#and think there's lots of room for eye/ear/mouth-growth body horror if he's using the power of the Elden Ring to tweak the Lands Between

[smorgasbort]

Just imagine that somehow, by some horrific fluke of luck, Gideon actually managed to become the third Elden Lord and Marika's new consort.

The Lands Between would become the most invasive magical surveillance state you can picture overnight.

The scarabs, spies of Gideon, now swarm thickly through the air over all of the land, sometimes even blocking out the rays of gold from above, always listening and reporting back to him.

The beetles are not the only spies. Peoples' bodies betray themselves. Through the cruel work of a rune of mending embedded in the Elden Ring, souls returned to the erdtree are reborn with extra mouths upon their brow which whisper the innermost thoughts of the mind aloud. Gideon says that all knowledge must be shared, even secrets. Especially secrets.

Those whose thoughts prove they remain loyal are met with ongoing clemency. Those harbouring contempt are dispatched swiftly.

The servants of Gideon are everywhere. Once powerful warriors, now unthinking puppets, born of a potion taken by Gideon from a foul sorceror. His step-children, loyal to him for his perceived kindnesses, mercy, and wisdom, ironically ignorant of the true nature of the All-Knowing.

Worst of all are his demi-god children, the house of Ofnir. They are the result of his union with the husk of Marika and are thus crumbling and hollow as she is, vessels to be filled with Gideon's will. Hunched creatures, wizened before their time, their dry flesh is thick with eyes and ears. They are three, named Gibor, Gilad and Gillam. Physically the weakest and frailest of all the demi-gods, they strike as one with all manner of incantation and spell from behind the shieldwalls of the All-Knowing's armies.

As Elden Lord, Gideon strives for omniscience. Through it, he will achieve control. Nothing is outside of his notice, nothing is outside of his reach. Once all who oppose him are dealt with, the only ones who remain will be spies, puppets and the loyal, adoring children of the House of Ofnir. Once all are within his control, he can hold the world in static form and end the rise of all new knowledge, ensuring that all that there is to be known is known by him, his perfect form of order.

"The fallen leaves tell a story Of how a Tarnished became Elden Lord. In our home, across the fog, the Lands Between. Our seed will look back upon us, and recall. The Age of the All-Knowing."

[theleakypen]

OYZZ/A-Qing, AU where they meet while she's alive, kiss meme?

(uhhh so this accidentally turned into a full-on fic. Unfortunately, it's only a fix-it for A Jing, not for Songxiao 😭; I’m going entirely by book canon here, except my brain has settled on CQL aesthetics for OYZZ and A Jing, hence the “burgundy robes.”)

Kissing prompt

"Excuse me, are there any powerful people around here? Powerful people who cultivate?" Ā Jing swallowed hard as yet another passerby shook her off. She wouldn't cry! Her dàozhǎng needed vengeance and so did Song dàozhǎng; she had to keep trying to find someone.

"Excuse me, gūniang," came a voice from behind her—a young voice, a boy about her age. "I'm a cultivator. Perhaps I can be of service?"

--

It took some doing to convince first the boy — Ouyang Zizhen — and then his father that Xue Yang was indeed in Yi City and not dead as he should have been these last many years, but in the end Sect Master Ouyang had reached out to his patron, the master of the Jiang sect, who was known for his hatred of demonic cultivators, and the full might of both Baling Ouyang and Yunmeng Jiang was brought to bear against Xue Yang. Ā Jing insisted on being allowed to accompany them — she had to see this through.

Ouyang Zizhen seemed to have decided that she was his responsibility and he stuck close to her while his seniors prepared for and then fought the battle. "I'm not allowed to night hunt unsupervised, anyway, so I will be your protector, Jing gūniang!"

Ā Jing wasn't going to say no to protection. Ever since she saw her dàozhǎng killing people under Xue Yang's guidance she had felt an overwhelming terror. It was lessened now that she had an entire army between her and Xue Yang, including this strangely earnest boy, but until she saw Xue Yang's dead body with her own eyes, she wouldn't feel able to truly rest.

