls of a great, suspended skull. Wrest believed if he could correctly recite the words and understand the complexity of its truth, it would grant apotheosis — or at the very least, keep him suspended in the astral for all time. But there was difficulty in translating what was understood in the astral into physical reality. Nuances lost in translation, slivers of the cosmos lost to the abstracting rules of the physical. But after a year of concentration, he thought himself ready. The ritual was undertaken on his fifteenth birthday in secret, under the glow of the same blood moon to which he was born. To his horror, the spell backlashed, ripping the divine well in him asunder and leaving a yawning, gaping void at the center of his chest. He would not ascend to this higher realm. Instead, he would be a mortal gate to all the power it possessed, teetering dangerously on the edge of obliteration.

In essence, his soul was shattered. Splinters scattered across the worlds, impossible to put back together.

Since that moment, a churning wound has pulsed inside him like a star collapsing in slow motion. His penance was feeding the ravenous void with regular offerings of essence — drawn from beasts, spirits, artifacts — lest his form begin to unravel, his voice to echo in a chorus, his bones to resonate & dissolve to ash. The first one to cull this unanswerable hunger was his father and every one of his dubious followers.

His tale was infamous, a story of warning to young sorcerers.

Dedicated to mastering The Twelfth World, as he calls it, he threw himself into his studies. Liquidating his father’s dark empire allowed him to travel the continent in search of answers that would sustain him, fend off his affliction, and lead him towards the lost shards of himself scattered throughout the astral. Use of his magic beyond a few spells he’d mastered proved dangerous to himself, and worse, others. Having outrun “rumors” of patricide, he has settled down in Destarin, renowned as a great scholar and teacher of formidable Rift Magic, ever toiling away at his seemingly unsolvable problem. Despite his dire circumstances and his insidious past, he still finds happiness in the astral and the exploration of it, still hoping for cosmic forgiveness for his hubris & the many costly errors of his past.

what are you?

species: rift sorcerer weaknesses:  mortal, weakened if cut off from the astral, conduit of volatile magic that could devour him or cause loss of grip on reality. strengths: portal/rift creation, manipulation of time & space, astral projection, telekinesis, arcane languages. physical description: mortal, but in heightened states, nebulous wisps of black seem to lap off of his body like cosmic flames and his eyes appear to reflect a starry sky. at the center of his chest is a void surrounded by runes and covered by a runic channeling disc. it produces a strange, soft whirring sound, like a metal gyre churning.  additional notes: n/a.

wrest erebos meridian is played by deadeye and their fc is garrett hedlund.

[mjonthetrack]

bell - book IV

Chapter One Hundred Fourteen “The Gingerbread Betrayal”

Monique was nine months pregnant and eleven days past her due date. Eleven.

Which meant Jey was no longer sleeping, functioning, or thinking like a normal man. He was a man on the edge — no, beyond the edge. He was hovering over it with one toe in the void, watching for every breath, groan, yawn, or fart his very pregnant fiancée made.

Fake out number one had come the morning she’d tried to reach for a dropped spoon and made a sound.

Fake out number two? Braxton Hicks after a spicy gumbo.

Fake out number three had involved her laughing too hard during an argument over what song the baby should exit the womb to.

Now it was mid-December, the compound wrapped in twinkling lights, and they were at the tribal center's Christmas crafts and holiday market. It smelled like cinnamon, hot cider, and peppermint popcorn. A light chill sat in the air, but Monique? She was glowing. Blissed-out. Not a worry in her curvy, waddling body.

Zilla, however, was suffering.

“Oooh, Zilla, look at this one,” Monique gushed, tugging on his sleeve like a preschooler. Her hand braced the arch of her back as she waddled beside him. “It’s got little gumdrop shingles! It looks like a whole damn gingerbread mansion. Can we build that?”

Zilla grimaced as Kai, his toddler strapped to his chest, yawned dramatically. “Monique, I love you, but please… go attach yourself to your man before he strangles me.”

“Nope. You’re the designated support Fatu today,” she said sweetly, cupping her bump and smiling at a group of aunties as they passed. “It’s just a vibe. You’re calm. Jey’s not. Jey keeps measuring my cervix with his eyeballs.”

Zilla looked horrified. “I don’t even know what that sentence means.”

“It means,” she said dramatically, “he watched a midwife TikTok one time and now thinks he can tell if I’m dilated by looking at my walk.”

Zilla turned his head to the sky. “Lawd. Please let this baby come out today.”

“Ohhh—look at the one with the marshmallow snowman!” she squealed, ignoring his suffering. She pressed a hand to her stomach as the baby moved and leaned closer to Zilla, who instinctively braced her arm.

He sighed. “You know Jey’s gonna cuss me out in at least three languages for this.”

As if summoned by rage alone, a deep, annoyed voice cut through the crisp December air.

“Zilla.”

Monique turned just in time to see her man stalking toward them like a slow-moving storm cloud. His jaw was clenched. His hoodie was half-zipped. His curls were disheveled like he’d ripped his hat off mid-freakout. And his eyes? Locked dead on his cousin’s arm around Monique’s shoulders.

Zilla muttered under his breath, “Here come the thunderclaps.”

“Baaaaby,” Monique cooed, trying to diffuse the situation, “I was just admiring gingerbread with your cousin-slash-my-safe-space. You gotta stop looking like you’re about to jump him in front of the Christmas carolers.”

Jey came to a full stop in front of them, arms folded across his chest, eyes narrowing at Zilla, then down at Kai—who gave a gurgling “Da-da?”—before snapping back to Monique. “Why is he your safe space? What happened to me being your safe space?”

“You’ve been acting like a deranged doula since Thanksgiving, Joshua,” she replied sweetly, patting his chest. “I needed a support Fatu with less… trauma in his eye twitch.”

Zilla tried to slink away.

Jey caught his arm. “Nah, don’t run now. You hugging up on my woman while she glowing and swollen? That’s a death sentence.”

“I have your godson on me,” Zilla said flatly. “He’ll be traumatized if you commit cousinicide.”

Monique grinned. “It’s cute though. You know, you two fighting over me while I’m forty weeks and three days.”

“You’re glowing, mama,” Jey said, his voice softening as he slid a hand under her belly, rubbing gently. “But that don’t mean you out here latching onto him. You wanna build gingerbread houses, I’ll build a damn village at home. I’ll bake the damn bricks myself.”

She beamed at him. “That’s the energy I like.”

“I just want my daughter outta you before Christmas,” he muttered, leaning to kiss her forehead. “Every morning I wake up and you still pregnant is one step closer to me fully losing my shit.”

“Well,” Monique mused, “we still got a week before the actual due date window closes.”

Jey stared at her. “The window been closed, Monique. We’re on overtime. She’s squatting in there rent-free.”

Zilla coughed. “Do y’all want cider? I’m gonna go get cider before I get stabbed.”

“Cinnamon,” Monique called after him. “And a cookie with sprinkles!”

As Zilla bolted, Jey helped ease her onto a nearby bench and knelt down to press a kiss to her stomach.

“Alright, little one,” he whispered, “time to pack it up. Let’s make our grand entrance soon, alright? Daddy already missed a concert, a sparring match, and a whole ass basketball game at Luis’s house just in case you decided to drop early.”

Monique chuckled, caressing his cheek. “She’s just making her own entrance. Diva already.”

Jey stood and pulled her into him gently, rubbing circles into her back. “Diva or not, she better come soon, or I’m gonna have to check myself into therapy.”

Monique giggled, snuggled into his chest with a soft sigh.

The carolers sang nearby, lights twinkled, and the entire compound buzzed with holiday cheer. It was chaotic. Messy. Loud. And absolutely perfect.

Especially when Kai, from a few feet away in Zilla’s arms, let out a sudden squeal and pointed at Monique’s feet.

