#i lost the ability to chill eons ago

[staycalmandhugaclone]

Identity Pt 5

Part (5) of Identity, the next arc of Doc's Misadventures! If you're new, start at the beginning with Touch Starved!

I really meant to finish this arc today... looks like there's going to be one more chapter after this, though... Such is the way of writing, I guess...

Warnings: Minor flashbacks/PTSD, reference to torture, loads of guilt and tension, otherwise mostly just fluff and angst

WC: 3,820

Science disproved the fallacy of “muscle memory” eons ago. The antiquated theory that cells somehow held some semblance of thought toward self-preservation, enough at least to react independent of heightened nerve bundles, now resided only in layman’s speech in which the physiology behind impulse control, voluntary and involuntary motions, and even the sympathetic systems responsible for endless bodily functions initiated by the fight or flight response were simply inconsequential. Whether someone believed their hand jerked away from a burning iron due to the hand’s fear of pain or from the spinal cord’s ability to recognize and react to such acute dangers absent direction from the brain doesn’t change the reality that the hand moved before the individual ever registered that they were burning.

I wasn’t burning. I wasn’t drowning, nor was I bound to some unbreakable surface. Logic told me that the danger had passed, but my body remembered only the agony of being held on the edge of death for what could have been days or minutes for all my mind could make sense of it. The delicate tissues lining my airways couldn’t forget the hurt from that chilled, rancid water, and the part of my brain that held no value toward thought or rationale overruled any hope of overcoming the frenzied panic reawaken by the memory of that hurt.

That first, desperate gasp left me spasming beneath such violent coughs, my body could do nothing more than curl weakly onto its side, diaphragm convulsing both from the effort to clear my lungs of every drop of that putrid liquid and from the simple, consuming need for air that had been denied from me for far, far too long. I felt myself reach toward my face, hand trembling as my fingertips darted over my cheeks, my hair, searching for that mask before it could tighten around my lips once more, before it could be used to rob me of sight that I might find myself even more helpless, unable to guess towards when that water would begin to drown me leaving me panicking anew at every sound, every hint of movement around me.

But there was nothing there.

My legs shifted in thoughtless, jerked motions if only to confirm nothing remained locked around my ankles, vaguely noting that no merciless restraints had prevented me from turning onto my side. Only my own weakness hindered my movements. The surface below me was far too soft in light of the memory of whatever I’d been bound to… The walls around me were too clean… And that voice…

“Easy, med’ika… shh, just breathe.” Chest still jerking with an occasional cough, I managed to look toward that familiar voice, and the depth of mourning that suddenly swept through me left me cold in a way I couldn’t explain. I would find no solace in denial after glimpsing the heartbreaking regret in those golden eyes. My nightmares had been real. Comet couldn’t even bring himself to reach for me yet, hands hovering before him as he forced himself to maintain some measure of a “safe” distance between us lest his presence send me into the same panic I’d lost myself in when I woke to find Wolffe holding me.

I loathed the lingering terror, but seeing how the kind man before me hurt because of my pain… that’s what drew the flood of tears to my eyes, and when I looked at him once more, when I let him see the desperate need burning through me, something too close to a sob escaped him. Free of that earlier hesitation, he lowered himself onto his knees at my bedside, movements torn between rushed and gentle as he pulled me against him, and I readily pressed myself into that embrace, fingers clawing into the sleek fabric atop him ribs, face burring itself into the notch of his shoulder.

“I’m sorry… Maker, I’m so sorry…” He murmured, lips shifting atop my hair. My chest twisted at his words, mind reaching for any way I might convince him that he wasn’t at fault, that there was no way to anticipate an attack by a third party; that his guilt only left me crying harder against him for the guilt it stirred within me, but all I could manage was to shake my head, silently begging him to understand.

“Shh, we’ve got you, med’ika… You’re safe now.” My hand tightened around his shirt, straining to force some measure of steadiness into hitched breaths as I dragged my mind back from that grief and fear if only for the hope that it might grant him some quiet as well. His embrace didn’t waver even after the tension began to ease from my aching body, and I made no effort to push even a whisper of distance between us.

“How-” The first attempt at speech nearly sent me back into a wretched coughing fit, but I managed to suppress it, wincing as I cleared my throat. “How did you find me?” Still, my voice was barely audible, the hoarse words dragging painfully along the raw tissue of my throat.

“Wolffe.” He answered simply, but the moment of hesitation that followed drew my gaze up to find him gnawing absently at his cheek, eyes turned blindly toward the far side of the room. “I… I think he reached out to the… to…” His jaw tensed, mind churning over how to answer before shifting to sit atop the edge of the mattress with a sigh, and I didn’t fight the way he carefully dragged me onto his lap. “I think he figured if he could get the kind of intel we came here for, he probably had some way of figuring out where’d they’d take you.” Oh… my father… I didn’t press for more and nodded as I rested my head back against Comet’s shoulder, pleased to feel him relax slightly in response.

Only then did I begin to really notice pain beyond the burn that accompanied every breath, the consuming ache set deep in my lungs. My left arm was immobilized in a splint, and I could feel the subtle pressure of bandages wrapped around my chest and leg.

“What happened?” I asked, the question barely more than a wheeze as I flared my fingers pointedly. With a sigh, his hold finally began to loosen.

“It was just dislocated.” He explained, thumb dragging absently over my arm, almost more as a self-soothing gesture than in an attempt to comfort me. “You bruised a couple ribs when the gala blew up – got a nice burn on your calf from it. Looks like most of it was just from when you were…” His arms tightened nervously, again stumbling slightly over his words. “Trying to get free.” He finished, voice dropping as though it would lessen the impact those words might have. Just the thought of how violently I’d fought against those damned restraints, the terror fueling my limbs well past what they should have been capable of threatened to draw a cold sweat from me. Still, I found myself looking down to see the thick layer of cloth wrapped about my wrists, clearly able to imagine how the skin had been worn raw and torn in my frenzy.

“And the datachip?” I could hear the cold acceptance in my own voice, certain that it had been lost and all the effort and planning and pain amounted to nothing.

“Safe.” He assured me quietly. “They got the bracelet, but we ended the connection before they could trace it back.” I let out a slow sigh of relief at that and tried to let myself treasure a moment of stillness, to let my mind drift thoughtlessly as I fought to to convince myself that the horrors of that dark room might be left in the past, and that I might find solace in the knowledge that I was still alive, that, despite how certain I’d been of my own impending death, how much I’d longed for the comfort of what release it surely promised, I’d survived.

-

We were barely a day out from the Negotiator. I didn’t want to think about how everyone would react to what had happened, didn’t want to think about how I’d react to even trying to tell them. Despite the dread of dealing with that impeding conversation and all it entailed, still I was eager to rejoin them, to escape the tense quiet staling the air of this ship; the way Boost and Sinker stifled even the hint of a disagreement, how strained Warthog’s laugh had become. Even Wolffe had fallen into something far too somber, making no effort to avoid me though I could see the guilt in his eyes if ever we crossed paths. I hated it.

When I tread thoughtlessly into the bunkroom, I hadn’t expected to find him lying prone atop his cot, eyes intently closed though I held little doubt that he was still awake. I hesitated for barely a breath before yielding beneath the need urging me forward. His brow cocked, eyes opening just enough to glance toward me before shutting once more as I nestled onto the thin pad beside him, barely an inch separating us.

“Something wrong with your bed, kid?” He asked, voice falling back into what, to anyone else, surely sounded more akin to an irritated growl than the subtle teasing I knew it to be.

“Yeah. It’s way over there.” I retorted, and I relished the balm of comfort gleaned from the way his lips twitched ever so briefly into a smirk. Still, I could stand the silence that followed for only so long amidst the scream of questions roaring through my head.

“Did you know?” It was barely loud enough to be called speech, all mirth from that brief quip abandoning me. His throat shifted, jaw tensing a moment before opening his eyes to stare blindly at the empty bunk above him.

“What part?” The softness in how he spoke only worked to remind me of that terrible guilt, and I suddenly feared it was a curse they’d never be able to free themselves of.

“My father.” He was still for a moment before quietly drawing in a deep breath.

“No.” He whispered. “I knew he was from Agamar; that he’d lost his family to the war, but I didn’t know who he was until you met him.” I swallowed back whatever relief or remorse or regret vied to break me and shifted just enough to rest my forehead against his shoulder.

“Was he behind the bomb?” He didn’t need to answer me. I knew I was right by the tension that stole through him.

“He figured you’d be out by then.” Wolffe explained, as though it might quell whatever betrayal he feared the confirmation might bring, but I felt nothing; allowed myself to feel nothing even as I wondered if I should blame my father for what had been done to me.

“Comet said he helped you find me?” A small grunt caught in his throat, and I pulled back just enough to see the beginnings of a scowl distort his face.

