#hypogeum.... scream. scream. scream. scream

[catominor]

malta and gozo neolithic sites save me... save me malta and gozo neolithic sites....

[softnoblade]

Can you hear the drumming?

ch 1 ♔ check out the full thing on ao3

Watson had, of course, known exactly what he was getting into with this fight. He’d known it would be likely he’d lose, that other people with pvp-oriented skills would be joining the Games. He hadn’t, however, quite realised that he’d be knocked out in the first round by an alcoholic who could barely stand straight, let alone fight properly. Which is what led him to here — three pints of beer deep, sitting at a table in the hypogeum with the roars of Zombified Hoglins and the echo of a half-screamed argument ringing in his ears. His wings ruffle with every sound, puffing up under his coat. He struggles to keep them down, even as each sound grates, harsh and near-constant.

A chair scrapes next to him, pulling him out of his thoughts as another contestant takes a seat, reaching onto the table for a pint. Whoever's come to sit with him is quiet after that, even as they reach across the table to take a drink. Watson can appreciate that, appreciate the silent camaraderie as he sits, dwelling in his loss and his drink.

[gwen-ever]

At what cost

A/N: I was just sad and yeah, again some angst and sadness.I will write something happy one day I swear and the idea of Kili and Fili die but Thorin survive just came into my mind and thats it. Always remeber that Eng its not my main language so i am sorry again. It was made for spooky writing event hosted by @dumbassunderthemountain​   but i have never finished it :/ This was Cemetary.        

Summary: Dìs comes back to Erebor after months of travelling. Thorin survived, but her children didn’t, Thorin built a new life with you in his home, but what was the cost he had to pay, what was the cost hi sister had to pay

Warnings: sad, very sad, major character death, angst, sad , just sad, and sad.

Words: 4969

Pairing: none, a bit of Thorin-Y/N

Every step he took became heavier and heavier, every step he took was a test of courage that he hadn't yet been able to face even once, every thought he made was yet another punch on the sternum that he could barely cash in on himself and his choices.

His dragging himself down there was perhaps the worst choice he had ever made, surely one of the most difficult and painful: did he really think he could escape from it, that he had the right to start over? When he had tried, everything had fallen again, when he had deluded himself that he could escape from what he had done, from his faults and remorse, he had been forced to live them all over again, but this time he was ready, as he was ready to see their faces again.

He could be a king, he could remain lucid in front of everyone, but when darkness arrived and silence fell, while he was sleeping or not, his weakest part reappeared tearing him apart from the inside.

A silent scream that he had never been able to emit, gritting his teeth and going on, not even wanting to try to wash the blood that stained on his hands; but finally he had tried to lie down in that reassurance that that little body of a yours was able to give him: he had laid on you, looking for that damn heat, that happiness that you could give him even only smiling to him, make it disappear when you led naked into his arms sleeping , but what he was feeling now, you could not take it away from him, only the dead were able to.

Everything had a cost and he had paid them all, or others had always paid for him: to die for someone, to possess someone's soul to the point of pushing them to die.

He would have been a hypocrite to say that he would not have done it too: he would have died for you, he would have died for Dwalin, he would have died for Dìs, he would have died and he would have killed himself to avoid being forced to drag himself into the crypts, to see them again, to be him lying on those icy stones, covered by dark iron that would have given him only the semblance of what they had been.

Kili, Fili.

The orange sunset passed through the small cracks had become almost overwhelming, creating a distressing semi-shade, the silence that reigned in the roots of the mountain was not interrupted by anything, a sacred and binding mourning that everyone had to hear as soon as they set foot in those rooms. The candle lights scattered at the side of each staircase were weak, small lights that shared the descent into the crypt carved in the rock.

The shuffling of the cloak he wore accompanied his breaths, the hands behind his back tried to give him a minimum of support, the crown that weighed more and more on his head made him bend forward, made him observe all the lights until the end of the room. The scent of fragrant herbs began to rise, aggravated by the pungent cold that anyone would meet as soon as they were channelled into the underground hypogeum.

It was as he remembered it, as he had seen it the last time: the staircase rolled up on the whole side of the room, descending into a gloomy amphitheatre where anyone could observe and honour the two tombs on the open space suspended in the void. Two warriors carved in stone silently watched over their bodies now rendered black by the black stale iron with which they had been covered.

Built by the fathers of the mountain for the death of an ancient king or for Durin, it had never been used, no one had the right to lie there, yet it was he himself who demanded it, convinced that a prominent position in death would help him to face them as they had gone, as warriors, but having honoured them as he knew best had not erased the pain.

Their bodies became sharper and sharper every step he made as well as their faces. He thought he had forgotten them, but in his heart he knew it would have never happen, he didn't forget anything, never.

He was still unable to say goodbye to them too: he had never done so, not even in his dreams, he saw them, he cried and screamed, but he had never said goodbye to them.