A slow, warm puddle started to spread on the concrete beneath her.

Jey looked down.

Monique froze.

Zilla’s eyes widened in pure horror.

“Oh… hell no,” Jey breathed. “It’s go time.”

Chapter One Hundred Fifteen Operation Baby Drop

Jey had been waiting for this moment since month six.

The go-bag had been packed and repacked four times. The routes to every hospital within a 50-mile radius had been memorized. His playlist was labeled “Baby Drop Soundtrack.”

He even had color-coded checklists: red for Monique’s comfort needs, blue for baby essentials, and black for “shit you better not forget or Mama Fatu will slap you.”

So when her water broke at the tribal Christmas market, Jey had moved like he’d trained for war.

“Operation Baby Drop is live!” he’d yelled, holding her under one arm like a damn bodyguard escorting Beyoncé. “Get the Fatu family evacuation team ready!”

Monique, sweaty and clinging to his hoodie with a mix of rage and contractions, wailed from the back of the compound’s ambulance as it whipped down the road at a ridiculous speed. The sirens howled, but it was her cussing that filled the space inside.

“JOSHUA IF THIS KID DON’T COME OUT IN TEN MINUTES I’M KICKING YOU IN THE DICK!”

“You already got me by the balls, baby,” Jey replied, voice calm and steady, one hand on her thigh. “Focus on your breath. In, out. You got this.”

She glared at him through another wave of pain. “DON’T TELL ME TO BREATHE LIKE YOU THE ONE WITH A BABY HEAD COMING OUT YOUR COOCHIE!”

Jey winced. “Okay. Fair.”

The paramedics were sweating as much as Monique was. “Her contractions are less than a minute apart—she’s pushing hard, man. She might deliver in the ambulance.”

“No she won’t.” Jey snapped, tossing the medic a death glare. “She’s not giving birth in a damn moving van. You betterget her to that hospital now.”

By the time they screeched into the ER lot, the nurses were already running out with a wheelchair—but when they tried to lower her into it, Monique screamed and arched, hands flying to her belly.

“She’s crowning!” a nurse yelled. “Get her in stat! Someone page OB, we’re going now!”

“Don’t let my baby fall out in a parking lot!” Jey bellowed, lifting her like she weighed nothing as he barreled toward the sliding doors with her in his arms. “Move!”

They rushed down the hallway like a stampede. Monique kept screaming, sweat beading on her forehead, her hair matted to her cheeks. Her eyes were wild—feral even—as another contraction ripped through her.

“No meds, we missed the damn meds—” a nurse muttered from behind her chart.

“I SWEAR TO GOD, JOSHUA,” Monique roared, slamming a hand onto the bed rail as they turned into the delivery suite. “IF I FEEL EVERY INCH OF THIS BABY’S SOUL LEAVING ME, I’M TAKING YOURS IN EXCHANGE!”

“I got you, mama,” Jey said, wiping her face with a cool cloth as the nurses worked. “I’m here, right here—come on, we’re almost there, you’re a beast.”

Monique’s eyes narrowed. “A BEAST?!”

“Like a good one! Like—you know—warrior goddess beast!”

Another contraction hit and she let out a scream so raw it made a nurse cross herself.

“She’s fully dilated—head’s visible, it’s time to push!” the OB said as she flew into the room. “Dad, hold her hand—no, not like that—there you go, support under her knees—alright, on three, Monique—push!”

Monique growled. Growled. “You. Did. This. To. Me.”

Jey winced, holding her knee and brushing sweat from her temple. “I’m sorry, baby—I swear I’ll never come near you again—”

“PUSH AGAIN!”

“—unless you want me to, and only with consent and snacks—"

“ONE MORE BIG PUSH, MONIQUE, YOU’RE RIGHT THERE—”

Monique screamed.

Time folded in on itself.

Then—like the world paused to listen— A cry.

A fierce, loud, high-pitched, brand new life cry.

The OB smiled. “We’ve got a girl.”

Monique collapsed backward, sobbing—half in relief, half in shock—as the baby was lifted to her chest, wriggling and pink, all lungs and tiny fists. Jey’s face crumpled as he dropped his head against her shoulder, his hands trembling.

“Look at her,” Monique whispered, her voice raw. “She’s perfect.”

Jey kissed her temple, whispering against her skin, “You’re perfect.”

They stayed like that for a long moment—her heartbeat slowing, his hand curled around her arm, their daughter wailing between them like she’d just won a fight for the right to exist.

And she had.

Chapter One Hundred Sixteen New Beginnings

The harsh fluorescent lights of the delivery room softened as the nurse gently placed their newborn daughter into Jey’s outstretched arms. The baby’s tiny body was warm and fragile, her soft breaths brushing against his skin in delicate rhythm.

“Skin to skin,” the nurse whispered softly. “Helps regulate her temperature, keeps her calm. You’re doing great, Dad.”

Jey sat back in the chair, his heart pounding so loud he thought the baby might hear it. The weight of her in his arms was both thrilling and terrifying — this small life depended on him now.

His eyes never left her. Tiny fingers curled around his thumb, nails like translucent petals. Her dark hair, damp and fine, clung to her soft head. She looked so peaceful, as if she already knew her father’s strength and love.

Beside the bed, Monique slept, her face serene under the influence of pain meds. Her chest rose and fell steadily, a sharp contrast to the wild rollercoaster she’d just survived. Jey’s gaze flicked to her—exhausted, vulnerable, the fiercest woman he knew.

A soft knock sounded at the door before it opened gently. First came Tiffany, her nurse’s face lighting up with joy as she peered inside. “Oh wow, Jey… look at you.” Her voice held pride and tenderness. “She’s beautiful.”

Behind Tiffany came Luis, quietly grinning, then Zilla and Justice, all drawn here by the news moments ago. The room filled quickly with warm energy, soft smiles, and reverent awe.

Justice stepped forward, a hand on Zilla’s arm, eyes bright. “Look at her, man. That little Fatu firecracker already got her old man wrapped around her finger.”

Jey’s eyes flickered to the group, then back to his daughter cradled to his chest. “She’s got her mama’s spirit. And maybe a little of my stubbornness, too.”

Zilla chuckled, lowering himself beside the chair. “Damn right she does. And if she gets half your temper? Well… she’ll be unstoppable.”

Monique stirred, blinking open sleepy eyes. For a moment, confusion flickered across her face before she smiled softly, exhaustion melting into contentment. Jey lifted their daughter just a little so Monique could see.

Her voice was raspy but full of awe. “She’s… perfect.”

Jey’s throat tightened. “Yeah, she is.”

The room hummed with soft conversation, laughter, and tears—family reunited in the quiet miracle of new life. The long months of waiting, the fears and hopes, the battles fought together—all distilled in this one moment.

Jey reached out a hand and gently squeezed Monique’s. “We made it.”

She nodded, squeezing back with a tired smile. “We did.”

And together, they watched their daughter sleep, the first light of a new chapter spreading gently through the room.

Chapter One Hundred Seventeen She Has a Name

The hospital room buzzed with quiet voices, laughter, and the soft creak of chairs shifting as family filtered in one by one. Justice bounced baby Kai lightly in his arms while Zilla kept the toddler distracted with bits of fruit from a snack tray. Luis leaned over to whisper something to Tiffany, who only smiled, arms folded as she watched Jey where he stood, still shirtless, his daughter resting against his chest.

Jey looked like he hadn’t moved in an hour. His arms didn’t budge, curled around the tiny bundle pressed skin-to-skin. His voice was low as he murmured to her in between smiling at the door every time it opened and another family member poked their head in.

But when Monique’s mother stepped in, fresh from the airport, shoulders drawn and worry heavy in her eyes, Jey stood up a little straighter.

