#he tore the blinding universe in half!!! that is godlike power!!!

[madbard]

Imagine being so determined to save the world and end death itself that you tear the conceptual foundation of the universe in two and try to convince one of its bloody, broken halves to kill the other in a haunting construct of your own creation.

And instead they force you to narrate as they flirt and make out.

[scripted-dalliances]

Rest In Peace: Chapter Twenty

Title: Rest In Peace

Chapter: 20

Summary: A part of Faithless Fairy Tale, a more in depth look at how they brought Laura back to life. Appearance of old faces, creation of new ones and if you’re looking for canon, it left a long, long time ago. If you squint you might be able to see some pieces from the book.

“Omnia vincit Amor: et nos cedamus Amori.”  

Love conquers all: and may we cede to Love. -Vergilius

+

What Laura doesn't know, is that her scream was forever. That it tore a hole in the fabric of the after world, into the very flesh of the universe and every layer it could ever hold.

Only to have it push right back and pull.

It wrenched at where she held everything she was, and felt it slip out of her all the same. She felt alive and dead, empty and full to bursting, godlike and broken. The story of Laura McCabe, of Laura Moon unraveled like a scroll, miles long and full of damning black ink. All her truths, all her lies. 

She felt it all be pulled out and exposed, felt the universe reach in and take.

It wanted to make her hollow, so it could pour something better in.

Her story, her spirit and heart fought for dominance, against the might of the universe. Felt it's weight and teeth on her throat, demanding she accept this gift.

Of life restored, of a sacrifice so willingly given.

After all, it was hungry too for what it had been offered and promised in return.

It wanted to taste this new, raw energy. This terrible and glorious heart. To watch it stretch out into this new life and see what came of it.The universe wanted to consume her and spit her back out. Wind her up and set her loose. A mystical and powerful new toy, to play with for eternity.

It wanted to do this on the bones of something old, something red and gold. Something once forgotten. Something given.

This is what it means to be a god, to give yourself up, to build yourself anew, and that is why you must do it alone. Why no one can do it for you. Only you can climb this tree, this ladder, this pain and learn from it.

You have to burn, drown and split yourself open. You have to believe, and it is difficult thing to do all these things at once, blind and alone, and come out stronger.

You have to have a stubborn heart.

-one made to house all those difficult secrets of the world, filled with more than just blood and love; but hate and suffering too. 

The best stories, myths and legends always do.

+

Except...

Except Laura McCabe doesn't want to be a god.

She doesn’t want the powers, doesn’t want eternity or shared weight of the world. To her, there is nothing worth knowing if she can’t decide what is being told.

In fact. There's a lot of things she doesn't want. 

She doesn't want forever and a day, if it means ever feeling as alone as she did, trapped under a tarp with bug spray in her mouth.

She doesn't want to share her heart with the universe. She doesn't want to give it the satisfaction of knowing all of her, and letting her life fall in the same predictable pattern it had when she was just a lonely girl, with a hole inside her.

She fucking hates that story.

Just as she didn't want darkness and a grave, she decides bluntly where the universe can shove it's so called gifts. She didn't want them.

She didn't even want this stupid fucking coin.

But she could share it.

+

Ibis has bared witness to a great many of things. 

He has seen the end and start of many stories, even ones likes this. Where a man and a woman take on death, gods and try to earn their forever. Obviously, sadly, most of those stories do not end well.

 Death is never simple, and rarely likes giving up it's secrets. Let alone it's ghosts. It does not play the role of kindness, if it can.

He expects this story to be like the others, and wrap it's self up. Laura will have her life, paid by Sweeney and become a new god, restoring the balance left behind in her death and his.One of luck most likely, maybe one of justice for fallen women.

His fingers twitch to write it down, it's a rare thing to not know for sure.

“We will help her.” Nephthys promises to no one, and he tilts his head to her catch her cutting expression of fear. He looks back at Laura and Sweeney, still knelt before the scales.

Mad Sweeney is rested against her, hand on her chest where he shoved the relic of Isis in, an offering of the strongest spark, of life sacrificed. Perhaps something had gone wrong? Perhaps Laura had lost too much to want to return. Maybe her heart as weak as any other mortal's against the unknown.

“Right, sister?” Nephthys questions again.

Isis, the All-mother; who knows secret names and all the power that comes with knowing, simply says, “Keep watching.”

Ibis turns his attention back to Laura and Sweeney and shockingly finds himself looking at something new.

A mortal ripping apart her own ticket to godhood.

-but there Laura goes, breaking tradition and reason, and any laws they've might have had. By splitting herself open during her own rebirth.

With mortal grip and mortal pain she digs within her spiritual self, pulls out the blood drenched coin. The piece that started this, that gave her justice, strength and a chance at forever.

He watches in mute awe as she snaps it in half.

“Who the fuck said your story was over?” Laura tells the dead man in her lap, who looks peacefully at rest and that seems to piss her off further. “We are not done. I am not done with you.”

Laura takes one half of the coin and shoves it in between Mad Sweeney's pale lips. So deep and violently, that her knuckles are cut bloody by his teeth. She repeats the process with her own mouth. Swallowing the half of the coin remaining in one large gulp.

Together they radiate a slow glow, a shimmer until it gets so bright even Ibis has to tilt his gaze away. They glow like new born starts until finally the leprechaun chokes back to life. In her arms, the two are reborn together, the magic between is new, wonderful and frightening to behold.

Like two suns shining at once.

“Oh...” Ibris says in wonder.

+

Isis smiles, looking over the pair. Glad to see her little ruse worked. All Laura needed was a push, to choose what she really wanted and her heart did the rest. A strong enough heart, with enough pain and luck to fuel it could do a lot of impossible things.

A pair of cool fingers slide to hold her's, and she turns to look up at the handsome face of her husband. He kisses her cheeks, and she feels his love renew her.

That's how her own story had developed once upon a time. Osiris's end was suppose to be just that. Set made sure of it twice, but Isis had traveled the roads, rivers and every hill for his pieces because she believed she could bring him back. When her loss had driven her mad, when failure after failure meant all that longer without him, she had continued undaunted.

Not out of wifely duty, not because she was told to or because it was written but because she refused to lose him. He was her's, and nothing had the right to take him. Not even death.

After all in her heart, there was no Isis without Osiris and vice versa.

So she had gone against the universe, when she put him back together like a puzzle, with nothing but thread and her sister's helping hands.When she opened his mouth and shared her breath with him.

Her touch, her heart, her everything.

But before all that. Before she was ever called a god; she was a woman who had held the shreds of her other half in her hands and roared at the hole developing inside her.

That had always been her beginning, as much as her end. As much as his.

A forever. 

It had always been a story of blood, mutilated corpses and loss. With her own kin telling her no, while the world hid him and the universe laughed at her for daring to try this feat alone.

To this day, she smiles with satisfaction.

For the chance. For having him in her own complicated way because she was uncompromising as the Nile it's self.

For never once apologizing for it.

-because that's the best story of all, when a heart tells death no.

And wins.

+

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