#C: Apokathisto

[shardclan]

The lingering vision of Arcanus vanishing into the dark brambles at the bottom of the Descent was sharp in Apokathisto’s mind during Prophecy's trial.

Kiele was conflicted. Kea was furious. Ashes was unforgiving even though Hihi'o was returned unharmed. He is sensitive with his brother gone. Azricai didn't show it, but she was angry too. Though she wanted Prophecy to be able to form a healthy relationship with her charge, she is always unyielding when it comes to children's well being. And Apokathisto thinks that is only as it should be.

He wonders what may have happened if he weren't there. If he weren't a guardian. If he hadn't watched the greatest guardian he knew leave both his new and old charges and go to the other side of the world to serve them best.

It amazes him that he didn't have a charge when he made the final judicial decision on the Hihi’o case. Yes, he had brought on other well known guardians to strengthen the argument, but at the time he had felt almost out of bounds.  He now knows that he did have a charge technically--he just wasn't sure that was what had happened.

At the Chalcedony Circle again with Lutia and Ashes, he knows that is exactly what happened.

He felt nothing for the stones when they were whole, but they are quiet now. Cooled. Inert. There is a surging in his chest and a prickling of his scales, and this time he knows that it isn't fear and desperation to rescue Rebis. His charge is here.

Or rather, they were out there. Somewhere.

He touches the stone that changed him, and feels a distant hum replace the numbness that has settled inside him. He knows the stone's name. And that it is the last of the 36 pieces of the Circle. They had been soaking in the energies of the stars that they were dedicated to. Ever since the Seat was moved. A full cycle now--each having had its turn to rise and fall. But without the Seat, the energy had no outlet. No place to pool that could contain it all. No waiting vessel that could hold so much power. So it kept building and building, manifesting in the astral plane like spirits, but with no witch who would ever pass them on through Sornieth and into the next plane.

Until Rebis came. And until Apokathisto pulled her, and them along with her, back to the physical realm.

His eyes dart to a hill in the distance. Dotted with half-barren aspens. With uncharacteristic exhilaration, he races recklessly toward it with Lutia and Ashes' cries falling on deaf ears.

There was something calling him. In the Isles, that was dangerous and even more so to actually respond, much less follow. He knew that. But he couldn't stop. Something had happened between him and the Circle and Rebis and the answer was out there.

The aspens seemed empty when he reached them. They stood stark white in the red-violet evening like slender bones shooting up from the grass. They were swaying ever so slightly, bowing in toward one another and then gently back out. Almost as if they were breathing.

He turns his eyes up, and sees it.

He hears his elders cautiously creep up behind him. Ashes touches his shoulder and asks if he's alright. Apokathisto glances back at him, then at Lutia. Neither of them can see it. More pressingly, despite both being sages of the Arcane in their own ways, neither of them can sense it.

Apokathisto has an urge. He tells himself rationally that it is incredibly dangerous. The entire experience of coming back to see the Circle has been that way for him. And perhaps the stars are finally coming into his eyes--he lets intuition bypass reason and reaches out to grasp the place the creature should be.

A gust of magic erupts from within the trees, knocking them all flat and even pushing Lutia back. Apokathisto is the only one who remains standing, untouched, and with new understanding.

The 36th. Abankhit.

Even though it was peering down at them from it's immaterial face, it wasn't really there. It had only just begun to materialize and it would be eons before it was done. Whatever the Circle had done to him, he had done to the forming being, and without a solid shape it had simply scattered. It would find a new place, and begin again.

Somewhere out in Sornieth, 35 more apparitions were settled into some similar dark and lonesome place. Gestating.

Apokathisto clenches his fist. Though it's bitter, for the first time he is grateful to have been born and raised as he was. He knows what must be done. And it will take the kind of power that only one who was offered the crown can wield.

[shardclan]

Under the great obsidian disc was an air of keen agitation that was so potent it was almost a solid object. Though it was unclear just what the source was, locals gave it wide berth.

Even Lutia stood in the outer rings of the columns, glaring out into the light of day with raised hackles. Constant unease was a struggle she had dealt with ever since returning from the Circle with Apokathisto. She was the Steward of the Seat, and that was certainly safe, but the stones that comprised the Circle were the power source. It might take an Age, but eventually the Seat would run dry of its power without them.

(And if she was honest, it irked her a little that the young guardian had formed some sort of connection with the Circle that even she was not fully privy to.)

None of that was what bothered her now. This was the kind of irate foreboding that she usually only experienced when Crucis had tampered with something he really shouldn't have. But it wasn't Crucis. It didn't feel like him, didn't smell like him. And the unfamiliarity of it only set her on edge more.

Apokathisto was either very brave or very desperate to have approached her.

"Something you need, Imperator?" 

“Invigilavi,” he corrected numbly. He had heard that word spoken with scorn many times since the paper announced it. At this point, it was all he could do to just direct his clan mates to his new name instead of drawing attention to his eventual title.

“Lavi it is,” the Archmage said distractedly. “Can I help you?”

He awkwardly joined her under the disc. His shape was still new to him and he couldn't change or remove the glamour. No one else in Aphaster barring transient mercenaries took such half-beast shapes. Yet he still had his characteristic air of reticence, despite a standing several heads taller than Lutia and having significantly more bulk.

"I would like to confide in you," he began. "If you don't mind."

Lutia gawked. No one had confided much of anything in her in eons. "Do I really seem the appropriate choice for that? You have the Gale Wolf for a mother!"

His face pinched. "It's because she's my mother that I don't want this to reach her. Perhaps it oversteps my boundaries but... I am coming to you because of your experiences. With your son."

Lutia's face froze into a mask, but her coat nearly doubled in size. The ghosts of ancient scents toyed with her sensitive nose, like a forgotten perfume with a thousand attached memories half-remembered.

"I know how you were raised, Lavi. I know you wouldn't bring that up on passing curiosity." Her voice was at once stonily meditative, as though she were talking herself out of her anger, and subtly cold with a fear he hadn't thought possible from her. 

"Can you be saved?" she whispered.

The question caught him off guard. He had been raised on the stories of the past, of how Lutia's rage had razed everything they used to be and chased them from their homeland. But hearing the slight quake of her voice and seeing the tight expression on her face, he knew he was treading into a place in her heart that wasn't full of anger but of old loss and barely healed devastation.

"I don't know," he answered quietly. "I suppose I'm telling you because I'm hoping you might find a way to make the answer into a yes before it's too late."

He held out his palm, displaying a small golden crack in his flesh. Lutia traced it quizzically. It wasn't opalescence, though it bore a resemblance. It was more like a scar, but the magical nature of it was obvious. The gold color confused her. Numb to his magic or not, he was Arcane.

"Is this a new gene?" she demanded. "Something expressing after your contact with the Circle?"

He laughed dryly. "I don't think so. This is..." He frowned, and let his hand drop from hers. "My magic isn't numb, Lutia. It's not inside of me any more. It's been displaced."

"Ashes didn't find anything of the sort wrong with you!" she countered hastily. "You have magic, you just cant feel it."

"Because it isn't mine. That's why I can't feel it, or command it. Not even to change this body. The Circle took my magic from me, and left something else. Something that lets me feel them...forming out there."

He rubbed his scaly fingers over the crack, feeling the almost metallic sensation of whatever had solidified in it. "The magic inside me belongs to the Circle. To Abankhit, in particular."

"Who the hell is Abankhit?"

"The name of the stone I touched. You have their names on your scroll. Abankhit would be the last." His eyes turned away, more out of frustration than avoidance. "I have a lot in my mind recently, Lutia. Knowledge that doesn't belong to me. But it's like the knowing you experience in a dream. It's an understanding that doesn't make sense in the waking world. I only know for certain I am charged to see Abankhit and all the rest back among the stars."

Lutia stared ahead, worried immensely at that not one but a full three dozen unstable astrals were working on manifesting into Sornieth. "And when you complete this mission, it will save Rebis somehow...But cost you your life a well?"

"It is not the completion may kill me.” He smiled bitterly at the crack in his palm. "Just like the Radiant could not house his essence in a body that wasn't his, my body isn't going to last forever on Abankhit's energy. It's astral magic. Horizon was born as he was and had both energies in equal measure. I was born a dragon, and was never meant to exist with anything but a dragon’s magic in me."

She remembered with painful vividness how hard it had been for both Horizon and herself. Day in, day out, meditating and controlling themselves at the risk of sublimating to another plane. What Lavi was describing was worse. He wasn't at risk of going on to some glorious other form of life. He was going to deteriorate and he couldn't even take refuge in exaltation because he wasn't whole without his birth magic inside of him.

"We can do the opposite of what Rebis is doing," she insisted fumblingly. "Magic infusion is just as routine as siphoning. A pain in the ass but you could live if the problem is not getting enough draconic magic."

His jaw clenched. He was almost grateful when the soft blue-white light under the disc took on a harsh magenta color. The Celestial Vault screeched and groaned and the crystal shot outward in brittle, hastily formed masses of unstable geometry, cracking and breaking only to be replaced be even more poorly generated spires of celestine. The multi-layered barriers of elements that rose over arcane hissed, and it wasn't long before Lutia doubled over, claws digging at the Arcanist's emblem blazed into her abdomen.

"It's burning!" she gasped raggedly. Her fur and the cracks of her opalescence glistened in angry pink neon, the focuses lining her limbs sizzling white hot. Even the spellscroll around her neck was shining with ferocious intensity. "Get back! Something's wrong, the Seat writhes--!"

Without flinching, Invigilavi reached out and placed his hand over her emblem. There was a faint hiss as the magic singed his scales, but the focuses quieted. Her fur settled back to its usual plain charcoal. The surge passed. He breathed a cloud of stardust that nearly pushed Lutia to vomit, but unlike Horizon, he did not seem otherwise harmed.

"You're..." she fumbled, her eyes widening with her rising horror. "You're immune...?"

He nodded grimly. In his hand, the crack had grown, tracing a curving golden leyline from thumb to wrist. He had siphoned away her magic, to seemingly no other detriment at all. No signs of inundation sickness--not even the drunken giddiness that accompanied exposure to high levels of one’s home element. 

But the booming of the earth barrier collapsing left neither of them the time to fully appreciate the trust he had just placed in her, nor the magnitude of what he had just done, nor the implications of the enlarged crack in his palm.

"You're the Steward," he said firmly. "Control it."

The words brought her agitation back in full force. The Seat was reacting to something. As much as she hated to think that it had a mind of it's own, it was confused and angry. For just a moment,  something had caused a ripple in the connection between it and Lutia. And while it's only goal had been to find her, left to its own self-expression it was only good at expelling raw energy.

Lutia put it back to sleep with the certain promise that she was would certainly raze something when she found out who was responsible.