“Comet talks too much.” Wolffe mumbled but let out a short huff before explaining. “I had to tell him who you were – he wouldn’t risk any of his operatives until I did.” I didn’t hear the apology laced through those quiet words. My body went stiff, air staling in my chest, numb to whatever hurt still lingered there. Would he know what my capture meant? What they’d do to me? Was he replaying our every shared word lit anew with the heartbreaking realization that I’d known him the instant I saw him, that I’d chosen not to reveal myself when he’d failed to recognize me in kind?

I didn’t notice Wolffe’s gaze turn toward me, didn’t note the sharp concern in eyes far more comfortable in an impatient glare until his arm wrapped around my shoulders, and I let myself be drawn flush against his side, cheek resting atop his chest.

“He’s made his own choices. Try not to blame yourself for the actions of a man you haven’t seen in nearly a decade.” The deadpan look he shot me was enough to draw a small chuckle. Before I could respond, the bunkroom door opened behind me.

“That poor man…” I whispered, unable to fathom what he must be going through now. Wolffe didn’t try to hide that familiar eyeroll, drawing my attention back to him.

“Ooo, we’re having a cuddle party on the commander’s bunk?” I was laughing before Wolffe’s warning growl fell silent, knowing those words easily carried throughout the ship.

“Boost.” His chest rumbled with the threat laced through his brother’s name, but Boost was already in motion, and the cot groaned beneath his weight as the man hoisted himself gracelessly across us, shuffling noisily until his back rested against the wall and his legs stretched overtop mine and Wolffe’s thighs, hapless grin toying with his lips in blatant disregard for the lethal glare Wolffe had trained on him.

“Boost.” He called again, voice lowering into something far more dangerous.

“Think the long-necks’ll get pissed if we break it?” Warthog asked mere seconds later, his own words nearly breaking out into a laughter of his own. Wolffe let out a slow tense sigh as the pilot pushed his way onto the bed above me, forcing the both of us to shift until he’d wedged his torso beneath our shoulders.

“Depends on the story you come up with to explain how it broke.” Boost replied.

“The Commander already sent in the report – you’d have to find a damn good reason for it to break outside of the actual mission.” Comet advised from behind me, already easing himself onto the too-thin strip of remaining mattress.

“Nah, we’ll just tell ‘em they built it wrong.” Warthog replied, chuckling at his own words. Despite his nonchalance, the instant the bed began to creak, we all tensed, but he went back to laughing openly when Wolffe craned his neck to glare at the man.

I’d forgotten about this. Hunter and his brothers were close, but it was different here. Where once the 104th was a standard battalion, now only five remained. That kind of loss could have driven them apart, ruined by grief and despair. Instead, they sought refuge in what few brothers they still had. The simple act of touch brings with it a comfort that can’t be replicated with drugs or kind words. The innocence fueling the need for that comfort, for the silent reassurance that they were still alive, was precious, and when the weight of this war fell too heavily on their shoulders, there was no one who understood that burden more than the men around them.

-

If felt like hours had passed before something begrudgingly pulled me back to a weary awareness, unsure at first what had woken me, but even in the darkness, I found the brilliant gold of Sinker’s eyes studying the dark cloth immobilizing my shoulder. The muscle lay bunched beneath his cheeks, brows drawn harshly together, tense breaths so near to breaking even as his fingers rested lightly atop my arm. The instant his gaze flicked to mine, the instant he realized I was awake, that I’d seen him in that moment of vulnerability, his expression instantly softened, but he made no effort to pull away from me.

“Didn’t mean to wake you.” He murmured, voice barely audible amidst the lazy, deep breaths of his sleeping brothers nestled all around me. “We’re still a few hours out – you should get some more rest.”

I didn’t try to reply, mind already teetering back into that gentle release, but I couldn’t forget the initial glimpse of despair I’d seen in him, heart breaking at the reminder of how deeply they hurt because of what happened to me. Without a word, I flared my fingers out, unable to move the limb more than slightly twisting my wrist toward him. His lips pulled into a weak smirk, shoulders sinking beneath of heavy sigh, but he shifted to slip his hand in mine. Body relaxing with a slow breath, I held him firmly against me, chin tucking against my chest enough to lightly touch my lips to his knuckles as I let my eyes slide shut once more. Still, he didn’t try to pull away, not until long after I’d fallen back into a gentle sleep.

-

Knowing that each passing second brought me closer to the Negotiator, to the inevitability of reliving those horrors first in telling Cody, and then again in telling my squad only worked to drive me back to the brink of panic. I couldn’t stay in a room with them; couldn’t see their remorse and not dread the thought of seeing that same expression haunt Hunter’s face, of the rage that might threaten to overwhelm Crosshair or the sorrow that would weigh on Wrecker… I hadn’t begun to figure out how to tell any of them… what to tell them. What was I allowed to tell them…

It was easy to hope the following day would bring some reprieve to the stiffness with which they held themselves around me, that a night piled in that too-small cot together might free them of that tension, but I was to be granted no such relief. Conversation had never felt awkward with them before, but now they tripped over nearly every word shared with me, as though second guessing if they were about to say something that might remind me the lifetime I’d spent drowning at the mercy of my interrogator, which, in turn, left me unable to think about anything but that helplessness, that utter certainty that I was dying, and the terrible acceptance that I was powerless to stop it.

I’d found myself practically hiding in the fresher for that last half hour, torn between grief and relief to finally let myself slip back into the safety of my armor before rejoining the others as the ship began to dock.

“Still can’t get used to seein’ you in those colors.” Warthog grunted from pilot’s chair.

“It’s been over a year, Warthog.” I drawled, forcing what I hoped to be a lightness into my still-scratchy voice.

“Yeah, but… did they have to go with something so… edgy?” I instantly felt my shoulders tense.

“Sorry.” He muttered after several long seconds. I had to grind my lips between my teeth to keep my breath from hitching, unable to either apologize for my tone nor to dismiss the exchange altogether. No one spoke again until the engine faded into a quiet hum before finally shutting off, and I again found myself loathing the tension, loathing myself for having brought it back en force so thoughtlessly as we approached the ramp.

“They’ve more than earned the right to wear whatever they want… and we do enough stealth missions to warrant darker colors.” I hadn’t meant for it to come out like that, for it to sound like I was berating him, but I was too anxious to restrain that flash of anger, and my heart sank at the heavy silence that instantly followed.

I should have assumed they’d be there; that Tech would alert the others the instant the non-GAR issued ship made its approach and found some way to prepare myself, but I could do nothing more than stare at the collection of eager faces and hesitant smiles awaiting me at the base of that ramp; should have thought toward how I might steel myself for seeing those familiar faces fall into uncertainty and concern upon noting that damned sling that I should have omitted at least for those first few minutes. I should have offered some light-hearted reassurance, found some means of dismissing their fears before they could begin to twist and grow with all the unanswered questions for those past few days, but I had nothing – no gentle greeting nor quick-witted remark as automated movements led me toward them in the wake of Wolffe’s steps.

“Um…” The strangled sound caught in my throat, unable to look at them even through the protective cover of my helm’s visor. “I have to debrief with Commander Cody.” The way my comms system distorted my voice seemed only to worsen the lingering hoarseness, and I tried to pretend I didn’t see the way Crosshair’s expression turned rabid. “I’ll find you after.” I added in something too close to a mutter before continuing after my old commander.

They didn’t follow me, nor did Boost or the others as I trailed aimlessly behind Wolffe into the bowels of the massive Destroyer, unsure what havoc might unfold the instant we were out of sight. Would Hunter be able to keep his brother in line if my old squad told them what happened? Would he even try? My thoughts were too jumbled to worry over it for long. There was just too much for any one thing to hold my attention for more than a heart-wrenching second, and I quickly gave up any effort to do anything more than keep my strides even.

“You going to be alright?” Wolffe asked, pausing several meters before that familiar door. I hadn't noticed him remove his bucket, but automatically slipped mine off in kind as he glanced pointedly toward Cody's office. I’d suspected he wouldn’t be joining me, that he needed to find General Plo for his own debrief, and it was almost a relief knowing he wouldn’t be with me for this. I didn’t want him to hear me try to recant that nightmare when he was still struggling with the aftermath, too.

“Yeah… I’ll be fine, Wolffe.” I offered, lips pulling into a small smile that neither of us believed. He almost turned away, but paused, brow just hinting at a frown as he looked at me. With a quiet sigh, he let his hand trail through my hair to rest gently against the back of my head before lightly touching his forehead to mine.

“Be safe, kid.” He said, and the vainly hidden note of defeat those short words left me floundering. Still my lips shifted around that too familiar reply, though it was barely more than a whisper.

