#MENTION THE SUNDIAL. TELL HIM

[thefirstknife]

Literally every time I tune in for a story update and think "there's no way I'll be taking emotional damage this week" and then I do.

First I really like the added context about what an Echo is, from Ikora:

Genocide. Thousands of civilisations across the universe, all visited by the Black Fleet. All lost to the violence of the final shape. That's where this Echo comes from. At least, that's our theory. Reports from the Pale Heart, readings on the Valence emanating from the Traveler... Everything we faced when we stared down the Witness and broke its fleet. At first, we didn't know what to call them. But Echoes seemed apt. Memories from the victims of the Pyramids, held by the Darkness... then coalesced by the Light into artifacts as sharp and fatal as their pain. If Darkness is memory, and Light is form... What else could they be? But... there's still so much we don't know. Is this the only one? What forgotten people gave form to this Echo? What was their final cry at their end? For control? A means to turn back their oppressors? My Hidden will keep searching for whatever answers the Witness' death can give us... hopefully they number more than the questions it left behind. But we need to stop the Conductor and secure the Echo. Guardian, descend into Nessus. Massive amounts of radiolaria has been diverted beneath the planet's crust. We need to find out what the Vex are building there.

I think it's fair to assume that the memory of the Qugu is what formed this Echo then. That's fascinating also because of what other species we might learn about in the next two episodes.

Psion mention:

Show us the Psions. What are they doing. Don't throw these hints at me, at the same time with Otzot and OXA hints.

And then the emotional damage??? First Saint on the holoprojector:

Guardian. I hear that you are hard at work on Nessus, following the Echo and the Conductor. I know you do this in part for me, but... I do not know if I am worth the trouble. I was pulled through Nessus like a toy on a string. The Conductor's words still echo in my mind, "A copy of a copy of a copy." Osiris pushed through time to find his Saint-14. [sighs] He said he was careful, but... he reached blindly, and pulled out... only me. And no... I live a life tat does not belong to me. I am something left over from a broken timeline... a remainder. The Conductor whispered I should be thrown away... A solution as simple as, correcting an error. And maybe... that would- Ah! I-I do not know what to think anymore.

Saint. "Not worth the trouble"? Saint, I personally walked through the corridors of time to get you out. I had to see your dead body with my own two eyes. I need to tell him this. He has to know. Oh my god.

But also. Osiris did not reach blindly. I am jumping off a cliff! He spent so much time and effort trying to find the right one in the right moment. That was the whole point. But Saint doesn't know this because Osiris never told him exactly what he did. If they don't mention everything we've done in Dawn, I am just going to walk into traffic. This Saint knows that we saved him. That we gave him the shotgun. We saw him in several different moments of his life and he carried the shotgun through: this is important because he died with it originally. So we know it's the right one. That's the only reason the Sundial worked out even; because we're tied to Saint via a paradox.

And then the radio. WHAT is happening.

Osiris: You're only doing this to hurt yourself, and I will not be a part of it. Saint-14: Osiris. Answer the question. I need to know. Osiris: It doesn't matter! Not like this. Saint-14: It matters to me. Please. How did I first tell you that I loved you? Osiris: Saint... [sighs] You had asked me for something, some tactical report. I gave it to you, and you thanked me, and-and you said that you loved me. You said it as if you had, already said it a thousand times before. I was not ready to say it in return, but... it was not long until I was. Saint-14: That is not... I do not remember it this way. That is not what happened in my... my simulation. We were together in the Tower, overlooking the City. Talking about... something small. And I said what I felt in that moment. And my Osiris did not hesitate to say the same. Osiris: "Your Osiris?" Saint, you love me. It doesn't matter how or-or where that began. Not in such fine detail. Saint?

I reiterate. What is happening. We know that the story Osiris told is true because we got it as a lore tab. And we also know that we saved the right Saint. We didn't pick one randomly as he thinks, Osiris and the YW went to great lengths to do this. So what's going on. Did the Conductor mess him up? Saint has not, until now, exhibited any issues with memory and has never had different memories from Osiris or anyone else. What did she do to him when he was yoked? Did she use the power over Vex to mess with his memories? Implant memories the Vex might have in the network about him from other timelines? I'm losing it.

Speaking of the Conductor, we got a firm confirmation it's Maya in the lore tab from Polyphony. And it's MSund12 so that also tells us which Maya; one of the copies from the Vex Network. It also details stuff about her shock upon learning about the Collapse and all that was lost and how humanity never truly recovered. She thinks she can... "help" by using the Vex and simulations. This also links to the mysterious lore tabs on the exotic items from the season pass.

Anyway, I'm perishing.

[jar0fhoney]

PART 1 / PART 2 / PART 3 (NSFW) / PART 4 /

PART FIVE (NSFW)

Warning: Mentions of Pregnancy and virginity. piv.

You started Sunday the same way you always did. Wake up before dawn, start breakfast for you and Ma, stare out the window and think about the list of chores you could never keep up with.

“It’s a beautiful morning!” Your mother shuffled past your open door towards the kitchen, “Are you sure I can’t just handle all the work in the field today? Won’t you want to relax before your friend arrives?”

“Mother, please do not blow this out of proportion.” You scolded her light-heartedly, “I’m just going to do my work as usual, and when he stops by I’ll take a break-”

“My baby is getting courted by a big strong orc~” She sang out to you. You followed her to the kitchen. “How did you know he’s courting me?”

“So he is courting you.” She swayed back and forth in front of the hearth, throwing bits of kindling onto the fire.

“Well- I-”

“Y/n, don’t you remember. When I told you about the family that lived in the neighboring plot. The wife told me so much about how strange orc courting was, especially with her being human, and-”

“You didn’t tell me it was a half-orc family…” 

She turned to you with a devious smirk, “Wouldn’t you like to know about a half-orc family.” “MA!” You grabbed an apple from the table (a bright red one that matched the color of your face) and ran out the door. You weren’t really mad at her, but this entire situation was so out of your comfort zone. The only experience you ever really had with being pursued was desperately avoiding Milo for the past two years.

You glanced at the sundial in the garden. Three hours. You had three hours to try and get some work done in the field and shake off the nerves.

-

The tomatoes were a mess. No wonder, this was a corner of the field that had been sorely neglected this season. The sun was climbing higher, and the heat of its rays were beginning to lick the back of your neck. What time was it anyways?

“SO NICE TO MEET YOU- OH YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE!”

Your mothers voice was loud enough to carry all the way to your little corner in the tomato patch. You shot to your feet, craning your neck to see her enthusiastically fawning over a slightly nervous Khargaad. You could hear him nervously chuckling as the two exchanged words.

Well, might as well go save him. You looked down at your work clothes covered in grass stains and mud. Hair was sticking to the back of your sweaty neck. Gross. Probably didn’t smell pretty either.

Your mother caught you out of the corner of her eye and pointed excitedly, “THERE SHE IS!”

You cringed. Gods she was making all this fuss and you looked like you just crawled out of a ditch.

“Hello! I see you met Ma.” You were trying to casually wipe the mix of dirt and sweat from your face, wading over to them through the field. He felt his heart skip a bit when you got closer. You smelled so earthy. And the musk of your sweat was… it could drive him feral.

He started imagining all the ways he could steal you away and worship you. Fill you. Taste you.

“Um… Khargaad?”

He jolted out of his sinful haze, “I couldn’t show up empty handed.” He thrust a basket into your arms. It was laden with fancy imported fruits. “This- This is too much. This must have cost-”

“Hush now,” his voice was like warm honey, “I hunt big game, I can afford it.” He had a cocky little smirk on his face. You thanked him, motioning to follow you into the cottage.

He looked back at your mom one more time, “It was so nice to meet you, Ma’am.”

-

Your first lessons together went just as well as predicted. By the end he was properly frustrated, arms crossed and everything.

“The letters. It doesn’t make any sense. It’s all… mixed up.”

“Let’s just end it here for today.”

He was so cute like this. All flustered. 

He stood up from his seat, being careful to crouch as he easily exceeded the height of the ceiling. “Alrighty, let’s get to work.” He crossed the room in one long stride, pulling his shirt over his head. He looked strong, but not in the way statues are with their lean bodies and taught chiseled muscles. He looked like a man who ate well and worked hard. Your eyes wandered to the slight love handles that peaked over the waistband of his trousers. Gods you were no better than a man, thinking about how bad you wanted to feel him in your hands.

He glanced behind his shoulder, “Where first?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about Khargaad.”

“Do you think I’m going to just leave with all this work to be done?”

-

He followed you like an excited puppy to the tomato patch you had been working on. You had tried to tell him that he didn’t need to waste the rest of his day helping with this. But he knew he didn’t need to. He wanted to. And who was going to stop him? Certainly not you.

He started on one end, and you the other, working slowly until you met in the middle. By the end, your hands were red and scratched up from pulling the thistle weeds. Of course, Kharghaad’s were so calloused that it was like he had a pair of gloves on. He gave a little gasp when he saw your sore fingers. “Why didn’t you say anything…” He scooped your small hands into his, as delicate as you would pick up a fresh baby bird.

Every time he touched you it was like this great release. Your mother, as loving as she was, never quite developed a touchy-feely nature. You were so used to it fleeting as soon as it was there. Quick handshakes, brushing against someone in the market. You craved physical touch.

So when Khargaad didn’t let go of your hands. When he held them so carefully and tenderly. So deliberately. You found yourself trying to memorize every little second of the moment.

“I’ll have to buy you gloves.” He muttered, picking out the little needles with surprising dexterity. He took his canteen and went to rinse off the skin. “I can wash my own hands, Khargaad.” You chuckled.

“But I want to,” He blurted out with immediate embarrassment, “Sorry, I guess you could say it’s an orc thing? It’s sorta like… we’re very communal. There’s no reason to do much of anything alone, if you think about it…” He sort of trailed off like he was getting ahead of himself. He paused.

“I hope I'm not smothering you. Maybe humans aren’t like that-” He went to let go of your hands, and a part of you cried out inside. You were tired of trying to play this stoic lone wolf character. It wasn’t who you were. It’s not who any of us are. We all need each other.

“Please, don’t stop…” You whispered to him, thrusting your hands back into his. You uttered the magic words. The words he had been waiting for. He pulled you into his chest. It didn’t matter how gross, hot, and sweaty the two of you were. Or that your mother was most definitely watching joyfully from the kitchen window. Nothing mattered. “Can we go somewhere?” His voice was muffled as he whispered into the top of your head. He was taking long deep sighs, taking in your scent.

“Please…” The need in your voice was palpable. He didn’t waste another moment, leading you to the forest behind your property. “Khargaad… the road is that way.” You motioned behind yourself. “I know a quicker way.” He glanced back at you with that sweet little smirk on his face.

Once past the treeline, the soft light of dusk struggled to breach the overhead foliage. You walked together for some time, before the sound of running water bubbled ahead. He had led you to a little clearing, where in the middle stood a circular style tent. A creek babbled away off to the side. The moon was full and provided plenty of light for you to take it all in. “Do you live here?” 

He nodded, looking down at you expectantly for approval. You grinned, “It’s lovely.”

He snaked a strong arm around your waste, pulling you in. His other hand cupped the back of your head, tilting your face up to his. For a moment he hovered over you, as if waiting for your permission. You reached up to cup his face, thumbing over one of the tusks jutting out of his mouth.

His lips met yours. It started slow, like sipping on a glass of fine wine. Then it was hungry. Like you had both been starved. You were getting drunk off of the needy little grunts he was making, pulling you in flush with his body. You could feel him through his trousers, and it startled you out of your stupor a bit. You hadn’t been with anyone before, and it was bound to happen sooner or later, but this was a bit more than you ever imagined.

It was almost like he sensed your tension, pulling away to look into your eyes, “Let’s get clean.” He had brought his thumb up to caress over your cheek, planting a small peck before jogging to his tent. Watching him disappear under the flap, your mind raced. What if you weren’t ready? What if he’s not patient?

He bounded out towards the stream, beckoning you over. He started to frown as you got closer, like he could smell the apprehension coming off of you, “Do you need to go slower? Do you want to go home? Nothing has to happen. Nothing at all. You are in charge.”

He started unlacing the ties of his trousers. You instinctually looked away, giving him privacy he clearly didn’t need. With the sound of water sloshing you looked back at him submerged up to his sternum. You approached the water’s edge, looking down into the little bubbles churning in the current. “Hey… what’s wrong?” He waded over to the edge, leaning onto the grassy bank. There wasn’t any aire of seduction in his voice, just one of genuine tenderness.

You sucked it up and opened your mouth, “I’ve never done this before…”

“With an orc?”

“No like… I’ve never done this before… ever.” You winced as the words came out. You were a grown adult, this conversation shouldn’t feel embarrassing. But it did nonetheless.

“And so you don’t want to do this?” He didn’t seem fazed at all by the information. “No!” You yelped out a little too enthusiastically, “No- I mean, yes. Yes I do want to. I want you.”

You started to pull at the ties of your shirt, face so flushed it was probably glowing red. He couldn’t take his eyes off of you. You ripped the shirt off your head like pulling off a bandaid, exposing your chest to the warm summer air. You went to fiddle with the strings of your work pants. He still didn’t look away, and you didn’t ask him to.

And there you were, clothed only in moonlight. Khargaad thought, maybe the moon had come out just for you tonight, to see your beauty for itself.

You stepped down into the water. “Are you sure you’re human? Not a beautiful fairy playing tricks on me?” Khargaad was completely entranced by you, eyes roaming over the curve of your shoulders to the curves of your breasts.

You felt some of the tension ease, snorting at him “I don’t think a fairy would smell this bad.” He gasped a bit as if he had just remembered, grabbing a bar of soap he had retrieved from the tent. “May I?” He asked, lathering up the bar in his hands.

You nodded, letting him wade closer to you. You felt the palms of his massive hands begin to work themselves into your hair, massaging his fingers into your scalp. “Oh-” You exclaimed a rather embarrassing moan, but it felt so good. He finished and went to clean his own hair. “Hey, it’s my turn now!” You scolded him. He was more than happy to let you clean him. As he said previously, it’s a part of orc culture to do things with other people. That includes bathing.

And oh how he loved to see you doing orc things. Like wearing that yellow dress dyed with orc spices, and making those pickled eggs for him. It made him think about how great it would be to bring you home with him, to meet all of his family. For you to find a place in his tribe. He missed home a lot, and now you were a part of that picture. You finished running your fingers through the curls of his clean hair.

He heard the sloshing of water, turning around to see you drying yourself off. He joined you. You cast a quick glimpse below his waist, blushing furiously at his partially hard cock.

You walked together to the flap of the tent. The inside surprised you. It was so… cozy. “Ah-” He had leaned down to nuzzle into your neck, you loved the feeling of his tusks against your skin. He pulled you to what could best be described as a nest. A nest of pillows and blankets. He very carefully leaned you onto your back, “Is this okay?”

You giggled at him, “Yes Khargaad. I will tell you if I need to stop, okay?”

“Promise?” He leaned back on his knees, his olive green skin looking lovely in the warm glow of the lantern lighting the tent. His member was on full display, completely unashamed. The way it twitched in anticipation made your stomach flutter. “Yes.”

He lied down next to you, peppering little kisses in the crook of your neck. His hands began to roam your body, starting with your shoulders and slowly moving down to your tits. His calloused palm grazed over the sensitive peaks, causing you to let out a breathy sigh. He took your left breast into his hand, thumbing over your hardened nipple. He palmed your chest for a few moments more, like he was savoring each and every new part of you he explored. You felt his cock hard against your leg. You shifted your thigh, giving him just the lightest sensation of friction. The groan he mumbled into your skin made you feel hot between your legs. You clenched your thighs together, trying to get some relief.

His hand traveled down to your stomach, caressing the curves and grabbing a soft handful of skin. “Good…” He whispered. You shivered as his hand glided over your hips, so close to your entrance. He reached for the inside of your thigh, pulling it over into his cock. He let out another breathy sigh that left you completely slick with desire. His hand hovered over the mess of hair covering your mound. You opened your legs, giving him permission.

He started by slowly palming you, just beginning to give you the attention your pussy was desperate for. You felt a finger slip past your folds, getting drenched in the slickness. Khargaad shifted you up a bit so he could have better access to your chest. He dipped down, taking a nipple into his mouth and sucked playfully. “Oh f-fuck-” You were stuttering at the pleasure of it all. He grinned into your chest, “Keep making those noises sweetheart.” The pet name made your heart flutter.

He kept gently probing a finger up and down your slit, until he dipped one down just at the beginning of your entrance. His fingers were bigger than your own, but this wasn't so much of a stretch. He slowly sheathed the finger in you, “Tight.” He grunted. He made a come hither motion into that sensitive spot of your inner walls. You yelped out a completely sinful moan as he prodded you a few more times. His finger exited your hole, pulling the wetness of your cunt onto your swollen and sensitive clit.

“Khargaad-” Your hips bucked up into him as he swirled long languid circles around that little bundle of nerves. He pulled off, and sat back on his knees, “Can I taste you?”

It was the way he asked more than anything. Like he was close to begging for it. You nodded, spreading your legs for him. He settled down in front of you, using both of his thumbs to spread your lips apart. You felt the tip of his fat tongue probe your needy pussy. He reached up to play with your nipples, while he moved up to your throbbing clit. He started with light kitten-licks, making you whine and buck up into his mouth. That wonderful tongue of his made swirls and then quick flickering motions over the sensitive spot. At this point you were almost completely lost in pleasure, and reached down to thread your fingers through his soft brown curls. 

You were already sensitive when he started, so you were very close to finishing. You actually yelled when he inserted a finger into you. Prodding that sensitive spot while attacking your sensitive clit; it was making the most obscene wet noises. “Close.” That was all you could manage as he devoured you. There it was, feeling crushed over you like a ton of bricks. You coated this hand, legs spasming. He dipped down to lap up the remnants of your release. Your taste, your smell, the feeling of his hair clenched in your fist. He was addicted.

He leaned back, taking in his work. You had a hand on your forehead and a hand on your chest, calming down from what you just experienced. You glanced down at him, both hands on his thighs. His cock was completely erect, tip glistening with pre-cum. It was so heavy it bowed down under its own weight. “Y/n…” He was trying to figure out what to say next. His cock needed to be buried in your pretty little cunt. He needed to bottom out into you. He wanted to hear the sound of his heavy balls slapping against your skin with every thrust. But he couldn’t say that, though. He didn’t want to push you if you weren’t ready.

So when you propped yourself up on your elbows, legs spread for him, he almost felt like crying. His human mate was so strong. So ready for him.

He crawled over you, pinning your legs over his shoulders. He took the base of his cock into his fist, guiding it slowly over your folds. You were so warm for him. He pushed his pulsating tip past your lips, wincing from the sensitivity. He couldn’t take his eyes off of you, but you were completely entranced watching his cock slide into you. His tip found your hole, sliding in but not going any further. He was absolutely strangeling the pillow he was resting his hand on, trying to maintain control. Khargaad was watching you, every little subtle expression. He kept sinking himself into you, stopping when you made the first wince of pain. He was big, and you were so tight. 

“Y/n?” You looked up at him through those pretty lashes. He nearly lost it all right there, just from the eye-contact. You got off of your elbows, leaning down completely. You gave a little nod, still making direct eye contact. Slowly and gently, he worked his way in until his hips were flush with yours. He leaned back, still buried in you, letting you adjust to the stretch.

He wouldn’t last long at all, seeing you like this. Your little face with knotted brows, arms thrown overhead. Khargaad brought his hand to your stomach, rubbing little circles into the soft skin with his thumb. You were perfect. Perfect to take his seed. Perfect for growing a little half-orc.