@boyonetta

[shardclan]

In the plaza of House Betelgeuse, what had once been a mere sprig of the Great Staroak had grown into a mighty new tree. Like Clover's bees, it had been hybridized with local species. It had a stunning mix of branches that sprouted leaves of gold or silver, each color shining correspondingly to whether it was day or night. It had long since outgrown the small arcane biome constructed to help it survive the early process, and lived on a healthy swath of wild grass that the fountain had been expanded to accommodate.

Rebis sat under the boughs alone, her nose deep in a book to avoid meeting any of the pitiful, apologetic looks she had been getting since case with Hihi'o had been resolved. She had insisted Prophecy had nothing to do with it, had waited patiently for her teacher to return so she could share the great news of her blessing from the Lightweaver. And that loyalty had all been for nothing. It was mortifying, but worse still it was terribly lonely. So when Apokathisto crossed the ornate stepping stones in the fountain to join her, she didn't immediately turn him away. 

"It's the last day of the jubilee," he said quietly. "Shouldn't you be celebrating?"

She shot him an irritable glare. "I can't believe you of all people are coming to me with small talk. Am I that pitiful?"

"It isn't about pity. It's about norms." he sat next to her, gently turning his thumbs one over the other. "Brightshine is the exact kind of celebration I'd expect you to be enjoying with all the people who love you."

"Well they're all gone!" she exploded. "Azricai and Equinox and all of Kea's family are dealing with the aftermath of that case! Penitence and Copernicus are in Feldspar! Dantalion and Camellia haven't been in the mood for company since Heaven ran off, Stellaria is busy organizing that surprise thing for Telos and when she isn't she hangs out at Bramble Step now! And Telos isn't even here! The list goes on!"

Apokathisto quietly let her have her moment. She sniffed, and shut her book. "Nobody has any room for me right now," she said tersely. "Happy?"

"No." He threw a comforting arm around her, momentarily making them both uncomfortable. He aspired to be more honest with his feelings, but casual physical affection wasn't normal for them. he settled for holding her hand instead, which had always been their way.

While it was weird, Rebis immediately missed the comfort of the hug as soon as he took it back. She sagged into him, her eyes stinging with angry tears. "She didn't even think about me, did she? Before she decided to just run off with Hihi'o."

"I don't know," he admitted. "I don't fully understand the feeling of having a charge. I haven't found mine."

"Good." She turned her face into his side, and from under his robes he felt both her hitching breaths and the wetness of her tears. "You're better off that way."

Apokathisto pressed him lips together and let her cry. He sympathized with Telos a little--how was he supposed to tell her? Especially when she was already in such a bad place? He wished he had more time, but when Telos returned she would almost certainly make her announcement. He wished Rebis were a little older, but she had always hated being small and spent much more of her time in glamour than he had. Though they were the same age, she hadn't matured as far as he had. And there was no time to wait for her to be older. He had looked out for her since they were young. She trusted him. And he couldn't betray that by not telling her.

"I'm sorry," he began. "I know it hurts. And I hope you know it isn't your fault. Is there anything I can do to help you enjoy the last of this celebration?"

"Why do you care?" she sniveled. "What's so important about this festival. There'll be more. There'll be Thundercrack."

"...Things might be different by then."

She pulled back and searched his eyes fearfully. "Different how?"

He took a deep breath and squeezed her hand. There was no point in dodging the truth when she was asking him so directly. He had come there to tell her after all. He just wished things were different. He wished he wasn't explaining while she was already hurt. "Telos is going to leave, Rebis. She's going to pass the crown. To us. She was always going to."

For several tense moments, he watched her try to digest this information. He remembered how it had felt when he learned it. But he had asked--demanded-- to learn it. Rebis was having it dropped on her when she hadn't asked for it and probably wouldn't have wanted to know if he had given her the choice.

The strain proved too much. Throwing her book aside, she ran. Apokathisto scurried to give chase, following her into the deeper parts of the ground level. "Rebis!" He shed his glamour and got ahead of her. "Rebis stop!"

She shed her glamour just as readily, abusing her tiny size and a flash of light magic to pass him by and disappear into the shadow under the Obsidian Disc. Blinking the spots from his eyes, he followed after her, his massive size working against him as he tried to figure out where Rebis was. He circled the Chalcedony Seat in a panic, his hackles raised by either the possibility that she might be there or by the thick, barely restrained energy that made him feel he was being watched by something from within the Celestial Vault.

A pop of light from the Starwood Portal got his attention and he sped toward it, only to find Rebis working some sort of spell before the writhing wood. The remains of a barrier were dissipating at her back, and without it there was no one there to stop her. "Rebis, please calm down," he tried. "We can say no. We don't have to take the responsibility. I've already told her I won't and you can too!"

"I'm sure that's what she said," Rebis said with surprising sobriety. "But I'm also sure that all it will take for you to change your mind is for to find out your charge is related to this."

The words hurt, even though he knew she was merely lashing out. Before he could think of a rebuttal, she had completed her magic. The wood that bound the portal was sparse--the dryad had taken a substantial chunk of it. There were plenty of holes big enough to fit a fae, so all Rebis had to do was mask her own magic, rendering her effectively invisible, and fly through.

Apokathisto's fear shot through into panic. He rushed after her, but the irritable wood of the Archmage's former staff was not blind to him. His massive form was easily too much for it to fully snare, but the magic it lashed him with seared his scales, near paralyzing him with pain. Desperately, he abandoned his form for the smaller target of his glamour. He slipped through the grip of the wood, and tumbled through to the other side.

Almost instantly, the pain vanished. He breathed in deep and felt the steam of his breath on condensing on his skin. The chill was as refreshing as it was biting, and the ambient arcane energy was nearly overpowering. Overhead, bright pink bursts of magic popped in a sky the color of pink chalcedony, while below stray formations of natural celestine glittered in the earth as brightly as starts in the night sky, punctuated by the odd short pillar towering above his head. Far, far above, the Eye of many Lenses was a bronze crescent of reflected light.

"The Isles..." he whispered reverently.

The awe was short lived as the memory of just where the portal naturally led came back to him. The density of scattered celestine chunks were an indicator he hadn't quite caught. They were in the former site of the Seat. The Chalcedony Circle remained, 36 stones perfectly aligned to the stars and to the distant Observatory. A sense of deep unease came over him as he looked at them.

"Rebis?!" he called desperately. "Where are you?!"

He found her taking refuge in the shadow of a celestine pillar. The density of Arcane magic had clearly taken a toll on her, as it would have for any acolight. He grabbed her, but she forcefully swatted him away.

"What are you doing?" he cried. "Why did you come here?"

Truthfully, she didn't know. She didn't know if she cared about the crown one way or the other. Being granted responsibility for Telos' legacy was daunting, but it certainly felt like the greatest acknowledgement she could get from the queen she was so attached to. But she knew Telos. She knew if Telos stepped down, she would leave. She would go to where everyone she loved was, and leave this realm behind. And she felt a stab of childish guilt that she had somehow caused it during those fleeting moments she would wish Telos gone so Arcanus and Gethsemene and herself could be free. There was too much to unpack. Too much to make sense of. So she didn't.

"Before all this happened, I met with the Lightweaver, and she blessed me with a Truth related to my thesis." She assumed the position of the Arcanist’s Meditations. It felt simple in her draconic form. It felt natural. "I'm going to try and prove it."

"Rebis," Apokathisto said carefully, still glancing nervously at the Circle. "What does that have to do with the crown?"

"I don't know," she answered blithely. "I don't know what to do. So maybe I'll just leave it up to fate. If I prove my thesis and earn the right to be an Archmage, I'll take the crown. If I don't, I'll refuse."  Tears dripped freely from her eyes as she tried to laugh casually. "An Archmage queen sounds cool, right?"

Apokathisto was at a loss. He had expected many things, but this was beyond even his wildest imagining. He had pushed her over some threshold he didn't know she had, and when he opened his mouth, he found he didn't have words for her. She wasn't going to be swayed, so all he could do was watch her sink herself into a meditative state. But when her repeated monotone whisper reached his ears, it sent chills of fear through him.

“The sun is a star. The stars are the light. Light is reality. Arcane and Light are one.”

Rebis quickly forgot he was even there. The more she chanted and channeled the ambient energy carefully through her own body, the less she had room to think about anything else. Just as she had hoped. Her fae heritage seemed to be doing her a significant favor. The energies were rough on induction, but there was no immediate rejection. The energies danced within her, intertwining harmoniously even though bearing such a merge left Rebis drenched in sweat. She turned her mind to the Observatory, pleading for the acknowledgement of the stars--challenging them to tell her she was wrong before she crafted the spell that would cement her magical prowess and assure her the title of Archmage.

She hadn't expected such a clear answer.

DO YOU WISH FOR MORE THAN MY SISTER’S HALF-TRUTHS?

She had scarcely realized who was answering before He snatched her mind from her body and showed it the true scale of the Truth--and her place in it. Light was not reality. Light was time--a mere dimension and one eternally soiled by the perceptions of living creatures. And it was a byproduct among so many others of the chaos that saw stars born and galaxies merged. The Lightweaver may have been born first, but the Light was merely a finite aspect of Arcane infinity. An aspect that shed its truth only on the denizens of the present plane and could never seek truths beyond itself. When it tried to...

Rebis returned to herself with a sharp image of the Hewn City, and a cold and terrifying but unspeakable understanding of the things that lived under the eternal moonlight there. Her magic went haywire at that moment. The magic she had been working inverted, her Light magic losing itself and scattering across other points in light; in time. Her consciousness spread thin across the ages, delicate as a thread of spidersilk threatening to snap at the slightest disturbance. Faintly, she sensed beings outside of light, outside of time, watching her dissipation with cool interest, as if seeing a strange bug passing through their midst. Her light, sublimating across the enter timeline of Sornieth, didn't interest them.

...rebis...! ....re......biiiis!

That voice, she knew, was somewhere she was supposed to be. It was the when she was supposed to be. She clung to it with what little sense of herself she had, and called back.

Back inside the circle, Apokathisto was pacing, his chest hammering with panic. From his perspective, he had seen her fins raise, as if hearing something he couldn't, and the next thing he knew, she blurred out of existence right in front of his eyes with a look of pain. The Circle around him had begun to hum and flow with faint throbs of light. He had screamed for her out to her several times, and each time her voice seemed to call back to him from somewhere else. She was still right in front of him, in a way he didn't fully understand, and the stones were reacting to her.

He reached back out to where she was, and shouted for her to take his hands. There was a faint tingle in his fingertips, but nothing else happened.

He turned to the Observatory, and begged the Arcanist to bring her back. Nothing happened.

Finally, feeling his heart hammering in his chest, he gazed frantically down to the stones. Without thinking he ran to the nearest one. He was no mage, but he understood his way around Arcane element. He called the magic from within the stone into himself, and it leaped with predatory eagerness into him. The surge was enough to distort his horns and blacken his wings, charring patterns into them as he screamed. He tried to take his hands away, but found he couldn't. The energy poured into him, and he wasn't released until it was done.