“Still not a kid.” The short breath that escaped him shook just enough to nearly ruin me, gaze darting up to find his eyes ground shut.

“I know.” He murmured, voice rushed. His grip tightened for just a moment, expression pinching with something too near pain, and then it was gone, posture once more portraying every ounce the rigid commander he’d always been as he tread steadily down the hall. I couldn’t move for several seconds; couldn’t breathe beneath that flash of… what? That was more than just guilt… I wanted to chase after him; to throw something or scream, but found myself thinking back to the tense quiet that had fallen around us in the cockpit mere days prior… Whatever it was… the time for it had passed.

Next Chapter

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[startreklogicoftheforce]

Star Trek: Logic of the Force - Chapter Five

STARDATE 57898.9

Two months had elapsed since Sonal's arrival on the Enterprise. In this time, Picard had witnessed unparalleled efficiency and dedication to duty. Whenever a problem arose, Sonal promptly resolved it. And amidst interpersonal tensions among crew members, Sonal imparted ancient Surakian wisdom, fostering reconciliation. To all appearances, he was a Vulcan through and through.

However, beneath the surface, he was so much more. Beyond being a fusion of human and Vulcan heritage, a product of a half-human, half-Vulcan male and a full-blooded Romulan female, he harbored a profound power that had slumbered for eons. Immersed in deep meditation, he heard the voice of his newfound spiritual guide.

"PICARD'S HATRED OF THE BORG WILL TURN OUT TO BE USEFUL IN OUR PLANS TO BRING BACK THE GALACTIC EMPIRE…"

Sonal opened his eyes. Now, he was Darth Chaos, his eyes radiating an incandescent orange as the Dark Side's hold on him deepened. "He is a remarkably useful pawn, my master," Chaos declared. "His abhorrence of the Borg is deeply rooted." A surge of anger engulfed him, his raised eyebrows evoking an uncanny resemblance to the malevolent entity depicted in ancient Earth's religious beliefs—a figure synonymous with evil and darkness. Chaos's voice assumed a low, guttural tone. "Yet, my animosity...runs even deeper…" His gaze shifted to a wall-mounted portrait above his bunk—a striking woman with dark tresses. "I shall avenge you, Caitlin Yar…"

Abruptly, the door chime resounded. Hastily, Sonal concealed his inner turmoil, his eyes reverting to their usual hue. "Enter." The door slid open, and Counselor Troi stepped in. Sonal stood up. "Counselor Troi, your presence is most welcome."

Troi regarded Sonal with a trace of concern in her eyes. "Is something troubling you, Sonal?"

"I strive to emulate Vulcan perfection to the best of my abilities," Sonal confessed. He guided Troi to a picture on the wall. "Yet, there are moments when I struggle to release the grip on the memory of the only woman I've ever loved."

"Who was she?" Troi asked.

"Her name," Sonal continued, "was Caitlin Yar. She happened to be the niece of one of your former colleagues, Tasha Yar. We crossed paths on Turkana IV. I was accompanying my mother, Saavik, during our visit to the planet. It was there that we encountered Caitlin and her mother, Ishara." Sonal's expression softened. "Caitlin was the only person I ever allowed myself to express my emotions to. Contrary to common misconceptions, Counselor, Vulcans aren't devoid of sentiment or warmth. We simply opt to employ logic in shaping our decisions."

Troi inquired with a touch of sorrow, "What happened to her?"

"Two years ago," Sonal's voice began to waver, "they were en route to visit me on Vulcan. They happened upon a Borg cube. Ishara lost her life while shielding Caitlin from danger, and Caitlin…"

"Caitlin was assimilated," Troi murmured softly.

"Yes," Sonal replied, a chill lacing his tone. "Since then, I resolved to lead my life guided solely by logic, eschewing the affliction of human emotions."

Troi gently placed her hand on Sonal's shoulder. "Sonal, would you be willing to join me in Ten Forward? Will, the Captain, and I would appreciate the opportunity to spend some quality time with you and perhaps enjoy your lyre music."

Sonal's eyebrows arched as he regarded Troi. "I would gladly accept your invitation." Retrieving his lyre, he walked alongside Troi to Ten Forward—a venue that offered refreshments and camaraderie to the entire crew around the clock.

"Welcome, Commander Sonal," greeted the Captain. "How about a taste of Romulan Ale?"

"Yes, please," Sonal responded.

Seated together, Picard, Riker, Troi, and Sonal savored their drinks. Troi's words were slightly slurred from the effects of the intoxicating blue beverage as she proposed, "Captain, Sonal has his Vulcan lyre here. Perhaps he could treat us to some music."

Riker chimed in, "I'd love to hear that."

Picard's voice resonated with enthusiasm, "How about it, Commander?"

Sonal stood, clutching his lyre, and addressed their anticipation with a hint of irony, "Such eagerness is an illogical trait. However, yes, I shall oblige."

Taking a seat on a solitary stool upon the small musical stage, Sonal launched into an Earth tune from the twentieth century:

"REMEMBER WHEN YOU WERE YOUNG? YOU SHONE LIKE THE SUN. SHINE ON YOU CRAZY DIAMOND! NOW THERE'S A LOOK IN YOUR EYES, LIKE BLACK HOLES IN THE SKY. SHINE ON YOU CRAZY DIAMOND!"

Unbeknownst to the Enterprise crew, Sonal kept his eyelids firmly shut, concealing the dark orange hue that manifested when Darth Chaos held sway. He was immersed in communion with the Force, his animosity toward the Borg pushing him to his breaking point.

At the zenith of his disdain for the Borg, Palpatine's voice reached Sonal's consciousness. "Use the Force, Lord Chaos, and you shall exact...your...vengeance." He harnessed the full extent of his Force powers, conjuring a wormhole into existence that ensnared the Enterprise.

Abruptly, emergency klaxons blared, plunging the ship into red alert. Crew members scrambled to their feet, rushing to their designated stations. Upon reaching the bridge, Picard, Riker, Troi, and Sonal collaborated to make sense of the situation.

Then, as swiftly as it had appeared, the wormhole vanished. Picard sensed an eerie presence. "Sonal," he addressed quietly, "where are we?"

"In the Delta Quadrant, sir," Sonal answered without glancing away from his station. His attention was captured by an old Earth radio signal. "Sir, I'm detecting an ancient Earth radio signal."

"Display it on the main screen," Picard ordered. The screen depicted what appeared to be a partially constructed ship of staggering proportions—impeccably symmetrical and astonishingly immense. The scale was beyond comprehension, rendering the Enterprise minuscule by comparison. Instinctively, Sonal recognized the vessel. Memories of his father's tales from his childhood resurfaced.

"V'Ger," Sonal murmured.

Picard's expression was one of astonishment. "The V'Ger encountered by James T. Kirk. So, that planet of living machines…"

"The Borg homeworld," Sonal interjected, his smile taking on an eerie cast as his eyes began to radiate an orange hue. Darth Chaos had ensnared Picard as he intended, and Palpatine's influence over Darth Chaos was equally effective. Palpatine understood that the annihilation of the Borg would seal Sonal's descent into the Dark Side.

"Inquiry about our arrival seems irrelevant," Chaos remarked. "Our current location is the only pertinent fact. And now," he continued, his voice adopting a sinister timbre, "your opportunity for revenge presents itself." Chaos gestured with his hand, a command infused with a sense of dark power.

Picard's gaze became fixed on the machine-infused planet, his consciousness manipulated by the Force. "Yes," he agreed with a slither of malice, "revenge is within reach."

"Your nanoprobes will not malfunction," Chaos asserted, his hand commanding the unfolding scene.

Entrapped by Chaos' influence, Picard echoed, "My nanoprobes will not malfunction."

Chaos delivered the ultimate directive, "V'Ger and the Borg home planet must be annihilated. Focus all phaser power on the dish."

"Commander Worf," Picard issued the directive, "redirect all available phaser energy toward the dish and initiate an attack on V'Ger and the Borg homeworld."

However, Worf expressed his concerns, "But Captain, this action could cause the nanoprobes to malfunction. It defies the Prime Directive, altering history."

Abruptly, Darth Chaos whirled around, revealing his enraged countenance and his blazing orange eyes to the entire crew. His voice surged with rage, carrying a guttural and venomous tone, as he addressed Worf, "Your Captain has given you an explicit command, Klingon!" He pointed his fingers at Worf, discharging scorching lightning that coursed through Worf's body, inflicting excruciating torment. Chaos' malevolent smile grew as he extended his hand towards Worf's terminal. With a deft wave, he orchestrated the obliteration of the machine-infused planet and the Borg-constructed vessel—originally created for the ancient Earth probe Voyager VI—reducing them to nothingness.

With the eradication of the Borg collective, Picard sensed the gradual fading of the nanoprobes. Sonal's promise about the nanoprobes not malfunctioning had held true.