“Hey, Ma,” he said gently, nodding as he adjusted the baby in his arms. Mama Fatu stepped over and took Monique’s mother’s hand in hers as they stood side by side, sharing the kind of silence between mothers that didn’t need to be explained.

Everyone hushed when Jey cleared his throat.

“We picked her name a while ago,” he said, his voice thick, glancing at the sleeping figure on the hospital bed. “But hearing her cry, seeing her face—there wasn’t no doubt.”

He looked down at the newborn in his arms and then back up.

“Her name is Amira Soleil Fatu.”

Monique stirred at the sound, lids heavy, lashes fluttering. “Soleil like the sun,” she mumbled sleepily, voice hoarse. “She’s our brightest light.”

A soft “Awwww” chorused through the room.

Her mother let out a breath, a tear slipping down her cheek. “It suits her.”

“She’s gonna be a force,” Mama Fatu said, her voice firm with pride. “Just like her mama.”

Tiffany gently laid a hand on Monique’s shoulder, crouching down beside the bed. “Alright, you know the drill. You gotta walk, mama.”

Monique groaned, giving her a narrow-eyed glare. “I just birthed a baby the size of a turkey. You really want me vertical?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Tiffany grinned. “Come on. Let’s make it to the bathroom like champs.”

With some effort and many muttered curses, Monique sat up, her body stiff and sore in ways she couldn’t even begin to describe. Tiffany helped her swing her legs over the side, moving with nurse-practitioner precision while also being her future cousin with zero patience for dramatics.

“If I pass out,” Monique said, gripping her hand, “just remember to tell Jey it’s his fault.”

“You got this,” Tiffany chuckled, looping Monique’s arm over her shoulder. “Besides, you carried that child with all the flair of a woman who once suggested swimming with sharks at six months pregnant. You can walk twenty feet.”

In the background, Jey was still sitting with Amira, rocking slightly, lips brushing the crown of his daughter’s head.

“She’s already got attitude,” he murmured proudly. “She definitely yours.”

The women all laughed, even Monique, groaning through it.

“You say that like she didn’t kick the hell outta me on her way out,” she called out over her shoulder. “That child already threw hands.”

Tiffany held her tighter. “Just like her mama.”

Chapter One Hundred Eighteen The First Ones

The house was quiet. Not silent — never truly silent now — but softened in the way homes get after something sacred has arrived. The baby’s tiny sighs, the creak of the old floorboard near the hallway, the low hum of the baby monitor on the dresser — all of it wrapped the air in hush.

Monique stood at the window of their bedroom, the moonlight catching the curve of her cheek as she rocked gently, holding Amira against her shoulder. She wore one of Jey’s old shirts, soft with time and clinging loose over her postpartum frame. Her curls were tied up in a makeshift bun, and the edges of exhaustion painted dark shadows under her eyes. But she looked more beautiful than she ever had — complete in a way that felt otherworldly.

Jey watched her from the bed, propped up on one elbow, shirtless and blinking through his own tired haze. “You need to sit, mama.”

“I will,” she whispered. “She just… she likes this. The motion. My heartbeat.”

“She got used to you,” he said, voice thick, still a little rasped from the long night before. “That heartbeat got her here.”

Monique looked down at the tiny bundle of life curled against her and smiled. “Yeah. We’re her first. Her first love. First home.”

He sat up then, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. The room was dim, only lit by the moon and the faint glow of the nightlight in the corner. He came over quietly and eased his arms around both of them, folding himself around his girls with the gentleness of someone holding the world.

“I’m not gonna pretend I’m not scared as hell,” he admitted against her temple. “But I’m all in. For both of you. Forever.”

“I know,” she said, kissing the soft black curls on Amira’s head, then looking at him with watery eyes. “You’ve always been all in. Even when I wasn’t ready. Even when I was too afraid.”

Jey swallowed hard. “We got here though.”

“We did.”

They sat together for a long while, swaying gently, the baby pressed between them.

Later, when Monique finally sat and let him take her, Jey cradled their daughter like a miracle. He whispered to her about their life — about the compound, and Christmas markets, and family cookouts, and how she was going to grow up loved every damn day of her life.

“You’re the first of the next wave,” he said softly to Amira. “The first little Fatu girl. The first heartbeat outside of your mama that’ll always be yours. You’re gonna do big things, lil mama. And I’m gonna be right here — front row.”

Monique watched them from the bed, eyes glassy, lips parted in a soft smile.

She hadn’t known life could feel like this — like everything she ran from had turned around, wrapped her up, and held her until she was ready.

She was ready now.

Chapter One Hundred Nineteen

"The Wedding"

The sky over Mississippi was a perfect shade of blue, like it knew what the day meant. A soft breeze moved through the trees around the Fatu compound, ruffling the ivory drapery of the massive tent pitched on the family’s private land. Beneath it, generations of love gathered—Black, Samoan, Mississippi-born, California-grown. Everyone had come home.

The ceremony setup was stunning. Rows of wooden chairs lined with tropical florals—plumeria, hibiscus, orchids—met the eye, a nod to Jey’s Samoan roots. At the front, an arch of blooming white magnolias and rich red roses curved high above Monique and Jey’s future, symbolizing both Southern grace and deep, unwavering love.

The ceremony hadn’t started yet, but the whispers had.

“She’s gonna look like a goddess,” Justice said, fanning herself beside Tiffany.

Tiffany, radiant in a rich golden dress, nodded. “He cried last night thinking about it. Full-on weep.”

Jacob grunted, arms folded. “If he don’t cry when she walks down that aisle, I’ll knock a tear loose myself.”

The moment arrived with hushes. The music changed. A warm, live soul quartet—strings, upright bass, slow drum—began to play a reimagined instrumental of "As" by Stevie Wonder. Everyone turned.

Monique emerged from behind the gauzy white tent flaps, escorted by her mother and Mama Fatu, one on each arm.

Her gown was silk crepe, molded to her body with elegance and grace, flaring below her knees like waves. Her hair, in long natural curls, was pulled back and adorned with a custom headpiece made of white and red blooms from both the Samoan and Southern traditions. She looked like a queen—like the woman Jey had waited nearly two decades to call his.

Jey had to sit back on his heels to steady himself.

Jacob elbowed Zilla. “There it go.”

A single tear slid down Jey’s cheek.

They stood facing one another under the arch.

The officiant, a family elder and close friend, stood between them. No Choctaw here. No out-of-place language. Just deep Black Southern cadence and Samoan reverence braided into something whole.

“We gather today in sacred community,” she began, “to witness a union that time couldn’t stop, that distance couldn’t weaken, that grief couldn’t dissolve. This is not just love. This is destiny met in its appointed hour.”

Jey took Monique’s hands.

He didn’t use his note cards. He never would.

“I’ve loved you since before I had the right to. Since we were teenagers. Since you were Jimmy’s girl and all I could do was carry that love in silence. Then Jimmy was gone… and we were broken. But I never stopped wanting to build something with you, Mo. You are my peace. You are my prayer answered. I will love you when it’s easy, when it’s hard, when the world is quiet and when it roars.”

Monique’s eyes shimmered. Her voice cracked but didn’t break.

“You were the boy I didn’t see coming. The man I tried not to fall for. You’ve loved me through every no, every maybe, every not-yet. And now here we are. There’s nowhere safer than your arms. No sound sweeter than your laugh. You are my second chance. My only always.”

Jey kissed her knuckles before sliding the ring on.

When it was time, the officiant smiled, tearful herself.

“By the power vested in me by the ancestors and the state of Mississippi... I pronounce you husband and wife.”

He didn’t wait.

Jey pulled Monique in like he’d waited forever—because he had. The kiss was deep, reverent, slow and full of weight. Her fingers curled into his chest, her smile soft against his lips.