He looked at his magic-burned fingers. They were massive. Clawed. His jaw was elongated. His body felt strange. The energy had partially peeled his glamour away. Numbly, he noted he could not feel his magic. But there was no time. He went back to where Rebis had been, hobbling and clumsy in this form that he had never been taught to use. He reached out with the magic of the Circle, and he could feel that Arcane energy that had bound itself to her. When he called out to her this time, he felt her small fingers touch his. She came back with an shuddering rumble of thunder.

And she wasn't alone. Something came back with her, and he felt a flush of adrenaline as he watched their indescribable shapes disperse. But he remained with Rebis, clutching her protectively. She hadn't come back quite right either. Her whole body was studded with pale stars and twinkling galaxies that could not possibly have been there. And her eyes were...

She gasped in his arms, and reached weakly and wretchedly for the celestine pillar. He held her close to it, and only when she touched it did she seem to relax, passing peacefully into an exhausted sleep.

"Rebis..."

There was a sharp pain at the back of his neck, and he too passed into darkness.

Lutia's temper was foul as she stood before her portal. First the dryad, then that over-curious fool Crucis dabbling with things he shouldn't have. Whoever had passed through her portal had certainly spared him, but they were going to take the full consequences of her anger two-fold on his behalf.

So she immediately cursed when it was Arcanus that she blasted after passing through the portal. He had been quick enough for a barrier, but her magic had gone through it like it was mere paper. He was only a magic knight, while she was an Archmage who was having a very bad day. 

"Gods, Arcanus what are you doing?!" she shouted, coming fretfully to his side. “I’m so sorry, are you okay?!”

He groaned, and carefully sat up, revealing Apokathisto and Rebis clutched gently and carefully to his chest. "No time to worry about me. I found them here. They need immediate medical attention--the kind where you or Ashes need to be with them the whole way."

She bristled. That meant a serious magical problem. Something that wasn't as simple as inundation, but potentially just as deadly. Still she sputtered when he pushed them into her and turned to go. "Wait, help me!"

"I can't. I am not meant to be here." He looked sincerely into her eyes. "As my old friend, please care for them. I trust you with this."

Lutia was left alone with the two children who stank fiercely of Arcane element, and a peculiar dread. As she realized it was because she could not feel the familiar thrum of the Circle's energy, she glanced at the children, and quickly returned through the portal to rush them Noon Point Medical.

[shardclan]

Labrusca was still in the pre-dawn gloom of Bramble Step. Her figure blended in with the obscuring fog, but her golden eyes stood out sharp as the cinders of a burned love letter in the dark. Though she could never have denied that she loved Bramble Step and still aspired to the seat of its power that her mother occupied, it was proving to be a difficult path. She was shadow-raised, but light-born, and while there wasn't a soul who would say it aloud for fear of Caress, an acolight was not welcome as a proprietress to shadowlings. 

Not that any of that slowed her down in the slightest. It merely gave her things to think about as she observed the coming dawn. Like how fortuitous it had turned out to be that Eos had stolen the pearlcatcher scroll meant  for her. She had been too optimistic as a child to think a light pearlcatcher running Bramble Step would have been even remotely accepted. But the fact stood that she was light on her father's side and shadow on her mother's and just like Caress would crush anyone stupid enough to challenge her over marrying an acolight, Labrusca had no intention of entertaining any foolishness about her birth element when she was proprietress.

A young guardian materialized as a blurred splotch vaguely outlined by the sultry violet glow of a street lamp. She had spoken to him, once. When he had come there too young for even the lightest daytime activities the Step offered. Ever since, she had a certain affinity for Apokathisto. He lived in the sunlight, but he took comfort in obscurity, and not even because he wanted to do anything questionable. Labrusca had never met someone who craved to be no one the way Apokathisto did; who went into the fog and darkness the way dragons who wanted to forget went into their cups or into the nothingness of sleep.

Only problem was he had been born a somebody, and worse still, he was very good at it. He was out of breath today, and stopped short of her, dropping to hold onto his knees as he gasped for a second wind.

"Is he here?" he finally wheezed.

Labrusca examined her nails. They were immaculate, as usual. "Information isn't free."

"Then make a favor of it," he snapped.

"I'll do that," she purred, and tossed her head toward an alley. "Residential quarter or the Descent." Both destinations, while close together, were far deeper into shadow territory than Apokathisto usually went. While the whole borderland was in a constant bronze and brandywine twilight, the resident sector was firmly in the realm of black firs and bramble and shadow so deep it was practically solid. It was easy to get lost in. "Would you like a guide?" she asked with a grin.

"I would," Apokathisto answered with an expectant stare. "And since citizens of Aphaster are sacrosanct by Bramble Step laws, you are obligated to provide that guidance. Without extorting me this time."

Labrusca smiled approvingly and signaled for him to follow her. 

"You sure now is really the best time?" Carnelian asked. "Given the Hihi'o thing?"

"I asked you to look into it and you did," Arcanus answered, rolling a small map into a case. "I will trust Azricai with rest."

The edge of Carnelian's cigarette glowed hot for several seconds. "Was your family okay with that flimsy, non-specific answer?"

"They wouldn't have been pleased even if I said I was going out to finally end our conflict with the Talonok." He checked a vial with a hasty but still visibly painful sniff of the contents and corked it quickly. "There is nothing I can do about their displeasure. Nor yours."

"Who said I was displeased?"

"You did," Arcanus said, with a knowing look at the cigarette hanging from Carnelians mouth. "You've had 5 of those since I arrived."

Carnelian hissed smoke through a deeply unpleasant sneer. "Got dumped and now you know it all don't you."

Arcanus stiffened and shot back, "Better than you who found someone to love and is still no better at being honest with his feelings."

The cigarette burned down, leaving a precarious pillar of ash that seemed suspended by the tension between them. Carnelian sighed, and dropped the stub, grinding it out with his feet. "You're right." Sourly, he pulled out another cigarette, rummaging irritably but with genuine shame for his matches. "Sorry."

"I know," Arcanus said, and patted Carnerlian's shoulder forgivingly. "I'll miss you too, Carnelian."

"Don't," Carnelian growled. "Don't say my words for me. I won't let Atsushi do it, so you can bet your goody-goody guardian ass I'm not gonna let you do it either." He sighed, giving up on the search for his matches. He hadn't been prepared to be chain-smoking so early in the morning. So the cigarette hung unlit as he clumsily returned Arcanus' gesture. "Take care of yourself."

Arcanus nodded slowly, smiling as he lifted his bags up over his shoulders. "I will."

He looked down the great stairway that was the Descent. At it's bottom, the fog was so thick and the black junipers so oppressive that it was impossible to see what or who might be waiting there. It would have been simpler and safer to travel Trader's Walk, but Arcanus' mission was one of secrecy. While the ShadowBinder had sent an emissary of her displeasure with Aphaster, there was no way to tell if the debt they had incurred had truly been paid. So Arcanus would take the dark way to his eventual destination, and whisper at the Obscured Cresecent and nowhere else just what Telos had asked of him. If that did not put the clan back in Her Obscurity's grace, nothing would.

"Wait!"

Apokathisto came at him so quickly he almost sent the both of them tumbling down the steps. Had Arcanus been a smaller build, he very well might have. While he caught his breath in Arcanus' arms, Carnelian quietly excused himself. The last either of them heard was a faint 'got a light?' as he pulled Labrusca away with him.

Arcanus dropped his bags, and the two guardians sat together at the top of the stair. Apokathisto looked at him with watery eyes, and turned away. "You're not wearing your armor," he said in a thick, choked up voice.

"...I'm no longer Queen's Knight," Arcanus told him honestly.

The young guardian whirled back to him, eyes frantic with guilt. "Was it my fault? Was it because you told me to talk to Azricai?"

"There you are again, making all the world your trouble." Arcanus offered his hand. "It had nothing to do with you. If anything, I should be apologizing to you. If my eyes were not so clouded by personal affairs, I would have realized sooner. Maybe I could have done something that would have given you more comfort."

Apokathisto squeezed the older guardian's hand and shook his head. "You don't have to say that. Telos said it. Azricai said it. And I already know you did everything you could." He laughed, but it was obvious how much effort it took. "And I know the whole history of the clan already so I already know how easy it is to--to try to do a good thing and make mistakes you didn't mean to. Since I get to say no without any kind of penalty, I've been a lot calmer lately. I actually feel at ease, the way they wanted me to. So it's been easy to forgive it all."

"I'm glad to hear that." He leaned down, peeking at Apokathisto's face. "So why the tears?"

"Because you know I get anxious when I don't understand--" Apokathisto's breath hitched, and he held on tighter to Arcanus' hand. "And I don't! You left me a letter and all it said was that you had to go away and you wouldn't be back for a long time!" He leaned into Arcanus, weeping miserably. "I still haven't told Rebis, I don't know how. And what will I do if she accepts? What will the clan do if neither of us accept? Are you disappointed I won't take the responsibility--"

"Poka..." Arcanus interrupted, hugging him close. "I have raised dozens of offspring, and you are the only one who has been a son to me. As long as you follow your principles and do your best, there is nothing you could do that would disappoint me."

The words changed the tone of Apokathisto's tears. From the nickname to the open, confident admittance of something they had awkwardly and wordlessly affirmed when Arcanus let him sip his first taste of alcohol from his cup only barely half an eon ago, the whiplash was enough to leave him silent; caught up in both heart-fluttering joy and a bitter sadness that the one he could call father was leaving only now that he could truly enjoy it.

"Where are you going," he cried pitifully. "Why are you going?"

"To protect my current charge. And prepare for the next. That's all I can say."

The answer only made Apokathisto cling tighter to Arcanus. "I don't want you to go. I feel like... I still need help."

"There is nothing I can help you with that Hart cannot just as well," Arcanus assured him. "And you have always been the independant sort, you never trusted much of anything. What's changed that you're crying so much over me?"

"Everything!" Apokathisto sniffed heartily, backing away to wipe his face and try to articulate himself. The past week of his life had been a lot off his shoulders, but a lot more on his mind. "I just... I'm finally past it all. And I am a grown wyrm. I wanted to know you more. Like...like a.." The word tumbled giddily from his mouth in an embarrassing break of his voice. "--father... But like a person too."

Arcanus smiled, and now it was his turn to tear up. "It is unfair how much like me you are... I cannot abandon my task, but I will offer you this: If you cannot wait to find out who I am, go to Carnelian. Tell him I asked for him to buy you a Starmoss Mead, and he will tell you everything. If you can wait, I will share a Starmoss Mead with you--the ones I tasted when I was your age. And since we will have some catching up to do by then...we can get to know each other."

"I'll wait," Apokathisto said earnestly. "I promise, I'll wait! And I'll have great things to tell you."

"I hope so." Arcanus stood, bringing Apokathisto with him. They stood nearly eye to eye--Apokathisto might very well be taller by the next time they saw one another. "I have never been idealistic with you, Poka. Only truthful. So as father to son, please hear me that life is hard. Any number of painful things have the potential to happen at any time, and you may not have good things to tell me when I return. Even if I were to stay, I know I could not protect you from it all."

