#but once that anchor is there it must exists within that period of time to gather its targets

[creatureshrieks]

I will say as a small addendum, the Entity exists in a completely different plain of existence which does have its own sense of time, hence why the Entity engages in yearly cycles. There IS the passage of time within the realm that reflects the standard amount of time on earth.

[ladygoofball]

Paladins and Oaths in BG3

SO I've been writing a fic about a Paladin who is the chosen of an unnamed god and WEEPING at how the god I did choose for them fits so beautifully with Gale's whole character arc of rebirth and coming back to life after isolation by falling in love (either platonically or romantically he always allows himself to be completely changed by the player character).

More babble about some headcannons for the inner workings of how Oaths work and Paladins within Gale's romance arc in BG3 under the cut

SO the God that I have chosen for my Paladin to worship is OSIRIS who exists in the broader DnD pantheon (specifically eastern Faerun). He is the God of Death, God of Nature, and God of Life and ALL of those happen to fall under the Oath of the Ancients route in BG3. To a scary degree, even though he is not mentioned anywhere in the game as far as I have seen (my sources are not that wide, I've only played through the story 100% one time on my PS5 and I'm playing through again with a Paladin to see how the fighting mechanics work as metaphors for being inspired divinely and trying to understand what the Oathbreaker is supposed to do in canon and not having purchased the art book so I have not seen if that was something they chose to focus on). It's sent me on a whole spiral into his lore and how he would absolutely canonically choose a Sun Elf to act as his sword in the world while he rests up and tries to take over the role as God of Death after the Dead Three are defeated. I've been on fire drawing all of the fun visual themes and secrets alluding to a godly presence in a comic about this.

My personal headcannon for Oaths in BG3 are that they act as intermediaries to place Initiate paladins into a Church. There is a period of intense isolation and study once you have sworn one of the available oaths, (Order of the Ancients, Order of Vengance, etc.) and after you have submitted an essay to an elder counsel you are allowed to act as an Initiate to the Order. No paladin is expected to stay in service to the Order forever, they're only supposed to be there while they find a Church that is right for them in theory.

Order of the Ancients, however, just has a thing for keeping some of their Paladins in service to the order. One could argue that the Oathbreaker needs to be stricter to Initates to make sure they don't embarrass the Order while they are interviewing different Churches, and that is why the cost of reconnecting someone to their healing magic goes up every time the Oath is broken, regardless of the offense until you reach a Church, then the punishment's cost is determined by the Church the Paladin serves. One could also argue that it would be against an Order's best interest to keep a certain number of initiates in their service so they don't lose out on a very steady stream of income.

How this ties in to the Tav of this world:

Luana Tanar'ri is a 186 year old sun elf, and she has been in service to the order for her entire waking memory as an adult (Elves rename themselves when they turn 100, and she does not remember renaming herself but she does remember entering Isolation and telling people how old she is). She mirrors the story Astarion tells us about the Gods in Baldur's Gate refusing to come to the aide of mortals. She tries so hard to keep herself in line when she is tadpoled so she doesn't make the entire camp pay the Oathbreaker to keep her useful as a healer. She goes out of her way to help other people to keep the Gods favor, even though she is pretty sure she must have done something really horrible to deserve to be in this whole mess in the first place.

As a healer, she has always been put as close to the battlefield as possible. She can't see someone hurt without offering them a healing hand. Her healing takes on a vision of what anchors the recipient to their lives, a way for Osiris to judge if this soul is worthy of being in his service when he regains power but the Order of the Ancients do not know that when Luana has been abducted and thrust into the Tav role in this story. They just need to use her for the pretty face she brings to their Order, a PR stunt doll and an income stream. After all this time, she has exhausted every possible option for a newer more senior position Luana could take in the Order to try to move out of the Initiate role. Her story starts the day she quits her job, which happens to be 48 hours before the nautiloid will come cruising through Baldur's Gate. She is almost 100% positive that if she stops doing good deeds for a single moment the Oathbreaker will catch up to her. She needs to make herself loved and adored by her companions, so they don't kick her to the curb once they get the bill for her latest crimes against the Order.

Of all the companions that she finds in camp, Gale offers the nicest distraction for her: a constant stream of information about the world they are exploring around them. She was always the one asked to clear out a temple and compile the loot to ship off to academics to study and categorized and she had never had the opportunity to be able to hear one of them work. It was too dangerous for their minds to be used for something as silly as battle strategy, but since he's clearly not fought anyone or anything before this adventure she tries to help him out as best as she can. She relies on her paladin tank combat training to try to clear paths for him, but she is confused when he is not relieved that someone else took care of it for him but seems to be incredibly distraught over the idea of her throwing herself into the fray and getting hurt. Even more confused when she finds herself spending extra time making sure the things she brings back to camp are up to Gale's standards as the de-facto Chef in camp and she is disappointed when he is not the one running the kitchen that night.

[dear-yandere]

hiraeth (ii).

hiraeth (n.) a homesickness for a home to which you cannot return, a home which maybe never was; the nostalgia, the yearning, the grief for the lost places of your past.

yandere! don! giorno giovanna x f! reader. collab with @ddarker-dreams​​. read part one here! do not re-upload or use our writing without permission.

› warnings: angst, blood and gore, poisoning, canon-typical violence, death. › word count: 9.3k. › art credit: spearthymint.

Intrusive, lifeless eyes watch on from afar with tangible disgust. Hatred being the driving point behind his entire existence, all positive emotions are but a long forgotten memory of the past. To see the devil incarnate rejoicing in the fine pleasures of life is sickening, enough to make his head spin in further abhorrence. Observing from a safe, undetectable distance has been a rough challenge. All for the sake of procuring revenge, to fill the hole in his heart Giorno Giovanna tore out all those years ago.

Fueled by malice, the Stand, Snake Oil, slithers in the shadows of false paradise. More akin to a hybrid between human and snake, Snake Oil is the size of a fully grown man when stretched out to his fullest. His appearance is similar to that of a cobra, clad in ebony scales that serve as armor and dull, ruby eyes. Despite his imposing physique, it is truly unfortunate; having seen Giorno up close, Snake Oil knows killing him is impossible. So he’ll go for the next best possibility, inflicting the same pain he felt all those years ago. Having what you love most in the world ripped from you, torn apart before your eyes until nothing but blood and flesh remain. This is the bleak world of gangsters. To take and be taken from. To maintain equilibrium, vacillating between the highest of triumphs and lowest of defeats. Snake Oil has known nothing but the latter, surrounded by loneliness and bitterness that festers like an open wound. The scars of that day remain, the corpses of his family attempting to defend one another a grim reminder. A reminder that he’ll grip until his last breath, his only anchor in this world.

An eye for an eye.

The two of you are a picture perfect scene; pity how such beauty is fleeting. All it’ll take is a single opening. Giorno’s guard is lowered considerably, but he clings to you like an insistent shadow. How irritating. If only he left your side for a few more moments, then you’d be within range to kill. To have revenge just within grasp feels surreal in the best of ways. It brings a rush that the Stand hasn’t felt in years. The pain that makes up his resolve has yet to fade, pulsing and growing stronger as he searches for an opening. 

There’s a visible shift between you two. 

Snake Oil’s uncertain of the nature of things from this distance, gathering clues to the greater picture through body language. You’re on edge, impulsive, as you separate from Giovanna’s clutches, however momentary it may be. Snake Oil realizes this is the best opportunity he’ll be afforded. It isn’t the ideal set of circumstances, with your insistent shadow nearby, but it’s enough to be out of Gold Experience’s range. The Stand possesses great speed, a skill that will be fully taken advantage of in this course of this plan; in this moment, it seems more like a blessing than a skill, given who he’s going up against.

Checking to make sure the Don doesn’t follow you and remains seated, fate finally seems to have smiled upon Snake Oil today. This is the best opportunity he’ll get. 

Slithering from his hiding spot amongst thickets, he lunges at you from behind. A horrified shriek leaves your lips at the constricting sensation surrounding you, body feeling like it may explode at any second. The air is forcefully pushed from your lungs, breathing growing erratic. Out of instinct, you struggle in hopes of freeing yourself, to no avail. 

Two, phantom-like apparitions phase through your neck. You cry out, but the sound is pitiful and choked, dying mid air. The skin of your neck is raw, the insides slightly turned out and exposed in order to accommodate the invisible fangs of your attacker. The area pulses, quickly numbing when a venom is injected into your veins. The change is immediate, your eyes widened to their brim and your screams choked into your throat like spit. Your vision darkens slowly, the grip you once had on your consciousness now gone; the last thing you remember is the shock on Giorno’s face.

Giorno rises in an instant, a flash by his side procuring Gold Experience Requiem to come to your defence. Before any more movements are made on either side, Snake Oil takes control of the situation by speaking in a booming voice. It commands authority, knowing that leverage is within his grasp. That this wicked man wouldn’t dare endanger your life.

“Make one, tiny move, and I snap her neck.” 

This is the plan, for better or worse. For Snake Oil to utilize its ability, a fast acting venom that’ll kill you within minutes. The in-between time of injection and subsequent organs shutting down will take place. During this period, he’ll finally find satisfaction in Giovanna’s suffering, helpless to aid you in fear of making it worse. Changes in your skin should be taking place now, veins growing dark as it carries the lethal dosage to the rest of your body. It’s acting slow, Snake Oil realizes. Or maybe it’s a trick of the light, a false concern born from his anxiety about the situation.

It's a tricky situation, one which requires Giorno to act fast and tread carefully.

“I take it you won’t tell me who you are.” Giorno chooses his words with the utmost care despite the shock and anger rolling from his body. Gold Experience Requiem hovers closeby, the same rage thinly veiled beneath the Stand’s imposing and threatening presence. As Giorno’s Stand, GER has always been utterly taken with you, having no need to hide its affections like its user must. He is a pure amalgamation of Giorno’s love for you; the sight of your life endangered is no doubt a blow to its usual composure and restraint. Neither party wants nothing more than to destroy their enemy in an instant, but there’s no guarantee you wouldn't be caught up in the fray.

“You say that as if you remember the names of every person you’ve hurt,” Snake Oil does little to hide his animosity, keeping an eye out for any tricks Giorno may have. “It made no difference who I was before. Not until I threatened your little prisoner, that is.” The Stand sneers, its arm coiled around your neck. Its tail is strung around your lower half, restricting any flailing and movement should the poison’s effect be prolonged. 

“What is it that you want?” Ignoring the Stand’s treatment of you, to the best of his ability, Giorno tests the waters. Every word the Stand speaks is funneled into his mind, searching for hints that can be taken advantage of, for any cracks that can be slipped through. The top priority is to get to you out of harm’s way, no matter the cost. Composure on either end is unfaltering, a duel of wits to secure a victor. This is a matter of life and death. And still, Giorno hadn’t expected this. He hadn’t expected to see your body, your skin pallid and your limbs motionless, cradled in the arms of a man who intends you harm. His composure falters at the mere sight. That Stand isn’t just holding you; he’s holding Giorno’s happiness, his future, his heart in a vice grip. He sees the way your eyebrows knit and your body winces, the Stand’s grip far too tight to insinuate any goal other than to kill.

Snake Oil only smiles in response, not yet wanting to ruin this moment of pure distress radiating from the Don and his Stand. The sight itself is rapturing; it’s not everyday that a lowly civilian such as himself gets to see one of the most influential men in the world come apart.

Unabashed, Giorno considers what information is presented to him. From how this Stand speaks, its user is older, if not a bit inexperienced. No slang or other terminologies from a younger generation are present in his words, it’s far more removed and bitter. As if the user has seen the worst the world has to offer, callous in his direct approach; as if the user is betting everything on the line for a small chance at attacking the Don of Passione.

He needs to get you out of the Stand’s range. Since the Stand didn’t attack him, the main source of his user’s ire no doubt, it’s likely a long-range Stand. Any suspicious movements will lead to your death. And, from a quick look around, there are no suspicious vessels within a 10 km radius of the island; he would have seen them approaching long before, had there been. Its user must be far, and the Stand must be operating at its maximum range. Engaging in close-range combat would be the best bet if you weren’t engulfed in the Stand’s arms, its poison already blackening the veins around the entrance wound. Killing it might prove to be the only antidote, but on the other hand, it’s a risky trade. Perhaps the Stand’s power doesn’t include producing an antivenom — killing it early would slash any chances of saving you before the poison spreads further into your system. The only option for Giorno now is to provoke him, upsetting the Stand to the point where a mistake is made. In that opening, Giorno will strike.

“It must’ve been a lot of work to make it here,” Giorno begins his plan with a cautious comment, searching for any outward reaction. Nothing. Assuming he’s safe to continue, he offers his observations. “If you have any demand, make them known now.” 

It’s not so much stalling, but rather, testing the waters. To see how much resistance he can offer without you being placed in any more danger, igniting sparks that will only gain strength with time. Each word is selected with great care, not wanting to further upset the emotional user and trigger an undesirable outcome. Under the face of immense pressure, Giorno steels himself. It’ll do you no good otherwise.

The Stand lets out a distorted chuckle, its grip on you unwavering. “Demands? Of course, someone in your line of work would naturally come to that conclusion. You think I’d go this far for power? Money? Drugs?”

Giorno’s eyes narrow, and he mentally checks off one motive. 

“There’s nothing then? No affiliation, no desire for material gain?” Giorno’s incessant line of questions come to a halt when the Stand tightens its grip around you. Sensing that Snake Oil’s growing irate, Giorno can only assume it’s because this encounter isn’t going as planned. Given how frail you are, the poison should have spread to major points in your nervous system, your death imminent. While Giorno has his theories, ones he can only hope to be true at this very moment, they’re placed on the back burner for the time being. 

“How could I forget? That’s all that matters to people like you.” The Stand’s tone is low, prudent. Giorno’s interrogation is getting somewhere, it seems. The Stand’s grip on your shoulders have loosened slightly, only to retighten within a moment’s notice. Giorno’s heart tightens in response, the unpleasant feeling not showing on his face in the slightest. “Gain. How to make more at the expense of others, a greed that cannot be sated no matter whose life is taken in the process.”

Ah. Perhaps...

“You say that like nothing could satisfy you.” The tempest unfolding in Giorno’s mind begins to calm. His answers lie at the eye of the storm, waiting to be found. It’s an easy enough feat for someone of Giorno’s caliber, as his job requires quick-witted thinking and observation. So he presses forward, his words more daring, his answers more confident.

The Stand can’t help but grimly agree, darkness spreading over its inhuman face upon realizing how unaffected the don is. “Nothing can.”  

It’s brief, but Giorno catches a glint of sadness cross the Stand’s features. A trick of the light, perhaps, as he’s yet to see any Stand capable of showing emotion; and yet, this one reeks of resentment and regret. He’s closer to his answer.

“Not even her death?” 

“It’s a place to start.” The Stand hisses in a displeased tone. This isn’t how he envisioned this encounter in his mind, the countless outcomes that all ended with Giorno Giovanna in the pits of despair. He should have known better; the Don of Passione is cruel. A monster who wouldn’t be phased even by the loss of his beloved. Still… an element of unknown is always present in Stand battles. Your immediate death should’ve been carried out by now. That’s how it was meant to be; the venom is fast acting on normal people, only slightly less-so on stand users. He draws bated breath and lets his expectant gaze flicker toward you. The moment you breathed your last, Snake Oil would have true satisfaction, witnessing Giorno lose everything he holds dear, just as he had all those years ago. Ultimately, he’d be killed for his transgressions. But he’d come to terms with that long ago, the final chapter of his life ending in Giorno’s grief. The ultimate satisfaction, even if it sends him to Hell. Even if it keeps him from his family.

But your face is pristine, calm despite the painful wound on your neck and the quickly blackening vessels under your skin. You… you’ve stolen that opportunity from him. Why won’t you just die already, like you’re meant to? Why can’t you die as quickly as his own family died before him? It can’t be due to Giorno’s Stand. If you were within Gold Experience Requiem’s range, that meant Snake Oil would be as well. The battle would be hardly fought, the Stand’s sacrifices for nothing. If that were the case, Giorno wouldn’t be watching from afar, the great Don of Pasione helpless to save his own beloved. 

Something is wrong.

He can’t let it be for naught. Not after all the sacrifice, after all the hellish years that plagued him. Even now, Giorno waits patiently, an air of dignitary grace and poise befitting someone of his position. His eyes never once stray from the Stand’s physique, not even to check on his beloved, presumably searching for an opening to end the Stand’s life. There’s no chance to give it more thought. The power the Stand wanted to hold in this moment is faltering, slipping between his fingers like fine sand.

“How long ago was it that I took something from you?”

He’s going out on a limb, an educated guess more than anything else. He almost feels pathetic, betting your life like this, as if you’re another bargaining chip in Passione’s plans, another expendable pawn. But there’s no other option in his sights, his thoughts filled with saving the light of his life from the darkness of his own past. 

There’s no longer an immediate response from the Stand, nor a sarcastic quip full of loathing. It felt like the most logical explanation, revenge being the greatest motivator known to man. Giorno knows he made the correct assumption, or something close to it, considering Snake Oil’s change in attitude. Did the Stand think Giorno would remain in the dark until the end? 

“What… what do you mean?” 

Hesitation.

Giorno’s lips twitch into a small, satisfactory smile, his nerves having earned some rest upon guessing correctly. He continues, this time with a barrage of thinly-veiled accusations rather than questions. “It must’ve been longer than a few months, with how much planning this would’ve taken. So when was it? A year, two maybe?”

The most drastic changes were made within Passione during the first six months of Giorno taking over. 

“Why does the time even matter?” He bites. “All the people you’ve killed, they’re nothing but faceless names on a list to you.”

Giorno wants to laugh; for someone so bent on killing him, he took the bait far too easily.

“While that holds some merit, you’re no better in that regard.” He begins, shaking his head and shifting his weight onto the other foot, looking awfully lax despite the context of this conversation. He takes note of the way Snake Oil’s fingers twitch with arrogant annoyance. “Wanting to involve an innocent life who has nothing to do with this, you don’t know the first thing about her.” 

“You’re wrong. I know plenty about this girl who had the misfortune of meeting you,” Snake Oil’s blank eyes flicker towards your incapacitated form. You look more like a helpless pup than the wife to a mafia boss; perhaps… perhaps that’s why he chose you. For your vulnerability, for your innocence. “Not that you made it easy. Having virtually every aspect of her existence wiped from the planet, going so far as to pay off police to end their missing person search… scum never has hopes of growing, do they?” 

Giorno has no reason to justify his thoughts to a stranger who intruded on your paradise and put your life in peril, no matter what injustices he might have caused the man in the past. Only for the motive of provoking him further does he respond. “For the sake of protecting her from those who’d do her harm.” He quips, his expression unchanging.

“Is that what helps you sleep at night, Giovanna? A pat on the back for kidnapping some girl from her life, taking away all her freedoms? Letting her family search and search, only to be fed lies that there are no leads, that the case has gone cold?” Snake Oil’s grip on you falters slightly, a wave of pity washing over him at your poor predicament. How unfortunate you are to have earned the attention of a demon… “You don’t know the first thing about losing someone precious to you, do you? What you’re doing to her isn’t protection. This is greed, meant only to benefit yourself,” the Stand accuses. “Considering how greedy you lot are, I’m surprised it hasn’t occurred to you that, if it weren’t for your manipulation, she would’ve slit your throat weeks ago.” 

Giorno is wholly unfazed; he has been called worse, by you even. Nothing the Stand says or will say could come close to the unfiltered hatred he’s heard from you. “Believe what you want, Snake Oil. It makes no difference to me.” 

“... So it doesn’t. I suppose labels hold no significance in your life — you’ve come to terms with what you really are. You're a fool, thinking someone like yourself is capable of love. A murderer can experience no such thing.” 

“And that’s what I am to you,” Giorno deduces, scouring the Stand’s mannerisms for any clues that may be of use. “A murderer.” 

“It’s not what you are to me. It’s an undeniable fact.” 

Giorno doesn’t give him the luxury of a response nor the slightest change in his own expression. His stare is blank, even with your life on the line, even when you hang uselessly from the enemy’s arms. The venom is spreading, creating a thick, void-like trail along the paths of each vein it reaches. Starting from the entrance wound in your neck, your blackening veins look like tendrils, crawling up your face and down your chest — toward your brain, your heart. So that is his Stand power...

“Does she know, Giovanna?” Snake Oil hisses, handling your unconscious body harshly. Giorno bites down on his bottom lip at the mere sight, composing himself; now is not the time to strike, not over something so trivial. If that were the case, he would have used Gold Experience Requiem the moment this enemy laid a single finger on your person. Snake Oil barks out more questions, clarifying himself. “Does she know who you truly are beneath that mask?”

Giorno returns his gaze to his enemy, the look in his eyes hardening considerably as he chews on the question. Is that his motive? To use you as a bargaining chip, a means to lower his guard far enough to strike? It’s clever, if nothing else, but Giorno is poised in the art of manipulation. The chaos unraveling in his head, jumping from conclusion to conclusion over your current state — even that is pushed to the far reaches of his consciousness. Lashing out will do the Don no good. It’s a strength right now more than anything, the ability to stuff his own emotions and humanity into the recesses of his mind. Considering how emotional this Stand and its user must be to find a remote, isolated island and its sole inhabitant — regardless of Passione’s extensive influence over the territory — this man has a personal vendetta against Giorno himself.

But he should have never involved you.

Occupied with their back and forth, the pair of men fail to take notice of how your finger twitches by your side. The movement is subtle, easy to miss; even Giorno is too caught up in the situation to pay you any mind for once. The slightest movements of your incapacitated body are the least of his concerns, right now, his mind filled with one thought: you haven’t awoken. You are dying, and that is far more than Giorno can take.

“She doesn’t need to know.” 

The Don smiles sardonically. Gone is the ray of light that usually graces his features when he sets foot on this island, when his gaze lands on you. This man keeps speaking of you as if he knows you. If you were awake right now, you’d be easily swayed, your thoughts a mess and  your mind easily malleable. This could ruin everything, everything he’s built here, everything he’s built for you, with you. You won’t look at him the same. Not like this morning. Not even like the weeks before, spent in harrowing isolation, flinching at his very presence. You’ll look at him like you would a monster; horrified.  

But you aren’t awake. You are on the brink of death and he’s made next to no progress in your rescue. What a pitiful excuse he is. For all his power and influence, he can’t even protect you. He can’t even protect the very thing keeping him alive, the only person that showed a semblance of genuine love for him, even if it was hidden behind a hesitant and doubtful countenance. He was making progress. You were making progress.

“I am a murderer, as all gangsters are, but my reasons are just. I don’t need to explain them to someone such as yourself.” He laughs blithely. “Who did I kill that was so important to you?” He asks the same way one would ask for the time.

Snake Oil doesn’t answer.

“For you to come here, you must believe their death to be unjust. Who was it?” Giorno dwells on the thought for a second, deducing that these unknown variables must be closely related to this Stand’s user. “I can hardly recall their names, much less their faces. That begs the question: what did they do?” His smile grows, one-sided, as if knowing something his enemy does not. “I wonder… was it human trafficking? Narcotics?”

His only response is a glare, the Stand’s arm tightening around your neck like a noose. But, the Don head only cants to the side, testing the waters further. 

“No matter. If I wasted time doing so myself, they must have deserved to die.”

It’s spoken like an irrefutable fact. An ultimate dismissal of human life, of their own autonomy. An insult to the memory of those Snake Oil held dearest. The words aren’t only indifferent, but spoken with implicit confidence. In the recesses of his mind, he knows what it is Giorno is trying to do. Rationale is snuffed out, replaced with righteous fury. 

“You… you don’t deserve to speak of them. You know nothing.” 

“Do I now?” The Don’s body relaxes, now knowing what the Stand is after. The investigation falls; the interrogation begins. “Ah, I remember.” His lips twitch into a cruel smile, enjoying the act of playing with this enemy’s feelings. To be ruled by one’s feelings, to the point of enacting revenge on a man you haven’t a chance of winning against — this Stand and its user wouldn’t make it in the world of gangsters for much longer. “A wife, and a….son was it? That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? For revenge.” He tests the waters with a contemplative tone despite already knowing the answer, the Stand’s body language holding a tension and enmity it hadn’t moments before. “I don’t recall their faces or names, really, but I remember their screams. Your wife was groveling at my feet, begging for mercy. She had this look in her eyes — betrayal. You didn’t tell her your true profession, did you?” The Don’s lips twitch when Snake Oil falters, the latter’s eyes wide. “And your son… a prominent member in the very drug routes Passione aims to quell. I remember he tried to bargain with me, sell you out in exchange for my mercy.” Giorno laughs at the irony. To not even be trusted by your own family… “Like father, like son. He deserved to die.”