He wouldn’t yet, of course. Not until you were ready. For you, he would wait as long as needed. But his strange orc hormones and instincts craved it beyond explanation.

He began rocking out and back into you, keeping a slow languid pace. You reached out for him, and in an instant his head was nuzzled in your neck again. His pace started to ramp up a bit, earning little mewls from your lips. Oh he definitely wouldn't last much longer. “W-where…” His breath hitched in your ear. “Huh?” You were too flustered to try to understand what he was asking.

“Going to-” He was hissing and groaning, barely able to work out a sentence, “On your body- ah- or o-on the bed?” His motions were getting jerky. “Fuck- sorry- oh fuck.”

He pulled out just barely in time to empty himself onto your stomach. He fucked his rough fist through the climax, sighing at the sight of his seed coating your tummy. It felt a lot warmer than you expected, and much more… volume. He finally let go of his cock, reaching for a linen cloth and dunking it in a bowl of water he had set nearby. “I made a mess…”

He sounded so guilty, and you giggled at him teasingly. One of his hands cupped your face, while the other softly wiped the length of your cunt, messy from your own slickness. He wiped the cum that was coated across your stomach, being careful not to spill any on the bed.

“You did so good.” He started cooing sweet nothings to you while running his thumbs across your cheekbone, “Wore me out…” He chuckled, throwing the rag across the room. He yawned and stretched his arms above him.

“Do you want me to go home now?” You were all too familiar with the stories women told about men finishing and ordering them to leave. You didn’t quite have the confidence yet, to advocate for yourself. To tell him you wanted to spend the night wrapped up in his arms.

For Khargaad, this question felt like an arrow to the heart. Had he not done enough? To make it clear how badly he needed you with him? He laid down next to you, pulling you close, “I would kill the person who would try to take you from me right now.”

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

Here is Part 5 for you lovelies <3 <3 <3 btw Khargaad is living in a yurt, that's what I was trying to describe lol.

I attached a playlist I put together. These are the songs I've been listening to while writing this, if anyone wants to hear the vibes :3

Tagged List <3

@reads-stuff-quietly @loo-looland @sluttygirl123 @beaniebaneenie @blushycadaver @sunndust @whyiamadegenerate @the-attic-of-porcelain @freakyotaku059-blog @youknowits-derea @thoughts-of-bear-undercovers @allthecraftandthings @gruffle1 @kennedyabraxas123 @queenies1x1 @jellyslimesofficial @jasminedragoon @rangoismyname @the-queen-of-sorrows @the-dumber-scaramouche @heddaloddafun @swimmingrascalbatdragon @hellodollstuff @wingedghostpepper @pistachioinfernal @honeybaegle @sammehshark @dij-ology @forgemotherkestrel @wafflefries786

[charalysis]

GoW: Baldur

Trigger Warning: Discussions of suicide, sundial ideation, and self harm.

The main antagonist of GoW 2018, Baldur is well known by fans of the newer games and is beloved by many for the complexity of his personality and story. Baldur captivated many with his erratic behavior, interesting abilities, and his complicated relationship with his mother. Today we are going to examine him as in depth as we can and break down his behavior, motivation, and his complicated emotions around his relationship with his family.

Let's start with a little backstory.

For those needing refresher, when Baldur was born his mother, Freya, went to the Norns to inquire about her son's fate. She was told Baldur would meet an unnecessary death. This terrified Freya, as she loved her little boy more than anything and couldn't bear to lose him. She seemingly spent much of Baldur's childhood looking for the right combination of spell components, words, and general rites to protect him from his fate.

Presumably, Freya and Baldur once had a good bond, a very close mother-son relationship. Freya wears to the current day a necklace Baldur made for her as a child. We can see signs of this closeness as it seems that, despite an Aesir upbringing, Baldur followed his Vanir heritage more. He doesn't wear shoes, only leg wraps that lightly wrap around his feet, leaving him essentially barefoot. What clothes he does wear don't seem to match anything we see the other Aesir wearing, even his nephews. Everyone is in either clean, neat attire, or they are lightly armoured, but still clean for the most part. Baldur's pants are simple. He wears a large piece of either cloth or soft hide around his waist, along with an ogre hide as a leather apron, held up by a belt (a gift from Odin) which holds a pouch and various simple trinkets. Not unlike Freya's "Witch of the Woods" outfit.

It's also likely that he inherited Freya's magic, but he possibly refuses to use it out of spite. However there's little evidence for this. Though there is a little evidence for him taking on Odin's magic. Baldur has the ability to absorb and manipulate other elements, not just light. We see this with Leviathan and later fire with the giant fight.

Now, despite his potential closeness to his mother, obviously something broke this bond.

The spell Freya made to, in her mind, protect Baldur. She was terrified for him and worried he was going to die. However, for Baldur, this was no protection; for him it was a curse.

Baldur was left unable to feel warmth, cold, pain... He was also unable to feel any sensation. The touch of his wife, Nanna. The taste of food, the taste of a drink, let alone the feeling of anything in his mouth to begin with...

And this means Baldur was actually left with a lot more problems than I've seen anyone discuss.

If he did drink anything, there's no way he could tell if he had to pee, likely leading to plenty of accidents, or him just... Not peeing. Because of his healing ability and inability to die, it's possible he just gave up trying to eat or drink in general. Not like he'd die from starvation or dehydration, as much as he may have tried.

That also leads into the idea that it's possible Baldur, early on with his curse, likely tried to kill himself.

Of course, realizing his mother made him incapable of dying, he likely resigned himself to his fate of simply existing as he was and serving Odin.

Now, his broken bond with Freya does not mean Baldur ended up close with Odin. Perhaps closer than before, but Odin views his family, especially his children, as pawns in his larger game. He sees them as a means to an end and we see this outright in our first meeting with Odin in Ragnarok. Odin simply calls him "his greatest tracker". Odin just saw Baldur as a hunter to send out whenever he needed something or someone found.

Seemingly, Baldur had no one to help him cope, (aside from a wife we never actually have mentioned. Nanna's existence is implied however in a background dialogue in Odin's home/mead hall where someone mentions Forseti being paranoid someone tried poisoning Thor. For any unaware, in canonical mythology, Forseti is the son of Baldur and his wife Nanna.). However I would like to speculate a little here and say, perhaps Baldur and Thor were close.

In the fight with Thor at the beginning of Ragnarok, Thor says the line, "That ones for Baldur!", Or something like that. Given Thor's generally dismissive attitude towards his other brothers, Tyr and Heimdall, and his dislike of them, I find this line interesting. It implies that there was a level of closeness, at least enough for Thor to want to get some kind of payback against Kratos for Baldur's death.

Obviously, Thor's larger concern was the blood payment for Magni and Modi. However, I don't think that entirely negates the idea that Thor loved his baby brother and wanted some kind of payback for him.

I do also suspect Baldur and Thor being close could be in part why Thor's boys in particular were sent with Baldur. I doubt Baldur immediately went to Odin about his initial failing, as Odin is capricious and patiently unpredictable. It's possible Baldur went to Thor, the best known giant killer, to ask advice on hunting down a giant (reminder, he thinks Kratos is Laufey). Thor could have easily sent his boys to join their uncle, not going himself because of other responsibilities.

Magni and Modi seem perfectly agreeable to Baldur, only really bickering or bantering amongst each other. Baldur I think, despite his madness, was as kind as he could be to his family.

Which does lead me to speculation on his bond with his son, Forseti.

For anyone unaware, Forseti is the Norse god of Justice, Reconciliation, and Law. This tracks with his few mentions in Ragnarok, lining up to him trying to find someone allegedly trying to poison Thor and being the one to track down Heimdall's corpse and report it to Sif.

Forseti was at least conceived before Baldur's curse, which does make him one of the younger gods, closer in age to Thrúd than her brothers.

so, this means, Forseti likely grew up with a volatile, distant father. He was quite likely exposed to a lot he shouldn't have been, such as the incident where Baldur was asking people to launch arrows into him to see how many it would take to make him fall over. Baldur likely was not a good dad to Forseti, and the likely frequent violence against Baldur, simply because of Baldur's invulnerability, likely contributed to Forseti's seeming isolation and paranoia in Ragnarok.

Baldur was likely a genuinely worse father in ways compared to Thor through sheer neglect and exposing his son to horrific sights. Not to mention the emotional impact of having someone so volatile around.

(Obviously that's not me saying Thor's a good dad. I love Thor's arc and as a character, but he is a child abuser and he doesn't even try changing until Thrúd comes around.)

Segwaying right along back into the discussion of his appearance: Baldur's tattoos.

There are a few I think are work mentioning.

First, the large red runs across the top of his back say "cursed", which is how he feels about his condition of invulnerability and sensory deprivation.

Second, his arm says "never to forgive", which makes sense given his condition and his rage at Freya over it.

Third, I believe this is the large circle tattoo on his chest, apparently reading, "lights confide me with warmth so that I might feel (something)". If this translation is accurate, I think that could be an appeal to his own abilities to manipulate light. As god of light, we can see in game he can bend light around him to move faster, or at least appear to move faster. There is no telling what else he could do with his light manipulation. But this also matches his desire to feel something, anything.

And finally, the tattoo around his neck/collar bone seems to tell of his role in prophecy as the bringer of Ragnarok, which is true. His death triggered Fimblwinter.

There are other tattoos to be translated on him, but based on these, it can be assumed they are just as tied to his identity, and possibly his curse and fate, as these. And Baldur is covered in tattoos. And from what we can tell there is no clear point to tell when he started to get them done.

Further interesting points on his appearance, at least for me, is the almost haphazard placement of beads and braids in his beard and hair. It seems as though that either A, in his broken mental state, Baldur is easily irritated by the beads and braids, so he just half asses it. Or B, he tends to leave the beads in, allowing some to fall out or be messed up.

Baldur's outward presentation of himself seems to follow his mental state. Messy, bold... He's not afraid to make a statement or point that's for sure

And despite Odin's fondness of Baldur, at least in what Baldur can do for him, I'm certain Odin resents Baldur's outward presentation. Baldur must serve as a reminder of Freya, not only in his face to an extent, but also in how he dresses. His clothes and his arms being riddled with tattoos must remind Odin a lot of Freya, thus ensuring Baldur also wouldn't be close to his father. Same as his brothers before him.

There is also the Kratos parallel to acknowledge.

Baldur, like a young Kratos, is vengeful and angry. He doesn't care who gets in his way, they'll become a target too. He's brutal, cocky, outright arrogant. He's particularly gungho about killing a parent who wronged and betrayed him. (I would argue though that Baldur is way more justified than Kratos ever was in his rampage against Zeus. Not that Zeus didn't deserve it, but his motivation against Zeus was, "He killed me and stole my powers wah." At least at first.)

Baldur also does as Kratos did, and he perpetuates a cycle of hate and destruction. Kratos knew Baldur likely wouldn't stop at Freya, just as he didn't stop at Ares. Baldur was exceptionally keen to fight and kill, especially after he regained sensation. He wouldn't have stopped at Freya. He damn well likely would have gone after Odin next for lying to him and not helping him, and anyone else getting in his way of such a goal. This, seconds before his death, Kratos tells him the same thing Zeus told him. "The cycle ends here."

In conclusion, Baldur is an extremely complex character whose life was admittedly ruined really before it began. He was young for a deity, at a mere 130 years old, when he died. Freya, despite her love and intentions, ignored his wishes and refused to respect her adult son's boundaries. Odin's only real use for his youngest son was just that. What he could use Baldur for. He didn't really love him, he didn't care about him, he lied to his face... And we don't know how truly isolated he was.

[twilightofthe]

okay i put all my cranky thoughts into a separate post that's now drafted and it made me feel better so i'll be able to watch this episode now lol but if it gets me worked up again i'm posting the rant i'm sorry i cannot be helped or changed or saved <3

ANYWAY AHSOKA EP 2

also i forgot to say so last episode but kevin kiner my ABSOLUTE BELOVED the return of the king is real so happy to have you here my dude the ending and full theme was absolutely gorgeous

anywayyyyyy so i am guessing sabine did not make like satine and survived her shish kabobing

well there's ahsoka

oh yeah there's bean she's fine she'll be fine xD

damn filoni really gave more handwaving to having a character survive a major impalement vs me twisting myself into fucking knots writing anakin getting run through lmao

ahsoka sorry but actually i'm gonna blame u for this you still kinda seem like a mess and i don't think you were a very good teacher to sabine and now ur dropping back in on her when she's convenient to you?

well at least we know why she's so adamant against training baby yoda lol

ope here's goth girl and the fuuuuck is his NAME again i keep calling him fucking bryan

i like the fancy sithy-looking sundial tho

pfff second ep is "toil and trouble" guess we're getting witchy!

OH YEAH WAS SABINE'S KITTY OKAY

THEY BETTER BE OKAY

I SWEAR TO GOD

yea ahsoka what happened to showing up in the nick of time and saving kanan and ezra from inquisitors in rebels u were slowwww girlie

OK GOOD THE CAT IS OKAY

that's all that matters

ope one more droid hanging around ezra's place

GIRL UR SITTING UP ALREADY?!

GIRL HOW CAN U BREATHE

we do love the mechanic girl of my heart

sabine does love her explosions

no huyang hera just likes explosions

sabine works best under explosive pressure we LOVE HER

ope back to corellia i guess? we can reuse the old solo sets?

sabine

you were just

impaled

"but she's not the one who needs to hear it right now" ahhh there's the sabine and hera dialogue. ugh but i'm still not used to natasha and mary i can just hear tiya and vanessa doing it instead :(

WHY DO Y'ALL KEEP MAKING SABINE AND AHSOKA ANGRY EXES TF

"ancient ppl from a distant galaxy" waaaaaaait are they bringing in those eu dudes

no wait i think i remember something about these guys that was mention as the big bad in the canceled animated rebels sequel

or it could just be the chiss lmao

that could be it too, makes sense why they'd want thrawn

ok that is some real cool galactic map visuals i am an absolute sucker for a good starmap

ok but wait how the fuck did y'all get a map to thrawn anyway did the space whales write it

also sorry morgan but i don't personally think thrawn would go for u nothing personal you are hot but you don't quite seem his type

waaaait is fucking thrawn gonna have force sensitivity now THAT would be absolutely hilarious and he'd hate it so much

who's marrok i have no memory

y'all you can't just make thrawn work for you didn't he only work with the empire cuz he had to because it would advantage his people somehow (has read zero thrawn novels and only seen rebels)

please tell me sabine is in the fucking vents of ahsoka's ship

THERE'S THE GHOST WHERE IS CHOPPER

I AM NO LONGER FUCKING ASKING

okay so i think my issue with Mary is she doesn't have any of the same authority and purpose Hera's meant to hav

CHOPPER

CHOPPER

MY MURDERBOT

MY SON

MY ANGEL MY EVERYTHING

Anyway

yeah

oh yeah harping in that the new republic is a total fustercluck

ew a capitalist

bro you know hera used to steal from people like you for the rebellion

sdlkfjsdk omg sabine's mom needs to talk to the teacher to keep her from getting expelled

but also y'all sabine is like 25-30 right now she's not a kid

@ ahsoka bitch you have no fuckin clue what you're doing doooon't talk about readiness

y'know maybe the imperial era just advanced medicine so later impalements don't kill people

oh oh so it IS ezra's!

sabine go find luke he'd love to have you

STOP WITH THE GAY DIALOGUE

ok so yeah she likely doesn't have force sensitvity

goddammit huyang neverMIND

so sabine IS force sensitive :) and kanan and ezra just never brought it up :) great :)

hera my beautiful ship nerd ily

bitch do NOT fuck with hera she has more presence than anyone ever

hera my dude you know better than anyone that if a ship wants to take off you gotta go try and stop it in person

ah i have been waiting like 5 long years to watch hera best pilot there was kick aerial ass

we STAN

chopperrrrrrrrr

oh yeah ahsoka's fighting an inquisitor too lmao

CHOPPER GET THEIR ASS

CHOPPER ADD TO YOUR KILL COUNT

ok this hera and chopper banter is perfect i do love it

VICTORY FOR MY GHOSTS

oh and good job ahsoka lol

aghhh sabine and her therapy cat i'm ;_;

theeeeere's sabine's mando armor

SABINE AND KANAN'S FUCKIN KNIFE I'M GONNA EVEN IGNORE THE BAD MULAN HACKJOB ATTEMPT

okay it seems like mary's kinda on and off for hera so far, she has her moments but she can't hold them

rosario keeps losing me i'm sorryyyyyyyy

natasha is doing GREAT

aaaaaand we redoing the end of the rebels epilogue!

god this makes me miss zeb

and kanan obvs but i've come to accept his death

zeb's still hanging around where is he!!!!!

ah all is right

sabine has her gay haircut back

here we go gay roadtrip to find ezra time

alright so i'm still not really vibing with jedi!sabine at All but i have concluded that this show is watchable but honestly not that good, writing-wise, sorry dave, so i think i'll be able to watch it with my brain turned off

goddammit first i thought the holograms visiting morgan were nightsister witch ghosts xD

RIGHT RIGHT HIS NAME IS BAYLAN NOT BRYAN

morgan stop simping for thrawn i guaranTEE he's not your type

oKAY

we are through with the two episodes! it is very late for me so i'm gonna sit and think on what i've seen so far and shitpost a little. i did really like seeing my rebels blorbos again even if the live action actors don't quite have their groove yet. obviously very excited to retrieve ezra <3 so yeah that was that and i'll be back for more next week!

[trustseal]

Waterloo big clock

She did it as a favor for her husband, director John Farrow. This was Maureen O'Sullivan's first film in five years, since Tarzan's New York Adventure, after which she had concentrated on raising her family. Charles Laughton was cast as the villain. Leslie Fenton was announced as director but he was held up on Saigon so John Farrow took over. Jonathan Latimer was assigned to write the script and Ray Milland to star. ) The purchase price was a reported $45,000. (Fearing's earlier novel The Hospital (1939) had been a best seller. Paramount bought the rights to the novel before publication. Morgan's screen name later would become "Henry 'Harry' Morgan" and eventually Harry Morgan, to avoid confusion with the popular humorist of the same name. Noel Neill as Elevator Operator (uncredited).Lloyd Corrigan as Colonel Jefferson Randolph aka McKinley.Douglas Spencer as Bert Finch, a reporter.Luis Van Rooten as Edwin Orlin, a reporter.Janoth falls down the elevator shaft to his death. Janoth shoots Hagen and tries to escape in an elevator, but the car is stuck floors below (jammed there by Stroud earlier while evading the security men). Enraged, Hagen turns on Janoth and reveals that Janoth killed York and that he helped with the coverup. Hagen implores Janoth to clear him, but Janoth tells him only that he will provide him with the best possible legal defense. He confronts Janoth and Hagen and presents evidence that appears to point to Hagen as the killer. Stroud evades the dragnet by various maneuvers, finally hiding in the clock. Building security men sweep the building to find the wanted man. All exits from the building are sealed, and the building's occupants must leave by the main door, with the witnesses watching for the mystery man. Stroud slips away before the witness identifies him to the investigators, who now know that the mystery man is in the building but do not know his identity. Stroud tries to avoid the witnesses, but one of them sees and recognizes him as the mystery man. Asked to paint a portrait of the mystery man, she produces a modernist abstract of blobs and swirls. One is eccentric artist Louise Patterson, who created the painting that Stroud purchased. The witnesses are brought to the Janoth Building. He must also secretly conduct his own investigation to prove Janoth's guilt.Įventually York is identified by the Crimeways team and witnesses are found who saw her on the town with the mystery man. He reluctantly agrees to return to his job and lead the manhunt, to Georgette's disappointment.ĭuring the manhunt, Stroud must appear to lead the investigation diligently while also preventing the investigation from identifying him as the culprit. He discloses enough details for Stroud to know that the mystery man is Stroud himself. Janoth calls to rehire him in order to lead the effort to find the mystery man (without any mention of York). Stroud has since caught up with his wife and son in West Virginia and tells her that he has been fired, but leaves out his adventures with York. Janoth decides to use the resources of Crimeways to find the man instead of calling the police. However, Hagen convinces him that they can frame the man whom Janoth saw leaving York's apartment for the crime. Janoth goes to his assistant Hagen and tells him what happened, intending to surrender to the police and confess. Janoth assumes that York is cheating on him, leading to a quarrel in which he strikes York with the sundial, killing her. Janoth sees someone leaving but does not recognize Stroud in the dark. Stroud and York go to her apartment, but York sees Janoth arriving and Stroud leaves. Stroud spends the evening drinking with York, and he buys a painting and a sundial. When Stroud loses track of time and misses the train for West Virginia, Georgette angrily leaves without him. Stroud goes to a bar to drink and is distracted by the attentions of Janoth's glamorous mistress Pauline York, who proposes a blackmail plan against Janoth. His tyrannical boss Earl Janoth wants him to stay to pursue a missing-person story that Stroud has just cracked, but Stroud refuses and Janoth fires him. Thirty-six hours earlier, Stroud is eager to embark on a long-postponed honeymoon in Wheeling, West Virginia with his wife Georgette and son. The clock dominates the lobby of the Janoth Publications building in New York City, where Stroud works. George Stroud, editor-in-chief of Crimeways magazine, hides from building security inside the "big clock," which is the largest and most sophisticated clock ever built.