--

She took one look at the dead bodies laid out in a row, the two Daoist priests and their murderer, and flung herself weeping into Ouyang Zizhen's arms. He stroked her back, while she shook and wet his burgundy silk robes with her tears, and murmured soothingly in her ear. She liked that he called her "Jing gūniang," as if she really was somebody, and not just an urchin with no family name to speak of.

"What will you do, now that it's over?" he asked, when they were all seated in an inn, waiting for food to be delivered to their table. He kept his arm around her and seemed to be daring his seniors to say anything. Ā Jing was still feeling shaky and uncertain, so she wasn't going to complain. She clutched the little pouch that the cultivators said held Xiao Xingchen’s soul close to her chest, afraid to let it out of her sight even for a moment. They said his soul was shattered into little bits, but that it might heal with time. The least she could do was take care of it until it did. Every time she thought about her poor dàozhǎng, shattering himself to pieces because of his horror at what Xue Yang had made him do, she felt fresh tears prickling her eyes.

"I don't know," she said. "I was traveling with Xiao dàozhǎng so long, I don't think I know how to travel alone anymore." This was probably not true, but all these people knew that she was sighted — she had to play up her helplessness somehow!

"You can come with us to Baling," Ouyang Zizhen suggested. "You could learn to be a cultivator, like us."

"Aren't I too old?" she asked, looking at him sidelong.

"You'll probably never be exceptional," he agreed, "but that doesn't mean you can't learn to use a sword the way we do."

It sounded appealing. It sounded like a lot of work. Well, if she didn't like it, she could always leave. Traveling alone in Baling couldn't be any different from traveling alone in Shudong.

--

Baling was nice. They let her call herself Xiao Jing, to keep her dàozhǎng's name alive, even if he was now dead. They gave her a room and nice clothes and they didn’t try to take away the two bags that held everything that mattered to her in this world — the wallet she had stolen from Xiao Xingchen, and the Spirit Capture Pouch that held his soul. They added her to the rolls of junior disciples. She had to practice next to seven year olds, and it was hard work, but she never had to worry about her next meal and Ouyang Zizhen came by all the time to see how she was settling in. One time a couple of his big sisters came by and told her to tell them if he was bothering her.

"We'll beat him up for you, don't worry," said the second young mistress of Baling Ouyang. Xiao Jing thought that maybe that was backwards — shouldn't they be threatening her on his behalf? After all, she was a swindler and a thief. But, then, they didn't know that part of her past.

Everyone knew she was a tragic orphan, victimized by the horrible Xue Yang, and she'd played that up as much as possible. Pity was good — people mostly didn't want to hurt you if they pitied you. Mostly people were patient with her uneducated speech and her inability to read and that she picked up cultivation concepts slowly, except the physical ones. The exercises came easily — she'd had to be deft to steal without people noticing, and that came in handy now.

"He's not a bother," she said aloud. "I like Ouyang gōngzǐ."

"Oh?" The fifth young mistress pounced on that, smiling like a cat. "And in what way do you like xiǎodì?"

Xiao Jing blushed at that, and did her best to deflect.

--

"Your sisters came to see me today," Xiao Jing told Ouyang Zizhen. She pulled a couple of sweets from the wallet she still kept close by, the one she stole from Xiao Xingchen all those years ago, and offered one to him. Their fingers tangled briefly as he accepted the sweet and she flashed back to Ouyang Ruoyin's question. In what way do you like our little brother? She shook herself, willing her cheeks to stop blushing. Back to doing the teasing; that was way better than being teased. "They said they'll beat you up if you keep bothering me."

"They told me the same thing," Ouyang Zizhen laughed. "Am I bothering you, Jing gūniang?"

"Obviously not," Xiao Jing retorted. "I don't give sweets to people who bother me."

"Well, that's a relief, then," he said, smiling at her as he popped the sweet in question into his mouth. He had a very nice smile, distractingly nice. She realized she was staring at his lips, which was definitely inappropriate, and dragged her gaze up to his eyes, which were crinkled in that same smile. Hell.