He clasped the younger guardian's shoulders. "You are already strong. But you are lonesome at times. I was like that too. And then my way of life was pulled from under me, and I met Carnelian in the aftermath. My first...and best, friend. And somehow being friends with that insufferable, chain-smoking melprin’s ass changed me into the kind of person you found worthy to see as a father. Before him, and before the painful things that brought us together, I cared, but didn't love. And love has brought its own pains on me, but has also given me much in the way of honesty and sensitivity. Do you understand?"

"I think so..."

"Good. I love you, Apokathisto." He pressed a kiss to Apokathisto's forehead. Though it brought a lump to his throat, he smiled warmly. "It has been a long road for me to become the kind of person who can say that so openly. And every bit has been worth it."

"I," Apokathisto stammered, red up to the very tips of his curling fins. "I-I... l-l--"

"Don't force yourself," Arcanus soothed, and gave him a final, fond ruffle. "I already know. And even if you're struggling when I return, I hope you'll be able say it then. In your own way, in your own time. Until then."

Apokathisto stood at the top of the stair as Arcanus descended. His tears were all cried, so he watched dry-eyed as Arcanus grew further and further away. Things to say kept rising to the top of his mind, but each one vanished like a popped bubble, silent and insubstantial. In the end, Arcanus melted into the deep shadow of the Tangled Wood. He didn't look back.

When Apokathisto finally turned and left the lofty first step of the Decent, he didn't look back either.

[shardclan]

Rebis awoke into darkness. Her body felt foreign to her, but so did the entire physical world. She had no concept of time, other than the sense that she had returned to much the way a child returns to an old home as an adult and feels like a stranger.

The memory of being scattered across time and space was clear, yet she sensed instinctively that she could not have described it if she tried. The experience lived in her magic. In her atoms. In the light that made her.

"--should have stopped her..."

"Rebis made her decision. --cannot protect people from themselves. Focus on getting better."

"I'm not hurt. Not like she is. I just..."

Rebis' body flushed with apprehension. She struggled to open her eyes and see what had happened to Apokathisto, but they were so heavy. She could scarcely move. Was she that exhausted?

Seemingly unaware of her efforts, he went on. "I heard the clan can go back to the Isles."

"It was your first time there wasn't it?"

"Mhm... I felt something. After I touched the stones and pulled Rebis back." His voice lowered so Rebis could barely hear. "Something....her."

Telos paused and finally answered with a sigh. "Lutia had... wrong with the Circle. I didn't want to question you so soon--... can remember anything...?"

"...my chest feeling tight. Lights like a big swarm of mana thieves. And then they all-- ...I have to go back. I have to. I don’t know why."

"I'll see to it...revisit....not without Lutia and Ashes..."

Rebis finally forced her eyes open. She saw Apokathisto first--towering over Telos in a glamour that retained practically all his draconic features, merely on a bipedal frame. The only feature of the usual glamour that remained was a few of his thick platinum braids trailing from behind his horns.

He glanced her way, and mumbled something to Telos. Rebis felt she had barely blinked, but when she opened her eyes again, Apokathisto was gone and Telos was seated over her.

Rebis looked up at her, and saw a face she didn't fully recognize. Telos' expressions in private had always seemed sort of distant and melancholy. Now she glowed with warmth that Rebis had previously only seen when Junior and Jorah were involved.

"You made your announcement," she guessed in a raspy whisper.

Telos nodded. "I did. To more support than I could have ever hoped for."

"Good...You deserve it..."

Rebis looked away, and saw the glimmering shapes of stars all over her skin. She sobbed softly as she pushed magic through her body and saw her fingertips sparking with a rose gold magic that was neither light nor arcane.

"I think I proved my thesis," she sniffled. "What happened to me? What happened to Apokathisto?"

Telos pressed her lips together and leaned back. "I don't know what happened to you while you were out there. But your entire helix system has been permeated with Arcane element. You're producing it naturally, as though you were born Arcane."

"I...switched elements?"

The lines in Telos' face deepened. "No. You're still an acolight." She squeezed her hands together. "You're just...very ill now."

Rebis' eyes wandered blankly toward the ceiling. She closed her eyes for a brief moment, and only to stir when she felt Telos' hand touch her cheek. She looked...different, but Rebis couldn't place exactly how. The first question to her mind felt simultaneously like it was crushing her and also weighed nothing at all. "Am I dying?"

"...It's not clear yet." She leaned in, very carefully taking one of Rebis' glittering hands in her own as she tried to explain it as it had been explained to her.

Arcane element wasn't naturally poisonous to light dragons. The elements simply didn't work that way, even when they had affinities and weaknesses to consider. But it was much easier for an acolight to get inundation sickness from arcane element. It was easier for light magic to be warped and altered by arcane magic. All these things were common knowledge, nothing Telos hadn't heard before, and nothing Rebis didn't know very well as an aspiring archmage.

The problem was that none of that held to be the case when it came to a light dragon suddenly producing arcane element from within their own bodies.

Rebis was producing as much arcane magic as light magic, and left unchecked there were only two outcomes: The sudden doubling of her magical production without a similar duplication of her magical capacity would eventually cause her to explode from excess magic buildup, or, the arcane magic would warp her innate light magic. No one knew what that process would look like, but they knew at the end she would either die from insufficient levels of her birth magic, or sublimate into raw magic and cease to exist as a dragon.

For now, the magic was being siphoned, suppressed--anything they could safely do to stop it, they were already doing.

After a long silence, Rebis tearfully whispered. "...But...?"

"Not a but," Telos sighed. "An and... The magic is--Your magic is--" She rubbed at her face, searching for a way to say it. "Whatever happened to you out there and however you got back, you're still producing magic, but something else happened. They're still working on figuring out just what, but the way of it sounded something like your entire body is suffering a form of relativity sickness."

"Relativity sickness...?"

"It's an Arcanite disease that typically follows major quantum-level magics. Lutia had it once, when she moved the Seat. She would hear someone speak to her from right at her bedside and couldn't tell what direction their voice had come from. She had no sense if she was standing, falling, sitting, laying down, or upside down. She couldn't walk in a straight line for nearly a week."

Rebis flexed both her hands, and raised them. "I know where I am in space. My hands are up, right?"

Telos winced, and pushed her hands back to the bed. "Yes they are. But you're not suffering with spatial relativity, Rebis. Yours is...temporal."

Rebis looked at her blankly. That made sense, and didn't. She blinked. The light in the room changed. Apokathisto was at her side, towering and massive and draconic, with the marks of the Circle still charred into him.

"Oh," Rebis whimpered, reaching up to his scaly jaw. "What happened? What have I done to you...?"

He took her hand as delicately as if it were made of butterfly's wings. He had to. His hands were massive and scaly and practically swallowed hers. "I'm alright," he soothed. "I'm just stuck like this is all."

Though it clearly didn't seem to bother him, Rebis immediately started to wail. "What do you mean 'stuck like that'?!"

"I touched the Circle to bring you back. I think it may have...done something to me. I can't feel my magic. I feel something, but it's very far away. My magic is still there according to Ashes, nothing abnormal. He said it's sort of like I was struck by lightning. Numbness." Even with a big guardian face, he managed his usual look of slight embarrassment at being unsure of what to say. "A-anyway. You don't have to cry about it."

She did her best to wipe her face, but by the time she'd taken a deep breath and relaxed back into her bed, she opened her eyes to find Telos looking down at her again almost apologetically. In a different light. A different time.

She licked her lips. "When was Apokathisto here?"

"Five days ago," Telos explained somberly. "He was here when you woke up."

"When did I ask about your announcement?"

"Just now."

Rebis touched a trembling hand to her forehead, and felt fresh tears run from the corners of her eyes into her hair. "Five days to have a single conversation... What kind of queen can I be like that?"

Telos shook her head and wiped Rebis' tears. "That's a talk we can have another time, Rebis."

"We don't have much of a choice!" She covered her eyes, laughing and weeping bitterly but afraid to close her eyes in case she was swept away to some other point in time again.

"I don't know how you're experiencing this, but you are getting better. The temporal jumps you're experiencing are lessening the more we bring the Arcane buildup down. They think they've found something that might be able to work on a more permanent basis."

Rebis sniffed and peeked from behind her hands hopefully.

Telos was far away this time. On the other side of the room, pressed against the back wall. It was Ranti who stood over her, with a circlet and a massive pendant that seemed to be made of white quartz and pale blue quartz respectively.

"I heard from the good queen you want the crown she has offered," Ranti said in her deep, meltingly melodious way. "A noble choice. A sacrificial choice. To what god, I wonder?" She held out the circlet. "Consider deeply, this sacrifice. This crown, should you take it, must grow on your own brow. So long as you wear it, it will cure you. So long as you wear it, it will curse you. The very queen of Arcanites you make this pledge to will be unable to approach you. And so will the Arcanites among her flock whom you pledge to keep when she is gone."

Rebis stared at it, her head vaguely aching from her tears and Ranti's words, which were cryptic on the surface and dangerously blunt if one bothered to listen through her way of speaking.

"It's white celestine," Rebis murmured, feeling her eyes sting fresh. "I will be fit for rule, but a danger to every Arcanite in Aphaster. So long as I wear it."

"So long as you wear it," Ranti assured. She held up the pendant. "This is no crown. And no strange strand of celestine. It is common, and will feed on you enough to keep you present in the present. You may lapse, on some occasion. But you will live among those you love without making you very being a potent venom to them."

Rebis glanced at Telos, and it seemed to her that the lines in the queen's brow had returned deeper than ever. Subtle though it was, she saw Telos shake her head. Whatever she may have wanted Rebis to be, it wasn't this.

But just like Telos, Rebis made her own choice.

The modest circlet rested on her head, and though it was no so quick to grow as its lesser form, Rebis shuddered with the release of some force inside her that she had not even noticed was causing her strain.

As her body greedily embraced the opportunity to rest and her eyelids drooped, she thought she heard Ranti telling Telos not to cry.

[shardclan]

Every elemental celebration since his birth, Apokathisto visited Azricai. When he was still a child, he would come with Rebis and the three of them would observe the opening festivities together and enjoy the familiar company. She was the first to raise them, but she was pretty opaque even with them so it was both more and less intimate than visiting an old relative for the holiday.

As a young adult, Apokathisto preferred to visit her alone. Like her homeland had been darkened by ash, her features had been darkened by the changes in Sornieth. She was there with him, sitting beneath the celebratory elm boughs hung in the arches of the courtyard, but her mind was elsewhere.

Seeing her so distracted, he grasped just how much of her attention she normally gave him. He knew the words he had heard from Gethsemene and Arcanus were true. He knew what worried Azricai too. But he had his own troubles, and felt he was owed an answer, once and for all.

"You were attached to me before I was born," he began.

She answered matter of factly, as if it were as natural as the elements rising and waning. "I was."

