#He could kill them all. The knowledge carved out another hollow within him. Another empty spot.

[acourtofquestions]

"You are both at the mercy of my coven," Manon Snarled.

Dorian gave her a slight smile. "Am I?"

[imaginedhaven]

Rules of Engagement: Chapter Seventeen

Link to Masterpost

It’s here! It’s finally here! This one fought me more than I thought it would, but I’m pretty happy with it now.

I hope you enjoy!

~*~*~

It had been three days since Aelin had killed Maeve.

For three days, Aedion had sat in meeting after meeting, being forcibly reminded of why he preferred to command through action. Their every move and every piece of evidence had been thoroughly analyzed by the dark-haired demi-Fae that appeared to be the de facto leader of the former blood-sworn, and it was more than apparent that he found it lacking.

He hadn’t even been able to check on Aelin, though Whitethorn’s absence implied that she had yet to awaken. Aedion sighed; he supposed he should get used to thinking of the warrior as Rowan, given his relationship to his cousin. That would take a great deal of adjusting.

Truly, he wished Aelin would just wake up. He understood that the amount of magic she must have used would take a great deal of energy from her, but the sooner she awakened and the sooner she could talk to the group of Fae currently interrogating him, the sooner he could return home to his family.

At that thought, he couldn’t help glancing over at one of the males across the table in particular. He had never expected that he would meet his father, and so he had never given much thought to what he would do should the situation arise.

Years ago, or perhaps even a few months ago, he would’ve been unable to respond to the situation with anything other than anger. A large part of him still was angry that this male had seen fit to just walk away from his mother, and hadn’t even bothered to make contact as she had been dying. But now that he had not only Lysandra to consider, but Evangeline as well, everything was changing for him.

He could still blame him for swearing a blood oath to someone he had to have known had a sadistic streak, but what if Aedion had already sworn himself to Aelin and she had threatened to use his connection to his family? There was very little he wouldn’t do to protect Lysandra; it had been that way for years now, ever since she had come to the palace. It was a little more surprising to realize how quickly Evangeline had carved herself a little spot in his heart right next to Lysandra’s.

Perhaps, he thought, he could understand the male’s position. Even if he couldn’t agree with the end result.

Finally, he glanced over at the irate demi-Fae leading the continued interrogation and belatedly realized he had been asked yet another question. “For the fourth and last time, I only have copies of the letters and the passage of the book Aelin was referencing. We agreed there was an inherent risk in bringing the originals to someone who would be interested in destroying them.” He resisted the urge to feign a yawn; the leader was already angry enough as it was. This line of questioning was so boring, though. It might have been a clever tactic on someone else, but Aedion had been questioned before and had questioned others before. They would have to try harder than this.

“Then where, exactly, are the originals?”

“That secret rests with my cousin. If you want to risk Whitethorn’s wrath and attempt to wake her, you’re more than welcome to do so.” In fact, Aedion would have loved to witness such a confrontation by this point. Anything had to be better than repeatedly answering the same handful of questions.

The demi-Fae male growled, and Aedion growled right back. He had played nicely for his cousin’s sake thus far, but he was quickly losing patience with all of this. In fact, if it hadn’t been for Rowan so carefully guarding Aelin until she woke up, he might have simply carried her out himself and booked the next ship across the sea, consequences be damned.

The other male—Gavriel—his father—finally glanced up from the copies he had presented to them. “He’s not likely to give different answers at this point, Lorcan. Perhaps we should focus on ensuring a smooth transition of power? Maeve had no heir, and evidently no legitimate claim to our throne, and we need to determine what that means for us.”

The leader grimaced. “Mab’s line goes through the Ashryver family. The direct female descendant is his fire-breathing bitch princess. Mora’s… Whitethorn will know which of his cousins has the most direct claim.”

“It’ll go to Mora’s line, then,” Aedion commented. “Aelin won’t have any interest in ruling a land she’s never visited before.”

“Won’t she?” The leader was suddenly furious, dark eyes narrowed and darker power surrounding him. “Perhaps that’s why she came, after all.”

“It would mean war if she did,” another of the warriors pointed out calmly. This one, to the extent of Aedion’s knowledge, had been absent during the confrontation itself, and had yet to speak. “And it doesn’t make sense for her to begin with Doranelle, were she to become a conqueror. The Wastes would be an easier target, or perhaps Adarlan.”

The demi-Fae whirled around to glare at the speaker, then quietly grumbled to himself. Aedion took advantage of their distraction to quietly slip away.

It didn’t take someone with Aedion’s heightened senses to recognize that another had followed him out of the room, and it didn’t take a particularly wise man to guess who it had been. For a moment he contemplated not responding at all, walking away without acknowledging his presence, but finally he sighed and turned to face his father. “She died, you know,” he said, surprising even himself. “She didn’t have to. The Fae could have healed her, but she wouldn’t go.”

Gods, he wished he wasn’t having this conversation alone. Aelin might know what to say, and Lysandra…

Best not to think about her, not right now.

His father had frozen still, and vaguely he wondered if he could have felled the male simply by tapping his shoulder. He didn’t reply verbally, but that was all right. Aedion didn’t need an answer from him. “I realize now she was protecting me. From you. From your queen. From all of it.”

The golden male winced. “Aedion—”

Perhaps he had expected to feel anger or rage at the sound of his name on his father’s lips, now after all these years. Perhaps grief would have been a more reasonable expectation, sorrow for all the years missed. Perhaps even joy, for having found the male his mother had never once spoken of.

Instead of any of those, Aedion felt empty. His chest was hollow, and his voice devoid of all emotion when he replied, “I can’t do this right now.”

He left his father standing in the hallway, staring after him as he retreated to the rooms he’d borrowed.

~*~*~

Rowan sighed and glanced once more at the bed where Aelin laid, wishing he would see that she had awakened but knowing she would still be sleeping. She had drained so much of her power, and so much of it had been for his sake that he still felt a twinge in his chest if he dwelled on the thought for too long.

The instant Maeve had exposed herself, Aelin had surrounded him with a ring of fire to keep the shadows at bay, dropping the protective shield only when she needed his power to finish what she had set out to accomplish. It was something he would have done for her, if his power had been of a sufficient threat to the dark queen, but a large part of him was embarrassed that he had been surprised enough to require the assistance.

He knew Aelin would never blame him, though, not after all of the revelations she had made that day.

Perhaps the others would believe it if he told them he had been so surprised by the reveal of Maeve as a Valg queen and not Fae at all. She had long been cold and cruel, but she had done such an excellent job of hiding the truth that he knew he would never have guessed. Aelin had, though, and when she woke up he would have to ask her what had given her cause to suspect.

It was likely to be equally believable that he had been stunned into silence and stillness by the gift of his own freedom. He had hoped, certainly, that she would find a way for them to see each other again. The thought of being parted from his carranam forever had been one that he had found unable to bear, and so he had avoided thinking about their inevitable split as much as possible. Perhaps, though, that should have given him cause to guess the revelation that had shocked him beyond all others, the single word that had caused his mind to fall completely silent for the first time in decades.

Mate.

Even as he had heard the word fall from her lips, though, he had known the truth of it. If he was completely honest with himself, part of him had suspected for quite some time, though he had always found yet another excuse, yet another reason to go on believing that he was wrong. Even now it was a struggle to believe that this could all be his.

Had Lyria ever been his true mate? Could Fae have more than one mate through the course of their lives? There was so much he didn’t know. He wasn’t certain if anyone in Doranelle would be able to tell him now. He supposed it didn’t matter now. Regardless of whether she had truly been his mate or whether he had been so terribly, terribly wrong, she was a part of his past that he couldn’t be rid of even if he wished to be. It was lucky, he supposed, that Aelin seemed to understand this, just as he understood the history that had led her to him.

As he had done so many times previously during these three long days, he strode over to the bed where Aelin lay pale and still, one hand reaching out to gently stroke her hair away from her face. This time was different, though, in that she made the softest noise in her sleep and her face turned to rest against his palm.

Rowan felt something within himself crack with the almost-painful joy that filled him with such a simple gesture, and soon he was sitting on the bed beside her. In response, she shifted again, and soon he found himself seated against the head of the bed with her face pressed against his hip and her arm thrown across his thighs. Another happy little sound fell from her lips, and a slight flush returned to her cheeks, and Rowan smiled down at her sleeping form. The movements and the sounds and the color returning to her were all signs that her magic had restored enough for her body to allow itself into a more natural sleep, and when taken together they indicated that she would awaken soon.

As delighted as he was that soon she would be awake, he also felt a small thrill of trepidation. After all, the last conversation they’d had before she left for Doranelle had gone so terribly wrong, all because he’d panicked. The brief conversation they’d had on the way here indicated that he had a lot to make up for. He intended to do so, but he wasn’t sure of the best way to start.

Her hand shifted higher up on his thigh, and he couldn’t quite suppress the resulting shiver. As much pleasure as even such a simple touch brought to him, though, he knew that if he allowed it to continue he would have little interest in actually talking to Aelin once she woke up. He carefully shifted her hand back down to its previous position, lingering for a moment to caress her hair once more before relaxing back against the head of the bed.

She didn’t seem to notice, or react to the movement beyond a tiny little sigh, and he allowed his mind to once more wander to what on earth he could say to her to counteract the way he had once frozen at her touch and then fled. Perhaps the best way to prove his intentions would be beyond what he could express with words, and only time would be able to show that he intended to stay by her side forever.

Aelin’s hand wandered upward again, and he gently caught it in his own, glancing down at her once more and immediately getting lost in turquoise eyes ringed with gold and dancing with wicked humor.

~*~*~

The first thing Aelin had noticed as she began to wake up was the comforting scent of snow-covered pines. For a brief moment, she had wondered if perhaps they had already returned to Terrasen, but as she had opened her eyes to an unfamiliar bed she’d finally recalled what had happened.

Gods, it was embarrassing to realize she had fallen asleep right at the most inopportune moment, though she supposed it was fortunate that it had been with Rowan. Of all people, he would understand the toll that magic could take.

It appeared that he had stayed with her throughout however long she had slept, for she was wrapped around one of his legs with her head pillowed against his hip. She shifted slightly, blushing faintly as the movement caused her hand to brush the inside of his thigh and quickly feigning continued sleep as he moved her hand to a more appropriate placement. It was only a few moments later, though, that she decided she would not be put off so easily. Not when everything had finally come out into the open, not now that they knew they were mates and she knew that he wanted her.

She had waited quite long enough for this.

The second brush of fingers across his leg was far more deliberate, and this time when he took her hand and glanced down at her she didn’t look away, holding his gaze and watching his expression change from bemusement to shock to something so warm she couldn’t help but melt at the sight. Rather than say something truly embarrassing, however, she grinned up at him. “Why, Prince Rowan, I must say this wasn’t quite what I had in mind when you said you were taking me to bed.”

“As much as I would hate to disappoint you, I was hardly going to bed an invalid,” he retorted, though relief was shining clearly in those beautiful green eyes. The rough amusement of his voice was belied by the gentle touch of his fingers in her hair, carefully tucking a stray lock behind her ear.

Aelin sat up with a groan. “How long did I sleep?”

“Three days.” He pulled her into himself, her back to his chest and her hips nested between his thighs, and she turned her head to smile up at him. “How are you feeling?” he asked, his fingertips brushing along her jawline.

“I’m feeling like there’s a promise my mate has yet to follow through with,” she teased, though the suddenly-serious expression on his face caused her own easy smile to falter. “Rowan…”

“How long have you known?”

She supposed that was the easiest question he could’ve started with, though she still drew in a deep breath before replying. “From the moment I fell into your arms after escaping Arobynn Hamel’s home and realized it felt like I was home,” she replied. “I was… I wasn’t certain at first, given that you’ve already been mated, but then the night before I left…”

He grimaced then, and it was her turn to reach up and touch his face. “I panicked, then,” he admitted. “I regretted it almost immediately. And then when I returned—to apologize, or to do something at least to try and make it right, and found you missing, it was like a piece of myself had gone with you.”