Chaos had executed his vengeance. As Sonal began to resurface, he focused on the remnants of the parasitic race that had inflicted tragedy upon his cherished Caitlin. "Finally," Sonal intoned, "you can rest, knowing the Borg's reign of terror has been extinguished."

Picard regarded Sonal with a gratified smile. "You've altered history. That implies I never endured assimilation by the Borg."

Commander Sonal gestured once more, conjuring the reopening of the wormhole, which subsequently transported the Enterprise back to its original point in Federation space and time, prior to Sonal's manipulation that had transported the ship to the Delta Quadrant.

"Indeed," Sonal affirmed, "and your cybernetic heart shall remain impervious to malfunction." Picard and Sonal's attention turned towards the incapacitated Worf. "What... what happened here?" Sonal inquired.

Riker, embodying his characteristic sense of responsibility, stood up resolutely. "You're well aware, Commander. This was your doing." He signaled for two security personnel to advance towards Sonal. "Commander Sonal, on behalf of Starfleet, you are under arrest. Pending further instructions, you are to be confined to your quarters."

[weeping-petals]

Little Thief

Word Count - 2,194

The gems grieve in their own ways for the loss of Rose Quartz. 

It had been different since… Rose.

 Not like the times that one of them had taken off on some mission and lost track of time, reappearing months, possibly years later. The passage of time for gems was different, time existed beyond them, detached. Somehow now, it felt… different. As if in some way time creeped into one of them and the clock ran out all at once, and suddenly they were all grounded to this specific place. Anchored to a now, where once time extended and branched outward around them.

 “I still don’t get it,” Amethyst huffed. She walked a distance back from the other two, arms crossed behind her head. The light snowfall ended hours ago, leaving a fluffy layer across the sidewalks and soil made harder than Apatite. “You keep sayin’ Rose is gone, but we have Steven. And Steven isn’t Rose, but she has Rose’s gem. How come they aren’t the same person?”

 Pearl rubbed at her eyes and looked off. The icy wind didn’t bother them, yet she still looped her arms around her shoulders. It made her look chilled, with her lack of sleeves.

 Ever patient Garnet came to the rescue. Always easygoing, calm, and collected. “Rose and her child can’t exist together, because Steven has her gem.” She thought it over a bit, searching the night sky for answers and strength.

 The three gems were out at this hour on a patrol, assuring that Beach City had no secrets or dangers present before they turned focus to missions. Someone would always stay behind while they ran to distant destinations, but Amethyst was less experienced with fighting and tact, and Pearl was… preoccupied. The general atmosphere of Beach City was still, the snowfall forcing inhabitants behind walls and into blankets on this inhospitable night. Some wispy clouds remained stubborn across the cobalt sky, tinged a varied of shades of royal and yale.

 “It’s like Ruby and Saphire,” she began. Garnet walked over to the Amethyst and knelt, showing her hands. “Garnet is her own person, but not alone. She – I – am both a part of Ruby and Saphire. But they have their gems, they have their own persons. I am neither one or the other, I am my own person. I recognize that now.”

 Amethyst set a hand over her chin, and the other touched one of Garnet’s palms. Intense thought was going into this deduction. “So, she’s like a fusion. Yeh, I get that.” Garnet winced when Pearl groaned.

 “Sort of…” Garnet frowned, searching pathways for the right words. “But baby humans are not like fusions. They are individuals, detached from their fusors. I can’t go anywhere without Ruby, or Saphire. It’s physically impossible. Steven… has a freedom we will never totally understand.”

 “Okay. But it’s not like they don’t stop existing when they make you.” Amethyst pointed out the two gems on Garnet’s palms. “That’s Saphy, and there’s Ruby. I recognize their cuts. Steven has Rose Quartz gem, so why isn’t she Rose Quartz still?”

 “Amethyst!” Pearl barked. Garnet stood and held up her hands, stoic but trying to ease the boiling point that hit the Pearl. “The concept isn’t that difficult to grasp! Even for you!”

 “Try me!”

 “The two of you—” Garnet stopped, head snapping towards the serene city limits, interrupted briefly by the chug of a primitive engine. From the roads careened a vehicle, plowing through drifts of powdery snow and bucking over hidden obstacles with reckless abandonment. The head lights flashed across the three figures in the night, and abruptly swerved to avoid impact. It barely came to a full halt, when one of the doors cracked open and a figure tumbled out. Thankfully, the van lost momentum and stayed put, engine still rattling.

 A panty, lumpy figure trudged through the snow layer. “Guys! Guys!” Patiently, the three waited for Greg to catch his breath or catch up with them. He was doing more crashing and shivering than covering ground. Was he in his flipflops? “I— Help! It’s— I was!” He gaged on a mouth full of snow and crashed sideways. “STEVEN!”

 “What happened? What’s wrong!” Pearl was the first to reach Greg. She hesitated at his side refusing to touch the sputtering human, and only knelt as Greg struggled to surface from another mound of frost. “What have you done now? We can’t trust you with anything!”

 Those words made him wince. “I didn’t— an angry twizzler stole him!”

 Befuddled and shook, the three gems stood in varied expressions of painfully slow buffering. Pearl wilted and looked to Garnet, who held the stoniest expression of them all. To a stranger, this may have appeared indifferent to the presented situation of panic and unknowns, to the gems that knew her relatively well…. Amethyst was backing away, dawning horror on her face.

 There was high likelihood someone was going to shatter this night.

 __

 In a deep shadow, above where the waves crashed and bubbled, the sea froths and scrubbed away at frozen rocks:

 “So. You’re the Gem that stole her away. Robbed me of my Happily. ℰ𝓋ℯ𝓇.

̗̬̳̥̠͚̟̻͇̅ͧ̑̂͗ͮͪ̌ͥ͝.̢͔̰̩ͬ͋ͣ̿͑̄ͩ͠

̻̲͙̲͗ͪͦ̀̓Ḁ̞̯̀ͮͭ̅͊̀̋f̵̝̪̦̹̪͔̝̖͖͂̎̂ͥ͘͘t̤͆̚e̤͇̫̻̹͉ͮͪͫ͢ͅr̸̲̰̹͚̗ͫͦ̂̑ͩ͢ .”

 The baby nibbled on her – his. His fingers, and sniffled. He had not woken at all throughout her reckless and wild movement through the town. Though that was a goal, it was entirely too easy to jostle a tiny and sensitive baby, and she didn’t need to upset the pebble and have him wailing across the night. She really didn’t want to hear him cry.

 “Hmm. But you’re… kinda cute. I guess.” She touched the little puff of curls poking out from the blanket bundled around his body. “A cute lil thief.” A tear plipped on the baby’s nose, and the eyes opened, staring up at the looming being. “Thieved me of my entire world. My purpose. Everything I ever thought was precious to me. Everything I fought for, would’ve splint in two for. You don’t know what that’s like, do you? Hmm? You have no idea yet. Huh?”

 The baby blinked, vacant of comprehension. He knew his father, and to an extent, foggily recalled Others. But this one. This one was stark and different, in shape and color. Light from the moon hit the ocean, and its brilliant radiance slanted through the alcove catching on the sculpted stone set in her chest. Every buckling quake of her body caused the light to jitter, and her eyes, dulled by sorrow, glimmered in the sullen light. Nothing else was visible, aside from magenta streaks drooping.

 “Will you ever be capable of understanding? How much you hurt us. Hurt me. Rose. Wasn’t I enough? Why? Why wasn’t I enough?” Spinel choked and bent forward, unable to regain control of the intense wave vibrating through her Gem. She was never good enough. Nothing was ever good enough for Rose – Pink Diamond. Having a colony didn’t satisfy her, having a whole world to herself, not good enough. She couldn’t be happy with her friends, the only survivors of the War. It was never enough. Spinel failed. Failed her Diamond. There was no greater shame, than failing the one you were created for. She had one purpose in all of her existence, and it was gone.

 “Why? Why wasn’t I good enough? What did I do wrong! Why couldn’t she just be happy, with me? What should I have done?”

 The baby coughed and began an insignificant gurgle, reeling that into a rolling yowl. Spinel jolted, body coiling a little tighter around the bundle.

 “No-no-no,” she cooed. “Oh no-no, please don’t cry. Shh-shh….” She tugged the blanket corners around his neck and made certain none of the damp air got through. She wasn’t exactly feeling like a furnace right now, but she could generate heat. It used energy, but she could do that. None of it was soothing the baby, his cracked hiccups and pitiful whimpers edged on Spinel’s natural instincts to comfort. Again, she was failing. Pathetic.