"Am I different than what you hoped for?"

"It never mattered to me what you became. Only that you were safe."

Apokathisto's chest tightened. The kidnapping must have been a heavier weight on her than he thought.

In truth, Azricai struggled every hour to not think the worst. But she was slow to forget, so she couldn't help but remember Koko and how not even her own younger sibling had been safe from her grooming. Her whole body buzzed with the hope that it was benign--that it was some simpleton god like it had been when Floe was spirited away by Hibernas. That it would all end in witch business even though Omen had worn a dark expression when she heard of the fledgling's disappearance. When the question came, Azricai's mind was focused on how to not only find Hihi'o, but find him whole.

"Do you love me?"

The words were spoken softly but they pierced through Azricai's heart, in like a claw and out like a shattered window. She whirled to look at Apokathisto. In a single question, he had done what dozens--hundreds of others had tried and failed to do over the long eons. He made her face him not as Lady Judge or as the Gale Wolf, but as herself.  And the stranger underneath those things was awed by how much she favored him; by how much the thought of him being taken away like Hihi'o pained her.

"You are not my son," she whispered, clutching her cane to try and regroup. "You were not meant to be my son."

"And yet you love me as your own," he insisted. "And I look to you more than Camellia."

It was no use combatting him. She could feel the confidence emanating from him, steady and smooth. He already knew.

"...More than life," she admitted finally. "But there are greater things I serve, that I must serve. It benefits no one for us to be as mother and son."

"It can." He took her hand, quietly marveling that it had been so much bigger than his once. More than anyone, even Arcanus, even Hart, he had once believed Azricai could defend him against whatever fate he had sensed was in store for him and Rebis. He hoped that, in some way, that his intuition had been correct on that as well. "I spoke to Arcanus last night. I asked him to tell me the truth and he did--he doesn't know. But then he looked very sad...and said you might. He said you would tell me, if I only asked the right question."

"I used to ask you why you were raising us. Why you, the Lady Judge. Why you, the Gale Wolf. And you told me the truth.  I knew something was off, but I think I was afraid to ask the real question." He squeezed her hand. "Are you the one responsible for Rebis' and my fate?"

Azricai squeezed her eyes shut, but her antennae grew hot. Boiling with anger and fear and sharp streaks of anxiety. An awful suspicion that twisted into knowing. Into betrayal. Tears welled, and it was hard to say if they were hers or his.

She had always known this day would come. From the start, Apokathisto was a reserved, watchful type who kept his mouth closed and his ears and eyes open. It was what had endeared him to her so much. The only other orphans that had been given all the opportunities that seemed to fall on him and Rebis were Dust, Miscedence, and Mamblory: all dragons with fairly harsh conditions in their backgrounds. Dust came to the clan damaged by her experiences with the Ashfall Catoptria, and the bogsneak twins were the clan’s first new breeds born from the pot in a time where other dragons thought they might be abominations and living blasphemy against the gods.

It wasn't strange for him to come the conclusion that an extreme condition was likely to be around the corner in his and Rebis’ case. But she hadn't any idea that he had been trying to parse it out for so long.

"It isn't me," she finally managed, breathing a shaking sigh. "But I will take you to the one who can answer you best."

As she had when he was a child, she took him by the hand and walked with him through the brilliant marble arcades. The day was beautiful, the court bright and vibrant. But for both of them it was a lonely and solemn walk and the scenery was dull to them both. Even when they finally arrived in the Hall of Five Lights, the tall sandstone pillars and the soft rosy light falling within daunted them rather than welcoming them.

Telos was within, comfortably leaned back in her seat at the tribunal table, her hands folded over her belly. Apokathisto met her eyes. Their sleepiness, their complete, calm detachment infuriated him, and he shook his hand from Azricai's to run toward her and slam his hands on the granite before her.

"Every day!" he shouted. "Every day for six eons! Do you know what it was like?! Feeling like you're being raised for something but no one seems to know what you're talking about? Feeling like something you don't understand is going to happen, for reasons you don’t understand?! To have it looming over you all the time?! I was barely hatched when I swore to protect Rebis if I could! Not because she's my sister--it's because she's wrapped up in whatever you're planning too! And she just blithely takes whatever you give her, so I'm the only protection we have! That's how I've been thinking for Six! Eons!"

Arcanus stepped forward, but Telos waved him down, and sat forward. Apokathisto was not like Rebis. He had never shown any sign of attachment to her. It meant she felt more at liberty to speak to him, but also that she didn't know him as well as she might have liked.

"You were born sharper than expected," she said, trying not to sound impresed given his high emotion. "I'm sorry. I promise the idea wasn't to give you anxiety."

"It's not anxiety if I'm right," he growled, and leaned in until he was practically climbing over the table. "I have been promised by the few people I trust that in spite of it all, you're a good and honest queen, so just... No more secrets. No more of this. Tell me the truth. What are you planning for me and Rebis?"

Telos looked past him to Azricai, who nodded through a face pinched by pain.  Telos sighed, and looked back to the young guardian. How wrong could they have been, if it had come to him storming in and demanding the truth, even if he had to demand it from his queen?

The truth was as simple and quiet as the beat of a fae's wing.

"You're my heirs."

Apokathisto started, drawing back from Telos as though she has just released a cloud of Contagion at him.

"I intended to announce it during Brightsine,” she went on. “I still do." She leaned forward, dropped her cheek onto her folded hands, and idly recited the imagined headline of the Sunbeam Sentinel. "'The Morning Queen will step down, and leave her kingdom in the hands of the two children: Apokathisto, the Inheritor of the Clan’s Past, and Rebis, the Arbiter of the Clan’s Future.' That's it. That's all it's ever been, Apokathisto."

He laughed frantically. "What do you mean 'that's all'? That's...that's this entire clan! Noon Point, the Chalcedony Seat--! Why are you doing this?!"

She looked at him hard, easily reasserting who held the authority in the room. "That is between me and the Arcanist. I have done what I vowed to. That is all the reason I need."

The obvious questions ran through Apokathisto’s mind. Why them? Why wouldn’t Telos have her own heirs? Why wouldn’t she choose royals from some other trusted kingdom? But he knew the answer to every single one of those questions already, and he took it as stomach-turning proof that he really was the inheritor of the clan’s history. He was meant to know all of their mistakes and make sure the new clan didn’t repeat them, and it had happened without him even realizing that his apprenticeships were meant to be the foundation for his rule.  

A rule he didn't want at all.

“What happens if I say no?” he demanded hotly. “If both Rebis and I say no. You can’t make us do this.”

Telos frowned. He fingers toyed at the ring adorning her finger. "I know what its like to feel backed into a corner by the weight of responsibility that wasn’t asked for. I have no intention of forcing it on either of you."

For the second time, Apokathisto was taken by surprise. Wasn't that...too easy? Wasn't it a dangerous gamble and a waste of Telos’ investment in them?

She laughed suddenly, startling him again. "Sorry. You just reminded me of Dust. She wore the same expression when I told her I didn't need a reason to take good care of her either."

“You took care of me because I was your heir." He scratched at his hair, wondering how the conversation had taken such a turn that he was asking this. "Why would you raise me like this to just let me say no?"

She smiled, recalling the words she had once said to the similarly skeptical snapper. “No excuse is required to raise a child to be healthy and happy.” With a shrug, she added: “If your happiness requires letting you throw aside the crown, I won’t force it. What good would come of it?”

Apokathisto looked beseechingly back to Azricai. "I...don’t understand."

The skydancer gave him a thin and apologetic smile. "You should speak your mind more freely. Our queen is one of simple principles; she would not have let you suffer so long."

He looked back at Telos, his face brightened by how embarrassed he suddenly felt.

“Remember what I am,” Telos offered sympathetically. “This was done out of a need, but I am still a Xannite. To put who you are before who I want you to be, even if it’s what I hope to raise you to be, is the greatest expression of my sincerity I can give you.”

He couldn't help but feel conflicted by that explanation. Because he knew exactly what she meant, but it was only because of what he was being raised for in the first place. "Will you still make the announcement then? Knowing I don't want the crown?"

"I will. Not ideal--I don't want you to feel you must take it with the eye of the public on you, but you know how the Light courts are. Just reject it and that will be the end of it."

Apokathisto pursed his lips. Again, he understood why things had to be a certain way because of the way he had been raised. He suspected he would be doing a lot of that over the coming weeks.

Exhaustion sank in, a mix of the relief of having his suspicions confirmed and getting far more information than he bargained for. Telos seemed ready to answer more questions, but he could scarcely think. He needed to gather himself. Gods, what was he going to say to Rebis?

Azricai came to his side no sooner than he thought it. She didn't reach for his hand. Perhaps an effort to be considerate, or apologetic. Though he felt his nerves were still sizzling, he couldn't keep hold of his anger, least of all at her.

He took her arm instead of her hand, and left the Hall into a day that seemed vastly different than when he had entered it.

Within the Hall, Telos' eyes remained on the departing figures of Azricai and Apokathisto. With the silence closing in, she quietly called. "Bestealcian."

The coatl materialized faithfully at her side. "Yes, majesty?"

"I would like some privacy.” She rose from her seat. “Arcanus and I have something to discuss."

[shardclan]

The door of the Sundial hung open, admitting a longed-awaited spring breeze.  From outside, the scents of Noon Point wafted in. A sharp tang of ground coffee beans, a floral whiff of fresh-brewed tea, the sticky sweet scent of preserved apples, and the mellow aroma of warm milk from the Happy Harpy Creamery all weaved in and out of the pervasive scent of rye bread and sweet cakes that lay over Noon Point’s crossroads like the comforting warmth of a mother’s wing.

In spite of her reputation, Gethsemene was an old dragon who appreciated the simple pleasure of nostalgia. Her head rested comfortably in one hand, eyes closed to savor the scents on the wind and the memories they brought to her. Of walking with Telos out where the wind from the Summerlands bringing the fresh saltiness of the sea to them. Telos' hair when it was still short and had only the faint hint of the alchemical gradient of her toxin marks. The heat of her face against Gethsemene's bosom, the roughness of her chemical-worn, pugilism-sculpted hands.

How double-edged it was to have shared a kiss with her.  

Gethsemene had felt almost young again in that moment--drunk on the confirmation that there was something between the two widows that was mutually felt. She still didn't fully understand why Telos had pushed her away afterward. It didn't have anything to do with who was queen and who was sailor, who was young or old, it wasn't about the things that made them so seemingly incompatible. It was obvious to Gethsemene that Telos wanted to know the comfort and familiarity of a lover's touch and presence at her side again. But something stood in the way of her accepting it.

The only clue she ever got had come from the lady judge as a cryptic whisper.

Accepting you means destroying something important to her.