For what was a moment he seemed to see three graves, an alternative that would have been real, very real: if he hadn't survived he would lie among them, with Orcrist on his chest. He would have accompanied them as when they were children holding their hands with Kili who would have asked him if they could stay, and he would have answered him that it wouldn't have been possible.

Instead those two scoundrels had managed to stay there with all of them.

In fact, both of them had stayed, they had never left, they had haunted his thoughts, the mountain itself was haunted by them, that same crypt was always there.

In the middle of them, however, there was not a dark sarcophagus covered with ancient runes, there was someone else he had to imagine he would find there. Seeing her even just from behind was just another hammering on the sternum, but he knew he had to meet her and there, all four of them together again, was perhaps the only way he would be able to let himself go, to look her in the face and at least face her.

The long black hair were resting on one shoulder, the blue and yellow dress, highlighted by the blue stones of Durin's lineage fell into her hair supported by light golden chains. She had both of her hands placed at the foot of the tombs supporting herself on them while she moved her bend head slowly moved from Fili to Kili.

He knew she heard him coming, probably already since he had gone down the first steps, but she had not said a single word, nor had she moved her head towards him.

Nor did he demand it.

Thorin raised his back and walked down the last few steps without saying a word barely managing to turn his head towards the two stone slabs in the centre of the platform, lit by a series of candles surrounding their bodies that he had been forced to lay there himself and closing their eyes with his hand.

«I didn't think you would ever come.» Dìs' voice resounded firm but so delicate that he wondered if she was talking to him.

He blocked the step by staying behind her, even talking or confirming his presence made him feel unworthy. «I have never gone down the upper stairs.»

He could not yet look her in the face, she would not let him, he knew it all too well, but he could imagine her expression: her thick black eyebrows arched upwards, her eyes lighter than his, like their mother ones, covered with tears that she would never shed in his presence.

He heard her puffing, a giggle full of bitter pain without an ounce of joy. «I go down to her every day, before retiring to my halls.»

She showed him her profile, low, while her hand, tattooed with small circles on her fingers, went to detach Fili's tomb leaving a caress on the cold stone.

«I remembered them different, you know?» She barely whispered, looking at Kili's tomb, studying him and passing her hand from the side of the rock to above his chest. «He had shorter hair, Fili on the other hand, in a year he seems to have gotten older by a dozen. Dwalin told me that he behaved even as if he was older than a dozen, he told me that he took care of his brother, Kili always needed it". She laughed again, ironically, as if they could hear her and throw those words at her, as if she was ready to hear them deny every sentence: she couldn't stand it, not at that moment, not like that.

He remained silent not wanting to add anything, but he stepped forward by putting his foot on the first step forward and there he was finally able to see them both and a tremor in his chest led him to close his eyes.

Damn it.

He felt his sister's blue eye lightening from Kili's cold, petrified face on the side, looking at him on the bias and only increasing in him the shame and guilt, but that he would never let it show, she knew it, he couldn't do it, he just hoped that she would remember it. But his nature would have never justify such a pain, he hoped she knew that too.

Thorin looked up and met her conscious and cold eyes: her lip barely trembled, betraying the cold and detached behaviour that had never belonged to her, not to her sister. And seeing her like that hurt more than not seeing her at all, seeing her pretending to show herself strong, seeing her straight and stiff in front of him, imitating him, as if he were a person to imitate.

«Tell me just one thing...» She began with a hard voice, but no matter how hard she tried, she tilted. «Was it worth it?»

«What do you want me to answer?»

«I want you to tell me the truth nothing else, tell me if their lives to get Erebor back were a fair trade.» She spit as the grip in Kili's iron hand that became stronger: slowly she turned her head facing him.

He approached the graves by climbing the last step that separated him from them, standing in the middle , he could see both of their faces after too long; a stabbing pain crossed his chest from side to side so devastating compared to what he dreamed every night that those moments seemed to him only joyful dreams compared to the pain he felt in that moment.

Shivering, he put his hand on the cold slab, resting it on top of it, barely touching it since he was so afraid of it.  The faces in the snow covered with blood were transformed into two black masks that did not give them justice at all, the swords held to the chest and the royal cloths of the princes regent under them.

Nothing in that room represented what they had been in life and what they would be in death.

His eyes wandered lightly over the body of Fili, over the hand clutched to his chest holding the sword, over the chain mail, without ever dwelling on any detail except the writing surrounding the entire block.

"Here lies Fili, son of Vili, heir of Thorin Scudodiquercia, prince of Durin, saviour of Erebor and his people.»

His hand on the stone tightened with force in a rigid sting as he red several times at those letters shining from the candlelight.

"No." He murmured uncontrolled: he was dishonoured by his own admissions, but he knew, that if before he left he would have knew the price to pay, he would never left the Ered Luins, not even for all the glory of the seven Kingdoms, not even for all the gold hidden under Arda.