“Jing gūniang, I—” he began, before she cut him off. Oh well, it wasn’t as though she hadn’t been impulsive before.

“Ouyang gōngzǐ, do you like me?”

Now it was his turn to blush and stammer, which filled her with an obscure satisfaction. “I— yes, I— yeah?” he said. His voice steadied as he took up his thread. “I like you a lot. Your courage in the face of extreme adversity, your devotion to your dàozhǎng, the way your eyes flash in the sun when you train—”

“Okay, okay,” Xiao Jing cut him off again. There was no stopping Ouyang Zizhen when he got poetic. She wasn’t anticipating the danger of letting him get poetic about her, the way it made her skin feel hot and prickly all over. “I get it, you think I’m admirable. Do— Would—” She swallowed hard. Get it together, Ā Jing. “Would you like to try kissing?” she asked, the words coming out all in a rush.

Ouyang Zizhen stared at her, mouth falling open in a pretty silly-looking way. Xiao Jing almost laughed at it, except for how her stomach was turning somersaults. Did she misread things? Ouyang Zizhen did get poetic about all sorts of things, but she did think he showed her particular attention! She scuffed her foot on the floor of the pavilion. “I only meant...” She looked down. “I like you, too, and I thought...”

“Yeah.” His voice was breathless and Xiao Jing looked up with new hope. He was still blushing, and his eyes seemed almost to sparkle as he stepped nearer to her. “Yeah, can I kiss you?”

Xiao Jing smiled and took one of his hands and tilted her face up to his. She’d hit a growth spurt recently—probably all that good Baling food—but he was still taller than her. He tilted his head consideringly, and then lowered his face until their lips met. She felt his nose brushing her cheek and the little sigh of his breath on her mouth. His lips were soft on hers and just the slightest bit sticky. He tasted a little of the candy they’d both just eaten. His hand tightened its grip on her hand, even as his other hand came up to cup her cheek, and she felt that same heat and prickle on her skin as she did when he had been complimenting her.

When they parted, Xiao Jing stepped forward and buried her face in his collar, hiding her flushed cheeks. Ouyang Zizhen wrapped his arms around her almost automatically. “That was nice,” he whispered into her hair.

She nodded and then murmured, “Yeah,” in case he couldn’t tell what her movement meant.

“Do you... want to do it again?” he asked.

“Give me a minute,” she said.

He chuckled quietly; she felt the wind of his breath ruffling her hair. “As long you need,” he said.

[frumfrumfroo]

I wrote a thing (Leia and Ben reunion angst)

.

Lamentations

Leia Organa hadn't really planned on getting old.

Not that she’d particularly expected to die young, either. The possibility (even probability) was certainly very real considering her tireless campaign to put herself in the thick of imminent danger, but logical reasoning about the likely outcome was never any match for her ambitions in life. Sheer bravado and the arrogance of youth had always been more than adequate to the task of pushing the reality of death from her mind. Even when fear or doubt got a grip, she had taken for granted that her rude good health and unshakeable self-assurance would continue in perpetuity as long as she managed to survive.

She hadn’t counted on a day dawning when she could no longer take matters into her own hands if need be. When tenacity might not be enough.

Now, hobbling down a corridor with the cane she hated but couldn’t yet do without no matter what her pride said, finding it slightly hard to catch her breath, she felt the years like anchors on every limb. She felt the weight of her choices pressing her shoulders down from their habitual imperious uprightness into an aged stoop. 

She was on her way to meet her own son for the first time as a grown man and the harm she had done him, her failures as a mother, trailed her like a colossal shadow. She sensed the cold presence of the past looming over her, its encroaching guilt nipping at her heels, and it made her feel more ancient than the deepest rivers of the Force. As if her bones were formed from brittle primordial rock, apt to shatter with a touch.