[sophierequests]

🌟 yayayayayay! okayokay i have too many ideas rn but like, maybe something with David (shocker, wow :0) with the song "your text" by sundial?

ALSO IVE SAID IT BEFORE AND I'LL SAY IT AGAIN, CONGRATS!

hey pretty stranger

Navigation┃Main Masterlist┃Request

Pairing: David Kostyk x gn! Reader

A/N: FIRST EVENT REQUEST AS ALWAYS!!! THANK YOU AGAIN LOVE AHHH <333 I never fully listened to this song before writing this, but it immediately gave me sm David energy!!

Summary: After meeting a pretty stranger at a party, they notice that they have more in common than they might've imagined.

Genre: Songfic, Fluff

Word Count: 1.3K

Warnings: mention of alcohol for a second

"Who's that?" you whispered to the red-haired girl next to you, while another pair of Inferni performed a fire show on the stage in the middle of the room.

Genya gave you a questioning look as she followed your glance. Her eyes landed on a thin black-haired man, wearing a purple kefta, who stood in the far back of the crowd. You had noticed the way his eyes drifted over to you every so often, but once yours met his, he looked away quickly, opting out to anxiously fiddle with his collar as if he was getting choked by it. At first, you had thought that he had been staring at Genya - and you wouldn't have blamed him - but it had become painfully obvious that his gaze was trained on you.

"That Fabrikator over there?" she asked, a sheepish smirk on her lips, "That's David Kostyk. I'm surprised that he even showed up, he's not the kind of person to go to parties like this. However, neither are you and I managed to drag you out here."

You didn't even need to take a closer look at him to realize that she was right. He looked incredibly uncomfortable with the situation he was in. And even though he stood as close to the wall as he possibly could, he still didn't seem at ease.

The man, who you now knew was called David, looked over at you again. You had to admit that he was quite good-looking, even with his unassuming exterior, slightly messy hair and the awkward stance he was keeping up.

"He’s been staring at me for a while now.” you noted, causing your friend to give you a sly grin.

“Has he now? Well, we should help him get a closer look at you, shouldn’t we?”

With that, she hooked her arm through yours, effectively dragging you through the crowd to the other side of the room.

“David!” she beamed, startling the shy Fabrikator, as he apparently didn’t expect her to approach him.

“Genya, it’s good to see you.” he shot her a small smile before he peeked at you.

“I was quite surprised to see you, but it’s so nice that you’re here.” she began, removing her arm from yours, nudging you forward a bit to get you closer to him, “David, this is Y/N. I don’t think you’ve met before.”

“Hi.” he breathed out, one of his hands travelling over his arm.

“Hi, it’s nice to meet you.” you smiled back, not quite knowing where this was supposed to go.

“I’ll let you both mingle for a bit, I think that I remember Tolya telling me about Zoya needing some help. Have fun!” Genya said, giving you a quick wink before disappearing into the masses again.

Both of you stared at the other dumbfounded and a bit overwhelmed by the sudden confrontation.

“I like your kefta.” he tried, obviously slightly inexperienced in starting a proper conversation, “Even my celebratory kefta looks a bit worn out, but yours suits you. It looks… cute.”

You felt your cheeks flush at that last comment. There were many other Grisha wearing exactly the same outfit, but he thought you looked good enough to bring it up.

So, even though there still was an inherent awkwardness to your chat, you continued to talk. The topics switched between personal stuff, your Small Sciences or, much to your surprise, the melting points of different metals.

“How come I have never seen you around? You seem to be quite well acquainted with Genya and the others, so I would assume that you’d occasionally come around?” you asked.

“Oh, I’m not really the type to go out that much. I’d rather spend time in the workshops. Working with metal is way easier than working with people.” he sighed.

“I understand. Without Genya’s constant berating, I wouldn’t have even considered going here. Right now, I could already be in bed, or do literally anything else.” you chuckled.

“Looks like we have another thing in common.” he returned your smile, his cheeks faintly flushed - whether it was because of the champagne or the conversation, you couldn’t tell.

“Do you want to leave?” you inquired suddenly.

“I’d love to, but I don’t think that it wo-”

“Nobody will notice that we’re gone. It’s way too busy for that.”

“Let’s go then.” he agreed, taking one last cautious look around before trailing after you.

Once you were in the hallways, he took over and led the way to his workshop, eager to show you some of his newest experiments after you had expressed an interest in his craft earlier.

Inside the cluttered crafting space, he was happy to explain everything you wanted to know. Apparently, there weren’t many people that would listen to him ramble on about his interest, even though he was so enthusiastic to talk about it. You enjoyed talking to the introverted Grisha. He wasn’t as obnoxious and loud as some of the other people you knew, and you liked that about him.

Sitting in his workspace, whilst watching him work or listening to each other’s voices became a habit for the both of you. At the end of almost every day, you would sneak into the room with two plates of dinner in your hands, ready to talk about your day. You also began writing each other little notes, whenever you didn’t get to spend time together.

“Hey pretty stranger, don’t skip dinner again!

We’ll see each other tomorrow, don’t you dare to hide from me ;)” you would scribble on a note, putting it next to the plate you put inside of his bedroom.

Of course, he knew that it was from you. You didn’t try to hide it.

His notes were a bit shorter but still managed to rile up the oncoming butterflies in your stomach, whenever you read his cute notes.

“You looked cute today.”

“Your smile is very pretty.”

And many more little papers found their way into your room or pockets, whenever you were with David. At this point, you couldn’t even be sure whether his feelings towards you were platonic or not, since some of his notes suggested otherwise. However, you weren’t going to pry.

During another evening in the workshop, this question might’ve answered itself.

You were lounging in one of the rather comfortable office chairs across from David’s workbench, where he silently worked out a few different sketches for one of his new inventions. It wasn’t the rhythmic scratching of his pen on paper that caught your attention, it was the times when it stopped for longer than you would’ve expected. Whenever you averted your eyes from the book you were reading, his ones were already trained on you, staring at you, as if he was trying to build up the courage to do or say something.

“Why are you staring at me, David?” you smiled, giving him a playful wink.

“I’m not staring.” he stammered quickly, his gaze trying to latch onto something different than you.

“I saw you stare at me, don’t try to deny it!”

He let out a huff, leaning back in his chair, and carefully stroking the skin on his neck,

“I’d like to ask you something.” he started, “Would you like to go out with me next week? Saturday maybe?”

The question caught you off-guard, but you still felt a strange bubbly feeling rise up in your chest.

“What?” was the only thing you could muster - much to your dismay.

“I think I like you.” he stated, looking into your eyes again, as you were trying to collect the right words.

“And I hope you do too.” is what he added, barely audible, but you still heard it.

“I think I do too.”

[fullmetaldevil-blog]

40?

40. Pet

This one I went with Devil's Sea, an au shared between myself and @zanzaflux

Ben (who's mentioned) is a large Crab Demon and is the eldest of the demon's owned by Zanza.

---

The sun’s rays danced across the rippling waters of the ocean, the skies crisp and a rich blue after a day’s worth of solid rain. The cool breeze wafted through the mast as Tom deeply inhaled and exhaled the fresh air. The man smiling to himself at the pleasant weather turning his boat out to the open sea.

Like a sundial telling the time of day, the sun rode high above the mast casting little shadows across the deck of the boat, say for the cabin. Tom relaxed in the cabin keeping an eye on his equipment while the boat bobbed lightly in the waters. Seeing that he had little luck in the area, he decided it was perhaps better to go to the western side of the sea in the hopes of catching at least something. That area was good for feeder fish so at least of net’s worth of those would be worth something.

Tom exited his cabin and was ready to climb up to his controls when he spotted a large familiar pink cap floating at the edge of the boat. A warm smile blossomed on his face as he peered over the edge. “Hey there little guy.”

Benny looked up at Tom and gave a shallow smile earning a small frown from the man. “Morning Tom.”

“What’s wrong?” The man leaned over the side of the boat.

“My friend was being mean.” Benny lightly pouted.

The sea demon’s comment earned a raised brow from Thomas. He wondered what was done to get the little one to be all glum rather than his normally bubbly self. “Do you want to talk about it?” he held out a hand in offering.

Words weren’t spoken, but Benny raised his arms up in a silent question to be picked up. Tom smiled at the gesture and gently grabbed onto the demon pulling him out of the water. The man wasted no time striding to his cabin to wrap the demon in a cloth to help hold the moisture in before setting him down on the bench.

“There you go.” the man hummed making sure Benny was comfortable and moist. “Now then, tell me what happened.” The man sat down giving the demon his full attention.

Benny sighed and recounted the rather harsh lecture he had gotten from his friend. How he told him to stay away from humans and that they would either hurt him, kill him or keep him as a pet. He didn’t want to believe that all humans were bad, afterall Tom was a good human and took care of him. The little sea demon pouted, concluding his tale huffing in his seat.

Tom smiled warmly at the little upset demon, but at the same time he understood what his friend meant. “Well I know you don’t want to hear this, but your friend does have a point.” instantly earning Benny’s attention.

“But why?” Benny whined. Not Tom too. He already got enough of Ben’s lecture.

“Well your friend has a point in the sense of not all humans can be trusted, some can, but some can’t. Then there are some who seem nice at first but really aren't.” Benny looked at him in confusion prompting him to continue his explanation. “Some people are greedy and only think of what they can gain. I’m sure you’ve seen your fair share of people attempting to overfish before you sabotage their equipment, yes?” earning a small nod. “Then those people are ones who are obvious about their ill intentions and the ones you have to watch out for. I’m not saying that a boat that doesn’t do wrong isn’t capable of doing wrong, but once you look past what’s on the deck and you see the hull is where their real intentions lie. A mask if you will. They will wear a face to make you comfortable and then show what's really behind it. ”

Tom explained how there are many types of people as there are fish and, like fish, some are good for you and some are bad for you. Many are colorful and look pretty, but that’s all they are. Others look like bottom feeders, but can surprise you by their usefulness. Then creatures like cuttlefish who will mask themselves to hide their true intent, and by the time you realize they are there it's too late. The man was careful in his explanation in trying to not come off as harsh as his friend’s explanation, but to break it down so it was easier for the young demon to understand.

“All in all I firmly believe your friend just wants you safe.” Tom rested a hand on Benny’s shoulder. “I know he probably didn’t come off the way you wanted him to, but they do care and want you safe and out of harm's way, he doesn’t want to see you end up like someone's pet fish in a bowl somewhere.”

“I know.” Benny softly muttered. Ben’s words still stung and left a bad taste in his mouth, but the way Tom explained it made sense. He hoped that more humans were like Tom where he could trust them, but from what the man described it sounded like that would be a drop of water in the bucket called the ocean. 

“Feel better?” Tom lightly patted Benny’s cap earning a little giggle and a nod.

“Thank you.” Benny reached up and gave the man a light hug.

“Anytime little guy.” The man returned the gesture. “Now do you want to hang out a little bit or go back?”

Benny pondered over the man’s inquiry before a small hopeful smile broke across his face. “I was hoping I could stay here for a bit, if that’s ok.”

“You’re welcome anytime.” Tom lightly rubbed his cap again. “How about you keep me company while we get some lunch?”

That was all Benny needed to hear before launching himself at Tom and wrapped the man up like a mummy in his tendrils. “Please! Please! Please!”

The demon’s reaction earned a hearty laugh as Tom waddled to his pantry wrapped in demon bondage to see what he could get for the both of them for lunch. He knew the little demon had had a rough morning, but he was happy he could at least get the little one to smile at the end of it all. Benny was a child and he had a lot of growing up to do. He needs someone to guide him and sure it isn’t always what he wants to hear, but at the least he knows it isn’t done to hurt him. All that mattered was he was safe, happy, and to eventually get him off so he can set up lunch for the both of them.

[sunflowerharrington]

hey, pretty stranger - k.walker x c.howard (birthday week day three two)

summary - Cassie meets Kit while she’s in Boston for the day, hoping to stay out of trouble with Maddy for at least 12 hours. And he restores her faith in men. To some extent… Also, Julia ice skates for the sake of storyline reasons and it’s something she and Cassie can bond over.

words - circa 2.3k

tags - language, fluff, mentions of violence, mentions of somebody wanting to murder someone else, daisies, one bed though neither sleep in the bed. half headcanons half descriptive writing, it’s the best i got right now.

notes - an imagine rather than a full blown oneshot. my first euphoria fic, please be nice! also, i don’t like cassie but i also don’t hate her. girlie just wants to be loved, man. these lines —— those ones, yeah, they’re the headcanon parts. also just realised asylum and euphoria were filmed a decade apart! damn…

giving credit where credit is due - divider credit goes to @bleedingthroughteeth and their meeting scene was inspired by this post by @mrs-march-ahs, i hope that’s okay lovey… and credit to rue bennett for being an amazing narrator who i basically stole her dialogue for the first paragraph :O

|not edited|

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It was her kryptonite; somebody who showed her any sort of attention or affection at first glance. Cassie Howard fell in love with every guy she ever dated, and that was known by everybody at East Highland Highschool when she went there and all over town. Whether these boys were smart or stupid, sweet or cruel, loving or cold, it didn’t matter. None of that mattered when Cassie was in a relationship, and she held onto the label of being somebody’s girlfriend like her life depended on it. She just never liked being alone. But that is what was wrong; they were boys, not men. And she was treated like a fucking whore. Cassie needed a gentleman to sweep her off her feet…

She should have known better, though, but who could blame her for wanting perfect love? But after being fucked over by too many people, she began to lose hope, taking to the internet to make herself feel like she was wanted. Therapy was suggested to her, but Cassie, she didn’t want to go. She thought she could figure her shit out on her own.

So when she travelled to Boston to get out of town and to do some retail therapy for her car, the only therapy she thought was worth being a thing, she wasn’t expecting anything to happen, at all. Normally, Cassie would be the one to make reckless, bad decisions when she got lost in her problems, but this time, she might have actually saved her own fucked up life.

She found herself wandering around random stores, in search of something to take her mind off all the shit happening back at home, and she found it, or rather, him. In a car sales place down the street from the mall, the last store she went into, hoping to pick up some new pieces for her car while she was in Boston for the day instead of waiting any longer and her car potentially exploding. Just like her relationships.

He was bent down behind the counter, doing something; Cassie couldn’t really tell what, but that didn’t matter. She leaned against one of the shelving units, watching the man clean up, running his fingers through his brunette hair to get it out of his way while he cleaned. He began to slowly look up, his brown eyes meeting hers, and she turned around quickly, inspecting the… empty shelf… hoping to go unnoticed by the man. She heard him chuckle slightly, before going straight back to work.

He grinned at her as he kept cleaning, and she smiled weakly, not turning to look back at him. Fuck no, she felt her heart begin to flutter faster at the sight of him and his goddamn smile. She couldn’t let herself fall for someone again, no, she’d break. And he hadn’t even said two words to her.

She flinched when she felt a strong hand tap her on the shoulder, spinning around to shove whoever it was onto the ground, almost knocking down one of the shelving units. Not just the products, the entire damn thing.

“Hey, didn’t mean to startle ya, Miss!” The man apologised profusely, holding his hands up as he got to his feet, picking up a blue steering wheel cover that fell to the ground with him.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” Cassie began helping him pick up the other items that had fallen to the ground. He brushed himself down after the fall, telling Cassie there’s no need to apologise and it was in self defence.

Cassie blinked at him in confusion, he wasn’t mad at her for pushing him? Or even looking at him the wrong way? What kind of sorcery...?

“You’re… You’re not mad at me for pushing you to the ground? I literally assaulted you and you’re fine with that? What the fuck—?!” She began shouting, only to stop herself mid sentence. “Sorry…” she sighed. “Bad day.”

He lifted his head to meet her eyes, mahogany meeting the ocean, the windows into each other’s souls; one broken and wanting to be loved and one wanting to give their all to somebody. The man watched as Cassie’s pupils began to dilate ever so slightly, and he was on the verge of heading into a deep trance he’d never want to ever leave before she looked away, glancing at the ground.

“Of course I’m not mad at ya,” he said, while putting a container of screws back up on the top shelf, his shirt lifting up a little, revealing soft, pale skin. “Always nice to see a woman able to protect herself. Wouldn’t wanna get in a fight with ya anytime soon,” he chuckled. God, just wait until he meets Maddy… If he ever does, hopefully not, for Cassie’s sake.

—— Cassie gave Kit a weak smile and apologised once more, and they parted ways. A few minutes later Cassie heads up to the till and pays for her stuff but Kit stops her, telling her again that it was alright. Cassie said she should do something for him to make up for it and so Kit asked her to ask him on a date, basically. So she did.

—— They went to a nearby park after Kit locked the store up for lunchtime, and Kit brought his ‘emergency date kit’ with him; A blanket and some snacks that he kept out the back of the store. (Snacks that go missing whenever his kids are around and when he’s not looking, hmm…)

—— Enough about kids for right now! Kit made Cassie a daisy flower crown, smoothing Cassie’s hair down before placing it on her head. He let his hand linger on her cheek and smiled at her, and her breath caught in her chest. Never had she thought that a man with some fucking respect would be so much more hot than ones who did not.

Cassie caught herself nervously giggling, as did Kit, and after their nervous laughter died down a little he asked her, “Can I kiss you, Cassie?” And she nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

His lips gently hovered at hers as he leaned in, his nervous, shaky breath ghosting over her lips before he brushed his lips against them, pressing them against hers in a soft, sweet kiss. It was only two seconds or so but it was the best two seconds of Kit’s entire year, five years, eternity maybe? He hoped to God she wouldn’t leave him.

Cassie’s chest bursted with butterflies and she was just as happy as the day her dad got her her first pair of ice skates when he could afford lessons. When he kissed her it felt like she was floating on cloud nine itself, or taking a long stroll on the beach by herself with the wind fluttering through her hair and the sound of the calm ocean being the only sound to hear for miles.

As they both pulled away, the moment was ruined by Cassie’s phone pinging with a text telling her to not come home as shit was going down and Maddy would kill Cassie if she got within ten feet of her.

