#Skyless

[kingskyless]

me, myself (persona) and I (main sona)

i wanna say this was a quick doodle but skyless and poli the oc took me like 15 tries each

[stgroversfire]

skyless moon - mac demarco

verse 1 and some chorus before i blunder

[thegiftofgabes]

Nibiru: Chronicles of the Skyless World - About

I have been running a Nibiru adventure for the past couple of months and I figured I'd share about it.

This series of posts is a summary of the sessions, so don't expect them to be a literature masterpiece, quite the contrary, they'll be brief and succinct, at first directed to the players to keep up with past events.

That said...

Please feel free to ask about the story, the characters, the sessions, details and so on. I would actually be very appreciative of it.

I'll post the first few sessions over the week!

[tannnnblogs]

Hate the Fiends

A skyless version under the cut

[the-giik-games]

SETTLEMOON IS NOW RELEASED

An idle game about building a town in an abandoned RPG world. Meet the locals of Settlemoon, customize your town, and discover what happened to this land, lost in a skyless void.

This is the first game I've made as a full, start-to-finish, sold for money, actual whole entire game. I hope you have as good a time playing through it as I did making it! It's been a fun experience. Maybe I should share some older progress posts and going into detail on the systems later...but for now, go play it!

[sephirthoughts]

Mother

Chapter 1: The Grey Figure

summary: post-advent children, the remnants of sephiroth wind up somewhere they aren't supposed to be, without a clue how they got there, or how to get out. a mysterious figure takes them under its wing, claiming to want to help them.

tags: gratuitous silliness, slight mystery, post-canon, the remnants are the stars because we need more of them

rating: teen and up

warnings: amnesia, i guess?

Location: The Skyless Plains, Space Between Worlds

Through the bleak and barren waste, a solitary figure wandered. Grey and wraithlike, it was, veiled in hooded robes, like shredded wisps of cloud; invisible in the purple-grey fog, that hung heavily over the featureless landscape.

But that was alright. None who came here had eyes. 

The figure had just paused, to contemplate choosing another direction, in which to wander aimlessly, when a sound disturbed the perpetual calm. A voice. Then another, and another. Three voices!

“But such lively voices in this place are unheard of,” thought the figure, then laughed inwardly, believing itself to be terribly clever.

Since it had no specific reason to choose any other direction, the figure glided toward the lively voices, to take a look. Soon, it came upon their source: three legless and armless little blobs, who seemed to be quite small, for creatures capable of generating so much noise.

The grey figure thought of them as little, because, though size was entirely conceptual, here, when judged relative to the grey figure’s own size, theirs would be similar to grapefruits, if the grey figure is assumed to have the rough dimensions of a human being. 

In any case, the three little blobs were made of pale and wavering light; one white, one blue, and one green—which only mattered because the light was actually life force, which could be seen by those without eyes, and thus the colors perceived, in this place. 

“Greetings, little blobs,” said the grey figure, in as polite and non-terrifying a tone as it could remember how to configure. 

Of course, the three blobs screamed in terror and darted away as fast as they possibly could. Or, perhaps, darted is the wrong word. They had no limbs and, to be perfectly honest, were not very fast.

The grey figure stood watching, curiously, as the tiny disembodied existences wriggled in the grey dirt, inching away at a pace far slower than its own usual, aimless strolling. 

“Did we—did we lose her?” the green one panted (having absolutely no reason to be out of breath, since none of them had lungs).

“Maybe, but those things are wily,” said the (slightly) more intelligent white one. “She might be trying to trick us into letting our guard down.”

“No one told me to have my guard up, in the first place,” the blue one whined. “I’ve had it down this whole time.”

“Pardon me, little blobs,” said the grey figure again, in an even more polite and non-terrifying tone.

The three blobs repeated the process of howling and flailing stupidly in the dirt, until they succeeded in getting a few more inches away, upon which they repeated their former conversation, nearly verbatim.

The grey figure gave a forbearing sigh. Reaching down, it plucked up the three wriggling blobs and held them in its (purely conceptual) palms, to have a (metaphorical) look at them.

“You’ll never take us alive!” roared the white one.  

“I’m too beautiful to die!” wailed the blue one.

“I can’t feel my legs!” bellowed the green one.

“Calm down, little blobs,” the grey figure gently admonished. “You’re using up your life force, thrashing about, like this. If you keep it up, you’ll disappear altogether.”

“We’re not blobs, you reaper hag! We’re souls!” the white one contended. “And don’t even think about eating us! I’ll…I’ll lodge myself in your throat and choke you!!”

The grey figure considered this for some (or no) time (which did not exist here). “Hm. You do seem to be human souls. But you’re so small. You must be very young souls.”

“We’re not born yet,” the green one offered helpfully.

“Shut up, Loz!” the white one scolded. “Don’t tell it things!”

The grey figure seemed to smile. “Your name is Loz?”

“No!!” the white one thundered. 

“Yep,” the green one chirped.

“I’m Yazoo,” the blue one said languidly, as if speaking was a dreadful inconvenience, and it could only be asked to do so much.

“I said don’t tell it things!!” 

“You’re Loz, and you’re Yazoo,” repeated the grey figure. “And what’s your name, little one?”

“None of your business!” the white one wiggled angrily.

“He’s Kadaj,” the green one said. “We’re all brothers.”

“I see. So, you’ve always been together?”

“Yes.”

“Mn.”

“Ye—I mean! Who’s asking!! And put us down!”

“This is a curious riddle, little blobs,” the grey figure said musingly. “If you were never born, how do you have names?”

“We named ourselves!” growled Kadaj, the white one. “What do you care!”

“Did you? Well, they’re darling names,” the figure chuckled. “I like them, very much.”

“Thanks!” Loz chimed.

“Hmph,” Yazoo hmphed.

“So, Yazoo, Loz, Kadaj, tell me; how have you come here?”

The three blobs faltered, seeming to be at a loss.

“We…um. Well.”

“We really can’t…”

“We don’t know.”

The grey figure nodded. “I suspected as much. And where were you, before?”

“We don’t know.”

“No idea.”

“And we wouldn’t tell you anyway!”

“I ask because you look like human souls, to me. But if that’s the case, you shouldn’t have been able to come here. This is a place of exile, for those who can’t return to the lifestream.”

“We were in the lifestream, once,” Loz said cheerfully. “It was warm and bright!”

“Then we were…somewhere else,” Yazoo murmured.

“Now, we’re lost in this stupid wasteland,” Kadaj grumbled.

“Well, you’re in luck,” said the grey figure. “As it so happens, I’m the guardian of this place. If you’ve found your way here by mistake or mischance, there must be a way to send you back to where you belong.”

“The guardian?” Yazoo asked, skeptically. 

“What’s a guardian?” Loz wanted to know. 

“As guardian, it’s my task to oversee this place, and ensure that everything proceeds according to the rules. I’ve never tried to exercise my authority, before, because I’ve never had a reason. But this does seem to be the correct situation for it.” 

“Were you always here?” Loz asked.

“No. I was human, once.”

“You don’t seem human,” Kadaj said suspiciously. “How long have you been here?”

“That is a question,” the grey figure sighed. “It seems, not very long. And yet, I feel as if I carry the burden of ten-thousand centuries.”

“You can just say you don’t know,” Kadaj informed it, which made the figure seem to smile.

“Excuse me, um, ma’am,” Loz put in, shyly. “Do you have a name?”

The figure appeared briefly troubled. “I must have, but…I seem to have lost it.”

“Then, what do we call you?” Yazoo asked. 

“Yeah, we have to call you something,” Kadaj agreed.

The figure laughed softly, seeming to be pleased by this. “You wish to give me a name?”

“Well, we don’t actually know any names,” Loz admitted.

“We know our names, idiot,” Kadaj retorted.

“But we can’t use our names, they’re already ours,” Yazoo lamented.

“The three of you seem to know many words,” observed the figure. “Any word you know can serve as a name, if you choose to use it as one. Why not choose a word, for my name?” 

“Reaper hag,” Kadaj put forth confidently.

“But I’m not a reaper. Shouldn’t a name be a more unique designation, that avoids causing unnecessary confusion?” the grey figure reasoned.

The blobs were utterly confounded by this, and fell silent. 

The grey figure seemed to laugh, again, behind its wispy sleeve. “This is not a pressing matter. Think, for a while, and choose something you like, to call me. For now, let us go.”

“Hang on a minute, go where?!” Kadaj demanded. “We never agreed to go with you! This is some kind of trick, isn’t it!”

“I vote to go with the reaper hag,” Loz said. 

“Seconded,” Yazoo yawned. 

“There’s no voting! This isn’t a democracy! Hey, where are you taking us! I demand answers! I dem—mph! Mmmph!”

Kadaj’s outraged protestations were muffled, as the grey figure stuffed the three little blobs into its sleeve, and vanished.

To be more accurate, it didn’t really vanish, it simply used astounding speed to cross unfathomable (conceptual) distances, in negligible time (which did not exist here). Not that it would have mattered if it vanished or not, though, since again, no one could see it in the first place.

“Here we are,” it said, shaking the little blobs back out of its sleeve, to plop onto the grey ground.

“—have rights! I don’t have to put up with being manhandled by some reaper hag, just because I’m—” Kadaj broke off, bewildered. “Where are we?”