Gethsemene had puzzled over this at sea over the long eons. She would have written them off as dramatic exaggeration if they had come from anyone else, but Azricai had no use for hyperbole and her infrequently troubled brow had been roughed by worry lines. Gethsemene had come to the conclusion that those words must have been very literal, so she had stayed away. But she had come back the moment word began spreading of unrest spreading across the territories. The moment the crests of the waves had turned to fangs. And in some way, she had been relieved when Telos had put up such a cold front only to have it melt almost immediately.

Though neither of them could have it, there was love there. That satisfied Gethsemene enough. Eventually it would be just another one of many faded memories that had their own rosiness to them--no different than remembering her first love or how that had ended.

The smell wafting from her idly tilted glass of elderberry wine summoned even older memories. Her late wife had loved perfuming herself with elderberries. Tried to drink it too but she had been a lightweight until her dying day, Eleven bless her. A single glass and she would be giddy as a hatchling, with a dizzying smile that had stolen Gethsemene's heart every time.

"You're smiling, Gethsemene."

The old imperial didn't bother to open her eyes. "I'm thinking of my wife."

Merlot sang out a few soft, experimental notes from the stage. Shiraz mimicked her, gently crooning in a way very unlike himself. This evening he seemed more willing than usual to follow Merlot’s lead. They were embracing the mood on the wind—a sense of the familiar and secure was a gift in these troubled times, after all.

Arcanus sat beside her with the ginger lightfootedness of someone who didn’t want to intrude. "I'm sure she was amazing."

Gethsemene's glass came to an abrupt stop, the liquid inside still swilling away without her. "Did you do that on purpose, or has her majesty's way of talking about loved ones rubbed off on you?"

Arcanus seemed as surprised as she was, and quickly dipped his head apologetically. "I think it's the latter--I'm sorry."

"Don't be," Gethsemene said with a forgiving, wistful smile. "Ode was as damn fine as they come." 

A cooler wind crept in along the floor, gently lapping over their ankles as it passed by. At the stage, Merlot took lead of a song as cautiously hopeful as new flowers emerging from ruin.  

Recommended listening: Peaceful Sleep

Gethsemene took a long, relishing sip from her glass, and watched as Arcanus received a heavy pint seemingly without even making eye contact with Cloudwhyte or Alchemilla. "Your grown folk scales came in since I last saw you. When'd you loosen your armor and start frequenting bars?"

"Do you remember the red imperial that used to drink here?" They looked together over to the dark far corner of the bar where Carnelian used to sit for hours. "We became friends, so I became familiar with drinking."

"Him?" Gethsemene said incredulously. "He wasn't drinking, he was drowning!"

"He was trying to," he admitted somberly. The pale summerland ale bubbled as he gazed at it, too much for him to know the expression he was making as he thought on just how different things were. "He's better now. The whole clan is better now."

“So I see,” Gethsemene said kindly. She took a deep, relishing sip of her wine and shifted to get closer to her apparent drinking partner, but before she could move to the open seat Arcanus had courteously left between them, a hand beat her to it--one attached to a handsome young guardian with a mane of hair very carefully tamed into loose, woolly braids and the most dazzling Arcane eyes she had ever seen.

"Can I sit here?" the boy asked.

"Are you old enough to be here?" Gethsemene asked with a teasing smile.

Apokathisto glanced at her, gave her the courtesy of a polite head nod, and promptly ignored her entirely to slide into the chair. Though he was easily at the age where he could have been allowed a little alcohol, he gazed on the barrels and bottles with something like awe. He looked somewhat uncertainly at Arcanus. "What should I have?”

"Milk," Arcanus answered bluntly.

This drew a look of confusion from both the young guardian and the old imperial, though Apokathisto seemed hurt by it as well. "By Aphaster law I am old enough to drink in the company of a responsible adult."

"I didn’t agree to be the responsible adult in that scenario.”

"What are you suddenly so tight about?" Gethsemene demanded. She nudged Apokathisto. "How many eons?"

"Almost six, ma'am."

"Stuff the ma'am." She craned toward Arcanus. "He's five eons old; your charge was running a dynasty by two and a kingdom by four. What's the hold up? Let the boy have his taste of the vine."

"My charge had not once used glamour magics until we came to this land," Arcanus rumbled with a testy scowl. "Her physical maturity at five and his physical maturity now are leagues apart."

The old imperial hummed, drawing the young guardian's worried gaze. She shrugged casually at him. "Sorry, fledger, he's not wrong. Glamours do slow down the aging process." She shot Arcanus a look of distaste. "But a boy his age drinking milk at a bar is humiliating. He should at least be drinking out of a sire's pint. Where's your parents, fledger?"

Apokathisto hesitated, a faint creep of blush coming to his cheeks. "...My egg was found in the clan's crossing from the Isles."

Gethsemene blinked, her eye wide with surprise. She glanced at Arcanus, who gave her a confirmatory nod, and finally turned to face the boy properly. "I'll be damned," she murmured, awestruck. "They finally hatched you, eh?"

The boy tensed, his eyes filling with both hope and furious mistrust. "What do you mean?"

"Oh that lady judge would hardly be parted from you when I was here last. She was a different dragon when she held your egg, said it helped her keep the night terrors away. You know--" She tapped her leg and made a disturbingly accurate pantomime of them being roughly bitten. "Telos used to tell me Azricai didn’t want to hatch you until she was sure you'd have a peaceful upbringing." She gave a suggestive waggle of her brows. "I offered to be your ma, you know."

Apokathisto looked dejectedly at the polished shine of the dark bar. "A roving emperor, a territory-wide class war, a missing deity, a drastic alteration of the climate, and the breaking of an armistice..." He laughed softly, and both thought they heard his voice break a little as he did. "She's got terrible timing."

Gethsemene caught the look of slightly pained compassion that crossed Arcanus face. She had known him to be a stiff, as all truly dutiful guardians were prone to be, but quite a lot about him had changed since she last dealt with him. He had become a man of many loves it seemed.

“He’ll be grayer than me if he waits for the old gale wolf to have a drink, and it seems the fledger’s got a lot on his mind. He came to you; way I see it that means he should share his first cup with you.”

It was uncanny, Gethsemene thought, how much they resembled each other as they both tried to take in the proposal without absolutely dying of embarrassment. She had no idea what the boy’s name even was, but she knew there was love there. Strutting to the door with her usual long-legged amble, she risked a peek back from beyond the threshold.

Arcanus toyed with his mug, saying words she couldn’t hear and giving the boy his most sincere attention as he spoke back. In the end, he slid the pint sideways, patting the boy’s back with uncharacteristic awkwardness as he ushered them both to the privacy of a booth. The boy, bless him, wore a clumsy, barely suppressed grin and held the cup close to his chest as though it was some wonderful gift he would get to take home.

Gethsemene laughed faintly as she stepped out into the evening—young people really were never a dull moment.

[shardclan]

The Sundial Brewery was different after Cassis left, but not half so much as it was after Shiraz had descended to take his place. While Cassis had been a jolly crooner that brightened the mood, Shiraz was an idol that could bring out a frenetic, edgy energy in the patrons of the Brewery. Both of them were natural born entertainers, but it was very obvious why Shiraz occasionally did concerts at Bramble Step while Cassis had been content to play soulful yet light-hearted music by the riverbend.

Carnelian and Arcanus sat with their backs to the bar, sipping thougtfully in the company of the equally bemused owners. Cloudwhyte and Alchemilla weren't used to this sort of energy. As far as they were concerned, they ran a quiet bar that happened to keep musicians on hand for mood music, but the vibe had suddenly become that of a concert hall. Shiraz was strutting and stomping and wailing all up and down a range that was bafflingly powerful at every note. Even considering he was a nocturne didn't make it less astonishing. Shiraz had taken his natural talent for mimicry and made something amazing out of it. The crowd around him seemed to lean back every time he released more of his voice, literally being blown away by it, and with every pause for breath they rushed back in for more.

And though Shiraz' performance was technically a Trickmurk event (for those who didn't have the fortitude for the kind of celebrations Bramble Step was having), right at the front was Stellaria, flushed, bright-eyed and dazzled in a way she usually only was after she'd gotten in a fight. Verbena and young Rebis were bouncing along to the music beside her on one side while on the other Xandina was showing a surprising lack of bodily coordination for a hunter. Eos had come with them, despite being totally out of their element. Shiraz' style was too much for their already high-strung and nervous baseline state and rather than join the thrashing crowd, they'd opted for a single glass of wine that had overpowered them in a very different way.

Carnelian leaned back and shouted over his shoulder to the owners. "Where's Merlot?"

"She's taken Cassis leaving pretty hard," Cloudwhyte answered with a shrug. "New partners are hard for skydancers. If she doesn't like what she feels from Shiraz or the energy he generates when they work together, she won't sing with him."

Carnelian glanced thoughtfully at Shiraz, and a moth-eaten memory of a very different musician arose. "How'd she get on with Rime?"

"Rime had nothing on Shiraz," Alchemilla balked. "Rime was a mad scientist hiding in a musician's body!"

"Doesn't answer my question."

"What? Oh, I dunno, they got on okay, I guess? Rime was a screamer and Merlot's voice sounds the way top shelf brandy tastes so it's not like they ever sang together."

Carnelian hummed into his glass and nudged Arcanus. "You'll bore a hole through her if you keep staring."

Arcanus ignored the jibe and kept his eyes on his niece. "I understand the two of you had a talk."

Carnelian pressed his lips together, and patiently reasoned to himself that Arcanus hadn't asked about Atsushi at all and that was behavior that should be rewarded. "We did. Ironed some things out."

"I gather. She looks happy." He smiled faintly. "You know Ashes is jealous."

"Of what?!" Carnelian snorted. "I'm not her dad!"

"When did I mention anything about her being your daughter?" Arcanus asked innocently, just barely hiding a smirk. "She knows who and where her dad is--it's not a hole that needs filling." He dipped his head over toward the snugly sleeping figure of Eos. "But she's been very fond you since the event with the pearlcatcher scroll."

"Fuck off, that girl doesn't love anybody as much as she loves her Uncle Arcanus."

"She relies on you," Arcanus pressed smoothly. "And that's something that Ashes can't say. He's great for an inquiry about magic, but no honest person would call him reliable."

Carnelian stared at his friend with a curled lip and a tight fist. He couldn't get a rise out of him tonight and it was starting to piss him off. Even though he smiled and talked and phrased his words in just the right way to pick at Carnelian's nerves, Arcanus was poorly concealing an unusual anxiety.

"You're killing my mood," he accused. "What's wrong with you?"

"I'm not sure."

Carnelian drained the rest of his drink with a mutter curse before dragging Arcanus out of the bar onto the open streets of Noon Point. The crowds of celebrating shadow dragons were dying down for the day, migrating to Bramble Step where they could cut loose and cut throat if it came to that. The queen was likely around somewhere with Bestialcian in tow, but Trickmurk was the one elemental holiday she didn't offer any kind of official celebratory address. They didn't hatch shadow eggs either--the last one had been Ilkilides and that had been more than enough to let them know that Aphaster was on poor terms with the Binder. 

