#canon kian stone as well

[leafatlaw]

Transgenders your bayou

[skittlespizza]

Bpd Kian Stone, The Essay:

BPD is characterized as: unstable moods, behaviors, and relationships. Kian fits a lot of the BPD symptoms and it's just. It fits too well and my BPD addled projecting self can't help it.

First and foremost, Kian didn't have a great childhood I mean. neglectful parents, a lack of affection or love, seems like an unhappy childhood.

Something people with BPD struggle with is an intense fear of abandonment which, especially in Becky, Kian kind of... has? Kian spends an absurd amount of time mourning his HIGH SCHOOL GIRLFRIEND and by absurd I mean over 10 years. That isn't normal behavior, and really, it gives obsession and FP behavior. What's an FP?

An FP is term that describes a person who the person with BPD is, well to put it, sort of obsessed with and Kian... listen man. I can't stress the Kianbecky relationship FITTING THIS. Kian's happiness and emotions depend solely on how Becky feels and if she's there and when she wasnt, well. Hollywood happens and what happend to Kian happens and hrrhhhfh rhe obsession, the need for Becky to be there even after all that time... I might be looking too into this but I can relate to that and this is a headcanon...

A chronic emptiness is another thing people with Bpd struggle with. They often find themselves filling this with money or other people and BPD IS BASICALLY just this chronic emptiness leading to unstable relationships and I feel like Kian throws drugs, money, alcohol and useless one night stands at that empty hole to try and fill it because nothing will make him feel whole. Even Becky was only a tarp to cover that hole, she wasn't a solution. This hole probably came from a lack of love he got as a kid but whatever.

OK next thing, splitting, or the intense switching between something or someone being good or bad (like personally i do this with people, like my brain switches from they hate me they want me dead until they text me five minutes later and im fine). we don't see this happen in canon since Kian barely got any time to progress and shit but I can. I can headcanon this okay. so in his time in hollywood he definitely struggled with "god they all fucking hate me" and "man they love me look at all the good memories we had!" he had no real connections in hollywood so all he had were those memories to be his only friends and hrrhhhh

rapid changes in identity is another thing and boy does he change! he's literally a stock broker and he can't be Kian when he's a stock broker because he'd just get fired. but I see this most in his personality in general. he's a very stereotypical Rockstar guy, especially at first glance, he never truly grew up normally and never made his own identity because he had no guidance. instead he saw things from TV and movies and books and magazines that he liked and he absorbed that into his personality and he's just. a fucked up frankenstein of things he's seen in fiction. this is also a headcanon but.

"Impulsive and risky behavior, such as gambling, reckless driving, unsafe sex, spending sprees, binge eating or drug abuse, or sabotaging success by suddenly quitting a good job or ending a positive relationship" is another one and dear God Kian babygirl you have this in LEAGUES. Reckless driving? Spending sprees? Drug abuse meaningless sex and alcohol all fit under this and he does all of them A LOT. ESPECIALLY THE RECKLESS DRIVING. DRIVIJG UNDER THE INFLUENCE. THIS ONE FITS SO WELL AND ALL THIS UNSAFE BEHAVIOR GIVES HIM THIS TEMPORARY EUPHORIA WHERE HE FEELS ALIVE AND HE CHASES THIS TO FILL HIS CHRONIC EMPTINESS ANF GIVE ME A MINUTE I NEED TO CRY.

kian is bright and flashy and reckless and fills an empty void in his heart through everything he can find and how can anyone even love him when he's perfectly crafted to BE loved by people but he's not a person. he is made to be likeable but its so fake and he knows it is and their words mean nothing because nothing is genuine and nothing will mean as much as Becky and rolan and Rand-

his relationship with Rand and rolan also interests Me too, it's less codependent than Becky but There's still Something Wrong there, and I think it's just because they were his only TRUE FRIENDS, he could be nerdy and play dnd and I like to think that around them was the only time he could be himself (besides you know. being bisexual,,,) and that's the only time he felt seen and genuine and understood and hh

okay that's my bpd Kian Ted talk thing bye

[ne0neclipse]

Hello, this is kind of a weird thing to ask but for Christmas i want to make my bestie one of those silly shirts but jrwi, but unfortunately i don’t know enough to make a good joke so i was wondering if i could ask some input

two of his favourite characters are William wisp and kian stone

my idea was a picture of William wisp that just said “mangled” (cause his favourite fnaf character is mangle, and well know,rip) but i’m not sure if that’s good.