“Home,” the figure said, in a sepulchral facsimile of cheerfulness.

Kadaj scowled. “This doesn’t look like home. It looks like more shitty grey fog.”

“What should home look like?” the figure asked.

“It should have a house!” Loz answered sagely. 

As he spoke the words, some of the fog receded, and a cottage style, two-story house emerged, just as he’d imagined it, only grey.

“It should have a garden,” Yazoo ventured, and more of the fog lifted, revealing a perfectly idyllic kitchen garden, full of flowers and vegetables and herbs of many varieties, only they were all grey. 

“It should have a mother,” Kadaj said coldly. 

When he looked up to sneer at the grey figure, however, he found that it had transformed, into a lovely young woman, with a gentle smile on her face.

She was as grey as everything else, but her skin was fair and her eyes were deep, and her long hair, which she wore pulled up in a high ponytail, was somewhere in the middle. Her figure was slender and petite, and she wore a simple dress, with an apron and comfortable house shoes, like the mother character in a children’s storybook. 

“M…mother?” Loz faltered.

“She’s not our mother!” Kadaj exploded. “She’s that reaper hag, in disguise!”

“That’s true—well, not exactly true, since I’m not a reaper,” said the former grey figure, who was now a grey young woman. “I am the same person who brought you here. I have created this place for you, in accordance with your ideas regarding what a home is, to make you more comfortable. I suppose I’m to act as the mother, since you say a home requires one, and I can’t create sentient beings.”

“Mother!” said Loz and Yazoo, bouncing happily.

“Since we’re home, shall we go inside?” asked the grey young woman.

“Inside, inside!” Loz and Yazoo cheered.

“You’re both idiots seeking death,” Kadaj groused, sullenly following the others into the house, with his arms crossed and his little silver eyebrows lowered in a scowl. Then he abruptly realized he had arms to cross, and a chest to cross them on, as well as legs to follow the others with, and gave a yelp. “I’m a person! Y—you guys are people, too! We were born! Wait, that doesn’t make sense.”

“Since this place is intended for your comfort, I gave you human forms, based on the condition of your souls,” the grey woman explained. “You’re children, now, because you’re so weak and small.” 

“Shouldn’t we be babies, then?” Kadaj pointed out. 

“I’ve no wish to care for infants, who can neither speak, nor do anything for themselves, so I gave you a little spiritual energy boost. Your physical ages should be around six human years.”

“Couldn’t you have given us a big one, so we can be grown ups?” 

“I’m afraid that’s not possible,” the woman said gravely.

“Is it against the rules?”

“No. It’s just that I think you’re absolutely precious like this,” she grinned, reaching down to pinch Kadaj’s little round cheeks.

“Back, hag!” he barked, striking out with both hands, to fend her off. Unfortunately, he had the strength of a six year old, and the woman simply ignored his little slaps and pinched his cheeks to her heart’s content. 

His eyes were blazing with white-hot indignation, and the moment she released him, he ran away up the narrow stairwell. A second or two later, they heard a door slam, upstairs.

“Only just become a mother, and it seems I’ve already got a teenager,” the young woman mused. “Wherever does the time go?”

“Mother? We’re hungry,” Yazoo said, tugging on her apron.

He was looking up at her with the largest, saddest eyes, and an aggrieved pout, which, on his beautiful, childlike face, was a devastating blow capable of slaying gods and mortals, alike. 

“Mother, can you cook us something?” Loz put in, tugging on her apron on the other side.

“I’m not sure. I suppose we’ll find out, won’t we,” she said, and entered the kitchen with the intrepid air of an adventurer, sallying forth into an undiscovered country, fraught with unknown dangers.

THE AUTHOR HAS SOMETHING TO SAY 

yazoo: mother we’re ever so hungry

loz: please make us food, mother

system: [-1000 points of puppy-eyes damage to party member mother] 

grey figure: [spitting out blood] my character settings are not specced for this 

[whereserpentswalk]

Its been thousands of years since humanity has left earth, and you've ended you've ended up as a human in a part of the galaxy where other species became dominant before humans ever could. The closest human governments are further away then any spaceship could travel to within a lifetime, yet still humanity exists here.

Humans currently live in a diaspora across countless systems. Some live in spaceships and independent space stations, which is what most nonhumans think the normal environment for humans is, some living their entire lives without ever touch a planet. Other humans live within other specie's empires, subject to their laws, forced to conform to what alien governments want for their citizens, or what they want from humans to make sure they're safe.

Humans are just known by the larger society of this part of the galaxy as a diaspora race, the idea that they'd ever be capable of having their own government is laughable to most. They're known as traders, mercenaries sometimes as criminals, but never as a people with their own nations, their own worlds to be proud of.

You've read some of humanity's oldest stories. The station you live on has a city sized population, and is a local hub for human culture, especially when it comes to human creatives and scholars. It's strange reading stories from old earth, to see how the Iliad or the Inferno or the Journey to the West describe humanity, not as something deviant and on the fringes of society, but as something important, something special that needs protecting. To think your ancestors wrote these stories in shining human cities, thinking that humanity was all their was, to thing you wouldn't look out of place to any of these ancient humans if you could visit them.

Anti human sentiment is growing. More and more humans live on ships and stations now for that reason. More and more states see humans as a scavenger race, as something that inherently lives off of other, grander, civilizations. Some planets have started banning humans from moving to them. Others have banned human religions, especially those that allow nonhumans to convert.

Human reproductive cycles are seen as especially subversive, with the fact that humans have strong natural urges to mate, and that they see it as pleasurable, being seen as something that makes them a threat. A lot of the humans who are allowed to stay on some planets are forced to remove their desire to mate, or even the organs pertaining to it. It's hard to explain to nonhumans why that seems like such a violation to you.

More and more humans are fleeing to your station. You don't mind, though they are going to have to build it to be bigger soon. Your roommate for your new apartment is someone who just fled here from a planet where she almost never saw another human. She looks sickly and frail, she was never in an environment made for humans, and she never saw enough humans to realize how unhealthy she is, her bones were stretched from being on a world with lower gravity then humans are evolved for, and her reproductive organs were removed as per her old planet's policy.

She seems so embarrassed of being a human, and especially afraid of the human culture that's so present on the station. Even the more stereotypically human members of the station are something she's afraid of. You want to hug and comfort her. And you want to show her all these old humans books you've found. You want to tell her that her race didn't evolve as a race of scavengers.

You wonder about your station. A planet might be nicer, but it's a planet that wouldn't be fine tuned for humans. This stations gravity and atmosphere mimics a homeworld you'll never see, because it's what human bodies were built for. When you're in parts of the station so heavily urbanized it could pass for a dense skyless part of a planetary city, and the conditions around you perfectly mimic the cool autumns your ancestors once knew, you wonder if part of you can feel earth.

[noosphe-re]

In a skyless world, the earth becomes a chasm. And the poem is one of consolation’s gifts, a quality of the winds, from both south and north. Do not describe your wounds as the camera sees them.

Mahmoud Darwish, Homage to Edward Said, Counterpoint, Le Monde diplomatique, January 2005, translated from the French version of the original by Julie Stoker

[jupytrrr]

Sorry I can't come in today. Nah. Yea the neighbourhood was consumed by the skyless realms deep beneath the earth, sorry. Mhm. Yea the ground was torn asunder and the entire street was pulled in. Yea I'll never see the glory and serenity of our pale star again. Anyways I gotta go. Mhm. It's the neighbours. It appaers they were driven mad by the caves and have already started forming cannibal maurader clans that worship a dark god. Tomorrow? Uhhhhh yea we'll see.

[zoideramy]

Skyless Day

Zoids HMM Shadow Fox Custom - Rose Fox Gigi

Today an unusual grey covers the desert sky. Rain is on the way, the only question is how much?

[rhineposting]

so I ended up writing a one-shot about the sinners of khaenri'ah (rhinedottir and surtalogi in particular) and for the time being im proud of it so 👉👈

[shenrickyz]

 ꒦꒷꒷꒦ ASSiGNiNG NCT SEi SONG LYRiCS

�� ꒦꒷꒷꒦ MEMBER 001

❝ so when you're near me, darling, can't you hear me, S.O.S? the love you gave me, nothing else can save me, S.O.S ❞ ⸻ XUWiCHA RATTANAKOSiN

  ꒦꒷꒷꒦ MEMBER 002

❝ 'cause whatever you give life, you're gonna get back, why be a wallflower when you can be a venus fly trap? ❞ ⸻ MAKANi SEO

  ꒦꒷꒷꒦ MEMBER 003

❝ i would rather hold your hand than have a cool hand shake ❞ ⸻ JiANG ZiXiN

  ꒦꒷꒷꒦ MEMBER 004

❝ remember that the days are numbered, springtime returns to summer, with or without you ❞ ⸻ FUKUSHiMA HiKARi

  ꒦꒷꒷꒦ MEMBER 005

❝ whatever goes around eventually comes back to you, so you gotta be careful, baby, and look both ways ❞ ⸻ HEO MiNJAE

  ꒦꒷꒷꒦ MEMBER 006

❝ don't go crying to your mama, 'cause you're on your own in the real world ❞ ⸻ KANG SEOJUN