—— Kit noticed Cassie beginning to get upset and offered her a place to stay at his place for the night after she briefly explained the best she could through her sobs and tears.

—— She was a bit hesitant at first but felt a sense of trust with Kit, so he drove her there in his car, which smells like cedarwood and pine, where she meets the lesbian ICON, Lana Winters, who is just the absolute sweetest to Cassie. Lana was on her way out the door to collect Thomas from his friend’s house and Julia from her ice skating lessons.

—— Kit told Cassie he has kids but that if they make her uncomfortable he’ll ask Lana to take them out for a while or that they can sleep over in their friends’ houses. Cassie said to him that no it’s fine, but she doesn’t want to be around kids after having to get an abortion after McKay forced her to, but she won’t kick them out of their own house to be comfortable. After all, she doesn’t even live there.

—— Cassie obviously didn’t have pyjamas so Kit lent her one of his t-shirts. Kit slept on the couch and Cassie slept in his bed (not wanting to argue with Kit over sleeping arrangements), until memories from home came flooding back to her and so she went into the living room and asked Kit if she could have a hug, he obviously said yes and pulled her into his loving arms.

Kit looked down into her glassy, tear-filled eyes, her lips shaking as she tried to speak, but she couldn’t.

“Cassie…?”

Cassie choked on her tears, now streaming down her face, and Kit listened carefully as she tried to speak. “Nobody’s… Nobody’s ever been this nice to me before… K-Kit…”

Kit used his thumb to run under her eyes, collecting the fallen tears, stroking the side of her face with his knuckles. He then pulled her into a cuddle and could feel her melting in his touch, her poor battered and bruised body shaking as she sobbed violently into his shoulder. “I’m sorry, Kit.”

“There is absolutely no need to be sorry, suga’ plum. You’ve done nothing wrong,” he cooed, running his hand down her hair repeatedly, and swayed the both of them, twisting slightly both ways. “And even if something happened, you know you can always talk to me. I’m here, suga’, I’m here.”

Kit’s swaying eventually lulled Cassie to a calm, and the sweet nothings he whispered in her ear made her tear up inside even more. Why is he being so nice to me?; was one of the thoughts circling her mind in that moment. And she fully melted into the embrace, their bodies moulding perfectly together as if they had been made for each other, warmth radiating around them like a force field to keep out all the bad things and future events.

— He unwrapped Cassie from the embrace for a brief few seconds to move some of the pillows off the sofa. He lay with his back against the sofa board and scooted up against the back so there would be room for Cassie to lie in his arms.

— After lying down, Kit kissed her temple so soft it could have been imaginary, just barely touching her skin but touching enough to make her melt in his arms.

He brushed her blonde hair out of her face, leaving small kisses where her hair once lay at her temples. The smell of sandalwood mixed with his soft breathing put her to sleep almost instantly, and her dreams after that were filled with nothing but happiness, and the nice memories. All of the nice, happy things.

She didn’t mean to fall asleep next to him but she couldn’t help it, Kit was just so… calming, refreshing, and a hope that there were actually good guys out there. (You picked well this time, kid <3 )

Cassie awoke the next morning to quiet talking in the kitchen, though it was loud enough for her to hear and to wake her up from her slumber. She was surprised to find out that Kit didn’t want to use her for sex, in fact he too hated men AND women who used people for sex. Okay, feminist, okay! Instead, he said, “I just want somebody to love, y’know?”

“Someone like Cassie, you mean?” Lana chuckled. “From what you’ve been saying I think she’s a lovely woman. She’ll be good for you, Kit.”

“I already like her, Lana. ‘N I don’t wanna end up pushing her away or her thinkin’ I’m some freak ‘cause I’m a single dad of two kids. Beautiful kids at that, but I don’t know how she’ll be around ‘em and I don’t know how they’ll be ‘round her.”

Cassie felt very conflicted and confused by all this, she thought all men were assholes. At least the ones she had relationships with… Pretty much.

She stretched her arms, yawning as she got up, after having one of the best sleeps in a long time. She stood up and ran her hands through her hair to smooth it down, making her way into where she heard Kit and Lana talking.

Kit smiled when Cassie entered the kitchen in his shirt, she looked beautiful, like a goddess to him, saying that he hopes she’s hungry because he made fruit salad with help from Julia… While Lana watched Thomas practising football in the backyard from the kitchen table.

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After breakfast, Kit noticed Cassie beginning to sniffle, the bad memories flooding back into her mind again, disturbing her peace, so he led her out of the kitchen and up to his bedroom for some privacy. She asked him to stay with her a while and in an instant she was wrapped up into a bundle in his arms once again, breathing in his distinct scent of sandalwood and the strawberries from breakfast.

Cassie sighed, sitting up in the bed, tears slowly filling her still glassy eyes. “I’m gonna get called a slut when I get home… When they all find out I was at another man’s house” she sniffled, wiping her blotchy face with the back of her hand, blinking back her tears.

Kit’s hold around her tightened, and he pressed a sweet, soft kiss to her forehead. “If anyone calls ya anything other than a beautiful angel, imma beat them up, okay? Nobody is allowed to talk to ya that way.”

“But I—”

“Cassie,” he said, much more sternly this time. “Ya don’t deserve to be called a slut, you are not one, okay? And I will keep telling you that ‘till ya believe me. Even if it takes months, years, eternity, I’ll keep on telling ya that you're not a slut. Don’t let anyone tell ya that ya are, alright?”

She sniffled again, nodding with a sad smile. What did I do to deserve such a beautiful soul like Kit?, she thought to herself. Even more so at his next words; “And you can stay up here ‘s long as ya like. I’ve only got one bed but we could make it work. If ya want?”

“God, Kit,” she sighed, the small smile on her face growing and the tears rushing to escape her eyes. “Why are you so nice?”

“What can I say? Kindness costs nothing, ‘suga. And whoever those people are… we can forget them right now, ‘kay? Just us two right now, hm?”

“Just us,” she repeated back to him, and fell back into his embrace, never wanting to leave his arms for the rest of eternity.

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taglist - @sympathyforher, @xxlangdon, @unlivingdreams my lovelies <3

wanna be added? dm, comment or ask to let me know :)

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[thecoffeelovingfreak]

Hello! First off, congratulations on 50/60+ followers!! I wanted to tell you that 1. I love your blog theme 2. The fact you chose a medieval!AU for the event is awesome and 3. You’re an extremely talented writer <3

So, for the event — I’m not sure if I’m supposed to give any more detail (if I am, please let me know!), but I was wondering if I could request the astrologer prompt with Fyodor?

Hello anon! Thank you so much, I'm glad you love my writing! {I love the new theme too :)} No further detail is needed! I decided to go with astrologer!reader and courtier!fyodor for this work!

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I Have Loved the Stars too Fondly to be Fearful of the Night

Pairing: gn!Astrologer!Reader x Courtier!Fyodor

Writing Genre: oneshot

Genres: medieval times, cryptic

Word count: 772

Warnings: slight angst/tension, brief mentions of war and death

Notes: the title is part of a verse in a poem titled The Old Astronomer to His Pupil by Sarah Williams! I'll include this link in case you'd like to read about the history of the astrolabe!

Read it on ao3!