You can ignore if you want! but thanks in advance!

awwww wait this is such a cute idea, i don’t really know what particular kind of shirt youre talking about but i can give you some silly facts about the characters

// MAJOR jrwi bitb spoilers , jrwi Prime defenders spoilers

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so for Kian, he’s a rockstar dumbass, think of like the dumb character in horror movies who continues to deny everything that’s happening. some notable stuff that happens is he literally explodes at the end of the series (he dies twice and get revived once). he makes out with his ex who pretty clearly is one of the monsters in disguise (causing him to get turned into one of the monsters himself). he becomes one of the fucked up bug creatures for a bit, attacking the other two pcs. uhhhh what else. he flirts with rands mom (and dad). im also thinking about this tweet where someone was like “who is this beautiful woman” when they saw a picture of the pcs and didn’t realize he was supposed to be a guy

now william wisp (so normal about this character). he’s super loser boy, basically his powers came from when he was walking in the woods, saw a wisp, accidentally fell off a cliff following it, and died. biggest reoccurring wiwi activity is accidentally dying. he punched a wall too hard and he died. he punched a villain too hard and he died. and then when he dies sometimes he’s like stuck in this incorporeal form where sometimes people can’t see him and he’s kinda just like a phasmaphobia ghost where you can pick up small objects or he’s visible but he can’t interact with anything. there’s like this whole moment where he’s stuck in the incorporeal form and he has to figure that out. also at the beginning of the series he would just like randomly go intangible and fall through the floor or get stuck under objects. he also canonically has a crush on vyncent (another pc). i love ghostknife. they almost kissed but then william chickened out and im still not over that. super loser boy pilled. emo loser boy. anyways he got really morally gray in the later parts of the series and turned into kind of an antihero (?) but like he’s not bad, i still love him for it. oh yeah then he dies again in the finale

this was such a ramble but hopefully it was moderately helpful LMAO. if you want any more info absolutely feel free to reach out im always happy to dump information. good luck with your project !!!!!

[jackiebrackettt]

kian for thr lore ask game :3

okay things I’m making up about kian stone that are so real to me:

after he bombed out in the music scene he stopped playing music for Ages bc it just made him super like. anxious I guess. it got to the point where hearing live music at all just stressed him out bc it reminded him of his failure. this is something he worked through in therapy

a couple of years before returning to Galloway he realised like. hey. he has a shitton of money. so he bought a bunch of music equipment and basically turned a room in his house into a studio. under the whole thought process of “I don’t Need a band I’ll just do it all myself” and he started relearning guitar + other basic instruments which is why he can still play pretty well in canon. he never managed to finish making an album though

ALSO transfem that guy!!! he/she pronouns put her on oestrogen give her tits etc etc. she’s a guy who’s also a chick.. he’s a bit of a girl sometimes.. you get it. in a world where he could be himself freely I like to imagine he’d go on oestrogen

[loveualottie]

Now that this poll has ended, i, ceej loveualottie, would like to share my true thoughts on getting stoned with each PC. I would like to begin with my credentials; I smoke weed and I am insane about jrwi. Ok, now that you are all aware that I am a reputable source, here are my thoughts:

Gillion Tidestrider, despite what canon would have you believe, would be horrific to smoke with. If he even manages to take a hit without wetting and destroying the roll, the paranoia would take over him and he would believe evil was everywhere. Either that or he would launch into an almost preachy tale about the prophecy and his life and accidentally trauma dump.

William wisp would be able to take it well but he is but a pathetic fool. He would lose all control of his powers and flicker between tangible and intangible. The smoke would send him rocketing in the air like it did before he could control it.

Peter sqloint would take one hit and be FUCKED. He’d be a crying wreck and green out. He would 100% throw up. However, I know that if he hung out with stoners for more than a week, he would become a frequent smoker.