  ꒦꒷꒷꒦ iSA SPEAKS ! okay so i wanted to explain at least the meaning for the members' choices 😭😭 i so badly wanted to give hikari a song from bury me at makeout creek, hikari is actually represented by every mitski song 🫶 anyway, i ended up giving hikari skyless moon because the song sort of represents how hikari feels about his place in dream, especially during his hiatus era where he questioned if his role as a member even mattered (will he ever be happy? idk 🤷‍♂️), ofc i gave seojun a paramore song because 😇!!! the lyrics basically symbolize how he had to grow up quickly, how he constantly bottles things up and it especially references like predebut times where he suddenly felt like he had to force himself to grow up when he joined sm 🙁 sorry #seojunnation

makani's is pretty self explanatory 😭😭 it shows how he toughened himself up on his own accord to avoid getting hurt by others, he shuts them out than acts all high and mighty because he genuinely hates the idea of people abandoning him or simply not caring anymore (abandonment issues are soooo common here) zixin's is basically how he doesn't exactly know to encapsulate his feelings, he often hides his true feelings with mountains of affection but then he absolutely confuses himself because he has no idea how to properly go about it 😓 it could also be interpreted as him trying to tell his partner how he truly feels but he's so sure they'll get confused about it.. minjae's is pretty similar to seojun's where he practically forced himself to grow up while under sm's roof 😕 he absolutely despises confiding in people so he "saves himself" by presenting a front and dealing with his personal feelings in his own time away from the rest of his members

so basically xuwicha is the only one with regular lyrics that are lovely under the surface 😭😭!! that man is absolutely hooked on his lover forever, he might die from the amount of love he's receiving 😓

[abyssaldyke]

Tagged by sex but in a kiwi accent @dicaeopolis

Last song: oh god I was just blasting my brain with asmr for like 2 hours but before that. Watermelon from Dinner in America a movie I have not seen. Fuck em all but us etc etc

Favorite color: geen

Currently watching: ollie play Zelda. And game changer. We'll get back on the prestige TV eventually.

Last movie: I think also the birdcage? Great fuckin movie.

Sweet/savory/spicy: savory always. If there are only sweets at the function I'm leaving

Current obsessions: honestly just reading really good books and like. My own writing. Surprise surprise.

Last thing googled: "term meaning without atmosphere" (for a description of seeing a planet from space). I think I gave up and went with skyless which the jury is out on.

Tagging @briannysey @dykegerard @akajustmerry @grime-scribe @lichfucker @puckgoodfaggot and all the other beautiful mutuals

[toovermorrow]

— where or when

aerith gainsborough x zack fair, cloud strife | 2.4k words

SUMMARY — Spending time alone in the church, Aerith thinks of the blond man she met crumbling through the roof. Tending to the flowers, she reminisces the time a SOLDIER did the same. — Inspired by Laufey’s Where or When.

WARNINGS — angst, introspective, post-crisis core/middle of ffvii (canon compliant), implied suggestive affection.

READ ON AO3

Through the gloom of a skyless street, light shines upon the roof of the church that Aerith left broken.

She leans down on the green, yellow, and white plants that greet her in gleeful bloom. After a while of meeting new faces and jumping across train station platforms, she finally has time for herself in the church at the end of the slums. She has time to think and feel as the fragrance of an earthy heaven hits her nose.

Flowers grow around her sandals as if they’re mindful of her presence. Living solely on a lucky patch of grass with the help of her tender care, they’ve been the only flowers around Midgar.

Aerith paces around the leaves, careful in her steps to not ruin the progress in keeping the little pieces of life left in the slums. Observing the plants as they follow the shifts she makes in the wind, her sight leads her to the hole in the roof.

Not everybody gets to meet people falling from the sky — but meeting two people who have is a low yet strange number.

She laughs at herself as she realizes it. Her green eyes shine in the sunlight as she reminisces the circumstances in which she met the blond-haired man.

Because yes, a while back, she met a blond-haired man who fell through the scaffolding of the church’s broken roof. He looked lost, as anyone who fell from the sky would.

It wasn’t really the sky, rather from the plate above. The sunlight barely shines through the streets below the hard concrete covering a good portion of the vast sky. It keeps her from her irrational fear of the world, she thinks, but maybe it isn’t so bad after meeting people crashing from above.

Just like a meteor.

When she tended to the man, he seemed cold yet endearingly awkward. There was a warmth in his sky-blue eyes that she couldn’t get ahold of. There’s an aura of experience and a life he lived despite his age, all along with the promise of a life ahead in his stride. His arms were toned, armor full of scratches, with a particular sword that looked all too familiar.

Aerith couldn’t put her finger on it then, but as her eyes focused on the open roof, she sighed as she felt the familiarity blaze through her skin.

That roof had been broken by another man before.

“…Zack?”

That’s not the new guy.

But it could’ve been.

A longer while back, she met black-haired man who also fell through the scaffolding of the church’s roof.

A while’s as long as Zack had left her.

He was warm off the bat. He was less lost, more excited to meet another life form other than his own since waking up. The warmth from eyes that were sky-blue were peculiar too. The man, a boy then, talked in his sleep about the troubles he faced in his current life, but he walked with promise of a bustling future ahead in his stride. His arms were toned, armor full of scratches, with a particular sword that looked all too familiar.

Zack Fair is her first love.

They spent time together like two puppies playing in a lawn. They’d call when they were apart, send mail when they had the time. He built her a flower wagon with the promise to populate the streets with flowers. In their downtime, they’d hold each other’s hands and twirl around the church. She’d hum a tune and he’d duet along, surprising each other with decent singing voices that erupted into giggles and laughter on the wooden floorboards of the chapel. To hell with manners whenever it came to love; he was her puppy.

“You never see flowers around here,” he always said, “I want to see a flowery Midgar with you.”

She isn’t affected by his absence, she hopes, having drafted one, two, five, ten, twenty more letters since the eighty-ninth that she sent him. Her calls never went through anymore, neither did her texts. He must’ve found somebody else, someone outside of Midgar who can bring in as many flowers as he once hoped to see in the streets with her. The flower wagon broke anyway.

Everything in the slums remained the same, so did the opened ceiling of the church.

The streets are trash and junk. The people get by with smoke in their lungs and smiles that they’ve earned through the shine of shillings and nothing more. This is life as Aerith has always known it to be, the only faint memories of her outside Midgar being her as a child running with her mom in a meadow. No flowers around still. The sky was still the color of concrete. Nothing changed when the man with shoulder armor came and left her life.

Naively, as anyone would, she misses him ever so dearly still.

The night was young in the same chapel, except the moonlight shone across Zack’s blue eyes with the stars encapsulated in them. They pant slowly, sharing hitched breaths that gradually calm down as Aerith reached for his finally bare shoulders. The two close in, Aerith’s body pressed against Zack’s as she was sandwiched between the back wall and him. She gently cupped his cheeks, running a thumb across his scar. He smiled at her gesture, leaning closer into her palms as the warmth of his cheeks filled her cold hands. Neither of them knew that it’s the first and last time they’ll ever be like this, close, intimate, inches away from kisses and more, all before Zack’s expedition. It’s the only time he had seen her with her hair completely down. It’s the only time she had seen him with his body exposed. Their heads closed in, Aerith wrapping her arms around Zack’s exposed upper half, inviting him to rest his hands on her hips — it was the only time they ever had a moment together, under a different kind of sky, flower wagon parked in place as it watched them feel each other’s heat.

Zack crashed through the roof of her heart. Then, he left without a trace. She only called for partial repairs since then.

Now, Aerith tends to the flowers with hope in her eyes. She picks one flower from the patch, apologizing to its severed stem, promising it a new life once she encourages it to regrow — but that’s not what she plans to do yet.

Her priority at the moment is herself, she thinks, as she hums a little tune to the freshly-picked flower.

“He loves me,” Aerith tugs on a petal, before hesitating to remove it.

It’s not the flower’s life that she’s concerned about now, she just plucked it out, but her breath hitches as she rephrases her words.

“Zack loves me…” Aerith says. “Zack loves me not—no, wait…”

The memory of the blond-haired man crashing through the roof replays in her mind as she stares at the bare ceiling. This time, it’s different. The partial repairs she requested were all for nothing as she reimagines the other man again.

The blue sky beyond the exposed ceiling is briefly interrupted by a tuft of white. She resets her little game as she finally tugs on the petal in her hand.

“Zack loves me, Cloud loves me…”

Oh, the strange man with the blond hair.

He looked almost exactly like Zack except he was moodier. Cloud Strife, SOLDIER First Class. His cadence and tone in reciting such words felt automated, but not exactly soulless; Aerith found him endearing in a different way.

Cloud never called back much, never really sent messages, never sang with her, but he did dance — not with her, as he always danced against his will. He never promised for a flowery Midgar. He never commented on the plate above the streets or the fact that the only sky they’d see clearly was through the broken roof of the chapel. Actually, Cloud never really did anything to swoon her heart at all.

He definitely is nothing like Aerith’s first love, but for some reason, she took to him too.

There’s something about him: the way that he spoke to her was gentle. He had a gruff in his tone that slightly reminded her of a little kid acting tough. She giggles to herself thinking about it, but immediately softens as she remembers his patience. She’d encountered him on Loveless Avenue before, and she’s somehow glad that he remembered her as “the flower girl” at all. They’re little things, not as grand as the gestures her first love gave her, but she felt the love and care in his heart that he didn’t know was even there.