 “Please, I don’t know… I don’t know how…Rose.” She felt so lost, severed from abilities she had purposefully learned and were not inherit to Gems. How did it go? What did humans do? What did pebble humans like? She could just bubble him, that was what they did with unruly corrupted Gems. “Please stop. Shhh-shhh…. Um.” She hummed, choosing a tune and warble lost from ages ago. It was soft and bittersweet, a melody that once upon a time moved through the Garden, before the Great War. Before she abandoned innocence, for a new purpose. A new Game.

 The baby hiccupped and spluttered, eyes blinking at the strange being. He looked on the verge of regressing, spurring Spinel to draw her arms up from her lap and hold the child to her gem.

 “Oh my stars, Oh distant galaxies, watching and turning, tirelessly pining. I stand still and proud in my Garden all alone, waiting out the eons as they slip away. I wonder, will today be the day my light returns? My radiance and eminence given form, to take and hold me, praise me. My purpose, my star gifted aspiration. Will this be the day I win the game? What fun we’ll have, if we keep each other. Cherish one another. For eternity boundless.’

 “Endless and timeless, we are forever. What always was, shall then continue. From my Garden I watch as the ones once cherished, grow distant and dim. But not us. Not us. A star becomes a nova, but a Gem is set and steadfast. Farewell to the stars, the galaxies, vacant of passion, bereft of sorrow. Void of precious longing. We burn bright, but stars snuff out. When they dim, erupt, dazzle like Gem Glows, I say farewell. I will miss your light, I will grieve for your guidance and comfort this night. Stars flicker and fall, but not us. Not us. We are… we are forever.”

 This was not how it was supposed to be. This was not how the game should have ended. Spinel buckled, struggling and failing to shove off the memories. The longing and irreversible nature of permanence.

The baby burbled and snuggled into her chest. He breathed calmly, absorbed in the lullaby and quieted into soundless sleep. Her tears soaked into the thick fiber of the blanket.

 This. This was all she had now. No more Rose, no more—

 “SPINEL!”

 Her eyes snapped open, rimmed and spiraled. Below on the ledge of the sea cliff stood the remnants of the Crystal Gems, minus Pearl. Where could Pearl be?

 “You need to give little Rose back!” Amethyst’s Gem gleamed as she reached for her weapon, but an arm set out by Garnet stalled this movement. Spinel narrowed her eyes.

 “You need to return him,” Garnet boomed. “It is too cold for a child to be out unprotected, you’re putting his life at risk. He’s not like us, he’s human!”

 “What’s his name,” Spinel murmured. “What did they… decide to name him? He’s a… uhh, a Rose Quartz.”

 “Steven,” Garnet supplied, gently. “Rose wanted him to have a human name. He might have a gem, but he may turn out to be more human than Gem. We don’t know.”

 “Hah. Hah-ha.” She tugged her knees up around her arms and checked the entrance of the alcove. Pearl’s absence made her nervous, but it was possible she wanted nothing to do with this confrontation. Either way, the baby – Steven’s – safety, was the forefront of their focus. “This was what she wanted.” She often said that in the few months following the news. “She wanted. This.”

 “It was her decision., and we will preserve those wishes!” Garnet edge her body down, moving her arm away from Amethyst. The stout Gem reached for her weapon, scowling. “For his safety, we will take chances. Don’t make us take that course. Please, Spinel. I have seen the choices you make, and they all end badly.”

 “You can’t bluff me.” Spinel blew a raspberry. “I know better.”

 “Then consider I don’t care what I see. It’s irrelevant. What I do know, is that under no circumstance will we fail. We will take Steven back, and deal with you accordingly.”

 Spinel sighed and drew her face back from Steven’s forehead. “You really can’t take the chance, can you? Pff.” Like a thread unraveling from a sweater, Spinel uncoiled her body and stood. Garnet and Amethyst flinched, geared for the next act. Spinel picked her way gracefully down the jagged rocks, a complete contradiction to her sporadic and craggy movements. Gradually, Garnet unwound her own body and stood at her full height. When Spinel hit the moonlight fully, Amethyst’s jaw dropped.

 She was on high ground and didn’t need to stretch herself, to pass the baby from her arms. “Despite you yelling, he stayed asleep.” She backed away, cloaking herself in the shadows once more until only her eyes and gem were visible.

 “Spinel—”

 “What happened?” Amethyst blurted.

 Spinel didn’t answer, instead, she shut her eyes and doused the light burning in her Gem.

 “What HAPPENED to her!” Amethyst spat, once more. Garnet was about to respond, but jarred and stooped low.

 “Duck!”

 Honestly, Amethyst didn’t need to. Pearl cleared her head with enough space and went sailing outward, with a wail, spear in hand. The two watched her descent and inevitable splash in the ice capped waves below.

 “Nice try, Pearl.”

 Amethyst cupped her hands around her mouth. “You had ONE JOB!”

[theresnosafeharbor4myships]

@jaimeslannistre wanted a Daryl fic, and after watching the “Omega” ep, I did too. So here’s this bit of Daryl (Caryl) angst.

What Used To Be (also on 9L)

Daryl stood stock still as the kid relayed his story, refusing to reveal, either in word or by expression, that the telling affected him.

He gave the kid permission to befriend their prisoner and stepped into the house. Closing the door, he trudged to the window. He stayed veiled behind the thin curtains, waiting for Henry’s silhouette to pass.

Weariness sat upon him like a weighted blanket, and he just wanted rest. No…not rest, though he knew that’d make it easier to keep emotions he’d rather not rifle through safely locked behind that door he rarely opened. What he needed was peace. Solitude. To be out in the ruggedness again with Dog and his thoughts and the tranquility that came with living alone. People, especially so many he just couldn’t get close to, wore him out, and more so now that the entire community—not to mention Michonne and Tara, women he cared deeply for—depended on him to protect them from Lydia and her walker-wearing clan.

He saw Henry pass by and waited until he heard the solid thump of the cellar door close before slipping back outside to hide in the pottery stacks. Who knew how long it would be before the kid would emerge with wounds from having gotten too close to the bars or the two of them would slip out of the cellar together, a new and tenuous friendship having formed? Those were the only options: enemy or ally.

It reminded him of himself. Of their original group, so many eons ago, before they’d suffered through maniacs and cannibals and governors and walkers—back when walkers really were the dead and not the living.

The irony of the living dead and the dead living wasn’t lost on him, and if things hadn’t felt so dire, he might’ve found crude amusement at the convoluted mess the world had become.

He’d had to make his own choice back then, and thankfully he’d been softer—or smarter—than Merle and had chosen ally. Something he had never regretted, not for a single moment, despite the struggles and loss.

His chest ached at how much had changed, at the memory of what used to be. What could never be again.

She was the only one left from their original group, and she’d slipped away from him.

His heart seized at the thought of her. They’d been so close once, the two of them toeing a line neither quite knew how to breach, each finding the other over and over again, reunited, reconciled, recognized, until they’d suffered so much, travesty upon devastating travesty, they’d lost the ability to reconnect. Still, despite all that had come between them—horrors, secrets, losses, and now communities and her long-standing marriage—she’d sought him out all these years, visiting often, making sure he had food, stayed safe, kept in contact with their groups, and, more recently, spending the evening giving him a haircut by moonlight.

He’d told himself it didn’t mean anything, but he couldn’t shake the ghost of her hands flitting through his hair, brushing it away from his face, gazing at him, smiling sweetly, her soft voice massaging his bruised heart.

They’d gone their separate ways years ago, and at times he nearly doubled over at the gaping wound in his heart. They’d once shared a home (albeit a prison), a family, knowing the other better than anyone else on this cursed plain: shared traumas, understanding spirits, wounded souls, both escaping prisons made out of fists and fears instead of bars.

Henry had no way of knowing he already knew why Carol had kept her hair short. Oh, he’d guessed it long before she’d told him, but the memory of her sharing it with him came unbidden.

The balmy evening had turned into a cool, early morning chill, and he’d graciously turned guard duty over to Glenn. It wasn’t so much that he felt tired but that his muscles felt stiff from a night of alternately standing and sitting on the deck of the cold metal tower.

He ambled into cell block C, stopping short when he saw Carol standing in front of the mirror someone had hung on the wall, her hands fluffing her naturally curling hair, a look of sweet surprise gracing her face.

He’d often thought about doing that himself, wondering how soft those tendrils would feel, what emotion her eyes would convey to him. A hundred different dream scenarios had brought him to that moment, standing before her, both scared to reveal how much he cared but imbued with some reserve of audacity ignited by the look on her face.

Shaking the mirage from his mind, he pulled the door closed behind him, and she caught his reflection in the mirror, her hands slowly falling away from her face.

“’Morning,” she greeted, turning to face him.

“Hey.” He glanced at her once, not wanting to cause her embarrassment at having caught her preening in the mirror. Heaven knew she’d likely heard enough derogatory comments in her life about her appearance—though he could hardly imagine why—and he didn’t want to cause her any distress.