Chip is my babygirl, my most special boy, HOWEVER I would despise smoking with him. He would brag about how well and how much he can smoke before immediately choking on a single hit. He would think getting stoned once makes him the coolest guy ever and would act all cocky. He would eventually pass the fuck out because he couldnt handle more than half a spliff.

Timothy Rand is the ONLY person that would actually be good to smoke with as the only real stoner here. My only fear is that he may start to get competitive and smoke me under the table. I’d accept losing a tolerance contest to Rand.

Thanatos would be exactly the same, but a little sillier and gigglier. He would tell endless stories about the god slayers, particularly Peter, and he would show you cool rocks. I can only dream about getting baked and painting rocks with Thanatos.

Jay Ferin would just open up and loosen up a little more. She’d be chatty and silly, finally relaxed for the first time in years. She’d maybe get paras but it’d be manageable. She’d come up with some really cool inventions to build when she’s sober and draw them up.

Vyncent Sol is honestly an enigma to me??? He’s a chronic overthinker so that could either result in the weed really helping him or he’d get really intensely paranoid. The only certainty is that he would be able to take it back really well; the Vyncent I know definitely does French inhale.

Rolan Deep would take it well, because he smoked a lot with Rand and Kian when they were younger, but he would be so unbearably anxious. He would be so freaked out that he brings down the vibe and gives everyone else his worries too. He’d obsess over how strong the smell is and the laws surrounding weed use.

Dakota Cole would be an absolute fucking nightmare. Because of his 0% body fat muscular build, he’d have such a high tolerance and I KNOW hes not bringing his own weed. After smoking everything I have, he’d immediately get munchies and eat everything I have.

Kian Stone is a frequent smoker so he’d take it and react well. He’d be chill and bring good vibes BUT, like every pretty white boy musician at a session, he would pull out his guitar. Also, Kian is the most likely to bring other drugs to a smoke session which would change the whole atmosphere.

Rumi/Elena would tell stories all night; true stories, fictional stories, stories about their past lives. I know they’d be able to do my favourite thing and have a very deep and abstract conversation about gender. I do trust that they’d take it well but their tolerance would be way lower than you’d expect.

Thank you for your time. If you disagree or have any other points I wanna hear them.

[wodnikszuwarek]

Happy Pride! Here is all canonically queer jrwi characters :))

Player Characters:

Gillion Tidestrider - Asexual

Jay Ferin - Bisexual

William Wisp - Bisexual

Rumi - Queer, unlabelled

Peter Sqloint - Queer (exact sexuality not confirmed)

In episode 11 of Apotheosis, Peter was revealed to have feelings for Rumi.

Kian Stone - Bisexual

Shilo Bathroy - Aromantic

In episode 7 of the Suckening, Bizly responded "he's not really capable of that" to Grizzly asking if Shilo has romantic feelings towards Edward Twilight after drinking his blood.

Br'aad Vengolor - Gay

Taxi - Pansexual

Kasper - Gay

Honorable mentions:

Vyncent Sol is implied to be romantically interested in William Wisp, who is canonically bisexual. It's unclear whether or not it's just a running joke, or genuine subtext. Additionally, in the same stream in which Condi confirmed Jay to be bisexual, he also mentioned Vyncent "doesn't have a canon sexuality".

Arthur Morgan developed some feelings for Deacon Keller after the blood exchange between them. However, since it was a result of vampire magic, it's hard to tell whether any genuine attraction was involved.

Velrisa Grayrock was implied to be bisexual by her player, Wheatie, in one of his streams, around a year after the Fated campaign was cut short.

Charlie once jokingly said Br'aad has a vagina when someone in the (now deleted) JRWI discord server compared the kazoo strapped to Br'aad's side to a tampon. This was most likely a joke, but it could imply Br'aad to be a trans man.

NPCs:

Lizzie - Lesbian

In episode 101 of Riptide, Lizzie has been confirmed to have dated a woman in the past. In addition to this, the beads in her hair in her official design are the colors of the lesbian flag.