Snake Oil draws a sharp breath.

“And your daughter… such a sweet little thing. She didn’t understand what was happening.” He recalls with faint disinterest. “The look on her face was so tragic. I almost felt sorry for her. But she is related to you by blood, and scum can only breed scum.” An idea formulates, the words pressed past his lips as easily as breathing. “It’s a pity, though. She got away before I could…” He trails off, relishing in the way Snake Oil chokes pathetically on this information; his daughter… his only family is alive, somewhere, and... “I suppose I'll have to find her, take care of what I started." Giorno finishes.

“Shut up!” In his anger, Snake Oil’s grip tightens around your neck, squeezing at your already-suffocated veins. Giorno’s eyes flicker, taking note of the blackening nerves beneath your skin. “Don’t forget who’s in control here, Giovanna…!”

It’s all talk meant to rile him up, create an exploitable opening. Snake Oil refuses to fall into the trap, a ploy meant to keep him from enacting revenge. The words are heavy, a weight over his shoulders, but the Stand has you. While you should be dead by now from his ability, there are other ways to kill. Messier methods that he didn’t wish to stoop to, not until now. Giorno Giovanna, in all his sadistic glory, has dug a grave for his own beloved; an end truly befitting a monster such as himself.

“The pain I felt that day… you get to experience it now. You’ll pay for your sins in blood,” the Stand sneers, its expression full of countless years of pain. His gaze turns toward your unconscious body, his mind already concocting plans of a painful death. “Her blood.” 

"You view me as a demon, but do you have the resolve to stoop to my level?" Giorno quips, his resolve quickly running thin. The air is tense, suffocating, but he can’t let his mask falter. It would mean the end to this. An end to you. An end to this paradise, this false Eden.

He’s not ready for that. Not yet. Not when you were finally...

“So sure of yourself, so confident…” Every word drips with malice, forced out from a dark place. Every syllable is a shot to Giorno’s heart, to his willpower, Snake Oil feels his goals shift, wanting nothing more than to prove Giorno wrong. That not everything can fall into place as he sees fit, that he isn’t as omnipresent as he believes himself to be. To see those calculating eyes widen in horror, knowing that he made a grave error. 

It’s wishful thinking. Nothing in this world is that simple. If it were, Snake Oil’s family would still be by his side,and he wouldn’t be here, threatening an innocent girl with the displeasure of being involved with the worst scum society has to offer. He wouldn’t have had to stoop to the levels he did, likely disappointing those he cared for in the distant past. He wouldn’t have to stoop to Giovanna’s level and kill a blameless soul.

Monsters can only breed monsters.

Should the poison fail, so be it. It’s a messier death, a far less merciful one, but Snake Oil no longer has the capacity to care. How could he, after being taunted, when it was Giorno who was meant to be cowering away in anguish?  The Stand’s grip around your limp body strengthens, intent on strangling out all signs of life. This is it, the final act of dishonor to end it all. Within a few seconds, you should be reduced to nothing but a corpse, a shadow of your former self, that sadistic light in Giovanna’s eyes long gone.

Time is at a standstill. It all happens in the blink of an eye. 

At his torso, there’s a forceful shove that sends him sprawling backwards, air knocked from his lungs. Snake Oil lets out a shocked gasp, noticing the surprise on Giovanna’s own face; it’s clear he wasn’t expecting this turn of events, either. This attack… it couldn’t have been him. So that means you’re…

Before Snake Oil can dwell on his revelation, Gold Experience Requiem phases into the Stand’s field of vision, its speed unmatched and its strength beyond anything he’d prepared himself for. He knew death was coming should he mess up, should he let that monster creep under his skin. And yet, it still ends like this, a hole driven into his chest, just as it was meant to be. The pain is nothing new. The loss of everyone he’d ever cared about hurt far worse, but this… this is comforting. A release, a mercy. A promise that he will soon see his family, again. 

The gentle wave that washes over him is short lived; the blow had sent him flying, his back pierced by a nearby rock. There’s pain, briefly, before it washes away all the same. Washes away into nothing. Death, he’s come to realize, feels like nothing, and yet everything all at once. Even death has a heart, it seems, a vague sense of clemency and calm that life lacks. All the memories of a time long past, all the regret and the pleasure that comes with living. Sweet memories, bitter memories… memories of his family, killed at the hands of a man who acts like a God dictating who should live and who should die. A God who slaughters innocents, under a false moral code. A God who locks away his own lover, as if her life means nothing; a God who looks at her the same way the stars admire the sun.

And yet, in Snake Oil’s last moments, that same God looks down at him the same way one would a fly before you kill it. The same insignificance, the same detachment. Like he meant never meant anything of value. And he realizes...

Death does not discriminate; life does.

Giorno gazes at the dying man with a look of vague disinterest, a sight he’s grown accustomed to. There’s no anger, no pity, no emotion. Those were stolen the moment your eyes snapped shut and your blood started rotting. Snake Oil will find no satisfaction in this squandered death, his life squelched out and amounting to nothing. 

“Go to Hell. They’re waiting.”

The words fall from his lips so easily, so listlessly, without a shred of remorse. Snake Oil’s last moments are far from peaceful, those precious moments prior having lulled him into a false sense of security. They? Who are they? The Devil? His enemies? Or…. 

Realization hits. His blood has started to clot, and yet it boils with anger with indignant realization: he will go to Hell for his sins. He will go to Hell, and his family won’t be there. A sinner has no right of choice, only a punishment and its executioner. Even in these last moments, he’d hoped Giovanna would grant him the mercy of solace, the sympathy of a human rather than the malevolence of a monster. But that hope was misplaced from the start.

“Y...y-you’re a…. dem—”

But it’s too late. Snake Oil worked with diligence, but the devil works faster.

The storm has passed. The corpse, in its final moments, is gagging on thin air and it occurs to Giorno that its user is dying. Gagging on his own bile and vomit someplace far off, someplace Giorno can’t reach in his current state. If your life wasn’t in immediate danger, he’d hunt for the bastard himself, ensuring that his life has come to a permanent end. But you are more important. You will always be more important.

When he turns, he expects the worst. He expects to see your skin sallowed and your face sunken. He expects to see a lifeless husk, a goddess without the glow he’s come to admire. But that light is still there. You are still there, just as radiant as you were before your Eden was corrupted. The rise and fall of your chest is unmistakable, no matter how shallow your breathing may be. You’re alive. You’re alive, and Giorno’s legs nearly give out at the thought. Seeing you this close again, even as you cling to life, feels too good to be true. Giorno’s not sure who to thank, be it fate or having the devil’s own luck, but you’re still here. Still with him. This was too close to the chest. Pesky little details will be examined later, to ensure nothing like this ever has the chance to repeat. Security being tightened, loose ends removed… there’s an abundance of work to be done. For now, he allows himself to think only of you. 

He’s by your side in an instant, checking your pulse and breathing. Gold Experience takes note of the movement beneath your wrist, pulsing as it should be, yet rapidly dimming. Any flesh wounds he can spot are immediately healed with a featherlight touch, fearing the unattended wounds may harm you further. He holds your limp body to his chest, gently trying to shake you back into consciousness. To bring you back to him. 

“Let me see those gorgeous eyes of yours, amore.” His voice is so quiet and weak, it’s drowned out by the ocean waves. “I’ll be here as long as you need me. We need to finish our date, right? There’s still so much we have to do. I’ll clear my schedule, so just open your eyes and...”

He chokes, eyes wide with bitter tears. Your color is paling at an alarming pace, lips becoming a sickly blue. The flower he made earlier now looks out of place against your skin, its vibrant yellow petals so vivid in comparison — mocking you. Giorno chokes on his own spit; there’s no escaping it: you are dying, and he may as well be too. Giorno’s grip on you falters due to his own trembling, forcing him to steady you entirely against his chest. Every breath he takes is laboured, the weight of the world dragging him down. He’s seen this sight too many times before, and in his heart, he knows what this means. Without full knowledge of Snake Oil’s ability, there’s no way to treat whatever wounds were inflicted on you; he can only grasp at ideas from the previous encounter.  It’d take hours to find and deliver the proper antivenom, and by then, it’d be too late. He knows this, and he hates himself for it. He hates his knowledge, his experience that allows him to come to this horrific conclusion. Giorno wishes he were a fool so he could delude himself into believing you’ll continue to live with him.

“You said you wanted a frog for a pet, didn’t you…? I’ll make as many as your heart desires, I swear it. So, please…” The words die at the back of his clenching throat. His entire life, he’s told himself that crying is useless. That it achieves nothing, a waste of time and effort. Action is always the best course, the only path that amounts to overcoming grief. It’s been the philosophy of his life, and yet; he kneels here on the verge of tears all the same. “Please, please, please…”

Another shake, more urgent than the last.

“I wanted—” he gulps back a telling lump forming in his throat, “I wanted to do so much with you. Cooking together is just the start, there’s so much more...” His voice is a low whine, like a child begging his parents for their time and affection. It’s a battle against time, a battle that he’s losing. “So much more…” His words are incomprehensible at this point, slipping from his mouth before he can gather himself. “I love you, [First]… I love you, I love you. Please, God…” The words are unschooled, said without thought — genuine. There has never been a moment in his life where he believed God to be real, not after everything he’s seen, not after everyone he’s lost. You can’t be another causality — he can't lose you too.

For the first time since he was a child, Giorno cries.

He cries for everything he put you through, for everything he took from you. Every wish you had, every dream he never got to hear. He stole them like his family stole his own. He promised to be better, a better man — someone who could change the world, someone with a good heart. Growing up, he wanted nothing more than to prove his parents wrong. His step-father, cynical and drunk and good-for-nothing. His mother, neglectful, always chasing a high, as if her own family was the lowest of the low. And his real father, his origins and identity unknown; a man who no doubt would not want to be part of Giorno’s life, his own son’s life. Giorno didn’t want to be like any of them, didn’t want to grow up to become a monster in the shape of a human. That sentiment feels hypocritical right now, having just lost his composure and temper. The remnants of a man’s own soul is not too far off, mangled and destroyed beyond recognition, its user dead on the shores of a monster who stole his family.

Giorno Giovanna is not a good man. His tears are more for you than anyone else; you truly did have the misfortune of meeting him. The Devil could drag him to Hell right now and his last thoughts would still be: “Let her go to Heaven.”

There’s a gradual change. 

To the untrained eye, it might be too subtle to pick up on. Almost like a transparent sheen hovering just above your skin, a low hum of energy resonating alongside it. Giorno’s lip twitches as your complexion practically shines, eyes squinting to combat the light's growing strength. Too much is unfolding before him, a complex mystery where he remains in the dark. Snake Oil… he’s certain that Stand is no more. That’s when a chilling realization hits, like a bucket of ice being poured over him.

Gold Experience Requiem remains by his side, the Stand at the ready to attack as Giorno constructs a plan. Could Snake Oil have had a Stand that stays active upon death, like Notorious B.I.G? Giorno freezes at the thought, knowing full well the power a Stand like that would have. Hunting down its target for eternity. Did Snake Oil place an ability on you that triggered after death? In that case, precautions need to be taken to ensure you’re not placed under any further harm. There’s still a chance to save you; even Notorious B.I.G. had its flaws, no matter how terrifyingly powerful the Stand at first seemed.

But… something about it is off. The energy convulsing from you feels different, almost familiar. Warm and enveloping, unlike Snake Oil who conveyed nothing but bitterness and lost hope. What is this…? 

The luxury of thinking is replaced by a raw desire to act, to salvage what little remains, not willing to patiently assess the situation any longer. Not after that’s what led to your possible death sentence in the first place. Divine light radiates around your limp body, and Giorno reaches out, prepared to fend off the perceived threat. His trembling hand inches closer to your iridescent skin, tingling at the sensation rolling from your person like a barrier, and then— 

He’s flung back against the ground, as Snake Oil was before him. Gold Experience Requiem releases a fierce battle cry, lashing towards the presumed threat that envelopes you. Your person lets out a disgruntled noise at the attack, eyebrows twitching and body regaining itself. Cheeks flushing with color again, long eyelashes fluttering against your face. Rest is a coaxing concept, though something deep inside you commands that you wake.

Your eyes open.

Blood. Your vision is filled with a thick red, the beautiful blues and golds of the beach but a distant memory. The scene before you is a battlefield, its only remnants thick puddles of fresh blood. The liquid mars the beautiful beach sands, crimson revealing a story you weren’t meant to witness. Adrenaline pumps through your veins, dulling various areas that should be screaming out in pain. There’s too much to chew on, your thoughts in complete disarray. Your body feels prickly, vitality making a swift reappearance. And yet, there’s an unfamiliar pain at your chest, where Gold Experience Requiem’s hit landed. It’s dull, as if there is a layer of protection between your skin and the place the Stand’s fist had landed, but the very thought of Giorno hurting you, no matter the circumstance, has your mind reeling.

It doesn’t take long to piece together scattered pieces of the puzzle. In your delirium, you’d heard everything. It evokes disgust and shame, knowing you willingly went along with Giorno’s qualms. You had lost yourself, giving into him for frivolous comforts. He’s harmed too many, you’re not the only person to be on the receiving end of endless pain; you were just lucky enough to be on his good side. Morality and running a worldwide crime syndicate do not go hand and hand, no matter how many times Giorno tries to humanize himself to you. It’s all a facade. 

This was all a mistake. You shouldn’t have come here, not so willingly, not with him. 

“You’re a monster.”

A fact you’ve known for months now, and yet the words struggle past your teeth. A week ago, you wouldn’t have hesitated to say that and much worse to his face, relishing in the hurt that would momentarily cross his features. You had some semblance of power over him during those moments, using his twisted sense of love against him. You felt powerful, in control for once, having one of the most powerful men in the world grovel in wait for your affection. Before you, he wasn’t Don Giorno Giovanna, boss of Passione. He was just a boy, a psychopath, a man who had taken the world from you and expected your love in return.

You should’ve known it wouldn’t last. He will always have the upper hand, some sort of control or advantage over you. You were a fool to think whatever you two possibly had — a relationship, if you could call it that — could work. Humans aren’t meant to be with monsters, and monsters aren’t meant to fall in love.

You realize that now.

“[First]...” For once, he’s speechless. Even saying that much is difficult. Gradually, he stands from the spot he’d been flung to, wearily making his way toward your crumpled body. His hand reaches out, shaking; were you slipping in and out of consciousness the entire time…? How much did you overhear? How much did you see?

“Don’t come closer!” You blink back tears, your vision focusing and unfocusing in the midst of it all. Your fingers, your hands, your… your body is glowing. The light is faint, weak, like the remnants of a flame before its wick gives out. “I-I… W-what happened? What happened to me?”

The puzzle pieces fall into place in his head. Giorno draws a sharp breath, his thoughts reeling to provide an explanation that won’t frighten you any further. In this state, you’re running on a high, coming down from the power your body has just awakened to. Having just defended yourself against a deadly venom, your body is running on pure adrenaline just to keep yourself upright. Your mind is reeling to rationalize what’s happening. Every nerve in your body felt like they were on fire, burning you up from the inside out. It’s as if you’re being overclocked, forced to work at full capacity, threatening to crash at any moment. Power rolls off your body in waves, as if it was meant to be there, as if it was there all along. And there’s an energy in your veins that feels wholly foreign, simultaneously yours and someone else’s at the same time. The ringing in your head is disorienting beyond compare; it feels as if your mind has been invaded, as if there is something else, someone else in your consciousness.

“What did you do?!” You don’t want to look at him, not in this moment, but the situation leaves you no choice. Your eyes flicker, briefly glowing with unadulterated rage when your gaze meets his. It couldn’t be possible, he couldn’t have… “You… you made me a monster just like you.”

“[First], I can explain everything, but you need to rest or—”

“No. God, I’m such a fool.” Your gut wrenches when you accidentally turn your gaze upon the battered corpse, its body mangled and face unrecognizable. Its heart hangs from its chest; you shudder to think what his human counterpart looks like. His death must have been painful,  agonizingly slow — an end befitting a monster more so than a human. And he… he’s surrounded by a sea of blood — your husband is surrounded by a sea of blood. 

“How could I forget? W-what you are…” Your eyes are fully glowing, pulsating with a holy energy when they meet his, but the sight is far from terrifying. You’re trembling. You’re crying. You’re pleading with him, just as  you had when you first arrived on this island. You’re scared. “W-Will you do the same to me?” 

His heart shatters.

Even now, as broken as you may feel, you cannot let yourself fall apart. If you break now, you won’t escape. He won’t let you escape. It will just be worse this time. You’ll always know the truth, the fact that countless lives have bloodied his hands — that he killed in cold blood then looked at you like your life is the only one worth keeping. 

“You’ve already taken everything from me. You took my family from me. My friends. My life. My future. How am I any different from them? From any of the people you’ve hurt?” His expression wavers at your endless accusations, but he doesn’t defend himself and you take that as a confession to his sins. “That man was right. Do you remember all of them? All of your victims? All their faces? Their dreams and ambitions?” Air catches in your throat, realizing something the enemy had divulged; your family. They’d been… they’d been lied to, and that revelation does nothing to quell your anger.“What about their families? Are they still looking for them, too?” Your voice cracks, coinciding with your crumbling heart.

That’s right, your family looked for you. They searched for you; they mourned, they were betrayed. They think you’re dead, that you left without saying goodbye — without saying “I love you”. And you were deluded into thinking that everything was going so well, that you could forget, that you could start anew. You were happy, for once, for the first time in what felt like years. As close as you could get to happiness. Finally having set out on a path of healing, recovering pieces of yourself and putting them back together where no one else could. This illusion you allowed yourself to believe dissipates, the fog over your eyes lifting to reveal barren reality. A reality Giorno himself designed and held full control over, like a God, and you his sole obsession. If he is a God, he is cruel. To think otherwise is to be seduced by the enemy. 

“You lied to me. You said I was safe here, that I could trust you.” Your voice breaks at that word — trust. What a pretty word, for such awful lies. “You didn’t have to kill him.”

Giorno gathers his senses, his head ringing with your hurtful words, his heart tired. He is losing you all over again; this is the only thing he can defend, as all your other accusations are more or less true. “[First], I had to. He was going to—” 

“No. There’s never a good reason to murder, not when you have the power to stop them instead.” Your eyes flicker to Gold Experience Requiem, knowing full well of its powers. Giorno holds his tongue, realizing you’re right. He didn’t have to kill the enemy, not… not in front of you at least. Your eyes are not meant to see bloodshed or pain, and yet, he let his feelings get the better of him — and this is his price. “You didn’t have to, but you did. You killed him, Giorno. You killed him.” You can’t bring yourself to look at the corpse any longer. “That’s what monsters do.”

Each word stings more than the last.

He’s analyzing you. Mentally reciting and testing dozens of different explanations that might serve to placate you, even if it’s a temporary fix. Anything to get that stinging look of repulsion off your beautiful face, anything to make you look at him the way you did earlier. This is far more detrimental than the times you spoke down to him before now that a third party had been involved. The damage is already done, nature of himself that he tried to hide from you now out in the open. 

There may be no coming back from this.

“You’ve been through a lot.” Giorno takes one step closer to you, stomach dropping when you flinch at the tentative action. All the progress has been undone, though he can’t mourn that now. He has to keep a straight face, lull you down this high filled with fear and adrenaline. Get under your skin again… make you trust him. “Come, let’s go inside. You must feel tired.”

“No. No, no, no, you liar. You’ve put me through a lot,” you correct with a weak glare, holding your hand to your chest. The same hand that had finally come to accept him just minutes prior. Recalling his touch makes you want to scrub the skin raw, knowing how bloodied they were.  “Just… stay away from me, p-please.” Your demands sound more like pleads, the shock of your new abilities still paralyzing your system. Your wings encircle you still, their transparent silhouette coursing with a power you know not what to do with. Their presence alone makes you feel safe, a much needed barrier between you and him. It even withstood a direct attack from Giorno’s own Stand…

The possibility of escaping is becoming frighteningly real.

Giorno withdraws his outstretched hand, not wanting to scare you any further. It’s clear you don’t want to listen to him right now, and he’s not sure he wants to continue persuading you; the trembling of your body, the look on your face, like a frightened doe — you’re scared of him. The same girl that had looked at him with hesitant admiration, that had played with him, that had gotten to know him, that had kissed him — she’s gone, and some deep, hateful part of him knows she won’t ever come back. He’s walking on eggshells again and he knows it. In the terrified state that you’re in, there won’t be any deescalation. You’ve seen too much, know too much. It’s troublesome, too many factors at play to safely talk this out. There’s still the problem of your safety, and monitoring your body for any further repercussions from the earlier Stand attack. Giorno considers all of this, and with a silent sigh, makes a swift decision on how to best fix this. More roadblocks are set in the path of recovery, but he’s determined to see this through. That’s how he’s always been, and how he’ll always be until the day he draws his final breath. You are no exception; you never will be. Not when everything he does is wholly for you.

You realize something is amiss when he doesn’t respond any further to your pointed accusations. Normally, you’d see a flicker of hurt flit across his features — the only time he ever lets his guard down, even slightly, is with you. That’s not the case now, not after everything you’ve heard, everything you’ve seen. Lips parting, you’re about to inquire what it is he’s plotting, but by then it’s far too late. From the blood by your feet, roots start to form at the base, coming to life by Gold Experience Requiem’s ability. An unidentifiable substance leaks from them, sapping away at the remnants of your consciousness like parasites. It acts as a salve, soothing the snake bite on your neck and the skin covering your blackened veins, but its true purpose is far from that, meant to constrain you, to confine you. It’s a terrifying sight, being restrained by vines tainted in the blood of a dead man, being restrained by an entity that had made you gifts and brought you joy only minutes prior.

He’s using his ability on you.

Gold Experience Requiem, an entity that had excitedly made you a crown to place atop your head, looks almost distraught as he covers you from head to toe, confines you like his user has for as long as you can remember. They are one and the same, you realize; how foolish it was to believe this man was capable of anything but tragedy. You had been charmed by pretty lies fashioned to ensnare you for eternity. His words, his actions, everything about him was a lie — a forbidden fruit.

Standing becomes too arduous a task, your body crumpling to the ground in a pathetic show of weakness. The world around you grows blurry, your eyelids fighting to remain open only to lose and sink into the sweet call of sleep. Everything feels so far away. The call of the birds, the crashing of the ocean… even the sand that rubs against your skin doesn’t register. The only thing that does is the look on his face, so unlike the monstrous, dissociated expression he had when he took a man’s life before your eyes. Even that, all the pain, dread, betrayal, it’s all slipping away, to some place you cannot reach. Not anymore. The light that stems from your back flickers, the remnants of your holy wings shattering like fragments of glass. Giorno approaches you as the disorientation continues and your Stand deactivates, having protected you long enough. He wants nothing more than to take its place as your savior, your protector, his arms reaching out to catch and prevent your body from further harm. You’ve been through enough. You were right; he’s put you through enough.

As consciousness fades, you hear the Devil whisper one final promise.

“I’ll fix everything, just give me time.” 

[chipper9906]

Heal The Cracks Within My Heart - Chapter 7: Slip Of The Silver Tongue

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WARNING: SPOILERS FOR LOKI SEASON 1 EPISODE 6 ‘FOR ALL TIME. ALWAYS.’

Pairings: Loki/Sylvie

Rating: General Audiences

Chapter Word Count: 8,223

Overall Word Count: 65,405

Status: Multi Chapter Fic - In Progress (7/?)

Chapter Preview:

Loki grunts — a terribly well-thought-out argument — taking a moment at the top of the stairs to wait for his vision to stop swimming. “Didn’t I ask you to stop me from pouring any more drinks?” “You did,” Sylvie agrees. “You also then proceeded to tell me that ‘one more drink couldn’t hurt’, called the waitress over for the last of their wine stores, and then nearly stabbed that wannabe knight who started getting grabby with me.”

“He deserved worse,” Loki mumbled darkly, letting Sylvie guide him towards the room she had booked for them. “Not that I had to do anything, of course. By the time I had gotten my daggers out, you had already dented his cranium with your tankard.”

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* * *

This wasn’t the first time Sylvie had seen someone fall victim to shock.

It usually happened when there was a specific sweet spot in the time it takes for an Apocalyptic event to occur. If it happens quickly, then most people don’t have time to actually react to it. That was probably the better option, where they didn’t know what was coming. The slower Apocalypses, like Lamentis or Miiphus, were some of the worst. The people of those Apocalypses were often unable to accept their fate. There was always that little stubborn bit of hope they clung onto, trying everything in their power to change their fate. Of course, they never could change it, because the Apocalypse of their world was written in stone. It had to happen, in accordance with His timeline. 