Cheers erupted. Applause broke out. Mama Fatu sobbed into her napkin while Monique’s mom dabbed at her eyes with pride.

Reception flip:

While guests were ushered to the other side of the tent for the reception, the space had already transformed. A long head table waited beneath a chandelier of draped greenery and gold. Southern and Samoan dishes were plated side by side: slow-roasted pork and smoked brisket, collard greens and taro, honey cornbread and coconut rice.

Monique changed into her reception dress—a floor-length satin slip dress in rich garnet that shimmered with every step. Jey, having swapped out his jacket for a more relaxed look, still hadn’t let go of her hand.

They did their first dance to "Adorn" by Miguel, and he sang every word under his breath into her ear.

“I’d do it all again,” she whispered as they swayed.

He held her tighter. “You already said yes, woman. You stuck with me now.”

Final moment:

Near midnight, surrounded by sparklers and laughter, Monique turned in his arms and said, “Took us twenty years.”

Jey smiled, pressing his forehead to hers. “And I’d do twenty more just to end up right here.”

Chapter One Hundred and Twenty “Mine, Always.”

The tent had long since emptied. The echo of laughter, the clink of champagne flutes, and the tribal drums faded into the cool Mississippi night. Moonlight draped the property in silver, stars scattered across the wide sky like a blessing. But inside the house that now bore both their names—Monique and Joshua Fatu—the air was thick with something electric.

She stood in the doorway of their bedroom barefoot, bouquet long forgotten. Her gown had been changed out of hours ago, replaced by something softer—bare shoulders, thin lace, and silk that stopped dangerously short on her thighs. Her makeup was smudged now, but her eyes gleamed, lips parted, chest rising and falling with anticipation.

Joshua shut the door behind him slowly, his tux jacket slung over his shoulder, bowtie loosened, shirt unbuttoned just enough to tease the tattoos along his chest.

“You’ve been looking at me like that all night,” she murmured, eyes dragging from his throat to the smirk tugging at his lips. “You gonna finally make good on it, Mr. Fatu?”

He dropped the jacket. Stepped forward slow. “Been waitin' for years, baby. Now there’s no interruptions, no near misses... no maybes.”

Her breath caught as he stopped in front of her, hand brushing her cheek, then tracing the soft swell of her lower lip.

“You know,” he said low, voice rasped and honey-warm, “you’re the only woman that ever had me twisted since the moment I saw you.” His forehead met hers. “And now you’re mine. Officially. Forever.”

Her fingers clutched his shirt. “Then claim me.”

That was all it took.

Joshua’s mouth met hers with heat and hunger, the kiss not careful, not reserved. It was years of tension, grief, joy, reunion—everything that brought them here tonight, pouring out between their lips and teeth and tongue.

She gasped when his hands gripped her thighs, lifting her easily as her legs wrapped around him. “You always tryna climb me like a tree,” he teased breathlessly.

She laughed against his mouth, “I’m tryna get higher, baby.”

He laid her down on the bed with reverence and urgency, pressing kisses along her collarbone as he worked that silk from her body, the fabric pooling like water beneath her. She arched into him as his hand traced her stomach, the place where their daughter had once grown. He pressed a kiss there too, murmuring, “Gave me the greatest gift.”

She whispered his name, “Joshua…”

He paused, eyes locked to hers. “You say it like that again, I’m not gonna be gentle.”

Her grin curved wicked and soft. “Then don’t be.”

His shirt came off next. Her hands skated over the hard lines of his stomach, the scars and ink she knew by heart. “You really do look like a sin,” she murmured.

He chuckled, low and rough. “You married the devil, baby.”

“Maybe.” Her eyes sparked. “But this devil’s mine.”

The rest was fire. Clothes peeled. Words gasped. Fingers and mouths and bodies colliding in a rhythm only they had. He worshiped her with every stroke, every kiss, every breath. They teased, they tangled, they moved like two people who had once lost everything—only to find their forever in each other.

Later, after the storm passed, after she collapsed against him limp and satisfied, still shaking from the final waves he drew out of her, he held her close, her fingers tracing his wedding band.

“I still can’t believe we’re here,” she whispered sleepily, curled into his chest.

He kissed the top of her curls. “Believe it. You’re my wife, Monique.”

She hummed, “Say it again.”

“You’re my wife.”

“Again.”

“You’re mine.”

She smiled into his chest. “Damn right.”

Chapter One Hundred and Twenty One “Eyes Like Trouble”

The Mississippi sun stretched long and golden across the compound, casting playful shadows on the porch where chaos reigned in the form of one tiny tyrant.

“Amira—Amira don’t you—”

Too late.

Little Amira Fatu, one year old and already a master of destruction, launched the bowl of mango chunks across the porch with the gleeful defiance only a child of Jey Fatu and Monique could summon. It hit the railing with a satisfying splatter, and she stood there in her bright yellow romper with two puffs bouncing on top of her head like antennae, looking dead at her daddy as if daring him to say something.

Jey squatted slowly, lips pursed, eye twitching.

“You think you slick, huh?”

Amira clapped. “Slick!”

He pointed. “That ain’t a good word when you say it, baby. Not when you just assaulted your snacks.”

Monique watched the entire thing from the kitchen window, sipping her lemonade with a smirk. “You wanted a daughter,” she called. “There she go.”

Jey stood up and ran a hand down his face, turning toward the open window. “She’s yours when she got attitude like that.”

“She’s yours when she throws fruit like a dodgeball champion.” Monique popped a grape in her mouth and winked.

He turned to Amira, who was now attempting to eat chalk from her toy bin. “Girl—girl! No. You don’t even know what that is!”

He swooped her up like a football and strode into the house with her wriggling and fussing in his arms. “She don’t listen to nothing I say.”

Monique leaned against the counter. “Wonder where she got that from, Mr. I Do What I Want.”

He shot her a look. “Keep talkin’. I’ma get you pregnant again.”

Monique’s whole body flinched as she held Amira’s sippy cup hostage like a shield. “You better back up, Joshua. You got those crazy-ass eyes on again.”

“What eyes?”

“The ones that got me knocked up the first time.” She narrowed hers. “Don’t think I don’t know how you operate. All sweet and helpful, rubbing my feet, massaging my scalp, and the next thing I know I’m barefoot in the kitchen cryin’ over frozen pizza and Tums.”

“I just wanna give you a sibling for Mira—”

She cut him a look. “No. You wanna fold me in half and say it’s in the name of love.”

He stepped closer, towering. “Ain’t it though?”

She pushed a palm against his chest, trying not to laugh. “Joshua.”

He grinned. “Monique.”

“I mean it. You keep that little magic wand in your shorts.”

He leaned in until his breath danced along her neck. “No promises.”

Amira chose that moment to let out a high-pitched screech of rebellion from the other room. Monique sighed. “And there go our break.”

“Your daughter,” Jey muttered, backing away and heading toward the chaos like a man resigned to fate.

“Our daughter,” Monique yelled after him, grinning.

“Mmhm. I see your little twin in there wreckin’ my peace and stealin’ my snacks.”

“You love it.”

He reappeared briefly in the hallway, Amira now wearing a blanket like a cape, her curls wild and eyes just as fiery as her mother’s.

Jey shook his head in awe. “Two of you in one house. God knew I needed to suffer.”

Monique smirked. “And you married me anyway.”

“Yeah,” he said, voice softening as he looked at her—really looked. “Best choice I ever made.”

And just like that, despite the noise and mess and snacks on the wall, Monique felt it again—the love that had weathered decades, the fire that never faded, and the future that now wore curls and chaos and yelled “Dada!” every ten seconds.

It wasn’t perfect. But it was theirs. And it was home.

Epilogue “Always Was, Always Will Be”

The late summer sun dipped low behind the cypress trees as laughter floated across the Fatu family compound. The big tent from their wedding had long been taken down, but the same stretch of land now held a different celebration—one quieter, softer, but no less meaningful.