Dìs then did something that left him even more than stone, gluing him to the floor, making him unable even to breathe: she smiled, trembling but smiled at him, she was proud, proud of his response.

How could she?

His sister first looked towards his hand on Fili's grave and then to the crown he wore on his head and that weighed him down like a boulder: all his responsibilities were locked in that object on his head and all his decisions were linked to it and it always had to be so.

«Our father would not have done it, not even our grandfather, this at least shows me that you remained the king you were born to be». SHe affirmed his decision.

Wrong, he was not.

Shame made him lower his head and he had to fight with all his strength, to not pull the crown out of his hair and throw it away, throwing it into the abyss under him.

He shook his head quickly denying her to continue talking or to add anything else that would make those thoughts of his real and he raised his free hand to make her understand even more the concept that she should not interrupt him and how difficult that admission was for him.

«I was not.» He admitted, leaving a painful breath coming out of his mouth. «I was not the king I should have been. In the time of need I was no longer able to be it.» He murmured confessing out loud, no matter how much it hurt, he had been no less king than he had become and every day he felt he had to make amends for what had happened.

He looked down towards his hand still pulled on the tombstone of Fili, not realizing then that Dìs had left his hand to Kili next to him and that she had approached him a few steps closer; before he could realize it she had approached his hand next to his and trembling put hers on top of his, squeezing his palm on the cold green marble.

«Do you remember what our father and grandfather used to say to you when I got into trouble and you tried to get me out of it by taking the blame? Or when Frerin came back so drunk from banquets with Dàin that you had to drag him to his room before he started a fight with the wrong dwarf or at worst you took the punches for him?" She asked him with a veil of melancholy.

He raised and lowered his head nodding and finally found the strength to look up.

«An heir of Durin is first a king and then a dwarf, act accordingly.» He repeated it like a nursery rhyme.

Dìs nodded smiling sadly with the eyes that were lost in her memories.

«They reproached it to you as if it was a lesson you had to learn but you had already learned it and they didn't even realize it».

"I was just doing what I needed to do so that you wouldn't get into more trouble than you would have been."

Again on Dìs' lips appeared that sad smile and shook in dissent, approaching her free hand towards his cheek and with the tip of his index finger moved a tuft of hair away from his forehead: a gesture that she had not stopped doing even with her children.

«No brother, you did it because you took responsibility for us, you protected us even when we were wrong, you always protected all of us because you were always a good king.»

Thorin was shocked and even more devastated  from that statement.

He  hadn't come there to hear that he was a good king, he wasn't, he hadn't protected them, he hadn't been able to. Then why was Dìs acting as if he was?

He stopped her hand with his claw before she could bring the wavy tuft behind his shoulder looking at her questioning, with his chest beginning to throb shaken by heavy breathing.

«Why are you saying this?»

His sister jerked slightly, but remained silent: she only glanced at his hand, which firmly held her wrist and without adding anything, pulled it away from him and then moved her gaze towards the crown on his head again: she studied it as she had done before, her eyes suddenly became shiny and her hand began to shake, forcing her to take it off and carry it towards her lap.

Dìs glanced behind her, towards the tomb of Fili, and a deep sigh came out of her lips full of pain, as if her sternum had been pierced; she closed her eyes overwhelmingly to tears and silence fell.

There were things that Thorin had been denied, words that she did not want to reveal to him, moments that she was reliving in her head that were making her tremble from head to toe and that made her raise and lower her belly in a frenetic way, not even clamoured by her hands.

Long painful minutes passed, in which Thorin waited, in a religious silence in which the only noise were the thoughts of Dìs that seemed to be reflected around the whole room: a couple of candles in fact blew out on themselves and the cold from the bottom of the crypt became perceptible even under the layers of heavy clothes.

A single tear crossed her cheek, moving her gaze from him to Kili's black metal face behind her and then back to Fili's face. A long trembling breath followed and then she turned around and walked between the two tombs giving him her back.

Dìs shoulders rose and lowered in a tremor. "I have often wondered in these weeks how it would have been like if they had succeeded you as your heirs». At first, she started standing still, continuing to give him her back but then she turned around: she was crying silently, detaching his tone of voice from what he was feeling.

«You knew Kili, he would start giving orders in all directions and he would surely start saying that the crown was thought or that the throne was uncomfortable for him and then he would fall asleep on it». Her voice trembled moving towards Kili's tomb smiling among the tears that crept on her chest adorned with golden necklaces. She placed a hand on his forehead without stopping crying to look at the effigy underneath her.  «Fili instead was different from him.  B-before you all left, when you left for Dunland, he had even started talking like you. F-few days before you left for the Shire, he woke me in the middle of the night, he stood beside me awake and asked me if you had ever been proud of him, if he would have been able to be like you, a king like you.» A hiccup interrupted Dìs words and her gaze fixed on Fili's face closing her eyes in an instant while she was fighting not to let out those feelings that were killing her.