To keep out of the way of the milling crowd, Carnelian pulled them into the mouth of an alley where they could speak in private. "Did something happen between you and...?" 

"No."

Carnelian squinted at the way Arcanus very noticeably didn't turn red. "Holy shit, did you actually get over her--ah, wait, no, there it is, you're blushing. False alarm."

"There are other things I concern myself with!" Arcanus insisted with what remaining dignity he had.

Carnelian shrugged and pulled a cigarette from his pocket. "To me they don't exist until you tell me what they are."

Arcanus crossed his arms. "I don't know yet. I would express it to you if I could, Carnelian, as my confidante."

"Easy on the flattery,” he mumbled over the cigarette. “So you just got a bad feeling?"

"An uneasiness, yes. An agitation I cant soothe with will or distraction."

"Spring is coming." He held his hands up peaceably to fend off the weary glare Arcanus shot him. "I'm not joking. Spring gets weird when you care about someone."

Something about the way he said it left Arcanus faintly wondering when Ismene was born. He had never asked. He probably never would. "I don't think that's it," he murmured. "Lately everything seems..." His brow creased with the strain of finding the right word, but to no avail. "I'm unsure. All I know is that I feel relief seeing that both you and my family are settled."

"Okay, whats your best guess why that might be?"

Arcanus looked around while he thought, which was in itself a tell. Sure, he'd loosened up a lot since they became close, but he was still a knight. His day job was to be a menacing presence at the queen’s back while showing little to no sign of personal emotion about the politics.

Carnelian wondered, not for the first time, if Arcanus' emotional trouble wasn't just a side effect of boredom. The Isles were unpredictable, you could lose a charge permanently during a simple walk in the woods or forget entirely that you had one because of a bad storm near the Liminal Band. He probably never had the time to have a bad feeling over something that didn't make itself known within the next few hours.

"I dont want to say it," the guardian finally admitted. "I don’t want to speak it."

Carnelian bobbed his head. "Something that bad you don’t want to give the universe ideas? I get that."

"You should remember that the universe will get ideas whether you speak them or not."

Carnelian leaned out with a snarl on his lips and a curse on his tongue, and both fizzled when he saw the distinctive match of a water emblem over Arcane eyes. Kiele was perhaps the rarest seen of all the witches of the Starwood coven. Being water-touched and a choosing to live as a witch had left her in a similar position to Tungsten, but while Tungsten had to use carefully applied ice magic, Kiele had Faded. She could never know when a vision might suddenly strike, but she had eons worth of Faded's magic laced as delicate as frost over her mind. Neither of them had known much about her to begin with, but like all young dragons who became witches, she wasn't the same dragon she had been before. It was hard to miss the family resemblance she shared with Kea, but that was about all they had in common.

"I'm pretty sure eavesdropping during Trickmurk is considered sacrilege," Carnelian muttered, leaning back into the shadows.

"...I'm clairvoyant," she deadpanned. "I don't think I was ever gonna win any points with shadowlings." She tossed her chin at Arcanus. "Besides, the knight's right."

"Is he now." The flicker of a match momentarily lit Carnelian's dour expression. "Some more business with the spirits?"

"There is plenty on this plane to make a keen man wary. The boy agrees with me."

Carnelian and Arcanus both exchanged a look of confusion, and leaned out together to find Apokathisto idling in one of the charming little nooks in the cafe’s facade with a half-demolished slice of aggressively violet black woods cake. He had the look of someone who was deeply embarrassed but was trying to pretend otherwise--which, combined with the smear of blackberry preserves on his chin, only made him look more guilty.

"How long have you been there?"

"I-I'm sorry," he stammered. "I was just trying to eat my cake..."

"How long. Have you been there."

"...The whole time."

Both men glared accusingly at each other in a furious but silent exchange. Carnelian was a detective, he stalked people all the time, he should have noticed a gawky adolescent  hanging around; and Arcanus was supposed to be aware of his surroundings, he was the queen's knight after all. But it was a holiday and they were both a little drunk, so they made peace with a sigh.

"I thought it was odd to not see you around with Rebis here," Arcanus admitted. "Why aren't you in there with them?"

Apokathisto wilted and pushed sullenly at his cake. "There's no boys my age and I don't like the music."

It was hard not to sympathize with an answer like that. Even when they lived in the Isles, the clan had always had an unusually high number of female hatchlings, and that hadn't changed. Phage, Foster, Katiyana, and Lamium were the closest Apokathisto had to same-sex peers and they were, in order, a terrible influence, infamously shy, disinterested in dragons that weren't Zo or his relatives, and friendly but troubled. It shed a very lonely light on the situation.

Arcanus cleared his throat as subtly as he could, and Carnelian took the hint with a raised brow but nothing else. There was a short shriek as he threw Kiele under his arm and stalked off with her as though she were a just an unruly bag of potatoes, but it was quickly muffled by Shiraz' performance and the natural noise of the thoroughfare.

Not long ago, Apokathisto would have held Arcanus' hand as they walked, but he was getting to be that age where he felt such a thing was childish. It was often forgotten but Arcanus had been the caretaker and protector of dozens of hatchlings and watched over several into their adulthood. The behaviors of fledglings were no mystery to him, and the basic ability to respect their turbulent, often contradictory feelings made him very popular among adolescents. It was just rare anyone got to see it. But sure enough, as soon as they had passed beyond Noon Point and were alone on the walkways through the Summerlands, Apokathisto began walking a lot closer to him.

"You've been uneasy too?" the boy asked.

"I have," Arcanus answered honestly. "But I'm old and I've seen a lot and I have to wrestle with that myself. Children shouldn't be so troubled. What's wrong?"

Apokathisto grabbed a dried out stalk and snapped pieces from it as they walked. "I don't want to speak it."

"Has anyone harmed you?"

Snap. "No."

"Has anyone made you feel threatened?"

Snap. "No."

"Do you feel that you're in danger in any way?"

Snap.

Snap.

Snap. "I don't know."

"Is there anything I can do?"

Apokathisto threw the last of the stalk away. "I don’t know."

Arcanus stopped them both, and knelt to look into Apokathisto's eyes. The boy always wore difficult expressions, but he usually wore them openly--now he seemed evasive, as if he didn't want it to show that something weighed on him. "I won't press you. But if you think of anything I can do, I hope you'll tell me."

At that, the boy did meet his eyes. They were striking as always--with their blue-white streaks like shooting stars, and the intensity of them was enough to catch even Arcanus off guard. There was anger in him; confusion and fear. "Is something going to happen to me?"

"Something like what?"

"I don't know...!" he cried pitifully.

The boy's face was going red. Again, Arcanus felt a poignant sympathy for the boy. If he was dealing with the same worrying unease that Arcanus was, it wasn't a wonder he was so upset. He was already so wary by nature, and he didn't seem to have anyone to confide in. He was frustrated and frightened, and in that moment Arcanus knew what it felt like to be Hart--to want nothing more than to be at Apokathisto's side and reassure him that he was safe. But to promise that would have been to lie in the boy's face in his moment of vulnerability.

"You know that my charge must come first," he said apologetically. "I cannot vow to protect you from all things at all times. But I can swear to you that I would never ignore it if I so much as suspected anything was going to happen to you."

It wasn't the most reassuring answer, but it was the truth. For a boy like Apokathisto, that was far more important. Though he wasn't crying, Arcanus turned his back and let the boy have a moment to collect himself and rebuild his idea of a mature demeanor before they continued along the quiet footpath.

At some point, Apokathisto quietly took Arcanus' hand and didn't let go.

[shardclan]

From the journal of the Lady Judge, Azricai

Fourth Epoch, Cusp of the Eon of Murk

Rebis and Apokathisto spent some time with me today, to give me Gala gifts and share warm, steamed milk from the Happy Harpy Creamery. Though they aren't hatchlings anymore, they are still children, and the visit me as one visits an old ancestor. Rebis is still small, and...well, fae, while Apokathisto continues to grow rapidly. His horns are just starting to scale and they bear adorable resemblance to young pine cones. If I sound like I am gushing, I probably am. It embarrasses me to say so, but I believe I still think of Apokathisto in particular as my own child. 

He isn't. Neither of them are. I know this.

On occasion I fleetingly think of them as Telos' children, but I know such a thought would upset her. Even the oft-pushed idea of queenhood as a type of motherhood upsets her. Just as she has no passion to spare for the few extremely misguided suitors who chase her hand, she has no maternal love to spare for anyone but Zo. And besides, Camellia is rearing Apokathisto. Given her vast experience with motherhood she could easily rear him alone, but the boy is drawn to strong Arcane presences. Lutia remains beyond him, but Hart and Arcanus are not, and luckily both seem pleased enough to be role models to a young male with such an even temperament.

I do fret that Hart will put Apokathisto through the same rigorous training as he did Junior and Jorah... But he never does so without being asked, and I cannot stand in the boy's way if he chooses that path. I merely hope the tenderness of Camellia's rearing methods can act as a counterbalance.

Rebis' case is dufferent. Despite the long epoch since we came to this land, we have none who serve the Light with the same fervor as our Arcane devouts. Turan is no mother, and though Rebis has taken a shine to him, Miscedence no father. Eos seems charmed but they are not parent material of any kind. I led the charge with Ashes to find the  child a suitable Light devout who could be her magic teacher, and we did, but we hesitated to leave Rebis as her sole caretaker. Prophecy is older and wise and very gentle with Rebis, but she is bitter.

Rebis is the village's child. I thought it might be that she would take to House Perihelion the way Apokathisto took to House Betelgeuse, but that has not been the case. She rotates freely between homes in different parts of Aphaster. Sometimes with Paradise and Perilous, who are delighted to care for a female child for the first time since their own daughters. Sometimes with Copernicus, who treats her with all the tenderness his own mother failed to give him. By extension, she spends a lot of time with Tau, and I think it's good for them. Neither have been terribly keen to have any children given their backgrounds, but they seem happy with the little commitment that occasionally caring for Rebis offers.

Sometimes Rebis is with Penitence, but she doesn't seem to like him much. At least, not half so much as she enjoys the company of Juneau and Artha. And of course she still spends a great deal of time with Heaven and Dantalion--and by extension with Heaven's ever growing family tree.

Who would have thought Kea would eventually be a part of the clan's biggest family...

I digress. Quite often, individuals care for Rebis too. And though she cherishes the households that shelter her, her first attachments seem to lie in the individuals who occasionally take her under their wing. Equinox. Eos. Malu.

...Telos, most recently.

Both the children met her during the opening day of the Gala, when she partakes in the festivities along with the rest of the clan. I'm surprised it took that long. In spite of the constant stream of her responsibilities it's not as if Telos is rare to sight or hard to find. They would have easily come upon her under the arcades at the Courtyard of Five Lights or out in the Summerlands. And they've no doubt seen her from afar at the bathing shore dozens of times, but this was more...personal, I imagine.