“I was going to start breakfast, but I guess I got distracted. I was just noticing it’s gotten longer. It’s still short, but…it’s been such a long time since I’ve actually seen it like this.” She ran her fingers through her hair again, a small smile playing on her lips. “Or a mirror, for that matter.”

His mouth quirked up, her words relieving him of the concern he’d felt. “Looks nice like that.”

She radiated a smile at him. “Thank you.” She turned to heat the pot for coffee. “It’s a definite improvement over the prison style I had before—pun intended.”

He huffed a laugh, sidling up next to her and taking some of the deer jerky he’d made out of the container they kept it in. “Looked good then, too,” he ventured, his brain telling him he should’ve kept his mouth shut, his heart thumping at the words.

She nodded once. “I appreciate that.”

She stilled, not looking at him for a moment, then turned and sat at the bench behind them.

He swallowed hard and dropped the jerky back into the storage container. Had he said something wrong? What could’ve been bad about telling her she looked nice?

The moment hung heavy between them, and he waited a few minutes longer until the coffee was ready, then poured two cups, set one in front of her, and settled on the bench next to her.

He watched her out of the corner of his eye as she played with the handle of the coffee mug. He cupped his hands around his own mug, warming them against the chill of the morning. “Did I…say somethin’ wrong?” he asked quietly, sheepishly.

“Oh,” she breathed, realization lacing her tone. “No, not at all.” She looked at him, and he faced her. “I made that joke, and it took me back to…to why my hair was so short to begin with.” She kept her tone light, but the emotion behind it begged for release.

He had a hunch he knew the reason; after all, he’d had the misfortune of living in the camp with her better-off-dead husband. He also knew what it felt like when, in a rare moment of release, he wanted to talk about something that had happened to him, some trauma he needed off his chest. He recognized it as easily as breathing, and he offered her the opportunity. “Why’s that?”

His light-hearted questioned belied both the intensity of the coming conversation and his curiosity.

“It used to be longer, curly, and…” she rolled her eyes in self-deprecation. “and more red than gray.”

He couldn’t help it: he immediately envisioned her with soft, curling, flowy, deep red hair, a striking contrast to her piercing blue eyes. It all made sense. The ferocity with which she defended those she loved. The fight in her that’d allowed her to survive the worst the world had to offer. The fiery spirit that had thrived and now teased him with abandon. A spitfire with a kindness in her heart and fierceness in her veins, strong enough to defend even a backwoods bum like him.

“We’d only been married a short time when things changed. He wasn’t the man I thought he was—or maybe he was and I just didn’t notice it early enough. Regardless, it wasn’t the life I imagined. Full of bruises and scrapes and ‘falling down the stairs’ and hiding the injuries under long sleeves and makeup. And still it got worse.” She paused, her voice having gone soft and wistful.

He remained quiet, brushing aside the rising anger in his chest. No one deserved what she’d suffered through. But he focused on the fact that she’d survived and become the strong, empowered, confident force of nature he knew her as. It helped contain the black wisp of hate that threatened to overtake him, a friend he was all too familiar with.

Sipping her coffee, she stared blankly at the stolid room in front of them and continued. “I tried to run. Sometimes I even got away, but often he was able to catch me, grab me by my hair. Sometimes that hurt worse than everything else. It felt like…like my skull was on fire and my scalp would slip right off the bone. I’d have headaches, neck aches, sometimes for days. So one day I sheared it right off.” She smiled ruefully. “I cried the whole time. I tried never to cry in front of him—or doctors or nurses or church friends. Or Sophia,” she whispered. She cleared her throat. “But I cried. I knew he’d never again drag me down the hall by my hair while I tried to gain my footing or pull me backwards as I ran and slam me into the wall. I knew he’d be pissed, but I did it anyway. I felt more sad over the loss of my hair than any fear he’d ever caused me. I hated I’d been reduced to shaving my own head to protect myself.”

She stopped abruptly, and the room seemed smaller somehow without her telling her story and her voice giving life to the woman she’d become.

He waited, not wanting to press and giving her time to continue if she wanted, to expel this memory of her abuser and take back a fraction of her power. He watched her sip her coffee, her countenance telling him she was done.

“It was worth it,” he stated gently, turning to look at her. “To keep you alive. To have you here.” He sipped at his own coffee, unable to hold her steady gaze any longer. “I know it ain’t the same, maybe doesn’t feel like it—”

“It does,” she interjected emphatically, and he turned to her again. “I cried, but I’m not sorry for a second that I did it. That I protected me…us…that it was the one way I could hit him where it hurt.”

“Neither am I. He deserved more.”

Carol nodded and set her hand on his forearm, her touch sending a web of warmth through his body.

His gaze dropped to her hand, and he wandered at the moment, he so unafraid of her touch, she gazing intently at him. The moment was ripe, stretched taut like a string intended to make music, and his eyes flicked to hers again.

“Carol, you up?”

Her hand slipped away, and they each gripped their coffee cups as Rick shuffled sleepily into their makeshift kitchen, the fog of potential flitting away like a balloon in the wind.

She’d been right there. Right there.

Now, with her a world away, in the arms of another, he was schooling her son. A redemption story he didn’t deserve, he realized dismally.

And with the most important piece of his heart missing.

He felt the cavern of anguish eat away at his insides, and he took a deep breath, refocusing on the task before him—keep her kid safe—as Henry and Lydia emerged from the cellar.

[midnightdaybreak]

Fate Monsters

‘I can’t believe I’m doing this.’

The man sneered at the forest surrounding him. He was a man not in the sense that he was human – far from it – but rather by his clear distinction as a male. He wore not a shred of clothing, allowing his massive endowment to bounce freely between his legs as he walked.

Standing seven feet tall, he was a hulking being with perfect and bulking muscles on his arms, back, and chest. His legs were equally built, though they deviated from his form. Whereas his upper body was passably human, the shape of his thick legs were more reminiscent of a goat, covered in thick black fur and ending in massive black cloven hooves. They left deep indents in the ground, which smoldered with each step.

His skin was as black as the fur, rivaling the night sky in its hue. A tapestry of scars was painted across his chest that, together, formed a mural of a great and ancient war. More scars decorated both of his arms, arranged into a pattern of flames licking upward from his fingers to his chiseled shoulders, from which extended a pair of great black wings. Even folded, they were as tall as he was, with the tips still sweeping the ground.

Black horns grew from several places on his body, including large spikes that jutted out from his shoulders. A line of smaller spikes ran down the length of his arms, and more circled around his collar. There were two that stuck out from his defined cheeks, and another protruding like a goatee from his chin. A row of them ran down his spine, ending above his buttock with a long serpentine tail. It was covered in black scales and flared near the end, forming an arrowhead tip.

The largest horns, though, were the ones on his head. They dominated his crown, adding easily another two feet to his impressive height and branching several times – they were heavy as he walked, cursing him with a perpetually aching neck. From behind the horns grew the remnants of the being’s once luscious and fiery red hair, cropped short to his neck.

He looked around in disgust as he walked. His once shining silver eyes had dimmed to a dull gray cast against flaming yellow-orange sclera. His face had long since lost its androgynous features, having aged and hardened over countless eons into the grim mask of fear it was.

‘Why in Helheim’s sacred name did that bitch choose this remote corner of such a miserable realm as her home?’ he wondered. In a way, he could see the appeal. The forest was lush and peaceful, glowing gold and green in the late-day light of the sun’s rays. It was a beautiful place; the kind he and his people would’ve once inhabited. That was so long ago, though, when he still had a people.

He pushed his way through the dense undergrowth, grunting every time a bush or branch brushed against his exposed skin. It wasn’t that it hurt him �� pain was his constant companion. He simply didn’t like to be touched anymore. Not since the day his skin had been dyed by the power of Helheim’s divine element, The Deepest Darkness. Nothing had felt right since then. Every touch, from the gentlest caress to the fiercest blow was both burning and chilling, painful and pleasant, agony and bliss. He often wondered if that was part of his punishment.

“Well, well, what do we have here?” came a woman’s voice, filled with taunting.

The male being stopped in his tracks and cast his gaze around. He immediately spread his aural sense outward, searching for the voice’s source.

“I simple don’t believe it,” the female voice went on, unable to contain its delight. “If it isn’t the great Iblis Shaytan, founder and king of the shaytan race himself, slumming it once again here in Midgard.”

The being flared his nostrils. “I’m in no mood for games, witch,” he growled, his voice a deep bass.

The woman’s voice giggled, as if she had just been paid a complement. “Oh come now, Ibibi, is that any way to talk to an old fling?”

Iblis huffed. “Very old.”