Ezme - Genderfluid

Jasmine Drake - Trans man

(also there is canonically no transphobia in the Riptide world!)

Le frog - Queer (implied mlm)

Le Frog and Pencil Man being together has been a common joke between PD fans for a while, Bizly acknowledged it a few times as well and seemed to approve.

Honorable mentions:

Queen uses any pronouns.

The God of Charisma uses he/they pronouns.

Pencil Man is implied to have been romantically involved with Le Frog before the events of the Prime Defenders campaign.

Deacon Keller has developed some feelings for Arthur after the blood exchange between them. However, since it was a result of vampire magic, it's hard to tell whether any genuine attraction was involved.

Strangle MaCock was implied to reciprocate Kasper's feelings.

[captain-lonagan]

like. kian Thee canonically bisexual kian stone…might canonically have wanted to fuck rolan at one point? i’m not sure how much that “WELL MAYBE I DO” was like, the frustrations of the moment and just looking for a snappy comeback and how much is true but. truly something there. and rolan is like…

look if there’s a backwards and backwoods little town and everybody knows everybody, and everybody settles down with their happy hetero partner and has two and a half kids and a dog and only two people really leave. and one of those two people is Thee kian stone of leopard print robes and butterfly tattoos and canonically-fucked-a-guy-from-the-football-team? then who is the other guy? oh it’s the kid who had no significant romantic relationships and was only really close to his two bros (one of with is Thee kian stone) and has been itching to get out for years. yeah there’s no correlation don’t worry about it

like i’m not saying this even as a ship thing just as like. when you’re growing up in a very small town and you’re queer and maybe you recognize that within yourself or maybe you ignore it, but you know that whatever is within you you are the only person like that in this little town. except there’s this one person and maybe, just maybe you recognize it in them. and then you never finish the game of dungeons and dragons and you don’t see each other for 10 years.

[moonsofmars-writes]

From the darkness below (life can still rise)

Fandom: 七つの大罪 - 鈴木央 | Nanatsu no Taizai | The Seven Deadly Sins - Suzuki Nakaba (Anime & Manga) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Relationships: Diane/Fairy King Harlequin Characters: Fairy King Harlequin, Diane (Nanatsu no Taizai) Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff, One Shot, king feels guilty about lots of stuff, diane doesn't like that, king and diane dancing!, Dancing, Romantic Fluff, Zine, written for the SPECTRUM zine

Summary: King visits the ruins of the old Fairy King's Forest for the first time in years. The last time he went there he was a criminal and racked with guilt, and he couldn't do anything to save the forest. But this time, Diane is with him. And this changes everything.

Notes: here’s my piece for the Spectrum zine @spectrumnntzine​ ! I got the prompt “black” and wrote some Kiane. King suffer a little here but luckily, Diane is with him. 

Enjoy! 

When he lands, a cloud of ashes and dirt rises from the ground. King clenches his mouth as dust covers his shoes and pants with a thin dark layer, then starts to fall, slowly, to the earth. Around him, the ground is covered with black mud and rubble, all that’s left of what were branches and leaves. King shivers and forces himself to look around, letting his eyes wander over the desolation surrounding him. The burned forest hasn’t changed since last time he was here. Somehow, the trees still stand, raising their slender branches to the sky. The wood is dark and dry, and King feels like it would crumble into ashes under his fingers if he touched it. Below, the twisted roots sink into the arid ground. Dirt and cinder cover the earth, almost obscuring the spider-web of cracks stretched across it. In his mind, the resemblance is disturbingly fitting. After all, this wasteland is a place of death and misery - death of the vegetation that once ruled it, death of the wildlife that made its home here, death of the Fairies he failed to protect. The place is the rotting cadaver of his beloved forest. Nothing but a monument to his own failure.

“Harlequin?” Diane’s voice is as soft as the gentle touch of her hand on his cheek. He breathes in and looks down to meet her eyes, loosening his grip on her. He was holding her tighter than he realized.

“Sorry,” he mutters as he buries his face in her hair. It feels nice and smells like flowers and hills, and it gives him an excuse to look away from the grim landscape around them.