She tugs on another petal.

“Zack loves me,” then another petal, “Cloud loves me. Zack loves me,” Aerith hums, “Cloud loves me.”

She isn’t sure what she feels.

One man is a dog, the other a cat. One man took her heart around and left, the other never even took anything yet stayed. Zack gave her life as his own was bursting, Cloud seemed caught up in his own life while figuring out hers. Suddenly, a thought ran across her mind.

They both had eyes that were the color of the sky.

Aerith stopped plucking the flower, no petals left, lost on who she ended up with in her little tune.

Not like she cared in the first place whoever she would like more. She liked them both, the puppy and the bodyguard, and she didn’t mind either one to love as much as they loved her.

Zack cared for her despite his duties. Cloud cared for her despite his demeanor. Both held her heart and made it feel whole, patching up the crashes they made through the ceiling of her soul.

Content with that realization, she smiles to herself — only for her eyebrows to furrow and for the corners of her lips to drop as soon as they smiled.

Neither of them are here with her in the chapel.

It’s not like it’s a big deal, she thinks. Zack probably has his reasons to leave, and Cloud seems busy by himself anyway. Aerith has other friends by the streets, but they never really filled up the holes in her heart the same way that they did. She’s surrounded by love and life and flowers that never go anywhere beyond her hands.

She has everything, yet she has nothing.

Despite all the people she’s met, she won’t admit that she’s still so incredibly lonely.

Loneliness isn’t unfamiliar to her either. Ever since her biological mother died, she felt lonely even under the roof of her adoptive mother’s home. It was another hole that only her mother could patch, and she’s forever grateful to have her new mother, but the loneliness that came with death was unshakeable since then. She’d meet new faces in the slums, from older women who taught her how to pray to younger teens who talked to her endlessly. Even then, there was a tear in her heart that was bigger than any patch that could sew it back together.

So, she kept to anything familiar as a safety blanket of sorts.

Familiarity gives her comfort. Aerith somehow felt scared of the open air, the flood of sunlight that the sky above the Midgar plate could offer. She’s grateful that she could see the blue sky somewhere without feeling dread in her soul. That’s why she’s glad that she met Zack and Cloud; men who fell from above with doses of the sky in their blue eyes.

The fact that they were so similar, so familiar to her made her feel loved and a little less lonely, but keeping to them was another burden. Aerith never wants her happiness to depend on anything other than herself.

She thought she was never normal for that, another fear she lived with her whole life. She doesn’t know what it is about it.

The Shinra executives, the Turks, and the floating rumors from townsfolk all called her an Ancient. They called her biological mother a Cetra. She denies all of it, but she knows that it’s true and it sets her apart. She doesn’t despise her blood, she thinks, but all the jargon is stressful. It’s unfamiliar. It’s uncomfortable, and it makes her feel less normal.

There’s a burden that she feels is a necessity for her to free, a pain in her chest that she knows she will carry lest the world die beneath her legs.

It only tears her heart apart, leaving a hole so big that it might as well be split into two.

But her heart shouldn’t matter as much, right?

Aerith’s breath hitches as she swats the thought away. She hates that thought more than anything.

Before she knows it, she’s crying, slumped in a squat over the flowers, careful not to squash them. The soil on the patch dirties her dress, but it’s the least of her worries.

“I wish they were here,” Aerith thinks. She wants to see Zack again. She wants to know Cloud better. If another man fell from the damn roof right now, she’d take it, but her luck wouldn’t be so good.

Defeated, she sits beside the flowers, petting a lone white lily at the side.

The sunlight along with the broken scaffolding on the roof drew beautiful shadows around the lily. Aerith stares at it before wiping her tears, managing to smile at the calming sight.

Zack loved that she took care of flowers. Cloud cared for the flowers she loved.

Who knows where or when they exactly swooped her heart out of the loneliness it drowned it. Who knows where or when they’d meet her again.

All Aerith knows is that she left her heart open, broken yet beating, for the people in her life to crash through.

She’d save them and the world that they inhabit, she’d trade her life and everything with her just to patch the massive hole in her heart by herself.

It was through the wide cracks of the wood and brick above their heads that the sky finally shone, no longer the color of concrete; the greenish-blue expanse of the world greeted her heart hello , keeping her smile as the tears fell freely on her cheeks.

She bids the flowers farewell for now. She’ll be back soon.

[fabdante]

Do you think it rains in Limbo, or gets cold? Like, if the weather is bad in the real world, would that mean the weather is bad in Limbo too? Or could Dante use Limbo as a sort of shelter from bad weather- assuming he can find a way in, I mean, and can stay there for however long the bad real world weather lasts?

(I was mainly thinking winter. Dante staying in Limbo as a way to escape the winter months, because its a more reliable way to stay out of the cold than Dante has otherwise.)

I think it depends. We know that Limbo can be impacted by the real world in various ways and mimics it to a degree in some places. A really interesting example of this is Bob's jail because it's under the water, the sky is the water from the river Dante jumps into, but he's not under water and it's raining there due to the fact the sky is water

So with this as a blueprint, we know there is weather in Limbo and we know Limbo is impacted by the real world

But how much probably differs with how close an area is to aspects of the real world. Like, since Bob's jail is connected to this river, it rains. The part with all the cameras outside of Virility I could see having weather since it has a sky. But parts like the Furnace of Souls or Dantes little mind palace don't seem like their skies are at all attached to any sort of real one so what weather would impact that I guess would differ by headcanon.

As for me, I guess I take a mixed approach verging on Limbo not really having a lot of weather phenomena. I tend to headcanon hell in the reboot as being largely skyless so weather is lacking. Limbo, though, being in this weird place where it's very linked to the real world in places and not at all in others, I can see it being a grab bag.

Now, onto Dante staying in Limbo to avoid the cold. That could work! Though, I'm not sure how likely he would be to do that based on how dismissive he was of Kat going into Limbo to escape from anything. He seems like he wants to stay out of Limbo as much as possible. But, again, his survival drive might take over so it's definitely possible!

[thepaintedlady00]

Burden

Chapter 10 | Chapter 12

Chapter 11: Memory

TW: Lots of emotions this chapter! Fluff, some angst, lots of descriptions and some mildly confusing text. Enjoy y'all, I love this chapter! 🥰

In the beginning, there was a tree. It was a sapling of thin branches and leafs so small that anyone that stumbled upon it would hardly know they were there. This tree, the first tree, dug its roots deep into the earth, so deep they spanned across realms, touching every one of them in some way. It grew taller and more beautiful to behold every passing day, and its roots were filled with Destiny, Death, Dreams, Destruction, Desire, Despair, and Delight.

The tree held the knowledge of all things within its being. It watched the world shape and twist with each phase of the moon and the new rising of each sun. The tree absorbed each word, every look of a mother to her babe or lovers sharing intimate moments beneath the privacy of its leaves. And then came the song, the first song it had ever heard. That was when everything changed.

Not long after the tree heard the melody, it was cut, but its roots had burrowed deep, welding itself to the world and the world to it. What should have been the end of its life and all the knowledge it held within instead became the beginning. One beginning, anyway. One of your beginnings.

The tree, soon known as The Great Tree, forged its own realm. A realm of mist and water and trees as far as the eye could see, all connected to its strong roots. It was different, though, lesser. Lesser because you were missing from it.

You would awaken in the dark and terrifying forest beneath a canopy of trees and a skyless realm. You would be alone, afraid, and uncertain about who and what you were. You would follow the only sounds you could hear; the dreamers burdened with great fears and daunting tasks that came with living.

The life you’d know was not the one you were meant for. It was a small, fleeting thing that always longed to return to a larger whole. You wouldn’t question it, though. None would, for what is more daunting to face than memory?

You awoke in a meadow of moss and tufts of grass. The sky above you was shrouded in thick mist and covered by a canopy of vivid green leaves. As you sat up, looking at your hands and the pale hair that ran through your fingers, you realized you should have felt afraid, but you didn’t. You knew this place… You were one with it.

Walking through the thicket of trees, whose roots moved and curled out of your path, you could hear them speak. Their voices were soft, full of joy and pain and life. Every tree was different, some with darker trunks and others with lighter leaves, but all had faces. Faces that you knew… Ones you’d seen before somewhere. You could feel every living thing, all connected to you, all a part of you - an extension of yourself. But… Who were you?

This body of soft flesh and silken hair felt foreign. You knew it, and it knew you, but the details were blurry. A sound, soft and strange, echoed around you. Hoo. Your eyes lifted to one of the branches of the trees you walked beneath, and there, perched upon it, sat a strange-looking beast. A bird. An owl. Its golden feathers swirled with burning embers and winds of mist as it beat its wings down at you. Hoo. Hoo. 

As you took another step forward, it swooped down, washing heat over you as it curved in the air and flew off into the distance. You felt a pull, a voice yours but not telling you to follow after it. How? You thought. It’s flown so far now I cannot see it. Looking up at the covered canopy of trees, you sighed. How you wished you’d had wings. Then you could soar above the treetops and mist and find your way. Mist curled around your legs, and before you could do much more than look down at it, you were transformed… no longer a soft body of skin and hair but a small thing of feathers and talons.