If Han were here he’d cut her down to size for thinking she was the one keeping the whole universe together, for trying to bear every burden, fight every good fight. He’d depreciate himself and distract her from her navel gazing, bounce her back into reality and remind her not everything depended on her. But small things did. Smaller things than she ever remembered to notice. He’d kiss her on the forehead and forgive her for her self-importance. Han had kept her human when single-minded, hotheaded determination threatened to turn her into some kind of overbearing political droid.

But he wasn’t here and never would be again.

When the girl, Rey, repeated her story of what had happened on Starkiller Base, this time after her sojourn on Ahch-to, and in much more detail than before… It was the first time Leia wondered if she ought to blame herself a lot more personally than she ever had, if it were her fears and hurts, her emotional retaining wall which created an opportunity for Snoke. Perhaps it wasn’t so inevitable, the enemy wasn’t so crafty, and she had simply abdicated her post as guardian. Every far-flung, bleeding heart responsibility she’d voluntarily taken on in her life- some she’d deliberately snatched out of other, more cautious hands- and she’d shunned the one which had the strongest, most natural claim on her. It was the one job she was worried she couldn’t do.

He’d been so small when she’d pulled his childish, clutching fingers away from the folds of her dress and pressed him firmly towards his uncle. He’d been only just as tall as her chest, gangly and skinny in the aftermath of his first growth spurt. His eyes had looked huge in his slim face, enormous and soulful pools of hazel gold and brown. Pleading. She remembered putting her hands on his shoulders and smoothing back his hair as she looked at him and tried not to notice the sheen of unshed tears, the trembling of his lower lip. She’d decided this was best for him and so she had turned a deaf ear to any potential entreaties, unwilling to be swayed from wisdom by sentiment. It had to be done. For his own good, she had to pretend this didn’t hurt. She couldn’t waver.

All her life she hadn’t had time for her sorrows, all her life she could ill-afford the luxury of indulging her feelings. When was it time? When had she fought for long enough?

When she won. That was always the answer. She’d rest, she’d have a life, when she had made a universe worth living in. When she’d made things right. What could be more important?

“There’s always some new crusade, though, isn’t there, sweetheart?”

Han’s voice, sharp on the endearment which he’d always used equally often in chastisement as in affection, laden with barely concealed hurt. She heard his pain, but she chose not to listen to it.

She’d thought there’d be time to make it up to him. She thought they would wait for her, her family, that her life would wait for her.

Her step faltered when she found herself standing outside the room in the med suite where Ben was recuperating. He was mobile now, his wounds were closed and his ribs were healing. He’d needed a lot of rest, more for mental and spiritual exhaustion than physical damage. He’d become a conduit in the Force the like of which was only heard of in legend and there had been some question if he would survive. She’d kept abreast of his condition since she’d been told of his arrival three days ago; he’d been in her every thought and breath and prayer, but she couldn’t visit. There was too much to do, too many people to oversee and decisions to make. She had plenty of excuses to keep avoiding the reckoning. 

Reportedly Rey hadn’t left his bedside once, never further from him than the fresher in the corner of the room. Poe said she was like a wild animal with a cub, hovering protectively over his prone body and questioning anyone who wanted to get near him. She’d maintained a death grip on his hand which only loosened slightly when she fell asleep in her chair at his side. Her own injuries were tended by a droid, under protest and without anaesthetic.

Leia leaned against the corridor wall and tried for what felt like the latest in several trillion attempts to come to terms with what Rey had told her about Luke. About Ben.

And she knew she deserved to blame herself. She knew. If he’d thought he could come home, he would have, and who had made him think he couldn’t? Han had fought for him and she’d have to tell him that no matter how painful it was to admit, she’d have to make sure he understood it wasn’t his father’s idea that Anakin’s blood flowed with latent corruption- not until she’d convinced him it did. Not until her secret festering fears clouded over the dawning love and hope they’d sacrificed so much to have.

The supreme necessity of forgiveness, of giving it and receiving it both, had become the hardest lesson she would ever learn. Her famously indomitable righteous anger had perished with a whimper, suffocated itself in weariness and despair; it was only fear that lived forever. It was fear which chained love, shackled hope, and bound the soul in darkness. And forgiveness drove out fear.