That pain, that torment, and that only increased the sense of guilt that oppressed Thorin and his chest making him tremble.

«Why didn't you tell me about it then?» He whispered.

"Because he asked me not to, and not to tell his brother either, the reason is now much clearer to me...if...if..." A hiccup blocked her already trembling words making her mouth tighten in a straight line: Thorin felt his ears ring, already knowing what would follow and did not want to hear it.

«They loved you like a father Thorin, dying for you was the only death they would accept or the only death they would hope for, they died for you because they loved you.»

He returned to everything, every single damn moment, every single cursed word that haunted his head managed to resound in his head and disintegrated his every sense of calm: that phrase had the effect of making him tremble, of anger, of pain, of anguish by now he didn't know it anymore. That phrase only caused him disgust.

He heard it every night, he saw them both dead in his arms and that sentence echoed in his head like a torture, a warning of what would happen, a note of what would happen to those who loved him, to those who trusted him, to those who gave themselves to him, to the people he cared for and who would end up like that, leaving behind a pain that he had endured too many times.

He detached his trembling hand from the tombstone of Fili and moved towards Dìs, a blind rage took control of himself, shortening in great steps the distance that only served as a wall to try to filter the pain of both.

"Do you want me to tell you what I see every time I close my eyes sister?" He emphasized harshly: all his barriers tried to stay up unnecessarily. "Every time they tell me that they have died for me, for this venture, do you think it consoles me? Do you think it covers me with honour? No, it makes everything even more real and makes the guilt unmanageable, because it's as if the blade that pierced them was still in my hands!» Dìs didn't say a word only grained her eyes.«I see them children, I see them growing among the snow and the fir trees outside the doors of Nogrod, and then there is the darkness and the scenes of the last time I looked at them before I saw them disappear before my eyes...» The words were low a growl of pain that was replaced by a painful sigh, by an anger that had gone down leaving behind only the remains of himself and making his impenetrable wall collapse.

He advanced towards, his head down, the side of his eyes that began to shake. «Despise me, I beg you.» He begged.

At that supplication Dìs looked at him disconsolate, shaking his head and lowering it towards the surrendered floor, knowing that it should have been like that, they both knew: she should have hated him, he had taken them away from her arms, he had convinced them, and they had followed him and she had not been able to stop them, but time changed many things, the lack of all the people she loved had changed too many things.

«Hating you won't give them back to me, it would only destroy the last family I have left.» Thorin muttered as he watched her raise her head again, her mouth wide open trying to get air trying to stay still. «And it's you... they're not there anymore, you're the only one left.» She murmured and quickly took a hand over her mouth to suffocate the sobs by squeezing her eyes to stop the tears.

At that point Thorin couldn't take it anymore, all the pain, all the guilt, everything he had felt in all those months bent him in front of what his sister to his only family left to his past that he would never let go, his little sister. He advanced towards her, wanting to console her. Wanting to embrace her. He took her close, one step away: he tried to wrap her in his strong arms but Dìs came back plotting shaking his head.

Thorin suddenly froze with his eyes closed, observing the pain in his chest, which never ended, destroying him and reducing him to a spectator unaware of his feelings: something warm dripped down his cheeks.

He brought his hands to his eyes, recognizing many tears that came out, and that he could not stop, his hand trembled at that sight and that feeling. He looked up at his sister's upset face and without either of them saying anything, they ran towards each other and held each other.

Dìs let himself go to a desperate cry shaken by the tremors and the sobbing higher and higher and higher, holding him tighter and tighter, sinking his head into her shoulder; instead he remained motionless and unable to make a noise: already too much that silent tears came down from his cheeks. He wrapped his hips around her with one arm, while the other wrapped it behind her shoulders keeping attached to him.

"Give them back to me, please, give them back to me." He heard her pleading in the fabric of his crush crying desperately, but to that pleading he did not answer: he just held her tighter to himself, staring at the emptiness in front of him. «Give my babies back to me, make the-them return to me, please, please, please.» She begged and hi tears only increased by number as his heart broke again bleeding. «Please I want them with me please, p-please..please… please…I beg of you.»

The heartbeat he could no longer feel it, there was only an emptiness that had swallowed them both, a pain that instead of separating them had united them in a way they would never have expected.

Those few tears he managed to shed, counted even in the fingers of one hand, were nothing compared to those of hi sister  in his arms, of the princess in his arms who kept sobbing uninterruptedly, pouring over him all that she had managed to keep inside for months, not being able to tell anyone about it, not being able to show it to anyone.