“I couldn’t tell you what I was doing,” Aelin said by way of apology. “You would’ve been forced to stop me, by the oath that once bound you.”

“I understand.” His fingers slid under her chin, forcing her to meet his eyes. “But next time you leave in the middle of the night, your only two options are telling me where you’re going or taking me with you. Am I clear?”

“So demanding,” she purred. “Luckily for you, I have no intention of ever being parted from you for any lengthy period of time again if I can help it.”

She leaned in then, determined to finally, finally kiss him, but he stopped her with a gentle hand pressing against her shoulder. “Aelin, I…”

“I know,” she said. “We can talk about it as much as you want later. But right now, I don’t know when we’ll next have a moment like this again, and—”

His lips were on hers then, and rather than attempt to continue the conversation she slid her hand to the back of his head.

She had thought she knew what it was to be kissed. She had done exactly that with Sam on countless moonlit nights, and then once again with Dorian. It had always been pleasant enough before, but Aelin was quickly coming to realize that kissing Rowan could hardly be described by such an inadequate word as pleasant. No, kissing Rowan was everything—his ice colliding with her fire, the sensation both taking her breath away and fanning a flame that resided deep within her core. It was better than she could’ve dreamed—and she had dreamed of this, she could admit it to herself now, had spent long nights twisted in her sheets and waking up gasping at imagined sensations.

He pulled back, just long enough to take a breath, and she couldn’t quite help the noise that escaped her then. Nor could she help the urge to crush her lips to his once more, an urge she succumbed to happily. She tangled her fingers into silver hair, holding him close to her, though he seemed to share her desire to remain close if the arm wrapped around her waist was any indication.

A muscle in her side twinged, and he pulled free of her once more as she winced. Before he could say a word, though, she turned in his embrace, straddling his thighs and resting one hand on each side of his face. “I’m fine, Rowan,” she reassured him. “Better than fine, even, unless you get it into your head to do something as stupid as stop—”

His lips brushed her jaw then, and she couldn’t contain the gasp that left her. She allowed her head to fall to the side as his hands skimmed up her sides, slipping under the fabric of what she belatedly realized was his shirt. “If that is what my queen commands, then I can only obey,” he smirked.

She shivered, and spent a dizzying moment wondering what she would need to do to ensure that he never stopped calling her my queen. “In that case, your queen commands that we not leave this room until we have no other option, or until I say otherwise,” she grinned.

He laughed, the sound all dark tones that resonated deep within her and made her toes curl. “I’ve spent three days wondering what words I needed to say for you to allow me to remain at your side,” he admitted. “But if you would rather I do my persuading with teeth and tongue…”

He nipped at her neck then, the sensation immediately recalling a day in the sparring ring what felt like forever ago, and Aelin moaned. “I think that sounds like a brilliant idea.”

~*~*~

Rowan wasn’t entirely convinced that this wasn’t some sort of dream, even as Aelin leaned in to kiss him again. He had spent so long carefully convincing himself that this very thing wasn’t within the realm of possibility that he almost didn’t know what to do now that it decidedly was.

He wasn’t about to let this opportunity pass him by, however. Gods knew he had squandered enough chances by now.

With that in mind, he carefully flipped them so that Aelin was sprawled on the mattress, golden hair spilling across his pillow in a way he’d been longing to see for longer than he cared to admit. She glanced up at him, lips pursed in a blend of confusion and irritation, but before she could say a word he was kneeling over her and kissing that confused frown away.

Her skin tasted just as he remembered from that one time he had bitten her, all floral jasmine and simmering embers, and it was enough to drive him mad with longing. His hands once more slipped under the shirt that was covering her—his shirt, into which he’d changed her so as to prevent her from sleeping in riding leathers—and she rose to meet his touch, cheeks flushed and eyes bright.

The shirt had to go, and it was only a moment’s work to tear it open, leaving her fully exposed to his gaze. He had seen every inch of her before, of course, stolen glances while working to heal her as well as that morning she had gone to look at her own scars. None of those moments compared to this, with her warm and wanting beneath him. The flush of her cheeks spread across her chest as well, accenting the curve of her firm breasts tipped with rose-colored peaks. Her breathing was shallow and rapid, and as his fingertips swept up the plane of her toned stomach and along her ribs she let out a sound somewhere between a moan and a whisper of his name.

He had to taste her again then, and from there he allowed himself to kiss along the curve of her neck and her shoulder before dipping lower. A flick of his tongue over her nipple granted him a startled cry and a breathy please, and he obediently took the hardened nub of flesh into his mouth as his hand stroked back down her side to caress her thigh.

At the barest suggestion from his fingertips she spread her legs for him, and he slid his hand between them, tracing circles on her inner thigh until she was begging him for more with her words as well as her movements, the arch of her hips all the more appealing for its artlessness. Slowly, he allowed his fingers to wander ever closer to the slick skin awaiting him at the juncture of her thighs, not quite allowing himself to touch just yet. Her fingers twisted into his hair in response, tugging sharply enough to make him hiss and glance up at her.

She pulled him towards her once again, and he followed where she led eagerly, kissing her once again. As his tongue brushed against hers, though, he realized that perhaps there was one more thing he needed to say to her before this could carry on any further. “I love you,” he whispered into the skin of her neck, smiling as she shivered in response.

“You love me?” she asked, voice husky from their current activities.

He pulled back, just enough to look into her eyes as he replied. “To whatever end.”

She surged up to meet him then, and he wrapped his arms around her, holding her close as she kissed him again and again. “I love you,” she breathed between kisses, “and you are mine.”

It was his turn, then, to shiver at her blatant claim of him. “I am yours,” he agreed, “just as much as you are mine.”

And then he was kissing his way down her body, past her breasts and along her stomach. He had just reached her navel when she seemed to realize his plan with a gasp, her fingers returning to their position in his hair as he finally slid his hands up her thighs to part them further and lowered his head between them.

She tasted just as perfect here as she did everywhere else; perhaps even more so. Even more rewarding than her taste, though, was the sharp cry of his name accompanied by a tug on his hair as he flicked his tongue against her. He laughed against her skin as her hips rose to meet him, allowing his hands to slip under the curve of her hips to pull her ever closer.

Before long, she was alternately praising him and cursing him as he continued to tease the tiny nub of flesh tucked between her thighs, hips almost thrashing in his firm grip. “Please,” she begged, and Rowan glanced up at her to find her chest heaving and her cheeks red from pleasure and exertion. “Rowan, please, I need—”

Her head tossed back with another cry then as he slowly pressed a finger into her, curling it slightly to stroke against her from the inside. “More,” she begged as he licked over her once again, and he obediently added a second finger beside the first. Her hips rolled against his hand and his tongue in an undulating motion, her grip on his hair tightening further and her spare hand sliding up towards her breasts, then faltering and falling to fist in the sheets. Her moans and pleas rose in pitch and in volume, and soon her core was tightening around his fingers and her voice broke on a shout of his name.

He pressed one more kiss against her flesh before she was pulling him up again, and he carefully removed his fingers from her before allowing her to guide him back in for yet another kiss to her lips. Her hands slid down his back, pausing when she reached the trousers he still wore. “These have to go,” she demanded, and he grinned in reply.

“As my queen commands,” he said as his own hand fell to the first of the buttons that fastened the trousers around him.

~*~*~

Aelin was positive that she had died and gone to the Afterworld. It couldn’t be possible to love someone this much, to feel this much pleasure at their touch. She was already falling apart, already burning inside, and they had barely begun.

He definitely knew what he was doing—she had suspected as much, given that she was far from his first, but to believe that and to experience it were different things altogether. She knew that she was far from his level of experience, and though she knew he wouldn’t judge her for it she knew she wanted to at least try to make him feel as good as he was making her feel.

It was this thought that emboldened her enough to wrap her hand around the length of him once he had bared himself for her, stroking once and marveling at the sensation of such soft skin over something so firm. He hissed in response, pressing forward into her grip, and she couldn’t keep a smile from her face. “That feels good?”

He nodded, elongated canines grazing her skin as he nuzzled his face against her neck. Before she could do anything else, though, his fingers encircled her wrist, halting the motion of her hand. “You don’t have to,” he began.

Aelin responded by arching one of her eyebrows. “And if I want to?”

“You wouldn’t rather save this part of yourself, in the event you need to make a more politically expedient union?”

Irritation flared in her then, and she instinctively leaned in and nipped at his neck. “I would rather make my own decisions, and I’ve decided I want to share this with my mate. Though if he keeps being a bird-brained idiot, I might change my mind.”

He laughed then, and she was about to unleash an irritated tirade on him when he simply said, “I suppose that’s fair.”

“I should certainly hope so,” she retorted, cutting off any reply he could’ve made by moving her hand along his length once more and reveling in the resulting gasp.

The minor argument had done nothing to diminish the arousal she felt, and judging by the weight of him in her palm and the lust shimmering in his eyes he felt the same way. She watched as he lowered his head to see the movement of her hand on him, and then suddenly he pulled her close once more in a kiss that stole what was left of her breath away.

His fingers brushed between her thighs once more and she moaned into his mouth, hooking one of her legs around one of his to tug him ever closer. “Please, Rowan,” she pleaded, her voice sounding foreign to her own ears. “Please, I—”

Words failed her then, but he seemed to know precisely what it was she was asking of him regardless. In a smooth motion he braced himself above her with a hand beside her head. The other slid down her side and then moved away to help him guide himself into her.

Gods, and she had thought being filled with his fingers was perfection. This went so far beyond that sensation that she didn’t have the words to describe it even if she had found herself miraculously able to speak. Instead, she whimpered something that sounded vaguely like his name and clutched at his shoulders, feeling the muscles of his upper back ripple as he rolled his hips slowly against hers.

When he was fully inside of her his lips found hers again, and she kissed him back, desperately trying to cling to some semblance of reality. Then he began to move and she was lost.

Her head tossed back, baring her throat to him, and her fingertips dug in at his shoulders at the delightful friction of his thrusts. With a groan, he traced the curve of her neck with his lips and then his teeth, and Aelin slid one of her hands into his hair to keep him there, dragging the nails of her other hand down his back. He growled in response and his hips slammed into her, but his teeth at her neck remained so surprisingly gentle, and the dichotomy of it only fueled the fire burning within her.

She opened her eyes—when had she closed them?—and as she tugged on his hair so she could look into his eyes the fire within her rose up, as hot as the burnout but infinitely sweeter. Keeping her gaze locked on his, she deliberately arched her neck, giving him silent permission to do what he was so clearly longing to.

His teeth sank into the skin of her neck and release crashed over her like a wave, leaving her trembling in his grasp and shouting his name for all the world to hear. His found him soon after, and then it was her turn to hold him as he groaned into her neck and spilled inside of her.

She let out a soft whine as he eased his teeth from her skin and began planting soft kisses over her face and neck. “Gods,” she managed. “I never thought… I couldn’t have imagined…”

“I couldn’t have either,” he admitted, pine-green eyes softer and warmer than she had ever seen them.

A swell of affection rose in her at the sight, and she couldn’t keep it from spilling out into words. “I love you.”

He smiled, truly smiled, and it was like watching the sun rise. “I never thought I would have the privilege of hearing those words from your lips.”

She laughed softly. “It is a privilege, isn’t it?”

He nipped at her neck again, but she only laughed harder. “What would you say,” she asked, “if I told you that my first demand of you as both my mate and my blood-sworn was that we do this as often as we can manage it?”

He chuckled and rolled his hips again, and she gasped with the realization that he had hardly even softened. “I would say we would find it difficult to get any work done,” he replied, and soon after that they were both lost in each other once more and there were no more words.

~*~*~

Tagging:

@ireallyshouldsleeprn @queen-of-glass @fangirlprincess09 @sassys-world @morganofthewildfire @superspiritfestival @perseusannabeth @sis-it-dont-add-up @jlinez @julemmaes @emilyoftheshadows @thegoddessofyou

[twitchesandstitches]

The Destroyer had been fighting in the arena for a long, long time. She didn’t know how long, and she didn’t care.