for the Medieval!AU followers event

~~~

The fragmented light of the sunset shone through the towering window in the library. The space around you filled with the knowledge and prophecies of your predecessors. The queen has employed many astrologers, using them to predict the outcome of battles, the health of those in the castle, the wellness of crops, and various other subjects.

The black robe she had gifted you flowed as you walked outside to the sundial, light blue sleeves coming into view as you observed the garden. Approaching said sundial, you noticed a figure already sitting on the nearby dry stone wall. The familiar man with amethyst-colored eyes nodded at you, his white ensemble turning orange in the dying light of day.

You took a seat next to him, no note-taking materials in hand. Today he would be your sounding board, listening to your predictions with the occasional input. You stared at the Sun, now almost entirely under the horizon. 

Being a scholar of the Stars was a simple, rewarding life. Your queen had taken you from your small town and placed you under the previous astrologer’s care. He taught you everything you knew about mathematics, astronomy, philosophy, and medicine, creating an expert before his passing. You became well acquainted with a fellow courtier, figuring he was just as lonely as you were after hearing the cautious whispers of those around the castle.

“Have you found pleasure in the new astrolabe I bought for you?” Fyodor asked gently, turning his head away from the horizon to your figure.

“I have, thank you very much. I still cannot believe I lost the last one in the river!” you expressed.

He chuckled, watching you fiddle with the device hanging around your neck. 

The Moon had now veiled the lands with its liege of Stars, creating the world you had dedicated your life to. Your eyes shined with admiration as you observed the night sky, the ocean of the Gods, the herald of Heaven's wishes. Such astonishing creations, the Stars. The eyes of the Angels, protecting Earth's inhabitants throughout the night.

"Tonight, the Angels are blind." you spoke, "The new Moon has transitioned into Scorpio. I met with the monarchs this morning to share my findings, although you should not hold meetings of the court during this time."

"What about the battle in the south?" Fyodor pondered.

"The Moon is in conjunction with Mars. The battle, I am still unable to predict at this time, but I do know many will continue to die and those who return will not survive for long." you looked to the ground as a form of mourning.

He sighed, "And what about crops and trade?"

You smiled softly, "You should not sow crops or trade during the Scorpio Moon. Your best option is to remain stagnant; you can only do battle and take medicine. You should not even bathe."

"The Heavens are truly fascinating, are they not?" he smiled at you.

"Yes, they are." you shared.

"Our troubles seem to be so minuscule compared to the vastness of the universe. Our roles, our lords, our soldiers. What is your role, Y/n?" he queried.

You stood and smiled, spreading out your arms, and looking to the sky. "I am naught but a servant to the Gods, bestowing what they have written to the people. I am held up on a pedestal, but do I deserve it? I watch the people be sent into battle, knowing they will not live to see tomorrow's light. I watch society struggle, never learning any better no matter what I say. Will I find a source of salvation, to alleviate this guilt? Or will I be cast into the flames with the betrayers?"

Fyodor rose to stand beside you, calmly grabbing your hands. "You need only the salvation of companionship to alleviate your guilt. Allow me to share the burden of your prophecies, and we shall be plunged into the blaze together."

You stood watching him for a moment before dropping one of his hands and intertwining your others.

“I will gladly be your companion.” you said, “Now walk with me.”

You silently strolled through the garden, gazing at the stars.

“Do you favor a constellation?” Fyodor asked.

You turned to him. “I have always been quite fond of Lyra. What about you?” 

“Ever since my first night at the castle, I have always looked for Aquila.” he smirked.

You hummed and turned your head away from him.

As you neared the library, you released his hand and entered the archway. You exchanged smiles before the courtier vanished into the night, leaving his newfound partner to their work.

- - - - - - - - - -

If you would like to read similar works, why don’t you check out the rest of my Medieval!AU?

masterlists | upcoming works

[serenityseventeen]

DK (이석민):

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“Star (2)”

synopsis: As you try to ignore all of your doubts regarding the authenticity of Dokyeom being a peasant, you take him around town and have fun together, until the first prince of Svuentin announces his missing brother, the 8th prince who looks exactly like Dokyeom.

parts: 1 - “Star” | 2 - “Star (2)” | 3 - “Star (3)”

genre: royal!au, romance

warnings: lying about one's identity, mentions of overwork/forced work and underpay, and horses if anyone hates those??

characters: prince!seokmin x peasant!reader, featuring a brief appearance of prince!seungcheol

word count: should be a little less than 3k

a/n: ahhh it was so good and nice to see a OT13 rwy performance and perf unit performance!! I was so happy seeing jun and minghao perform with the others, makes me kind of realize that i missed their presence a lot 🤧 + I'm officially a weve (onewe fandom) and i already love onewe

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There was just something about Dokyeom that didn't feel right.

Maybe it was his flawless skin underneath all of that mud or his silky black hair, like it has been brushed with the best comb. Even when he was sleeping, he looked different. He didn't quite fit in, you could feel it.

Maybe it was because he was sleeping way too much. Aside from his rather angelic, majestic, unreal visuals, height, and body for a typical peasant, he slept a lot and indeed, he slept like a log. Everyone was awake before 5 am and had already left the shack to get their hands on the wild food first, before the townsfolk did. Dokyeom didn't snore much like the other peasants before him but rather, he slept peacefully.

You wanted to touch his skin that looked smooth but was afraid a rough hand as yours would make his skin wilt, like a sickie stinky smell upon beautiful blooming roses.

In the end, you ended up shaking him awake. You were crouched in front of him, wearing a new pair of clothes; not the best fabric, but good enough for the chilly upcoming days. It was a long sleeve shirt and long pants. Simple.

“Hey, Dokyeom,” You called out. His face twitched and he flipped to the other side like a stubborn baby, unready to wake up. “You wake up quite late. I guess you were kidding when you said that while sleeping you were as good as dead.”

Dokyeom didn't budge. You were about to nudge him on the shoulder again but it was like something struck him and with eyes wide open, Dokyeom sat up abruptly, surprising you and causing you who was crouching beside him to fall flat on your butt.

“What? Are you surprised that the sun is up already and the tiny shack is suddenly so large due to the emptiness?” You guessed.

Prince Seokmin had actually just realized he rebelled against his father. He escaped the castle through a secret route last night, came into the village dressed as a peasant, got accused of stealing, and met you, a real peasant, who offered him a place to stay; at which, he stayed overnight, and now, he is officially a missing prince, who was supposed to be gone with the darkness for the star festival, but was still swept along with the dark when he was supposed to return to the light.

“I just remembered that I'm—” Seokmin paused and looked over at you. Last night, he was no longer prince Seokmin, but Dokyeom. He had to lie again. “I—I didn't sleep on a tree.”

You laughed and patted his shoulder. “Let's go wash up by the river. Then, I'll take you around town.”

-

Dokyeom seemed fascinated by the river water, sparkling, and trembling. You couldn't help but chuckle while you saw him poke a finger into the water, causing ripples all around it. You jokingly ordered him to quickly wash his face because the two of you were already late.

“What time is it?” Dokyeom asked, looking at the sky.

“Around 7 am.”

“How can you tell?”

“The position of the sun. It looks like 7 o'clock. People like us become sundials.”

His questions or rather his cluelessness was certainly puzzling. Nearly every peasant born under the peasant class could tell time by looking at the sky. God, it took so long to even learn to tell time. There was always a dirt path of wilting flowers and eggshells in front of the peasants' door. Every peasant nearly on their own.

Even so, you turned a blind eye to your doubt; the gut feeling that said Dokyeom was not Dokyeom. He was way too clean, way too kind, way too naive, unknowing of peasantry and it's ways. It just didn't feel right but there was something about him that also just felt so right. Like a puzzle piece clicking onto you.

“Come with me,” You finally said to Dokyeom, holding out your hand. He hesitantly held it. “while it's early in the morning, you get to see the most beautiful part of the kingdom. Without any townsfolk wandering the streets, it's much easier to admire the architecture and scenery.”

“Because no one will bother you for nothing?” Dokyeom added, walking along slightly behind you, your hands grasping each other.

“That's right. On the bright side though, if you're a lucky loser, you'll get fruit from the kind neighbors.”

You smiled and quickened your walking speed, eventually stopping beside a large tree with slightly yellow and browning branches. With one hand, you pointed to a tall building with a historical look.

“That's the building that my peasant family built,” You said. “Back in the 80s when they were as young as I.”

“What? Shouldn't you be out of the peasant class?” Dokyeom's eyes were slightly enlarged. He gripped your hand tightly.

“Most of the time, no matter what you do, you're still peasant class.” You turned to face Dokyeom after staring at the tall, beautiful, ancient building made by your ancestors. “Back then, my parents, my grandparents, they worked on that building not for money, but for food and clothes and a place to sleep. When the owners died and the building was passed down, they kicked my parents out.”

You looked at Dokyeom in the eye and he could feel you squeeze is hand gently.

“In this pathetic kingdom of Svuentin that they call the best, they overlook our class,” Seokmin could see the anger in your eyes. Resentment. “Because we, no matter what we do, will stay in a peasant class. No matter what we do. You must know how hopeless we are, living like this. Lord, I can't even tell if we're living.”

Seokmin gulped and you let go of his hand.

“I'm used to it though. I'm not going to overthrow the king and his 13 princes. I'm not going to hold a coup d'etat, that's just going to get me killed,” You let out a faint smile and turned back to look at the building. “I'm going to enter the royal examination whenever that comes around again and earn my position in that kingdom. Then, maybe someday, someone will realize the true state we're living in.”

“What kind of state are we living in?” Seokmin asked as you started walking.

You chuckled and turned back to look at him.

“Dokyeom,” The way you were smiling, he couldn't tell what it meant. “Obviously, poverty.”

-

You showed him around like you promised; told him which shops were which. A blacksmith, candy shop, tailor shop, shoe store, the baker's bakery, a farmer's market, and all of the other shops in town.

You took him for a walk in the local park, crossing the stone bridge built over a river filled with koi fish, decorated with lily pads; into a field of flowers and buds, skipping on rocks to pass the river and head back toward the forest. It was the most fun you both had ever had.

You adored Dokyeom's smile. The more you looked at him, the more you wanted to smile just seeing his glittering eyes. Everytime your eyes met, you felt a spark in your chest, a slight burn. Everytime you reached for his hand and held it as you dragged him along, you felt a slight tingle in your stomach.

The way his eyes curved and disappeared as he laughed always cracked you up. It was just something you never saw before that seeing it made you want to see it a million times.

Now, the two of you were partially wet from the splashing river water as you sat on the large rocks that stood in the middle of the water passageway. You two were sitting back to back.

“This was the most fun I ever had,” You confessed. You could hear Dokyeom's short breaths. “I didn't even wish for this but I'm glad that it came. I'm glad I met you, Dokyeom.”

“I think I like you too,” Dokyeom replied innocently. You laughed.

“You like me?”

“What?” Both of you turned your heads over your shoulders and locked eyes.

“You said that you thought you liked me too.”

His ears turned bright pink and he looked away. “I—I don't know. I didn't mean to say that. I just—just wanted to say that I had fun too. I enjoyed it.”

You turned to face down, at the river water that was kicking against your bare feet. “I'm sure the townspeople are up by now.”

Earlier, Dokyeom said he wanted to revisit the town but when it was bustling and busy.

“Why?” You asked.

“I just want to see what this world is like.”

“Dokyeom?” The two of you at that time, were walking in the empty streets. “Where exactly did a baby like you come from?”

Seokmin chuckled, trying to hide his nervousness.

“I mean, after washing away all that dirt, your face is so smooth, and clean,” You paused, which immediately caused Seokmin to as well. You held your hand up to his cheek and poked it softly. “And lord, I have never met a peasant with skin as fair as a prince!”

“My parents—It's just genes.”

You laughed and continued walking.

Seokmin touched his cheek gently, trying to feel the lingering, warm touch. He was disappointed to feel just his soft cheek that would have had your fingerprint on it.

His heart was skipping rope, everytime its feet hit the ground, a burning sensation would echo throughout his entire body.

He just had to stare at you as you walked away with your hands clasped behind your back.

You were so bright, dazzling, and so beautifully shining, not quite as big a sunshine as the sun, but a special, unique, one and only among the many, hidden in the dark; you were a star.

-

When you two arrived at the town, it was, as expected, filled with people. Shops and schools were open and running, people were up and shopping, working and functioning.

Seokmin thought that maybe, there was a chance that the world you described was not such a bad world; that there was a good side that you and him didn't know about.

“No peasant dares to walk these streets so boldly anymore,” You said, walking next to Seokmin rather confidently. “They hide in the shadows, climb on the buildings, they take the smaller streets.”

“Why?”

“Did the peasants in your previous town ever walk casually in the heart of the kingdom?” You asked, nudging his shoulder.

“What if they did?” Seokmin continued walking, making sure your shoulder was glued to his.

“That would be heaven. I don't think they did though, because you're here instead of that amazing town.”

“Well...” Seokmin wanted to say something but he would only be adding a story to the lie. He stopped himself from talking further and fortunately, he heard the stomping of horses. He could recognize that sound from anywhere.

Seokmin quickly took your arm and pulled you aside as the horses and their horsemen came into sight. His heart pounded loudly, filed with nervousness. It was the first time he ever did something without permission.

“What?” You asked.

Seokmin couldn't reply. He just swiftly swept some dirt from the ground and sprinkled it on his face.

“What are you doing?” You were in disbelief at his actions. Now, your doubt couldn't stick low. He was just too suspicious for a peasant. The amount of liking you developed toward him couldn't blind the doubt anymore.

Dokyeom turned to you and he looked scared but also sorry. Your eyes locked for a moment but you couldn't catch what he was trying to convey. He didn't say a word as the clicks of horseshoes on the dirt road silenced all the noise. The clattering of people moving to the side caused the dirt to fog up, bringing an orangish cloud in the air.

“This is from the royal family of Svuentin,” Seokmin recognized the voice. It was his eldest brother, Seungcheol, the best military leader. “I am first prince, Seungcheol. This morning, we have discovered that my eighth brother, Seokmin, has fled the kingdom. For anyone who finds him, we will reward a large amount of goods. The conditions are written on these flyers.”

Seungcheol took out a stack of papers and threw them into the air. He watched as they swayed while falling down. Seokmin didn't expect anyone to pick them up but was taken aback when people began grasping the papers aggressively.

One fell onto your hand as well.

There was a photo on the flyer in black and white but you knew that face way too well. The smooth skin, the sparkling eyes, the lips, the cheekbones, it was the very face you had spent the previous night and all morning with.

You clenched the paper and looked up at Dokyeom, who was now Seokmin.

Seokmin closed his eyes and let out a breath. When the horses and his brother left and the crowds dispersed, he grabbed your wrist and dashed. He didn't know where he was going but he knew he had to run.

Eventually, you took lead in the running, and the two of you arrived at the shack. It was empty still. The forest was rather quiet, not a single chirp of a bird.

“You aren't Dokyeom,” You finally said after catching your breath, staring at Seokmin. “You are no peasant.”

“I know, I know,” Seokmin said, feeling guilty for all the lies he told that helped him get a little closer to you. “I lied about everything, my name, where I slept before I found you, my family, where I came from, everything. I'm sorry.”

“You were a prince who went missing,” You scoffed. “Why did you leave with all that luxury to come down here, a pit of hell?”

“I wanted to see the world.”

“Don't tell me you came here dressed as a peasant to fix things.”

Your tone was cold and sharp. Seokmin knew that you were feeling nothing but betrayal. After all that bonding, you probably thought that you found someone like you, only for him to be someone else.

“I never get to see the world and what it's like despite being a prince,” Seokmin said. Your eyes were holding each other's gaze. “I'm nothing but a submissive and dumb pushover prince, okay? I just do things my dad tells me to do and I can't help it. You know that guy earlier on the horse? He's my brother and I want so bad to be like him, but I can't, it's not me.”

“Then what, what are you? Are you going to say Dokyeom when you're Seokmin? Does the real you want to be a poor person so that you could experience the real world?”

Seokmin sighed, shaking his head slightly as he spoke. “I know I shouldn't have lied, I know you're upset... I didn't want to—I didn't expect to end up this way, okay? It was just—supposed to be a small adventure outdoors. I didn't mean—I didn't intend to sleep in this shack but because of you—no, because I was with you, and I wanted to know you, I wanted to stay.”

You stayed silent as you looked at him, still clenching the flyer. Seokmin continued looking at you in the eyes. He was genuine. Those eyes surely could talk.

The eye contact was fierce and you both just stared at each other's eyes, almost like it was a competition, until Seokmin gave in. His eyes closed as his hand gently grabbed your back, pulling you to his chest. He whispered a quiet apology and held you for a while as you stayed in his arms.

“You turn me in,” Seokmin finally said, breaking the silence in the forest.

“What?” Your voice was breathy as your hands hesitated to hold his waist. His heart was pounding so quickly.

“You, bring me to the palace,” Seokmin explained, holding you tighter. You could feel his hands brushing your back.

“So that you get the reward.”

You pushed him away instantly and shook your head furiously. The wish you made to that star could come true right then and here. Gold could change your life forever, you could build a house, you could have more than three pairs of clothing, you could buy or make yourself food, you could learn.

“Just go into that palace,” You were tempted to say, ‘and turn yourself in!’

“That's all I have to do, right?” You continued, sighing. Something inside you made the thought of receiving money feel not good, but it wasn't a terrible, disgusting, feeling either. Was it pride? Even so, what pride did a peasant have?

“That's all I have to do,” you repeated to yourself, unable to look at Seokmin in the eyes.

Your wish could come true and that was all you could think about as your fists clenched, not knowing what you were angry at.

It must have been the star that granted you this opportunity.

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

© serenityseventeen

time finished: 1/7/22

[thefirstknife]

The Thread Unfurls Against the Clocks: Saint-14 and how we saved him

Hello. It's time. I already did one summary of how we saved Saint, but I want to go even more in-depth because I later realised that so much of this is unavailable and also happened so long ago that most people don't even know where to look for it and what to look for. I also want to address all the adjacent lore like the stuff about the Sundial and also how it all relates to the current plot.

Finally, I want this to serve as an explanation that there's something very weird going on and that the Saint we have is the real Saint. I've seen people already super resigned after this week's story, simply accepting that there was a reveal that he is truly the "wrong" Saint. I want to analyse all we have on Saint in-depth and focus on how we saved him to show the level of detail involved because I think it's important to understand things in the episode.

Obviously, really compelling lore changes can happen and work out, but in this case I'm just not feeling it, for various reasons. We'll see, but I still think this is worth putting together and that we have plenty of indications that we saved him "correctly" so to speak.

Saint is a unanimously beloved character and one that is so closely linked to our player character as well. The setup for his return was established so long ago and was kept consistent the entire time. I feel like the stuff in Echoes is almost like a culmination of it all, as well as a reminder about what we've done. We'll suffer for a bit for sure but there is no doubt in my mind that Saint will come from this safe and healed. No matter what ends up being revealed, I believe he will be fine.

Contents! Long post under. Spoilers for Echoes Act 2, mostly just in the Echoes section.

Intro

Curse of Osiris quest

Season of Dawn

What's up with the Sundial?

Echoes

Intro

I'm not sure how familiar people are with the full scope of Saint-14, but he's been a character since the beginning. We didn't know much about him at all; the first mention was in vanilla D1 in this grimoire about the Darkness, listing what various characters think about it. Saint's thoughts:

Saint-14's Position argues that the Darkness was an invading armada, an alien force of incredible - but tangible - power. Some adherents believe that this armada sprang from species rejected or discarded by the Traveler for their sins.

All things considered, he wasn't that far off! Really cool detail, but this lore was referenced in TFS, in the lore book Chirality, and especially Saint's bit:

* Saint-14's Position is the most eminently practical of the bunch, no matter how the man himself protests that such an obvious facet of the truth doesn't require a formal philosophical stance to be named for him.

There's 10 years separating these lore pieces! But they're still being referenced because there are some incredible nerds writing this.

This doesn't tell us much about Saint, besides that he's thinking in very practical terms. He views the Darkness as something that can be fought back. Note that at the start we don't know anything else about him, not even if he's a Guardian. In House of Wolves, we get this lore where the author (the Speaker) is going off about Osiris. We get a little piece about Saint; Saint-14 suggested that Osiris should become Vanguard Commander and also vouched for Osiris. This was the first piece of info that these two are familiar with each other. How far we've come since!

After that, we get his helmet as an exotic in The Taken King (though it has no lore other than the flavour text) and a little bit of insight into him with the first proper lore tab that actually features him as a character. It shows his iconic headbutt and ends with him deciding to follow Osiris to Mercury. A few little details are mentioned in flavour text on the following items, mostly quotes about or from Saint: 1, 2, 3, 4. Number 3 is interesting:

"Stand with your back to the Wall, and not even the Darkness itself will move you." —Saint-14

Remember that!

There's a few more in Rise of Iron, again, just flavour text. He's really funny here, and being his usual heroic self here. That's it for his stuff in D1. Saint-14 was some sort of historic figure, he was a Titan, he fought in historic battles, he fought against the Eliksni and he had some sort of connection with the Speaker and Osiris. He was a practical man, a warrior and a protector.

He wasn't really a full character or anything and only had a few quotes and one lore tab where he actually does something. But the stage was set! He was clearly a character they wanted to explore and they did, in Curse of Osiris.

Curse of Osiris quest

Curse of Osiris returned his helmet as an exotic item and immediately gave us hints about the expansion of Saint-14's character and where they're leading him. The lore tab on the exotic is a conversation between Cayde-6 and Lord Shaxx where Cayde-6 insists that Saint is not dead, while Shaxx is just kind of resigned to it. Cayde also notes that Saint was a "weirdo:"

C6: No one ever put down a Kell faster than he could. But man, he was a real weirdo. SX: Eccentricity was his strength. C6: Talking about the Speaker like you're related to him is eccentric. Claiming he's seen the future, that he fought Six Fronts fueled on the idea that some Guardian savior is coming? That's insane.

Wait a minute. Saint-14 claimed he's seen the future and that he believed in "some Guardian savior"? What's that about? Wink wink. Nudge nudge. To make things even more obvious, the remaining conversation is... about the Young Wolf:

SX: Belief is a hell of a thing. C6: Sure, yeah. One Guardian's going to fix everything. Kick Crota off the Moon. Make it look like us Vanguard know our head from our hindquarters. Hey, where are you going? SX: One of the new recruits from Old Russia I've had my eye on—entering the Crucible for the first time. C6: Hey, maybe they're the one. We'll call 'em Crota's End.

Maybe Cayde should've started making prophecies too! But yeah. This was the first proper hint about what they cooked up for Saint's story. Saint has apparently seen the future and believed in a "Guardian savior" and he fought for the City fuelled by this belief. Very interesting! To make things weirder, there's Saint-14's Gray Pigeon which also features some strange lore at the end where Saint addresses an unknown person:

To my inspiration. Your final gift to me I now send back to you. It will be good to see you again.

This was wild to read at the time because it clearly references something that we don't know about, but that's incredibly important to Saint. The theory was that he might be talking to us, the Young Wolf, but how?

That's where the quest comes in. Curse famously didn't have a lot of content, but it did have the post-campaign quest with Lost Prophecies. They were a set of quests where we essentially had to collect items to transform "prophecy tablets" into weapons in the Infinite Forge which was a sort of interactable area in the Lighthouse on Mercury:

There were a total of 11 of these, with the final one being to acquire the Perfect Paradox. Each weapon came with a prophecy in the flavour text and a lore tab. The final one however, Perfect Paradox, triggered a whole separate quest in two parts. In part one, we discover an old Vanguard comm signal coming from the Forest which we follow and analyse to discover that the signal is from Saint-14.

Detecting traces of familiar Light up here. Wait… Saint-14? He's been missing for decades. Saint was one of the greatest Titans who ever lived. Hero of Six Fronts. All that power and he just… vanished. The City's still looking for him.

This quest also features this conversation from Osiris and Sagira:

Osiris: If Saint-14 is lost in the Infinite Forest, it's because he came here to find us. Sagira: You can't blame yourself for every missing Guardian, Osiris. Osiris: For him I can.

If you're lucky (or unlucky, depending on how many emotions this gives you), you can hear this line from Sagira in Presage. This is where it comes from!

The quest is kinda set up in a way to make you think we'll actually be saving Saint here. We finally found his comm signal and it's leading us into the Forest. He's clearly affected the Vex and the Forest with his Light and he's fighting back. Osiris gets involved and urges us to find him. The whole thing feels like we're doing what we usually do; find a problem and fix it.

Part two of the quest continues in a similar vein. The quest is called "Not even the Darkness," btw. Remember that quote from Saint from The Taken King? Yeah. Anyway, we go back to following the trace leading us to Saint, into the Infinite Forest, this time into a simulated future. There, the Vex get alerted and summon a big Minotaur; Hagios, Reverent Mind (whose name means "sacred" in Greek, so essentially... Saint). We kill the Minotaur and then the area behind it opens; it appears to have been guarding it.

When it opens, we're treated to a bittersweet sight:

The area is beautiful, but it's a tomb. Saint-14's body is laid out like this in a pillar of light, surrounded by piles and piles of dead Vex. The Vex fought him for an unknown amount of time and they ended up respecting him; enough to create a tomb and seal his body and set a whole Vex mind to guard it, and apparently, revere it. Despite how hopeful we've been about saving him, he is dead.

As we approach his body, we take the remains of his personal weapon. Back at the Lighthouse, we use these remains and the prophecy to craft the weapon as it was; Perfect Paradox shotgun. The prophecy attached to it:

A tale that's different from the rest: the thread unfurls against the clocks. The one the Speaker loved the best must have a perfect paradox.

The prophecy is from Osiris, of course, which means that at some point when he was making them, he already knew about the strange fate of Saint-14. Not that he is dead; Osiris hoped to find him in the Forest. But his prophecy talks about time travel and a paradox. In the lore tab itself, Saint attached a letter to the gun in which he once again addresses a mysterious person. This person is now definitively identified as us:

All I have left is this weapon. The Cryptarchs say you crafted it yourself, built it out of scraps and Light and sheer will, inside the Infinite Forge. I'll make sure it finds its way back to you.

Well that's correct. We crafted the weapon in the Infinite Forge. But we only did so after recovering its remains from Saint's body, so how could he have had the gun in the first place? Almost like... there's some sort of a time travel paradox involved. This was naturally bizarre at the time; we had nothing else on Saint or any of this during this quest, just these vague baffling hints that there's more to the story. Especially since it involves our character; Saint repeatedly talks as if he had already met us. He says so in the letter as well:

I mourn that I will never reach the heights you have. To me, you represent everything a Guardian can become. Yours is a thriving City. So different from mine. My whole fourteenth life I fought to make my City yours. I never finished.

He knows that our City is thriving and that we are "everything a Guardian can become." But we've never seen him before. This was really confusing and there was also not even a promise that it would be resolved. But it felt like something that they cared about deeply.

It would take 3 years until we got the resolution.

Season of Dawn

This is a big one in general because they really wanted to be as attentive to all details as possible. Even before the season started, they released several weblore pieces to remind us of Saint and bring up some important information.

The first one was The Accolade, about Saint's past and heroic deeds revolving around saving people. The weblore focuses on explaining what his "accolades" are; aka his purple ribbons on his armour and ship. They're gifts from people he saved; tokens of appreciation that turned into a type of a ritual with Saint. If you're saved by Saint, you have to give him something purple and he will wear it with him and remember your name. It ends with Osiris shortly after we found Saint's grave. Osiris went to see it for himself, to check, to make sure. He also laments that he never asked about the ribbons.

The next one is a glimpse into the past, a conversation between Osiris and Saint as Saint hands him the Vanguard Commander title. It's a good look into how that all happened, as well as the differences in approach and beliefs between Osiris and Saint.

And then they released The Sundial weblore (TW for suicide if you're reading the full weblore. One of his Echoes does not have a good time). Osiris is found on Mercury with a machine he built, putting finishing touches on it. It's called the Sundial. Osiris built it in response to Saint being dead, the implication very much being that he intends to use some form of time travel or some other time shenanigans to change the outcome and save him. Osiris never recovered from learning that he's dead and from seeing his dead body in the tomb. The design is Sagira's, and he's also helped by Drifter, who shows up to check the math. I'll go more into the Sundial later.

Osiris wraps up his work on it and turns it on. He splits into his Echoes and enters the machine to start searching through Saint's timeline on Mercury with the intent to find the right moment with the right Saint to save him; he is specifically looking for the moment when they drain his Light.

Osiris’s Echoes scour Saint-14’s timeline on Mercury. But the corridors of time refuse to give way to the moment they need: Saint and the Martyr Mind in the depths of the Infinite Forest. The Echoes work tirelessly for weeks, then months in the space between moments. In desperation, he splits the dozen copies into many thousands more as the work continues fruitlessly.

Osiris experiences what the kids these days call "epic fail."

None of the Echoes ever approaches a Saint. They never find the right one.

Despite all the work put into this machine and all of his knowledge and skill, Osiris doesn't manage to use the Sundial successfully. He never finds the right moment and he never saves him. It's worth noting that when Osiris used thousands of his Echoes, he experienced the time and life of every single one. But for Osiris outside the Sundial, it's only been a few moments. In those few moments, he essentially lived thousands of lifetimes. And died thousands of times. I need people to understand the amount of effort he put into this and what kind of an emotional toll it had.

Completely defeated, he gives up and hides the Sundial. He moves on with his life, doing what he always does, until stuff suddenly changes, which is explored in the next weblore: Actions of Mutual Friends. Us killing the Undying Mind in the season before Dawn changed everything, for the Vex and everyone else. We essentially created a point of divergence. The Vex suddenly had to change their projections of the future; Osiris noticed this and got very concerned.

While he wasn't looking, his Sundial was found, by Psion sisters. They figure out the potential of the Sundial and work to reactivate it, which they succeed in. The Red Legion descends on Mercury, looking to use the Sundial to essentially rewrite the course of the Red War and win.

Osiris finds out and goes to Ikora, to the City, to ask for help. This is the topic of the next weblore: Desperate Times. Osiris defends his choice to make the Sundial to save Saint, despite everybody else basically trying to explain to him that the universe might implode because of it.

This is a lot of setup, but it's necessary. It all leads into what happens in the season and what the season revolves around; saving Saint. It wasn't even a secret, as they very clearly showed it right away in the trailer (best trailer they've ever done). The seasonal gameplay revolved around us using the Sundial to defeat the Red Legion and stop them from trying to figure out how to essentially change the course of history. We had to fight three different Psion bosses, one of each of the sisters, until the end, when the three of them joined together into a single Psion entity for us to defeat.

As we were using the Sundial for this, Osiris also told us about what he made it for originally. He explains a little bit about it and about his failure to succeed, then warns us against using it for ourselves, but doesn't stop us.

I told you before - I tried to save Saint-14. I bent the rules of time using a prototype of the Sundial. It allowed me to walk the corridors of time here on Mercury. But I failed. I never found Saint's final moment against the Vex. I encountered younger versions from his first mission to Mercury, among others. But none were the right Saint. The prototype Sundial still exists, accessible off the main deck. And it can still travel through Saint's personal timeline on this planet. But venture there at your own peril. He cannot be saved. I have walked every permutation of those corridors with a hundred thousand of my Echoes and found nothing. Saint-14 is lost.

Despite this, we make the attempt and then the first part of the quest starts. When we use it, the Sundial reacts. It reacts specifically to the Perfect Paradox:

The Shotgun you crafted in the Infinite Forge is reacting to the Sundial! An onboard transponder is broadcasting coordinates: a path through the Sundial, crossing two time periods. The prophecy blueprint you used to create the Perfect Paradox must have included this broadcast. If you can open up the initial chamber, I can align us to the first time period the broadcast is referencing.

The two time periods are two points in time where it's relevant that we meed with Saint. The first one is in the Dark Age, when he came to Mercury with civilians in an attempt to reclaim the planet and help the struggling population of Earth with resources and possibly old Golden Age technologies. We connect to Saint via comms. He is devastated and demoralised. He failed to protect his people and he's also under siege by the Eliksni and is more or less resigned to dying. Lucky for him, we get there in time to help him out of this situation.

After the battle, we talk to him. Our Ghost hesitates a little but then decides to do it anyway; he shows Saint the projection of the Last City from the future, to prove to him that the everything will be fine if he continues to fight and stays hopeful. We also give him the Perfect Paradox, to help him fight. The loop is set! This gun was crafted in the future and was brought to the past. In time, Saint will die with it and we will pick up its remains from his body, allowing us to craft it in the first place.

Saint-14: What is this? Ghost: The Perfect Paradox. Built by my Guardian out of spare parts and Light and sheer will to aid you.

More importantly, this is the moment that Saint spoke of to other people that made him seem crazy. As we've seen in lore from years before, Saint kept saying that he saw a thriving City and that there's some sort of Guardian savior coming and that he's seen this future. He also wrote in that letter how we gave him the shotgun and how we saved him. This part of the quest is constructed around this lore. This moment is what Saint remembered and talked about. We saved him and invigorated his will to keep going. This is why he is the way he is.

We part ways and leave the Sundial. Ghost immediately goes to check if we messed anything up and to let us know that there's one more point in time to go to:

Okay, let's check the Tower databases to make sure we didn't just wreck the entire timeline. Queuing "Saint-14"… Records state he was a former Commander of the Tower. He vanished on a final mission to Mercury in search of the exiled Warlock Osiris. Well, those are the big beats. Timeline intact. Good job, Saint. But our trip's not over. That broadcast I picked off the Perfect Paradox marked one more set of coordinates within the Sundial.

The second part of the quest started a bit later, but it doesn't waste any time once it does. We're immediately linked up to the other point in time that Perfect Paradox reacted to and we're back in simulated future, in the same area where back in Curse we fought Hagios who guarded the entry to Saint's tomb. Except now, we find Saint who has just had his Light drained from him by another Vex mind; Agioktis, Martyr Mind (note that the name is more or less in the same vein as "hagios," aka "sacred," dedicated to Saint). This is the moment Osiris was looking for, but couldn't find it, because he didn't have the Perfect Paradox.

This is the Vex mind they built to destroy Saint and we find him as his Light has already been taken. But Saint is still eager to fight and greets us happily. Unfortunately Saint is then restrained, the Vex doing everything in their power to kill him. However, this time he's not alone. We're there and we fight in his stead. We manage to piss off the Martyr Mind enough for it to now move to restrain us, which frees Saint, returning his Light to him as well. Saint then delivers the final blow to the Martyr Mind which frees us!

Saint-14: It's been a long time, my friends. I've chased your memory for centuries. You should go now. Those who could kill me are dead. You've made sure of that. Ghost: And what if the Vex take your Light again? Saint-14: Impossible. It cost them everything to build the Martyr Mind. When you crushed it, they were doomed. Ghost: You want us to leave you? You'll be stuck here for years. Saint-14: You've both done plenty. Just open the Infinite Forest gate for me. I'll meet you the long way around, at the entrance. Saint-14: What's a few more years of fighting Vex?

Saint decides to stay in the Forest and wait until we open it from the outside for him, in the future. This is how he leaves in the right time, instead of too early for his timeline, so nothing else is really affected. He waits it out and then exits the Forest at the time of Season of Dawn. This gives us one of the shortest but also the best cutscenes ever. As a note, in the cutscene, when Saint leaves, the Forest gate looks new, like from Mercury's past. This is because of the Sundial's effects on the surface of Mercury at the time, splitting the surface through time, so the Forest gate looked like it's from the past, but it's not. It's present day Mercury.

When we report this to Osiris, to say that he's amazed would be an understatement. I often quoted this from him, especially when people were being weird about Osiris and claiming he doesn't like us or whatever:

In his youth, he talked often about the Guardian who inspired him. I should have guessed it would be you.

We've done the impossible. Literally. The quest is called "Impossible Task." Osiris did everything and he couldn't do it and he lost hope that it would be done. But we did it, because we created the time loop; a connection with Saint that allowed us to use the Sundial in a way Osiris could not.

Saint has been saved! After this, he settled in the Tower. He had a series of minor quests and errands, the best one being the quest for the Devil's Ruin exotic which featured a really long and funny conversation between Saint and Shaxx. Another one is obviously the Corridors of Time quest which is genuinely cannot be compared to anything else as it was a community puzzle of epic proportions. An article that showcases just a little bit of how bonkers it was.

The important part of it is that the culmination of the quest featured us finding our own grave and Saint narrating a eulogy for us. This is important to us now for two reasons: 1) on our grave was a sword, a sword we received as an actual item in TFS, directly from the Traveler to fight the Witness 2) it's possibly a different timeline. The second one is unclear because we simply can't know when we die, but the eulogy specifies that the sword was shattered in the final confrontation where we died. Our current sword is chipped, and it wasn't when we originally got it in the campaign. So either this is a different timeline where it didn't shatter or this isn't that confrontation when we die and it will shatter at some other point in the future.

In this post I also noted how the music that plays in our grave scene and the music that played in TFS when we get the sword is the same. A very clear and deliberate choice. This is a very cool link to Season of Dawn that they brought back over 4 years later.

With the Corridors of Time puzzle ending and the Corridors closing, that concluded the Saint stuff. He was finally saved and he could rest in the Tower! And we know everything that has happened since.

Okay. So...

What's up with the Sundial?

We don't know! But I want to get into it because it's one of those things that they made sure to hint about, without fully explaining it so obviously every weird nerd online (me) wants to figure it out.

Back in The Sundial weblore, there are some peculiar and never explained details about the Sundial that have been kinda concerning and just intriguing to think about. There are a few lines essentially saying that whatever is at its core, it's not good. First is Sagira's:

“That work was theoretical! If the Vanguard find out what you did to build it—“

What did he do to build it? No clue. The infamous core is described only as:

He turned to look at the fluctuating glow of the exposed chronometric core.

When the Drifter shows up, he immediately reacts to this, fairly negatively which makes things more ominous since Drifter tangles with a lot of weird and bad stuff himself. So if he's disturbed about this...:

Drifter walked to the central spire and put his ear up against it. “This core…” he said, leaning close. His eyes darted back to Osiris. “It’s whispering.” Osiris’s expression didn’t change; his arms didn’t uncross. “We’ll seal the core away. I understand the ramifications.” “Good luck keeping that contained. Not something I would bargain with, hotshot.”

The core "whispers." Osiris understands the ramifications. They're both so frustratingly vague so the only thing we're left with is this ominous vibe of something bad being at the center of the Sundial.

This whispering, alongside a few other concerning descriptions and implications of the Sundial is mentioned in yet another weblore that I only briefly mentioned earlier because it wasn't relevant to Saint stuff; Sisters. It's about the Psions finding the machine.

The Psions could somehow feel the Sundial. Or perhaps just the effects it had on time on Mercury, even while it was powered down and hidden.

“Small disturbances,” said oldest Ozletc, the wisest. “Little currents in this timeline. Can you see them, sister?” “I can taste them,” said second-born Tazaroc, the hungriest of her sisters. “I can feel the edges.” Third-born Niruul, the quietest among them, reached her hand out to test the air. “As can I,” said she. “And something else. The source is disguised. The technology is Human, but refined. Surprisingly so.”

They also note the whispering, as well as its potential:

A strange device shimmered into existence around them. They looked up the length of an enormous, golden spire. “It whispers,” said Tazaroc. “Then block your ears,” said Ozletc. “Do you see the potential in this?” “Chaos,” said Niruul. “No,” said Ozletc. “Opportunity. See how it tugs at the fabric of our time? Can you see the seams?”

They also make the strange comparison to the OXA:

“It is so clear,” said Niruul, reverent. “An unobstructed glimpse into what was and what will be.” “Not the troubled ramblings of a mad thing, like the OXA,” said Tazaroc.

The Sundial offered something more and better than the OXA ever could, implying, perhaps, that these machines have something in common; possibly something beyond simply Vex technology. My insanity about this has been going on for a long time and also helped with the TFS CE lore. A bit of a tangent, but also possibly related, depending on what the core is.

Furthermore, Osiris refused to tell Saint about details of the Sundial, including remaining vague about its core in this weblore:

[u.2:13] One is a manifestation of Light. The other… reserved for Taken Kings. Better suited for traversing the Sundial because of what lies at its core. [u.1:14] One day you’ll have to tell me exactly what you and the Guardian did to bring me back. [u.2:14] We did what we had to. Trust me.

So what is it? Well, we know:

It whispers (very obvious and easily detected, both by Drifter and the Psions)

It's something bad (Drifter's reaction to it is uncharacteristic for a man who tangles with the Taken for a living and deals with strange dangerous artifacts all the time)

Osiris' Echoes are better suited for the Sundial because of its core, and Echoes are something "reserved for Taken Kings." Bizarre way of saying it to avoid explaining it

Similar to the OXA, and possibly any other time/prediction machines based on Vex tech (because the OXA itself is confirmed to be more or less the same as the FWC Device, for example)

To recharge it, we needed to feed it Light. This is particularly concerning with what Osiris says about it: "The Sundial is my greatest creation and my greatest regret. What I had to do to forge it I can never take back. As a result, it has components that consume Light. And if you're serious about operating it again, you'll need to feed it. Nothing is free. Ever."

What this points to, to me at least, is Darkness. The core is a Darkness artifact of some sort, merged with Vex tech. This only gained more proof to me with all the new lore about the Darkness and how it governs the mind and memory, especially when the Vex are involved. To the Vex, the future is memory. Merging Darkness artifacts with the Vex might be able to create dangerous time travel machines or machines that displace consciousness through time and timelines, like the OXA and the Device, allowing the user to "predict."

To make things even more convoluted (and me more insane), there's an almost perfect explanation for what this artifact might be. So perfect that I feel like it's too good to be true, tbh. It's a Nezarec relic. I will now list everything that connects this:

It would explain the Darkness artifact. Nezarec's relics were full of Darkness and were being used by utilising that Darkness

Drifter's involvement and experience with it. Hell, the Drifter may have even provided this relic to Osiris, since he had one and did not particularly enjoy having it, which was detailed in Lightfall when they showed us how he got it. Plunder was also rich on this, showing us that the Drifter immediately recognised the relics and understood what they were.

Whispering. Darkness in general has a whispering thing; the Veiled statues, the Witness, the old stories about Dredgen Yor, there's a lot of whispering going on here. But it's really super connected to Nezarec. His relics were whispering to us in the H.E.L.M.. The glaive? Nezarec's Whisper. Another disciple also called him a "whispering Nightmare." All of Root of Nightmares armour lore has it as well, with Nezarec tormenting his victims with whispers; for example here, and here, and maybe even here. I could go on. He's the whisper guy. Literally, Nimbus called him Mr. Whispers.

Psions. The Psion sisters found and reactivated the Sundial... Somehow. They especially were able to almost instinctively locate it despite Osiris hiding it well enough. The Psions also needed quite a lot of time to activate it again and admired the complexity of the encryption, despite it being human, so we can't really say that they found it easily because Osiris' did a poor job of hiding it. Were they drawn to it? Were they drawn to it because of its core? Psions are inherently linked to Nezarec. It's been confirmed back in Lightfall, but also curiously mentioned again in TFS with the Lost Ghosts quest (timestamped here). I'm definitely hoping for some Psion content in the future but this is fairly interesting in this context. Season of Dawn was really the only proper Psion-focused storyline.

Osiris' coma. His coma appears to have been somehow paracausal. At least strange! The scans were showing that he has "no residual activity" in his brain, despite us having lore from his POV showing us that he had a very vivid and visceral activity. He was able to feel some external stimuli, but was mostly drifting through strange visions, seemingly hopping between his... Reflections. Or possibly Echoes. His final thoughts here are also of the Sundial; as if his mind was somehow stuck in there, or lost, trying to find his way out of it. This could just be a consequence of his memories constructing something for him to experience so obviously it's just cycling through what he knows, but...

Waking Osiris up from his coma happens with the use of Nezarec's relics. An important point to note here is that this wasn't so much about it being Nezarec's relics; it had more to do with the inherent Darkness they consist of and Darkness can help the mind and consciousness move or awaken. However, given all of this and given his POV from the coma and the possibility that his mind might have been stuck somewhere with his Echoes in the Sundial, if the Sundial's core is a Nezarec relic, then a Nezarec relic had more chance to bring him back. It's such a perfect connection that I feel insane thinking about it and it feels like I'm constructing a fanfic, but also. I think it's worth considering. Cutscene of him waking up + article from Bungie that details on the whole idea of waking him up with Darkness and why that's important for understanding Darkness.

I have to mention the other theory, especially in comparison with all the above to try and illustrate why it never made sense to me and that is the popular theory that the core of the Sundial is an Ahamkara bone and that the Sundial worked on wish magic.