Thorin closed his eyes cradling her and resting his chin on her forehead closing his eyes, while the salty drops on his cheeks became a faint memory and time passed inexorably on them; the King under the Mountain discounted every second of it: he let Dìs take his revenge on him, clinging to his cloak and drowning in his arms and pain.

He could not say how long they remained like that, but finally the tears stopped and Thorin found himself clutching a body that seemed to have emptied of all life: Dìs was heavy and cold, her fingers could barely hold him now.

Deep breaths shook her and she turned around in her arms, turning her face, first pressed against her shoulder towards the dark stone of Fili's tomb and a last and defined hiccup decreed the end of that moment.

To his surprise Dìs began to speak again, the tone of voice devoid of any pain, like a story told to children in bed, maternal, affable.

«When they died, even when Vili died, no crow had to tell me, no messenger had to tell me, I felt only a huge emptiness, a huge hole as if someone had ripped my heart from my chest throwing it to beasts, the ox swallowed me and corroded me leaving behind only a shadow of what could be, an infinite nothing in which there was only a faint regret of what would no longer happen, the lack of a piece that would no longer be welded». Thorin said nothing except that he placed his chin on the top of his head and held it steady where it rested on his chest carefully following every painful word. «I wanted to die, so I stayed awake waiting, but nothing happened. I saw them, all the time around the house, their ghosts haunted me». She broke off by slightly increasing the grip on his shirt. «If I could, I would go back, even for a moment, just to embrace them one last time, just for a moment, I would.»

«You would still suffer.» Thorin was harsh with that statement, too direct, those words had hit him too deeply to make him act in a less aggressive way, it all seemed so absurd to him, to be able to go back, to want to know and love so much while knowing what would happen, was a foolish wrong choice. How could she have wanted such a thing when all he wanted was to forget?

However, Dìs didn't bother: she simply shook her head on his shoulder and kept staring next to her the eyes lost in the void, a veiled smile towards some figures that Thorin couldn't see but that seemed so real to her, too real, because they were so, they were real, to Dìs hey were real.

«No, I would love them even more than before.» She said and in one moment the three figures smiled to her before disappearing, and left, her, there, alone, again.

 «We love you too a-mad.»

«I love you, my love, my princess, I always did, I always will, we will wait, I promise we will.»

[shining-red-diamond]

Ch. 15: Underneath the Underneath

Cast of Characters//Ch. 1//Ch. 2//Ch. 3//Ch. 4//Ch. 5//Ch. 6//Ch. 7//Ch. 8//Ch. 9//Ch. 10//Ch. 11//Ch. 12//Ch. 13//Ch. 14//Ch. 15//Ch. 16//Ch. 17//Ch. 18//Ch. 19//Ch. 20//Ch. 21//Ch. 22//Ch. 23//Ch. 24//Ch. 25//Ch. 26//Ch. 27//Ch. 28 (coming soon)

Words: 1635

Pairing: OT8 x OCs

Rating: PG-13

Warnings: mentions of skeletons, violence, and injury

A/N: Italics means they’re speaking Korean

"Of course," Hongjoong realized.

"The Roman god Mercury," said Celestia. "The messenger and god of travelers. He's the god of other things, but mainly the first two."

"So he's like Hermes," Dahae said.

"Yes, but the Romans basically copied Greece when it came to mythology," Celestia joked.

"What does the symbol have to do with Mercury?" San asked.

Somehow, Celestia was annoyed by her husband's comment, and shot him a look. "The most notable symbols for Mercury are the shoes with wings," she snapped, "or, in this current situation, a winged staff. It's the winged staff symbols we have to follow."

San just nodded. He knew his sweet wife wouldn't normally act like this. They had known each other since they were children, and San knew that Celestia was slow to anger. She has always been a sweetheart and would never hurt a fly.

Hormones, he thought.

"Looks like we're going left," the captain said after a moment of awkward silence. "We follow Mercury."

Like a mother goose with her little ducklings, Hongjoong led his team down the dark tunnel, this time the ground a little harder to walk on, and the path began to twist and turn. San worried about his wife falling, so he remained close behind her despite her just having snapped at him. They came across three or four more divided passageways, one of them splitting into six paths at one point; but the crew kept going down paths marked by the staff symbol.

After walking down some steps, a noise echoed off the walls, causing them to stop in their tracks. Voices.

"There must be tours going on above us," Dahae guessed.

San checked his map again and pinpointed where they were. "We're very close."

"You think they can hear us?" Mingi asked as everyone continued walking.

"Not if we keep our voices down," Hongjoong said.

"Plus, the Hypogeum is closed off to the general public," Celestia added. "They can only look at it from a bridge over it."

"And the map leads us right beneath the Hypogeum."

"Underneath the underneath."

"What's that?" Grace-Anne pointed out something.

Up ahead was another fork in the catacombs, but this time, a faint pale glow could be seen down one of them. Dahae checked the wall over it to make sure there was a symbol engraved, and sure enough they were to follow the light. One by one they turned off their flashlights and relied on the light to guide them.