If Ben could forgive her, it seemed a mere pittance to forgive him.

When she rounded the corner the kids were silent but clearly communicating, the power of their connection like a subtle crackle in the Force which raised the hairs on the back of her neck. Rey was sitting on the edge of his cot, their heads very close together and her hands clasping both of his. Leia absorbed Rey’s mood first because it didn’t hurt nearly so much to look at Rey. The smile on her lips and the contentment in her eyes spoke of a peace the girl had never shown before. There was a confidence about her now, a knowingness. Leia had sensed she was searching for something from the moment she’d first seen her, noticed the void she was trying to fill. Leia had an eye for pressure points in people. She’d made use of Rey’s in hope that it would help her reach Luke. There might be an apology owed in that quarter too, but all thoughts of Rey vanished when Ben noticed her presence.

His head turned towards her and his face froze in an expression between horror and anguish, his pleading eyes just as she remembered them. He had a lot of his father in him, so much that it was striking, and a stab of agony lodged itself between her ribs that felt like her heart being pierced. But there was also so much of her in those eyes, in the slope of his jaw and the shape of his chin that she almost felt as if she were looking into a kaleidoscope reflection of her younger self. The certain, unshakable self she still half expected to see in the mirror before she turned on the vanity lights. He was a perfect marriage of her features and Han’s, with his broad cheekbones and regal profile, his full mouth and deep set eyes. 

It was probably because he seemed in that moment somehow both a mirror and the spitting image of her husband that it was the shame which hit her first. She couldn’t help but spin around and cover her mouth to try to swallow a cry.

There was a tiny gasping noise from behind her and then Rey’s voice murmuring something. She couldn’t focus on the words, couldn’t understand what was being said, but she knew the sound of pain was from Ben. He thought she couldn’t bear to look at him.

And she couldn’t, but not for the reasons he must be imagining.

She gathered her dignity and forced herself to look again. He was clutching his blankets where they pooled at his waist, his long black hair falling in soft waves which framed the drawn pallor of his face very starkly. He looked ill and frightened. Vulnerable, a child again.

“Ben,” she choked out. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry, my darling boy. I’m so sorry.”

She didn’t know how long she’d been weeping into her hands when someone began to gently pry them away from her face, but her cheeks were wet and her eyes stung. She raised her gaze only to be confronted with a wide expanse of chest covered in the soft, oversized hospital smock which was standard issue for checked-in patients. She looked up, and up, and up to meet his eyes and couldn’t remember ever feeling so small in her life. 

Leia was a short woman and used to fighting to get the world on her level, but this was her baby. She’d carried him in her belly, held him in her hands, she’d last seen him when she still had to crouch to speak to him eye to eye. His once little fingers now dwarfed her entire arm where he was holding her wrist and he towered over her to such an extent that the top of her head barely reached the middle of his sternum. Her baby was grown up and she hadn’t seen him in person since he was ten. Since their heights had been the inverse of this tableau. He’d become a man and she’d been there for none of it. She’d chosen not to be.

Ben was leaning down, studying her with trepidatious concern, and she couldn’t help but reach up and touch his face. She put his hair behind his ear and cradled his cheek in her palm, feeling the living warmth of his skin and the tickling sensation of a hot tear which rolled down from the corner of his eye and under her thumb.

“Look how beautiful you are,” she said, almost without meaning to.

He ducked towards her hand, hiding behind his hair.

She wrapped her arms around him and he folded into her, dropping nearly to his knees so he could hug her back, so tightly that it almost hurt. He was very strong, the harsh conditioning of a footsoldier obvious in the broad muscles of his back beneath her hands, and it hurt to think how badly he must have needed to be, how much he’d needed to rely on himself and his ability to fight. How he’d never been safe anywhere from the moment he was born.

“I’m sorry,” she said again. He sobbed hard into her shoulder, as if the words had broken a dam inside him. Deep, wracking sobs that shook his whole body and made her hold him as close as she could and whisper to him the way she had when he was a fussing infant, when the nightmares she never dared to tell her brother about had gripped him in their malingering claws. When the fear of darkness which ended up swallowing their little family encroached too close. “Shhsh, shhsh, it’s all right now.”