She cared about the applause, the glory and the fame. She cared about the joy of proving her worth, time and time again; the sweet thrill of her blows landing home, the perfect control of her finishing moves never killing another contender. And she cared, so very much, for the roar of the audience as she delighted them, the thrill pulsing from them as dear to her as her own heartbeat, and just as vital to herself, and there and then she always felt alive.

Somewhere, perhaps, her ancestors on planet Terradino, at some unspecified point prior to the destructive events that put the multiverse into such a complicated state, had fought in such a way. The Destroyer had grown up not knowing a whole lot about where her family had come from. She knew that she was a vaxasaurian, the dinosaur-like people renowned for their size and strength. She knew that her family had served a minor lord of this feudal world she called home for at least five generations. And she knew that she had won a lot of freedom and fame fighting in the gladiator arenas, a true show-woman to her core. She liked to think that, perhaps, she was doing her ancestors proud in some obscure way.

She did not much care for the strangely penetrating look the small human woman was giving her.

‘Title, not name.’ She stopped, halting a charge that would surely have seen them crushed beneath her tread.

Ahsoka readied the gladiator spear she’d been given, since you don’t get to take your own weapons into the fighting pit. She was a tall and imposingly powerful woman of the twi’lek people; broadly humanoid, two long and thick tendrils extending from the back of her head over her shoulders, and it was difficult to say, from her coloration, if she was red with orange paint, or orange with red paint. It was certainly a complex design, shifting subtly with the immensely powerful energies emanating from her clear mastery over the mystical arts.

Ahsoka looked up at the vaxasaurian gladiator; the Destroyer. She and her group were not small; they were enormously powerful, their abilities enhanced by the strange practices of the Task Force and vastly empowered by all kinds of esoteric things: unique technologies, forgotten mystical mantras, divine techniques, and so forth. They were also a subtle group, so they were not quite as big or buxom as their power normally would have made them, though they were still incredibly large; the average audience member could have fit into their hands.

The shadow of the Destroyer fell over them all; the statuesque and extremely curvaceous form of the reptilian juggernaut could not entirely be downplayed by the showy armor she wore, not at her levels of busty. It was a bit of a surprise she didn’t topple over with every step, really. Breasts bigger than her upper body, the visible scales painted in attractive designs, hips that shook like buildings moving in an earthquake; she seemed calculatedly appealing, fearsome.

Arri picked up on Ahsoka’s mood. She coughed; a turian like her, with their distinctively rumbling voices, could really make a cough sound dramatic. Tall, her curves extreme on an hourglass-shaped body, her lightweight robes (perfect for someone with an evasion-heavy style) revealed a lot of serrated and metallic carapace, like someone had tried to build a bipedal velociraptor and make it armored. That look, her mandibled snout, and the long talons were typical of her people. The scorpion tail was not; neither was the way one arm twisted into a huge pincer, blazing with magical flame and generating all the fire magic she required. “Perhaps we shouldn’t antagonize the terrifying gladiator, Quinn…?”

She said this without much hope. Harley had an Idea. This rarely worked out for them.

Harley placed down her hammer, a great and oversized thing seemingly too unwieldy for someone to even pick up, let alone swing with one hand as she did. She sat down on a hammer-head larger than she was, her enormous backside making it sink into the ground. The haft made an acceptable rest for her back as she plopped against it, seemingly unconcerned, and she clapped her hands together.

Normally, she looked like an unstable mass of dynamic energy too intense to be constrained within the form of a giantess, even one so powerful that her power levels had produced a body type not dissimilar to the average violin; big up top, big below, and with very little in between. Even sitting down, her visible body appeared to be a mass of boob on crossed legs, monstrously wide thighs, inexplicably pale skin, and all of that wrapped up in a battlesuit of alternated red and black patterns.

That energy cooled, and she instead radiated competence, reassurance, and a soothing attitude.

The Destroyer raised a weapon irritably at her. “Get up, little thing. Fight me! Stop wasting my time, I..” She faltered, eyes blinking furiously inside her glamorous helmet. “I…”

She shook her head. She banged her weapon against a showman shield. “I have no time for this!”

“Okay,” Harley said, blinking slowly. “It’s your show, lady. This whole place is your performance, ain’t it?”

The Destroyer found herself nodding before she forced herself to stop, narrowing her eyes down at the (relatively) little fighter. Her elephantine foot landed a dangerously short distance from Harley, trying to get her to move… to run, do SOMETHING. “What trickery is this?” the Destroyer asked.

“No tricks, hun.” Harley held her hands up. “My girls back there, they won’t attack until I give up on our little talk here, okay? No ambushes or sneak attacks to take your title.”

The Destroyer blinked at them. Ahsoka and Arri nodded nervously, taking many steps back. Ahsoka fought back the urge to summon her powers anyway, just as a precaution… just in case Harley’s plan, whatever it was, didn’t pan out.

The enormous vaxasaurian stared at them a while longer, doubt coloring her every movement, Eventually she sat down, her armor still wobbling in various places. Her armor had probably been jointed specifically for that; a good amount of wobble drew a certain sort of audience.

She glowered down at Harley, who met her gaze politely with a vague smile. It was amazing Harley didn’t cower, with those massive talons before here; the tyrant lizard jawline, the spiky plates jutting through armor, and the mighty tail spikes lashing around in what, a layman probably, might mistake as impatience to finish the fight.

Harley knew anxiety and someone who needed to get something out when she saw it.

“If you want me to go first,” Harley said in a drawl. “My real name is actually-”

She said ‘Harleen Quinzel’. What actually came out of her mouth was an entirely different set of syllables, modified to make sense in this part of space, in this universe, in that culture, for her current operational persona. It was carved into the universe around here; whatever she said or did, it would be perceived as something fitting her role. They didn’t hear the name Harley Quinn when she fought, they heard what they needed to. Just as surely as, if by some means they did learn the truth, they would eventually just… forget. The knowledge dripping out of their heads.

And if that didn’t work, Gabriel Reyes would visit them. Or rather, the Ghost Rider would. Holy fire would burn away everything they didn’t need to know, and leave behind calm ashes, bothering them never again.

Nevertheless, though the Destroyer didn’t hear what Harley truly said, she did hear the sincerity.

“I don’t know my own name,” she admitted. “That’s strange, isn’t it? I don’t know why. Huh. That’s, that’s odd.” She frowned. “Isn’t it?”

Around the arena, there was a chorus of voices, a vast crowd complaining and bickering and wondering just what was going on here. Referees tried to angle for silence, and a few shadowy visitors were looking very anxious indeed.

“Look into your memories,” Harley suggested.

The Destroyer tried to remember something; anything, really, and found, now that she had brought it up, that her recollections felt… odd.

Further than a few years, and they were hollow. Not empty, just… insufficient. Off, flavorless, shapes of memory.

“Huh,” she said, and it felt inadequate. “That doesn’t seem right…”

And as the conversation continued, Eddie Brock, in his persona as a wannabe gladiator (with his married partner/symbiote lover as a subtle edge in his favor, with going full Venom as a back up plan if things went bad) held up a small oblong thing that looked like a religious relic. “Hrm,” he said, voice tinged with the harmonics of the symbiote bound to him as well as his own voice.

Ranamon, presently wearing the robotic shell of a walking tank, scuttled over. “Something up?” she asked, risking that she might be breaking character.

Eddie nodded at her. “We’re done here.” It wasn’t Eddie that spoke, but the symbiote; they seemed glad of it, and Eddie’s teeth grew longer when they spoke, tendrils of black shimmering just a bit over his eyes.

Ranamon blinked. “I thought our job was to beat up the head gladiator, get close enough to the big ruler-type guy and…”  she made a sharp gesture with half-a-dozen arms that indicated a very violent and final sort of political shift. “Y’know.”

“Yep,” Eddie, this time, said. “That was one of the options, anyway, and I got word from high up. Seems the direct option isn’t needed. It’ll happen without us. We’re done here.”

“Oh. Uh.” Ranamon shrugged, which was an interesting thing to see in a machine body that was what you got if you tried to make a tank out of an arachnid shape. “Yay, I guess!”

They left, to join up with the rest of the Task Force, and leave things to sort themselves out.

They often operated, in a way, through ripples. The tasks they were assigned, as random and minor as they seemed at the time, sent out ripples. Echoes and consequences, moving onward and growing larger… much larger, over time.

Today, a gladiator would go home, unfulfilled and perplexed, and have to ask herself why she couldn’t remember her name, and why her memories didn’t feel real.

In a week, she would gather up the other fighters she was friendly with, the ones that always stuck by her because she was a professional that never went for a killing blow, and ask them a few awkward questions. Everyone would leave feeling baffled that their own memories felt wrong, too.

And there… well, who knew? Maybe in a few months time, a local cloning factory would answer some very pointed questions from gladiators that had secretly been born there only a few years previous despite their memories saying otherwise.

But from there, a hint of a whole rotten, sorry system of casually churning out people for entertainment would lead all the way to the top, and it would be the Destroyer aiming herself squarely at the king of the world, making her name very literal indeed.

One way or another, a corrupt empire would fall.

The Task Force would have helped make this part of the multiverse a little brighter.

[jahaanofmenaphos]

Art by the awesome @tommieglenn!

Of Gods and Men Summary:

When the gods returned to Gielinor, their minds were only on one thing: the Stone of Jas, a powerful elder artefact in the hands of Sliske, a devious Mahjarrat who stole it for his own ends and entertainment. He claims to want to incite another god wars, but are his ulterior motives more sinister than that? And can the World Guardian, Jahaan, escape from under Sliske’s shadow?

Read the full work here:

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QUEST 03: LET SLEEPING GODS LIE

QUEST SUMMARY:

Jahaan stumbles upon a newly excavated chamber, one that a charismatic young stranger claims to be where Guthix resides under the earth. However, once this knowledge becomes commonplace, many different factions come to a head, either to protect the sleeping god, wake him, or destroy him…

CHAPTER 4: END SONG

The cavern appeared to be a bottomless abyss; the background was the darkest fathomable black, a blank canvas to star-like energy particles floating upwards into the nothingness. Beneath the platform Jahaan had entered, a figure stood tall, so tall that he could have stretched from the centre of the planet and Jahaan would be none the wiser, with thick green skin and a crown of glowing orbs to sit atop his humanoid head. He was most certainly awake; his blue eyes looked up at the adventurer with contentment.

Guthix.

Peering down over the edge of the platform, Jahaan saw a series of rocks jutting outwards, leading closer to Guthix. On these rocks stood Orlando, staring up at the giant deity. Jahaan was about to call out to him, when suddenly, a flash of light enveloped the architect, causing Jahaan to shield his vision. When he managed to open his eyes again, Orlando was no more, and in his place stood a shadowy figure.

His purple robes were broken up at the hood by stripes of red and black, decorative and imposing. Tiny yellow pupils glistened in his black, hollow eyes; when he turned to look up at Jahaan, his smile was wicked and mischievous, like one of a proud sinner.

Jahaan’s eyes narrowed into slits. Sliske.

With a wave of his wrist, a large staff appeared in his hands, two golden wings at the end with a blue crystal in between them. Turning back to Guthix, he held the staff aloft, and moments later, a violent burst of lightning shot from the end and pierced into Guthix’s heart. Guthix roared in agony, shaking the chamber with his pained cries. An orange liquid started seeping from the wound, faster and faster as the staff’s energy plunged deeper into the god’s chest. Jahaan could only watch, helpless, as Guthix’s life force was drained away.

Content with the damage he had done, Sliske teleported away.

Guthix’s head lulled forwards, his chest heaving with staggered breaths as his raspy throat fought for air.

In the silence, Jahaan was frozen in place, unable to take his eyes off the wound on Guthix’s chest. He almost fell to the ground when a voice echoed around him.