The woman’s voice laughed again. “You’re one to talk. Last count, you still had an eon or two on me.”

“I did not come here to discuss our immortality,” Iblis growled. “Show yourself before me.”

The woman’s voice made a tsking sound. “Oh no, no, Ibibi. This is not your domain. You’re on Midgard now, where my kind reigns supreme. Surely you haven’t forgotten. After all, isn’t that what started everything? Made you into the monster – albeit a devilishly good-looking monster – that you are?”

“You don’t have a kind anymore!” Iblis barked, waving his arm dramatically and flaring his wings. The scars on his chest and arms lit up bright orange. A wave of yellow-orange flames rolled down his arm, flying from the tips of his clawed fingers and into the trees, setting them ablaze. “I grow tired of your childish ways, witch. You should well know I would never set foot on this horrid ball of rock, much less seek out you of all beings, if it weren’t a matter of great importance. I command you to stand before me; else I burn this entire forest to the ground and drag you out.”

The woman’s voice drew in a shuddering breath. “Still so forceful,” it said amorously. “That’s what I always loved about you, Ibibi. Well, that and, of course, this.”

A set arms suddenly encircled Iblis from behind. They were as black as his skin, covered in a chitinous exoskeleton that ended in claw-like fingers. One wrapping possessively around his chest while the other glided down to capture his hanging member in its grasp. Even it had a spiky ridge running along its top, which she fondled affectionately with her thumb.

Iblis let out a sound between a shudder and a groan at the contact, pain and pleasure spiking through his body.

“No cock has ever satisfied me like yours,” the woman’s voice whispered in his pointed ear while her hand slowly stroked him.

Iblis just let out another huff. “You should know by now; you’ve had plenty.” He brushed the woman’s arms off and escaped her embraced with a grunt, turning to face her. “I didn’t come here seeking your pleasures, Lilith.”

The woman pouted and fluttered her purple, butterfly-like wings. They sprouted from her back and were as tall as her, her hind wings barely an inch off the ground. “And here I’d thought you’d finally come around, Ibibi. You know I’ll show you a good time.”

She ran her hands seductively over her body, starting by cupping her breasts and smoothing them down her flat stomach to her thighs while turning slightly and sticking out her ass. Like Iblis, Lilith wore no clothing. Unlike him, though, her appearance was distinctly more human. Her skin was creamy and fair, stretched tautly over a toned frame. The black exoskeleton – reflecting deep green in the forest light – that covered from her bicep to her hands also coated from her mid-thighs down, ending in black, bird-like toes.

She had long brown hair that fell in ringlets down her back and chest, the tips curling around her rosy nipples. Her face was heart-shaped with delicate features, petal-pink lips, and earthy-green eyes. Long, golden horns sprung out from her temples and extended along the sides of her skull to the back, forming a natural crown. She was beautiful, no doubt, hand-crafted of Richest Clay. Any other being would have found her irresistible.

Not Iblis. He just rolled his eyes and sighed at the display.

Realizing that the male wasn’t impressed, Lilith frowned and relaxed her posture. “Still boring and only interested in yourself.” She sighed and shrugged, turning away from her former lover. “All right, what are you here for?” she asked boredly.

She walked to a nearby tree and tapped it with her finger, which was glowing a deep green, causing the bark and branches to morph. It creaked and crackled loudly, taking on an almost liquid state as it reshaped itself into an ornate horned throne.

“You know why I’m here,” Iblis stated, tapping one hoof impatiently as she settled into her seat. She curled one leg under herself while draping the other over one of the arms, exposing her vagina invitingly.

Lilith smiled at Iblis’s acknowledgement of her ability, knowing how much it pained him to have to admit it. She wanted to see him squirm a little more. “You could’ve gone to others,” she told him, staring nonchalantly at her claws. “The Moirai, the Sudice, the Norns; any of those old hags could’ve told you what you want to know. Why come to me?”

Iblis exhaled loudly through his nose, snorting out tiny flames while his scars glowed faintly. “Because, my dear Lilith, despite everything, I trust you far more than any of them. Though they claim independence, they all favor those within their own pantheons. Of all the beings in all the realms gifted with precognitive abilities, I know with absolute truth that your only loyalty is to yourself, and your cunt.”

That made the witch giggle. “I do treat her well,” she agreed, patting the space between her legs affectionately. “You know my help isn’t free, Ibibi. If you really want to know…” she used her index and ring finger to spread her vulva while sliding her middle finger inside, “you’ll have to convince her to let me tell you.”

“I’ve long since lost interest in pleasures of the flesh,” Iblis dismissed.

“But I haven’t,” Lilith moaned, masturbating slowly in front of him. Her breathing hitched a little, her chest heaved, and her face grew flushed. “Come on, Ibibi,” she almost begged, inserting a second finger. “For old time’s sake?”

Iblis closed his eyes and swallowed. He took in a slow breath, trying to rein in the stirring in his loin. Despite his claim to the contrary, he couldn’t deny the allure of watching the woman who was once his lover pleasure herself. Even with the messed up way physical contact felt, sex with her had always been pleasant. He could never let her know that, though. Love was a weakness he couldn’t afford.

Lilith smirked, noticing the man’s struggle. “Or maybe…” she said slowly. She waited until she saw his eyes open again before withdrawing her fingers, shining with the evidence of her arousal, and moving them even lower. “You’d like to partake of some forbidden fruit,” she offered, tracing her moistened fingertips around the puckered pink of her anus.

A wrinkle of pleasure swept through the shaytan, made evident both by the warm glow of his scars and the obvious twitching of his cock. “You can hardly call something that’s been had by half the men in the Nine Realms forbidden,” he said calmly, still feigning disinterest.

Lilith laughed again, making it a sultry sound. Her image disappeared from the throne in the same instant that it reappeared directly in front of him. With her back to him, she wiggled and rubbed her ass seductively against his growing erection.

Iblis hissed at the contact, pain and pleasure radiating through him. Instinctively, he reached out to embrace the woman, though he caught himself just in time.

“Stop fighting it, Ibibi,” she whispered seductively. She reached behind herself and grabbing his cock again while positioning her wings on either side of him, blocking the rest of the world from view so that he could only focus on her. She brought his member between the cheeks of her perfectly rounded ass and rubbed herself up and down against it while leaning her back against his chest, thrusting her breasts outward. “Give me what I want, and I’ll give you what you want.”

Iblis let out an unwilling groan of pleasure, one that didn’t go unnoticed. He cursed himself for letting the witch have her way with him. ‘Women truly are a cursed thing. What was Allah thinking?’ he wondered as he finally gave in. “Tell me what I want to know,” he said in a strained voice. “If you can please me, then I’ll please you.”

Lilith squealed with glee. She released her hold on him and clapped her hands excited, her wings fluttering as she danced a few steps away. It was the best answer she could hope to get. Not to mention, if he didn’t like what she had to say, she could always lie to him. Iblis never welched on a deal and, as long as he was placated, she would get what she wanted.

“It’s a deal,” she said, turning and offering her hand to him.

Reluctant to trust the witch entirely, Iblis grasped her hand with his own. “Deal.”

“So, what’s on your mind, Ibibi?” she asked, all business-like, withdrawing her hand and starting back toward her throne.

“You know what,” he said, rolling his eyes and following her. She was still playing games with him, but he was in no mood to argue; playing along was easier. “Surely you felt that aura the other day. It did originate from this realm.”

“You’d have to be human not to feel that,” Lilith replied, smirking at her own irony as she curled up in her throne again.

“There’s not been a presence like that felt since the time of Creation. What is it? And where did it disappear to?”

Lilith tilted her head back and brought her finger to her lips, as if she were pondering. Of course, she was just making a show of things, knowing exactly the answer. It was just fun to tease Iblis. “You know how the jötnar have been coveting Midgard since the time of Gaia?”

Iblis quirked a confused brow. “Yes, and?”

“And one of them finally did something about it,” Lilith explained carelessly, matter-of-factly. “Her name was Dagný; she was a Norn.”

Iblis clicked his tongue in irritation. “Are you saying some prophetic, giantess bitch caused that?”

“Not exactly; she just started it. She got this cockamamie idea that her Norn powers could be used to not just look at fate, but actually alter it. She went to that dwarf who made Mjölnir, and asked if he could forge her power into something that could grant her wish. He said he could do it, but it would probably take the entirety of her soul to make an object that powerful. She was fine with that, so he smashed her head in with his hammer right there. Really gruesome, bloody mess; you’d have loved it, Ibibi.”

Iblis just snorted tersely, blowing tiny smoke and flames out his nostrils.

“Sindri – the dwarf – mixed her blood with some bronze and made this tablet… slab… thing. It’s got all these gems set in it; quite gaudy, if you ask me. Not a very original name either; Dagnýskive (New Day Slab).”