His voice cracked when he finally managed to tell her, “It’s me- I'm sorry; it’s me, it’s me, it’s me. How can you stand it, how can you stand it?”

Leia suddenly found herself meeting Rey’s penetrating gaze over his head. If there was judgement there, it was less harsh than it justly could have been.

“I should have protected you. I didn’t protect you.”

“Mother,” he croaked with enormous difficulty, “I killed him.”

Her stomach rolled over and her vision blurred with fresh tears, but she held him with her, gripping the fabric of his shirt with white-knuckle intensity. “He loved you. I love you. I’m so sorry.”

His face collapsed like wet linen and he slid to the floor at her feet, burying his head in her skirts. There was a mantra of apologies and self-recriminations amongst the desperate sobs and she lowered a shaking hand to stroke his hair. 

“Ben, don’t. Please. Please don’t. Your father knew, he understood.”

Red eyes peeked up at her, his chin was trembling and those same fingers were clutching her skirts again and she wished she could go back to that day and tell herself her child needed her more than the galactic senate ever would. He needed honesty, his mother and his family, not a comfortable lie, a Jedi master or a carefully constrained destiny. She wished she’d seen him as clearly then as she did now, that she hadn’t been too afraid to look. She wished Han could be here to celebrate beating the odds one last time.

“If he could, he’d tell you this was the fairest trade he ever made.”

[thatonebirbnerd]

I’ll Come Back Stronger

Word count: 1258

Trigger warnings: Swearing, body horror, mind control, non-detailed violence

You know how I am with Mordrem. I’ve had this one written for a while. Figured I should post it.

AO3 link

Just my fucking luck. 

I spend years running from the shackles I spent my Dream in, and as utterly poppycock as all that is, I wind up in them anyway.

My coat is in shreds, and faded badly by sunlight. Kind of a shame, considering it’s got so many trophies on it, but oh well. That’s not the primary issue at hand, obviously. The actual primary issue is that I’m pinned to a damn cliff face. Got grabbed by vines, like a rabbit or something getting snatched up by one of the local dinosaurs, and now I’m here. There’s some kind of pod dangling near me. It glows with magic in every color imaginable, but the thing itself is a sickly yellow-green.

I thought I was done growing once I got to the jungle, once my bark faded to a sickly pinkish white from its former brilliant rose, and started thickening into tough plates. I was wrong. I’m not used to this; I’m usually right.

My head hurts. It’s hard to think. There’s only a crushing presence telling me to obey its every whim. Shitty bargain, having an elder dragon for a grandfather.

Something’s… happening. The headache’s… getting worse. I could tell I was growing on the way here, but… this is different. I can see - and feel - the bark of my legs contorting and swelling. Little tendrils push their way out. I realize I’m trying to kick at the binds around them, which loosen to make way for whatever the hell just came out of me, and then everything’s hazy… 

You will let me in.

Shut up, Mordremoth.

---

How long was I out? Not much sunlight down here to be able to tell, but after looking down at myself, I think it’s been a few days.

I haven’t eaten at all, that’s for certain; my stomach’s even more of a yawning pit than it was when the jungle dragon fueled my journey here. I feel like I shouldn’t be this thin, this empty.

Insides. Half vestigial. Half now unnecessary.

Be fucking quiet, grandpa.

My bark clings to my legs. There’s no way it’s been weeks, is there? No, nothing else about my body changed. But I try to move, and my bark tears, even on my growth-swollen calves, spilling rivulets of sap and leaving gaping wounds. The pain is… there’s less than I’d think, somehow. However, I don’t exactly recall myself having red sap. What the…

It’s only now that I realize that my bark is starting to push against my coat, creeping through the slashes left by Nightmare-knows-what. Great. More of me getting all thick and woody. At least this part seems flexible, though considering I’m pinned to a wall, it’s going to be hard to test th-

Speak of the fucking devil. The next thing I know, I’m convulsing in real pain. There’s shards of something pressing their way between the vines around my wrists. By something, I mean bark. It’s like it didn’t have room to grow on me directly after all this shit happened. And I’m not sure where that enormous spike on my arm came out of, but it’s there now. There goes one of my biceps…? Ugh. Priorities. Now, how the hell do I get down?!