But then there were some in the middle… the ones where the people could see the end coming. They knew there was nothing they could do to stop it, and He Who Remains was cruel enough to give them just enough time where all they could do was stand there and realize this before everything they ever knew and loved was destroyed. 

That’s the times she saw people in a state of being… shell-shocked. Not all, of course. Most screamed, most ran, some… showed the crueler side of their nature in the face of the end. But a few people did nothing. She supposed they could be feeling despair in that moment, more than likely some terror, but… they don’t show it on their face. Their expressions are often next to impossible to read, like their mind had just… shut off.

She knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that that was what was happening to Loki.

She didn’t like it. Not one bit. Loki wasn’t like this. Loki was sharp and attentive, his razor-sharp wit and equally sharp tongue one of many traits that helped keep him alive. That Loki? He was gone, buried deep somewhere inside this empty shell of a man that weakly clung to her hand, pushing through the snow gathered around their feet like he hadn’t even registered it was there. 

Sylvie’s head snaps to the right, to where she heard the sound of pounding hooves barely muted by the thick blanket of snow. She just about gets a glimpse of a band of riders galloping down the path towards them before she jumps behind a tree, dragging Loki with her. Thankfully, he still seems to have some sense of self-preservation left in him, willingly letting her pull him towards her until they were both pressed against each other, flattening themselves against the tree. 

Sylvie winces at the rough bark pressing against her back, the thin and flimsy material of the TVA shirt and blazer providing little to no protection. Loki’s breathing is loud and shallow right next to her ear, the two of them pressed so tightly together that she can feel the rise and fall of his chest. The booming sound of the horses gallops slowly fades away as the riders pass them by, and it’s only then that Sylvie changes her clothes with a shrug of her shoulders and a burst of magic, re-materializing her usual clothing and ridding herself of a uniform she hopes she never has to wear again. 

“Where… where are we?” Loki asks, and Sylvie had never been so glad to hear his voice. He slowly pushes away from her, scanning their surroundings with wide eyes like he couldn’t figure out how they had got here. 

“Earth,” Sylvie brings his attention back to her, not bothering to hide the worry on her face. 

“Those riders…” Loki looks to where the riders had disappeared between the thick thatches of trees, white puffs of condensation materializing from his mouth as he spoke. “Last I remember of my time on Earth, not many people carried swords... What year did you take us to?”

“Eighth century,” answered Sylvie, giving Loki’s hand a gentle squeeze to bring his attention back to her when he continued to stare out into the distance. “I know a place that's not too far. Are you… are you okay to walk?”

“Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?” Loki shoots Sylvie a strained smile that knocks away some of the reassurance she felt that he was starting to come back to himself, wishing that far-away look in his eyes would be gone. Loki weakly gestures with a wave of his hand in the direction they had been walking in. “Lead the way.”

* * *

Not once during their trek does Sylvie let go of his hand. Sometimes it felt like the only thing anchoring Loki to reality was her, and that if she let go, he would simply cease to exist. 

Loki doesn’t hound her with his usual questions or provide insightful commentary on their surroundings. She… missed it, actually. Not just because their absence further proves that something with Loki isn’t quite right, but also because… to put it bluntly, she missed him. She missed hearing his voice, and missed feeling annoyed at hearing his voice. 

...What was she talking about? She was thinking like Loki was dead, with his hand wrapped around hers, and his stumbling footsteps just behind her. He was still there, she knew that, he just… needed some time, is all. It wasn’t like he was going to quickly bounce back from…

Gods, had that really happened? Mobius was… he was… 

Why did this hurt? Mobius was a man who had chased her across branches, hunting her down like it was for sport. She had only known him briefly, and this Mobius wasn’t even the one they knew. And yet… his death left an oddly hollow feeling in her chest that she knows must be immense and suffocating inside of Loki’s. 

That was why, she supposed. It just seemed to be the way it worked with them. Mobius’s death was clearly wreaking havoc on Loki’s emotions, overwhelming him with levels of guilt and pain that he was struggling to handle. Loki was hurting, and just from that, she was hurting too. Loki was mourning the loss of his friend, and so she was mourning, too. 

But she couldn’t let herself fall into it like Loki was. If she’s the only one of them that can tread on the surface of despair Loki was sinking into and keep the both of them afloat? Then that’s just what she’ll have to do. 

The sight of the little building nestled within the forest brings with it a much-needed air of relief. The columns of smoke billowing from the inn’s chimney gave promises of alluring warmth and shelter from the cold — not that it bothered them all that much — and more importantly, the drunken patrons stumbling out of the front door that struggled to climb atop their horses gave promises of a much-needed drink. 

“Hang on.” Sylvie comes to a stop, holding out a hand to stop Loki from walking any further forward. There was still enough distance and cover provided by the forest that no one would be able to spot them just yet. “It’s probably best that you change out of your clothes, too. We’re probably going to get a decent amount of stares with me wearing armor. I can’t imagine these people will react too well to seeing someone in an office get up.”

“Right…” Loki nods his head, peering at the handful of people of this time that stood around the entrance to the Inn, friendly smiles on their faces as they conversed whilst simultaneously keeping one hand placed atop the hilt of their swords. His eyes scan meticulously over their clothing, taking note of every small detail he can see that may be of use.

Loki moves closer towards the cover of a nearby tree, blocking out most of the light from his magic as he changes his wardrobe. What he wore was quite similar to his usual Asgardian armor, being mostly comprised of leather as most other pieces of armor from this time period on Earth seemed to be. Thankfully, the dark colors of his clothing seemed to be a common theme amongst others he had seen so far, so it wasn’t like they would have to worry over this Earth’s people scrutinizing their coloring choice. 

Sylvie raised an eyebrow at the addition of some sort of fur wrap that ran along the collar and flowed down his back like… well, like a cape, it looked like. The fur was as dark in color, as was the rest of his outfit, the muted light from the cloud-covered sun barely able to show whether it was a very dark brown, or was simply black. 

“People might look at us strangely if we’re walking around in freezing temperatures without a coat,” Loki says when he catches sight of her questioning look. 

Sylvie had to admit that he had a point there. Before she can say anything or do anything in response, Loki had manifested a similar fur-lined coat in his hands. Sylvie raises a hand up, intending to take it from him, but of course Loki instead chooses to reach across her and drape it around her shoulders. He tucks the lapels of the coat together, waiting for Sylvie to reach out and grab hold of the lapels to keep it tightly wrapped around herself before letting go. 

“There -- now we match,” Loki says with a soft smile that struggles to reach his eyes. “Also should help to reduce some of the stares at seeing a woman in armor…”

Loki and Sylvie continue towards the beckoning light spilling out from the Inn, the layer of snow under their feet steadily shifting to well-worn paths of mud and compacted snow. Only once do Loki’s feet nearly slide out from under him, but it takes everything in Sylvie not to crackup into laughter as she catches his arm to steady him. 

The group of people milling about the door don’t even bat an eyelid at them as they squeeze by, evidently too invested in whatever conversations they were having to pay attention to the passing strangers. Even as Frost Giants, the blast of warmth that hits them as they push open the heavy wooden door is nothing less than a blessing. They both kick away the stubborn bits of mud and snow that clung to their boots, thankful to see only a few curious pub-goers had turned to see the newcomers. They apparently decided they weren’t of much interest, turning their attention back to their company and whatever alcoholic beverage was contained within the mugs in their hands. 

Sylvie catches sight of a small table that is blessedly empty, tucked away within the corner of the room and away from the line of sight of eyes that might be a little too curious. Loki trails behind as Sylvie leads them to it, waiting for her to slide into place on one of the rickety-looking wooden benches before taking a seat for himself opposite. 

The Inn was lit only by the fireplace that sat within the middle of the back wall, which also provided the old building with the much-needed heat against the bitter cold of the winter they had stepped into. Usually, Loki would be doing the same as Sylvie is right now: taking note of every exit, every potentially unsavory individual; preparing for the possibility of things going south, and figuring out whether running or fighting would be the best option depending on what went down. 

But right now… he was tired. Drained. A part of him wanted to… to slip back into that uncaring facade. It had been his best line of defense, and now, the mask no longer seemed to fit. 

“Be back in a minute,” Sylvie tells him in passing as she springs up from the table. She squeezes his shoulder as she passes, which he’s nearly unable to feel through the thick layer of fur that covered it. 

She comes back moments later with two shoddily crafted metal cups in hand, one being more like a goblet in shape, and the other more like a tankard of some sort. She places the silver goblet on the table in front of him, before dropping back down onto the bench and claiming the tankard for herself. 

“Kinda just guessed you’d want wine,” Sylvie tells him as he pulls the goblet towards him and peers down into its contents. “I’d ask for something stronger, but uh… we’re sort of limited to a few options here.”

“How did you pay for these?” Loki asks, the first genuine hint of amusement she’s heard from him laced into his question.

Sylvie wiggles her eyebrows at him in response, whilst also raising her hand into the air and wiggling her fingers with a burst of lime-green light. It manages to pull the tiniest of smiles from Loki, looking down to his drink with a huffed breath of laughter. 

“Probably should have guessed that, shouldn’t I?”

“Probably,” Sylvie agrees with a smile, raising the tankard to her lips and taking a sip of the dark ale within. 

Loki mirrors her actions, although where she had taken a single sip, his ‘sip’ didn’t stop until every last drop was sucked down. Sylvie was a little impressed as she watched him chuck his head back and down the entire thing in what seemed like one swallow, but mostly… she was just worried.

“Did... did you even taste that?”

The goblet clangs loudly as Loki returns it to the table, chuckling low, deep, and slow in a way that, if it had been anyone else, probably would have made her skin crawl. “I’m not exactly drinking it for the taste.”

'Fair point,' Sylvie thought. Not one to be outdone (and because, quite frankly, she needed it), Sylvie brought her metal tankard up to her mouth, draining the entire mug in only a few swallows. Loki shot her an equally impressed look once she dropped the tankard back down to the table, which she returned with a shrug of her shoulders.

“You know, sometimes I’m jealous of the humans,” Loki says almost a little too loudly. He raises the now empty goblet in his hands up in the air, cocking his head to the side as he inspects the blacksmith’s handiwork. “Their bodies are weaker than ours… and so it’s so much easier for them to get drunk… and for longer.”

“Well, the drinks on Lamentis certainly seemed to be effective on you.” Sylvie slides the goblet out of his hands, catching the eye of a nearby waitress and summoning her over with a curl of her finger. “I would say that I’m starting to feel you have a drinking problem but…” Sylvie trails off for a moment, her mouth softly closing with a sympathetic grimace. “But… I think I need a drink about as much as you do.”

Right on cue, the waitress appears by their table, carrying two large jugs of the drinks they had previously offered. She puts one down on the table, preparing to pour the other into Loki’s goblet first to top it up, but Loki places his hand over the top of the goblet to stop her. 

“You might be better off leaving them both here,” Loki not so non-nonchalantly suggests to her with a charming smile. “Would probably save you the trips back and forth to our table.”

“I’m not sure that’s—” The woman starts to say, and it’s enough for Loki to realize it was another way of saying ‘no.’ He moves his hand from his goblet to the woman’s hand atop the handle of the jug, his smile not once wavering. No one, apart from him and Sylvie, see the green glow emitting from underneath his hands. 

“I’m just trying to make your job easier for you.”

“Yes… yes, you’re right,” The waitress agrees, looking a little dazed as she slides her hands away from Loki and the jugs. “Let me know if you need any more, and I’ll bring them right over.”

“Lovely, thank you.” The smile on Loki’s face only drops away once the waitress has turned her back to them, and it’s a harsh reminder to them both of just how good of an actor he is.

How good of a liar he is. 

"You're getting better," Sylvie notes once the waitress is out of earshot. "Won't be long before enchantment feels like second nature."

“Like you said — easier on those with simple minds. For a change of subject—" Loki picks up the jug of dark ale first, refilling Sylvie’s tankard for her before she can even ask — or say that she even wanted another one. She takes the cup once he offers it to her anyway, settling back against the uncomfortably hard wooden panels behind her. Loki doesn’t continue the rest of his sentence before he's poured himself another drink, hunched over the table as he holds onto his goblet of wine like it was a lifeline. “—What brings the end to this picturesque little location? Seems a little… small, to be classed as an Apocalypse.”

“There’s a village a few miles to the West from here.” Sylvie gestures with a flick of her head in the direction of the village. “Not a particularly large population, but… large by the standards of this time period.”

“Ah… so what brings about their end?” Loki asks like they were discussing the weather, perhaps the most emotionless smile on his face that she’s seen from him as he takes another long drink from his goblet. 

Sylvie doesn’t answer his question. Loki raises his brows when she just stares at him instead of speaking, a soft sigh escaping her lips as she leans forward against the table. “Loki… I know what you’re doing.”

Loki’s eyebrows somehow raise even higher, shooting Sylvie a bemused frown. “What… I’m doing?”

“I saw you on Miiphus. You can’t pretend like seeing all these worlds coming to an end doesn’t bother you. And now, you’re… you’re trying to pretend like you don’t care.”

“Because I don’t—”

“You do, though,” Sylvie cuts off another lie. “And I know you do, because I do. Even after all these years, even when I think I’m desensitized to it… I still care. I care that all these apocalypses happen because He decided they do. So don’t give me that. Don’t give me this… this regressed form of yourself. You know as well as I do that you’re pretending you don’t care so that it’s easier to talk about -- because you’re looking for a distraction.”

Something on Loki’s face shifts. A slip, a give to the illusion. Sylvie didn’t say what it was that he was trying to distract himself from, but it’s not like she needs to. She pushes her tankard to the side, reaching out for Loki like it was second nature. His jaw shifts by just the slightest as her hand rests atop of his, his eyes never once leaving hers. 

“If you want to talk to me… just talk to me,” Sylvie offers earnestly. “And if you can’t talk to me about… about that… then you don’t have to. I’m more than happy to act as a distraction if you want me to, just… don’t pretend to be someone you’re not. And hey -- I booked us a room upstairs in case all you want to do is drink until you pass out, and I’ll haul your drunken arse up the stairs.”

For the first time since they’ve gotten here, the half-a-smile that pulls at Loki’s lips is one she knows comes from her Loki. 

“I’m sorry,” he apologizes, soft and quiet, and the illusion is broken. “It’s just… easier that way… Not to think about it.”

“Believe me, I know.” Sylvie lifts her hand from Loki’s, wrapping it back around her tankard and taking a sip. “And that’s something I’m working on, too. I… I want to open up to you more, even when everything inside me is screaming at me not to. So… I understand if… if you can’t talk about it.”

Loki closes his eyes, taking a deep breath in through his nose. He opens them back up again, glancing over to the nearly full jug of wine next to him, feeling very grateful for its presence. “First… you answer my previous question, about what happens here.”

“Snowstorm,” Sylvie answers, keeping her voice low as she turns her gaze towards the frost-covered windows of the Inn. “Still a few days out -- but then again, since we don’t know what timeline this is, it could be sooner… or later… or not at all.”

“At least we don’t have to worry about this one,” Loki points out, one of the only times he’s thankful for his true heritage. “Were they… not prepared for it?”

“Not really something they can predict. They prepare for winter, sure, but this…? It’s just… too much for them to handle. This apocalypse, it’s…” Sylvie shivers, not from the cold but more of a sympathetic reaction. “It’s… slow. The ones that freeze to death are the lucky ones. Others… fight a losing battle. Food runs out pretty quickly, and once their storages are gone… the fighting starts. No one makes it through to the spring.”

Loki hums sadly, dropping his gaze down to his goblet as he taps his fingers along its surface. “Did you see that often…?”

“What -- people panicking in the face of death?” Sylvie’s voice is twinged with amusement, amazed that Loki would ask a question with such an obvious answer. 

“No, that’s a given,” Loki dismisses with a wave of his hand. “More… people being reduced to their animalistic tendencies. Civilizations that took centuries to develop, reduced to bare instincts in such little time.”

Sylvie sighs heavily through her nose, taking another drink of ale before she answers. “It’s… it’s not easy to predict how we’d react in the face of death. Having been there to watch it unfold countless times… I sometimes wondered what I would do in their place. There were many times where that was almost the case. There was never a guarantee I’d make it through to the next apocalypse. Never a guarantee that the TVA wouldn’t figure out my hiding spaces before I could make my move.”

Loki drops his gaze, shoulders hunched over as the guilt forces his eyes away from hers. Like usual, Sylvie seemed to be able to read his mind, reaching out a hand to wrap around his wrist. “I know I like to tease you about it sometimes, but I don’t blame you. I know you were doing what you needed to do to survive, same as I was. And at the end of it all… you were there with me.”

“Sometimes wish it could have played out differently,” Loki mumbles, head still bowed towards his goblet of wine. “That we could have met under better circumstances.”

“How?” Sylvie asks with a chuckle. “Not many people get to meet a variant of themselves unless under very particular TVA-related circumstances -- and that’s in the off-chance they do something wrong.”

“I suppose that’s true.” Loki finally lifts his gaze back up, even if it’s only to pull the jug of wine closer and refill his goblet. He turns his attention back to Sylvie, a lazy smile stretching across his face as he lifts his goblet into the air. “And now here we are: having massively cocked up the timeline by doing what we thought was right, leading to us hunting down infinite amounts of the same dangerous, potentially — more than likely — genocidal man, who may or may not be aware of our presence, and is hunting us down in return.”

Sylvie returns his smile with one of her own, lifting up her own tankard and clinking it against Loki’s. “I’m leaning more towards the ‘may be aware’ than ‘may not’ side of him hunting us down.”

Loki agrees with a mixture of a hum and a groan as he drains yet another cup of wine, wiping away any remnants that clung to his upper lip as he lowers the cup from his mouth. “Could always use a challenge.”

“And what -- trying to kill every version of one man isn’t enough of a challenge for you?”

Loki shrugs. “Sounds like an average day to me.”

Sylvie chuckles lightly, shaking her head at him. “Keep up that confidence, and we’ll be done with this whole mess in no time.”

“And then we’ll be right back to where we were,” Loki says, the easy-going smile on his face slipping slightly. “With either one of us knowing what to do next…”

“One step at a time,” Sylvie utters softly, ducking her head to catch Loki’s eye. “It’s difficult to focus on what’s next when what’s ahead is as big as it is.”

Loki nods at her answer, dragging his goblet across the table to take another drink. Sylvie reaches out a hand to stop him before he can lift it, forcing his eyes up to meet hers. 

“But… I’d like to accept your offer, from before.”

That rouses Loki’s interest, the dreary fog that had been hanging over his head since they arrived lifting by just the slightest as his curiosity wins over. “My offer…?”

“Back in the Void, you asked me what I was going to do next.” Sylvie lowers her hand from the goblet onto Loki’s, his fingers tightening instinctively around the stem of the goblet. “I said I didn’t know.”

Loki knew all of this, of course. This very conversation, everything he had said, everything she had answered with, had been seared into his memory. But, in what was an unusual move for him, he chose to remain silent, letting Sylvie speak. 

“You asked, if…” Sylvie pauses for just a moment, darting out the tip of her tongue to wet her lips — more of a nervous gesture than anything. “…If maybe we could figure that out together.”

Loki swallows harshly — his own nervous gesture — remaining remarkably patient and quiet as he waits for Sylvie to continue. 

“And I answered with ‘maybe,’” Sylvie continues, looking as lost to the memory of that day as he was. “If the offer still stands… I’d like to change my answer to yes.”

Loki laughs which, in most cases, isn’t the most ideal of responses to such a statement. But even through the nerves that Sylvie doesn’t know how to handle does she hear the clear relief in his laughter, the warm smile on his face helping to squash down those nerves better than any spoken words ever could. 

“The offer still, as it always will do, stands.”

…But then again, she supposed those words helped, too.

* * *

A few hours later, with no TVA in sight, no snowstorm in sight, and too many drinks for them to count, it was fair enough to say that they were tip-toeing the line between ‘pleasantly tipsy’ and… downright hammered. 

“I thought you were the one that was supposed to be dragging me up the stairs.” Loki’s words come out a little more slurred than they sounded in his head, the both of them hanging onto each other for support as they climb the old wooden stairs that looked a lot more slanted than they did earlier. In fact, they seemed to be doing a remarkable job of disobeying the laws of physics and jumping away from where he intended to place his foot. 

“Says the guy leaning half of his weight on me,” Sylvie huffs, her free hand pressed against the wall for support. And… to stop them from tumbling down the stairs. 

Loki grunts — a terribly well-thought-out argument — taking a moment at the top of the stairs to wait for his vision to stop swimming. “Didn’t I ask you to stop me from pouring any more drinks?”

“You did,” Sylvie agrees. “You also then proceeded to tell me that ‘one more drink couldn’t hurt’, called the waitress over for the last of their wine stores, and then nearly stabbed that wannabe knight who started getting grabby with me.”

“He deserved worse,” Loki mumbled darkly, letting Sylvie guide him towards the room she had booked for them. “Not that I had to do anything, of course. By the time I had gotten my daggers out, you had already dented his cranium with your tankard.”

“I’ve dealt with worse,” Sylvie replies, which Loki doesn’t like the sound of at all. “Remember those ‘animalistic natures’ you talked about earlier? Well, let’s just say I’ve gotten used to dealing with people like that whilst on the run.”

Sylvie just barely manages to shove the steel key into the door’s lock, the scratch marks etched into the area of the handle around the hole itself indicating that most other drunk patrons of this Inn had dealt with the same problem. She all but leans her entire weight against the heavy door to push it open, nearly stumbling into the room and dragging Loki with her when the door finally gives way. 

“Ah -- what a sight for sore eyes!” Loki crows in delight as he lays eyes on the king-sized bed pushed against the wall to the left of the doorway. The bed faced yet another fireplace — being the only room in the Inn for hire that included a fireplace, situated atop the fireplace downstairs in the pub and sharing its chimney. Renting such a room would usually cost a pretty penny… but having access to magic beyond most’s understanding made it much easier to get the five-finger discount. 

“You know, I genuinely can’t remember the last time I slept in a bed,” Loki comments as he teeters towards the fireplace. He gracefully —by which he means he just let’s gravity do most of the work — drops down onto his knees in front of the fireplace, using a burst of his magic to turn the pile of freshly cut logs and tinder within into a roaring fire within seconds. “I’m guessing the same could be said for you?”

“Depends what you classify as a bed.” Sylvie finishes up locking the door to the room, tucking the key into her pocket as she turns towards the room. “Most times, I was lucky to be lying on something even somewhat soft. Other times… well, let’s just say that sleep was often a luxury I couldn’t afford.”

Loki grimaces as he pushes himself up until he was standing, walking over to the bed and collapsing down onto it with an exhausted sounding huff, letting his hands rest atop his stomach as his back hits the — mostly — clean sheets underneath him. 

“Suppose I shouldn’t expect much craftsmanship from Earth’s eighty century,” Loki comments on the state of the bed. Sylvie walks over to the bed, entering Loki’s frame of vision as she stands over him. 

“At least I have a nice view, though.” He accompanies the comment with a sly smile, which gets him a roll of the eyes and a less than vicious kick to his leg hanging off the edge of the bed in response.

“Come on, budge up,” Sylvie indicates to where he was situated directly in the middle of the bed, motioning for him to move with a flick of her wrist. 

Loki grunts with the little effort it takes to move himself over to one side of the bed. He closes his eyes against the comforting yet too bright light of the fire, feeling the dip of the bed as Sylvie takes a seat on the edge of it. 

“Hey,” she tries to get his attention, tapping at his thigh until he creaks an eye open to look at her. “You do still have the TemPad, right?” 

Loki answers by digging into his oversized coat pocket, pulling out the TemPad and holding it out in the air for her to take. She takes it from his hands, running a thumb along the smoothed marble edge, watching as it lights up at her touch. 

“I think it likes you more than me,” Loki mumbled from beside her. 

“Mmm… not sure it has the capability to pick favorites.”

“If it’s smart enough to recognize us as its owners, then it might be able to differentiate between us and have a preference to which of us is wielding it.”

“Well… I have used it more than you,” Sylvie points out, and on cue, the surface of the TemPad lights up, as if it were agreeing with her words. 

Loki pushes himself up from the bed, matching Sylvie as he sits at the edge of the bed. He runs a tired hand over equally tired eyes, glancing down to the TemPad in her hands. “Why’d you use Mo -- the other TemPad, instead of that one?”

If Sylvie noticed him tripping over his words, she didn’t mention it. “We said it’d be best to grab a backup, didn’t we? And… you seemed a little, uh… shaken at the time, to get the TemPad back off you.”

“Right…” Loki drops his gaze down to his lap, seemingly shrinking in on himself. 

“Loki… I’m so sorry,” Sylvie says gently, trying to find the best way to approach the subject they had both seemingly been avoiding. “I know that Mobius, he was… he was a good friend.”