The smell was now stronger, but nothing overwhelmingly horrid.

Soon, they approached an archway that separated the tunnel from a large stonewalled room. It was still dark, but a large slit in the tall ceiling provided enough light for the crew to spot something sparkling in the dark brown wall opposite them. The only separating between them and the diamond piece was a stone bridge with every other one discolored.

Hongjoong nearly stepped on one when Grace-Anne stopped him.

"What?" he asked.

Grace-Anne looked back down at the stones, picked up a loose rock by Yunho's foot, and tossed it onto one of the discolored stones. Immediately, it moved down about an inch, and an arrow shot out from one side to other faster than lightning.

"Don't say I didn't warn you," she said, "but you may wanna take a look down below."

She was pointing to where the room dropped about twenty feet around them and the bridge. When everyone else looked over, the smell finally made sense. To their horror, piles of dry human skeletons littered the floor beneath them. Each one had some sort of stick poking out from various body parts. Both the sight and smell triggered Celestia's nausea, and San followed her back down the path to a different one for her to release everything that was firing up her throat.

"What kind of Indiana Jones movie did we walk into?" Dinah complained. "If we all try to make it across without stepping on the certain stones, we'd all be dead."

The captain knew it wouldn't be too terrible, but he didn't want to risk losing his whole crew all at once. Even if they did get across unscathed, none of them knew how to dislodge the diamond piece from the wall if it was wedged in there really well. Then, he remembered something. He turned to Grace-Anne.

"Since you're our Geologist, do you think you can get across and get the diamond?" he requested.

With a confident smile beneath her mask, she nodded.

Not only did Grace-Anne geodes, gems, and other matter of geology, but she also learned about jewel thieves and how they would use their own tactics in their stealing. Of course, none of the crew condoned it, but it did come in handy once in a while on their quests.

Slipping off her backpack, she gave it to Seonghwa to hold. She opened it up and pulled out a small pouch and her gloves. As she stepped up to the first stone, she slipped on her gloves and wrapped the pouch around her waist.

"Now or never," she whispered to herself.

"Be careful, Grace-Anne," Seonghwa warned.

Focus took over her thoughts while the rest of the crew held their breaths. When she stepped on the first stone and examined the other ones, it clicked in her mind that it was some weird game of hopscotch. However, she still had to be careful. She could lose her balance at any given moment.

Death over a game of hopscotch? She thought. That's a new one.

As soon as she was about five feet away from the other stone platform, a few discolored ones seemed to be blocking her way. As much as she hated it, she would have to take the leap. Taking a deep breath, she got into a lunging position and threw herself over the stones and tumbled onto the platform without triggering any arrows.

The rest of the crew cheered as San brought Celestia back from her nausea spell.

Grace-Anne brushed herself off and stepped up to the stone wall. The diamond piece was stuck in there, but it was easy enough access to release it. In her pouch she held a glass replica of the piece she had made prior to arriving. In her head she counted to three, and within a split second she had swapped the diamond with the diamond-shaped glass.

"Got it," she called back to them.

"Alright, we're out of here," cheered Hongjoong as Grace-Anne placed the piece in her pouch and sprint-leaped back to them.

Something metallic dropped onto one of the regular stones in front of them. Seonghwa leaned as far as he could to examine it. The object was spherical and as big as a grapefruit, and it had a blinking red light on it. With each blink, a clicking noise sounded. Another one fell through the open slit. Then another. Then another.

"What's happen-" Phoebe began.

"BOMBS!" Hongjoong screamed.

The crew immediately sprinted like jackrabbits as more and more of what they now knew as grenades were falling into the room. Yeosang ran ahead of them as they traveled back the path they came, keeping a keen eye on the symbol; and San was carrying Celestia as she couldn't run as fast. In the distance behind them, they heard rumbling which caused some of the rocks around them to crumble around them.

"They're going off!" Dahae squealed.

"It's way behind us! We'll be fine!" Dinah shouted back.

However, the eruptions seemed to be getting closer. The cold air was now starting to heat up. An orange glow seemed to be growing behind them. Fire was chasing them, and if they didn't get out fast, they were done for good.

Finally, they reached the entrance, but to the crew's horror, the lid had somehow been shut. Yeosang wasted no time, using every bit of strength he had to push the lid open. The lid opened successfully, and he dashed out of the entrance. The crew seemed to jackrabbit leap out of there just in the nick of time as they ran back the way they came. Feeling the earth beneath their feet rattle wildly, everyone lost their balance as the fire roared a demon-like eruption. Ash and hot debris began to fall down, and the crew took cover by getting into fetal position.

The captain could tell that possibly much bigger ones had replaced the smaller grenades. No little trigger could have set off something so big.