Watch and wait.

---

Seconds pass like hours. Hours pass like seconds. It’s not like I can sleep like this, anyway, especially not with a headache that is now constant, and something squirming in my shoulders. Why my shoulders, anyway?

My very first lesson as a member of the Court was not to scream. So I haven’t. And who knows how long it’s been since I’ve eaten. In short, I’m not using my mouth. Something about my face has felt funny for a bit, but not like I can scratch the itch in this state. It’s only now that I realize why: my teeth are growing, forcing their way forward, and it’s to the point where I can’t keep my mouth shut. I can’t breathe through my nose anymore; something’s also grown over that. I must look ridiculous.

Now, what do we say?

…thank you?

---

Ugh, dammit, that’s back again. This time it’s my shoulders that are swelling, thickening unnaturally yet still somehow flexible. So that was why- no, this was why. The growths have erupted into more fucking vines, crawling across my chest and back. Which is exactly what I needed right now. 

On second thought, it is exactly what I needed.

I am a grandchild of Mordremoth. I should not have tried to fight destiny.

Now it all makes sense. All will kneel.

As if summoned, another Mordrem Guard - one of my kin - strides past, and cuts me free.

I collapse on the ground, exhausted. And then I feel every emotion at once, as a surge of energy rushes through me, coalescing into an oddly shaped block of white stone that lands in my hands…

Leystone. Use it.

---

In my newly blighted hands, it is a rifle. I always preferred to use knives. That doesn’t matter anymore. Its power courses through my body, leaking from my bark in strands of blue energy. Whatever the hell it shoots, it’s lethal. It’s beautiful.

Ready. Aim. Fire. For the dragon.

Ready.

Aim.

Fire.

Ready.

Aim-

---

How long have I been here?

The last thing I remember is being chained - vined, really - to that cliff, and then I’m not sure what happened. Whatever I did, though, I can’t say I’m feeling guilty about it. The past is the past. Perhaps I can learn from the experience.

It’s like my ears are ringing, but in my head. My mind rings, with the absence of a voice. Mordremoth’s voice. Is it… dead?

I should go home.

---

“Mordrem at the gate! … It’s just one. Might be a trap.”

“I swear on my miserable life it’s not.”

I’d think it’d be harder for me to talk. I guess I was chatting a lot during… whatever that was. My voice certainly sounds different. I’ll get used to it.

“Not a trap, eh? Well, if it looks like a Mordrem, but thinks like it isn’t…”

“How bad do I look, anyway?”

---

Well, fuck. It hadn’t really sunk in until now. I guess there’s no going back from looking like a corpse. But at least I get a ride home from the Pact.

The harder news is that Duchess Faolain is dead. Apparently, she went Mordrem too. Turned into some fucked-up mockery of a treant - and I thought I had it rough, eh? - then got taken out by the Pact Commander. Who went and finished off the jungle dragon itself after that; typical.

And the most difficult thing to adjust to is that half of Briarthorn followed me into Maguuma, except they were stupid and got themselves killed. When I finally return, it’s a ghost town.

But I have ideas, ways to sway more to our cause. And I know one knight in particular who I’m certain didn’t follow the call. Meaning that he’s waiting for me. 

Well, what a sight I’ll be.

---

Fachtna gazes up at me. He didn’t have to look up, before all this happened. He used to dwarf me.

I can see his eyes go wide, under the growth that silenced him for good and brought him under the Court’s sway all those years ago. His muffled breath quickens, and he bows as I place my tendril-wrapped hands on his shoulders.

He’d only do that for me.

“Don’t worry, darling,” I reassure him lovingly. “I’m still the same little flower.”