Hopping on your shorter, thinner legs, you peered down at your reflection in a small pool of nearby water. A long thin beak glimmered in the water as the pale eyes of a white raven stared back at you. For a moment, you just stood there, admiring the agile wings and thick feathers, when eventually, your eyes were drawn to a small black tuft hiding in the white above your heart. You looked familiar. More familiar than simple memories of birds, something personal and essential lingered within the small patch of black, but you couldn’t quite place it. 

The water rippled as the misty breeze grew stronger, lifting you by the wings and telling you to fly. And fly you did. Shooting through the leaves of the trees like a star, you soared high above the woods of mist, looking down at the endless plane of trees that stretched far beyond your eyes could see. Mountains and plentiful lakes and waterfalls split up the landscape and further revealed the beauty of this world before you. The wind beneath your feathers made you feel free as you continued forward, weightless.

Hoo! The noise came again as the owl dove from above, flying directly into your path and continuing forward, wanting you to follow. As you did, the pull you felt grew tighter and tighter until the figure of a tall white trunk came into view, and the sparkling silver leaves glistened in the misty sky like stars. The Great Tree… Images flashed before your eyes, memory filling your being as you dove down and slammed against the earth, you again. You stood, eyes gazing up at the intricately carved wood of the trunk, words, and symbols you knew but had never seen with these eyes before. The pale roots groaned as they shifted beneath the earth, lifting up to curl against your cheeks and through your hair. Welcome home, the tree seemed to say. 

“My lady…” A host of voices echoed through the trees behind you, each one familiar, filled with so much love and sorrow and you.

Turning, you were met with silver wisps of faces long gone from your side. Wolves with glowing eyes, purple, green, yellow, and every color in between, filled the empty spaces between the trees, running toward you. And there, solid among them, was one shining blue eye that held every memory, every moment you needed to know the creature rushing toward you. Tears build in your eyes as you smiled, “My star… My Sirius!”

He was quick as he ran through the trees, hopping over roots and stones until his soft body slammed into you. You could hear him speaking in a flurry of wet kisses and happy whimpers. “I missed you so much!” He said. “Never leave again, promise!”

You held onto him tighter, hugging the companion you’d been forced to leave behind while you were reborn. Flashes and fragments of the life you’d lived together washed over you like an endless wave that made everything clear. “I will not leave you again.” You told him, pulling back to hold onto his face and look into his eye, gently stroking a finger down the scar on his face. “Not ever.”

*

“He’s gone, sir,” Lucienne told him as she moved to his side. “Cain and Abel have searched the forest, but there’s no sign of him.”

Dream ran his fingers over the white book, closing his eyes to hold onto the fleeting visions of her. He could hear the faint beating of her heart, could see her smile and her hair glowing in the moonlight. For one moment, it felt like Daunt was alive still, here beneath his fingertips l, laughing and smiling and living alongside him.

Opening his eyes to the dull little house that now stood empty, Dream merely said, “It is unlikely he will return. We shall continue our search elsewhere, for if he remained in The Dreaming, I would sense it.”

“You think the wolf has gone to the Waking World?”

“Perhaps,” he answered, grip tightening on the book as he turned to his librarian and held it out to her. “I believe this belongs in the library.”

With watery eyes, she smiled. “You could keep it for a while… To feel closer to her… Until she returns.”

Dreams jaw clenched. “No. Even then, she will not be the Daunt either of us knew.”

“You fear she will not remember us?” Lucienne pondered sadly.

“I fear a great deal, Lucienne…” He admitted. “Take it. It belongs among the other books.”

She bowed her head as he passed, fading from the brothers’ garden to sit upon his throne with a single chilled piece of parchment in his hands. The parchment the book had spit at his feet. The parchment that held Daunt’s ethereal white hair and dark eyes and smile and everything he missed about her more than words could ever measure. It had been no time at all, to him of all beings, and yet it had felt like eons had passed without her, without even the comforting knowledge that she was alive and happy elsewhere, safe, even if not beside him. He could recall every detail about her, yet he could remember none. He could recall kissing her, but the feeling of that memory was now replaced with a sense of deep sorrow.

Daunt, his Daunt, was gone. He knew not when her spirit would return, nor did he know what to expect once it did. But, the reality remained the same. Whoever came to replace her would not be the being he knew. His greatest fear was that Dream of The Endless had wasted what little time he’d been given with the being known as Daunt, the being he loved, with vile words and cruelty to realize too late what should have always been clear. They were meant to be together. Dream and Daunt.

*

You and Sirius sat beneath the silver leaves of The Great Tree for a long while, making up for the time lost. When the two of you finally let the other go, you stood, examining the tree trunk and the markings carved there. The largest was a woman carved in gold with delicate features and a pair of antlers growing from her head. The carving swirled and faded into the second, a woman carved in white with stoic, almost sad features. Then, finally, it mixed again, gold and white weaving together to form the third carved woman of silver with leaves of emerald in her hair and a soft smile on her face.

Pressing your hand to the tree, your fingers running over the edges of woven gold and white, you looked up at the leaves and surrounding area. This was you. Your home and your realm, but it was Sirius’ too. With that thought, more carved figures appeared on either side of the tree; black wolves with bright eyes of every color appeared, swirling around until they all met with a white wolf with one blue eye. Sirius lifted his head to the carvings. “This is your history.”

“Our history,” you corrected. “This home is yours as much as it is mine. And now it is time to make that home one both of us are proud of.”

The tree sang beneath your palm, roots quivering as it twisted and took the shape you willed. Mist swirled all around, lifting and pulling and bending the realm. Finally, when all fell silent again, you stood at the tree’s base, its roots curled up into elegant archways, accentuating a fine path of stone, moss, and flowers. The earth behind you cracked and fell away, a crevice of glowing crystals separating The Great Tree from the rest of The Forest as the roots of the surrounding trees twined together to create a bridge behind you.

A tall entryway was carved into the now hollow tree, with the engraved women of gold, white, and silver resting above it. The gold owl dove through the doorway, gliding gracefully up the small set of stairs and onto the chandelier of golden-hued crystals and vines. Hoo. You and Sirius walked into the now large room, marveling at the tall windows that now helped illuminate the space. A large pool of water filled with red flowers and fish, large and small, separated the area. All around the pool were dark statues of wolves adorned with vined plants that bore different colored flowers, purple, yellow, and green, all humming with residual life. Standing tall across the water, a towering statue of a woman caught your eyes. Her head rested on the part of the tree while she sat, holding a vase of endless white and sparkling mist that poured out over a large dome of hedges and turned to water, running off the sides and into the pool. 

The hedges were wild and grew in lumpy shapes with twisted vines holding them tightly together, creating a canopy over a seat of curved wood, twisting high into antler-like patterns, and soft moss and flowers of every shape and color. As you took another step forward, a bridge of lily pads and white flowers formed beneath your feet, allowing you across the water to stand before the seat. Your hands traced the wood, admiring the softness of it beneath your palms. 

Sounds echoed around the tree as ghostly figures began to flow through the air and into the large room. Beside you, Sirius growled, baring his teeth at the odd brings that hovered, waiting. You could hear the sounds they made, voices without words, but the golden owl now spoke.” Sit the throne, Queen of The Emerald Wood.”

“What?” You whispered.

“Become that which you were always meant to be,” The owl replied.

Looking at Sirius for a moment, you moved, gently easing yourself into the chair. The figures bowed, mist swirling from you to them and pulsing with a faint light. The owl bowed, and then your mighty companion smiled, bowing as low as he could with his blue eye filled with pride. The ground trembled below you as branches and small roots curled down from the hedgehog canopy to twine around your head, blooming into small flowers of light blue and rich leaves. Vines wound crystals into the modest circle that now crowned your head.

You were the ruler of this realm now. You were, at last, all you were meant to be. The tree groaned around you as stairs formed above the statue, and rooms, archways, stairs, and balconies stretched up the length of the tree as far as your eyes could see. A palace for all the spirits that now stood before you. Their faces felt familiar, but one stood out among them. A man of tanned skin and curly black hair with caring eyes and a soft smile. He bowed his head to you as he approached. “It’s good to see you so… not terrifying.”

“Forgive me,” you replied, tilting your head. “Have we met?”

The man laughed and shrugged his shoulders. “I’m not entirely sure. All this… Supernatural stuff is kind of new to me.”

You laughed with him. “As it is to me.”

“Hector,” he said. “My name is Hector.”

The name brought back flashes of a cracking home, a woman crying out his name… Her eyes looking at you in fear. And a voice, deep and rich and endless, echoed in your mind speaking a name. “Daunt.” It sounded wrong… Loud and filled with a wave of seething anger you’d not ever know. More voices followed it, more words of cruelty, but that voice spoke loudest.

“It is a pleasure to meet you, Hector.”

Looking around at the newly established palace, he smiled. “It’s quite a beautiful place you’ve got here. I hope I’ll be able to add to it.”

You smiled. “I’m certain everyone here has a purpose. We shall work together to discover it, but in the meantime, please make yourself - all of yourselves,” you addressed the group now, “at home. You may go where you wish and do what you wish.”

Hector bowed his head again. “Thank you, fair lady.”

The owl swooped down in place of the man and hooted loudly. “My lady. I am known as The Katyogel. I’ve come to offer you council should you find yourself in need of it.”

“Do you have a name?” You asked her.

“The Kayyogel is the only name I’ve known.”

“I shall call you Kat then if it pleases you.”