“No, not a good friend.” Loki shakes his head, glancing up at her. “He was… my only friend.”

The pain on his face briefly gives way to one of panic, quickly attempting to backtrack on what he had just said. “Oh, uh, that’s not to say that you’re not my friend, it’s just that -- I’ve always seen as you as something different than—”

Sylvie smiles at his awkward and bumbling words, reaching out to place her hand on his upper arm. “I know. I get what you’re trying to say.”

Loki relaxes at that, sighing quietly to himself in relief. “If it hadn’t been for Mobius, I would have been reset moments after my so-called ‘trial.’ He… broke me down and pulled me apart, forcing me to realize truths about myself that I had always tried to run from. Meeting him, just like meeting you, it… it changed me. Or… or more so it made me realize that I was capable of changing myself.”

Sylvie’s hand moves up and down his arm in soothing motions, the comforting touch forcing his eyes shut. “He’s still out there, Loki. We’ll find him again.”

“How am I supposed to face him again?” Loki asks desperately. “How can I look him in the eye, knowing what I’ve done to him?”

“You need to stop seeing that variant as him. Just like me and you, that Mobius and the one we know are nearly different people entirely. Different choices made, different lives lived. Who we are -- who we become -- is more than just what we are at birth. That Mobius made the choice to pick up the Pruning Stick. That Mobius made the choice to threaten us, not the Mobius you know. You didn’t kill Mobius; you killed a man that was holding a weapon to my neck, and I… I can’t even begin to thank you for that.”

Loki shoots her an incredulous look. “You can’t have really thought I would have let him…?”

“I thought it might have been a possibility.” Sylvie shrugs her shoulders, Loki’s baffled expression only growing stronger at her response. 

“Mobius is… he’s the only — and the greatest  — friend I’ve ever had,” Loki begins, placing a hand over hers on his shoulder. “But you? You’re…”

Loki wasn’t even sure he had a word to describe what Sylvie was to him. None that he knew quite seemed to fit, didn’t quite match the way he felt when he thought about her. She was… himself, both the good parts and the bad parts. She was… she was him, and yet she wasn’t. She was… a force of nature that came crashing into his life as much as he had been chasing it, stirring up trouble and chaos wherever she went, and yet, left behind the seeds of new life, of new beginnings once the destruction had cleared. 

She was… the driving force that made him want to be someone different. She was the only person he wanted by his side as they took on this seemingly impossible task. 

She was…

“...My Glorious Purpose.”

There was a split second where Loki wondered if perhaps those words weren’t the best to use. Sure, he had mentioned his ‘Glorious Purpose’ before, and since the future version of himself had brought it up, he… kind of just assumed that the idea of a ‘Glorious Purpose’ was something that was sort of built into every Loki. Now though, when he thought about it from an outside perspective, the use of ‘my’ seemed to suggest a claim of ownership over Sylvie, which was certainly not the impression he wanted to give off. 

He stops worrying about it when the concerned frown on her face slowly softens, changing to one of disbelief at his statement. He can’t help but give her a small smile at the sight of her shock, looking back down to his lap with that half-turned smile slipping away. 

“I’m not too sure when it changed,” he admits to her. “I suppose that… most other versions of my ‘Glorious Purpose’ always involved me ruling over… something. Asgard… Midgard… The Nine Realms; then, when I discovered the power they held, The TVA. Same goal, just… different circumstances. And you know what the strange thing is?”

Sylvie was still a bit too dumbstruck from Loki’s previous admission, only able to stare avidly at him as he speaks. 

“I didn’t even want them. Not really,” Loki says, and then he laughs, the reality of his entire life now just seeming so incredibly absurd as he says it out loud. 

What had his obsession over ruling truly been about? Did he think it would guide him towards happiness? Would he felt like he had achieved something he had earned through blood, sweat, and tears? That he took what should have been his, not something he had to take? 

No… no, it wasn’t any of that. It was…

It was from feeling out of place. 

He always had, right from the beginning. Always this feeling of… something not right. He had been the, quite literal, black sheep in the family. Watching his father sat atop the throne, witnessing the grandeur that came with his father’s title, hearing of the stories that led to his place on the throne… and then seeing the way his brother was co closely following in the footsteps of their father. 

Thor was the oldest. He might have been a prince, just as Thor was, but he always knew that Thor was the one who would step up to the throne when the time came. He was… a backup, it sometimes felt like. The only time he truly felt wanted, and like he was right where he was meant to be, was whenever he was learning magic, paying rapt attention to his mother as she showed him all she knew. 

Then, to find out who he truly was… What little claim he had to the title, what little claim he had to being an Asgardian, of being Son of Odin and Frigga was… gone. He was nothing more than a little ice runt, saved from abandonment to act as a token of peace in the hopes of ending both his father’s wars.

What if he had known? What if, like Sylvie, he had been told of who he really was? Would events still transpire as they had? Would Sylvie had done the same as him, if she had never been taken from her timeline? It seemed unlikely. For one, she seemed — at least on the outside — remarkably unphased about being adopted when he had brought it up back on Lamentis. And for another... she had spent her entire life running away from an organization that ruled over everything that has existed, or ever will exist; it wasn’t all too surprising that the thought of ruling over anything didn’t really appeal to her. 

And that was what it boiled down to. Him, desperately trying to grab hold of power in a bid for control, to prove to others and to himself that he deserved to be something -- someone -- other than a pawn in his father’s wars. And Sylvie… she had run, stolen, and killed her way through universe after universe, all to send a message to the TVA that she was more than just a pawn in their game that had made her own move, not theirs. 

They both felt the need to prove that they belonged. Just... In different ways. 

“How…” Sylvie tries to start speaking, clearing her throat with a shake of her head. “How am I your Glorious Purpose? Why am I…?”

“Not really something I can control,” Loki gestures to himself with a strained smile. “One moment, all I care about is finding my way back to the TVA, getting in front of the Time Keepers, and taking their place on the throne. Then… there you were. You were… persistent, and determined, and… me, yet… not. You were trying to destroy the TVA — the very thing I was trying to rule — and… I only had to know you for a day for everything to change. For me to change. I didn’t care about having a throne. I didn’t care about being in control. For once, I felt like I truly belonged — and that was whenever I was with you. I knew that… I could let myself be happy, so long as you’re happy.”

Sylvie has to look away from the intensity of his gaze, trying to wrap her head around everything he had just said. “I, um… I’m starting to think this is the wine talking.”

Loki chuckled lazily at that, dropping gracefully back down to the bed. “Hmm… wine does usually make me talk a lot.”

“You always talk a lot.”

“More so than usual,” Loki grumbles. “My point still stands; just because it’s the wine talking doesn’t mean it isn’t the truth.”

Sylvie glances back to him over her shoulder, drinking in the peaceful look on his face as he lies there with his eyes closed, looking about ready to drop off. She sighs quietly, looking back to the TemPad in her hands with a thoughtful frown. 

“I wish I knew how to tell you the way I feel for you,” she admits to the quiet of the room. Loki’s eyes pop open, looking up to her in surprise. 

“It seems like you’re better at all this than I am,” Sylvie continues, shuffling around on the bed so she could face him better. “Feels like… I have some catching up to do.”

“We both do,” Loki reassures her, pushing himself up onto his arms. “But that’s okay. We’ll figure things out at our own pace.”

“But what if I…” Sylvie trails off, face twisting in frustration. “…What if I never get there?”

“You will—”

“But you don’t know that,” Sylvie stresses, cutting him off. “And it’s... it’s not fair to you, for me to be stuck the way I am…”

“Sylvie, a few days before I met you, I was using a device to carve out and copy the information of a man’s eye.” Sylvie reels back slightly at this tidbit of information, but —thankfully— doesn’t ask about it any further. “And, you know… a friend once told me I could be whoever, or whatever, I wanted to be. We are capable of change, Sylvie -- especially when it’s a change we’re striving to achieve. And if you never get there?” Loki shrugs his shoulders. “That’s okay, too. I know you’ll find your own way to express how you feel.”

Sylvie shakes her head at the assurance in his voice. She wasn’t sure what it was she had done that had made Loki so… devoted to her. “Sometimes I’ll look at you, and I’ll think of something, and… and I just can’t say those thoughts out loud. And I should. If I can think them, why can’t I say them?”

“Sylvie… there’s a hell of a difference between thinking something, and acting on it. The way that I feel for you, it’s… it’s not easy for me to admit, either. It doesn’t feel all that long ago that I mocked people for being in love. And now, in their shoes, I know it’s more complicated then—”

Loki stopped himself when he caught sight of the wide-eyed look on Sylvie’s face, his mouth frozen partway open in mid-sentence. Loki might not have picked up on the significance of what he had just said out loud, but for Sylvie, those few words were echoing around in her head. It was almost funny that, seconds after saying he too struggled to admit how he feels, he had just dropped the biggest admission possible on her without even realizing it. 

“What did you just say?” Sylvie whispers, eyes still wide as saucers. 

Loki frowned, ready to ask which part of what he had just said, when the realization clobbers him around the head. He… he had never said that out loud, had he? But… but she knew, didn’t she? She had to — especially after sharing their emotions with each other as they delved into their memories, re-watching their moment on Lamentis through the power of enchantment. 

“Ah…” Loki got out, trying not to let the panic take over. “That… that probably wasn’t the best time to say that, was it?”

Sylvie’s continuous silence and lack of a reaction other than just staring at him wasn’t doing much to calm his nerves. “Okay, I know I said it’s fine if you can’t express how you feel, but I’d really appreciate it if you said something right about now.”

“Did you mean it?” Sylvie asks, the vulnerability in her voice giving Loki pause. “Are you… are you really…?”

“In love with you?” Loki fills in the words Sylvie couldn’t seem to get out. Sylvie sucks in a sharp breath through her teeth at the words, slowly nodding her head. A small smile flickers at the corner of Loki’s lips, looking away sheepishly. “Yes. Yes, I am.”

Loki glances up at her from his ducked gaze, watching as she takes this in. She teeters back on the bed, eyes darting around the room in what Loki hoped was closer to something like shock than just downright panic. 

“Please, don’t -- don’t freak out.” Loki wanted to reach out to her, but wasn’t sure how well-received his touch would be right now. “I didn’t mean to overwhelm you—”

“Say it again.”

Loki blinked at her in surprise, the response not what he was expecting. “I… excuse me?”

“Say it again,” Sylvie repeats firmly, looking him straight in the eye. 

Loki schools his confused expression, meeting her searching gaze as he repeats the one thing he never thought he’d get to say. “I’m in love with you.”

Sylvie’s eyes narrow for a moment, her eyes scanning across his face for some kind of tell that he was lying — some form of manipulation, one which would be the cruelest kind. “Again,” She repeats, unable to keep the shakiness out of her voice. 

“I’m in love with you.” It was almost scary how easy it was coming to him, now. It was like stating the weather, or what he had eaten for dinner. Just… a matter of fact. An absolute truth — and he was finding he enjoyed saying it as much as he enjoyed knowing she had now heard those words fall from his lips.

Loki wasn’t sure what about him saying it for the third time made Sylvie believe it, but she seemed to find whatever it was she was looking for from him. Sylvie rushes towards him, grabbing hold of the lapels of his coat and pulling him towards her until their lips met. It was already much too warm in the room from the heat radiating from the fireplace, so Loki was all too eager to assist Sylvie as she begins yanking his coat off. 

They break apart for the briefest of moments to pull his arms out from the sleeves of the coat, balling it up and throwing it carelessly to the side, nearly setting it alight as it lands near the fire. Loki happily follows the directions of her push, falling back onto the bed and savoring the feeling of her body pressed against his as her weight falls onto him. 

“You’re right -- I can find another way to express the way I feel,” Sylvie pants a few tantalizing inches from his mouth. It takes all of Loki’s focus to listen to what she’s saying and not just surge up and reclaim her lips like his body was screaming at him to do. “And I’ve always been more a woman of actions than words, anyway.”

Next Chapter - - - >

[grim-faux]

In the wake of a corrupt and uncertain time loop, the Thin Man entertains the prospect of looking after his younger-self. All children are independent to a fault and self-sufficient in a chaotic, unhinged world eager to erase their existence. Those that endure are hardwired for navigating the malicious terrain, and become especially leery of its traps, pitfalls, and especially the adults. Mono is no exception.

Despite being the same entity, the Thin Man and Mono are polarized opposites. The two now struggle to coexistence in a timeline that is cruel and petty, and does not forgive transgressions against certain ethereal laws. The Thin Man does not feel adequate to the task; whereas Mono's greatest drive is to outrun the misfortune that has plagued his entire existence.

2 _ 1 _ The Patience of Singularity

First

 The last he saw of the girl was her shaded face, under the hood of the clever raincoat. He tried to read the expression, understand what happened. In a blink She was gone.

 And he kept falling.

 But WHY?

 The air whipped past his shoulders and thrashed his coat, faster and faster through the unstoppable descent. Darkness boiled around him, crowding out the last scrap of light he would ever see in his short life. As certain as time ticked onward, unhindered by events and mortal struggles; nothing could negate the reality of his situation.

 She let go. Tore Her hand out of his grasp, and he was still falling.

 At some point in the longest, darkest, most painful plummet in all his little world, he knows nothing. Mono only knows that he was falling, then somewhere he was not, but now he is mostly awake. He was not dead or hurt, only asleep or unaware for a short time. Somehow, he survived what should have shattered him, and it felt as if a force beyond his meager grasp cackled at the pain his unscathed plunge now brought. A cruel trick, wicked and mean.

 Yes, he was all right. Oh, how he wished that were not so.

 The floors and walls writhe and churn, the air boundless in humid reek, thick with the sour stench coating this awful the place. It was alive - with massive and puffy eyes glaring out of inflamed tissue, searching, hungry, likely insatiable.

 The boy leapt up and scrambled across rolling hills of the squirming landscape, his feet generated a flat plap-plap with frantic, erratic movement when he charged one way or stumbled another, to no gain. A thick film of sweat clung to the greasy surface, preventing him from scaling in numerous directions that might’ve been safe-eR. At best they were not, but the restriction maddened him and heightened his fear. The manner in which every visible surface flexed with purpose, it was impossible to deny it was not guiding him to somewhere.

 While running with all the turmoil he could muster, he swept his view toward the above. The loathsome air made his eyes water, that was the only reason why they stung and hurt. Made his nose prick and itch, the back of his throat tightened. A little whine trilled out, but he stifled it. Tried to. His presence was known, everything here knew that he was. It didn’t matter if he screamed or shouted, wailed into the gloomiest most isolated depths. Nothing would find him here; nothing that wasn’t already aware.

 She did this. Left him. Let him… tore away. But….

 W̵̜̹̃͑H̷̥̚Y̴̱̰͆͗?̴͉̒̾!̵͈̥͘!̷͚̈́͘?̷̻̾!̷̪̯̆̍?̸̙̯̉̏

 Nothing but darkness persisted between the churning fabric, and somewhere within the wriggling depths, more of the flesh rolled inward. Folds upon waves descending. Closer. Groaning.

 Snickering.

 Time was nonexistent. He didn’t know for how far he went, let alone where he was going. What he should hope to reach. He had no idea where he was, let alone what this place was. This… this was the Signal Tower, wasn’t it? The same Signal Tower he wanted to challenge, so they could fix the world, cleave it from all the nightmares and horror which robbed him of friends. All of them. This was that very same p̸̨̋l̵̝̖̕ã̷̲̳̈c̷̖͋͒ͅẽ̷̙!

 The reflection crushed him, almost as much as it devastated him when She wrenched her hand out of his grasp. It was no grand machine, there was nothing to smash or break, no button nor a fuse. Just the gross mass of raw tissue, eyes, teeth. The putrid bloated body of a creature lodged into a tall building, a living and breathing thing that desired nothing but to feed, and constantly. Devour mindlessly whatever was cast into its pit without thought, no remorse.

 Everything he did, all the trials endured, the pain suffered; all of it so he could chance saving the most important person in the world. Risked everything, because he couldn’t live with himself if he abandoned her to this horrible fate. Only to wind up here in the pit of famine and emptiness.

 Left for dead. Abandoned. Unwanted. And he didn’t understand why. What to reason? If there was reason, and she didn’t plan this from the very beginning. None of this made sense. He didn’t understand. Why?! Why any of it!? Why stay with, if not want?

 Odd things crossed his path as he wandered aimless, lost and miserable. Items that might’ve elicited hope, if not for their bizarre situations. Partially buried window frames, lamps of every shape. The stray shreds of a door, sinking slowly. Scattered cement chunks, all fading into the pulsating tissue. Various bits and pieces of television parts, but nothing substantial, nothing he could make use of. Not that he needed a television, not that he….

 At last, he stumbled upon a chair. Unmoved and bothered by its precarious placement in the heaving flesh. As prior to the other items he dismissed, he left it and kept searching for somewhere that was not here. No matter how far he went, the direction he stumbled into.

 The chair would always be waiting.

 The flesh surrounding it, anchored beneath it – grinning – beseeching him. Safety. Sanctuary. Promises that a child would die for.

 Bugling walls lurched inward, the air became stifling and burdened by the foul odor, he couldn’t deny the chair. He couldn’t risk rejecting it a… however many times this was.

 Mono clawed his way across the steep mound and hoisted himself onto the flat, grainy, solid surface. He stood there at the summit, as a dozes eyes bore out of the rippling walls. Blinking, oozing, sweltering boils that swiveled and gawked at the child – a child unwilling to lie down and submit. They eyes rolled and the walls caved inward, chewing through the pitiful little space untainted yet, sipping greedily at the child.

  F̴͕͐̾Ļ̴̫̓͆I̶̒͋͜M̶͓͚̈́Š̵̥Y̸̗͋̚ ̴̡̎L̸͚͓͂͂I̴̮̪Ṯ̵͉̿͠Ţ̵̹̊̌L̷̼͆É̷̙̘̆ ̸̧̙̑M̷̖̈́O̷̫̔͜R̶̦͐̈́S̴̯͋Ẽ̴̢͕L̸̹̑ ̵͔̦̑̔ ̵̦̓͒

̷͚̟̉B̵͍̽Ȃ̷̛̹R̵̗̾̊Ḙ̶͇͗L̷̪͑̑Y̷̰̩͛ ̴̜̋Ä̸͓͒ ̴͇̙͝M̸͖͖͒O̸̩̜̐U̷̞̟̔̈́T̸͓͆H̴̼F̷̟͕͑U̵̯L̵̜̻̀͠ ̸̡̱́͗

̷͇͇̈W̵͍ͅH̶̬̐̆Ȁ̵͍T̷͎̈́̓ ̴͈̐Ḑ̸̫̂Ǒ̷̼̂Ȅ̶͇͜S̷̬̈ ̵̣̮͌͂ ̵̺͑̒

̴̼͆͝Ï̴̥͕̓Ţ̷̩̂̈ ̶̧̻͛͠Ḧ̸̤́Ŏ̶̰̖͝P̶͈̈͝Ė̷͎ ̸̧̖͗

̷͙̙̍T̸̫͉͋Ȯ̴̧̼̽ ̶̘͈̃

̸̧͐A̶̢̝͗̚C̷͙̫͂Ḩ̵̅I̴̫̯͛͠Ȇ̶̥V̸̖̑̆E̶̺͊͠ ̷̭̍ͅ

̷̨͙͍̜̘͖̜̃͛

 “Look at someone—” Mono threw his arms out, “—E̸͟͏̤̲̤̗͍̩̘L̡̝͉S̢̬͕̬͖̗̱E̶̮̠̟̟͓̯̰!̝̟̞̥̹͓͜ͅ”

 The whole chamber flashed in a surge of white, so blinding and intense it seared his bones within his skin.

__

 With a jolt the Thin Man realized he was no longer in that tiny cement room, secluded away from the world and all its petty complexities. He was no longer biding away the years and waiting, watching a door he barely acknowledged aside from face it. For whatever positive it allowed, he had survived all encounters with his child self. As perplexing as each of those incidents was, the smaller one did not fair the better for it.

 The rain drummed gently on the remaining glass of the rooms window, curious light distortions tinged the corroded walls. By the illumination piercing the clouds, it must have been midday; the hour was certainly not dead of night.

 A bowl of water and some scraps of food always stayed on the windowsill. A habit he came unto, while Mono recovered from another incident utilizing his… powers. That might’ve been the closest the child was willing to come to harm the Thin Man – ironically, harming his own self more than the shadow that was subconsciously drawn to his whereabouts. A fact the Thin Man felt deep shame of, given how driven the child was to avoid him, and the volatile reaction when revealed how hopeless that effort was.

 Speek of he, and he shall materialize.

 There is the child, slinking in from the doorway as if he had committed some heinous crime. His only crime seemed to be existing where he wasn’t wanted.

 From where he slouched beside the dresser, the Thin Man inched his hat up a fraction. He silently observed Mono ark out beyond his range and padded over to the furthest side of the open drawer. Likely out doing another walk of the apartment. He did those periodically, when his mind couldn’t settle. Around the small room, a few of the treasures sat out. Though, the child never took to any of them – not like the bear, which he arguably favored. Some of those gifts the Thin Man put into the drawer, even if Mono didn’t seem to care for them, the boy didn’t reject them irrefutably.

 The child wound up into his coat and propped his chin on the rim of the dresser drawer, gaze fixed on the Thin Man. As always, it unnerved him. This incessant watching. Waiting. Expectant. Reluctant to make speek, and whatever speek remained limited and simplified. He – the child – was always so proud of speek, of making his voice. It was a rare day when he could get Mono to respond to a question, but the child seemed to be coming around. In no great haste, but at least at some choice times he could hear the little voice.

 With a crackly sigh, the Thin Man leaned over and reached across the open drawer. The child twisted at his grasp and tried to get away, but the Thin Man looped his fingers around the torso and plucked him out. For whatever reason Mono resisted, and that was… odd. The child wasn't typically opposed to being lifted or moved, and more than once he had to deal with the child knotted into his side like some little... needy thing. He didn't understand this sudden contrast, or the reluctance he was experiencing now. That was all it was, mediocre objection. He had seen firsthand a panicked and terror stricken Mono, writhing upon the brink of utter desperation. Thankfully, this was not that. Annoyed more than anything.

 The Thin Man shifted the child between his palms, keeping his fingers curled carefully in case the little one tried nipping or succeeded in squirming loose. Once Mono accepted he wasn't getting away, his flailing ceased. That was better, he could view the face proper now – animated, curious, a little put off at being disturbed. So much better than lost to a coma.

 He held out hope he’d find something… familiar, in the child’s face. Someone he’d seen while staring into a muddy, rainbow lashed puddle, or the corroded refracted distortions in shattered mirrors. A ghost of a reflection in a foggy window, as he gazed out toward the Signal Tower awaiting endlessly in the yonder distance. He studied the eyes, the blank expression, searching for a spark of familiarity in those strange depths. Who was this child? Why was there such a... disconnection? No kindred tether existed between he and this boy. The face was vacant, devoid of something so instrumental to his youth. He would almost wager he – the elder – was disenchanted.

 Mono coiled his arms around his head and leaned back as far as his spine would allow. The Thin Man debated shifting the thin arms aside, but cast out the thought. The child didn’t like being the subject of such scrutiny, and the little body was quivering.

 The Thin Man leaned away from the wall and set Mono back into his corner of the drawer. The child cringed down, tightening the grip on his head when the Thin Man withdrew his hands. The Thin Man settled one of the plush toys beside Mono, and pulled a shirt sleeve over the smaller one so he could be hidden until he was ready to emerge.

 In a glitchy surge, the Thin Man stood tall. He paced out of the room, in a deep bow as always. He’s aware of the haunted face peering out from beneath the shirt, but reframed from acknowledging it.

 This was all his doing. Every ounce of it, whether intentional or not, regardless intent. Everything that came upon the child, was due to his masterful deviation from the uncontestable loop.

 What always has been, shall always be.

 An accidental misstep unhinged everything he thought he knew of the endless coiling cycle. What he knew, from his own experience of the cycle – when he was a child, racing recklessly in the same steps as his predecessor, and he before him. Etcetera, etcetera, et-cetera….

 He wouldn’t watch the child fall from a measly train cart, he couldn’t bear to witness his final plunge into the very same pit he was cast into, when he naively leapt and trusted without doubt. Without choice. He whisked Mono from that very banishment, yet he began to question if that was the most benevolent impulse. The boy knew by the Thin Man’s meddling, he was averted from certain destruction, but never saw entirely what he was salvaged from. Knew nothing of the horrible fate awaiting him in the pit, a fate worse than the certain death he feared.

 But was it so?

 Through his unintentional first intervention, he managed to deprive Mono of the initial drive and resolve he gained, which would equip his younger self to contest the Thin Man at the doors to the Signal Tower. Thus, the Thin Man’s uncontested fate was for the time postponed.