Monique stood barefoot in the grass, her sundress brushing her knees as she watched Amira toddle after a butterfly, curls wild, little legs sturdy and determined. Two years old and already a storm in glitter jelly sandals.

“She don’t stop moving,” Monique muttered, shielding her eyes.

“She got that from you,” said Justice, flopping beside her in a lawn chair with a mock groan. “I’ve seen you burn through three to-do lists before lunch.”

“She got her attitude from me. That speed demon stuff? All him.”

Across the lawn, Jey was holding a second baby—this one smaller, rounder, and wrapped in a soft yellow blanket. Her name was Selah, born five weeks ago, with a head full of curls and a scowl that looked suspiciously familiar.

He rocked gently under the shade of the porch, whispering nonsense to her like he had all the time in the world. His face had changed. Not in the aging kind of way—no, he still had the same sharp jaw, the same lean muscle, the same wild curls and intense eyes—but fatherhood had softened him. Or maybe Monique had.

She crossed the yard slowly, hand on her hip. “You two hiding over here?”

He looked up at her like he always did. Like he couldn’t believe she was real. “We’re resting,” he said. “You don’t let nobody rest in that house.”

She laughed softly and leaned down to kiss his forehead. “You’re lucky you cute.”

Selah stirred, and he adjusted her in his arms instinctively, protective, calm, his whole heart in that one motion. Monique sank onto the swing beside him and exhaled deeply.

This—this was the life she’d never let herself dream of back when they were seventeen and everything hurt.

And now, with the breeze rustling the trees, and Amira shrieking with joy, and Selah sleeping safely in her father’s arms, Monique reached for his hand and laced their fingers together.

“You remember when I used to run from you?” she asked, half-laughing.

Jey smirked without looking away from Selah. “You were fast. But I was always right behind you.”

She nodded, eyes a little glassy. “And I always loved you. Even when I said I didn’t.”

He turned to her finally, and there was that look—the one she’d seen since she was sixteen and too stubborn to admit it. “I know,” he said softly. “Me too.”

The sun dipped lower.

Family started gathering behind them for dinner. Mama Fatu, Zilla and Justice, Tiffany and Luis, Katara and Jacob. A whole tribe born from love, from survival, from second chances.

And Monique leaned her head on Jey’s shoulder as their daughters—their miracles—breathed peace into the same air where heartbreak once lived.

Forever wasn’t perfect. But it was theirs.

Always had been. Always would be.

[tmwwriting]

Title: Make a heaven of hell Rating: Explicit (18+, MDNI) Chapter: 2/3 Word Count: 8.3K Tags/Warnings: Lucas Grey x female reader. No use of Y/N. Smut. Porn with plot (lots of plot). Bleak. Angst. Hurt No Comfort. Grimdark. Seedy strip club. Vixen Club from Hitman: Absolution x1000. General gross vibes. Hostile work environment. Illegal activities. Set during Lucas’s mercenary years. Reader is a dancer. Both damaged and unhinged in their own ways (how can this go wrong?) Unhealthy relationships. Friends with benefits. Threats of violence. Threats of gender-based violence. Background/implied/referenced violence. Implied/Referenced Prostitution. Minor Original Character(s). Death of Minor Original Character(s). Undernegotiated Everything. Voyeurism. Exhibitionism. Dry humping. Fingering. Oral sex. PIV sex. CNC. Stranger sex. Unprotected sex. Semi-public sex. Rough sex. Hard kinks. Consensual but NOT safe or sane. Dark fic. Ambiguous/Open Ending. Dead dove: do not eat. A/N: It only took an 8K word prologue, but we have finally arrived at the smut. Read the tags, it's what they're there for. :)

AO3: (X)

It’s a familiar rhythm. Terms. Conditions. No hard feelings.

(Pretty songbirds belong in pretty cages, and running out the clock only works if you’re the winning side.)

chapter ii. chaos and eternal night

It takes a moment for your expectations to right themselves, scramble back to their feet after being unceremoniously thrown on their heads by the most intimidating man you've ever seen. When they finally do, only two truths manage to stick in your frantic consciousness: this is certainly not a VIP party, and Marcus is a liar. (Thou shalt not murder ranks above not bearing false witness, and you're not entirely sure Marcus cares about either.) 

You run your little calculations, a quick addition of the hard look in the man's eyes with the way they scrape over every inch of you, peeling shreds of your confidence away to litter the cheap vinyl flooring. Then divide by your own trembling fingers and a quick inhale that cuts loudly through the room. The silence splinters into a jagged edge. It's only a job, but the math takes you to the one result you can see from this: a deeply unpleasant evening, either at his hand or your boss's. (Iron, copper, it doesn't matter, it all tastes the same—)

He’s not drunk, not even tipsy—you’d see it on him if he were. That telltale haze of bleariness isn’t clinging to those shoulders or in the corners of his eyes, there’s not even a whiff of alcohol in the room, although you saw him drinking and would expect the fog to have followed the two of you in. Even the atmosphere here can’t quite touch him.

You mirror his stillness back to him, a piss-poor reflection of murky waters, but it's your only defense mechanism. Fight or flight went out the window the second you saw him, and now you're nothing more than a deer caught in headlights. How the freeze response survived evolutionarily used to be beyond your understanding. Throw a punch, kick, scream, flee—but now you know them all to be useless.

Curiosity wins out when the moment drags on. Your heart races away in your chest, making a valiant effort to the end. Tilting your chin up and dragging your gaze off the wall takes all you have; it’s like fighting gravity to look directly at him. His eyes are the worst part. He's too close, and in them you see that yawning void between Scylla and Charybdis.

He's looking for something. There's too much intent there, cloaked behind a furrowed brow, for it to be accidental. Still no appreciation, though, not even a satisfied anticipation—this isn’t a leer, but an evaluation. Another ding to your ego. You jut your chin out and up at him.

Asshole.

Continue reading on AO3.

[heroesofchroma]

The sea boiled until it stood still. The bullet stood inches from Niles's face. He was frozen.

Behind the pirate's head echoed endless void, a yawning endless he couldn't describe. And yet, it was there. Tangible. Real.

Wrong.

And as Niles stared beyond his attacker, he saw the void's wretched, corroded stone eye open, crumbling as something came from the nothing.

"You heard."

Niles stared with fear between the bullet and the void's eye. He couldn't speak, frozen in time.

"You will die here. This is not up for debate anymore. You heard too late."

Niles's mind raced, begging for anything else. His child back home in France... He never got to meet them. The cries of his love ripped through mind, only heightening his terror. He promised...

"I can make your death painless. And more importantly... Impermanent."

Niles stared into the void's stone eye, seeing truth. The forces making him listen to this thing... To its proposition. And he saw the loophole. And one burning question ripped through the loophole, not disproving it, but damning the void's offer.

Why?

"I hunger. It has been endless ages since I had a champion. Yours will be the blade that ends the damned."

And with that... The offer felt plausible again.

"The damned will be marked. You will require a monthly sacrifice. Or you will leave this place. You will not be claimed. Not by me. Not by anything. Erased. Make your choice."

Niles couldn't think anything but two burning words in the back of his mind. Back and forth, back and forth, yes or no, no or yes...

Yes.

Chains flashed in a fraction of a fraction of a second out of the void, the hintest hint of a scream ripping the world apart before...

Niles died.

As the pirate laughed and began turning his attention to the rest of the privateer crew, a shiver tore up their spine. The gentle tip of privateer's cutlass hoisting the privateer up... The clack of the privateer's teeth against themselves as he tested his new head...