"When I tell you to run," Hongjoong commanded loudly, "run to the HALA, and board it as quickly as possible."

Another explosion, and Hongjoong waited until it began to settle before screaming, "GO!"

Like roadrunners, the crew scrambled to their feet and dashed towards the direction of opening. Celestia struggled a little, but Dahae grabbed her by the hand and held onto it to encourage her to keep going.

Hongjoong pulled out his communicator and radioed Jongho, and the youngest crew member immediately answered.

"Jongho, start the ship now," he commanded. "We've got the diamond piece, and we're leaving now."

"I heard the explosion, and I started the engines," Jongho reported. "I'll open the door for all of you to enter."

"We'll be there shortly."

He stuffed the communicator in his pocket and kept running, never looking back.

They were about twenty feet away from the opening when San felt something sharp and hot pierce the right side of his back, and he cried out in pain as it burned. The impact knocked him to the ground, but Wooyoung was quick to pick him up and fireman carry him back to the open area.

"SAN!" Celestia screamed.

"I've got him!" Wooyoung reassured her.

"Just keep running, baby!" San encouraged her with one last breath before passing out.

[queens-guard-xiv]

The Days of Glory

Thavnair, 12 years prior | Vibes

It is a special day in Hannish lands. Their City is in heat, front gates spread like the legs of a harlot welcoming all with coin in hand and debauchery on the mind. The price of a visit, whether traveler or local, merchant or merchandise is undoubtedly your soul, but the thrills are unlike anything else the imagination can conjure.  

Voices clamber for dominance throughout the streets attempting to sell their wares both living and otherwise, and the air is ripe with the stench of sweat and warm bodies shuffled too close to be acceptable anywhere else but a pillowhouse. Yet the main event that attracts people en mass can not be found on the outskirts in these stalls, but at the center of all that was prosperous. One need only follow the clash of ringing steel to the arena where men fight for entertainment, and their lives beneath the jeering of a hostile crowd all too eager for blood to fall.

The chamber walls of the hypogeum tremble violently beneath the weight of  stomping feet, as cascading sand shakes loose and lands in the wild mane of a virgin gladiator and though he knows none of the excitement is for him, the slave considers it the closest thing to a lullaby he has. He knows before the bell is through, those cheers will be for him and if they were not? Well, he would not be able to care for the outcome. Feline ears twitch to the sound of a terrified scream cut short. Another one bites the dust. 

One fighter presumably falls to the other causing the volume of the audience to swell tremendously. Praise and disappointment both intermingle to create a cacophonous reward for the champion. To the victor goes the spoils, so it’s said. It’s an empowering sound, even when not the target of such excitement. With head bowed, a warrior’s prayer is whispered slowly upon his breath, recited from the sacred annals of  ancestors he might yet come to meet, and the throats of captured brothers and sisters he might never meet again. 

“Clamber to the upturned keel..and cold is the Oceans's feel.” 

The doors to the underground hold swing wide with two guards following at the heels of a corpse being dragged by its ankles.The scent of lingering shit taints the tight quarters when it passes through, snaking through the dusty paths where blooded gladiators awaiting their next chance at glory spit and piss on the fresh cadaver in its passing. No tears exist for the memory of a life that might’ve been as what was done before the arena mattered not. 

It’s a face unproven and in such a brotherhood where prowess was measured by the flesh sacrificed to the sands and the notches earned on ones sword, there was no reward in a death unblooded. Many fresh fighters had succumbed that day, and many more likely would. Should he lose, this was to be his fate. Though the odds are far from his favor, he embraces them anyways for the sins that brought him here to begin with. He would die if the Gods willed it for all he’d done. 

“Let not your courage bend, for here your life will end...”

The two guards march to the lion’s cage where his chin lifts to the jingle of fumbled keys  shoved into the grate and his golden eyes glow like two suns in the dark. He’s led by his chains to the fighter’s pit where the weight of his shackles are traded for the more freeing burden of sword, shield, and subligar regalia and where the crowd hisses and spits just outside the pens, hungry for another demise. His demise, no less. 

“Old man, don’t scowl, though winds blow foul...”

The opposition’s Champion is announced to cries more loving -- a fan-favored Goliath with accolades worthy of the title beared...but he would turn their thoughts once he was baptized in the blood of his enemy. This was the way, and there was to be no other for him. Light from the falling sun filters through the grated face plate of his helm, desperate to blind and he knows that the underdog is given the sunset to increase the odds of failure. He does not let this distract him. 

Sword and shield are gripped as something holy, voice growing in ferocity from whispered spring to roaring tide, powerful as he beats the flat of his blade against the metal surface of his hoplon. “With maidens --- you did lie!” The gates rise and so too does the Lion’s adrenaline, as he bounds forward to meet his enemy head on with a powerful slash and vicious warcry. . 

“ONCE, ALL MEN MUST DIE!” 