I'm not quite sure why this was even a theory to be honest. Even back in the day of Dawn, this never really resonated with me because it seems that the only reason this was a theory was Drifter saying "not something I would bargain with" and... Possibly whispers? Obviously a lot of things can whisper, and Ahamkara have been also mentioned doing so, but I don't find this significant to Ahamkara enough for identification just through that. I also don't think that one mention of the word "bargain" is enough either. Many have bargained with Darkness too. There's simply an overlap between Darkness and Ahamkara here, but there are also other pieces that are more closely linked to Darkness like eating Light. We could go even further, if we're considering Ahamkara; we could also consider Worm Gods, for example. The point is that several things can fit here, but I feel like there's overall more things pointing at Darkness.

What gets me the most is that they alluded to this in Season of the Wish, in what seems fairly obvious as disproving this theory to me. Riven and Osiris talk:

Riven: Isn’t it unfortunate your City hunted down all of my kind, Osiris? You might have wished for Saint-14’s return from the Forest. Osiris: And have him trade the Vex’s torment for yours? Riven: Perhaps you simply didn’t want him back badly enough to pay the price. Osiris: Save the bait for someone naïve enough to take it.

I talked about this earlier, but there's several layers of why the moment I heard this, it sounded like it's here to disprove Osiris using an Ahamkara. First, Ahamkara wish magic would be felt by Riven. If Osiris put an Ahamkara into the Sundial, then he did use wish magic and she would know about it. In that case she would not have said this; perhaps she would've teased him about using her powers to save Saint, but that would be a completely different sentence.

Second, Osiris is well aware and wary of wish magic. He knows that had he done so, he would've probably put some form of torment (wish magic backfire) on Saint. This, to me, indicates that not only did he not do this, he didn't even consider it as an option.

Third, if Osiris had an Ahamkara bone and was considering to use it, he could've just done so without building the Sundial. Why bother with the machine if you can just instantly make a wish and the wish doing exactly as you want? Obviously with a caveat, but still. It would've worked right away. Perhaps the Sundial was an attempt to contain the backfire, mixing wish magic with Vex tech to try and prevent the whole thing from going backwards, but even then; Osiris knew there are possible consquences.

And fourth, even if he did all that, it just didn't work, which would be quite uncharacteristic for wish magic. It's paracausal; it should override any Vex tech in the Sundial. If he made a wish, he should ask for a refund! The Sundial worked only because of the paracausal loop we created with the Perfect Paradox and it had nothing to do with anyone's wishes; definitely not ours.

One interesting thing for this theory is the way they said how similar wishing and simulations are. It happened in Wish and now again in Echoes. Here's a freebie for the Ahamkara theory enthusiasts.

Personally though, I simply feel like there's much more connecting and sensible explanation with it being a Darkness relic, rather than Ahamkara.

HOWEVER. The truth is that we simply don't know. I am personally more into it being Darkness (and Nezzy specifically), but I could be wrong and the Ahamkara theory could be proven correct somehow. Hell, it could be something completely different. It could also be nothing; as in, we will never know because they won't tell us because it doesn't matter.

And technically, it doesn't! Nothing really changes if this doesn't get answered. I want that to be clear. This isn't some sort of lore breaking detail. But you know. The nerds would love to know. I really wanted to get into this now that we've had a resurgence in interest about Saint and how we saved him.

Echoes

Okay, so why this monster of an essay? Well, because Echoes revolves around Saint and the Conductor trying to convince him that he's the wrong Saint. That Osiris acted out of grief and pulled a random Saint from the timelines, that he's simply satisfied with what he got because he couldn't get his original Saint because that Saint died.

Saint is convinced in this; that he's some sort of an aberration in the timeline, a simulation or a copy or just the wrong Saint from the wrong timeline. Even an error that must be corrected.

And I simply think that people are too quick to jump to the conclusion that this is the story being told, especially because of the radio message this week where we're shown that Saint and Osiris suddenly have different memories. But I feel like people have already forgotten the other radio message, from week 1. You know, the one where Saint and Osiris talk about their memories and the memories match perfectly:

Saint-14: Osiris. Do you remember when we knew? Osiris: Knew what? Saint-14: That we were meant to be together. There was one moment... though, it took us time to get to it. Oh, but our Hunter Vanguard, so smart, Tallulah... she knew before we did. All our little squabbles and bickering. She saw it first. Osiris: it, uh — ah, well, I was — obtuse. Stubborn. I couldn't recognize my own emotions. Then, Tallulah told me to.. "Be serious". Saint-14: Haha! I remember. So yes, she told me later. Was good laugh. Osiris: Well, I'm glad you found it so amusing. Saint-14: Who could not look back and smile? And I remember your smile, then. So knowing, and so full of our future together. Osiris: What brought these memories on? Saint-14: Hmm. I think about others who will have those same moments now that they know they will a future free from the Black Fleet. Now they have a chance to find love and be happy, like us. We can look behind, but also forward. We cannot see what is coming, but we know it is good. Osiris: You're certain? Saint-14: About us? Yes. Since the beginning. Now, and always.

We have this memory as a lore tab as well. I think this was given to us deliberately, to show us that Saint and Osiris have identical memories and that Saint's memories were never in question and that their history is perfectly aligned... Until he got yoked. Something changed when he got yoked, not when he was saved. This is a new development, which tells me that the Conductor did something to him, rather than Osiris saving the wrong Saint. Because until now, this was never a problem. Saint never had discrepancies in his memories before, with anyone he ever interacted with.

If we take a look at the whole story of how he was returned, it's beyond clear that Osiris was very fixated on saving his Saint, not a random one, and that we went to great lengths to do just that. We only ever interacted with one Saint, the same one, and we linked each other with the Perfect Paradox. It cannot be any other Saint, even with the existence of other timelines. This Saint and this Perfect Paradox are ours, from our timeline, the originals.

However, other timelines do exist. And some entities can access them. The Vex are obviously first on the list. Characters like Elsie and Osiris have also seen them. And clearly, the Conductor should be capable of this as well. It's beyond clear now that the Conductor is Maya Sundaresh. Maya, who was simulated 227 times by the Vex and had those 227 copies of her wandering the Vex network and different timelines.

If the Conductor knows where to look and how, she could see these timelines, including these other Saints, and she could've fed Saint false information while he was yoked. Implanting memories of other Saints perhaps, or something similar.

I know a lot of people weren't there for Dawn, let alone Curse. There's a lot of information about Saint here and a lot of really interesting clues from the past about what's happening now. It's also really interesting how many little details have been transferred through the story over time, showing that this is a plotline they care about very much and want to make sure doesn't get messed up.

There's probably a lot more stuff we could get into for speculation and explanations because there's still more stuff that plays a role in this. The Infinite Forest is a big one, and I suspect the Perfect Paradox is as well, as we're likely to get it next week or the week after as part of the story. Because it should be relevant to the story! It's an inherent part of Saint's story and why he's with us now in the first place.

So what's really going on? We're not entirely sure yet, but assuming that the Conductor is correct and that her messing with Saint is revealing something about Saint's legitimacy is I believe wrong. I think she's using him as an experiment and that she's messing with him, and by extension, with us as well. There's no way that we've had a "wrong" Saint this whole time and that nobody ever had any issues with him. That nobody had any discrepancies between memories with him. Not Osiris, not Ikora, not Shaxx, not Saladin, not Zavala or anyone else Saint interacted with since he's been back. As I mentioned, literally the first radio message shows us Saint and Osiris with matching memories.

It only started after he was yoked. Which means that the yoke and the Conductor did something to him, possibly shown him some other timelines or fed him false information.

Can't wait to see where this is going. I'm not sure how much this Act will cover and if we'll get a resolution to this right now or if it will stretch to Act 3, though if it doesn't get stretched, then I wonder what will the draw of Act 3 even be. Possibly just dealing with the Conductor? I'm very excited. This episode being so focused on Saint and Osiris and the whole throwbacks to Dawn and other past content has been really good. I'm enjoying it very much, this is my entire jam. I had high hopes for Echoes and so far it's been going great.

I'm super excited to see how they solve this and what comes of it and how much of this information will be relevant. And of course, if it will end up being correct! Because as much as I have my theories and as much as I'm convinced that there's something off here and that our Saint cannot be the wrong Saint, I could still be wrong. Looking forward to finding out!

[perhaps-in-anotherdream]

..."STAR-CROSSED LOVERS"??? YES.

Thank you so much @cheri-translates for translating Victor's SAND AND SEA DATE. You're an angel. 🥺🥺🥺

Now I'm gonna start blabbering since I've many feels about this date LOL~ 🙃

⚠️Warning: There are some spoilers regarding Victor storyline from the main story chapters that haven't been released in EN yet.

🌹

From "I won't save you a second time" [CH 1] to "I don’t need you to save me a second time." [The date in discussion]-- LOL as hilarious as this is, the irony.💯

Ngl this date felt like, the writers thinking since, under the context of the theme, the physical pain of time travel & crossing countless of dimensions & timelines is not possible-- let's just nearly kill him by spilling blood & dehydration but still we gotta nearly kill this man cause he wants to be in love.🙃

Idk why I'm getting so emotional LOL but there are so many call-backs I can remember on top of my head right now--

[The lines & moments from the date are indented & in bold letters.]

MC: "Victor, I’m helping you look for a water source. Let go!"

🌹 The sad broken cup scene from [CH 18-16], MC urging Victor to let go & him stubbornly refusing, until she gives in.

MC sacrificing herself to revive the river, part of it is to save Victor- other part of it is also for the greater good of the people in the city.

🌹 [CH 18-18] MC's monologue- "This time, put everything on my shoulder & let me be your hero one last time."

& sacrificing herself for the peace of the world even though it only made more chaos.

Victor releasing the hand that supported him at the edge & deciding to sacrifice himself with her. & the vow- "No matter what awaits you, I’ll be with you."

MC's monologue: "It turns out that no matter what the ending is, he’s willing to be with me."

[CH 18-28] Victor deciding to use the sundial watch one last time despite knowing that'd kill him for sure & might lead the world to perish as well. Dummy & Selfish in that moment. His final vow before MC disappeared, "No matter where you are, I'll always find you."

[CH 19-6 Dream World Victor route]

MC: "What if this really is a dream. Then what?"

Victor: "Then I'll turn it into reality."

[CH 25 phone call- In the Hospital]

"No matter what you are facing in other space-times...Wait for me."

[CH 36-10, after Victor returns from his 10K years time travel]

Victor: I thought you are never going to be afraid again?

His warm breath moistens my eyes. I inhale through my sore nose. Resisting the urge to bury my face in his chest, I look up, staring straight into his eyes-

MC: I will never be afraid again. Because you really came back. Victor is standing here before me like a treasure once lost and now found. What do I have to be afraid of?

Victor is stunned for a moment. The corners of his lips loosens a bit, while the contours of his face softened a lot. He raises his hand to wipe the wetness from the corner of my eyes.

Victor: It seems that this dummy has grown up a lot during this period. Listen carefully, I will never return to a world where you are not.

[CH 37 PV line]

"Whatever choice you make, I'll always be here."

[CH 37 karma by-line]

"I will accompany you on the road leading to the future."--

Basically the eternal insistence of him having an internal MC GPS tracker LOL ALWAYS being by her side.

Kidnapping incident.

🌹...[CH 30-7 to 30-10] Agio Street underground gambling den mission- wants to say a hello.🙋‍♀️

Abandoning the honor & glory of leading a comfortable life as a feudal lord to restore the river & to find the fateful couple, probably hoping to find his love too, but won't admit cause even if it's AU, he be like- "I'm still Victor" LOL

[CH 11 karma by-line]

"I won't let go of you & the world."

The physically-mentally painful exhausting wait & time travelling of 10K years, walking through endless dimensions & timelines, only to start from the very beginning every single time- hoping to find a way to save the world & protect the girl-- wants to say a hello too 🙋‍♀️

MC's monologue: Still, I want to have one more look at Victor… before leaving.

🌹 This specifically reminded me of a [CH 37-5 Victor split route] monologue from MC--

"It didn't matter what was waiting for me. I would face it with my head held high. Even so, I still wanted one last second...just one second. Let me call his name one more time...let me take a good look at him...just one last time..."

Victor: In that case, stay here. Stay by my side.

🌹 He has said the same sentence in different ways under various circumstances but one I can remember right now,

[CH 24-12 Black Cabin reunion]-- "But right now...Just stay by my side."

MC noting down how she always finds herself in his arms whenever she's fainting or getting in trouble. How Victor has been quietly taking care of her & protecting her. How the person before her walks in steady steps with forceful heartbeats.

When she was in her most depressing state [CH 18], he was there like the steady pillar of support, helping her in every way he could. He was pretty much the glue that kept her in one piece.

Again, in winter world, he stood by her side even as a stranger.

Not just these two incident, throughout the entire game, especially in the latter part of the story, they work together like partners, she learns to trust him with pretty much everything & they work through everything they can together.

Those few mentions in the date-- could be referred to how Victor has always been the constant source of warmth, encouragement, strength, support, protection in her life. No matter what world or when, he never really changes. He is still the same man. & His constant state IS choosing MC every single time.

Victor lies on the sand quietly, and it’s as though everything has returned to the beginning when we first met.

🌹 Indication towards how their storyline ALWAYS goes back to square one or comes in a full circle-- from Victor saving her from the car crash as a kid [& this being repeated many times afterwards, even in winter world], to the lightning incident [MC jumping in front of Victor both as a child & an adult], to both being in coma for week, staying in the hospital & taking care the entire time [MC in CH 11, Victor in CH 32], to stabbing each other countless times. [CH 18, CH 36-- & every other times Victor has seen those incidents happening before his eyes while time traveling.] *que tears*

🌹▪️▪️▪️▪️▪️▪️🌹

I could possibly make a full blown essay which I already kinda have out of some other specific call-backs I can remember right now. Specifically the theme of the date being star-crossed lovers-

Legend tells of two lovers. Because of the pressures of their nations, they could not be together, and decided to drown themselves in a river for love.

Because of this, the River Goddess was enraged, and she cursed the land nourished by the river which was under her control. Since that day, the Socya River gradually dried up.

The Goddess left an exhortation-when the fateful couple reappears on this land, the river will be surge once again...

& This perfectly echoes the canon theme of Victor x MC storyline--

🌹 As in, Victor being someone who, objectively speaking, seemingly has everything & yet sacrificing practically everything--

[giving up over-seas university offers, staying in the city instead of moving abroad even though his business could be expanded more, relentless search of 17 years, appointing private detective for 6 years, building up Souvenir etc.]

--- to find MC & then in the mission of keeping her safe, even at the cost of his own existence. Trying everything beyond his limits to prevent the destined deaths of MC he has foreseen- from happening & it being doomed to no end every single time.

🌹 Every single time he had to give up the ONE thing he wanted to protect the most or wanted the most.

🌹 Both of them being so willing to put each other in the front line just to give each other happiness.

🌹 Another running theme of their storyline-- both of them keep losing each other countless times & then find each other again.

• Victor losing MC as a kid, finding her as an adult. Victor nearly losing her in CH 10.

• MC losing Victor due to the time rift in CH 14 & finding a way to contact each other through the sundial watch.

• Victor losing MC in CH 18 first-hand. MC leaving Victor behind in CH 19- dream world.

• CH 24 Black Cabin reunion & CH 27 OG timeline reunion

• MC nearly losing Victor in CH 32, due to him going to coma

• MC losing Victor in CH 34 due to Victor going on the time-travel journey of 10K years

• Final reunion in CH 36 [Then we have the journey to S2. But that's a whole new discussion.]

🌹So...both of them being able to truly be with each other is actually-- defying fate & writing their own destiny. *SOBS*

🌹I wanna end my blabbering with two precious moments from [CH 36- Victor split route] that echoes this theme even more.

MC: "I've always chased after your silhouette and I was never afraid. Because I know you'll always be there waiting for me. Victor, if you really disappear... I will be with you, and we will both be forgotten by the world."

MC's monologue: "Victor, once we have crossed countless dimensions and futures, and returned to each other’s embrace. If everything has to disappear with time, as dust into the wind... Then, I'm glad that we have our final promise."

[She's referring to the promise she made of being forgotten by the world to be with him & the promise Victor made earlier to never leave her again.]

[mevekagvain]

Noblesse: Rai's Adventure

Chapter 1 - Mvp lord <3

- Tears of god and Bloodstone are both objectively cool names.

- The mountain of fire? Where the fuck is that? Which volcano are you talking about? The largest volcano that could qualify for this is Ojos del Salado I guess? Since the other two are in the middle of the ocean or on Hawaii respectively.

- Ashoka scolding Gechutel ajsjksks. "Tell me wtf you want!!!" And then they start gossiping about him being shit at directions... but tbf I'd probably forget my way to places if I hadn't been there for 50 years either. I think it's worse when he does it in present day lol.

Chapter 2 - Hi Yuni, hi Keit.

- Snake!

- Ah yes... minotaurs. I like to think that it's because the normal and supernatural realm's boundaries are thin in this area due to some sort of astrology shit that monsters are appearing. The boundaries will become proper again after a while.

Chapter 3 - Well they're not wrong. Raizel is a spoilt rich kid. He's just also got immeasurable responsibility upon him.

- Oh is Yuni barefoot?

Chapter 4 - Karr (the village leader or noble or whatever) is dumb as bricks. Anyone with a brain can tell he's evil. Meanwhile his daughter, Lensia, looks like Ignes.

- Me w/ women.

- Yuni lives with Keit? I guess she's either an orphan or they're related (siblings, cousins, niece and uncle, etc) or both.

- Why is Lensia's hair purple all of a sudden? And only in Keit and Yuni's home... is the lighting there really that different?

Chapter 5 - And now it's purple permanently.

Chapter 6 - Didn't mention this the first time but uh. Big Ben style clock towers over 1000 years ago? Okay then. Sundial or astronomical style ones would make sense since clocks have existed for a hella long time but not modern shit lol.

Chapter 7 - I can see why it's a top comment XD

Chapter 8 - Raizel has one heck of an ego to say stuff like 'How long do you think you can look down on me?' and 'Kneel' so easily. Royalty energy.

Chapter 9 - Still think it's likely that the mystery person who gave Kurmark a bloodstone was Lagus testing out his artificial bloodstones. If it was a real bloodstone then... idk. Some random cultist

- Aaaaand he's a monster. Symbolism of looking like Satan because he actually isn't the god the villager thought he was.

Episode 10 - Interesting that the essence of humans takes the form of red dust just like pureblood nobles do when they die. And we know it's human energy since it only appears once Kurmark dies (he absorbed all aforementioned energy) and heals them. Makes sense even by my hcs where pureblood nobles' bodies are simply physical manifestations their souls are always projecting compared to other nobles who have permanent physical bodies. And ofc the energy from humans and nobles isn't different.

- Okay but Ashoka cares about Raizel so much. He specifically says he'll get the details from him later because that's another excuse he can use to get Raizel to leave his house. Man just wants the best for him iwi.

- Just because you can't tell apart Raizel's microexpressions doesn't mean nobody else can either, grandpa. You're so rude.

[fbfh]

light up the dark [V] - leo x reader

genre: romance + action + enemies to lovers kinda

word count: 2.4k

au: none

pairing: Leo x gothy!child of eros!fem reader

requested: yes teehee

warnings: spoilers for HOO but like what’s new, at least one fuck, mentions of breakfast foods and burger king, one “cranberry fucknut”, brief visit to a historical memorial site, I think that’s it????

summary: you have a very weird dream that leads you to realize you’re actually on some kind of quest! very fun! you, Leo, and Jason follow a lead, find out Chiron’s sending you guys some backup, and realize you’re going to need a very large airbnb

listen to: making mirrors - gotye aka the best dream sequence music

                also we’re the rats. it’s not relevant just living in my brain.

a/n: honest to god it tookme so long to write this i forget what happens in the first half rip

also requests r open uwu

Your dream is unnerving, and not just because you had spent years in a dreamless sleep and forgot what dreaming was like. Okay, partially because of that, but also because of the atmosphere. 

You’re standing in a dark room. It’s pitch black, but you can make out the shape of the room, which is unusual to say the least. It’s long and rectangular, and the ceiling has cylindrical indents, almost as if giant logs were supposed to fit there. The indents go across the short side, with another in front of it, like a rope bridge across a river. Giant curved metallic discs like flat mushrooms are embedded in the ground at regular intervals. 

You get the feeling something’s missing. You stare up at the ceiling trying to get more information, when something hot and glowing presses against the roof. It shines through, casting everything in a strange pink light. You can’t see it, but you know what it is. A translucent sundial that gave off a glowing orange cast.

Sunstone. 

You look back down not wanting to hurt your eyes, and they fall on someone else in the room. He hadn’t been there a second ago. He’s blonde, and looking up at the ceiling, seemingly unbothered by the blinding light. 

“He has it,” he says, wistfully, almost regretfully. 

"Who?" You question. 

"I can't pronounce his name, no one can."

"How can we get it back if we can't find him?" He smiles, liking how you know what he needs you to do before he even tells you. 

"I can't tell you his name, but he's very old… some may even say archaic…" He looks at you with intention, searching for a spark of understanding. He doesn’t find what he’s looking for, and continues, “and not far from here. Which is good, since I need you to get it back for me.” 

“How do we find it?” He tosses you a small, clear container filled with what looks like yellow slime. You look at him, eyebrows furrowed in confusion. 

“It’s a drop of sunshine,” he explains, “don’t touch it or you’ll burn up. It’ll glow when you get closer to what you’re looking for.” You tuck it in your jacket pocket.

“Can-”

Before you can get out the rest of the sentence, you feel like you’re being pulled out of deep water. Your eyes shoot open, and you take in a quick breath through your nose. You open and close your eyes a few times, and push yourself into a sitting position. There’s a weight on your stomach and you trace the hand back to Jason, who had gently nudged you awake moments ago. His mouth is open and there’s a stale smile, like he was about to tell you to rise and shine. Your stare is unwavering, and he retracts his hand. 

“Uh… breakfast is ready,” he says, turning back and heading over to the couch. 

“Kay,” you mutter, still groggy and disoriented. Maybe sleep just isn’t for you. Jason hesitates about half way across the room, noticing the lack of cat-like vengefulness in your tone of voice.

“...You okay?” he asks softly. 

“Fine, just a weird dream,” you roll your shoulders, back sore and stiff, to try and loosen the two stubborn knots just below your shoulder blades. His eyebrows furrow at your words and you continue, “I’m starting to think I should add a little chloroform to my sleepy time tea.” 

“What happened?” he asks, sounding way more serious than you’d expected.

“I dunno, I-” he cut you off, calling for Leo. Jason encourages you to tell them what you’d dreamed about as in depth as possible once Leo comes in from the sitting area, so you don’t have time to gauge how he seems after last night. You feel a little silly trying to describe a surreal dream to them, especially since they seem to be paying such rapt attention. After recalling as many details as you could, they sat in silence for a minute. They share a look, then sigh in unison. Jason pushes up his glasses and squeezes the bride of his nose as Leo lets out a soft ‘fuck’. 