 Out of curiosity he accompanied the child to the Tower, with no promise that the stolen friend could be found. The problem being, the Thin Man knew Mono would stumble upon Her. Would succeed in tearing Her from the influence of the Tower, and liberate his friend from imprisonment. After everything he overcame, the pain he suffered, and during his most desperate time of need – the child would be cast away into the void. No rhyme or reason. It was arguably the coldest, most ruthless form of treachery.

 In the Thin Man’s second intervention, he snatched Mono from the pit, tore the child from the sanctuary he was promised. A prison for his capabilities. A cage for his rage. A shelter which would allow him to age and flourish in peace, beyond the reach of an ugly world that did not deserve such a resilient soul.

 Through his aimless wanderings of the city, mindful of items and treats that Mono might take to, the Thin Man did reflect how unfair all of this was to his child-self. How contradictory it was that he was so quick to accept his fate in the Signal Tower, yet expected Mono – unaware of the true nature of the haven he was whisked from – to resume pace in the unforgiving, petty and cruel world. Children were capable and self-sufficient, to a fault. But the boy remained confused, decimated by betrayal, hunted ruthlessly, and perhaps unfit to deal with the world and these certainties established.

 The Thin Man doesn’t even recall what he initially sought when he attended Mono's quest to the Tower. His presence was not necessary, so long as the child arrived as scheduled. The paradox continued, binding the loop – for whatever reason, the child never leaves the Signal Tower; he is sheltered, he is saved from the world, and the world is safe from him. As of yet, Mono remained cloaked from the truth of his paradoxical destiny. The life sentence awaiting at the Tower.

 In the distance, the Signal Tower loomed. The Thin Man stood at a window within a vapor of smog and sizzling particles, observing the impassive monolith through mostly intact glass. Tumescent clouds swirled the spire, as if the rainfall evaporated before hitting the surface of the unnatural structure. It seemed to sway and leer like cradle, mocking the figure studying it miles and miles away, hidden in another uninspired, mostly normal structure.

 His presence alone nearly killed the boy. Nothing in his possession and no item he could dredge up, would be enough for this… boy, he didn’t know. Yet Mono appeared very anxious by the prospect of his departure. He didn’t understand. Mono was repelled to him, while at the same time tormented by his absence. What was he meant to do? If he was not dubious for his chances of survival, he might consider returning Mono to the Tower himself. Regardless the fate awaiting him, when the boy assumed his role. The potential existed that Mono might even follow him to the place, without question. Or, if he explained the situation. If. If the child trusted him.

 The Thin Man was no fool. The child didn’t trust him in the slightest. Merely, accepted his proximity.

 Delivering the child was an option. The easiest solution by far. One to considered, before the irreversible happened. He didn’t… if it was even possible, and the worst came about, he couldn’t carry on existing if the child was…. Mono deserved better.

 Or, he could look after the smaller one himself, for the time. That was pure lunacy, a child and an adult coexisting. What would that even be? He wasn’t meant to be a part of any child’s life, much less his younger-self. He was not equipped for this debacle, the whole situation was doomed. Mono didn’t need him, nor protection (maybe from his self). The whole drama of if the child was receptive to remaining in his company, was another matter entirely. He was disinterested in chasing after the boy, given how that went when he wasn’t even trying to locate Mono.

 No easy answer existed. And in the heart of the city, in the distance, out there, its beacon light blazing through and through the storm – the Signal Tower waited. It only needed to wait, looming above the city, promising everything but relinquishing no solace. A snare with irresistible bait – unavoidable certainty.

 After a long, endless trek through the city and nothing to show for it, the Thin Man returned to the desolate little area where he stashed the child. The other apartment rooms, abandoned, and nothing to spare in necessities, he passed languidly as he made the trudge to the one door to the furthest end of the corridor. As always, the door is unlatched, should the child decide for himself to leave and go to wherever his heart desired. Anything could break in, but enough windows are available within for Mono to make his escape.

 No such event has transpired. The whole living space appeared abandoned, but once he ventured to the apartments secluded end and the desk room within, he discovered the location of the child. For whatever reason, Mono is trying to hoist himself up onto the desks top. Nothing of child interest is stashed there, aside from interesting curios and a few books he elected on a bored whim.

 Upon alert of his reappearance, the boy scrubbed the mission and let himself fall all the way to the floor. The desk was not low, but it was not a height that would harm a child. In a flash, he vanished under the table somewhere.

 The Thin Man wasn't paying attention. He sat down at the chair and propped his legs on the desk, trying to remind himself why he didn't just shut that door. Then again, remind himself not to dismiss the child with shut doors, and to permit some association if Mono was so inclined. And then come to regret that all in the same instant.

 A meek tug pried at his coat from the side, and he had to restrain the glare he wanted to inflict. At times the child was brash, and that ounce of defiance exhausted him so.

 Mono inched along the chair leg as he would a storm gutter, and reached high enough to snag the Thin Man's suit end. With this leverage, he fitted his feet upon the chair seat, then hoisted himself up to the Thin Man's midsection. The child kept his sight locked on the man in the hat, for signs of hostility or intolerance. When none are revealed, Mono crawled up as if enduring a crafty scheme and nestled into the Thin Man's coat. He was a little out of breath following the exertion, and his coiled shape trembled.

 The Thin Man tentatively reached over—

 It didn't take much to spook an anxious child. What was meant as a placating touch, was evidently deemed as something else entirely by Mono. The barest brush, and the child launched off the Thin Man and crashed to the floor. Stunned, the Thin Man sat up a little but reframed from uncoiling completely out of his posture. He glanced down in time to see the coat tail snap out of sight beneath the table. Once again, he reset his view to the doorway and leaned up, only at the instant the coat flittered out of sight. 

 No insight, no comprehension or suggestion existed to give due directions into this utter nonsense. He was not up to this, whatever it was. He flat-out did not understand, what was he meant to do?

 He pressed his hand over his eyes and hissed through the vibrating particles. It could be the child liked to torture him with random bits and unknowns. Who could say? They were devious little things at times.

Next

[thecreaturecodex]

Slaad, Prismatic

Image © @tredlocity​

[The last slaad planned for now, although I am already contemplating revisiting them in the future. The original prismatic slaad was a CR 30, as it was intended to be stronger than the white and black slaadi from the 3.0 Epic Level Handbook. Since I pulled down all of their CRs, I reduced this one to match as well.

Incidentally, I have to say that working with @tredlocity​ on these images has been a delight. Thank you again for your work!]

Slaad, Prismatic CR 22 CN Aberration This humanoid frog is the size of a building, with long, scythe-like claws growing from its hands and feet. Its cavernous mouth is packed with dozens of sharp teeth. Its body flashes with every color in the rainbow, and some that aren’t.

Gurus of chaos, the prismatic slaadi are said to embody all colors and all possibilities of the slaad form. They are created when a slaad remains for an extended period of time in the Astral Plane, soaking in quintessence and divine energy. Although gray slaadi are the ones that most commonly make this transformation, any slaad can do so—but the extended period on a timeless, mostly empty plane is usually boring to the distractible aberrations. Few have the patience to contemplate their own existence for the subjective millennia such a transformation entails.

Prismatic slaadi are usually content to drift through the Astral, camouflaged as pieces of debris. When they enter a plane in which time passes, they are typically ravenous, and devote their attentions to feeding. They can flash their bodies in a rainbow of colors that temporarily incapacitates seeing creatures, allowing the slaad to snap up prey easily. Their jaws are suffused in the myriad energies of a prismatic spray, but fortunately a prismatic slaad can draw energy from burned, frozen or dissolved organic matter, as well as stone from petrified victims. Although they are intelligent and not evil, their hunger usually takes a higher priority than the lives of non-slaadi creatures. A well fed prismatic slaad typically calms down, and can be a source of great knowledge and wisdom for those that dare to approach it.

Lesser slaadi view their grand prismatic relatives with awe and fear. A prismatic slaad can unlock the potential of any slaad it touches, transforming them into almost any other type. They can promote mere larvae to the ranks of black and white slaadi instantaneously, and just as easily do the reverse. As such, the lower on the totem pole a slaad is, the more likely they are to view a prismatic slaad favorably. Lesser slaadi often flock to a prismatic slaad’s side, hoping to gain the great monster’s favor and earn an easy transformation rather than spend years or centuries traveling the planes.

A prismatic slaad stands about 50 feet tall.

Prismatic Slaad                 CR 22 XP 615,000 CN Colossal aberration (chaotic, extraplanar, slaad) Init +5; Senses arcane sight, darkvision 120 ft., Perception +31, true seeing Aura cloak of chaos (DC 28) Defense AC 39, touch 8, flat-footed 37 (-8 size, +1 Dex, +1 dodge, +27 natural, +4 shield, +4 deflection) hp 437 (25d8+325); fast healing 20 Fort +25, Ref +15, Will +26 DR 20/lawful; Immune blindness, charm effects, compulsion effects, fear, magic missile, sonic, visual spells and effects; Resist acid 10, cold 10, electricity 10, fire 10; SR 33 Offense Speed 50 ft., fly 50 ft. (perfect) Melee 2 claws +29 (2d8+19 plus 2d6 anarchic plus dispelling claw), bite +29 (4d6+19/19-20x2 plus 2d6 anarchic plus prismatic bite and grab) Space 30 ft.; Reach 30 ft. Special Attacks alter slaad, anarchic attacks, chromatic brilliance, swallow whole (AC 23, 43 hp, 8d6+28 bludgeoning and 4d6 anarchic), trample (4d6+28 plus 2d6 anarchic, Ref DC 41) Spell-like Abilities CL 22nd, concentration +32 Constant—arcane sight, cloak of chaos (DC 28), shield, true seeing At will—dimensional anchor, dismissal (DC 25), greater teleport, prismatic spray (DC 27), word of chaos (DC 27) 3/day—empowered fire storm (DC 28), greater invisibility, polymorph any object (DC 28), prismatic wall (DC 28) 1/day—gate (DC 29), moment of prescience, prismatic sphere (DC 29), vision Statistics Str 48, Dex 13, Con 36, Int 19, Wis 27, Cha 30 Base Atk +18; CMB +45 (+47 sunder, +49 grapple); CMD 61 (63 vs. sunder) Feats Cleave, Combat Reflexes, Dodge, Empower SLA (fire storm), Great Cleave, Hover, Improved Critical (bite), Improved Initiative, Improved Sunder, Lightning Reflexes, Mobility, Power Attack, Spring Attack Skills Diplomacy +30, Fly +29, Intimidate +33, Knowledge (arcana, dungeoneering) +24, Knowledge (planes) +26, Perception +31, Sense Motive +31, Spellcraft +27, Stealth +33; Racial Modifiers +20 Stealth Languages Abyssal, Celestial, Common, Infernal, Protean, Slaadi SQ flight, superior camouflage Ecology Environment any land or underground (Astral Plane) Organization solitary or school (1 plus 2-24 slaadi) Treasure standard Special Abilities Alter Slaad (Su) As a standard action, a prismatic slaad may touch a slaad and permanently transform it into another kind of slaad. It may not create a prismatic slaad in this fashion. An unwilling slaad must succeed a DC 32 Fortitude save to resist this effect. A prismatic slaad may use this ability once per day. This is a polymorph effect, and the save DC is Charisma based. Anarchic Attacks (Su) A prismatic slaad’s natural weapons deal an additional 2d6 points of damage to non-chaotic targets, as the anarchic weapon quality. Chromatic Brilliance (Ex) As a free action, a prismatic slaad may cause its body to shift colors rapidly, shutting down the brains of those that see it. All creatures within 60 feet that can see the prismatic slaad must succeed a DC 32 Will save or be stunned for 1d4+1 rounds. This is a visual effect, and can be avoided by the creature averting its eyes as if the slaad were using a gaze attack. The save DC is Charisma based. Dispelling Claw (Su) A creature or object struck by a prismatic slaad’s claw attack is subject to a targeted greater dispel magic effect (CL 22nd). Flight (Su) The flight of a prismatic slaad is a supernatural ability. It automatically succeeds on Wisdom checks to move in a plane with subjective gravity, such as the Astral Plane. Prismatic Bite (Su) A creature struck by a prismatic slaad’s bite attack, or swallowed by the slaad, is exposed to a prismatic spray effect (CL 22nd, DC 32). Superior Camouflage (Ex) A prismatic slaad can change color and texture at will, granting itself a +20 racial bonus on Stealth checks. It may make Stealth checks in any terrain without cover or concealment.

[achadental]

Dental implants morrisville

There is three (not serious) main questions, when you no doubt know that you desire a dental implants Morrisville procedure:

1. Just how much dental implant cost? 2. Just what are main dental implant prices? 3. Can I receive free dental implant? Actually, dentures implant procedure is one of the popular expensive actions you can take at dentist’s office.

Up until recently, dentists would be sure to keep or replace teeth with treatments for example root canals, bridges, and fixed or removable dentures. Unfortunately, an important wide variety of root canal treated teeth fail, bridges require that healthy adjacent teeth be slashed down and removable dentures is often unstable and require the usage of sticky adhesives. Dental implants are a resolution to these complaints, and lots of the concerns involving natural teeth are eliminated, including dental decay.

A Single-Tooth Implant

Single-tooth implants can be utilized in those who find themselves missing one or two teeth. An tooth implant is surgically slipped into an opening manufactured by your dentist on the jawbone. As soon as the implant integrates (attaches) in your bone, it provides for a new "root" in the crown that might be replacing your missing tooth. A crown (cap), that may be made to turn into a natural tooth, is coupled to the implant and fills the left on the mouth via the missing tooth.

For this action to figure out, the converter should have enough bone on the jaw, along with the bone is to be sufficiently strong to hang and support your tooth implant. If there isn't enough bone, be must be added in which has a procedure called bone augmentation. Moreover, natural teeth and supporting tissues near from where the implant might be placed must take good health.

There are many work with replace a missing tooth. A gap amongst the teeth, if obvious as soon as you smile or speak, may be a cosmetic concern.

Based upon their whereabouts, some missing teeth may affect your speech. A missing molar mightn't be noticeable as soon as you talk or smile, nonetheless its absence make a difference to chewing.

Whenever a tooth is missing, the biting force on the rest of the teeth sets out to change. Because the bite changes to make amends for the lost tooth, we have a risk of additional pressure on and discomfort on the jaw joints. If the missing tooth seriously isn't replaced, the encircling teeth can shift. Harmful plaque and tartar can collect in new hard-to-reach places having to do with the shifting teeth. After a while, this can lead to dental caries and periodontal disease.

Just what Dental Implant?

A dental implant is option for replacing a tooth. Implants are produced devices that they fit surgically on the upper or mandibular, where they are the anchors for replacement teeth. Implants come from titanium and many other materials that happens to be works with a body.

An implant-restored tooth consists of countless parts.

 The     implant, which     features titanium, is slipped into the top or lower jawbone.

The     abutment can     be achieved of titanium, gold or porcelain. It truly is coupled to the     implant which has a screw. This part connects the implant in the crown.

The     restoration (the     part that appears being a tooth) may be a crown, usually composed of     porcelain fused to somewhat of a metal alloy (PFM), but in addition will     be an all-metal or all-porcelain crown. The crown is attached either in     the abutment or instantly to the implant. It is usually screwed or     cemented onto the abutment. That the crown is screwed in the abutment, the     screw hole might be engrossed in restorative material for example tooth-collared     filling material (composite).

An implant feels and looks being a natural tooth. They fit securely as soon as you chew and speak. A single-tooth implant may be a free-standing unit as well as doesn't involve treatment in the adjacent teeth. Which includes a dental implant, the encircling teeth can remain untouched if they're scams healthy, and potency and efficacy and integrity could possibly be maintained. The implant can stabilize your bite and alleviate problems with difficulty the jaw.

 What Happens Through the Tooth Implant Procedure?

Treatment generally may be a three-part procedure that takes several months. Your dentist may supply treatment, or that you are mentioned an authority - for instance a periodontics, a orthodontist a dental and maxillary surgeon - for everyone or a section of the treatment.

In the first task, the dentist surgically places the implant on the jaw, with all the surface of the implant slightly above the surface of the bone. A screw is inserted within the implant to forestall gum tissue together with other debris from entering.

The gum then is secured in the implant, where its going to remain covered for as much as 3 to 6 months as the implant fuses with all the bone, an operation called "Osseo integration. "There are some swelling and/or tenderness during their visit following on from the surgery, so pain medication usually is prescribed to cure the discomfort. Eating too much soft foods, cold foods and warm soup often is recommended within the healing process.

With the second step, the implant is uncovered along with the dentist attaches an extension box, known as a "post," in the implant. The gum tissue is permitted to heal to the post. Once healing is complete, the implant and post will be the building blocks for the fresh tooth.

With the final step, the dentist is really a custom artificial tooth, known as a “dental crown," of your size, shape, co-lour and fit which will blend with other teeth. Once completed, the crown is coupled to the implant post.

And so, maybe most critical part.

We'll be sure to answer if dental implants are good selection for you.

 When     you're missing a tooth, or teeth you'll probably be a superb candidate for     implants, especially if your smile reveals missing teeth!

When     you're uncomfortable with all the way your dentures fit. Loose dentures     causes sore gums as a consequence of friction or food trapped inside the     given bridgework.

Loose     teeth from gums and teeth might have support.

Dental     implants can provide a fresh base to assist new teeth to operate and feel     as though natural teeth.

Over these instances, dental implants can help.

 Success and failure rates for dental implant procedure.

Dental implant success relates to operator skill, quality and volume of the bone available to begin, as well as the patient's oral hygiene. Various studies realize the 5 year recovery rate of implants that should be between 75-95%. Patients who smoke experience significantly poorer success rates.

Failure of your dental implant will likely be in connection with failure to Osseo integrate correctly. A dental implant is regarded as failing the expense of lost, mobile or shows peril-implant bone decrease in longer than one mm in the 1st year after implanting and longer than 0.2mm one year after that.

Dental implants are certainly not chafes from abrasion dental caries but additionally can be cultivated a periodontal condition called Peri-timpanists where correct oral cleanliness routines weren't followed. Risk of failure is increased in smokers. Therefore implants are generally placed only looking for patient has stopped smoking as being the therapy for this is very expensive. More rarely, an implant may fail as a consequence of poor positioning whilst surgery, or could possibly be overloaded initially causing failure to integrate.

Will do it very hurt to obtain dental implants placed?

A procedure to surgically place a dental implant is accomplished under local anesthesia and is normally never painful. If your anesthesia wears off about 3 to 5 hours later, you will expect some discomfort. How much discomfort can be quite distinctive from person to person, but the majority of patients don't need significant problems.

Where there does exist prolonged pain, you must call at your dentist right away. Prolonged pain is Nintendo Wii sign with dental implants and although no always mean failure, the explanation for the anguish needs to be determined immediately after possible. Automobile implant is improperly integrating within the adjacent bone or if infection develops, the implant might have to be removed.

Consider some of the options to implants?

The options to implants are dentures or bridges. On the flip side, you may want to simply accept the in which a tooth is missing.

A denture usually incorporates a metal and/or plastic base carrying plastic or porcelain artificial teeth. It's a removable replacement couple of missing teeth (partial denture) or a total range of teeth (complete dentures). Dentures are certainly common but additionally can loose, making it problematical to chow down and speak. Several implants is often designed for help support and retain a denture.

A bridge features artificial teeth cemented onto adjacent natural teeth. If a restricted bridge may be used, your dentist would lessen the adjacent teeth (the second molar along with the second bicuspid) and fit a 3 unit fixed tide over those two teeth.

The missing tooth is going to be known as a poetic and it might be effectively replaced by significant unit bridge. But if your dentist were to utilize an implant which has a crown in it, he'd place an implant on the site of the first first molar. He could do that immediately or at some date after the 1st molar was removed. There is absolutely no time period here. The implant will require about 3 months to touch base with all the bone after which it in those days, your dentist can construct one single crown relating to the implant to interchange the missing first molar.

The money necessary most of these procedures is different from office to office, but a 3 unit fixed bridge costs about like an implant and then a crown. A decision to try and do one over other rests with everyone’s dentist. One way is not inherently superior to other every relies on the method that you present along with your dentist's skills.

Related Article here: https://dentistmorrisville.weebly.com

[lawrenceop]

HOMILY for Passion Sunday (Dominican rite)

Heb 9:11-15; John 8:46-59

From Septuagesimatide, to Lent, and now to Passiontide: we have entered the third and final phase of our preparation for the Easter festival. The Crosses and sacred images have now been veiled in church, a further deprivation of the senses in this holy time of fasting and abstinence. But this year, Passiontide is truly, for all of us, as the name indicates, the time of suffering, and deprivations and the strangest of abstinences have been forced upon us: we have been deprived of access to our churches, deprived of the sacraments in some cases, and a prolonged Eucharistic fast, an abstinence from sacramental communion is the yoke placed upon us. This is the passion, the spiritual suffering, that many Catholics now undergo. And, moreover, there are the temporal sufferings of the whole world from sickness and death and the far-reaching effects of this pandemic that strike at us physically, socially, materially, and psychologically. Truly, this is a Passiontide, a time of suffering for all of humanity, that will extend beyond this fortnight of liturgical veiling. 

How shall we respond, as Christians? “Stat crux dum volvitur orbis” say the Carthusians. “The Cross stands steady while the world spins”. Hence this liturgical time of Passiontide directs our attention to the Cross. The readings of this Passion Sunday Mass focusses us on the suffering and perfect sacrifice of Jesus Christ. The Liturgy today points us to the Sacrifice of the Mass itself, whereby Christ’s Cross is once again exalted in triumph over a world broken by sin and sickness and selfishness. As the preface says: “you placed the salvation of the human race on the wood of the Cross, so that, where death arose, life might again spring forth”. 

Therefore, throughout this extended passiontide of the pandemic season, the Sacrifice of the Mass continues to be offered every single day in countless churches throughout the world by Christ’s priests. This is most necessary because the Mass proclaims the victory of Christ over sin and all its effects such as sickness. The Cross, that is to say, the Mass, stands steady while the world is in tailspin. And at the same time, the Mass objectively calls down upon the world, and upon the Church, the blessings that flow from Christ Crucified,  namely, life and health, and, above all, the graces of salvation, eternal life. 

Our forebears knew this well, and they would often go to church to “hear Mass”, even though they seldom partook of Holy Communion itself. This practice, at least since the time of Pope St Pius X, is now rather alien to our Ecclesial experience. But in the current circumstances, you now find yourself, in an odd way, through the medium of audio-visual technology, able to see and hear Mass but not partaking in sacramental Communion. You find yourselves, in a certain sense, united to this part of our liturgical tradition whereby Holy Communion was infrequent, and maybe even just an annual event. Hence, the current canon law of the Church still only obliges us to receive Communion once a year, a remnant of this (often pious) approach to infrequent Communion. But nobody doubted, thereby, that the blessings of the Mass did not continue to benefit the world and its inhabitants for their salvation and for their true good. For while the world continues to revolve, so the Cross must stand steady – the Mass, therefore is necessary for the very life and health of the world. This is the sense in which Saint Padre Pio said: “It is easier for the earth to exist without the sun than without the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass!”

But what about you as an individual? How are these blessings of the Sacrifice of Christ – his redemption and new life of grace – to be received then by you? My favourite Catechism, the St Joseph Baltimore Catechism, which was prepared for teenagers in school, puts it simply: “Those who cannot go to daily Communion, but would if they could, can make a spiritual communion. This means a real desire to go to Communion when it is impossible to receive sacramentally. This desire obtains for us from Our Lord the graces of Communion in proportion to the strength of the desire.” 

There is something mysterious and providential, then, in this current situation. For when we receive Communion every day, as a matter of course, is it not possible for our desire to become less focussed on an intimate union with God through love, and more focussed on myself, my needs, and my desire to have an unbroken track record of daily Communions? Sometimes self-will and pride can be disguised by objectively good external routines. But in this period, when we cannot receive Communion – which, incidentally, has put an end to the scandal of sacrilegious and unworthy Communions – behold the wonderful work of God’s grace in this time of suffering. For to those souls who love him and know what the Mass is, is it not true that their desire for union with God has also increased? Therefore, in proportion to the strength of this desire, as the Baltimore Catechism says, know that the graces of Holy Communion are being given to you today by the good and loving and merciful Lord Jesus. In other words, nobody should despair of receiving the graces that are necessary for our salvation because God, who is not restricted by the Sacraments, can and does act without them, in an extraordinary manner, to confer graces on those souls who truly love him.   