As the pirate turned to see the man he just shot stand again, a blood red streak ran from the privateer's nose to the back of his head. Skin greying like rot ash and drying away as it exposed his teeth. As the pirate scrambled back, falling on their ass as they watched the ghoul stand straight again, they tried to let out a scream only for pathetic whimpers to take their place, trying to find purchase against the slick, rain-soaked wood of the deck, waves beginning to threaten the sides of the boat.

As the ghoul turned his head towards the pirate, the entire dome of his skull smooth, bar the hole left by the bullet that, even now, is slowly closing. The ghoul saw over the pirate's heart a strange sigil. Simple. But burning bright. Red.

Wrong.

"Damned."

In an instant, the ghoul ran his cutlass through the pirate's eye.

Looking to the other pirates, he realized how out-numbered he was. He had one chance.

"Do it."

The ghoul looked down at the cutlass in his hand in front of him. And he flipped it to a reverse grip. Taking it in both hands.

And he plunged it through his heart.

As he buckled over, feeling every stinging and stabbing pain from the wound tenfold, he felt more. As he barely managed to keep his footing, the ghoul felt his back rip open, revealing the pains' sources. Chains threw themselves across the deck of the ship, seeking the damned.

Five pirates were immediately impaled by the spiked, bladed ends of the chains. As they were thrown into the crashing waves around the ship, the chains flung themselves in a circle, only missing the mast because it was already blown off before. Any pirate that didn't find their head or torso turned to mist quickly found themselves being chased by the chains.

And finally, the ghoul collapsed.

When he awoke, the ghoul found himself in a box. When he pushed the lid, it rattled.

He was chained in.

"Weak."

In an instant, the ghoul broke through the box's lid and slowly shattered the lid as a whole. He found an opening large enough to escape and found himself in the cargo hold of his ship. His crew must have been terrified.

Convincing them would be a nightmare...

“Pick a god and pray” they said, and you did, praying to every god you knew. And as you did this a name popped into your mind, one you didn’t recognize, yet you prayed to them all the same. In response the air stood still, like even the world had forgotten their name.

[ravenloftian]

The Boyar's Hall

Some Unknown Date in Vorostokov. Game Sessions 11/22/24, 11/29/24, 12/20/24

Above the timber palisade of Vorostokov rises a moon as thin and cruel as a scythe-blade. Frost-laden wind keens through the wolf-skull totems, carrying the promise of blood and deliverance. On this night the outlanders—Gray the shadow-walker, Percival the Cursed, Cedric, his cousin, and their haunted companions—move to sunder Boyar Gregor Zolnik’s dominion forever.

Mikhail’s childhood memory of the hall, sketched upon brittle vellum, guides them: a back door little used, a turning corridor, the yawning Great Hall. Alone, Gray vaults the stockade, ghosting across snow crust. He slips through the servants’ postern and becomes a rumor among the shadows—past kitchen hearths where weary voices can be heard, past chambers heavy with the snores of boyarsky drunk on mead.

Then the Great Hall unfolds before him. Firelight gutters in the stone hearth painting the spruce pillars in gold and black. A pine-longtable, scarred by years of feast and knife-game, stretches toward a dais where an oak throne broods beneath a banner of a snarling wolf. Five visiting boyarsky lie in wine-stained slumber on bench and bearskin; their breath fogs the air, but their ears are dulled by drink.

Gray passes unheard.

Beyond a wolf-carved door he finds Gregor’s lair. A raw-timber bed, iron-bound chest, hunting trophies—and, nailed high upon the eastern wall, the thing they have come to doom: a soot-black wolf pelt, bristling as if still alive, its eye-sockets twin voids. Gray unstoppers a pouch; wolfsbane, salt, and mountain balm drift like bitter snow upon the hide. With each grain the pelt’s thrumming power falters, until at last it hangs nothing more than dead fur.

Task wrought, the shadow-walker melts back into night and signals the party.

The attack was meant to be quiet. Instead it is thunder.

Stepping through the courtyard gate, the company scatters and the slumbering hall erupts. Benches splinter, torches whirl, and steel shrieks against iron as startled boyarsky rise only to fall beneath spell-fire and blade. The wolf banner whips in the updraft, watching its sworn warriors die.

Gregor himself barrels from his chamber half-changed, senses the pelt’s betrayal, and flees with a roar that rattles the rafters. He sprints into the snow, leaving crimson footprints that steam in the moonlight. The party, many cursed to change into werebeasts pursue him to the cave told by Gregor's mother's ghost. They feel the dread pull of the coming dark moon in their blood, the guilt of the death of their fallen companion, Val, weighing heavily.

They have but hours to end him or be lost to the beast within.

Across fir-haunted slopes and frozen stream the hunt races, until Gregor dives into a wind-carved cave whose mouth gapes like a wolf’s toothed jaw. Inside, rime armour plates the stone; echoes of dripping ice sound like distant heartbeats. There the boyar makes his final stand, bereft of the pelt’s sorcery. Steel bites; tempers flare; the cave becomes a battleground.

In the end, Gregor Zolnik—wolf-lord, tyrant, Dark Power’s favored son—falls to his knees, blood dark upon the snow-dusted floor, and his death cry is swallowed by the mountain.

Clutching his wound, Gregor topples with a great cry. For a moment he glares wickedly, his blood pooling around him. "You have not yet defeated me." he snarls. "I will kill you all!" Then he dies, still cursing. As soon as Gregor falls, an eerie mist fills the room, rising from the flagstones of the floor like the icy breath of some unseen monster. It swirls around the boyar's body. and the image of a white. frost-covered wolf seems to glare from the vapors. Then. as quickly as it had come, the mist dissipates. Gregor's body has vanished! His sword begins to sparkle, and it, too, dissolves into silvery mist that pours back down between the cracks in the stones. Finally, the black wolf pelt nearby begins to sparkle with the same slivery light. In a moment, it will vanish as well.

As will the frost that has covered the land for two decades.

When the sun at last edges above the pines, its rays strike a valley strangely hushed. Within the Great Hall, torches gutter low beside toppled benches; the wolf banner hangs limp, its magic spent. Outside the cave, Percival and Cedric feel the fever of lycanthropy drain from their veins like thawing ice. The curse is broken.

So ends the reign of the Wolf-Lord of Vorostokov. Where his tread once silenced villages, dawnlight now spills upon unmarred snow, and the howling in men’s dreams grows quiet. Yet the Mists are ever hungry; they close over the fallen tyrant and over the heroes who dared defy him, whispering that every victory is bought with a great price—one whose shadow may yet follow them beyond the next moonrise.

But that is another day.

For now, Spring comes, brilliant and bold.

Ice that once armoured every thorn and treetop shivers and begins to slough away. Where glaciers had clutched the hills, cataracts now roar: torrents bursting free in silver ribbons, cleaving new gullies, sending mist plumes that catch the newborn sun.

Beneath the melting crust the earth quickens. First come crocus spears—violet, gold, and ghost-white—skewering the thaw-soft loam. Then a riot of green unfurls faster than thought: ferns uncoil in a single heartbeat; mosses spill emerald carpets down every rune-scarred stone. Buds swell, burst, and bloom in trembling cascades—apple, cherry, hawthorn—until the air drifts with petals.

All around, the realm remakes itself in days, not months. Streams braid into rivers, rivers into lakes, and the lakes brim over, sculpting new deltas of silt and promise. Flower-drowned fields sway like a many-colored sea, and wind-tossed petals whirl skyward to greet a sun no longer muted by ice. Above it all, clouds billow white and fluffy.

The frost’s dominion ends not in silence but in rapture—an exultant chorus of melting, blooming, rushing life. Spring has come, brilliant and bold, and every buried seed answers the call: rise, rise, rise.