“Do not be afraid. You have no enemies here. As I believe you know, I am Guthix.”

Trying to regain a level-head, Jahaan cleared his throat before replying, “What just happened? Are you injured?”

“Sliske was wielding an elder weapon. A god slayer, if you will. I am dying, Jahaan Alsiyad-Abut. But we still have time. It has been most interesting watching your brave journey to get here.”

Jahaan’s eyes widened. “You knew what was happening outside?”

“Yes. I saw everything. You put up an honourable defence and I thank you. Before the end, there is something I must show you. I must share this with someone, before these memories die with me…”

When the world faded back into life, Jahaan was standing in a foreign land, consisting of what appeared to be giant trees supporting shattered floating islands, which had leaves dangling from the bottom of them. Lights could be seen hanging from branches, and broken paths connected some of the islands, which had tree roots flowing through them. Purple plants of varying sizes were found growing in every direction.

“Guthix?” Jahaan called out, puzzled.

“I am here,” Guthix assured, teleporting in front of him. He was considerably smaller than before, standing barely an inch taller than Jahaan himself. His skin was a mossy green, with shawn bark-coloured hair on his head. His golden robes were that of a simple man, tattered and passed down for generations, but still with enough life in them to last. He had no armour and bore no weapons, and anyone could not be blamed for mistaking him for a farmer of this world.

“I have taken a form from my past,” Guthix announced, quietly, as if he didn’t wish to disturb the silent surroundings.

“Your past? Where are we?”

“This is my homeland. Or rather, my last memories of it, moments before I left.”

Jahaan crinkled his brow. “Your homeland?”

The two began walking through the remains of this world. “Have patience, all will be explained. You saw Sliske - the Mahjarrat - deal his final blow... I am dying. I have slowed our passage of time momentarily, so I may share this with you. Many millennia ago, I was born here, on Naragun, far away from the land you call home. From as far back as I can remember, this world was in turmoil. My world was home to many gods; many beings who would claim it as their own. The gods fought relentlessly, and as more and more came, the fighting became increasingly vicious. War broke out and lasted for centuries. The world was ravaged, and the population decimated. And do you know who came out the victor, Jahaan?”

Jahaan shook his head.

“No one. No one emerged triumphant from this ordeal,” Guthix’s reply was sharp and loaded. “My people were killed. All of my friends, my family. I was left to stand alone on this devastated plane, with memories of what my life had been.”

There were corpses scattered all around the barren landscape; Jahaan deduced that these must be Guthix's memories of his friends and family, all killed in the wars that destroyed this world. Their clothes were basic, and they carried no weapons. They looked more like farmers and crafters than warriors, the kind of people that would not stand much of a chance against a god's army. It was sickening that so many of the dead were not soldiers. As the gods' battles became more fervent, innocent citizens must have become accidental casualties, eventually wiping out Guthix's race altogether.

“What about the gods?” Jahaan inquired.

“Many died. Many fled,” Guthix guided Jahaan to a dead god that loomed over the landscape, terrifying even in death. His appearance suggested that he was not a benevolent god, although even if he were it seems that none of the gods who visited this world cared much for the mortals living upon it.

“He is one of the fallen. A god, long-dead and forgotten,” Guthix explained. “In the last days of the war, I believed I was soon to die, too. There was no food, no water. I scavenged among the dead, until one day I found a weapon; a large sword, crackling with energy. I recognised it as a weapon of the gods. The 'elder weapons', as they referred to them. These weapons were prized among them, and they fought desperately over these. I knew it to be my only chance, so I took it. Having seen so much violence, I do not believe in it as a solution. But in this case, I had no other choice. In the dead of night, I crept from the ruins of my home. I found a slumbering god - the god you see before you - peaceful amid the rubble. I stabbed him with the elder weapon, driving it deep into his back. The weapon shattered as the god reared back in pain before crashing to the ground. As I watched him take his last breaths, I felt power growing within me. I became a god myself, equal to those who had tormented my life. I left this world and its painful memories. I fled for centuries, aimlessly wandering until something captured my attention. I felt drawn to a planet - Gielinor. It was beautiful, and more importantly, empty. It was somewhere I could hide, and mourn my dead. I had not expected to find the Stone upon it - the Stone of Jas - granting me a power greater than even the gods of my homeworld.”

The two walked past what appeared to be the remains of a ruined temple. Some of Guthix's race must have begun to worship the gods who came to this world, creating shrines and temples for them, becoming caught up in the very war that destroyed them. A warped form of Stockholm syndrome. If he squinted, Jahaan thought he could pick out a familiar symbol carved onto what was left of the shrine.

It was a four-pointed star.

Before he decided to continue that particularly saddening train of thought, Jahaan stopped their strolling beside an unidentified corpse. Unlike Guthix's race, this creature was clearly a warrior. It almost looked as if it was created purely for combat, with strong muscles and thick skin. It could have ripped a naragi to shreds in seconds. The creature was wearing tough armour, bearing the mark of a long-forgotten god.

Jahaan inquired, “What is this? It doesn't look like any race I've ever seen.”

“It is a god's warrior - a creature introduced to this world only for war. The sparring gods brought in other races to fight for them, creating their own armies, much like how the Mahjarrat were introduced to Gielinor. When I arrived in Gielinor, I spent a long time alone. I didn't know what my future held, or what I should do next. Eventually, I came upon what I believed was my purpose. I aimed to create a world free of the influence of gods, a world where the inhabitants would not have to fight other beings' wars. So, I introduced my own chosen races: humans, gnomes, dwarves, sheep... beings who do not strongly tend towards evil, nor good. I chose tribes who had no concept of gods, and I brought them to Gielinor, to live uninfluenced lives while I retained the balance. I even bought Seren with me, and she brought her elves…” Guthix paused for a moment, lost in his own reminiscing. Shaking his head, his light tone turned sorrowful once more as he continued, “But I was naive; my plan would never work. I should have seen it coming. I introduced the mortals to the world, and I had a power greater than they had ever seen. The mortal races began to worship me. They built shrines to me, made sacrifices… they waited on my every word. It pained me deeply to see myself becoming what I had always loathed. They should not have been living beneath me. I wanted them to be free, balanced, to make their own decisions. Knowing my presence was thwarting my efforts, I withdrew into the earth, to sleep. I hoped I would be forgotten over the ages. But it was not long before the other gods arrived.”

As he spoke, Guthix’s voice was growing weaking, fading. “I feel my strength draining. We are nearly at the end.”

The two walked up some floating wooden steps, held together with study tree roots. Beside the steps stood a stone tablet among the ruins. The clarity of the writing suggested that Guthix had a strong memory of this tablet; perhaps it was something he saw every day, or something dear to him. Along the path, just beyond the stone, stood the crumbled remains of a house.

As they continued up the steps, Guthix continued, “When I ended the war of the gods, I did it with no pleasure. I already knew I had failed. Looking over Gielinor, it was like looking at my homeland: the land ravaged; the mortals worshiping a multitude of gods, including myself. The races brought in by the now-banished gods remained, and disrupted the balance at every turn. Battles raged on, in the names of the absent gods. I could banish the gods themselves, but I could not remove the memories of them, nor the blind faith displayed by their followers. Besides, my own interference would only disrupt the balance even more. I have disproportionate power, more than any single being should have. But now, balance will be restored, with my passing. I could have prevented this, Jahaan. I have been awake since you triggered the alarm. I knew what would happen.”

Realisation dawned upon Jahaan heavily. “You… you could have stopped Sliske... why didn't you?”

“Jahaan, I have been the most powerful being on Gielinor since my arrival. Of course I could have stopped Sliske if I had desired to. But I embrace my death. It must occur, if the world is to be balanced. If the gods return, another war is inevitable. Gielinor must be returned to peace before war destroys it... before it becomes like my own world. A dead, desolate wasteland... Gielinor must be protected, Jahaan. But not by me. By a mortal. Someone with the power to defend against the gods, but not the power to be one.”

Guthix cringed, clutching his chest as he groaned, “Ah… it is... the pain is becoming stronger. Please, follow me into me house… my home…”

The two walked inside the remnants of Guthix’s house. From what was left of the structure, it looked like something that, before being destroyed, was a lovely piece of architecture, strong but… cosy, almost. It… had an aura about, a warmth that Jahaan let pass over him. The house would have been big enough for a family. For Guthix’s family.

Now, there was only one bed left inside, and that was comprised of nothing more than a somewhat flat stone tablet.

Doubling over, Guthix clutched onto the wall for balance, a desperate attempt to remain standing. “I have... so little time. Please, listen carefully, Jahaan. I have already shared my power with you, chosen you as one of my creatures, so that you may reach this point. When this is over, you will find yourself with even more power. Power you may use to defend against gods. You must be a guardian of this world, Jahaan. Gielinor must be free.”

To see Guthix in such a weary state, to see what his world had become, and how it shaped him into the being he was known to be on Gielinor, Jahaan was on the edge of tears. He was not above admitting his emotions when such emotions were justified. Sniffing them back, he vowed, “I’ll do as you ask. I’ll use your powers to protect Gielinor from the gods.”

The smile Guthix managed was so weak, so frail. He edged over towards his bed and crawled on top of it. “I am glad to have found such a noble mortal as you, Jahaan. My blessing is with you.”

He closed his eyes, one final time. “It is over. My family waits for me. Remember... your purpose, Jahaan... and please… forget me.”

When Jahaan opened his eyes again, he was standing in the cavern, on the edge, looking down at the lifeless form of Guthix. It was so silent. The tears he had been holding back on Naragun released themselves here.

Numbly, he walked back through the tunnels, back out into the main chamber, where he found the fighting had continued in his absence. He didn’t even know how much time had passed; Guthix mentioned something about slowing the passage of time, but not to what extent.

What was evident were the casualties in his absence. Juna was lying motionless on the floor, with druids tending to her. From all sides of the battle, people had fallen.

His return to the main room caught the eye of Azzanadra. “Jahaan, what happened in there?”

Now, more and more people stopped their fighting to turn to him. The grave atmosphere was answer enough, but they all waited on baited breath, praying for their desired outcome.

Taking a deep breath, Jahaan looked among the faces of the crowd before announcing, “Guthix is dead.”

The chamber descended into silence, before some of the Guthixians broke out into quiet sobs and disbelieving whispers.

Even the Mahjarrat looked suitably shocked. Only the Saradominists had the nerve to look gleeful.

"I... I did this,” Jahaan continued, his voice wavering. “The man I brought with me, Orlando, was actually the Mahjarrat Sliske in disguise..."

Many of the gathered gasped, turning threatening eyes over to Azzanadra, who for his part looked just as horrified. “This… this was not our intention, you must believe me. He gave me his word. He...”

“To believe a snake?” Chaeldar spat. “We would be imbeciles!”

Kaqemeex put an reassuring hand on Jahaan’s shoulder. "You are not to blame, Jahaan. None of us saw through his deception. We share the blame."

The Valluta shook her head, her mouth held agape. "Guthix would not have let a peon like Sliske destroy him, surely?" 

Jahaan sighed at the memory. "It was his will. He said he knew what was to happen, and he accepted it."

"B-But why? Why would he leave us?"

Death cut in, "We could discuss this all night, but there is no point. Guthix is dead. His edicts are broken. That means the gods can return to Gielinor."

In a beat, it hit them all, with Thaerisk voicing the unspeakable, "The wars could begin again..." 

Suddenly, the ground started shake, knocking crumbling fragments from the wall out of their places and onto the ground, making rubble out of them.

“What’s happening?” Chaeldar cried, hovering higher to try and see the cause of the disruption. “Another Zarosian trick?”

Trying to maintain his footing, Azzanadra desperately protested, “This is not of our doing!”

Then, in a brilliant flash of blue light, a figure emerged. His skin was pale blue, covered by a flowing blue robe and gold armour. A gold and diamond two-tiered crown sat atop his head, and on his chest plate was printed the symbol of his religion - a four-pointed star.