However, because you cannot see, touch, and taste the Eucharistic Lord with your own bodies, something greater is now demanded of you, namely Faith. In his hymn, Adoro Te devote, St Thomas Aquinas thus says: “Sight, touch, taste are all deceived in their judgment of you, but hearing suffices firmly to believe. I believe all that the Son of God has spoken; there is nothing truer than this word of Truth.” Therefore, in this time, as Cardinal Nichols put it, “dig deep” and believe that which the Word of God has promised. Jesus says in John 14: “I will not leave you desolate; I will come to you. Yet a little while, and the world will see me no more, but you will see me; because I live, you will live also. In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you… If a man loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.” (John 14:18-20, 23) Or, again, as the Lord says in today’s Gospel: “If any one keeps my word, he will never see death.” (Jn 8:51)

So, the Lord, right now and throughout this time of our sufferings is present and alive in your life, and he comes to you where you are, and he gives himself to you if you open yourself to him in love, and prepare a home for him in your heart, if you treasure his Word and keep his commandment of charity. Indeed the Rededication of England to Our Lady today is precisely about this kind of faith. For just as the Lord sought out Mary in her humble abode in Nazareth, and the Word became flesh in her life, and dwelt within her, so the Lord shall also come to our homes, and, if we keep his Word because we love him, he wills to give us himself through grace and so to remain with us, dwelling within us. 

Likewise, during this liturgical time of Passiontide, the sight of the crosses and saints in our churches is removed from us. Why? Because we are called to rely not on what we see and touch, but on what we know by faith. Firstly, we know that the Cross stands steady no matter how shaken the world becomes. It is our anchor and our one hope. And secondly, we recall that the Cross, although removed from our sight, is not removed from our lives. Rather, the Cross is to become part of our lives, through the different kinds of sufferings that we each carry day after day, and because we are united to Christ by grace, so the Lord is with us to carry that Cross with us, and to suffer alongside us, and therefore to sanctify us and give us a greater share in his final victory. 

This time of Passiontide, therefore, although it is focussed on the sufferings of Our Lord, and the bitter pains he endured because of our sins, is not principally a time to wallow in self-reproach and shame. The Benedictine monk, Dom Pius Parsch, in his classic commentary on the traditional Liturgy, states that the Liturgy does not focus attention upon the human side of the passion as much as upon its goal, our salvation.” So, too, in this time of suffering that is the pandemic, let us remain focussed on the goal of salvation, and, with a living faith, know that in this time of suffering and death, God’s grace is poured out with even greater intensity to sanctify us. Therefore, look steadily ahead at the Cross. As our Holy Father Pope Francis said last Friday: “We have an anchor: by his cross we have been saved. We have a rudder: by his cross we have been redeemed. We have a hope: by his cross we have been healed and embraced so that nothing and no one can separate us from his redeeming love.”

[daresplaining]

SO LIKE. did the spider-gwen comics explain how murderdock and nelson are close enough to call each other "matt" and "foggy"?

    They did… sort of. I was actually just gearing up to write a post on Earth-65 Matt and Foggy, because I find them fascinating, so this is perfect timing! 

    There’s a lot of variation between Earth-65 Matt’s origin story and that of his 616 counterpart, to explain how he developed into such a morally bankrupt character in this universe. Much of this difference comes down to his brutal long-term training with the Hand, during which time he became such a formidable figure within their ranks that they quickly tossed him a leadership position and shipped him overseas. He moved to New York and took a job as head assassin for Wilson Fisk, Kingpin of Crime (later, of course, Matt would steal his crown and take over NYC’s criminal underworld himself). The extra layers of loss added to his origin story in this universe, and the ruthlessness taught to him by his Hand mentors, mean that Earth-65 Matt is a fighter more than anything else– a cunning fighter, certainly, but violence (either his own or that of his pawns) is his primary way of getting things done. But he’s still a Matt Murdock, and though legal work seems to be a much smaller part of his life in this universe, on entering Fisk’s inner circle he was promptly sent to ESU to study law, on what I’d like to think was the mob boss equivalent of a scholarship. And just like in the main continuity, his roommate was Foggy Nelson.  

Foggy: “You have to understand… Matt Murdock’s always been… intense. I roomed with the guy for three years of law school. Believe me. I know… But I swear… I never thought he was capable… I never really believed he could… No. I knew. I knew and I still did what I always do… I let him push me over the edge.”

Spider-Gwen vol. 2 #27 by Jason Latour, Veronica Fish, and Rico Renzi

    It’s worth pointing out that everyone seems to call Foggy “Foggy” in this universe (and that’s pretty true of 616 Foggy too), so that in itself isn’t indicative of his relationship with Matt. But they have known each other for a long time. Sadly, Foggy’s comment here is the only glimpse we have of that early period in their relationship, but we can extrapolate how fascinating and upsetting it must have been from their dynamic as adults. I would kill for this version of Matt to get his own solo series. There is so much to explore, up to and including this period of his backstory. But I am grateful for his mini-arcs, one of which follows his corruption of Foggy over the course of the series.   

    While Matt has hit a career high as the new Kingpin and leader of the western branch of the Hand, Foggy has also made it big as the NYC District Attorney. But it’s clear early-on that even though Foggy outwardly opposes Matt’s criminal behavior, these two still have a connection. In fact, given Matt’s comfort in his dealings with Foggy, I’d theorize that he may have (either on Fisk’s instruction or following his own whims) helped engineer Foggy’s career success. After all, it’s very useful for him to have the D.A. in his pocket. And Foggy, though he hates it, is willing to ask for Matt’s help whenever he gets in over his head.  

Foggy: “[…] New York’s top cop wants to get up under oath and clear his conscience… air the entire department’s dirty laundry. But we both know Castle connected the Stacys to Spider-Woman. And the public? They’ll roast me on a spit if I don’t do my job… but there’s no way I’m letting George Stacy tell the world we made him hunt his own daughter. So, cards on the table, okay? This is me crossing the aisle… How the hell do we get out of this, Matt?”

Matt: “Why, Foggy… I thought you’d never ask.”

Spider-Gwen vol. 2 #20 by Jason Latour, Robbi Rodriguez, and Rico Renzi

    And this isn’t just a one-time thing. Context suggests that Foggy has reached out to Matt (and/or vice versa) for favors before. 

Foggy: “You’re not hearing me, Murdock. Big surprise, I know– but just like always… I’m try to give you what you want, Matt.”

Spider-Gwen vol. 2 #20 by Jason Latour, Robbi Rodriguez, and Rico Renzi

    616-verse Matt and Foggy often act as each other’s moral anchors. Matt’s unyielding passion for justice is a source of inspiration for Foggy, and Foggy in turn is there to pull Matt back from the brink of making bad decisions. On Earth-65 we see the exact opposite: a mutually detrimental dynamic in which Foggy can’t resist using Matt as a quick, extra-legal solution to his problems– a service Matt, who is always up for some good law-breaking and stabbing– is happy to render. And so we see a Foggy who, though clearly uncomfortable with the whole thing, still plays his part in Matt’s nefarious plots. I’m not sure I would call this a friendship; it’s something far more perverse, a convenient sharing of corruption, and a bond created simply by the fact that they can’t let anyone else know that this alliance exists. Again– I would have loved to see them in law school. Were they ever actually friends? Is there genuine affection at the heart of this dynamic? Or has it always been Foggy just trying to stay afloat in Matt’s overpowering presence?

Judge: “…In light of the mishandling of key evidence by District Attorney Nelson’s office […] I have no choice but to choke back my need to vomit all over these robes… and deem this case a mistrial. Aleksei Sytsevich… you are free to go.”

Foggy: “This #$% better work, Matt.”

Spider-Gwen vol. 2 #21 by Jason Latour, Robbi Rodriguez, and Rico Renzi

    Matt’s burden in this universe is power. He is haunted by his own corruption and the ease with which he is able to bend the world to his will. This internal conflict nearly prompts him to commit suicide, and his persistence in toying with Gwen is fueled by a desire to see her corrupted in this same way; to not feel alone in his moral bankruptcy. Leading Foggy into the dark likely isn’t quite as satisfying, because it’s so much easier, but it probably gives Matt some degree of comfort and smug satisfaction.  

Richie: “There ain’t no runnin’, man… not from this thing Spider-Woman’s become… S-she coulda– I barely got off that roof without breakin’ my neck! An’ DeWolff? She’s Captain Stacy’s old partner. Ain’t no way I can confess to her… so I thought– Foggy Nelson. He helped me before. An’, well– if it comes out that you was in on what happened– well, you stand as much to lose as me here. So I jus’ thought maybe… maybe you could reach out ta Mr. Murdock for me? Mr. Nelson? Foggy, you still there?”

Foggy: “Yeah. Yeah, I’m here, Richie.”

Spider-Gwen vol. 2 #27 by Jason Latour, Olivia Margraf, and Rico Renzi

    But everything starts unraveling for Matt toward the end of the series, including his alliance with Foggy, who gets serious cold feet once real blood starts being shed. 

Foggy: “Oh my god… George?”

DeWolff: “You… you and Murdock… Why, Foggy?! Do you even know why?”

Spider-Gwen vol. 2 #22 by Jason Latour, Robbi Rodriguez, Jorge Coelho, Rico Renzi, et al.

Matt: “Frankly, I’m confused, Foggy. Does George Stacy seem particularly chatty to you?”

Foggy: “I wanted him silent, Matt! Not dead!”

Spider-Gwen vol. 2 #24 by Jason Latour, Robbi Rodriguez, and Rico Renzi

    The near-fatal attack on his friend George Stacy, prompted by his own request for extra-legal help, causes Foggy to hesitate. He still doesn’t completely reject his alliance with Matt, but he starts seriously questioning his own decisions and the degree to which he has lost his moral center. He is likely too scared to oppose Matt directly, and knows that he is now in so deep that coming clean would land him in jail. But the instant Matt is out of the picture, Foggy tries to clear his conscience by dropping the most serious charges leveled against Gwen. He knows it doesn’t completely make up for what he did, but he wants to atone and this is his attempt at doing so. 

Jen: “Foggy’s the district attorney. He decides what you’re charged with. So be it guilt, or sympathy… or some other bewildering reasons that are likely the death of his career– he’s decided to drop the big stuff. Including murder and manslaughter for your role in Peter’s death.”

Spider-Gwen vol. 2 #33 by Jason Latour, Robbi Rodriguez, Chris Visions, and Rico Renzi

    Again, I wish we’d seen more of this relationship. I would have loved to witness Foggy’s reaction to Matt’s disappearance/maaaybe death(?) in issue #32. The mini-arc following this dynamic mostly presents it as a professional alliance, a long-term relationship that Foggy stumbled into once upon a time and that he now can’t quite convince himself to get out of. Earth-65 Matt doesn’t have many personal relationships, and so it’s possible that as perverse as the dynamic is, Foggy fits whatever definition he has of friendship. With the recent relaunch of the series under a new creative team, I’m holding a small amount of hope that Matt and Foggy might pop up again. But if not, I’ll always be a fan of what Latour created. Earth-65 Matt has become my favorite alternate universe Matt (just edging out 1602 Matt), and his relationship with this version of Foggy is endlessly compelling to me. 

[issadai]

World of Issadai

First post covering worldbuilding aspects of Issadai, the world my novel Bitter Days is set in! It’s cool that I’ve finally gotten to this point--I’ve been working on this world since middle school so it’s naturally a little chaotic, changing and growing with me as I’ve gotten older and my tastes and interests have evolved. This year is the first time I’ve really made an effort to pull it all together & I’m excited by how cohesive it’s become.

Natural Features

Issadai is an earthlike world with four main continents. These are relatively small, however, and the vast majority of the planet’s surface area is covered with water. The mass of its largest continent, Mysska, is mostly located in the northern hemisphere, though its southernmost regions lie across the equator and into the southern hemisphere. Of the other three continents, two are located in the northern hemisphere and one in the southern.

Issadai has two moons, called Valena and Hemasin by the Yianlai people. Valena is larger, about the size of Earth’s moon, and is the same silver color. Hemasin is smaller, a little more than half the size of Valena, and rust-red in color.

Issadai once had a third, very small moon called Ashan, which was dark and pockmarked with bright white craters like Jupiter’s moon Callisto. During early human history, Ashan collided with Valena and broke apart, sending ash and debris raining down into Issadai’s atmosphere. The sudden loss of the third moon’s gravitational pull prompted volcanic eruptions and tsunamis, bringing about a mass extinction event. In addition, ash blocking the sun caused the planet’s surface to cool rapidly, and Issadai was plunged into an ice age.

At present, Issadai is in a relatively stable climate period that resembles Earth’s before manmade climate change started to take its toll. The Issadi year is slightly longer than a standard Earth year—about 400 days instead of 365—because the planet is smaller than Earth and therefore takes longer to orbit its sun.  

Magic

Overview

Magic is a natural phenomenon of Issadai that some believe is generated by the planet’s magnetic field. It blankets the entire planet like a second, invisible atmosphere, collecting in “nodes” where there is a high concentration of living things; it’s thought that souls attract magical energy like a magnet. This forms a web of “nodes”, or magically dense areas, connected by “threads”, which are created by magic gravitating towards itself in magically sparse areas. Every soul that exists is connected to the web by its own thread, meaning the soul itself is a type of magical node.

Corruption

Magical corruption happens when a node is cut off from the rest of the web, keeping magic from flowing into and out of it via the threads. The magic trapped in the node slowly stagnates, becoming twisted and unstable. Only releasing the corrupted magic, or either purging or destroying the node, can take care of the problem.

Spirits

Spirits are incorporeal beings that are “born” from highly concentrated magical nodes. While fully sentient, they cannot interact with the physical world except through the use of magic, and even this is limited. The only way a spirit can truly engage with matter is if it takes a vessel—or physical body—to inhabit. If a spirit desires to use a vessel only temporarily, it will remain free to move in and out of the body as it pleases, but cannot occupy it for more than a short time. To take up residence in a vessel permanently, a spirit must fuse with the physical matter making up the body, essentially becoming an aspect of it in the process. A spirit that has tied itself to a body is called an aetherial soul.

Souls

Overview

Souls are the “node” of magical energy that is fused into every living thing. Essentially, it’s what differentiates living matter from non-living matter, and is also what connects living things to Issadai’s web of magic. The more complex the life-form, the larger its soul will be, and the more influence it has on the energy of its surroundings. When a living thing is created, a soul forms inside it, drawing from the world’s magical energy. When it dies its soul dissipates and becomes part of the web of magic once again.

Vulgar Souls

A vulgar soul is simply one that is formed within a living thing as it’s being created. It is not only possessed by plants and non-sentient animals, but by sentient beings such as humans as well. In the former it serves as the primary life-force of the creature, but in the latter it acts as a link between the body and the true, or aetherial soul, which gives the being its sentience and life-force.

Aetherial Souls

An aetherial soul is one that was once a spirit, and existed outside of matter for a time before occupying a physical form. To inhabit a body, a spirit must fuse with that body’s vulgar soul. The two become one, resulting in the creation of an aetherial soul. While as a spirit it could move between vessels freely or choose to exist without one, as an aetherial soul it is now a facet of its physical form and cannot leave it under its own power; the vulgar soul it fused with acts as an anchor, tying it to the body. In addition, while spirits are omniscient, an aetherial soul’s perceptions and experiences are filtered through its physical body, and its sense of self, or being, now revolves around the body as well.

Only a handful of species, most notably humans, have aetherial souls. They are known as the sentient species. The union of spiritual energy and organic body bestow unique gifts, including sentience, ability to use magic, and a longer lifespan. However, those who possess aetherial souls are more sensitive to fluctuations and disturbances in Issadai’s magical field, suffering from nightmares, sickness, or even madness when the world’s energies are thrown out of balance.

 When a sentient being dies, its soul stays fused to its body until it has decayed to bones. Many cultures practice some form of embalming or mummification so as to keep the soul attached to the remains. The Sornic peoples of northern Mysska, however, practice cremation, as keeping a soul trapped on earth is forbidden by their religions. While in the dead body, the soul "sleeps" until it moves on, unless awoken by the interference of the living. Necromancy is common, and is often used to summon and speak to the spirits of the dead. Souls can be revived by fusing them with a new body, but only a skilled and experienced sorcerer can execute such a ritual.

Souls can be severed from the body using magic; once cut loose, they can be collected and stored in non-organic vessels, and have many magical uses. After a soul has been severed it cannot return to its body, and once released, unless placed in a vessel, or fused with a new body, it will dissipate immediately. The collection and magical use of souls is seen as a sin in some cultures, while in others it’s a normal part of traditional magic work.

It’s not known what happens to an aetherial soul once it detaches from its physical body. Once it's gone, it cannot be recalled or contacted through necromancy, which would suggest that it dissipates into formless magical energy like an ordinary soul. However, some believe that the only part of it that dissipates is the aspect that was once a vulgar soul; once it’s severed from what was tying it to the physical body, the aetherial soul becomes a spirit again and is free to either remain untethered by the physical world or find a new body to inhabit.

[lokidrabbles]

Perceptive (Loki x Reader)

Loki reveals to the reader his reponsibility in the NYC attack.

———-

It must have been at least 8 years since the incident in New York involving the Chitauri and Loki, however the memory continued to be very recent and prevalent to him. Although the mind stole negatively influence Loki, feeding off of the trauma and hate and depression he had suddenly experienced after discovering his true heritage. He accepted it, he had taken innocent lives, and in return, his family and home had been taken away from him. A bargain the universe made for the terrible actions he had commited.

But after thousands of years of interacting with frailty of life, Loki knew the healthiest way to cope for a being of his nature was to move on. Life continued and he was a man to move along the wave.

Loki had managed to succumb to an average and non-eventful life on Midgard with his brother. NYC was a critical point perhaps; the city he had tainted all those years ago, but it made sense for him to become stationed here, and of course because you had lived here already.

Loki was aware that you were living in NYC during the attack, and how he had put your life at risk. He instigated a deep hatred against himself for it, but he knew dwelling on it wouldn’t benefit himself or you. He best attempted to avoid it at any cost, but he failed at times in bringing himself down. A few unspoken nights of him wallowing in himself, tears streaming down, asserted the fact that Loki hated what he did, and he hated that he could have been the cause of your death. He also hated the fact that he could not bring himself to admit this to you.

You were not fully aware of the details of the attack all those years ago, just a notion that Loki had been involved in some way. You dared not ask him and you also lowkey did not want to know about it. Things had been going well between you two already, no need for baggage from the past.

During an uneventful evening at your home, you had mindlessly flipped over different channels in an effort to find something. Loki sat somewhere in the living room, reading silently to himself and content in being in your company. It had been weeks since any major events had happened, and it was a period of peacefulness Loki had taken advantage of. It was many years since he has experienced any type of stability.

Flipping through the channels, your eye caught a story during a local news channel, instigating you to stop. At first you couldn’t make out what the story was about, as various images of the New York skyline surrounded by alien machines, being toppled over, explosions lighting up from corner to corner. A deep held memory suddenly clicked in you as the news anchor spoke of the event.

‘-since the attack back in 2011. Over 5 million NYC residents were affected by the attack on that day, and many more who had lost their lives. A memorial service will be held on-‘

You immediately turned your TV off, gulping nervously. You really wanted to avoid the memory in any way possible. You remembered the debris, the fires, the screaming, the skyscrapers falling over, your apartment building blown up into nothingness. You also knew Loki had wanted to get away from this memory, from the traumatic and tragic event.

Your heart almost jumped out of your chest as Loki laid his hand on your shoulder.

“Why avoid it?” He asked sternly.

You looked over your shoulder and up at him. “Avoid?”

“You know what (y/n), what happened that day.” He looked down at you.

You sighed. You didn’t want Loki to worry about your post-trauma as you yourself had been working on it. “I just thought you didn’t want to listen to that.” You said convincingly.

Loki let go of of your shoulder as he moved in front of you. “Listen to what? Listen to all of the destruction that happened?” Loki became slightly irked at your response. He believed that you did not want him to face this, face his crime on the basis that he did wanted to ignore it.

You became puzzled. You noted something was wrong with him. “It was years ago Loki, what happened was horrible but I know its something, maybe, touchy. I don’t want to bring it up.” You twiddled your fingers, hoping he wouldn’t read you.

Loki’s breathing became deeper. He felt his anxiety and frustrated leak out of him. He couldn’t hold back anymore. “You know it was me. I did all of that. I took all those lives and I made you suffer through that even before I met you.”

Your eyes widened as the words entered your mind. Loki was horribly stern and nervous, and it made you feel unsafe and afraid. You gulped, standing up in front of him. “Loki, I...”

“Quiet. You know nothing.” He said as he grabbed your arms aggressively. “I am not an object for your pity. Im an object for your hatred, for your mourning. You cannot develop any sentiment for me. You understand?”

You were shaken. “Why are you raising your voice at me?”

“Because you need to know and understand what I am!” He gripped on your harder.

You whimpered. “I’m trying to be considerate here. I know you’ve gone through a lot-“

“Gone through a lot? Is that what you believe?” Loki asked, his tone becoming more aggresive as he let go of you.

“I just want to help, I don’t understand why you have to be a jerk-“

A snarl formed on his face as he marched agressively towards you. “A jerk? This is what I am referred to after all that I have lost in no less than a year. You simply cannot be this much of a simpleton.”

You felt your face become redder. “Loki, stop.”

“Don’t act and assume as if you’ve figured me out. You want to believe you have some kind of power over me just because I may have shown you vulnerability once. You haven’t the slightest notion of everything I have gone through. The entirety of your short and useless existence could not fathom an instance of all I have had to put up with, everything I have had to endure. You have no idea what pain is, you irksome brat.”

I deep and painful knot formed in your chest as you looked straight into Loki’s furious gaze. You mustered all of your courage to hold back your tears, to hold back all of the sentiment you kept within, only to allow one single rogue drop run past down your cheek. You gripped your palm into a fist and took a deep breath.

“You win.” You said shakily. “I’ll leave you alone.”

Loki breathed deeply, eyes still locked on yours. He felt immediate regret after realizing what he had said.

“But don’t you ever think about coming anywhere near me again. I’m done wasting my time.” You retorted coldly.

You quickly turned and shuffled your way out of the area into your room. You took a last look at him. “You think you’re introspective with all of this, when you don’t even got one single clue about yourself or me. Good luck Loki.” You slammed the door behind you, feeling the hot tears spill out onto your cheek.

—-

TBC

[moneysafe-blog]

Colleges For Studying Interior Designing

Nowadays, creative professions have grown to be extremely popular. Youthful people prefer to generate money avoid potency and efficacy and physical abilities, not really using their mind, but creativeness. Nowadays, youthful individuals are very advanced and already before entering senior school they're full with ideas concerning their future profession furniture blog. Beginning to operate within the fields associated with creative skills and new habits in society may be the major objective of today's youth.

It's a true perspective that uniqueness and creativeness are the most crucial tools of success today. Each individual offers his very own creative potential, thus, one desires to develop these skills and talent by mastering newer and more effective profession or perhaps a course. The second won't advise a person the area for thinking and creativeness, but additionally invention something totally new and weird which has not been made by previous generations. Besides, such creative people can develop a fundamental beginning-point for generations to come. Here the freshness of the new approach is crucial.

It's broadly known there are many new fields and habits nowadays. The majority of such professions are highly creative demanding a sober and different imagination, for example, cinema acting, theatre acting, writing, dancing, painting, crafts, radio jockeying, anchoring, fashion designing, interior designing etc.

There's without doubt, that many of these professions are greatly well-liked by youthful people, but interior designing could be designated because of its uniqueness. This uniqueness consists in the truth that it provides an chance to future designers to change the entire world of the ideas and thinking power in to the object of creative beauty. Just the noblest people enjoying the profession of the interior designer. It's within their capacity to decorate a person's house that is regarded as probably the most precious qualities inside a person's existence. It is the place numerous people already have accustomed to and it is designer's task to really make it a lot better than it had been before.

In order to be a great interior designer you have so that you can match the professional demands of the profession. Thus, students should train their working standards in special colleges that have began courses in interior designing. To go in this type of college one must pass an entrance test that is conducted through the colleges to check imaginative analytical skills, technical drawing, sketching skills from the students.

The applications towards the interior designing colleges can be created through the student once he's passed together with his twelfth exams. The time period of the program can differ from 2 to 4 years, this will depend around the selected course and also the institute that a student is intending to receive his education.

You might be designing a brand new home for any lottery champion, an invalid or perhaps an accident victim, or you aren't a unique hobby or occupation that needs a particular feature of great interest. Your building can be a converted 15th Century barn, a spacious farmhouse, a prison, or perhaps a railway station. A lot of your contracts will have the possibility for being a glossy magazine feature article, which can present you with the PR, publicity, and promotion that may improve your earnings tenfold!