Her head shakes slightly as she answers, “I’m fine - are you alright?”

Continue on AO3

He swallows before glancing around again. The scrawny trees look back at him like a jury of the dead. There used to be colours in their bark - light and dark brown, red, grey - sometimes almost invisible under the green mass of moss. There used to be colour in the earth where their roots sink - the light green of the grass, the hundreds of shades of the flowers; and in the air too, where butterflies flaunted their vibrant wings and birds flew from branch to branch with a beat of their vivid feathers. Nothing is left. King imagines them melting together as the fire consumed the forest, leaving behind only this nauseating, burned black.

“Yes,” he answers slowly, looking away, “I’m fine, don’t worry.”

Diane raises an eyebrow but says nothing as he lets her go. She eyes her surroundings, a hint of uneasiness in her violet gaze. Not for the first time, King wonders why she insisted on coming with him. He told her it wasn't necessary, that the sight was hardly worth the trip, but he knows better than pushing her when she makes up her mind. She can be very stubborn, he thinks, a faint smile curving his lips.

Truth be told, he doesn’t know why he wanted to come here. The new Fairy King's Forest is home now. He knew nothing waited for him here. Yet the desire to return had been growing in the back of his mind since the war ended until it was impossible to ignore. Maybe, he admits to himself as some he takes hesitant steps between the trees, he hoped something had changed. When he last came, he was still a traitor, wanted by the kingdom for a crime he didn't commit. Even to him, it feels like ages ago. It was easy to convince himself that it was worth visiting if just to check whether some semblance of life had returned. But on the ground he sees no sprout, and on the trees, no leaves. The entire place looks frozen in time, framed in the aftermath of its destruction. King clenches his jaw as he approaches a tree. After a moment, he finds the courage to touch its trunk. It doesn’t crumble under his fingers as he feared, but he can feel no life within its burned shell. It’s only a matter of time before it rots, leaving no trace of its existence but ashes scattered on the ground.

���We should leave." His voice sounds stiff and low, but he is grateful it's not trembling.

“Oh? But we just got here!” He hears Diane’s approach behind him, her soles crushing tiny pieces of burned wood. “Didn’t you want to take a look around?”

He shakes his head. “It’s useless. I … I was hoping that I would have been able to fix this, now that my wings have grown,” he admits, finally turning towards her. "But this place is ... well, look at it. It’s dead. If anything survived, if only a single bud sprouted, I could help it grow, but I can't bring what is dead back to life.” If he could, he thinks bitterly, he wouldn’t have lost so much, would he?

With his foot, he traces a line in the dirt. It stains his shoe with sludge, black like the charred wood and the burned bones he knows he will find if he looks well enough between the roots. Some are so tiny and thin and can’t come but from small animals. Others are bigger and King doesn’t even want to think who they belonged to.

"It was foolish of me to come here - and to bring you with me,” he mutters. “I should know by now that I can't erase my mistakes."

Diane gasps and King closes his mouth, pressing his lips together, though he knows he can’t take his words back. She hates it when he speaks like that about himself. He glances at her and tries to find something to say as he waits for her to berate him. But she doesn’t speak. She stands silently instead, her head tilted and teeth sinking in her bottom lip; she stares at him with thoughtful eyes, then, suddenly, she moves. King's brow furrows as he watches her walk around, eyes fixed on the ground. Near a tree, she stops and taps her foot on the soil, once, twice, making the dust lift and float. King hesitates, unsure how to ask what she is doing, and his eyebrows rise suddenly when she crouches and reaches for the earth with her hand.

"Diane! You shouldn't touch -"

"Of course you can't erase your mistakes," she says without looking up, "that's not how it works."

King sucks in air and closes his mouth, baffled. That’s … not how she usually answers him, when the argument comes up. The change doesn’t quite upset him, though he feels his stomach clench. She loves him, but if she starts to see how much a failure he was -

"But you can't deny," she continues, pressing her palm against the dark soil, "that you’re trying. You are doing what you can to be a good king, and you are Harlequin. I, our friends, your people, everyone thinks so. Yes, you made mistakes in the past, but you’re trying to make sure nothing like this will happen again. This is the only thing you can do, now.” When she turns towards him, a little smile has formed on her lips. “And anyway, you’re wrong. You can help this forest.”