He turned to Azzanadra and his small band of followers. “This is no place for battle. Go back to your hiding places.”

With a snap of his fingers, he teleported the trio away.

Instantly, Commander Zilyana fell to her knees in a deep bow. "Saradomin, my lord! You have returned! Look, our rival Guthix-"

"Silence, Zilyana,” his voice was booming, demanding obedience. “It is not right to revel in bloodshed. What has been done could not have been helped. Guthix was not an evil god. Like myself, he yearned to make the world a better place for those who dwell upon it. But his notion of balance was flawed, and his presence meant that I could not return. It was not an easy decision, but Guthix had to die. But, Zilyana, that does not mean we should gloat over the events here."

Rising to her feet, Zilyana bowed her head once more. "I apologise, my lord."

Saradomin turned to Jahaan, his demeanor that of someone who believes he rules over all be surveys, the superiority only a god can lay claim to. "So, human, you were alone with Guthix in his last breaths. Tell me, do you know who I am?"

Jahaan's initial response was to be measured - after all, he was in the presence of yet another god. But when he saw that familiar symbol emblazoned on Saradomin's chest, he instead saw red. 

"You were there, weren't you?" 

"Pardon?" 

"On Naragun," Jahaan pressed, his voice a blade. "You were there, in the wars. You tore Guthix's homeland apart." 

Saradomin sighed, almost in annoyance. It only made Jahaan angrier. "That was many centuries ago. You only have half the story, mortal." 

Jahaan knew how Saradomin came to Gielinor, knew his large, destructive role in the God Wars of the Third Age. His opinion of the deity wasn't anything special, but after seeing how he'd tried this act on world's before Gielinor infuriated Jahaan. "Oh, and what's the other half? You just wanted to bring peace and order to Naragun? The world was doing fine without you, just like Gielinor was." 

"Hmph. I see Guthix has been infesting your mind with many tales. No matter. I'm sure we will get to talk again in the future, and I do hope I will get to share my side of the story with you. Right now, however, is not the time, nor the place. Much has happened here today. With the edicts broken, the world will soon enter a new age. More gods will be coming... I apologise, human. I do hope we meet again, but for now I must ask you to leave. I have much to do here."

Saradomin attempted to teleport Jahaan away, just like he did the Zarosians, but the spell only knocked Jahaan a few steps backwards, like he'd been shoved. The deity crinkled his brow. "Interesting... you shouldn't be able to resist my power." 

Jahaan flashed a challenging grin, laced with fury. He made sure to pronounce every single word carefully when he explained, "I can resist, because before he died, Guthix imparted some of his power to me. Power to guard the world from the gods that wish to control it. Gods like you, Saradomin." 

Saradomin regarded the human before him with a reserved glare. "Impressive... Guthix must have seen something special in you. Or he was that desperate. Who knows? Consider your choices, human. Guthix may have presented you with the world as he sees it, but that is not the only view. There are other more worthy paths. No one should wish for another war of the gods, but sometimes violence is necessary before we can achieve a greater peace. It would be wise to ensure you are on the right side when that violence begins. I will leave you now to think on that. I'm sure we'll meet again... World Guardian."

Saradomin teleported away, and Jahaan dropped to his knees, his swords clattering to the ground. He fought desperately for breath, to regain composure, but it was an uphill battle. The confrontation with Saradomin, coupled with the trip through the memories of Guthix, had drained Jahaan both physically and mentally.

“So this is it, then,” the words caught in Fiara’s throat. “Guthix is dead.”

“We have little time to mourn,” Death replied. “Saradomin has returned.”

“You are right. We must act quickly if we are to mount a defence, to protect ourselves,” the Valluta stated firmly. She turned to Kaqemeex and the druids surrounding him, asking, “Juna… will she live?”

Kaqemeex sighed, heavily. “She sustained a large gash in the battle. I have administered all I can for now. She’s alive. Whether she regains consciousness is another matter.”

Chaeldar rubbed the tears at her eyes, angrily. “I’m going to make Sliske pay for this.”

“You aren’t the only one who wants to make Sliske suffer,” Jahaan asserted. “Right now though, we need to think of the bigger picture. The gods are coming back. We need to focus on doing what we can to minimise their damage.”

“And what can we alone hope to do?” Fiara’s tone was one of defeat.

Sighing, Jahaan replied, “I don’t know, but we’ll figure it out. One step at a time.”

DISCLAIMER:

As Of Gods and Men is a reimagining, retelling and reworking of the Sixth Age, a LOT of dialogue/characters/plotlines/etc. are pulled right from the game itself, and this belongs to Jagex.

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[rustleandeddy]

Chapter 16

Rustle, once again enclosed in a bubble thanks to his lack of the proper enchantment to breathe water, navigated a wide tunnel that had branched from the main one. His slowly improving skills at navigating by the currents the same way he navigated by the breeze had led forward quite reliably. What was failing him, as was so often the case, was his nerve.

“I’ve got to do it for Eddy. And I’ve got to do it for Merantia. I’ve got to do it for Eddy. And I’ve got to do it for Merantia…”

He muttered the phrases over and over again, hoping to drown out the darker thoughts flitting through his brain. Of course he would rather die than fail the magnificent and wise Merantia, but that didn’t change the fact that if  he did die he would still fail Merantia. And right now, death was becoming more and more likely, if his intuition had anything to say about it.

Nothing in particular stood out to suggest he was walking into the jaws of danger, but there was something in the air—or rather, in the water—that didn’t feel right. It was… dead here. He couldn’t quite put the feeling to words, but if the lifelessness that seemed so out of place to Eddy back in the main cavern were to be treated as just another current, then it felt like this tunnel was its source. The further he traveled, the more thoroughly he became convinced that the vibrant, vital nature of the sea was somehow draining in this direction. His magic, which by sheer duration of usage was beginning to make him weary again, seemed to require incrementally more effort to keep in place the further he went.

Then came the first physical evidence that what he was feeling was not all in his mind. It was a gate, the same sort that blocked off the chambers of Stuartia and Merantia, but large enough to span the whole of a tunnel easily five times the size of theirs. He squeezed himself and the bubble thorough the grating and, shortly thereafter, he found another, and another.

“Three gates…” he muttered. “The wizards who almost destroyed the sea got one gate each. Whatever is in the chamber has three… What am I getting myself into?” he murmured.

His wavering glow barely cut into the blackness ahead. New sensations filled his mind. For a moment, he thought back to how Eddy didn’t seem to be sensitive to such things. He envied that sort of spiritual blindness now. Stuartia’s chamber had felt like a will without a mind. Merantia’s chamber felt like a mind without a will. This was… something else. It felt like a hole into which both mind and will fell. Rustle believed, at the very least, he’d known what ‘nothing’ was. Now he realized he had been wrong. This, what he was feeling here, was so much less than what he would have called nothingness before. This was a gnawing hunger, something that drew at even the darkness in search of some sort of nourishment. It made him feel cold and hollow inside, and it was only getting worse.

Light finally glimmered upon something below. He swallowed hard and flitted downward. Gradually, an array of what could only be described as crypts spread out beneath him. They stretched endlessly in all directions, ancient stone boxes etched with symbols. The stone had flaked and pitted. If such a thing were possible, he would have believed the rock itself had somehow rotted away. So great was the damage to each crypt that he had difficulty finding one with all of its symbols fully intact. When he found one, the shapes sluggishly brought thoughts to mind. Elsewhere, simply seeing the symbols the merfolk called a language had been enough for him to understand their meaning ever since the wondrous Merantia had provided him with the proper knowledge. He wondered if the slow, incomplete understanding he felt now was because these symbols were beyond even Merantia’s understanding, or because the spell itself was being weakened by the withering influence of the chamber.

“Within this box…” he uttered, drifting as close as he dared. “There lies entombed a Thief of Stuartia’s creation. Its mind is empty. Its heart is stone. The being knows only hunger and the will of its creator. A single thief is a foe fit for the greatest of warriors. Here rests an army. Destroy them utterly, as we have sought to do, or leave them undisturbed. Do not risk the release of a single thief, or the others will soon rise, and only the edge of the sea shall contain their wrath.”

Rustle blinked and tried to come to terms with the words. Like all matters of ancient history and magic, there was a riddle-like quality to them, though far less so than many such warnings. Destroy them all or leave them be. That was simple enough to understand. He should continue along, to find what corner of this massive cavern took him nearest to the glimmering glow of Eddy’s spirit… But these were the creations of Stuartia.

He felt anger and hate smolder inside him. It was an anger fueled by an ancient rivalry, a hatred spurred on by events that happened ages before Rustle or anyone he’d ever known was even born. The tiny part of him that had not fallen wholly under Merantia’s influence bucked and struggled under the weight of it. Little sparks of logic and wisdom flickered feebly under Merantia’s thrall. This was not his fight. What did he care about these ‘thieves’, whatever they were? He should heed the warnings. He should search for Eddy, and leave this terrible place behind.

It wasn’t enough. His desire to make the stunning and majestic Merantia proud, and the smoldering hate that she had thrust upon him for all things with Stuartia’s influence, were too great. He raised his digging claw and brought it down. It bit easily into the stone, like he was chipping away at stale bread. Whatever had weakened the stone had done so thorough a job that large chunks of the dusty stuff sloughed away at the pecking of his tiny weapon. He hammered and slammed the point of the claw against the stone with the intensity of a woodpecker, chiseling a line across the center and tracing back across it. The pulverized stone, already barely strong enough to hold up its own weight, slumped down and crumbled atop whatever the crypt held. He darted down to rummage through the rubble in search of something his claw could slice into. The moment his tiny feet touched the dark, scale-like hide of what lie within, he felt an icy shock of pain. It was like even touching the thing had practically torn his soul from his body. In spite of Merantia’s influence, in spite of the externally imposed hatred, his body decided of its own accord that he would not remain anywhere near something that could injure him so. He darted up and away, until his glow barely traced out the edge of the still crumbling crypt, then watched wide-eyed as the thing he’d been determined to destroy emerged.

It was large, easily the size of a bear—which was the largest beast he’d ever had the poor fortune of encountering back in the woods. But it didn’t look like any bear he’d ever seen. The thing was angular, sharp. And it was familiar. It didn’t take long for him to realize this was one of the strange interlocking beasts that served as the backdrop for the carving in Merantia’s cavern. Six legs, scythe-like pincers. He would have compared it to an insect, but at this size it was difficult to even imagine such a thing. It was more like one of a dozen creatures he’d seen skittering along the sea floor while Eddy had been bringing him to the farm. And there was more. The chitinous hide had regular grooves coiling into complex whorls. They seemed far too consistent to be anything devised by nature, but they had no meaning that he could determine.

Though the thing had drifted up, shedding the remnants of the shattered stone slab, its tangle of limbs remained limp, motionless. It was floating, not swimming.

“I… I can see why the divine and infallible Merantia wishes these things to be destroyed…” he muttered, the tiniest feeling of relief settling over him as he realized it was not poised to attack. “They are horrible. But perhaps I am lucky. Perhaps time has done the job for us. I do not know of anything that can live for so long locked in a box.”

A brittle smile crossed his lips and he flitted closer.

“Yes… yes, that must be it. The people who locked them up engraved them with a message that claimed they’d intended to kill them all. Locking them up must have been how they were going to do it. And it worked! Merantia will be very pleased with me for discovering this.”

He paused.

“But it did hurt my foot in a very strange way when I landed on it. Perhaps, like the wretched and profane Stuartia, it remains dangerous even in death?”

He buzzed closer and gazed at it.

“Dead things rot, don’t they? This did not rot. And it is not a machine like the thing Eddy found. … Eddy… I need to find Eddy, and I can’t until I know that I can destroy one of these creatures. If I can destroy one, then I can destroy the rest.”

Rustle rubbed his hands together.

“It is the only strong spell I know, and it was very dangerous to Eddy. I owe it to the glorious and resplendent Merantia to give it a try.”