[kas-e]

Cyclones & the Road

Vanity won't stop this new school vagabond from shamelessly admitting acts of vagrancy in coffee shops across America while either writing, working on my photography, or just getting a hot cup of coffee and a meal while speaking with strangers and introducing them to the man behind the green & wild bloodshot eyes.  I've become an expert at stealing moments of their time to share some skunky smoke, give them some wide smiles, tell them a few bad jokes, and remind them that there is indeed still soul out there in this plastic & tragic country.  The corporations can flood the world with tech of all sorts, phones, laptops, computers, etc, but after this past year I've realized that there are still some people out there like myself that are unable to be pacified by the plastic.  

The road is still the home of the true individual... the hyper-inspired, so-called insane ones.  Though a dying breed it seems and some may say, I beg to differ as there are still souls out there like me who live truly free, who are working on perfecting the art of a pure and true underground life, the subterranean version of the American dream created by the anarchists and travelers and artists and poets who found themselves in the soul sucking period in time of America in the 40's & 50's.  The similarities are striking to me... the current version being reinvented in a strange, sleek, and subliminal strain easily adapted to our current age in time.  Over the past few years I believe it is now safe to say that the times have undoubtedly mirrored the old days of a bland, restless, post-war America - the very scene that initially caused the underworld to bubble with activity, originality, drive, and creativity and later spawn the subculture which still remains the root of every movement towards pushing the the boundaries of intellectual progress, creative expression, and a free-form style of living absent of requirement save the unspoken law which is absolute freedom and originality - of which all in the tribe silently abide.   Such a law is quite difficult to articulate, but I'll take a crack at it regardless.  The mantra is to Go, with a capital G, but Go in a direction never gone before, pave the path instead of tracing another, stay true to your sister and your brother when you meet them along the way, live by the laws of karma and understand that the only catalyst is the Dharma and that God lives in the eyes of every person you meet, give without the phrase "on the arm" and expect nothing in return & receive with great gratitude and grace, and leave the rest up to the wind, the world, and the driving force behind this strange thing called life that we are all so lucky to be a part of.  Be Here Now & practice the art of living without expectation while keeping the body healthy, the mind active and innovative, the soul open and transparent, all while remaining conscious of just how detrimental the energy we put out into the world actually is to those who we come in contact with... to be mindful and free simultaneously is a feat in itself, it is a challenge to even the most weathered veterans of our fringe underworld. 

While on the road, driving clear across America for the second time within 2 years, I found myself entranced by the painted lines which naturally set my mind spinning in a manner that only extremely long stretches on the road can cause.  I thought a great deal about the cycles of this life, and about how similar moments become during a persons phases while in times of transition.  Today as I write this, marks my 38th year on this planet, and at this time in a man's life if you don't start to not only notice - but also brood on these things - then you are not paying attention, or of the type who simply never makes it to the deep end of the pool.  The fact that this was going to be one of the big mountains I'll have to climb during my time on earth both terrified me and inspired me at the same time.  I was as alone as a man can be, as troubled as a man can be, yet at the same time I realized I was as free as a man could be.  It was an interesting dichotomy, a confusing thought to think on, but instead of switching gears and avoiding such a complexity the road allowed me to continuously peel back the layers of this onion and really go deep.  It is this realization, it is the fact of facing the fear of such thoughts that has since been my anchor in the face extreme desperation, intense struggle, and pestering suicidal thought patterns that would strike during times of weakness.  If you are reading this, and you ever find yourself in such a headspace, always remember these very personal cycles that we go through as humans... and if you find yourself fighting with these things, if you find yourself fighting a battle that feels impossible to ever win, I beg of you to focus on the reality of these cycles.  Meditate on this reality.  Know that if you have reached a low of this magnitude, it either means you are at the tail end of a high of equal magnitude - or how I like to believe, that you are currently paying your dues for the next high which will peak sometime in the near future after fighting your way back up to the top.  Hindsight allowed me to visualize this, and I feel the greatest thing about getting older is the ability to view the past through a clear and concise lens, and rest assured that this too will pass as it has in the past.  Don't lose faith.  If the world has it's foot on your throat and your back pressed upon the pavement, understand that it is because you are not just another humdrum monotonous drone of a human - it is because you are one of the few that pushes the limits of progress and strives for greatness, and if you want to achieve greatness in this life, well then it is only right that you will also have to endure great struggle in order to do so.      

The same idea can easily be applied to society, our existence as a society is also unarguably cyclonic.  As the wheel turns we now find ourselves at a very pivotal moment in human existence.  The incorporation of technology has genuinely thrown a monkey wrench into the rusty gears of the Great American Experiment.  Birthed at the turn of the century with the prominence of the PC, it is now almost 20 years later and we are all essentially cyborgs with perpetual connectivity in our pockets, super heightened intelligence thanks to our good friend Google, and eagerly watching as the once enigmatic Artificial Intelligence gets it's footing in the world of reality.  I subscribe to the theory that we are on the brink of truly strange times to come, and that during this age in time we could possibly undergo a total revolution of our everyday life as human beings due the arrival of a new, synthetic consciousness that we are in the process of creating.

If this age in time were a human, the human would be taking their first steps on their own as I type this...  and the fear among those following this strange progression naturally lies in the unknown.  The question is, what will this human do when it is not only able to walk on its own - but when the human no longer needs us to survive?  The latter question, in my opinion, is a non-issue, but with the smartest people walking the planet, for example Sam Harris and Elon Musk both harboring such a fear, I think it's only right that any intellectual worth their salt entertain the theory and follow the progression of this very strange matter.  

All of that said, I think it is very important to note that as creative individuals the addition of technology must be delicately balanced and incorporated in our work.  I find it essential to resist the misuse of these machines, and always remember, they are simply tools to us - use them as such.   The very worst thing that you can do is resist the technology entirely, because the sad fact is that if you do, well, you will be left in the dust as the rest of the creative community masters these tools and marches forward.  Take them for what they are, a means to create, a means to communicate, a means to make your work more polished, and a tool which allows your methods to be more fluid and your process to become more seamless.  Most people are either consumed by the technology, or work so hard at resisting it that it really does hinder their quality of life.  An artist must not subscribe to either of these camps, and instead do what artists do... take control of what's in front of you, and manipulate it to work for you thus enhancing the final product of which you create.  At one point in time, artists across the world sat with canvas and charcoal, today we sit with laptops and photoshop, and I honestly believe that the difference between them is near non-existent.  

[lovehaswonangelnumbers]

New Post has been published on https://lovehaswonangelnumbers.org/lovehaswon-astrology-updatefebruary-energies-the-great-awakening/

LoveHasWon Astrology Update~February Energies: The Great Awakening

LoveHasWon Astrology Update~February Energies: The Great Awakening

By Archeia Aurora

February will be all about remembering our true identity as powerful spiritual beings. The collective will begin to awaken to the truth of who they really are and begin to heal themselves and release all the toxic belief systems and thoughts that have poisoned us. 

Humanity will begin to question who they are and why they are here; what is the greater purpose of this life. This will slowly bring in their memory of their true origin and their spiritual powers will be activated. This month will be the beginning of the great awakening, as we begin to learn what true love is and how to embody it. All belief systems are collapsing and false identities are crumbling. 

We are entering a period of true awakening, as all unconsciousness beings to become conscious. As our feeling centers turn on again and we feel ourselves as part of the whole, the Oneness energies. Compassion, empathy and intuition will prevail over logic and rational. We will learn to discern truth from lies and the veil will be fully dissolved. 

February 3rd~VENUS ENTERS CAPRICORN 

Venus moves out of fun loving Sagittarius into hard working Capricorn on February 3rd. During her transit of Sagittarius, Venus explored what it means to experience love through adventure, truth seeking, and the higher perspective. Love is an experience and that is what we have been learning these past few weeks. It has no attachment to any person, place, or belief system, it simply an experience through living life to its fullest capacity. Venus in Sagittarius pushed the boundaries and looked beyond the mundane, it searched for the highest trust of who we are as love beings. More than anything, Venus us showed us that love is magical, it is beautiful, and it is pure joy. 

Venus in Capricorn carries a much different energy. If Sagittarius is the one staying at the party all night, Capricorn is the one leaving early so they can work in the morning. Venus here is going to teach us that love also requires self-discipline, responsibility, and reliability. Being love means we are dedicated and committed, and we follow through with our word and what we say we are going to do. Love is real and true, it is not flaky or flimsy. We may begin to see where we are not truly being love to others and not really loving ourselves. This requires discipline in order to become the masters we are. 

February, 4th~NEW MOON IN AQUARIUS 

The New Moon in Aquarius occurs on February 4th, while the Sun in Aquarius will be conjunct the Moon. Aquarius is an interesting and unique energy, as he has no problem stepping outside the box, questioning, and and being innovative. Aquarius can also be quite detached, as he tends to see the world through an objective lense, always learning and observing but lacking in feeling. In its highest aspect though, Aquarius cares deeply about the collective as a whole and seeks ideas and ways to serve the greater whole rather than itself or any individual. 

The New Moon in Aquarius is starting on a new path of collective energies. We can no longer operate or function from the “me” perspective. It is about the “we” now. WE, as humanity, as the collective have to come together to create the new paradigm, New Earth. This is a co-creation of the greatest magnitude and it requires humanity to begin questioning the illusion around them and not being afraid to go against the norm. Step outside of your box and into limitless thought and possibilities. This is true multidimensiality. 

  February 10th~MERCURY ENTERS PISCES

Mercury has been transiting Aquarius for the past few weeks and has opened up our perspective to infinite possibilities and creative insight. We became more unattached to ideas and information as we realized all is simply awareness, it is not concrete. Our visions of the future became crystal clear as we wake up to the realization that we can no longer live the way we have for eons of time. We are evolving and changing and this must be surrendered to. 

Now Mercury moves into dreamy Pisces and takes us to the next level of imagination. Pisces is the last sign between the physical and the spiritual realm. Pisces takes us beyond the veil into the miraculous world beyond us. Pisces represents our dreams, our emotions, our intuition and our spirituality. We move into oneness and transcend separation. 

This transit will inspire us to connect with the truth that we are all One. That there are infinite worlds beyond the one we see in front of us. Our spiritual gifts and connections will come more online and we will seek to connect compassionately and intuitively with the world around us. We leave behind the left brained logic and rational and exchange it for imagination and empathy. 

  February 14th~MARS ENTERS TAURUS

Mars, the warrior planet of action and will is leaving its home sign of Aries and moving into Taurus. While in Aries, our passion and our motivation were at an all time high and we sought to power through life’s challenges. We learned to transform our anger into passion and our self-will into divine will. We left behind the programmings of competition and power over. 

With Mars moving into Taurus, we slow down a bit, realizing that all good things take patience, which Aries lacks. We are getting more in tune with our physical bodies and exploring and appreciating the physical experience. We are blessed to be able to experience other souls within these physical bodies, to experience touch, taste, and smell. In the etheric realm, they do not experience such things, as all exists as energy rather than matter. 

Take moments to share gratitude for being able to hug someone who you love, who is part of your soul family. To feel the physical experience of love. To taste wonderful foods that only exist in this dimension. To smell things which invoke powerful emotions and memories. We are anchoring in the etheric into the physical and must appreciate the beauty of this blend. 

  February 18th ~SUN ENTERS PISCES

The Sun leaves behind quirky Aquarius on February 18th, and enters mystical Pisces. Our focus will shift from ideas, knowledge, and insights to pure consciousness, spirituality, and compassion. We now have anchored in our divine thoughts and the capabilities we truly have as angel humans, but now we must remember our spiritual gifts and our heart centered connections. We are spiritual beings having a human experience, not the other way around.

We cannot transition into the new paradigm until we acknowledge our spiritual powers and how connected we are to everyone and everything. We cannot exist in unity until we accept that we are ONE. Pisces understands this deeply and has such empathy towards others. Soul connections will be coming online now as we begin to gather with our soul families for the final countdown of this ascension.

  February 18th~CHIRON ENTERS ARIES

Chiron has been busy the past year, as the wounded healer finished up his 8 year tour through mystical Pisces and moved into Aries last year. He then went retrograde later in the year back into Pisces to wrap up the healing of our deep spiritual wounds such as separation, unworthiness, and fear of God. This was the final cleansing of these ancient wounds humanity has held for thousands of years. 

Now, Chiron moves back into Aries where we will begin to heal wounds around our identity and who we are. Humanity has been lost in the illusion feeling like they are simply these 3D humans in these meat suits, living out a menial existence. They have lost their sense of purpose and true sense of self. These wound will becoming to the surface now as the collective begins to question, “who am I?”, “why am I here?”. We begin to heal the wounds of illusion that has kept us small and in amnesia and our true divinity. 

  February 19th~FULL MOON IN VIRGO 

On February 19th we will have a Full Moon in Virgo at 0 degrees. This Moon will be opposite the Sun in Pisces, as we learn to blend spirituality with practicalness, intuition with research, and compassion with discernment. We are becoming whole beings of truth and feeling. This is the 4th full moon at 0 degrees and we are now birthing ourselves into purity of thought, spirit, and body. We are learning to forgive ourselves (Pisces) and release self-criticism (Virgo).

Mars will be conjunct Uranus in Taurus causing sudden change within our planet and how we deal with resources. Humanity is no longer allowed to take and pillage from Mother Earth. Mercury in Pisces will be conjunct Neptune in Pisces, bringing our spiritual gifts full online through out divine connection. Finally, Venus in Capricorn will conjunct Saturn in Capricorn bringing earthiness to our relationships and our expression of love. We may feel some restriction within our ability to express our love, however, once we learn to truly love ourselves first we can begin to organically express it. 

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[gaasaku-fanfests]

Desert Heart [Part II]

Title: Desert Heart Author: keltoi-oak Rating: T Word Count: 17886 Summary: Returning to his homeland in order to face the hardest trials of his life, Gaara encounters a water nymph who proves to be much more than she seems. Warnings: None Author's Note(s): AU/Fantasy. This threatened to turn into a multi-chapter monster, so I was forced to compress it into a three part fic. Managed to incorporate all the prompts. All in all, had a blast writing it. Hope you enjoy!

Prompt chosen:  chosen, survival, bells . (all three) Partner: thefreckledone

PART II

There was a change in the desert, Sakura could feel it. Through the water she was aware of the fluctuations. The Sand Roam had triggered a shift in the energies all around. It was a strange kind of echo she perceived, as if the desert was intensifying its own essence and escalating its already impartial nature. Yet it also emanated an elated stillness, as if it was eagerly waiting for something that was on the verge of happening.

She readily assumed it was related to the choosing of the Wind Clan’s chieftain and in truth, she shared the sentiment: she had become unreservedly involved in the Sand Roam herself.

It truly was all about survival. She learned that the first time Gaara showed up at the pool bleeding and battered, one of his eyes closed purple and his torso bleeding from a nasty gash. Aghast, Sakura had reacted immediately, summoning the essence of the water all around her and pouring it through her hands unto his injuries. Healing was her natural response and the impulse kicked in without her even realizing it.

It was only after long moments, when she had finally halted the bleeding on Gaara’s side, that she realized her actions might be seen as something out of the ordinary. She looked up to find his jade eyes staring at her with open wonder, the expression on his face a combination of astonishment and gratitude.

He must have perceived her bemusement because he made a quip about her finally giving in to her true nature as a water nymph and getting her hands on him.

With an arched brow, she cut off the flow of her chakra that provided pain relief and felt him wince instantly.

Gaara smiled in discomfort and endured her retaliation. Wisely, he kept his words to himself after that. But Sakura knew his jibe had been aimed to distract her. It was a pattern she had become aware of not too long after his arrival. Whenever her muddled emotions rose to the surface, Gaara did his best to divert her attention. Since his comments were incredibly provoking, his methods worked. Sakura was simply unable to keep from retorting and a lively exchange would inevitably follow. Her mind would focus on other things and in no time, her disarrayed emotions would dissolve.

Even though Sakura was aware of what he was doing, she welcomed his distractions. Which was why, when Gaara thanked her for healing him, she told him it was the least she could do.

Soon, another pattern emerged as the Roam continued: Sakura would heal his injuries whenever he returned to the pool, actively helping in his recovery. After having become aware of her impulses, Gaara had tried to stop her from expending her energies so much on him. His wounds were part and parcel of the challenges he was facing and would be practically constant. She would be continually draining herself. But Sakura would have none of it. When he tried to resist her assistance, she simply imbued the water he drank with soporific chakra. He woke up patched up and healed.

Gaara sensibly accepted her help with no reservations after that.

He would leave at random moments, whenever he felt the call of the desert. Sometimes he would be in the middle of eating and have to answer its summons. Sakura did not know how it was for the other participants, but Gaara would always head out without the slightest complaint. He had no ill words to offer whenever he was wounded either, no matter how much pain he was in. The stoicism with which he faced the challenges was remarkable.

The latter could be anything the desert manifested. From encounters with giant onyx scorpions, erratic basilisks, and hungry sand mantas to facing spontaneous sand storms and desert cyclones. But there were other kinds of tests as well, such as harvesting the water-filled shoots of barnacle cacti without causing any damage to the plant. On one occasion, Gaara was bitten by a horned viper – one the desert hid from his perception until it was too late – and forced to fight off the venom solely by using his chakra. Sakura waited two full days for him to come back and could only admire his chakra focus skills when he recounted what had transpired. Eliminating such poisonous substances from the body could prove tricky. But although it wasn’t his specialty, Gaara had simply done what had to be done.

No time for drama, no time for getting caught up in doubt. He would concentrate his energies on the challenge before him, adapting to whatever the desert threw at him.

Sakura’s regard for Gaara increased with each test he surpassed.

Hence, her involvement in the Roam was a given: whenever he left the small oasis, she would wait patiently for him to return. Through his actions, the certainty Gaara had regarding the path he had chosen rubbed off on her. Sakura had complete faith in his abilities. She knew he wasn’t invincible yet this did not diminish her confidence in him.

It was refreshing and provided a welcome contrast to the fluctuation of emotions that would sneak up on her unannounced. Sakura would be overwhelmed by a sense of not being able to remember something but feeling she ought to. This would trigger reactions within her she had no control over. From one moment to the next, an intense sorrow would creep up on her, bringing with it tears she could not hold back. Or an intense anger would overcome her and a foul mood would descend for a while. If not that, it was the confusion creeping up, leaving her unsure of who she really was. But the emotion she disliked the most was the fear; it would pool at the pit of her stomach and sink its claws into her. She would feel herself shrinking and wanting to shun the world around her.

The fear was the true reason she had slumbered for such a long time and had craved sleep so much.

Luckily, this was changing and she held no qualms in attributing this shift to Gaara. He contrasted so much with her mutable inner reality with his steadfast and stoic ways that Sakura allowed herself to openly absorb his influence. She no longer craved to fall into oblivion as often and rested only when she had exhausted her chakra after healing him. He was proving to be an anchor, a solid presence juxtaposed to her watery shifting.

As a result, Sakura threw herself wholeheartedly into helping him. She held no reservations because she had also realized early on there was no pretence about Gaara. He was what he was. This meant she could do the same, be herself and make no attempt to pretend to be otherwise.

It was just over a couple of weeks after his arrival that she confessed her lack of memory to him. He had just woken up from a full day’s rest and was preparing to break his fast when he mentioned something about his childhood. His cooking had reminded him of the smell of the food coming in through the window of his family home from the eatery next door.

“Is it a good memory or a bad memory?” Sakura asked. Due to his personal history, she thought it best to clarify.

“A good memory,” he replied as he stirred the pot over the fire. “The owner, Chiyo-san, used to give me free dumplings as a treat, no matter what other people said about me. After my father died she kept abreast with the goings-on of my siblings and I, made sure we were eating properly.”

“That’s a heartening memory. Were there other people like her?”

“Too few to mention, I’m afraid.”

“I thought so,” she remarked. “Nonetheless, memories like that are worth having. They make the good things stand out, allowing you to carry what you felt back then with you. I wish I had some of those.”

Gaara poured some more water into the stew. “What do you mean?”

“I have no memories. I don’t remember anything before the events of the day you arrived.”

He turned to regard her fully, stunned. “You mean you’ve only existed for a fortnight?”

“No, silly,” she scoffed. “I was asleep, down under the ground. Earlier on the day you arrived I woke up and rose with the water into this pool. I know I was asleep for a very long time but for the life of me, I can’t remember anything before that. All I recall are short moments when I woke up before falling asleep again.”

“Do water nymphs do that? Sleep for long periods of time, I mean.”

“I don’t know,” Sakura replied with a shrug. “Sometimes I’m uncertain if I am a nymph, to be quite honest.”

“Hence your confusion every so often,” Gaara remarked, “I’ve perceived that. Well, I can honestly tell you that you are a water nymph. Your chakra is the same as that of others I have come across before. You can rest assured on that, at least.”

“Thank you,” she replied solemnly. “I really appreciate being sure of what I am.”

A thoughtful silence descended upon her as Gaara finished preparing his meal. He served his stew into a bowl before standing and moving towards the edge of the pool. Coming closer to where she was sitting on a rock, he sat down on the stone beside her and began to eat.

After watching him enjoy a few mouthfuls, Sakura spoke once more. “The strangest thing is I get this feeling from time to time that I should remember. Like you, just now. Something within me reacted to watching you eat with such relish but I can’t recollect why.”

“I’d offer to give you some but we both know your kind doesn’t eat.”

“Precisely.” she replied. “I get sustenance from the water around me. Just being in the pool is enough for me. I’m not supposed to know what it is to be hungry. Yet watching you devour that stew made me feel as if I should remember what that’s like.”

He nodded in understanding. After a few more mouthfuls, he turned thoughtful. Dropping the spoon in the bowl, he turned to look at her with narrowed eyes. “Is that why you reacted so prudishly when it finally dawned on you that my being able to see you when you make yourself transparent meant I could see you naked?”

“I am not a prude,” she snapped, swatting him on the knee for good measure. Trust him to latch on to that particular incident. “It’s just basic decency.” Sakura intensified the glamour around her body on purpose, making the dress she had conjured up as cover appear even more perceptible.

“Exactly,” he remarked. “For water nymphs, having others see them naked is the whole point. It’s natural for them.”

She arched an eyebrow. “Well, not for me.”

“Evidently not,” Gaara said. “But you are one. You can use glamour and can assume liquid form or become tangible at will. You can commune with the water and receive nourishment from it, which means you cannot stray too far from it. You have natural powers of healing, courtesy of your watery essence. Yet the instincts that lead to your actions are decidedly not those of a water nymph.”

She blinked. “So you’re saying I’m a fake?”

“Not at all. I told you already that your chakra gives you away. There’s no doubt about that. What I’m implying is that you may not be solely a water nymph… you may be something more.”

With wide eyes, Sakura stared at him in silence.

She was about to ask him to explain himself further but the desert intervened. It summoned the participants of the Sand Roam and Gaara had to leave the pool in a rush. She made a point to remember to ask him about it when he next returned.

But she was foiled once again later that night when he stumbled back to the pool with a broken wrist and cuts all over his body, his chakra practically depleted. All her attention focused on healing him and she did not get the chance to continue their conversation.

Yet when she finally got him to lie down to rest next to the edge of the water, she could not help wondering about the implications of what he had said. What did ‘more’ mean?

Sakura could not come up with  an answer to that question. So, for the time being, she settled for floating next to Gaara as he slept in recovery, hoping he would eventually shed some light on what he had meant.

– XXXXXXXX –

Gaara knew the key was to have no expectations. Whatever came his way, whatever it was the desert threw at him, he had to accept it for what it was. There was no point in thinking about the challenges ahead: he would never be able to predict the haphazard tendencies of the Roam. He could only take things on step at the time and keep moving, trusting that he would have the skills to overcome when the time came.

In this aspect he was succeeding. Shutting off his mind when out on the dunes and crags, he would focus solely on the task he was engaged in. It was when he finished a trial, when the pull of the desert finally calmed and let him know he had succeeded, that he was finding it difficult to keep his expectations in check.

When journeying back to the pool – as he was doing now – he would feel his heart lift and the struggles of the latest challenge fall away. He looked forward to going back to Sakura with anticipation, felt the eagerness of sharing her company once more.

Gaara was honest enough with himself to admit he genuinely liked the routine they had fallen into. Completely unplanned, their day to day had taken on a distinctive pattern: after finishing a task, he would return to her pool, where she would heal him if needed but most importantly, she would listen intently to him as he told her all about the latest trial. The expressions on her face were always sincere and Gaara could easily tell what she was thinking. He truly enjoyed watching her reactions but best of all, he welcomed her remarks. Sakura could always be trusted to make a smart comment or observation concerning whatever topic they were discussing. He found the conversation incredibly enlivening. It was something Gaara had only experienced with Naruto. The easiness with which he related with Sakura would usually bring his fox friend to mind. The natural way they came together reminded him of how effortlessly he had fallen into tandem with Naruto.