Her golden feathers shimmered brighter for a moment. “I shall bear it with pride, your grace.”

As the three of you walked the grounds of the newly established palace, helping guide spirits to locations they could build upon, you heard a strange noise. The sound echoed through the trees, cutting through the mist and urging your feet forward until you stood at the base of a young tree with soft bark and a young feminine face. It was crying, tears of thick amber sap. You stepped closer, and the tree’s roots curled away from the ground into an archway, revealing a set of earthy steps leading down below. Following the way down, you found yourself underground in a passageway lit by small glowing plants hanging from the tree’s roots, glowing different colors as you passed. A light lay ahead, filled with mist and blurred shapes. 

As you exited the path, climbing another set of stairs, you found a graveyard surrounding you. The sounds of birds echoed in the distance, but there, weeping over a torn bit of fabric, a young woman looked down at the gravestone in front of her. “I’m so sorry… I should have been more careful with it. You were always telling me to be careful with it.”

Kat swooped down from the mist and perched herself on the headstone as Sirius walked closely by your side. The closer you got, the more defined the haze of lights hovering over her head became. An array of laughter and tears and angry shouts. Memories. Her memories. Her head snapped up, and her tearful eyes found yours. “Who are you?”

You still didn’t have an answer to that question… so you continued forward as a name rolled off your tongue. “Kristina.”

“How do you know my name?”

“I know it because I have watched you grow. You were always a small sapling, sick more often than the others, but you grew to be strong. Your roots run deep beneath the earth, connecting to so many of those around you.” Looking down at the headstone, at the name you knew to be her mothers, you smiled. “Hers especially.”

Kristina cried even harder, holding the torn and discolored fabric to you. “Can you fix it? It was hers… her favorite scarf, and I’ve ruined it.” She sobbed loudly. “She told me to be gentle with it, and I’ve… This is all I have left of her.”

You stood before her now, looking down at the sad fabric with a sorrowful gaze. “I cannot fix it, but you are wrong. This small, real thing is not the last of her. You hold all of her within you. Every piece that you need.”

Leaning over, you pressed a kiss to her head, fingers combing through the array of memories hovering around her, pulling her mother from them and bringing the moments she’d forgotten to light. Below your lips, Kristina laughed, and her tears turned to ones of joy. The memories of her and her mother, of the deep and unbreakable love they’d shared and would continue to share, shone over the loss she felt so profoundly. “She is always with you.”

The woman looked up, wrapping the scarf around her neck and holding onto it lovingly. “Thank you, Munin.”

A chord struck within you. Munin… Memory… that was who you were. Sirius looked up at you as Kristina walked away. “Munin?” He asked. “What does it mean?”

“Memory,” you answered. “It means memory.”

“Memory?” Sirius questioned quietly. “Does it hold any meaning to you, my lady?”

“It is my name.” You looked down at him and smiled. “I am Munin, the Keeper of Memory.”

*

As the months passed, your kingdom grew. Nearly every spirit you found within your realm had a home, a place of their own built from the memories they knew in their past lives. Your domain filled with creatures of all shapes, colors, and sizes. Plants grew everywhere you walked, and all within your realm adored you, the fair Lady Munin. It was all more than you expected and could have hoped for, yet something was missing. You could feel an absent space within you. Dark and deep and longing… 

The longer you tried to uncover the feeling, the stronger it seemed to grow until you found yourself unable to think of anything else. You walked beneath the arched roots, admiring the carvings when suddenly, an image took shape beneath one. The markings on the root glowed a rich greyish-brown color, and before your eyes stood tall, neatly trimmed hedges and the distant rattling of a chain. You stepped forward, gently pressing your hand to the thin barrier, and felt the smooth sensation of water rippling over your fingers. You knew this palace, this maze… no, this garden. Destiny. Stepping forward, you entered the realm without resistance and began walking along the path until you emerged in the garden’s center. 

The Garden of Forking Ways was a place you could never forget. It was beautiful in a simplistic way that made you take notice of the most minor details. Perhaps that was what Destiny had in mind when he’d created it, or perhaps the Endless being was simply simple. You turned, looking up at the tall statues that depicted the other Endless, his siblings. Most of whom you knew little of… passing, fleeting sounds and sensations but nothing solid enough for you to feel anything while you examined their faces. That was until you got to Desire. 

Even the simple sight of their smile made your body curl and your bones ache. You remembered that smile standing over you. You recognized their golden eyes burning with anger as they plunged a silver dagger through your heart and the sounds of your beloved Sirius’ pain as he fought them off. Desire of The Endless was a face you could never forget; no matter how long or how many lifetimes you’d pass through, theirs would always be the face of pain.

“Munin,” a deep voice echoed through the maze as Destiny appeared behind you. “I welcome you.”

“Destiny,” you replied, turning to look at him. His height was the most imposing thing about him. Tall and blank-faced, he looked at you from beneath his brown robes. Thin pages of memories fluttered between his head and the book he was tethered to, streaming together in an endless turning of pages. “It is an honor to be allowed an audience.”

The chain linking him to his book rattled as he gestured toward a seat at his table. “The honor is mine.”

You did not sit or move as you asked, “I take it you know why I am here.”

“Of course,” he replied. “Many that feel lost have come to my garden.”

“And how many have left feeling found?” You wondered aloud.

He merely shrugged his shoulders. “I am not a being of lost or found.”

“You are a being of riddles and questions,” you said with a smile. “I suppose it was foolish of me to expect you to answer mine.”

“Perhaps,” he said.

Turning away from him, you looked back at the statues, one in particular flooding you with cruel words and insults in that loud and consuming voice. “Which of your siblings is this?”

“Dream,” he answered, sitting at the table. “You know him well. Or rather, you did in your past life.”

“Yes,” you said softly. “I recall some of it, but much it would seem, has been lost.” Then, turning back to him, you narrowed your eyes. “His realm and mine are close, are they not?”

“Yes,” Destiny said, his tone never shifting. “Where there are dreams, memory will always follow.”

You caught onto the unspoken suggestion quickly. Looking up at the statue of the Endless being again, you were once again met with the tidal wave of cruel words and insults spewed at you, or rather at her… at that name, the being you felt but no longer knew. “You would have me approach a being I have only heard speak ill of me and mine?” Then, turning, you looked back at Destiny with a sharp look. “Surely you jest.”

Destiny was not known for such things. Even you knew this. With a simple shrug and the quiet rustling of pages turning, Destiny replied, “You are the one in search of something, not I.”

“Does this brother of yours even have what I’m looking for?”

“Perhaps.”

You shook your head, looking back at his statue with a sigh. “Why did you not tell me… her… that we were more than forgotten things and intimidating memories?”

Destiny’s misty eyes met your own. “She needed to experience this life as she did for you to be as you are. Munin. Memory. The first being of remembrance and knowledge. What is written is and will be. Not even I have the power to change that.”

“I still very much dislike speaking with you, Destiny,” you said, bowing your head to the old Endless. “But I thank you for this talk of ours.”

Fading away into the mist-filled hedges, you found the rippling portal and returned to The Forest. Sirius stood waiting, his eye brightening with relief as you walked down the cobbled path and back to his side. “Where were you?”

“Speaking to an old man in hopes he would answer my question.”

“Well, did this old man know what was missing?”

“Of course he did,” you answered. “Though he did not tell me, nor did he intend to. As always.”

Sirius growled lowly. “Perhaps I could have convinced him had you waited for me to accompany you.”

Chuckling, you shook your head at the wolf. “None can intimidate Destiny, not even a fearsome creature such as yourself, my star.”

“What now?”

You looked up at the growing kingdom across the woven bridge, at the glittering palace molded into The Great Tree, rays of moonlight illuminating the silver leaves and casting every living being in a soft glow. It was more than you’d ever hoped for… more than you could have possibly imagined. The spirits continued to build their homes, joyful and unafraid of this realm they now called home. Before you were you, this was all you’d ever wanted. A home filled with laughter and warmth and light and beauty. But now that you had it… now that it stood right before you, it was missing something. That cursed thing that your mind and soul simply could not name. Perhaps the only way you’d be able to discover the meaning of this feeling was to seek it out in the land of Dreams. 

“Now, we pay a visit to The Dream King.”

“Him?” Sirius groaned, looking up at you with a look of disdain. “Why would we need to visit him and his sand?”

You sighed, walking toward the roots linking your world with his. “I do not know, but perhaps he can… inspire me to reveal what is still missing from our world. Or better yet, he has a vast library of knowledge. The answer could yet be within one of his books.”

Sirius rolled his eye. “That’s not likely to be a quick affair. The Dream King is an awry sort.”

“I remember little of him,” you admitted, thinking of how his deep, silken voice sounded as it cursed you. “Only fleeting words spoken in anger and filled with something deeper…”

“It is no secret your past with Dream of the Endless is… complicated,” Sirius offered. “I saw only glimpses of it, but as you’ve said before, they are hidden even from you. Perhaps that is what is missing?”

“I do not know why those memories have been erased from me, but whatever the reason may be, we must trust in the will of The Forest.”

You walked among the carved roots for a moment, looking over the deep runes of red, gold, and brown until you came upon the rich blue that lined his name. Dream of the Endless. Your fingers ran along the smooth carvings as they glowed beneath your fingertips, running up the tree trunk and bringing the star-filled portal into The Dreaming before you. Then, looking over at the owl atop the root, you nodded. 