He shut his eyes and forced away as much of the buzzing doubt, fear, and concern as he could manage. With each casting, the spell was becoming easier to remember. He held his hands out past the edge of his bubble and spoke the words quickly and clearly. Curling lances of mystic light sprung from his hands, but they slowed as they sliced toward the creature. Filaments of ice formed behind them. When the spell struck the inert being it splashed against the thing and caused a thick layer of ice to encase it. The ice froze tight around its head, or at least the part of the creature that held its mandibles.

Rustle heaved a breath of relief and flitted back to the center of the bubble. He shook frost from his fingers.

“There,” he said. “Right in the face. If the thing has to breathe, that will end it.”

He allowed a feeling of pride and self-satisfaction roll over him. The feeling, alas, was brief. A tiny crack in the ice shattered his confidence in the efficacy of his attack. The thin crack formed at the base of one of the pincers. Then another wove toward it. Though the ice was not visibly melting, somehow Rustle could feel it weakening, as though the supernatural freezing of the water was being undone somehow.

The water split with the sound of cracking ice as the pincers spread. Fragments of ice crystal burst toward him, peppering the surface of the bubble. One of the creature’s legs twitched.

“No! No, no, no, no, no!” Rustle cried.

He darted in panicked circles. Not even Merantia’s powerful enchantment was strong enough to overcome the instinct that had served Rustle’s people so faithfully over the generations. If something was scary, flee.

Rustle squealed in a decidedly unheroic manner and buzzed in a random direction. He didn’t care where he was going, just that he was getting away from whatever that thing was before it realized where he was.

#

“You were not lying, Mab. This statue is far,” Eddy remarked.

It was telling that his endless enthusiasm for all things was far less prevalent in his voice than usual.

“I told you,” Mab said, holding tight to Borgle as the thing tirelessly thumped along.

Eddy stopped and flexed his clawed fingers. Borgle, quickly determining that his merman companion had chosen to take a break, stopped and turned to him.

“Something wrong?” Mab asked. “Getting tired, or hungry?”

“I am not very much tired, and I am not very much hungry. But I am very much… dry. And my hands hurt.”

“Dry? I’d wondered about that. I don’t remember any stories of mermen crawling along on the land. Seems like you folk would spend most of your time in the water for a reason.”

“No, no. That is not what I mean.” Eddy looked over his hand and rubbed at the skin somewhat. “Perhaps that is part of what I mean. I do very much want to be swimming again. But I mean… I am having trouble with the word. When you need to have water inside you.”

“Thirsty?”

“Yes! That is the word. The air-for-water spell does very much to make it so I do not have to be in water to live, but it is not perfect. Or maybe I did not cast it perfect. And I get most of my water from my food, and that lobster thing was not very wet.”

“So drink something.”

“What is there to drink?” Eddy shut his eyes and shook his head. “Except booze. No booze.”

“I have a canteen of water, but I don’t want your fishy lips all over it.”

“Where did you get water?”

“You can wring some sticky, sweet stuff out of these stalks. Refreshing the first few dozen times I drank it, but after that I had to gather the parts to build my still so I could render it down to fresh water.”

“I will try some!”

He flopped from his cart and tugged one of the stalks from a nearby tuft. A sniff or two convinced him it probably wasn’t poisonous, so he stuffed one end in his mouth and sliced through it with his serrated teeth. A rush of thin, slightly syrupy liquid filled his mouth. It wasn’t the cool, quenching sensation he would have liked, but it was certainly better than nothing. After sucking and chewing upon the mouthful of stalk for a moment he was left with nothing but fibrous remnants. He spat them free and took another bite.

“I usually wring it out into my mouth,” Mab said.

“It is good to chew,” Eddy said, the faintly glowing nectar slopping out juicily. “All the best things need to be chewed. It is why we have teeth.”

He finished chewing up and spitting out one whole stalk and grabbed another to dangle from his mouth as they continued on. Borgle happily clanked its way up a smooth slope.

“It isn’t much further now,” Mab said, sipping from her canteen.

“How did you find this place?”

“When I first got here, I was looking for anyone else. Anything else, even. I like a bit of solitude, but when days and months go by without another voice besides the ones in your head, you start to worry you won’t be able to tell what’s real from what isn’t.”

Mab paused and glanced down.

“You… are really here, aren’t you?”

“I am as here as you are,” Eddy said with a smile.

“But how do I know? Not so long ago, I found myself arguing with my sister-in-law for the better part of a day before I realized I was just shouting at my own echo.”

Eddy paused long enough to spit out his current mouthful and take another bite.

“That is a very interesting thing to ask me, Mab. How do I prove I am not imaginary? How do I prove you are not imaginary. … How about this?”

He picked up a stone and threw it at Mab. It bounced harmlessly off her makeshift armor.

“What was that for?”

“Imagined things do not throw stones,” Eddy suggested.

“But I could have just imagined you threw a stone.”

“Mmm… Yes. This is very tricky… Maybe this is the question you should ask. What does it matter?”

“What do you mean what does it matter? There is a difference between reality and fantasy. It is an important difference!”

“Not for you and me right now it is not. Maybe there is a place where you are not real. Maybe there is a place where I am not real. Many people do not know about mermen, and I did not know about dwarfmaids. So until we did know about each other, it didn’t matter if we were real. So we weren’t real. Not to each other. But at the same time we were always real. Something can be real and not real at the same time. If it helps you, and it does not hurt someone else, then what does it matter if it is real or not?”

“… Are you certain you aren’t a booze drinker, because right now it sounds as though you’ve had a bit too much.”

“One taste of booze was too much. And I have not had pannet since the Neap Tide Festival.” He rubbed his head. “I had too much, then. Pannet is very strong.”

Mab looked at her canteen. “Well if you’re real, and we do get out of here, I’ll have to try it. I could use some. What does it taste—”

“I see the statue!” Eddy blurted, pointing excitedly as they crested the slope.

A much, much thicker field of stalks covered the gentle slope on the far side of the peak they’d just reached. Their glow was brighter as well. Unlike in the rest of this strange cavern, the stalks were entirely undisturbed. No sweeping paths where the skitter-clamps may have mowed them down. At the bottom of the slope there was a small pool. Its surface was glassy smooth, utterly motionless. Beneath the surface, clearly illuminated by the surrounding glow, was a gray form grasping a round-headed hammer.

Eddy heaved the wheels of his cart over the peak and scrambled with his hands to pull himself toward the mysterious statue. Stalks split and tore free as he plowed through them, spilling their sticky contents all over him. Soon the momentum was such that the cart wanted to move more quickly than his hands could oblige. Very shortly after that, he hit a stone that overturned the cart. He flopped and rolled through the remaining stalks until he splashed into the deep, clear pool.

It took him a second or two to recover from the tumble. He likely should have taken a few more seconds, because his first action upon landing in the pool was to take a deep, refreshing breath of water. Having not yet banished the effects of the air-for-water spell, this did not produce the desired effect.

He burst to the surface, hacked up the breath of water, and blinked at Mab and Borgle, who had taken a more leisurely pace to the edge of the pool.

“You’re about as graceful on land as I’d expect a fish to be,” Mab said.

“All of this moving between water and air is very confusing,” Eddy said. “I wonder if the maids have trouble keeping things straight.”

“Don’t know, don’t care. This is the statue. I think you’ll agree, it wasn’t worth the trip.”

“Wasn’t worth the trip!? Are you mad, Mab?”

Eddy took a deep breath. It was something he was quite unaccustomed to doing before a swim, but it was easier than casting the water-for-air spell and the air-for-water spell over and over whenever he needed to talk to Mab. He dunked below the water.

The statue was exquisite. Eddy did not have an eye for stone, but if he were to venture a guess he would suppose it was some manner of marble. It glimmered in the light of his eyes and the glow of the stalks with a pearl-like sheen. The figure was certainly a mermaid, and certainly beautiful, but not in the way most mermaids were. Her hair was short, her arms and tail hardened by travel and toil. One hand held the handle of a metal hammer that must have weighed twice what Eddy did. The other held a heavy chisel. He turned and glanced about. The floor was strange, perfectly flat, and with seams, as though it had been not just carved, but constructed from slabs of stone. Then he looked to the walls. His eyes widened.

Eddy burst to the surface and took a breath.

“There is writing! Writing all around. You didn’t mention that.”

“I didn’t know that,” Mab said. “Dwarfs don’t do well in water. Didn’t even think to check. What does it say?”

“I don’t know, there’s a lot of it. I will take another look.”

He dove again and turned his eyes to the walls.

The words were chiseled in a precise, steady hand. They wove a tale, one Eddy had never heard before. He found the start and eagerly began reading…

Whomsoever may read this, I apologize for the sorrow and tragedy that brought you here. The fault can only be my own, for mine was the task left unfinished…

#

May Tria forgive me, and take as my replacement someone worthy of her trust, as I certainly was not. All that remains for me is to record for you how this terrible misfortune came to be, and she who should be cursed by those who have suffered for it.

My name is Dua. For a time, I was the second of Tria’s three right hands. I still remember the day I was selected by her. I was one of the builders of her great temple, a place now shattered and broken. Tria smiles upon the crafters, the makers. I had devoted my life to honing my craft, and to honoring her name. Mine was the first chisel to meet stone when her temple’s construction began, and mine was the last hammer to fall when it was completed. I gained her favor, and so she took me as her apprentice.

The tasks of the hands of Tria are not for mortals to know, but if the sea functions, know that it functions in part by her machinations. She is divine, a being slow to anger and quick to forgive. Even her own brother, Tren the Breaker, was dear to her heart. But there was one thing she could not abide.

Just as a single clumsy blow from an unskilled sculptor can ruin the work of master, so can the fumbling of lesser beings threaten the workings of the mighty. Tria wished for all to know the joy and value of building, but mortals were to keep to the things of mortals, and gods to keep to the things of gods. Two mortals had taken up the forces of the sea and turned them upon each other. They were not divine, but swam closer than any before had come, and they knew not how to wield such raw power with discretion and reason.

I shall not sully these walls with their names. Better they should be forgotten. They deserve no place within our history. But in their thirst for that most worthless of things—glory—they unleashed terrible horrors upon the sea. It was a dark day, the day the walls were raised. The day the sea boiled. The temple I helped to build fell that day. Many places fell. And had Tria not sought the help of her brother Tren, what was made would have been the end of sea.

It was a terrible battle, the nearest since the dawn of time that the gods themselves had come to intervening. Let us all be thankful they did not. Just as a flake of ice melts in the warmth of the southern currents, so would the world be snuffed out should the gods ever show their true power. I swung my hammer. All the hands of Tria did. The followers of Tren jabbed their spears. The beasts and their creators were broken.

Alas, for things of such power, it is not enough that they be broken. They must be unmade, lest they rise again. We pleaded with the vile summoners of the horrible beasts, in their fading moments, to unravel the spells that bound their creations to this world. They refused, blinded as they were by hate. Tren assured us that it was within his power, and the power of his avatars to strike them down again and again, should the need arise. But each battle would be more potent than the last. Soon the clash to strike them down would be as dangerous as the one we had worked to stop. So Tria sought another way.

Though the sea is mighty, it still is but a blanket thrown about the shoulders of the land below. The beating of the waves may wear down the tallest of mountains, but the forge and crucible that lays at the heart of the land shall always build them anew. Such is the balance. And if these terrible creations are the work of the sea and its children, then it was the throbbing heart of the land which must be called upon to wipe them from this world. It fell upon our shoulders to prick the finger of the earth, such that its blood might mix with the sea and wipe away this terrible mistake once and for all.

We all had a task. Mine was in most ways the simplest. I was to plot the path, to be the first to find the route to the heart of the earth. As ever, I swung my hammer fast and true. I bored through the sea floor while the others worked to craft machines that could do the same. And in time, I came to this place. We had selected this patch of the sea because the ground was nearly as firm a prison for the forces of magic as the caverns to the west. It had shielded this place for untold ages. I do not know how or when the strange plants and creatures I found here came to be, but they fascinated me. When I finally found the molten earth we sought, I instructed the others and the diggers were given their destinations. It would take them many years to burrow through and reach the cleansing blood of the earth, and it would do little good if only one or two of them reached it. A trickle would not perform the task we sought. We would need a flood.