Apokathisto is indifferent as attachment goes. He regards Telos with the same nervous awe that any child might regard a queen with. But as Rebis tells it, meeting Telos was terrifying. She claimed the whole world slowed down and she couldn't feel her feet. Which is fair; attachment is different for every dragon, every time. Apparently Rebis couldn't say a single thing and hid behind Equinox when Telos knelt to greet her.

This amusing anecdote did bring me an interesting observation.

Rebis was the one who told this story. All of it. And not once did Apokathisto make fun of her or presume to tell it for her to embarrass her. Which is impressively polite behavior for a child his age, yes, but unrealistically so. The last child I encountered who was so slow to offer unnecessary comments on other childrens' lives was Copernicus. Camellia is the opposite of Rainforest, and Apokathisto is certainly not being abused. It's just...odd. Rebis is the more rambunctious of the two, but she treats him with similar conscientiousness.

Despite my having raised them together when they were fresh from the egg they don't seem to regard each other as siblings. Not as normal siblings anyway. I sense mutual care between them, a quiet but sturdy trust. It is especially surprising from Apokathisto. Implicit trust in Rebis is not peculiar--she feels safe and beloved in her surroundings. But Apokathisto has the all the natural wariness of a prey animal. Yet both align on this one single wavelength that I cannot fully understand.

And the keenness of a skydancer is not so great that I know why.

[shardclan]

Sunbeam Citizen Special Report

Welcome to a very special edition of the news -- the Sunbeam Sentinel and the Aphaster Citizen have been reigned in under one label. Omen's label, in fact. After her amazing show of power against the outsider, she has plagued graced the Sunbeam Sentinel with her experience as both reporter and editor.

Without further ado or any additional snide edits at penalty of a sound slapping around the ears, we are proud bring you the latest news from the Sunbeam Ruins:

Much to the rejoicing of the guest merchants who found themselves on the mainland side, the reconstruction of Hewn Bridge has been completed. Traffic into the Hewn City has been constant, but relatively smooth thanks to Margravine Maka's firm direction. The most kindly merchants have promised to return in the spring, but even among cordial merchants there was significant frustration. Making the journey to the Southern Snowfields via Trader's Walk is a time-consuming effort, and many of the smaller merchants will have missed the chance to secure their wares for the Crystalline Gala.

Local Merchant Guilds have had mixed feelings about the subject of the Morning Queen's actions now that it's become so clear she was acting appropriate to the threat. Apologies were, at least in part, issued almost immediately after the southwestern skies were returned to normal. However it was the punishment served that truly restored Aphaster's standing among them.

In spite of being born during the eclipse for the sole purpose of executing a deific grudge against Clan Aphaster, the Lady Judge deemed Ilkilidies' collusion with the Outsider too extreme to be excused. He was banished from all of the Aphaster territories, making him the first exile under the Morning Queen’s reign. Dozen of questions and scores of demands for information have poured in from local clan heads but the Morning Queen remains mum on the subject. What could Aphaster have done to offend the Shadowbinder?

The Outsider in question, known as Hitth, had its wings completely removed. The facets that were the source of its powers were seemingly stored there, and thus, to ensure that it remains unable to regain it by any other means, an even more gruesome punishment followed.

Though the Morning Queen refuses to reveal why or how this will prevent the creature regaining power, she commanded that the skull of the water seer be fused to Hitth. Fletch, the Priestess of Blackened Bones, did the deed. By coating the edges of the wildclaw skull in molten metal, and applying it to the screaming creature's face.

Since then, Katiyana has taken charge of the creature and the Icewarden's chosen has departed the Sunbeam Ruins. Though there was scarcely any need to check given his very vocal preference, sources say he has returned to the Southern Snowfield.

The Summerlands have been quiet since, though curiously the Morning Queen has been quiet. Pleased, but quiet. This has led to some speculation that perhaps going in and fighting the creature herself may have had some manner of side effect.  

Local happenings after the defeat of the creature are as follows:

Purpose left the clan as cryptically as she once came, claiming that word of white celestine was something she should take to her homeland.

Augustine, having witnessed such vast and alarming evil, went into the Lightweaver's service. His final words were to his sister, Fletch, and she has requested they remain private.

Camellia's second oldest daughter, Phasmatis, departed gratefully from Promenade medical. Having lived through both the moving of the Seat, and the threat of an Outsider, Phasmatis now seeks a less exciting clan in which to hone her mastery of bone manipulation. It is her hope to turn the power into something she can use to defend rather than for medical purposes.

Qaseem's nerves couldn't withstand the strain of the ordeal. Plague dragon or no, he claimed, all he ever wanted to do was quietly deal in logistics for a well-run clan. Though it was a relatively benign event, being subjected to Hewn City magics by Eos disturbed him--the two never really made up. To have another menace from somewhere even more cryptic that Hewn City was too much for him to bear and he went quietly into exaltation.

Cassis has decided to venture off for similar reasons, though his are a bit more personal. "It's dark enough we've had this happen," he claimed. "But you know it's the knowing that Brightrose would be here singing everyone better that's really taking it's toll. I keep not hearing his voice where I know it would be, and there ain't enough cheer in me to bear that with a positive outlook."

Tungsten finally emerged from her vision hysteria. She is in no condition to actually return to work, but it is the first positive sign for her health in nearly two eons. Because of the coming rising of the Ice element, her mental clarity is expected to make a rapid return. Physical rehabilitation time may vary, but she is expected to be near or finished her recovery by spring.

Techne and the Xanna Guard have recently pulled back from Aphaster--the reason seems to have something to do with Zo (and almost certainly his engagement to Junior--which is so well known it scarcely counts as news). When asked, Zo has insisted it's Xannite business that is very particular to him.

The rift in front of House Betelgeuse has been settled in--by Faded. The infamous and questionably existent denizen of the coven has made the threshold into their personal domain. This has seen the disbanding of the Rift Watch--with Faded so openly protective of the new spirit, they will be all the guarding the rift needs.

In a final bit of news, children have been spotted in the company of the Lady Judge. While it is not uncommon for her to raise orphans, it quickly drew attention--why would there be children in the clan so soon after such a huge disaster? But finding out the truth, no one has been keen to ask too many questions.

They were hatched on the final night of the Time of Silent Moons--which in itself is not unusual. However, the male of the two hatchlings, was born from the Arcane egg discovered during the Exodus. Though no one knows if the female hatchling, Rebis, came from an egg with similarly sentimental background, the effect has extended to her. The questions begged to be asked: Why would such an important egg have been hatched without any fanfare? Why right after such a traumatic event?

The questions remain unasked, and there is a sense of tension about the subject in the clan--particularly with the skull of the water seer having come back into social consciousness. The clan seems to be taking it as portentous--but the children have not proved unusual in any way and the Lady Judge has been open in admitting they will be trained to replace some of the more important openings that have appeared in the clan as a result of Hitth's attack.

Stellaria boldly volunteered to take Qaseem's responsibilities, but her role as Distributions Manager cannot go unfilled and the load of both occupations would be decidedly unfair give the size that Aphaster has grown to. Saber, being already extremely experienced at inventory and vault management duties, is filling the role instead. Apokathisto will be apprenticing under him and if the child proves good at it, he will take the role. The child has shown some interest in the clan’s history, so the Lady Judge has also volunteered that Apokathisto may take lessons from both Dalma and herself and become a barrister. 

With the departure of Augustine, House Perihelion lacks a formal Requester. The role might be thought of as easy to dismiss or otherwise unimportant, but the procurement related to Diver's March and the Leyline Gardens and Solar Farms was also handled through Augustine. It's not out of turn to say that Aphaster's western sectors rely on the requester to stay fully operational. Rebis’ personal talents take a shine toward the magical and the Lady Judge again revealed the child would perhaps take on an apprenticeship in magical theory--but not with Ashes. 

When asked if this had anything to do with the Tribune of Magic’s recent house arrest, she said “No, but it would be very nice to have an accomplished mage and magical theorist in this clan who isn’t an Arcanite. Politicians get very jumpy and difficult when they believe the combination of their neighbors Archmage and Tribune of Magic are capable of razing the entire territory with minimal effort.”

[shardclan]

From the journal of the Lady Judge, Azricai

Fourth Epoch, Eon of Crystal

The children have matured enough to use glamours.

Perhaps it is my Arcane ancestry, but I find myself grateful that Aphaster relies on glamours in the exact way the old dynasty didn’t. Otherwise I might have missed what is so clear when the two take on humanoid form.

In spite of their close hatching times, Rebis is still like a baby compared to Apokathisto. Her cheeks remain fat and round and her face is open and innocent.  Even her hair remains fine as a newborn’s, persistently short, but soft as threads of mith silk. Like many fae raised among other species, her monotone is quick to fall away in a moment of excitement. But she has the curiosity of a fae born in its motherland, I think. I do not know if intensity is the word, but she often become consumed, focusing on a single object until I can feel her pushing her way in on the edges of my empathy. 

I have a distinct feeling she will be a scholar, but I am unsure whether it is fame or infamy that will come with the breakthrough she will surely make. Left to her own devices, she will happily stalk anyone with magical potential, the more mysterious the better. Heaven and Dantalion are the ones she most often puzzles over, being well known and easily accessed. But her favorites are Shekhinah and Ranti. I wouldn’t let Shekhinah anywhere near a child with as many questions as Rebis has; he is liable to answer them honestly. Ranti is harmless. Whatever she knows, she knows in her bones and blood and deep down in the magic that makes her. I doubt it can be passed on in mere words. 

Apokathisto looks his age, perhaps even a little older than I expected. All guardian children are like that, due to their exceptional adult stature. I sometimes wonder what his parents must have been like--he reminds me quite a lot of those members of the old dynasty who had tundra parents. I think a great deal about Apokathisto. I suppose I must feel close to him because of how we came to have his egg. He is a watchful boy. I hesitate to use such a harsh word as ‘skeptical’ but he is not one to trust based on others’ words alone. Even with me, he often asks why I am the one raising them. I tell him it is not the first time I have raised orphans--that I am very often the one who raises orphans. I tell him about Dust and Trathail and Ginger. But he is never fully appeased. 

This trait has made him quite endearing to me; it reminds me a lot of Zo. But Apokathisto does have stars in his eyes, and plenty. There is a nostalgic blueness like starwood to his eyes, and they glitter so. In spite of his hesitance to offer much or take much at face value, he is still an Arcanite child. It shows when he is with Ashes--who has taken to both of them in what I suspect is a bit of mania now that his house arrest has been lifted and Arcanus and Stellaria have made up with him---and even more so when we visit House Betelgeuse. He is frightened of Lutia and the Seat, but he can never quite look away. There is awe there, and curiosity, and an impressive understanding of just how dangerous an untamed curiosity might be in that situation. 

Soon they will be out from under my wing, as all the ones who came before. I have always been calm and sure in the knowledge that those I raise will go on to the families that benefit them most. But I look at them, and I feel a certain sadness...

I will miss them when they aren’t with me.