“Coming, Kat?” Her golden wings shimmered as she spread them, gracefully falling into the portal and appearing in the sky on the other side. You looked down at Sirius, who huffed loudly. “You can stay here if you wish.”

“And leave you to deal with the Nightmare King by yourself? Never, my lady.” He stepped into the portal, vanishing into a mist that swirled behind The Katyogel.

You leaned into the tingling of the portal, slowly easing your way through the water-like barrier and onto the other side in the form of the white raven. You, Kat, and Sirius soared through the night sky for a moment before you dove down toward the glittering gold roofs of the Dream Lords palace, nearly crashing into a blurred figure of black wings that shrieked as you passed. You cawed loudly before swooping down through the palace doors as they opened to you and shifted back, leaving a trail of white wings floating in your wake.

*

“Boss!” Matthew hollered, swooping over the shelves and crashing into the library table.

“Matthew!” Lucienne scolded.

“Sorry! Sorry! Boss, you didn’t happen to make a like huge bird, did you?”

Dream tilted his head in confusion, closing the book he held. “A huge bird? I’ve no idea what you mean.”

The raven cawed loudly. “I was afraid you’d say that.”

“What is going on?” Lucienne asked.

“I was flying, you know, as I do… Bird and all…” His feathers ruffled. “But then outta nowhere, this huge fucking white bird swooped down. Nearly crashed into me! Unimportant, anyway, it was headed for the palace doors. Figured that was a bad sign, so I came to find you.”

It made little sense. This creature, wherever it came from, should have left a trace that alerted him of its presence. Dream set the book down on the table and turned toward the throne room with Matthew in tow. This could very well be some kind of trick… A misunderstanding or perhaps a message from another realm. As he walked, he saw glistening white feathers glide across the marble floor. His steps quickened with a deep-rooted tense feeling filling his chest, his mouth open and ready to let lose the frustrated words fueled by it when everything stopped. Dream froze between the pillars, looking up at his throne or rather the figure standing in front of it. 

The stained glass windows cast an ethereal light over her pale visage. Long white hair twisted down her back in intricate braids and curls that reminded him of the roots and gnarled branches of the trees her realm had once been full of. Her long gown was white with glittering adornments of silver that twinkled and glowed as she moved. On her shoulder, an owl of golden wings and wide eyes shining with embers was perched, watching him for a long moment before twisting its head to look at the face of its master. 

Dream took a step forward, drawn to her being more so now than ever. Her head turned, and wide bright eyes, sparkling with hues of swirling molten silver and gold, met his. Daunt… She looked different, lighter… Unburdened.

Sirius treaded the thin space between his lady and the straight drop off the platform, his blue eye watching Dream closely, oddly absent of his usual look of disdain. “You stand in the presence of Lady Munin. Ruler of The Forgotten Ones. Princess of The Silverleaf. Keeper of Memory. And Queen of The Emerald Wood.” Pride filled him at the many titles she’d held, all of which she deserved more than any other. “You will show her the proper respect, or I shall rid you of your eyes.”

The girl, Munin, tore her eyes away from him to look down at the beast. “Sirius, we are guests.”

He was so caught up in the beautiful melody of her voice that he’d almost missed the wolf’s huff. “He’s heard far worse, I’d imagine. And I doubt that his tongue is clean of ill-spoken words.”

“Forgive my companion,” she said, looking back at him with a delicate dip of her head, the wooden crown of crystals, emerald leaves, and soft blue flowers… forget me nots, catching his eyes. “You are The King of Dreams?”

Pain exploded through his soul, shattering every hope and the misguided notion he’d clung to these few, long years she was gone. She did not remember him.

*

He stood out against the light, airy nature of the room. Clad in a long dark cloak that looked to be lined with starlight and an array of cosmos within it, the Dream Lord was not what you’d expected… not what you’d remembered in the hazy and fleeting moments you’d seen in memories. The statue in Destiny’s garden made him look so regal… so proud and snobby, but as you gazed down at him from the high platform taking in the mess of black hair and the simple clothes and the way his eyes sparkled… the way that heavy gaze made your skin burn, he did not seem the same. Instead, his lips pursed into a thin line as his hands clenched at his sides, glittering stars of memory shining like a crown around his head, drawing you in like a moth to a flame.

In a puff of mist, you teleported down to stand before him, eyes raised to the twinkling memories that only seemed to expand the longer you looked. Walking around him with a bright smile, you held your hand to them, brushing your fingers along the small things and watching each one. “Your memory is so beautiful,” you complimented, plucking one from its place in his crown and cradling it in your hands, willing the small ball of light to expand and reveal that which it held. 

The Dream Lord looked at your hands with wide eyes as the memory played for him. “How…”

Looking back up into his deep, endless eyes, you smiled. “Memory is always unique in the shapes and forms it takes, but I’ve never seen ones that look like this before. An endless crown of stars, all your memories displayed so proudly. It suits you, Dream of the Endless.”

“You can see my memories. How?” He said a bit more coldly.

“I can’t see all of them,” you admitted, lifting the star back into its place and looking deep within the host of being that lay before you. “As to how memories are my function. They are me, and I am them.”

“Memory,” he whispered voice light yet filled with depths you did not understand. 

The darker memories caught your eye, swirling around the temple of his crown in a black hole, holding inside it a seemingly endless pit of dark things. They were memories he’d wished to forget… wounds that never healed. You gently pulled one from the black and twisted it between your fingers, pulling to expand it, revealing a small glass cage, glowing the golden runes of dark magic… a thin and weak being trapped within it with nothing but his own thoughts to keep him company.

It felt different, heavy as you beheld it. Something lingered inside, a familiar sense of you… of the being, you’d once been. “For so long, you sat in silence… desperate, pleading… hoping for someone to come for you. So angry and hurt and full of sorrow that they knew and yet… no one came.” With a deep furrow of your brows, you stroked a thumb along the edges of the cage, feeling it rattle beneath the pad of your finger. “I know this pain.”

Pale hands shot out and gripped your wrist tightly, drawing a surprised gasp from your lips as you looked up. You saw a field filled with shadow and darkness and two glowing eyes baring into yours as you wept. “Was it not your touch that did this?” That voice, his voice, seethed at you. For a moment, you could feel the bones shift beneath your skin… gripped so tightly you thought they’d snap in two. “Everything you touch spoils… Everything you speak to is corrupted by your words. All of this is your doing. Another burden upon my shoulders for me to remedy.”

You pulled your wrists away from his touch as tears swelled in your eyes, and the misty vision faded, revealing the soft light of the throne room and the equally soft eyes of the Dream Lord as he watched you with a tearful gaze. “Apologies,” He said in a strangled voice. “That… that is a memory I’ve no wish to relive again.” Nodding, you cautiously lifted your fingers to it, lifting it back into place with the others. His eyes fell to your wrist. “Did I harm you?”

You touched the chilled skin with still slightly shaking fingers and shook your head. “No.”

Sirius moved to your side, perching himself up to sniff the wrist you held with a low growling and a sharp look toward the being before you. “Are you hurt?”

“No,” you repeated softly, pulling yourself from the distant echoes to smooth your hands over his head, lovingly rubbing his ears. “Be still, my star. I am well.”

Pressing his head to your chest, the growls of your companion subsided. Dream bowed his head to you, reverent and almost mournful. “You are most welcome in my realm, Lady Munin.”

“Thank you, Dream of The Endless.” You bowed your head.

“Morpheus,” he replied, emotion filling his eyes in an instant. “You may call me Morpheus.”

With a curt nod, you tested the name on your tongue, “Lord Morpheus. It suits you well.”

“My lord!” A voice called from the long hallways behind the Dream Lord. “Have you found the creature? Or shall I- Sirius!” The woman with dark glowing skin and two wide eyes looking out from behind a set of round eyeglasses stopped in her tracks as her gaze fell upon Sirius, who’d moved to meet her. She smiled, stroking his fur, and shook her head. “There you are! We’ve been looking for you for ages. Where have you been?”

Your wolf nuzzled her cheek for a moment before turning to look up at you. “Home.”

The woman looked up, her eyes instantly filling with tears as she smiled. “Oh!” She stood, moving quickly to wrap her arms around you and pull you in close. 

A warm sensation filled your chest as the smell of old books and ink filled your nose. Your hands settled tentatively on her back as fond memories of you, and the librarian filled your mind and hers. You held her tighter and whispered her name, “Lucienne…”

“Lady Daunt,” she said softly. Then, pulling away, she looked at your face, slowly realizing you were different from who she had known. “It is so good to see you.” 

“Daunt…” You whispered, memories of a life yours and yet not. Voices whispering cruel things in your - her ears. Your hand lifted to your chest, to the thin scar, the mark of her left on you. “That was my name. Her name. I am her, and yet I am not.”

Lucienne tilted her head and squeezed your hand with a sad but equally hopeful look. “It is a pleasure to meet you, my lady. I hope you and I can be close… like we were before.”

You bowed your head to her with a smile. “You already are my friend, Lucienne. The memories I’ve seen have told me such.”

“I am honored.”

Looking around, you beheld the misty figures wrought into shape in your prolonged presence, moving to examine them with a curious mind. “There is so much memory here, swirling in the air wanting to take form.” You wove through the misty figures, waving your hand until they solidified and took their shape, moving as they had when the memory had taken place.