Left and Right hands, under the guidance of Tria and Tren, had done fine work on the diggers, but we couldn’t trust that they would function perfectly for as long as was required. Someone needed to stay behind, to repair those that failed, to awaken those that slept. I volunteered.

The task should have gone to someone stronger, wiser.

While I waited for them to make their way, I returned to this place. I studied the creatures. I tinkered and crafted. My focus wavered. I was a fool.

The thieves and the Great Ancient both slept. The Great Ancient was a threat only when it stirred, and my fellow hands forged the chains strong enough to hold for a hundred lifetimes. We believed that at rest, the thieves would be harmless. We were wrong. Too late I learned even while they slumbered, even while locked away in their crypts, their hunger was not slaked. They sipped at the strength of the sea. They drew away the power from anything within the cavern. And what they fed upon grew weaker. The growth in the cave. The diggers. Even myself.

By the time I realized what was happening, it was too late for me. I lacked the strength to leave this place. In time, some of the diggers found their way here, but only a few. They all should have. They should have bored tunnels to the chambers of the thieves and the Great Ancient, then tunneled to this place and beyond, to unleash the molten blood of the earth to end the monstrous creations once and for all. But they were weak, they ran down, and without me to tend to them, they would never awake.

I do not know what became of the others. I do not know why no help ever came for me. Perhaps even the eyes of the divine cannot pierce the stone of this prison. Perhaps this was a test, and I have failed. No matter. I abandoned my task long enough for it to become impossible to complete. I am undeserving of my place as one of the hands of Tria. As I record this, the stalks and creatures that once thrived in this place are withering, succumbing to the same terrible thirst that weakened me and the diggers. If they vanish entirely, I shall wither and die without them to sustain me.

There has been little for me to work with here, but I have done my best to craft a mechanism which might complete the task of which I have been so poor a shepherd. It is complete, but just as I lack the strength to leave this place, I lack the strength to awaken it. It rests beneath me, as useless as I. All is lost for me.

I have resolved to sacrifice myself. I give up my vitality, my immortality. May its power push back the terrible hunger of the thieves and allow this place and the sea around it to recover. Perhaps it will allow the diggers to awaken again. Perhaps it will merely delay the inevitable awakening of our slumbering foes. It does not matter. It is the last act available to me. May Tria and Mer have mercy upon me and forgive my failure.

 #

Eddy surfaced for the tenth time and recounted the last of the tale. He huffed and puffed.

“Holding breath very much is not fun at all. Now I know why surface people do not swim very deep…”

“So that thing down there is a demigod?” Mab said.

“Yes! She is an almost god. I am not a worshiper of Tria, I worship Mer, but the hands of Tria are still very important almost gods. I did not know of Dua’s story. It seems a strange end for someone so important.”

Mab peered down into the water. “We don’t all get the end we think we deserve. Wasn’t there something about building something in that story of hers?”

“Yes! She said she was trying to build something that could help, but she could not awaken it.”

“You’ve been waking up these diggers. Seems like you should be able to wake this thing up, if it was anywhere.”

“Yes… It is a curious thing that I do not see it. It says that it rests beneath her, but I see nothing but stone.”

“And the demigod turned to stone.” Mab scratched her head. “Is that what you things do when you die?”

“No.”

“So why did she?”

“I do not know. I think it was magic. Magic is always the way in these stories.”

“So coming here has earned us nothing.”

“It earned us a story and I got to see the stone remains of the divine! That is very much!”

“We are still trapped in a cave.”

“But we are trapped in a cave with a divine being.”

“A dead divine being.”

“A dead divine being is more alive than most things that are not dead. Probably.”

“If she can get us out, I’ll bow down to her. If not, she’s a landmark.”

Eddy’s expression hardened. “A very important landmark.”

“Not to me. To me she marks the spot where I got my hopes up for the last time. Now let’s go. The sooner we get to that weak spot and start digging, the sooner I’m back in the tunnels and hopefully headed home. I don’t like this end of the cave. Something about the way the stone feels beneath my feet. Wetter. Riddled with little tunnels. Doesn’t feel stable to me.”

Eddy crossed his arms. “There is a machine, somewhere below her. That is hidden treasure. A very important part of any adventure. Borgle, dig down, but carefully. We want to find this machine, but not break it. And stop when I say so.”

“No, no! What did I just tell you, it isn’t stable enough—”

Borgle eagerly chimed. It removed Mab from it’s back, dug its claws into the stone, and began hammering.

“This is a dangerous waste of time!” Mab called over the pounding impacts.

“What did you do yesterday?”

“I hunted.”

“And the day before?”

“Nothing.”

“And before?”

“Hunted.”

“So you were due for nothing today. This is much better.”

“But the stability!”

Borgle threw chips and pebbles aside as it thundered deeper. Mab crossed her arms and muttered under her breath, no longer willing to strain her voice trying to shout her warnings over the din. As the digger sunk into the stone, flash-melting the sides of the fresh tunnel, the dwarf gazed at it with curiosity. Out of the water, Borgle didn’t dig nearly as quickly, but it was still clearly enough for Mab to be impressed, even if it was in spite of herself.

She picked up a cooling bit of stone with her gloved hand, then tossed it into the pool to whistle and spit against the water.

“Digging machines… Round holes…” she grumbled. “They’ll be the end of all of us.”

[hathnofuryrpg]

✚ IDENTIFICATION

AGE : 00

ORIGIN : Red London

FACECLAIM : Dae Na

QUOTA COUNT : ex: 50 Kills (for priests) / ex: 90 deals for the monsters

SPECIALTY: ex uses pistols to kill / deals with mainly parents 

KNOWN AS: THE RIPPER

THE RIPPERis a celestial being, ruled under the planet Mercury and loyal to the Lunar Court. He alone holds access to the Celestial Archives, an expansive collection of interstellar knowledge, and where all prophecies are kept. Given his affinity for mental persuasion, he serves as an advisor to Selene and political diplomat, traveling frequently between the Moon and Earth to communicate with human rulers on behalf of his Princess. 

  ✚ PORTRAIT

 You are a brilliant, silvery creature, bearing within you a wealth of knowledge Cosmos extracts from the most intimate corners of her mind: the birth of every star, every angel, every world; from the fall of Chaos to how she forges a daughter from the moon and a religion from the earth. You know your creator - that capricious, jovial god - better than you perhaps even know yourself. Yet, the weight of this infinite wisdom leaves you callous, cold, hollow. Where can you put compassion, after all, when you have peered into the abyss of a universe uncreated? Where can you put idealism, hope, when all is known to you already, in devastating detail? There is no past, no present, no future. Cosmos looks upon you, and sees nothing: you are not her child, not even an angel carved from her will - rather, merely a silent keeper to her archive of endless memories and cosmic prophecies. In the beginning, you resist your own nature - earnestly, desperately. 

You watch Earth, and seek to emulate its creatures’ goodness and kindness, to pursue truth and cultivate your own kingdom of light - but nothing within you will comply. For what radiance can you draw from the empty chambers of your rib? Who could learn to trust your desolation, see light in that cool, disjointed gaze? Yes, you are honey-tongued and aqua-throated, blessed with the gift of conquerors, able to command entire armies with a siren’s song: but what use is it, when all you desire is to conquer yourself, to fill your own void? They detest your power, clutch themselves tighter before your presence in fear that you will steal their bodies and ransack their minds. You can’t blame them - so you leave. Withdrawing yourself further and further from the sun - until, at last, she finds you. I am nothing you seek, you say. Selene is looking for angels to fight for her; champions of the light. I am no creature of the sun. But she merely smiles: warm and resolute. When she extends her hand and looks upon your face - it is the first time something stirs within you. A warmth. The beating of a heart. She says: Neither am I. 

  ✚ NETWORK 

MAGNUS { partners; prophecy keepers } : They were two guardians to Cosmos, once: a pair of solemn angels situated closest and further from the Sun - and now, they stand as twin pillars to her daughter’s sprawling Millennium. Lan and Magnus share a quiet friendship, one that is forged from eons of service to a god who abandoned them; and the ascension of another one in her place. There is a vein of understanding that runs between their exchanges, however terse and infrequent; unspoken but deeply-felt - both are profound creatures of isolation, after all, burdened by the weight of their gifts. 

YUNA { lover; earth-bound } : How could Lan have known it, the brilliance this one concealed beneath a chagrined smile and delicate flourish? Lan had sought her out, once, after weeks of careful observation - only to discover something clear-eyed and wild, with spools of silver-lined dreams: all forsaken for a greater good. (A greater good he helped to bring about, Lan recognizes, with a twinge of guilt - he had been among the first to propose a change in the line of imperial succession, all those years ago.) It isn’t uncommon for celestials to toy with mortals - but Lan has never toyed with the imperial princess. Rather, he has come to love her: to cherish the cadence of her voice, to long for her presence. Lan, of all people, is aware of the law - what they can do to her, what they can do to him; certainly, what they can and will do to even the whispered suggestion of a future they dare hope to have. This is a dangerous thing, he told her, once. A confession. This is a good thing, she replied. A promise. 

ENDYMION & NAIYA { friends; peacekeepers } : In a court of immortal, self-important gods, Endymion and Naiya are stolen pieces of sanctuary - and perhaps the only shred of sanity Lan can be certain is left in the Lunar Court. The three of them have always been the voices of reason, offsetting each dramatic episode and petty brawl with a steely glare or cautionary hand on the shoulder. Ysra picks a fight with anything that moves, Cedric bathes in his excessive vanity, Ilo goes about shredding his dignity on a single snide remark - and Lan can only exchange mirthful glances with them, simultaneously defeated and amused. Beyond damage control, they have been his confidants and companions - and, perhaps, among the few things in his exhaustive life that have successfully penetrated past his walls of ice. 

 LAN IS TAKEN BY EMMA. 

[ecotone99]

[MS] Perspectives

Justice

They didn’t understand it. No-one did. This wasn’t murder or a mere kill that had no value or meaning. It was a grant of freedom. Freedom from the constraints of the delicate vessel that they were trapped in.

I wasn’t a necrophile. I didn’t defile them, just for the sake of it, or mutilate and flay them for displaying them as personal trophies. I wasn’t a rapist. I don’t toy with them, or inject pleasure into myself before ending their lives. It was quick. No pain. Just a simple nick to the neck.

They call people like me psychopaths. But they’re wrong. They’re all narrow-minded and insular. They don’t understand the service that I have done to society. They don’t understand the appeal the knife holds. The weight of value a simple chunk of metal carries.

Every plunge of the knife is a joyous, momentous point in my life. The irony of when I think of all the lives I have saved simply by ending it, I just feel.... bliss. They say that life has ups and downs. The goods and bads. The peaks and troughs. But for me, I’ve been happy for years. Content with the life I’ve lived, the service I’ve done, and the part I played in people’s lives. They’ll all realise it soon enough. My job, my service, driven by an undying sense of passion and determination.

But it’s all over now. And as the shackles are wrapped on my wrists, I think of how my service has ended.

Crime

I didn’t understand it. Probably won’t. Not now, not ever. As I witness the man get dragged out of the house, I can hear echoes of laughter, the fruity musk of beer, and the faint odour of lavender. I should feel disgusted. I should feel a sense of satisfaction that we tracked down the killer. A sense of duty that justice has been served. But no. All I felt was cold emptiness. Like as if at that moment I was carved into a hollow, inanimate mannequin dressed in a blue shirt with a petty badge, too mortified to move, utter a word or breathe. Just only having the ability to watch my neighbour walk down the driveway in handcuffs, shoved roughly into a police car and driven off.