The Champion’s expectation is not for their opponent to come flying from the opposing end of the arena and though surprised, blade rises to  intercept the Lion’s wild strike at the last second. It’s an eagerness the Champion is all too willing to indulge and steel meets steel fiercely, much to the exhilaration of the crowd. Ferocity is traded back and forth in terrible blows meant to rob the other of limb or life, and for a time the Hellion even seems to be holding his own.

The natural experience of time is the Champion’s advantage however, and each empowered blow is only bated to sap the strength from the youthful beast, barely yet the age of a man. Yet, just like the battlefield, morals could be no obstacle here lest you be the one to fall. All the Champion saw was inexperience in need of correcting and he did so. Brutally. 

The young hrothgar over extends and is pulled off balance to the sands and though he rolls to recover, the bite of the Champion’s blade still catches him between the shoulder blades. The lion’s back is wet and warm when he rises, his roar a mix of pain and ferocity as he resumes the assault with further gusto. Though the slave is familiar with battle, its nothing in comparison to the savagery met here and his hits are batted away as easily as one might a fly. Retaliation comes swift and decisively, until he’s all but being carved where he stands and he realizes then that he’s being toyed with. 

Strength wanes with time and still he pushes on with the knowledge dawning that he can’t possibly win this fight. Victory, or death. It is all he has now. He forsakes neither one to fear though it begins to swell in his chest under the reign of a vicious onslaught of strikes more powerful than the last. The youth’s blade is severed from his grip and his shield splinters under the weight of the final blow. The lion hits the ground, stunned by the impact of such a strike and he can do little else but watch as the Champion  stalks forward and kicks his blade out of reach. 

“Do you hear that little kitten!? “ He begins with arms spread, gesturing to the surrounding crowd. There’s an accent that’s thick and rolling, reminiscent of the hannish locals. “Do you feel that tremble of your heart? While you called for your gods, the people called for your death! And now there is no god left here, but /me/! You may have thought you had a chance! But your life was FORFEIT the moment you stepped through those gates!  And you have only lived this long because I have allowed it!”  

The pressure of abuse keeps the lion low, as Champion’s words were reinforced by a bone shattering stomps and a kick to the chin that removes his helmet from his head. His attempts to crawl away or lash back are simply ignored as demise approaches ever nearer. ”You can feel it now, can’t you -- the fear. I no longer know the sensation, but I can see it in your eyes.”  The Champion's blade rises above the crumpled form and in that moment, the Lion is left to decide --- Victory, or death. 

The weapon plunges and time moves slow. Everything does. From the fall of the weapon, to the drops of beaded sweat that fall from the Champion’s raised arms. The crowd becomes muted, distant, and background to the pounding of his own pulse in his ears before he lunges. Body is thrown towards the remains of what had once been a shield. The spot previously occupied --now empty-- was cleaved in twain, the steel biting down upon the earth instead of flesh. Splintered wood is brandished in the paw of the lion as a weapon of sorts and plunged into the vulnerable space of the Champion’s inner thigh, while unsheathed claws are used to gouge the ankles. 

Achilles tendon is compromised in a spray of crimson as the Champion’s leg buckles beneath the weight of his own massive frame. The wounded giant howls in pained fury, bellowing his curses amidst wild swings and he begins to feel it -- the fear he’d so brazenly denied as the battered slave picks himself up from the ground with all the slow certainty of a shark smelling blood. The gladiator can’t fight the chill that catches his spine when youth’s golden eyes fall upon him, the wild element trapped within such a gaze telling the Champion that his days alive were narrowed now to minutes if he did not give it his all.

The crowd, fickle as it is, turns on their Champion like a pack of starved hounds, eager for any result that ended in blood and now it is the Lion’s turn to play. It’s not an easy victory as the injury does little more than even the odds and when the men collide once more, the lion still has the champion’s formidable strength to deal with. 

The struggle for dominance is unrelentingly violent, depraved of even the barest vestige of humanity as men become animals, primal and unfettered. Its the Goliath that ultimately comes out on top with his hands wrapped around the lion’s throat, screaming bloody murder while the youth’s struggles become erratic. This is it. The lion thinks. It seems then the moment is lost, until -- 

CRACK!

It’s a sound that can be heard even over the shocked gasps of spectators and is followed by a second as the helmet previously discarded is used to strike the Champion in the skull once more. The large man falls over, only to receive the shock of another impact, and then another, as the golden eyed lion straddles him and pins him down. The sickening sounds become less profound and wet as the skull beneath caves under the lion’s brutality, and the feral moment lasts well after the former Champion has stopped breathing. 

As if in a trance, the lion is snapped from the instinct of his kill and he stands on shaky legs stumbling away. There’s stunned silence from the crowd as the lion collects his weapons in shock, but when he exits back to the pit, it’s to the sound of a deafening crowd that cheers only for him.