The throne room was filled with figures, dancing and moving throughout the ample space with whispers and faint laughter. Smiling, you danced beside them, twirling and twisting to match their movements until you turned to a familiar figure. Round glasses and a wide, Cheshire grin. Happiness and pain warred within you as you examined the face closely, lifting your hand to its cheek with a sad whisper, “I know your face.”

Kat swooped down with an angry howling noise and cut through the figure before you, flapping her wings angrily to remove it from existence entirely. You merely shook your head at her and turned back to Dream, whose eyes seemed to hold more each time you looked into them. You could see in his crown swirling things hidden behind darkness or purposefully locked beneath the fortification of his conscious mind. You retook a step toward him. “So many of them are locked away… Hidden even from you.” You tilted your head, brows furrowing. “Why?”

“Perhaps there are things I do not wish to remember.”

“You cannot run from them,” you told him. “Memories are a part of you, good and bad. I can help you if you’d like. It is part of my function to aid in confronting one’s darker memories.” You laughed again. “I suppose I’m not unlike your nightmares in that regard.”

With a soft expression, Dream shook his head. “You, Lady Munin, are no nightmare.”

“Thank you,” you replied.

“If I may inquire, what is it that brought you to my realm?” Dream asked, looking away from you and straitening his back.

“I’ve already found much here,” you answered. “But I came to inquire in your library for an answer to a question.”

Lucienne lit up as she stepped closer. “The library is full of information. Surely your answer will be within a book.”

You smiled. “This is my hope.”

“What is it you wish to know?” She asked, leading you down the hallway toward the library. 

“It seems my recollection of my past life… of Daunt is splintered. I recall some things vividly, and others I cannot find.” You shook your head at the feeling of Dream’s stare as he followed after you.

Lucienne hummed quietly. “It will take some time to find something within the vast expanse we’ve at our disposal.”

You nodded. “Yes, I was expecting a bit of searching.”

Lucienne’s eyes went to a white book that glittered atop her table. “While we wait, perhaps it would interest you to see this.”

“The book of mists,” you breathed, slowly moving closer to gaze at it. “So few have read it.”

“I’m afraid we’ve not read it,” she corrected, sparing a look at Dream. “It appears to be fragmented. There are only a few words, and they don’t make much sense.”

You shook your head fondly. “You do not read memories,” you whispered, opening the book to the first page of the tree with the simple words scrawled messily at the bottom. “You remember them.” Then, with a deep breath, you began to read, “In the beginning, there was a tree.”

Mist rose from the book, taking the shape of the words and bringing the memories they held to life. It twisted into a tree, small and frail looking, shifting as it began to grow, showing the progression of it throughout the pages until the first tree, the one your realm held a different version of, towered over you and stretched up toward the ceiling. 

“Memory,” you affirmed softly as the mist of the book, the mist that was part of you, began to take shape in the room. “That was our name long before. We were not this… We had no physical form, for memory is no tangible or mere object. It is everything and nothing all at once, unique to each being.”

Dream looked around at the misty images of the first tree and those that celebrated and lived beneath its leaves. “How did you come to be then?”

“The first tree saw all, across every realm and every plane… We saw memories. The humans, the gods… your memories,” you breathed, looking away from the book to him. “We saw so many things, but it was you… Your dreamers that created that song. The first song.” The tune began to play in the throne room. “It made us... Want... For the first time, we wanted memories of our own, something tangible to hold in our hands and feel and love.”

Flipping the page, you felt the splintering cracks of their tools against the wood. “They cut us… The tree and we were forced… split apart from The Great Tree... Split from Memory, and so I… She came out fractured. Wrong. Distress. Discourage.” Turning toward him again with tears in your eyes, you whispered, “Daunt.”

“Thank you,” he said. “For sharing this gift with us.”

Lucienne beheld the book with adoring eyes. “I’ve not seen a book like this before. It is marvelous!”

“A fine addition to your library,” you answered with a smile as you closed the book and held it out to her.

“It belongs with you,” she said with a modest look. “Back in The Forest.”

You chuckled and shook your head. “Memory has no need for books. I think the dreamers would find more use for it than I would.”

Lucienne’s hands curled around the sparkling leather, and she nodded. “I shall keep it safe and well cared for.”

“As you do with all the other books under your care,” I assured her. “It will bring me great joy knowing it is getting such attention.”

“I will search the shelves for an answer to your questions, my lady. How will we call to you once we find answers?”

“I will return in a few days,” you looked at Dream. “If that is alright with you, Lord Morpheus?”

He simply nodded with a small smile. “My realm is open for you to come and go as you please, Lady Munin.”

You could not shake the echoes of his voice, the faint memories you did know of the Dream Lord s cruelty. Was all this some ruse? What did he gain from being kind to you now? “Return to The Forest,” you instructed Sirius and Kat. “I’ll be joining you shortly.”

“We can remain with you, my lady,” Sirius insisted.

“It’s alright,” you assured him, turning to Dream. “I would like to see a location that’s been plaguing my mind. A pier, I believe.”

His face remained stoic, but his hands wound tighter around his back. “I will escort you there myself.”

“Thank you,” you said with a bow of your head. “I’ll be home soon, my star.”

Sirius and Kat listened to your command, the owl seemingly understanding your wish to speak with the King of Dreams alone. She flew out of the palace with Sirius trailing behind her in mist as you and Dream of The Endless walked side by side toward the pier. You’d been seeing visions of the blue waters and the misty sky for days alongside the sound of his voice. Indeed this place held something… some event that had made your past self cling to it.

The water lapped at the groaning wood as the two of you walked toward the very edge of the dock. Shapes and figures moved with ease beneath the sapphire waves, tiny figments of dreams playing within the depths of the water. It was familiar here, filled with the faint presence of the figure you’d seen in the throne room alongside yours and one of your past companions, Puck. Then came him, the sweeping feeling of power and mystic sense of dreaming. The two of you had stood on this dock before. You knew it.

“Though much seems to be lost within my knowledge, I still hear voices of the past. Voices mocking me… her.” Beside you, Dream grew stiff, taking a deep breath as you continued, “It is your voice I hear loudest among them. It says such cruel things, but the word that seems to repeat is burden. Why did you hate her so?”

“I did not hate her,” he answered softly. Regret filled the space between you, humming like a song that only the two of you could hear.

Looking up at him, you spoke again, “Yet you spoke words meant to harm her.”

His eyes met yours unflinchingly, the apology shining within them. “I made a great many mistakes when you… she… was concerned.”

“Yes,” you agreed with furrowing brows. “And yet… it is not anger, hatred, or pain I feel when I look at you through her eyes.”

“What do you see then?” It was more than a question; it was a desperate plea… an answer that meant more to him than your eyes could ever see.

You looked away from his gaze at the dark of his coat, at memories of how soft it felt against your skin when you’d accidentally brushed by him. You admired the silken structure of his face, handsome and ethereal and entirely other that seemed to be molded to consume you. “Hope,” you began. “And starlight and… longing…”

When you dared meet his gaze again, you found it glazed, almost tearful, as he nodded. “Longing for what?”

“I do not know,” you replied. “But, I suppose the simplest answer I can give you is this: I do not hate you, Dream of the Endless, and neither did she.”

“A new beginning,” he breathed out with a hint of a smile.

You nodded, unaware of why exactly it sounded so familiar. “One for us both, it would seem.”

“You are always welcome in my realm.”

“As you are in mine,” you replied, eyes turning to the water as it rippled and revealed the emerald trees of your forest and your companions waiting beyond for you.

“Until we meet again,” Dream said, closing his eyes with a bow. “Lady Munin.”

“Until then,” You replied, a wave of familiarity making the air around you feel thick. “Lord Morpheus.”

In a puff of mist, you transformed into the white raven, curving around Morpheus’ back and high into the misty sky, diving down toward the hazed vision in the water of The Forest.

*

Dream watched the white raven with a heavy heart as she flew into the sky, wrapping around him before shooting upward like a star returning home. She looked like Jessamy, larger obviously, but the way she moved as she flew reminded him so much of his fallen companion. Then, diving down, she slid into the water soundlessly, and in the reflection, Dream could see the image of the fair Lady Munin standing in her realm as white feathers floated up into the air and the water returned to its deep sapphire blue. 

Reaching out, he took hold of a feather, holding it in his hand and savoring its warmth. She was different in many ways, yet it seemed she clung to her past life in intimate gestures. Looking up at the mist rolling over the water, he remembered Daunt’s promise. He did see her again, just as she’d said… he saw her not just in the new form of Munin but in the mist over the water and in the pages of Lucienne’s unfinished books. 

For years he feared he’d wasted his one chance to be with her. Feared he’d doomed both of them to a life of loneliness and isolation because of his past actions, he now held a glimmer of hope in his hands in the form of a white feather. Dream held onto the words that burned in his chest… the words he’d felt the undeniable urge to speak aloud to her, in a scream that would echo across worlds and a whisper that would only know her skin, in a desperate and unbreakable vow of devotion. I love you still. He thought to himself, fingers curling gently around the feather. I love you in every body, every name, every lifetime… I love you.

“Hold onto those words, my Dream.”

“I will hold them forever if I must,” he said to none but the fading moon and the rising sun.