“I’ll go iris message Chiron, Leo, do you want to get some food and offerings to burn?” Jason says. Leo agrees, and Jason’s already in the sitting area, misting water in the air with a squirt bottle. Leo puts a hand on your shoulder.

“Why don’t you get dressed, I already made some coffee,” he says, the spike of hesitance that shot through his stomach at his instigated physical contact dissolving when you nod sleepily. An unusually warm feeling clouds through you, less distant and detached than normal. You realize while digging through your bag that for whatever reason, you didn’t hate the feeling of Leo’s hand on your shoulder. You grab your clothes from your bag, and feel a weight in your jacket. You reach into the pocket, and pull out the “slime” from your dream. It glows briefly, fading as you walk towards the bathroom. Huh, you think, at least now we know what to look for. You’re grateful for the example as you get dressed and freshen up, wondering what the hell happens next. 

Burning the food doesn’t take long. Leo throws the extra breakfast they’d ordered onto the metal table on the patio, except for a piece of toast he held in his hands. He summons fire until the toast is engulfed in flames, and drops it with the rest. He fans the smoke and asks for guidance, protection, typical pre quest stuff. After a minute or two, he pours out a pitcher of water to extinguish the flames, and heads back into the sitting area with Jason. On his way, he watches you through the open bathroom door for a second as you put on your makeup. You sure are different from girls he’d liked in the past. A strong twinge of pain from the previous night makes him flinch. He shoves it away, and takes a seat, greeting Chiron through iris message. Jason had just finished filling him in on the dream and the sundial, and he looks worried.

“I was afraid this might be the case. I'd gotten word that something like this might have happened, but I hoped it was just hearsay… I'm sorry boys, but you're most definitely on a mission from the gods. The story behind that sundial is long and complicated; in summary, if Apollo does not have his sundial by june, summer cannot happen."

"Wh- like, time will stop?" Leo says. 

"Will it just skip to autumn?" Jason adds. 

"What about Persephone?"

"Can Demeter do anything?" 

Chiron holds up his hands to quiet them. 

"I wish I could say, but no one really knows what will happen, only that we do not wish to find out."

"So, what do we do?" Jason asks. 

"Who can I send?" Chiron says to himself, "Dear gods, this is… unfortunate."

"Chiron," Jason says again, getting his attention. 

"Right, I'm sorry my boy, this whole situation is… preoccupying." Jason agrees, and asks what they should do next. 

"Get as much information as you can from what Apollo has told you. I'll gather some people to send over at once, they'll be on their way shortly. This is most distressing…" he trails off, lost in thought again, and the iris message cuts out. Jason's stomach is in knots. 

After freshening up, you get dressed, having chosen your clothes deliberately before. If shit’s about to hit the fan, which it looks like it is, you’re going to need a strong balance of comfortable and kick ass. Plus, it’s still the cold part of spring, and New England weather is no joke. 

You assess yourself in the mirror, satisfied with your choice; half black half gray cargo pants with chain belts, a long sleeved fishnet top with a black crop top over it, and one of your favorite pairs of platform boots. You topped it off with a layered choker studded with black jewels and delicate chains, asymmetrical earrings - one attached to an ear cuff, the other dangling - and a ring that looks like a snake wrapped around your finger. Last but not least, a dark olive green bomber jacket with ‘god save the queen’ written on the back in paint. 

Your mind wanders as you lean closer to the mirror, laser focused on perfecting your eyeliner. The memory of Leo’s hand on your shoulder creeps back up, and your brow furrows at the panicked flush to your cheeks, wondering why you didn’t push him off. 

‘Some cranberry fucknut broke his heart last night, I didn’t want him to feel worse’, you think deliberately, refusing room for any objections or alternative solutions your brain keeps offering up. You finish your makeup relatively quickly, pleased at how much better it looks when you don’t sleep in it for years. Your hair is… hanging in there, but you can’t drop everything and redye it now. At least you know what color you want next - a nice, coral tinted red. You’ll have to keep an eye out the next time you go shopping. 

Finally, you’re ready. You put away your makeup and pajamas, and make your way over to the boys. You grab some coffee and pick at a muffin, the strategy session beginning. 

Jason takes a sip of his own coffee, scowling at the slightly burnt taste.

“Where should we start looking? Do we have any decent leads?”

You sip your coffee, your face mirroring Jason’s moments before.

“The guy from my dream-”

“Apollo,” Jason interjects.

“Right,” you continue, “he said whoever has what we’re looking for has a really hard to pronounce name or something. Maybe we can start there.”

After some back and forth, and consulting of travel guides, you find a memorial for some historical figure with a name that definitely would have gotten him bullied. 

“Wasn’t that guy a demigod?” Leo asks, and Jason confirms. You’re already checking the maps scattered around for a route.

“It looks like it’s pretty much just further west from where we are, we can probably get there pretty easily,” you remark. Jason and Leo look at you, then each other. No one has any better ideas, and at least it’s some kind of lead. 

~

Four and a half hours later, you sat in the car in stumped silence. It took almost three hours to get up to the memorial site, an hour to look around and realize there is absolutely nothing there that can help you at all, ten minutes to debate what to do next, and twenty minutes to get burger king, since no one had eaten since breakfast. 

“Well, that sucked.” 

Leo and Jason give you a look, knowing you’re right.

“Yeah, it did.” Jason agrees matter of factly, earning a small chuckle from you and Leo. 

“So what do we do now?” Leo asks. 

“Well, no one’s around, we could probably iris message Chiron-” before he could finish his sentence, a shimmery image of a tan girl with choppy dark hair appears in front of him. 

Jason and the girl - Piper, apparently - greet each other enthusiastically, then Leo follows suit. It looks like she’s in a cab, holding something at arm's length. You make it out to be a phone, probably to trick her cab driver into thinking she’s on a facetime call or something. Two other people lean over, one blonde and smiling, the other dark haired and irritable, and more greetings are exchanged. You lean slightly to the side so you’ll be out of site and hopefully won’t have to make any introductions. Leo seems to catch onto this, and when Piper’s eyes land on the edge of your shoulder.

“So did Chiron send anyone else?” he asks before she can say anything. 

“Yeah,” she replies, “Frank and Hazel are coming from camp Jupiter; Frank’s flying, and Hazel’s getting a ride from Arion,” Leo and Jason nod in understanding, picking up instantly on her deliberate word choice. Christ, you’re going to have to get a bigger place than that hotel room.  

“Uh… Percy and Annabeth just started spring break, so they’ll be coming soon. Hazel should get there first, for…” she glances at the cab driver, “obvious reasons, and me, Nico, and Will are on our way now, we should be there in a few hours.” 

Your skin is already feeling prickly from the idea of being around that many people. They talk for a few more minutes, and Jason says he’ll tell them the specific address as soon as possible before ending the call.

Thankfully, you all had repacked the car with your bags from the hotel room before you left, just in case you needed anything, so there’s no need to make the two and a half hour trip back to the hotel. You sigh and turn to the boys.

“Why don’t we go get some groceries and stuff, and I can get us an air bnb.” 

They agree, pleasantly surprised and grateful for the normalcy of something like grocery shopping,  and you ask how many people there are going to be.

“Uh, should be te-”

“Eleven.” Leo says firmly. Jason looks like he’s going to say something, but he bites back whatever it is. Leo’s hands normally dance around like swirling snow, light and natural with subtle patterns if you can figure them out. But right now, his normal subconscious movements seem to be heavier, more intentional. His relaxed expression is set in stone, a silent plea to move on, act like everything’s normal, and you know he’s covering up the depth of the wound that girl left on his heart. A twinge of concern flares in your gut, and you blink, looking away. 

“Okay,” you say, pulling out a pen and notepad from your bag to write out a grocery list, “Let’s go. What do we need?”

Jason pulls out of the parking lot, and begins to head to the nearest box store. Your eyes dart over to Leo involuntarily a few times, and by the time you’re almost there, he seems to be almost back to himself. Subconsciously relieved, your mind starts to wander back to the list, skimming it one more time to make sure you don’t forget anything. 

Maybe you can pick up some hair dye while you’re here.

[limelocked]

Sundial blurbs

So most of my part of the Sundial au has been locked into general au chat on our server in the form of joking, theorising and sometimes writing as much as the discord character limit allows me to. I did the two first blurbs in this post today and @pomodoko commanded i actually post it and tag them so here they are, sorted into story chronological order and not the order in which i wrote them

Also this is the link to the document with general information on the AU

--- Dreams POV, the inciting incident

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8- NINE It has been ten seconds since Fundy landed at the bottom of the stairs at the lowest level of the building, there had been a noticeable thud that sounded distinctly unpleasant but Dream hadn't picked up on any cracking noise that'd indicate broken bones. Not that it'd be easy to hear over the commotion that led to later events.

Because it'd been seven seconds since Techno had lost his balance because of the falling fox mentioned and seven seconds since he stood back straight, almost brushing against Wilburs taller frame. It had only been five short seconds, that might have felt like weeks to others, since Wilbur in turn furrowed his brow and geared up for retaliation. Four seconds ago techno had been pushed. Three, Wilbur had gone into the wrong portal. Two, Philza had with Fundy still leaning on his shoulder tried to stop them both. One, they were gone.

It was surreal. The room had been filled with chatter before the fight, louder during the fight and now it was quiet. One second in the future, after it had all happened, the silence broke by no one who had seen it happen but by Tommy, babbling on about something with Fundy that didn't matter to anyone but himself. He quieted down when the person he was intending to talk to was nowhere to be found, confused. "Where'd Fundy go?"

"He and Wilbur already went through" the lack of effort it took for Dream to bend that truth would be concerning if not for his record, and technically they already had. "Oh-" an unsatisfactory answer but not one that would send him towards the throat of Noxite. "You can just talk to them back home. Come on." The portal after the hermits was supposed to be theirs, something quickly confirmed as they enter the community house with a crisis averted, or rather pushed back until a later date, and two people lost to another server.

--- Omniscient/Unknown POV, the dreamsmp aftermath

un, deux, trois, quatre, cinq, six, sept, huit, neuf... sept, huit, neuf... sept, huit... Seven hours later was when the lie couldn't hold anymore. Tommy already didn't trust Dream much but Tubbo had been a help in convincing him that Wilbur and Fundy were just away building or something. But the truth comes eventually. He sent a clear message of; <TommyInnIt> stop lying to me

Hour eight was the worst, accusations being thrown and swords being drawn. Screaming and explanations that never really felt enough. The ninth hour was bad in another way, depressing. Tommy's anger had simmered into bargaining as if Dream, George or Tubbo had the power to do anything of substance. It never got to begging, Tommy's pride forbade that but the things he put on the line for help that he couldn't get made it almost seem like it.

Noxcrew was contacted and they confirmed that the hemits had talked to them about the guests. Solutions were suggested and just as quickly rebuffed. Hour ten was a loss and the eleventh hour was one where Tommy and Tubbo got to speak alone.

"Can't you just use your powers or whatever to make the portals take us to hermitcraft" he was exhausted. "It doesn't work like that, probably, and Noxite has probably already tried it" "Yeah but Tubbo could you do it?" "I mean... maybe?" To that something glinted in Tommys eye, hope that Tubbo didn't want to extinguish as fast as it needed to be. "But I'm not allowed into the MCC world anyways so it wouldn't work" "FUCKING CHRIST TUBBO everyone here's useless!"

--- Technos POV, first night on hermitcraft

It's the first night and bones tower above him.

There were other buildings around, and the area was lit up well but eyes followed him from the darkness, eying the stone tools he'd manage to scrape up while leaving the group now probably settled in a warm house far away. This world scared him, the monsters and the way his sword hit differently, and the fact that the air itself felt new.

A pair of eyes glowed at him from it's place under one of the ribs of a beast too huge to want to think about. Techno readied his sword, but the dog decided that it'd rather go back to sleep. This world scared him and he just knew he'd gotten lost now because his goal had been to retrace his steps, the path that Xisuma and Bdoubleo had shown them to the little village far away by boat, to find the house cleft in two and then head straight out to sea until he could find a better place to stay than the tension thick cabin that their hosts had suggested.

Another dog offered a quiet bark in his direction and with an embarrassed sssh, covering fright, he continued forward. He had found the water, true, and he remembered something vague about a neighbour... but... No. No he decided that he'd choose a direction and if there weren't any light he'd just have to turn around or dock and make a little cave to live out of. It wouldn't be glorious but neither is 5 million potatoes.

A boat is placed into the water at the straight of Joebralta and a pig starts to row.

Clang. He is confused. The boat shakes in the middle of open water, he's been turned around. Clang. A trident, something he's only really seen in Skyblockle, shoots into the air a meter to the right of his boat. He speeds up. Clang. It misses, but he has decided that the sea is no longer safe.

--- Technos and Ethos POV, the first days in hermitcraft

He's starting to feel bad for leaving. Still justified, but also bad. He felt horrible the instant the championship room disappeared from right in front of his eyes with Wilbur still in it, and still worse when Wilbur then Phil and Fundy appeared next to him in this world, all statues as unseen confused messages fill the communicators of the worlds inhabitants.

When they arrived he was surprised that a lot of the hermits knew about them, or at least him, from the returning cast of hermits that played in MCC and their apparent tendency to tell stories as soon as there was space for it. It'd made it less awkward but the looks from the others stopped him from talking much about his side of the tournaments.

This was perhaps night four? He had stepped ashore in a jungle a bit from an area he could almost feel at home in with its skyscrapers reminiscent of some survival games arenas. But it was built by someone and someone should be avoided so he had trudged through plains and deserts walking around it only to find more tall buildings in another jungle.

The jungle was... safe? Safe from people at least, less so mobs. He had a little cave with a bed now that kept the hot and humid air out most of the time and while small and cramped and utterly horrible it felt far safer than returning to the others... even though he could practically hear Phils calm and nonchalant reassurances.

Leaving the small home he searches for the water he remembers spotting nearby. The bright orange tracksuit wasn't something he wanted to wear but there wasn't much of anything else and it still needed to be washed of stone dust and sweat no matter how much he disliked it. He leaves with a compass and map to find his way back, and around other peoples territory. And water is found easily with these. Stone, coal and redstone is scrubbed away in the freshwater lake that's only relatively cold, but it still feels nice, like the wind on his island in skyblock or in the skywars arenas.

Not too far away a man is working in a terrarium of his own design containing no animals but currents in thin snakes coiling around comparators and observers. The change to the nether has been an exciting one but it did come with problems for the technicians and thankfully for this one the Google hasn't broken too far beyond belief and is back in functioning order faster than expected.

Satisfied he looks at the path that he paradoxically want to end and to continue and decides to wait, flying up to sit near his portal instead to think about it and access the expansions he's already made. Something bright orange is spotted in the distance which at first is ignored, it can wait, until the realization of a possible abandoned shulker, so very common in this group, grabs him and almost instantly leaves as it moves around.

Several seconds later the orange turns brighter and the idea of lava pops in and out of his head in a flash.

<Etho> Beef have to lost an orange llama? <VintageBeef> no? <VintageBeef> at least I dont think so...? <Etho> o_o

He's been keeping out of the way for a while, like usual, and only knew some of the news about new people on the server. That they'd gotten there with Rendogs sports gang by accident and that they'd been living mostly over at Bdubs' place to avoid having them be excluded to their own little village. Apparently something had happened, he'd missed the details but it was looking like there was a manhunt for someone or something that he should by all means be more invested in.

Curious he misses the orange go out of view in favour of finding out about this missing thing in case he's found it. A person and a description, hidden deep in other messages. His height, human pig hybrid, last seen wearing...

Does he want to do this? He knows his way around a jungle but it's still annoying and Xisuma lives close by... but he's most likely AFK. Well, you make a good first impression on the new guys if you find their missing friend.

--- Omniscient/Unclear POV, Technos time with Etho

Silence is golden in silver light. The hermits can stay up days on end without sleep, working through nights when it’s needed and even with guests this doesn’t change. Like the sliver of moon in the sky, Ethos hair glows radiant from inside the redstone machine he calls the Googler and Techno does nothing but look on as repeaters are moved and redstone is smeared in new paths into blocks he has never seen before, something he’s had to get used to lately.

His host works in silence until a question breaks the jungles chime and an answer is given with the rhythm. The redstone had changed and he thought he had fixed it, an unhelpful follow up is posed and a pause is moved into a somewhat oversimplified version of the circuit. They both know that Techno is no help here, but the company is nice and something is learned.

Etho in the day when working the fortress tells Techno about the old days and in turn Techno admits to never having left those old days for long. Etho talks about Pause and Beef. Techno fails to talk about his own team.

[cayde-6]

Saint-14 and Atlas talk

Usual warnings of grammar and swearing.

Atlas walks down one of the many streets of the Last City as the chilly evening air blows around him, he makes it to a nice looking house and heads up onto the porch and knocks on the door.

The door opens and a Ghost greets him. "Atlas welcome, come in!"

"Hello Geppetto, where's Saint?" Atlas asks

"He's in the office, go up the stairs and it's the second door on the left."

"Thank you."

Atlas heads up the stairs as Geppetto closes the door and he sees the door to the office open so he walks in. "You wanted to see me Saint?" Atlas questions after the door closes behind him

Saint who had just removed his helmet places it down on the floor next to him and glowing purple optics meet blue eyes. "Yes I want to know if you have found any trace of Osiris?"

Atlas lets out a deep sigh and heads over to a small golden pyramid statue that Osiris always lets him fidget with since it can rotate. "Unfortunately I have found no trace of him either." He picks up the pyramid and starts fidgeting with it then turns to look at the older Titan. "There's literally nothing anywhere, with you I was able to follow tiny scraps of your light."

"I understand and I didn't know that pyramid did that." Saint replies

The two sit in silence for a minute before Saint stands up and heads over to Atlas.

"How've you been taking this since I know Osiris meant a lot to you, I believe he sorta unofficially adopted you?." Saint asks

"I wouldn't say all that, he was there when everyone else was busy even if it was just me sitting on an arm of the Sundial as it slowly spun around." Atlas tells Saint

"Where was Faire and Ruin at?"

"Faire was trying to be in retirement and she had her hands full with newly rezzed Aryden-2 and Deimos. Ruin being the only Guardian close to Master Nightstalker was basically ordered to help those Hunters who were having problems with their class, they were mostly new rezzes but there were a couple of older Guardians who decided they wanted to try to be a Nightstalker."

"Can you please tell me more about your time with Osiris?"

Atlas starts with how Sagira was found knocked out on Mars, borrowed ("Stole." Drachen chimed in) Drachen's body and how it eventually led them to facing Panoptes.

"Wait, you fought one of the most powerful Vex Minds?" Saint asks shocked

"I've fought a lot of Vex minds, other than Quira and Panoptes, the most deadly one I've thrown hands with is Atheon."

"You must tell me about your fight with the other Vex minds later but please continue with fighting Panoptes."

"It wasn't easy to hold him off from winning but Osiris eventually popped in and with his reflections helped me take down Panoptes, stupid giant Vex got slapped down by two Guardians." Atlas snarls the last part

"I'm happy to learn the reasoning why you always look at the person who mentions Vex Minds with pure hatred."

"I made Panoptes my bitch."

Saint shakes his head and eventually Atlas continues sharing his memories.

"Eventually Osiris told me how he lost you in the Infinite Forest so I decided to see if I could find you since Panoptes had a hard time tracking me when I chased him."

"And you found me twice."

"It wasn't easy and I was so thrilled when I found you the first time but I got quickly disappointed that you were a younger version, the second time I made sure that you weren't going to die."

"Which I'm grateful for."

"While you were making your way out of the Infinite Forest I decided to go talk to Osiris and see if he needed help with anything else which he did so I went to go deal with stuff for him, this became something I did multiple times a week and eventually I would show up just to chill with him or listen to him go on about the Vex. I guess eventually he started liking me enough that he chose to unofficially adopt me." Atlas ends his memory

"I'm surprised he did because Osiris is very picky when it comes to allowing people to get close to him." Saint says

"I must have reminded him of you or something like that."

"I think that plays a small part but you clearly got past Osiris's barriers which not many people do."

"I don't know how but it was nice to learn from such a respected Warlock and for him to trust me enough to confess a few of his large mess ups, it was even more nice when he would let me cuddle into him because I was having a sensory overload." Atlas tells Saint

"Don't forget about the few times Osiris covered you up with the outer layer of his robes." Drachen chimes in

"What?" Saint asks

"Oh yeah, I fell asleep a decent distance away from him at the Sundial because I was exhausted and when I woke up I had his robes over me like a blanket." Atlas explains

"I got a video that I can send to Geppetto." Drachen says

"Please do." Saint asks with a smile

"Alright, the video has been transferred."

"Thank you Drachen."

Geppetto shows Saint the video which the man absolutely adores watching Osiris walk up to Atlas sleeping, taking his own outer layer of Warlock robes off and covering the sleeping Titan with them.

The two Titans continue sharing their memories of Osiris well into the night which has Atlas falling asleep in the guest bedroom. The next day Saint and Atlas went into the living room and sat down to talk more.

"You should show him the necklace." Drachen encourages

"What necklace?" Saint questions

Atlas reaches under his shirt and pulls out a necklace that has many small disk-like things. "Osiris made me this after he unofficially adopted me, he also handed me one of the many pyramids that twist he also made. Said that these should help me stop fidgeting with my armor."

"This necklace proves that Osiris cared for you, not many people get one. Actually it was only Ikora and myself who owned one." Saint informs Atlas reaching into his shirt to grab his own necklace of disks, purple metal and in the middle a red mental Phoenix feather.

"Not many people actually know I have this, Faire, Shaxx and Ruin obviously know. Deimos, Aryden, and Ikora know. Cayde knew before he passed. Zavala wasn't pleased but got over it when Faire snapped at him."

Saint nods then gives Atlas a serious look. "Atlas if you need anything please don't hesitate to ask me because you're Osiris's kid, I'll do my best to take over your care until Osiris comes back."

"Wait, I thought you were already my sorta parent since you're with Osiris."

Saint smiled as best as an exo could. "I was already watching over you but I wanted to know if you were okay with it."

"Of course I'm okay with it, hell more dads is the best!" Atlas grins

"Remind me again who are the others?" Saint asks

"Obviously Zavala, Osiris, and you. Of course I call you and Osiris Bird grandpa 1.0 and 2.0 because I like the nicknames."

"What about Saladin?"

"That's Wolf grandpa!" Atlas exclaims excitedly

"Now is that just a nickname or do you consider him as your grandfather?"

"That's Faire's dad so he's grandpa." Atlas explains

"What about Lady Efrideet?"

Atlas gets a grin on his face, Saint compares it to one of the city children who's done something naughty. "That's Wolf grandma!"

Saint chuckles. "Does she know about that nickname?"

"Yeah, she doesn't like it but she loves me enough to let me keep calling her that name."

Saint and Atlas talk all day and only stopping to eat or for Atlas to use the bathroom.