I used to be proud of the glass cabinet that sat across my study. The glints of silver and gold showcased various service awards and honour awards of my time as a policeman. Every time I looked at it, I felt an undying sense of pride and joy. A sense of gratification and fulfilment at the knowledge that my services have bettered the community from where I found it. But now when I glance at the dusty trophies in the attic, I’m engulfed in a painful blur of the house.

Entering the house for the first time, two years ago, there was certainly nothing out of the ordinary. The house was adorned with an old-fashioned set-up. Like those cottages in Scotland; confined but cosy. The smallness of the space did not stop the man from hanging a large chandelier that hung at the topmost crook of the sloping rooftop. The lights showed the chandelier in all its glory, glimmering with such iridescent beauty, that one could mistake that diamonds were strung up rather than glass crystals. There was a thick, pleasant odour of lavender, a musk that was strangely heartening and complacent. The man greeted us warmly, shaking my wife and my hands, and kneeling down to greet our children. I remember everything about that day. I remembered the amazing apple custard pie we ate at the patio down at the back. I remembered the man talking about how he wants to one day fulfil his dreams and become a cook.

“To be of good service to everyone”, he had said, smiling widely, “The feeling you have when someone compliments your quiche. Or how wonderful people like yourself say how amazing my apple custard pie is. It’s just.... bliss.”

I remember how good he was with the kids. How he narrated riveting and fascinating stories for the children that had them at the edge of their seats.

Never once, even from that day did I question the heavy scent of lavender that brooded the house’s hallways. How the scent inexplicably disappeared when I entered the kitchen from the living room. Never once have I questioned the even deeper fragrance of lavender rippling of the man every time I shook his hand. Never once have I questioned why the man had renovated the walls of his living room but never any other structures of his house.

But standing right now, at the crime scene, witnessing bodies littered on the floor of the living room, and the walls ripped apart that had concealed the hollowness from within, I realised the questions that I’ve never raised had been answered. Looking on ahead at the scene, I was witnessing the consequences of my ignorance.

In a few days, my children will notice that there is no light next door and will come down from their bedroom to ask where our neighbour is. I will say that he had moved on to another city to pursue his dreams of being a cook. My children will cry in despair and I would promise that I will call him so they can talk to him.

In a few months, we will move to another state. Friends and social circles will have to start anew, but with a whiff of caution. Our smiles won’t quite reach our eyes, and our minds will be grated with inkling notions of paranoia. There will be more tears.

In a year, my wife will wake up in another nightmare, sobbing in grief and trauma. I will soothe her, muttering incomprehensible words trying to comfort her as well as myself.

In 3 years, both my children will have graduated to high school. They will have stopped asking to talk with the neighbour on the phone. I still don’t tell them about what the neighbour really did.

In a few more years, our children will have graduated from high school both going interstate to pursue further studies. We will watch with proud eyes and cheering hearts. The house will become more desolate; devoid of any more heart-wrenching questions but empty of running feet, squeals and laughter. The nightmares would have stopped, but the trauma will still be lingering. And the guilt would never disappear.

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[s0022034a2film]

B. Sleepy Hollow: Key Sequences

Key Sequence 1 - Chapter 2 (00:07:11 - 00:13:29):

Overview:

The scene is the opening credits that sees Ichabod Crane travelling from New York to Sleepy Hollow. He departed and walks through an empty main street. The surrounding houses look empty but upon closer look, people are staring at him before closing their windows in discussed. He eventually walks up to the place he is staying. Here, they are having a party. A girl, we later find out to be Katrina Van Tassel, is blindfolded and spinning around whilst chanting “Wicked witch. Wicked Witch. Who has a kiss for the wicked witch”. She then proceeds to kiss Ichabod. Ichabod is then confronted by Brom Van Brunt as to him Ichabod is a stranger up to no good. Baltus Van Tassel (father of Katrina Van Tassel) and his wife diffuse the tension by welcoming Ichabod. The chapter ends as Ichabod is unpacking his bag before proceeding to visit Baltus Van Tassel. 

Style:

The location of the scene is a forest. Both during the evening and night, it is dull lacking in vibrant colour.

Burton uses a POV shot of the main character, Ichabod Crane, looking down at his notes on the science of the time. 

Burton uses yet another POV shot. This time, we have Ichabod looking at his hand. We see scars of little punctured holes (Understood later by a typical Burton flashback)

Ichabod walks past dead trees to a dimly lit mansion.

Themes:

Ichabod is woken up by the howling of a wolf. However, this could be believed to be a werewolf linking into the supernatural fairy-tale themes. 

As people close there windows as Ichabod walks past, they are making him an outcast. This is a recurring theme in Burton films as his main characters are usually based on him. He believed himself to be an outcast. 

Supernatural is once again presented as, at the party, we see a blindfolded girl and spinning around whilst chanting “Wicked witch. Wicked Witch. Who has a kiss for the wicked witch”.

Collaborations:

At the very beginning of this scene, we are greeted with ‘Johnny Depp’ across the screen. This is something that isn’t dissimilar with the other films. 

The chapter includes the actors and crew names in the opening credits.

Great detail is paid to the opening credit text. As a tree is shown, some of the letters fall like leaves. When the text is shown above a body of water, in reflects in it. And finally, when the text is shown in foggy weather, it to becomes misted. This shows how much value Burton has for his crew to honour them with such attention to detail.

Key Sequence 2 - Chapter 5 (00:32:40 - 00:41:18):

Overview:

It is the middle of the night and Ichabod goes downstairs to pour himself some water. This is due to him having trouble sleeping. However, he hears movement and blows out his candle to confront whoever it maybe. Before a fire sits Katrina Van Tassel reading a book. They talk of close family connections within the small quarters of Sleepy Hollow. Katrina gives Ichabod a book titled ‘A COMPENDIUM OF SPELLS, CHARMS AND DEVICES OF THE SPIRIT WORLD’. He believes his scientific books and knowledge is better than this supernatural book. However, he accepts it. Ichabod and Katrina are now seen travelling on horses the following morning. The markings on Ichabod’s hands are once again brought up but he changes topic. They visit what is left of the cottage Katrina grew up in before moving into the family mansion. She mentions the archer on the wall and is seen recreating a symbol in the dirt. Ichabod shows Katrina a mind trick. He has a piece of card with a Cardinal (bird) on one side and an empty cage on the other. This bit of card is attached to some string on either side. He twists the string on either side and it creates the illusion that the bird is trapped inside the cage. Back at the heart of he village, Ichabod notices that the magistrate is leaving and so follows him before confronting him. During which, the Headless Horseman rides through and cuts the magistrates head off. Ichabod faints and passes out. Waking at his room, he recalls the events and, once again, passes out. During the period of unconsciousness, he dreams of a childhood event. We are lead to believe it is his mother in this dream who is dancing with a younger version of himself before she then begins to spin upwards as if flying away. The tone of the flashback changes we see them in a dimly lit living room with a fire The father grabs his wife and proceeds to point at her mythical symbolic carvings before pointing at the bible. This indicates his disapproval at magic. The flashback comes to an abrupt end through some fast editing of items key to this memory.

Style:

Focus Pull.

Scarecrow, windmill,  lightning, and fog are all stylistic techniques linked to a Horror.

Flashback revealing important character information about Ichabod’s back story. 

The juxtaposing of the black of the hallway with the white which slowly is revealed from the room ahead. 

Themes:

“Isn’t a family not connected by blood of marriage” says Katrina Van Tassel. This links to a strong sense of family within this story despite Ichabod being alone and presumably without family (this theme involving Ichabod resurfaces later when we find out more about Ichabod through flashbacks).   

Katrina gives Ichabod a book titled ‘A COMPENDIUM OF SPELLS, CHARMS AND DEVICES OF THE SPIRIT WORLD’. This links to the theme of supernatural.

The markings on Ichabod’s hands are mentioned and said to have “been there for as long as I can remember”. This secrecy suggests trust and abandonment issues. 

The supernatural element is reinforced as Katrina creates a symbol.

Ichabod shows Katrina a mind trick. He has a piece of card with a Cardinal (bird) on one side and an empty cage on the other. This bit of card is attached to some string on either side. He twists the string on either side and it creates the illusion that the bird is trapped inside the cage. This is symbolic to the them of freedom and imprisonment. “It is not magic, it is what we call optics” says Ichabod to Katrina who believes he can do magic (once more showing a supernatural belief).

Focus pull highlights the distance between Ichabod and the other characters linking to the theme of isolation.

“You a magistrate and your head full of nonsense” Ichabod remarks to seeing the symbolic necklace around his neck linking to the supernatural.

Collaborations:

Danny Elfman’s music can be heard building up during the climax of this scene in which the Headless Horseman kills the magistrate.

Danny Elfman’s music can be heard during a happy flashback before dramatically changing tone for the turning point in this memories positivism.

Chris Lebenzon uses a fast editing sequence towards the end of the flashback to keep us questioning what will happen the next time the flashback is visited.

[acourtofquestions]

Chapter 7 has some very Kingly moments for Dorian:

Asterin gave him a wicked grin. "Morning, Your Majesty."

"It is a king's mercy you receive," Dorian said coldly, "and I'd suggest being quiet long enough to receive it." Rarely, so rarely did Manon hear that voice from him, the tone that sent a thrill through her blood and bones. A king’s voice.

But he was not her king. He was not the coven leader of the Thirteen.

Dorian's sapphire eyes churned, the hand on his sword tightening. Manon tensed at that contemplative, cold stare. The hint of the calculating predator beneath the king's handsome face.

"A king without his crown asks for a lowly spider's name," she murmured, her depthless eyes setting on him. "You cannot pronounce it in your tongue, but you may call me Cyrene." Manon ground her teeth. "It doesn't matter what we call you, as you'll be dead soon."

But Dorian cut her a sidelong glance. "The Ruhnns are a part of my kingdom. As such, Cyrene is one of my subjects. I think that gives me the right to decide whether she lives or dies."

"You are both at the mercy of my coven,"

Manon snarled. "Step aside."

Dorian gave her a slight smile. "Am I?" A wind colder than the mountain air filled the pass.

He could kill them all. Whether by choking the air from them or snapping their necks. He could kill them all, and the wyverns included. The knowledge carved out another hollow within him. Another empty spot. Had it ever troubled his father, or Aelin, to bear such power?

Manon ignored the spider. "And when she shifts in the night to rip us apart?"

Dorian only inclined his head, ice dancing at his fingertips. "She won't."

Cyrene sucked in a breath. "A rare gift of magic." Her stare turned ravenous as she took in Dorian. "For a rare king."

Manon glanced to Asterin. Her Second's eyes were wary, her mouth a tight line. Sorrel, a few feet behind, glowered at the spider, but her hand had dropped from her sword.

The Thirteen, on some unspoken signal, peeled away to their wyverns. Only Cyrene watched them, those horrible, soulless eyes blinking every now and then as her teeth began to clack.

Manon angled her head at him. "You're … different today."

He shrugged. "If you want someone to warm your bed who cowers at your every word and obeys every command, look elsewhere."

Her stare drifted to the pale band around his throat. "I'm still not convinced, princeling," she hissed, "that I shouldn't just kill her."

"And what would it take, witchling, to convince you?"

A muscle flickered in Manon's jaw. Things from legends—that's who surrounded him. The witches, the spider ... He might as well have been a character in one of the books he'd lent Aelin last fall. Though none of them had ever endured such a yawning pit inside them.

[acourtofquestions]

Trying to figure out Dorian’s magic and its rule, such as Chapter 7’s info:

His raw power had lent itself to every other form of magic, able to move between flame and ice and healing. To shape-shift … might he learn it, too?

A wind colder than the mountain air filled the pass. He could kill them all. Whether by choking the air from them or snapping their necks. He could kill them all, and the wyverns included. The knowledge carved out another hollow within him. Another empty spot. Had it ever troubled his father, or Aelin, to bear such power?

Things from legends—that's who surrounded him. The witches, the spider ... He might as well have been a character in one of the books he'd lent Aelin last fall. Though none of them had ever endured such a yawning pit inside them.