[witchcraftandburialdirt]

Tarhos barely looks up from his sleeping position, his beak buried in his arms as his eyes focused on the man asking his beloved for directions. Humans were always such pitiful creatures and yet still he waited for the man to leave before he'd stretch and curl himself up again, "I don't get the point in helping creatures whose lives mean nothing. It'll die before it reaches town anyway, wild animals will claim it's life and make it something useful perhaps." he yawns curling his tail around his body, "Don't tell me you actually feel sympathy for it's own foolishness."

It wasn't a secret the darkin didn't hold much value in the lives of mortals, he lived in the age where his kin ruled over them like a farmer his cattle picking and choosing which to slaughter. A desperate bid to try and forge themselves into what they once were.

Now... they were just as horrendous as the void they tried so desperately to claw from their minds and just as corrupted. He was fortunate enough to not hold the same madness, he embraced the few good qualities mortals had putting his trust in a being nearly and ancient and wild as he was. A being he shared his mind with so readily enough that he had nothing to hide. Even now as teasing as his words were, his mind bloomed with how pretty Haruko looked in the sun.

── 𝐔𝐍𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐌𝐓𝐄𝐃 𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒 ── LEAGUE VERSE

"You know, husband, the meaning of life isn't always death - I've lived with humans for centuries, and they worship us both, surely there's no issue with offering a bit of a push," The vastayan cooed in response as he watched the human disappear beyond the treeline towards the nearest village, "You ought to know by now that pure savagery is not the only answer when faced with mortals, everything has their place within nature's bosom. Them, us, even insects - to throw off that balance with hatred would be devastating - they are... dull creatures, but they are necessary."

The branches, now heavy with the last fruits of the season seemed to bow before Haruko's beauty as he passed by, eager fingers plucking a peach to bring it to his lips with a wet crunch. It's delicate, floral sweetness danced over his tongue in swirling crescendo only heightened by the blossoming pulses of affection shared between their minds. He climbed atop the boulder closest to his beloved to gaze upwards at the clouds threaded into the vast expanse of azure above him…and he shut his eyes to listen. The first thing was always their shared heartbeat, and beyond he could hear the forest's aubade to the rising sun who's brilliant rays peeked just above the horizon. Another day within this endless cycle, and another day with his Heartlight. After a moment he continued, sliding down from the rock to trot closer and allow his fingers to slither beneath a few of Tarhos' plates - the peach now fully eaten except the seed.

"You were human once, I think you forget that sometimes, Tarhos… If we have no mercy for others then perhaps we are already killing what could bring humans out of their violent rhythms, not only that but…." his hand brushed away dirt and pebble alike to reveal the damp soil below which eagerly accepted the seed dropped into it, "The humans of Ionia have never harmed me, or you - they recognize us both as protectors of our great mother… We've no reason to damn that vision, there's no need to be cruel to them.. They need guidance to become better, we can both offer that."

[umbrastag]

Empty Hallways

< A written blurb for my OC Vale Merris >

< Pre-Dragonflight, Beginning-Shadowlands >

| Violence, Death, and Horror ahead writing-wise |

The Isle was shrouded by an unnatural fog that blended well with the Kul'Tiran landscape of Stormsong. Despite the strangeness of the fog, no one ventured to this isle, no one knew the island was there at this point. The ever-dim area resembled Duskwood's own seemingly permanent darkness, the sounds within were that of people. Individuals from all over Azeroth concealed by their leader's power and mastery of the Void. There were other added magics to help mask the gathering of a small mass of followers and the Void that was present within. Their numbers were steadily growing, the cult of the Shepherd holding more followers these days than anything else. Linda, a Lamb who led the followers in her master's stead hurried across the stone circle in the middle of the water on the island. Four statues rose up in various poses, crudely carved but, the image was clear. A tall humanoid figure with six eyes, a hood, and horns protruding from the sides of the head. Down into the caves that lead beneath the isle to the east, hurrying down the wooden steps into a yawning cavern lit only by purple fires in their torches posted along the walls. The currently human man, stood in the center watching as the walls carved with intricate shath'yar text rotated. A rhythmic grinding meeting the woman's ears. She moved quickly to his side, carefully shifting around the moving pieces till she came to the center standing next to her Shepherd. He stood still, quiet with various markings along his skin that burned deep into the soul. An attempt was to be made today, it was the culmination of his years of study and utter devotion to the primordial force that 'saved' him. The Shepherd was going to attempt to ascend himself into the realm of being a minor entity of which, would be no easy feat even with the madness he endured and the lessons he learned. Secluded after learning a final lesson, years away and months gone leaving the world to continue onward as he cared for his flock.

"And it is...Here I shall see if I am ready...For there is no other desire I have than to be totally whole with the Void. I will be of...Far better use when I make it to this next stage."

His smooth voice rang out, carrying over the din of the churning stone formations that began to thud into place. His six eyes looked out, somewhere beyond. Linda had seen the way he'd been the last few months, he was more distant and she saw an important transition happen for his psyche. The mortal mindset had been resolved, his mind set on the immortal perspective that loomed ahead. It was ominous to see the change, the coldness of it, and how his calculative mind eased into it all. She knew now that he had truly been hollowed out. He had become...Her emerald eyes watched on. She had been through his journey with him, watched him go from emotional to silent and dark. Empty

"... It's time."

His voice, ethereal now disturbed her thoughts and she peered up at him. His many eyes watched her, a clawed hand gesturing her away.

"Keep the vessel ready...Should I succeed...It will truly be the only thing anchoring me to this plane of existence."

"Of course...My Shepherd." Linda stepped back to her designated area watching as the room halted its shifting. The Shepherd raised his clawed hands, power erupting from him like a dam that broke, and the room was plunged into darkness before the runes in the walls erupted into a purple light. The sound of each wall ground anew, he felt the command that was asked of him and it was total...Surrender. He had to take the leap to leave the body so the Void could reshape the soul into something else. He was no longer afraid like he had in the past, the room's stone walls erupted and crumbled revealing the Void beyond. Starry, cosmic skies with darkened planets and brilliant colors. The cosmic beams that erupted from his hooded being burned the runes etched into the vessel's skin, gritting his fangs together before the body slumped and crumbled to the centerpiece on which he stood. The soul was drawn outwards, instead of being pulled to the beyond. It was so riddled with Void, that the force easily made purchases beginning to warp and change what remained. Though the stone was gone, the sound of grinding could be heard echoing even still. Linda watched with amazement though she had to shield her mind from the very raw connection to the Void here. She covered her ears, tears streaming down her face as she writhed along the odd watery surface. She didn't know what all happened after that but, when she came back into herself mentally she was surrounded by darkness. Familiar, many maws gnashing and glowing eyes took everything in while a few watched her. She looked almost terrified, the aura of her Shepherd changed. "We will return to the vessel...and prepare ourselves to return to those who remain in the Eastern Kingdoms. We are called to prepare...And to wait."

Linda bowed, knowing he had succeded but, at what cost? Clearly, he would not think as she or the others did. She would need to be his grounding rod for mortal thinking in the future she figured. "Of course...Shepherd. I will watch the flock in your stead." When she looked up, everything was silent and...She was above ground...

[mal-o-deur]

As Taishen is the day, so Jornir is the night.

And perhaps, like a pale moon suspended in a morning sky, or the blue-green fire of an aurora snaking through the dark, one finds part of himself in the other.

Fu Zhao bade that Taishen should overcome the four pillars that obstruct the pursuit of wisdom; fear, doubt, anger, and despair. While honoured, he cannot help but be overwhelmed. He is a humble tea shop proprietor, plagued by mortal emotion. How can he possibly achieve what has been asked of him?

He tries. Though he knows fear, he chooses hope. Mercy over anger. He chooses to be the light that Drakkar so desperately needs, even when he doubts that she will ever look his way. He gives himself, sets himself ablaze beneath the spotlight of his destiny, burning bright as a desert sun. But it can't last, and he knows it. Hard as he tries, Drakkar is still cold and his friends are still lost, and he cannot help but slip into despair.