Of course, as much as there were similarities, the differences were also rather poignant. Gaara’s interest in Sakura was of a completely different nature and, truth be told, completely new to him. Never before had he anticipated coming back to a woman and finding ease in her company. Never had had he experienced a yearning to be with someone else nor had he expended so much effort in trying to fathom another person’s situation.

That Sakura’s circumstances were special he had no doubt. Her actions and mind frame were not typical of water nymphs. The latter were characterized for their frivolity, for playing pranks – usually deadly ones – on unsuspected visitors; they never wasted any time worrying about anyone other than themselves and usually did things only if they got something out of it. Sakura was completely the opposite: she was earnest, heartfelt, and cared deeply about the well-being of others. Gaara had experienced the latter first hand with her healing and was openly grateful for the care she provided. He was very well aware the Sand Roam would have been a completely different experience for him without Sakura’s presence.

Therefore, whenever he found himself on the way back, he would wrack his brains in an attempt to figure out the mystery that was Sakura the nymph. All the stories of old lore and myths he had studied under the monks’ tutelage did not seem to help, though. He did not remember ever coming across a nature spirit that did not act according to its essence. Something else had to be at play. Maybe a djinn had been involved? They were masters of transformation, capable of the most astonishing alterations. It was possible Sakura had been changed by powerful magic and given an opposing personality while her memories were removed in the process. But why?

This was where Gaara always hit a wall whenever he came up with a plausible scenario.

The possibilities of what had truly happened to Sakura were endless. So many things could have transpired that it was impossible to pinpoint a single one. Without any clues he could follow, Gaara would inevitably think himself into a corner. Nonetheless, he found his mind returning to her circumstances over and over again.

Getting Sakura to remember her past was the best way forward. This was the sole conclusion he had managed to reach. The problem was Gaara had no idea of how to go about helping someone to recover their memories, particularly when that someone was a nature spirit. It was something he had to be very careful about. He did not know the reason why she had lost them in the first place and this could prove to be crucial. Memories held power and had to be treated carefully.

Thus, Gaara vowed he would dedicate time to helping her when the Sand Roam was over. He would do his best to help Sakura recover what she had lost and, since she was tied to her pool, investigate on her behalf. If he had his way, she would never have reason to feel confused or uncertain ever again.

With this conviction in mind, Gaara made his way briskly across the sand, heading back to where he knew Sakura waited. Finally, the familiar crescent shape of the oasis’ rocks came into view when he cleared the crest of a dune. His lips lifted and despite the tiredness of his body, his tension eased. Some minutes later, he was stepping within the sanctuary of the pool.

It was his favourite moment.

The succulents and cacti growing on the rocks started to vibrate, his chakra-enhanced senses perceiving it like a cascade of bells beginning to ring one after the other until they created a symphony. The sound would echo back and forth within the stones, a melody that lightened his heart and gladdened his soul.

At the centre of the song was Sakura. Sometimes perched on the rocks, sometimes floating within the pool. She could sense his chakra whenever he came within a certain distance from the spring, therefore, she would always be waiting for him. Whenever he walked into the crescent, she was there, eyes sparkling like stars and her smile vanishing his strain.

The ringing bells would begin the moment she laid eyes on him, the plants reacting to her delight at having him return. Such was their connection to the essence of the water and therefore, to her.

It had taken him a while to realize what the sounds coming from the plants meant. But the instant he did, something within Gaara changed irrevocably. He vowed to do everything in his power to keep those bells ringing; if all he ever achieved in life was to be the reason of their constant song, then he could die a satisfied man.

“Your neck is bleeding,” Sakura remarked, unamused.

The sound of the plants faded away and Gaara felt its loss deeply.

With a sigh, he approached the pool and watched her as she lifted herself out. She had conjured up a loose blouse and skirt today. Although he teased her about being prim, he actually welcomed the glamour. Her nakedness would have been a constant distraction. He would not have been able to hide his appreciation for her loveliness and the last thing he wanted was to embarrass himself in front of her. Thus, he was grateful for her adherence to ‘basic decency’, as she called it.

Standing in front of him, she removed the blood-soaked scarf he had tied around his neck. Her eyes turned serious as she lifted her hands and hovered her palms above the gashes all around his neck. Gaara felt the sparks of her chakra on his skin as she assessed the damage. He found himself closing his eyes and relishing the feel of her sweet, warm energy.

“It’s not too deep, thankfully,” she said some moments later.

Gaara opened his eyes to find her staring at him in relief.

“Glad to hear that,” he replied. “It stings dreadfully, though.”

“What was it? A whipping thorn?”

He shook his head. “A spiked vine.”

Sakura grimaced at the mention of the vicious plant.

“I had to harvest some of its seeds without damaging it. Unfortunately, it was unaware of my good intentions and it attempted to wrap itself around my neck.”

Leading him towards one of the rocks, she had him sit so she could work on his wounds. As she did so, Gaara told her all about his encounter with the nasty creeper. Of  how he had been forced to soothe it using his chakra even though it was doing its best to inflict lethal punctures on his neck while trying choke him to death. Somehow he had persevered and calmed the rancorous vine.

“What did you do with the seeds?” Sakura asked.

“The desert had me plant them close to a water source so they would have the best chance of thriving.”

“I hope it was not near this pool,” she countered.

Gaara chuckled. “It was another oasis very far from here. You don’t have to worry about being invaded.”

She nodded, continuing with her ministrations. He soon felt the effect of her healing and the sting of his abrasions lessened considerably. The last remnants of tension in his body left him and he relaxed, allowing himself to let go.

As much as his motivation and drive propelled him forward, the Roam was beginning to take its toll. Gaara knew several of the other participants had dropped out already, unable to take the constant strain. Being in this continual state of alertness and activity was starting to grate at his body. It had been over three weeks of incessant events, one following on the heels of the other with precious little time in between to rest properly. Part of being able to survive was to admit one’s limits and Gaara realized, despite Sakura’s help, he was approaching his.

Yet he knew there was no option but to keep moving forward. Give his best for as long as he could without any protest. Despite his growing exhaustion, his confidence had not diminished. He felt his synergy with the desert increase more and more with each day. In his perspective, its choice was a given. Nonetheless, it seemed he had not been tested enough and there were still more skills he had to prove. He wasn’t done yet.

Consequently, these quiet moments with Sakura had been an unexpected yet welcome gift. He could allow himself to wind down completely, to release the stress unreservedly. It did wonders for his recovery. Gaara had never slept so soundly in his life. Although he was sure it was partly because she infused her chakra with a soothing effect whenever she healed him, he did not hold it against her. As a matter of fact, he was grateful for it.

“You look particularly tired today,” Sakura commented.

Gaara nodded in reply.

“Did you eat lunch?”

He nodded again.

She gave him a quick once-over with her eyes, appraising his chakra levels, no doubt. “Alright, I’m almost done. You can have a quick wash and lie down.”

Even though it was only mid-afternoon, he welcomed the chance to get some sleep. The heat might have been a problem but he had Sakura to thank for the coolness of the camp he had set up. Whenever he was forced to rest during the day, she would manipulate the water so that a cooling mist would cover his sleeping form.

Once she finished patching up his neck, Gaara did as he was told. He stripped down and using a bowl, gave himself a hasty bath. As much as he would have preferred to have a dip in the water, he always refrained from doing so. It was Sakura’s abode and he would not cross its threshold unless invited. She had not suggested he do so, therefore he respected her space and did not go further than the edge of the water.

As she was wont to do whenever he bathed, Sakura gave him some privacy. This did not mean, however, that he did not catch her stealing glances at his body from time to time. Yet another unlike-a-nymph trait. Others of her kind would have been ogling him openly. Gaara would only smile to himself whenever he caught her, letting it slide. If what she saw pleased her, let her have her fill.

He was done with his wash and after donning a pair of loose trousers, he allowed himself to fall into his bedroll under the lee of the stones. The shadows were pleasantly cool. Folding one arm to cradle his head, Gaara allowed the muscles of his entire body to loosen.

“How much longer?” Sakura asked. She was back in the pool. Because his bedroll was positioned right at the edge, this meant she could float right next to him. She was stretched out on her stomach on the surface of the water, her face inches from his.

“I don’t know,” he confessed. “I know there have been Sand Roams that have lasted close to two months. I can only hope that is not the case this time around.”

“Your body is starting to suffer for it.”

“I know.”

She sighed, knowing very well there was nothing either of them could do about it. “How do you know when the desert has made its decision?”

He lifted the arm he had stretched out beside his body. “I will be Sand Marked. It’s a kind of energetic branding. The desert will mark the skin of my arms, undisputable proof of its choice.”

“Like a tattoo?”

“Similar, only that they are not always visible. The marks are only activated with chakra,” he replied. “The colour also varies, depending on the person. The marks of the late Chieftain were copper while I know the Chieftain before that had white marks on her arms.”

“Any idea of what colour your marks will be?”

“And such is the confidence she has in me,” he said with a smile. “It almost makes me feel pressured.”

“Don’t be silly,” she chided. “We both know you and the desert are practically one.”

He nodded, grateful for her support. “I feel the bond increase with each day. It grows more powerful with each task I complete,” he told her. “Now as to what colour my marks might be, I have no clue.”

“Crimson?” she suggested, glancing at his hair.

He smiled once more. “Maybe. Although that might be a little too obvious.”

“True,” she admitted. She looked at him intently for a long moment before coming closer.

Gaara held his breath, unsure of what she was going to do.

“Get some sleep,” she murmured, stretching out her hand to caress his cheek.

The contact ignited sparks on his skin. He felt her touch all the way down to his toes. Bliss washed over him and he turned his face towards her hand.

But true water nymph or not, she was a crafty one. Soon, Gaara felt the soporific chakra emanating from her hand. There was no room in him for complaint, though. He surrendered to her touch willingly and allowed sleep to carry him away.

– XXXXXXXX –

He came awake with a jolt, his senses in full alert, and his chakra ignited instantly, ready to take on any threat. Thinking it was another challenge from the desert, Gaara was already summoning the sand around the oasis, prepared to protect it with his life.

But as his head cleared, he realized the landscape all around was calm. It was not summoning him.

What had woken him up? He had felt something. A heavy emanation of chakra that hit him like a lead weight and pulled him forcibly out of slumber

He dismissed the sand and breathed deeply, attempting to calm his heart beat. He was about to close his eyes and commune with his surroundings when he felt it again.

A dense energy that robbed him of breath and made him feel hollow inside.

It was coming from the water.

The pool was churning, lapping in waves against the rocks. Its energy was in disarray, an erratic flow that seemed to curl into itself, unable to find an outlet. The succulents and cacti, so alive during the afternoon, appeared completely dim to his chakra-enhanced senses. The brittle bushes growing between the rocks were wilting.

Sakura. The dense chakra was coming from Sakura.

He looked down into the water and spotted her, curled up in a foetal position at the very bottom of the pool. She was asleep but it was clear her slumber was seriously disagreeable.

She was weeping, great big sobs wracking her frame.

Gaara’s first impulse was to jump into the pool and bring her to the surface.

But then his instincts prevented him from acting rashly. With the state of the water, it was clear Sakura was not in control of her powers. If he swam down, she might drown him accidentally. It was best he stay where he was; using his chakra was the way to go.

He ignited it and summoned it to his hand, placing his palm on the surface of the water. The instant his energy came into contact with the pool, he felt it yank. Gaara had to use all the strength in his body to push back and prevent it from pulling him under. He closed his eyes and expanded his bond with the desert, asking it to help him calm the water somewhat. It responded keenly, funnelling some of its essence into him. Gaara channelled the energy into his other hand, bringing it under the surface and using it to pacify the pool. He managed to calm it enough so he could get his chakra to the bottom.

It took some doing but he finally managed to reach her. Gaara sent waves of his chakra to her, attempting to nudge her awake. It seemed to be working because she stopped sobbing. He kept up his efforts, adding his voice to the mix and shouting her name from the surface.

It did the trick. She woke up and shifted into a sitting position. She looked at the agitated water all around her and seemed to shrink into herself.

“Gaara?”

As muffled as the sound was, he recognized his name and the confusion with which it was spoken.

“It’s alright, I’m here.”

She turned her face towards the sound of his voice

“Sakura, come to me,” he said, his words laced with emotion. “Please.”

In a blink of an eye she was at the surface, lifting herself out of the water. Gaara opened his arms where he was kneeling and she lunged herself at him. He landed on his rear with the force of the impact, the splash she made drenching him, but he had her safe in his arms.

He breathed out deeply in relief.

Sakura buried her face in his shoulder, weeping quietly. Gaara murmured reassurances as he caressed her back soothingly, giving her time to pull herself together. They stayed like that for a long while, until her crying subsided. He watched as the water of the pool calmed and regained its usual energetic flow. The plants perked up and began to radiate vitality once more.

Eventually, Sakura lifted her head to speak but remained within the shelter of his arms.

“Something happened,” she began, “when you fell asleep this afternoon. It was like something within me shifted, jolted into a new position. I just could not curve the impulse of caressing your face and hair, even after you were completely asleep. It felt so right. But then I got the sense that it reminded me of something, although, once again, I had no idea of what it could be. I did not think too much about it since it’s been like this for days.”

He nodded, resting his cheek against her hair.

“So I sank into the pool to rest after healing you and I think… I think I remembered.”

Gaara felt himself go completely still. It was evident that whatever memory had surfaced, it had not been a good one.

“I think I had a husband, a man with dark hair and dark eyes. But he left, chasing after a member of his family… an older brother, I think. I followed after him, travelled for the longest time trying to find him and bring him back.”

She grew silent for a moment.

“And did you succeed?” Gaara asked.

“Yes, he came back home,” Sakura continued. “But then he left a second time… and never came back.”

Her face crumpled before his eyes and she began to weep again.

Gaara tightened his embrace and allowed her to cry freely. It was best for her to let it out.

After another while, she calmed down. “I’m not sure of the details since it’s all rather blurry. But I think that’s the gist of it. All I can feel are the emotions. The facts evade me.”

“That’s fine,” he told her. “Sometimes it’s best to allow yourself to feel without knowing why. If you keep the events of the past playing incessantly in your head, you will never find peace. It’s best to release the emotion until it finally dissipates and then the past will have no hold over you anymore.”

She nodded against his neck. “I guess this solves part of the mystery,” she said. “I wasn’t always a nymph.”

“No, it seems not. But it’s still not clear how you became one or what your abilities were before that. Or is it?”

Sakura shook her head. “It’s all incredibly hazy.”

“Don’t force it,” Gaara told her. “It will come to you when you’re ready.”

“You really think so?”

“I do. If your experiences were so painful, it’s best you remember little by little instead of all in one go.”

“You’re right,” she conceded.

He continued to hold her in his embrace for long silent moments. Gaara lost himself in the feel of her back as he continued to stroke it with his hand. It seemed there was a substantial reason as to why Sakura’s memories had been lost. Water had always been linked to feelings and her nymph powers were evidently tied to her emotions. If they went out of control, like it had happened a while ago, then she would become a threat without meaning to.

It was best to leave well enough alone and allow her memories to return to her on their own accord. There was no point in rushing it.

Belatedly, Gaara realized Sakura had fallen asleep in his arms. This time around, her slumber was peaceful and it was now his turn to caress her in her sleep.

But as much as he could have held her close throughout the entire night, he was well aware she would not rest properly if she was not in the water. So he stood up with her in his arms and approached the edge. He lowered her down into the pool and let her go. She floated momentarily on the surface before sinking down slowly.

As he watched her descend, he was aware of a strong desire rising from within him.

Instead of helping her remember her past husband, Gaara wanted to be the one to banish him into oblivion for all time.

[warcraft-lore-archives]

On Nightborne: Schools of Magic

Spellblades

Chronomancy

Warpcasting

Telemancy

Ley Magic

Astromancy

Spellblades

Spellblades, as the name indicates, are those who combine both melee skill and magic into a single form of combat [Dungeon Journal: The Nighthold, Spellblade Aluriel]. Spellblade Aluriel, captain of Grand Magistrix Elisande’s guard, was the first Nightborne to take on the rank of spellblade. She is not only adept in the magical schools of fire, frost, and arcane, but she also commands great prowess with a sword, making her both expert mage and warrior [Dungeon Journal: The Nighthold, Spellblade Aluriel]. Although it was once popular to specialize exclusively in just magic or weaponry, Aluriel was the first to combine both skills and pave the way for generations of spellblades to come [Post: Azshara’s Court - Guards].

In addition to spellblades, a type of melee-based fighter called a spell-fencer also exists within the Duskwatch’s ranks. It is unclear how spell-fencers differ from spellblades, if at all, but there may be a marked difference between them since they are referred to separately. Both Thoramir and Silgryn, who previously served together under Spellblade Aluriel, are spell-fencers [Quest: Waxing Crescent, NPC: Thoramir Dialogue]. Spell-fencers, and most likely spellblades by extension, can empower their weapons with arcane magic [Spell: Arc Blade].

Aluriel may be the first Nightborne Spellblade, but high elven society developed their own version, which may or may not differ from the Nightborne’s spellblade [NPC: Sunreaver Spellblade, NPC: Silver Covenant Spellblade].

Chronomancy

Time magic, or chronomancy, holds a rather significant place in Nightborne society. In fact, Elisande’s command of temporal magic, given to her by the Eye of Aman’thul, rivals even that of the bronze dragonflight’s [Quest: Temporal Investigations, Page: Eye of Aman’thul]. With the Eye of Aman’thul, which was used to create the Nightwell, Elisande could look into the future and freeze, speed up, slow down, or even rewind time [World of Warcraft Chronicle Volume I, pg. 104, Dungeon Journal: The Nighthold, Grand Magistrix Elisande].

Nightborne who specialize in temporal magic are known as tempomancers [NPC: Nightborne Tempomancer, Tempomancer Virinya]. Although a ‘Nightborne Chronomancer’ file exists, the NPC does not actually appear in-game [NPC: Nightborne Chronomancer]. These tempomancers can increase others’ haste and rewind time to heal themselves [Spell: Tempomancer’s Grace, Spell: Celerity Zone, Spell: Rewind Wounds]. Time magic is also used to shorten the wine fermenting period of Arcwine, allowing the Nightborne to produce the magic wine at a rate much quicker than usual [Quest: How It’s Made: Arcwine].

Some Nightborne carry chronometers on their person [Item: Flashy Chronometer].

Warpcasting

Warpcasters can warp the very space around themselves [Quest: Network Security]. Warpcaster Thwen created a warp field around herself that redirected all attacks and spells, however this warp field failed when exposed to unstable space [Spell: Warp Armor, Quest: Network Security].

Warpcasting and telemancy may be related magical arts, since they both entail the ‘warping’ of space [Quest: Survey Says…]. Chief Telemancer Oculeth, who trained Warpcaster Thwen, gives out a buff called ‘Warpwalking’ that causes each kill to increase movement speed [Quest: Network Security, Spell: Warpwalking].

Thalyssra built a device to generate a warp-field that would trap and excite mana in a ley feed conduit, causing a manastorm [Quest: Ephemeral Manastorm Projector].

Telemancy

Telemancers specialize in teleportation, a form of magic known as telemancy. Although telemancers can teleport and cast portals freely, they prefer to use a system of telemancy beacons to stabilize their portals, making them much safer to travel through [Quest: Oculeth’s Workshop, NPC: Chief Telemancer Oculeth Dialogue]. Beacons do this by supplying power for teleportation triangulations, which makes portal calculations much more exact and, consequently, safe [NPC: Oculeth Dialogue, Quest: Bring Home the Beacon, Quest: Survey the City]. Placing too many beacons, however, has the adverse effect of overloading the telemancy network [Quest: Staging Point].

Telemancy beacons also reduce teleportation time. While mage portals take some time to cast, telemancy beacons foster instant transmission [NPC: Oculeth Dialogue]. Teleport pads and telemancy orbs, in addition to beacons, are other means of transport [Quest: The Delicate Art of Telemancy, Quest: Breaching the Sanctum, Item: Entangled Telemancy Orb]. Certain things, like magical wards and manastorms, create interference that prevent teleportation [Quest: All In].

To establish a portal, one must first use the beacon to survey any given area for optimal placement. After the beacon has been placed, a connection can be anchored to it, creating a stable two-way portal [Quest: Survey Says…]. Some beacons can also be used for one-way teleportation [Quest: Grand Theft Telemancy].

According to Chief Telemancer Oculeth, who created Suramar’s telemancy network, telemancy is a delicate art [Quest: Oculeth’s Workshop].

Other Nightborne telemancers include Apprentice Telemancer Astrandis and Third Telemancer Syranel [NPC: Apprentice Telemancer Astrandis, NPC: Third Telemancer Syranel]. 

Ley Lines

Ley magic is the very cornerstone of Nightborne society. According to Arcanist Valtrois, ley lines are rivers of raw arcane energy running beneath the land. Although they are at times chaotic and difficult to control, the Nightborne have become adept at drawing power from them [Quest: Feeding Shal’Aran]. The convergence of ley lines in Suramar feeds power to the Nightwell, which in turn sustains the Nightborne [Quest: A Dance With Dragons]. This unique relationship, combined with centuries of ley line research, has given the Nightborne power over the ley lines.  

Suramar City was constructed on top of a nexus of ley lines that extend beyond the city proper into outlying regions like northern Azsuna. The Arcway, a vast labyrinthine network of tunnels, was built thousands of years ago under the region of Suramar for the purpose of tapping into and channeling the power of those magical ley lines [Quest: Tapping the Leylines]. At some point following the sundering, the Arcway was abandoned after a disaster disrupted mana collectors operating there [Quest: The Arcway: Opening the Arcway]. This is why all ley line feeds require an infusion of mana to operate properly [Quest: Leyline Feed: Falanaar Depths].

The Nightfallen maintain Ley Stations in the Arcway using ley line feeds, large pillars that channel the ley lines. These ley line feeds are topped with leydar dishes, which collect ley energy [Quest: Leyline Feed: Ley Station Moonfall]. The circuit at Tel’Anor’s Ley Station was broken and had to be mended by recharging the chamber’s seals using a high and low potency current in tandem [Quest: Power Grid]. Oculeth owns several personal coils for tapping into the ley lines [Quest: Oculeth’s Workshop].

By placing ley line taps on key points of any given ley line, one can direct the ley line’s flow of energy [Quest: Unbeleyvable]. A ley line stream powerful enough can vaporize anything [Quest: Feeding Shal’Aran, Quest: Flow Control]. However, just as much as it can destroy, arcane energy from the ley lines can also repair physical damage [Quest: Leyline Feed: Ley Station Aethenar, Quest: Leyline Feed: Ley Station Moonfall]. A plant called Manaroot that grows underneath ley lines in Suramar possesses healing properties and can be made into a salve that heals wounds [Quest: Soothing Wounds, Quest: Salvation].

Valtrois casts a buff called ‘Leyline Mastery’ that causes the wearer to attract ley lines, triggering ley line rifts to appear [Spell: Leyline Mastery].

Shal’dorei silk has some ley energy woven right into it [Quest: Runic Catgut].

Nightborne society is full of all sorts of people dedicated to studying the ley lines, from Ley Line Channelers and Ley Line Researchers to Duskwatch Ley-Wardens [NPC: Ley Line Channeler, NPC: Ley Line Researcher, NPC: Duskwatch Ley-Warden]. There is a specific class of mage, known as Ley Walker, that specializes in ley line magic, however it is an RPG only class and cannot be considered canon [RPG: More Magic & Mayhem, pg. 20-22]. Although Arcanist Valtrois is an arcanist, she is clearly vested in the ley line arts, as she has been studying ley lines for millennia, and could be considered a ‘ley walker’ of sorts in her own right [Quest: Unbeleyvable].

Astromancy

Astromancy is undoubtedly just as important in Nightborne society as any other school of magic, however there are very few specific details about Nightborne astromancy, perhaps because it is so subtly woven into the very fabric of Nightborne culture.

The denizens of Suramar began studying the stars as early as twelve thousand years ago [Object: Highborne Astrolabe]. Even when the protective shield put up over Suramar obscured the Nightborne’s view of the sky, they continued to dedicate themselves to studying the stars in Astromancer’s Rise [Quest: The Nightborne Pact]. Suramar’s foremost astromancer, Star Augur Etraeus, uses the Nightwell to draw upon the essence of alien worlds to amplify his own powers. He, Astrologer Jarin, and a coterie of celestial acolytes and astral spell-users dedicate themselves to understanding the celestial forces from the Nighthold [Dungeon Journal: The Nighthold, Star Augur Etraeus, NPC: Astrologer Jarin Dialogue].