King frowns. “No, I can’t."

Maybe she can't feel the sense of death that filters through the cracks on the trees' bark, but she is not blind. Her bond with the earth must be telling her there is no hope for this place.

"You know I can't revive these plants," he says through his teeth. "There is no life left inside them, I ... checked, the first time I came here." Those moments are etched in stone in his mind - fear and disbelief taking his breath away, his mind refusing to process what he saw, to acknowledge it was real. He looked for his sister first, then for the other Fairies, and when he couldn't find anyone he had examined the plants, stumbling from one to the other, desperately looking for something alive. "Nothing survived the purgatory fire," he finishes, bitterly.

Diane hums softly before beckoning him with her hand. "Come here,” she orders.

King frowns as he walks towards her, curious to see what caught her attention; as soon as he is close enough, she grabs his hand and pulls him to crouch at her side.

“You have to stop blaming yourself for everything that happened here,” she whispers. “It’s distracting you.”

“How can I?” His eyes drop to the dirt that now stains their shoes and calves. "I was the king of this forest and I left it unprotected." He smiles bitterly, shaking his head, "I can't even bring myself to regret it. I couldn't abandon Helbram and - and leaving led me to you," he adds softly. "No, I could never regret my decision. But when I remembered, when I realized that I abandoned my people for centuries, I chose to stay away. I thought it was for the best to surrender myself to the humans and take the blame for what Helbram did. The truth is that it was an easy option.” He swallows, feeling like there is dust in his throat. “One that didn't require me to face my people after I failed to protect them, after I left them, after what I let happen to Helbram -"

“Harlequin.” Diane’s grip on his hands becomes tighter. “Look at me.” Reluctantly, he meets her gaze. Her eyes burn like violet flames. “You know you had to stay. You told me.”

"If I came back -"

"You would have had to fight a war against humans. Many people would have died - more than the ones who lost their lives in the fire. You would have brought death here,” she gestures at the forest around them, “to your people, and to the humans who would have fought you. You saved lives when you decided not to come back.”

“But I should have been here to fight that Demon!”

“You couldn’t know about the Demon.” She squeezes his hands tighter, so abruptly that he has to hold back a groan. “You did what you had to stop what was threatening your home. You acted like a king.”

He wants to object, to insist he should have done better, he should have found a way to keep everyone safe and give the humans the justice they demanded. It takes just a moment to realise that he can’t. Diane is right. It’s not the first time he’s thought about this and reached the same conclusions, but this time they feel more … real. Not like simple excuses he is trying to make up to absolve his crimes.

“I … know”, he whispers, “but my sister died because of my decision. If Ban hadn't revived her ...”

“But he did. You can’t keep tormenting yourself over what was in the past, Harlequin. Elaine is alive and happy, and so are the Fairies and the Fairy King’s Forest - and that’s what you should focus on. What it is, not what it isn’t anymore.” She smiles at him. “You have to accept that you can’t change the past. But you can protect the present.”

King stares at her, the grip on his chest finally loosened a little. The guilt is still there, heavy and bitter. He knows it will never go truly away. Maybe it's alright. Maybe with time, it won’t feel like a burden to drag him down, but a push to do better. So that there won’t be more burned forests and lost lives.

“Thank you,” he murmurs, releasing a long breath as he lifts their joined hands to kiss her knuckles.

Diane beams before reaching for him; the touch of her lips on his own is quick as a beating of wings. She is gone before King can even think to kiss her back, then, still holding his hand, she murmurs, "Will you look into the earth, now?"

"The ... earth?" He blinks, tilting his head, cheeks still flushing for the kiss. "The - the roots have burned as well. I can't feel them, Diane. They’re dead too."

She shakes her head. "No, I mean - under here," she says, pressing his hand against the ground with her own. "You have to look deeper. Please, just," she adds when he looks at her with uncertainty, "just try."