Night comes with a certainty surpassed only by Death itself. Bright as they burn, all suns must set, and night is what waits when the last light fades from the horizon. It is the quiet after the tumult of wakefulness, the stillness that surmounts the heady dance of day.

In the face of the uncertainty that rages in Taishen’s brain, Jornir's conviction is a sanctuary, a refuge from the maelstrom of guilt and regret that threatens to consume him. Nothing stills the waters of Taishen’s mind quite so effectively as Jornir's reassurance, calling him to rest as twilight calls to the weary heart. It is the promise of respite, the solace of sleep.

But the night is not without its cruelties. It is the domain of predators, eyes glinting beyond the glow of the fire light. On his long walk south, Jornir's guide has been the cool light of distant stars, an atlas laid out in glittering constellations. Such clarity requires a cloudless sky, one that allows all heat to escape to the void of space, and it is cold, bitterly cold. Accustomed as he is to it, prepared as he may be, he cannot resist it forever. A living thing must have warmth, and he is alone.

Small wonder, then, that as blood withdrawing from a frostbitten limb, he has pulled into himself, curled tightly against the penetrating cold. He resists the reminder that one day, the gods he serves with such unwavering devotion will surrender him to a yawning emptiness that will swallow him whole. No love, no light, no warmth. No recognition of what he has done. Only a body, devoid of soul, that will rot into the earth beneath it.

But Taishen sees him. He recognises him in a way that no god ever could. He is the candle in the window that leads the weather-beaten traveller to safety, the embers in the hearth that keep the icy wind at bay.

And so, as the first light of dawn alights upon a prickly hoarfrost, making it sparkle before it melts to water the ground beneath, and the tender kiss of spring brings forth the greening of fields and the buds into bloom, so too do the walls around Jornir's heart begin to slip away. The frozen land is awoken at the sun's gentle insistence, crowned in rebirth.

Why does almost nobody in this community take any interest in Taishen and Jornir's relationship (either platonic or romantic). Like are you not enticed by the dance between the quiet calm of the night and the brightness of the first rays of the sun either ? Are you not Enthralled

[hopepetal]

A little fic I wrote inspired by these two art pieces by @cherrifire! Thank you very much for creating such wonderful art for me to take inspiration from ^_^

--

Pearl was falling.

Plummeting, as Icarus once did, through endless blue and blindingly white clouds. The bright green thread that had tied her to Scott- finally visible to her eyes- was trailing behind her as a mocking reminder of what was broken; what she had broken.

Hot tears welled up in her eyes and were torn away by the wind, shining droplets of saltwater and sorrow thrown up to the stars. The wind whipped through her hair, strands falling in her face as she continued her seemingly eternal descent through the air.

It seemed the moon had a habit of falling from the sky.

Just as quickly, Pearl was swallowed by the void, all encompassing darkness surrounding her. As the cold void whistled past her, Pearl was suddenly reminded of the fight with the enderdragon years ago, long before she had joined Hermitcraft. Maybe that's what this was.

She closed her eyes. It made no difference, but at least she didn't have to keep looking at that broken soulmate string, or stare into the void that was as empty as her heart felt.

Is she awake?

Oh.

This end poem sounded a little different than what Pearl remembered.

No, not yet. Give her time. You know how hard the games are.

She kept her eyes closed. What else would there be to see beyond the void that she already knew so intimately?

She fought hard.

She had no choice.

We all did.

There was light shining on her face behind her closed eyelids, Pearl realized. With a soft gasp, feeling herself laying on solid ground, Pearl's eyes shot open. She slowly sat up, rubbing her eyes as they adjusted to the light.

The first thing she noticed was Grian's concerned expression as he gazed at her from where he stood. The second was Scott, gazing at her with an unreadable face. The third was Tilly, laying on her lap, and Pearl was thankful for the familiar comfort in this strange place.

"...Pearl?" Grian asked, hesitant and sounding so, so tired. "How are you feeling?"

Pearl bit back a yawn as she instinctively stroked Tilly's fur, rubbing the dog's head with one hand as she rubbed the last bits of sleep from her eyes with her other hand. "What happened?" Her voice rasped and scratched against her throat, and Pearl winced. Glancing around, her gaze swept over the others present- Joel, Scar, Impulse, Tango, Cleo... as well as the rest of the members from the death games. "Where are we?"

Grian sighed, glancing over at Scott. "You won the game." His eyes met Pearl's again, and he offered her a tired smile. "I'd offer my congratulations, but I think we all know they're unwanted."

"Neither of us are too sure about where we are, exactly," Scott added on, "but we know we can't leave." We've tried, was left unsaid, hanging in the air.

"Are they okay?" was Pearl's next question as she glanced once more at their friends.

"They're not dead," Scott answered, and Grian shot him an annoyed look.

"They're just sleeping," he reassured Pearl, "like you were. Like we both were, before we woke up." He glanced at Scott, before his eyes drifted back out over the crowd of sleeping people. "The sleepers play the games, and the winners wake up. That's what seems to be happening. I don't know-" And he sounded so genuinely frustrated and angry for a moment, before he took a deep breath to calm himself- "I don't know how to fix it. Nothing we've tried works."

Pearl didn't know what to say. "I'm sorry," she tried, continuing to pet Tilly. The small dog had begun to wake, ears and tail twitching as Pearl gently ran her hand through her fur.

Grian sighed, shaking his head. "No, I'm sorry. You just woke up, I shouldn't be putting this all on you." He gave her a smile that couldn't quite reach his eyes. "I'm glad you're awake, Pearl. Good morning."

Pearl giggled softly. "Good morning, Grian. Scott."

Scott's mouth quirked up into a small smile. "Well, good morning to the both of you, too."

[nullen-void]

I haven’t played the game. I’ve been a good boy and tried to avoid spoilers, though I admit my curiosity’s gotten the better of me a couple times.

But Tears of the Kingdom comes out in *checks watch* two-ish days, and the aniticpation is giving me hives, and I need to talk about it even if I’m screaming into the void. There are no spoilers here, just speculation.

Some people on this very website have floated the idea of a grand time loop, where TotK will loop back around to Skyward Sword. This is a bad idea. In fact it is terrible, and I hate the very thought.

For eons, the Hero and the Goddess Incarnate have fought and pushed back againt the King of Evil. It’s been, what, 150,000 years between the Era of the SKy and the Era of the Wild, probably more. Thirteen times that we know of, evil has risen, and thirteen times, it has been pushed back. Link and Zelda might get most of the rest of their lives to rest afterward, but their job is never finished. Demise always comes back. Sometimes it’s in the form of Bellos, of Phantos, of Vaati, and usually it’s Ganondorf and his myriad variants, but Evil always returns.

Hyrule has been stuck in its Middle Ages for hundreds of thousands of years. They should have space colonies by now, but Demise’s curse keeps setting them back. In the Era of the Wild, he very nearly knocked them back to the Stone Ages. If Link hadn’t held the line at Fort Hateno, Hylians as a race would be extinct.

And now, now now now, there’s a possibility that we’re going to go around again for another lap? Nuh-uh, I don’t think so.

This cycle is ancient beyond belief. The yawning maw of history looms behind Link and Zelda, threatening to swallow them whole, and if it loops back to Skyloft, that means that it’s in front of them too.

It would be a tragedy with no end in sight. It would be the death of hope. If time keeps marching forward we could hope that one day, at least, the cycle will break and they’ll win for good, but if it extends into perpetuity? What’s the point?

I haven’t played the game yet. After I do maybe I’ll come back to this and pen a response. But right now, I live in dread that the time loop theory is real. Please, Hylia, don’t let it be real.