Under the dust, the ground is hard and coarse and feels nothing like the soft meadow that once covered it all. King hesitates, but when he glances at Diane she nods encouragingly, a spark of excitement in her eyes. So, he closes his eyes and lets his magic flow. When he uses Disaster, he can feel them clearly - the plants, their connection with each other and the ground, whether they are going to survive or if they need to be taken down to allow other plants to grow. When he does it in the Fairy King’s Forest, the wood awakens with whispers and lights everywhere around him, the entire forest pulsing with life.

But here, King feels nothing. The world around him is silent and dark as a starless sky. Nothing seems to answer his call. Clenching his jaw, he keeps looking; Diane wouldn't be making him do it without a reason. She felt something, and now he just has to look long enough to -

It's there. His eyes snap open, but his mind stays focused on the tiny spark of life hidden in the depths of the earth. It’s a seed, King realises, and it’s not the only one. There are others around it, here under him, but also in the surroundings, under every scrawny tree. He looks up, eyes wide, and Diane grins at him.

"You saw them! I think the earth preserved them from the fire. There is still life in this forest.”

“But it's too deep," King breathes, "they are still alive, but they won't reach the surface and grow if we leave them there."

“Then we won’t. We are going to get them out.” Suddenly, Diane is holding both of his hands, looking at him with determination. "Dance with me."

It takes only a moment to understand what exactly she means. He can make the seeds into buds and trees, but with feet and feet of ground separating them from the soil, it will be easier if the earth opens for them.

"Of course," he says as they stand up together. Sliding one of her hands from his, she starts.

This is not by any means the first time they’ve danced together, nor the first time they have combined their powers like this. Yet King feels clumsy and stumbles on his feet as he follows Diane's smooth movements. She doesn't say anything and continues to dance, adapting her movements to his and giving him time to pick up the pace. His throat feels dry, his chest tight - he is nervous, more than any other time, maybe because he needs to make this right, to give this place another chance to live after he failed his duty to protect it.

He breathes in, out, trying to calm the pulse of his heart, and stops thinking about his next step, his focus shifting to the seeds. They are there, tiny and weak, and he keeps looking for them, finding more and more. His magic gently envelops them and then pours inside them, growing them slowly. Around them, the earth opens, like lungs too long contracted and finally given the chance to breathe. King is only partly aware of the way the ground trembles under his feet, but he can feel Diane's magic radiating from it as she delicately pulls the seeds outwards using her control over the earth. They are still dancing, their bodies finally moving in harmony, and when Diane pirouettes in his arms their hands touch oh so slightly - and under them, the seeds keep growing and rising until they are emerging from the ground like tiny green stars on the dark soil. King doesn't stop though, not yet, nourishing them with his magic, pushing them further - just a little more, till they will be strong enough.

And then they stop. King gasps for air, his eyes snapping open; Diane's face is inches from his, her body in his arms with their hands still connected. Her cheeks are flushed and her eyes feverish, but she is grinning widely as she whispers, "We did it."

She is right. All around them, among the dead trees, saplings raise their thin branches to the sky and tiny bushes cover their roots. They are not many, yet, but it's a start. A laugh escapes his lips and he takes Diane's face into his hands before kissing her, again and again; he can feel her laugh too against his lips.

Before they leave, Diane carefully shapes the earth so that the wood will have enough water to grow while King finally lets the old trees decompose. They turn into dust under his power almost gratefully, as they were waiting for it. Part of him can’t help but mourn them, as he mourns the times he used to fly between their branches with his sister - and Helbram and Oslo and all the friends he lost. He will hold the memories dear in his heart, but finally, he thinks as the last tree crumbles into ashes, he can let this place go.

He turns back only once as he flies away with Diane in his arms. The wood looks so young, so different from the forest where he grew up, but that’s fine. It will grow into something new - something that will survive, he promises to himself. Even the earth looks healthier and softly embraces and supports the new trees, though its pitch-black colour remains. But ... maybe it’s the green of the new leaves, maybe it’s the fact that his heart is much lighter than when they arrived, but as he looks at it, King feels for the first time like the darkness of the dirt doesn’t mean death. It means life.