Iblis frowned. “So a hunk of bronze caused that ripple?”

“Nope,” the witch told him, tapping his nose with her finger.

The Shaytan King growled loudly. “Then what was it?”

Lilith only laughed. “You’re so cute when you’re begging. Sindri tried using the tablet to grant Dagný’s wish, but it didn’t have enough power. He asked his brother, Brokkr, for some advice, who guessed that a bunch of ren and ka would do the trick.”

“Brokkr told Sindri not to do it, though. Not only is that a lot of souls to rip up, but changing the fate of the jötnar directly defies Allah’s will.”

That actually made the shaytan smirk. “So the maggot did it, then?”

“Oh, did he,” the witch said in an exaggerated way. “He popped up across the ocean, over where the Æsir-worshippers dwell, and disguised himself as a shaman or something. It’s nothing but war and bloodshed amongst the tribes over there anyway; I guess he figured, since they’re killing each other anyway, it would be a less of a loss. As if these insignificant, mortal dirt-husks of their intended form”

“And?” Iblis pressed, the impatient glowing in his scars getting brighter, joined by a glowing in his eyes.

Lilith sighed in exasperation. “Sometimes it’s so annoying to see so much. You’d better give me a good pounding after this.”

Iblis ground his teeth in irritation.

“Sindri went all over that peninsula promising those barbarians that he could end their warring days and lead them all to Valhalla; those monkeys will believe anything if you flash a little prana if front of them. He rounded up about a thousand of them; gathered them all in a big field, called on the fires of his forge to wipe them all out, then sucked all of their ren and ka into the Dagnýskive. The ka is the part of the soul that generates spiritual energy, and the ren amplifies that power – along with shaping the soul and binding it to the body. Put one thousand of those together and you’ve got quite a power source.”

Iblis scoffed, looking into the forest. “And also a big mess, leaving that many soul fragments lying around.”

“And that big mess is exactly what we felt, Ibibi,” Lilith told him in an uncharacteristically serious tone that drew Iblis’s gaze back to her. “Without the ren to shape the soul, the ib and the sheut begin to clash, which distorts the ba. That dwarf created more than just the Dagnýskive; he created a swirling maelstrom of lost and shapeless souls that had only one thing they could cling to.”

“And that was?”

Lilith leaned forward in her throne, taking Iblis’s horned chin in her hand as she brought her face close to his. “Revenge. Sindri had promised them Valhalla; an end to war and suffering. Instead, he’d condemned them an eternity of formless, nihilistic discord. That desire for revenge became the new ren that bound all one thousand of those lost souls together. That desire shaped the shapeless ba into a monster; a great black dragon, the Malice Striker, Níðhöggr.

“Sindri tried to use the Tablet’s power against Níðhöggr but, since both the Dagnýskive and Níðhöggr were created from the same ritual, their powers cancelled each other out. That clash of power is what we all felt. Thing is, since Níðhöggr had no ka to draw power from, it had to draw power from its ba. So, even though its power and the Dagnýskive cancelled out, Níðhöggr took too much damage, and ran away.”

“Where is it now?”

“Yggdrasil.”

Iblis furrowed his brow and cocked his head. “Why there?”

“Power,” Lilith said sternly. “It’s hiding out in the roots, feeding on them. Yggdrasil draws power from all Nine Realms, including the power of the Divine Elements. For a being with no ka, it’s the best source of sustenance. Even though Níðhöggr’s form it bound, it’s still basically just a chaotic mass of formless souls. The Divine Elements, which can be breathed to life, will settle that chaos and help Níðhöggr develop a ka of its own.”

“What will Níðhöggr do then?” That was it; the real reason Iblis had come to Lilith. Níðhöggr’s creation had shaken the Nine Realms in a way nothing else had before. He had to know what impact the dragon could have on the Game of Souls he was playing. Would it get in his way? Could he use it to his advantage?

Lilith shrugged. “Ragnarök.”

Iblis’s eyes opened wide. “What did you say?” he asked, his voice caught in his throat.

For a moment, Lilith didn’t reply. Iblis wasn’t going to like what she told him, which meant she wouldn’t get what she wanted. Her eyes strayed down to the shaytan’s cock, which had lost all signs of erection to their conversation. If she was going to have it, she had to pick her words very carefully.

“Right now, Níðhöggr is just sucking on Yggdrasill’s roots,” she said slowly, “drinking its sap, much like I wish to drink yours.” She licked her lips eagerly. “That’s pretty impressive right there, seeing as no other being has ever even pierced its bark. Eventually, though, it will grow strong enough to take a bite from the roots.”

Iblis’s jaw fell open. He had once tried removing a branch from Yggdrasil, so that it might be carved into a weapon when he declared war on Heaven. Even he, with all his power and might, could not so much as chip the bark of the World Tree.

“When will that happen?”

“In about fifteen hundred of Midgard’s years,” Lilith went on, still choosing her words with care. “After that, it will come back to this realm to get revenge on the dwarf; not that it’ll find Sindri, of course. Dagný’s will still exists inside the Dagnýskive, and for making a wish other than hers upon it, she sucked out the dwarf’s soul and sealed it into one of the Dagnýskive’s gemstones. With no dwarf to get revenge on, Níðhöggr will just start wreaking havoc on the world. A war will break out between humans and unhumans, with Níðhöggr bringing destruction on both sides.”

“Surely Allah will not allow such a monster to have its way with His precious Midgard and darling humans.” Iblis sneered several of the words.

Lilith shrugged. “You know how He is; let things play out on their own. He’ll just sit back and watch for a few decades. Only when Midgard is on its last leg will He send in the angels, but by then, it’ll be too late. Níðhöggr will have grown too powerful and, while they’re busy dealing with it, you and the shaytan will attack Asgard. The Vanir and the jötnar will side with you against the Æsir, the Olympians, the Ennead, and the Dingir – I guess Dagný’s wish will be fulfilled then. The dökkálfar will overthrow the dwarves to claim Niðavellir, though they won’t be siding with you after you ditched them here. Basically, all Nine Realms will be thrown into chaos.”

“Skip to the end, whore,” Iblis commanded her through a tightly clenched jaw. “Are my chances of winning against Allah still the same as before?”

Sighing sadly, Lilith closed her eyes and shook her head. “I told you, Ibibi. This is Ragnarök, not Yawm ad-Dīn (the Day of Judgment). Just as the fighting reaches its climax, Surtr will burst forth from Muspelheim with an army eldjötnar. Countless gods, already exhausted from the fighting, will fall to the fire giants.”

“What of the Judgment, though?”

“You won’t be around for it. You will be fighting Michael when the eldjötnar attack. Their appearance will distract you both, Níðhöggr will appear, and you’ll both be eaten. The rest gets a little fuzzy, but in short, everyone dies. Frankly, I can’t be sure if Allah will even be around to judge any souls.”

Iblis’s legs felt weak. He leaned against her throne, feeling like the breath had been knocked out of him. “Impossible. Me, eaten by that monster? Alongside Michael of all beings?”

“It’s a tough fate to accept,” the woman agreed, patting the back of Iblis’s head. She’d managed to shock the King of the Shaytan; it was time to catch him in her grasp. She’d been scanning through all of the possible futures she could see in search of the one that would please him the most. Frankly, none of them were particularly favorable.

Until she’d seen it.

“If only there were a way to avoid such a fate,” she baited him nonchalantly.

“And what does that mean?” Iblis roared. He threw her hand aside and shot to his feet, his eyes and his scar burning brightly orange. “Are you saying there’s no avoiding this fate? That this monster’s creation is to be my destined downfall?”

“It doesn’t look good,” the witch replied, still feigning indifference.

He found it irritating and, in a fit of power and rage, conjured a mass of yellow-orange flames in his hand and thrust his arm forward. The fire erupted from his palm in a concentrated stream that shot just over Lilith’s shoulder, blasting away the back of her throne. It kept flying into the forest, destroying several trees that got in its path.

A shiver ran down Lilith’s spine as the Smokeless Fire passed her; not from fear, but desire, and was accompanied by a rush of warmth that had nothing to do with the flames. It was his pride and ambition that had first drawn her to Iblis, and his power had only fueled that. She’d never wanted anyone or anything more than she wanted him, but he’d never returned those feelings. Pride and ambition didn’t just drive Iblis; they consumed him. Next to that, she would only ever be second in his heart, at best. It was the closest thing to sadness the demon witch had felt since casting away her humanity.

Iblis walked back to her with determined steps. He leaned down with his towering form, tightly grabbing each arm of the chair as he brought his face directly to Lilith’s. “You’ve seen something, witch. You’ve seen the one in a million possibilities that favors me. Tell me of it, and tell me now.”

Lilith groaned with pleasure as another wave of desire rippled through her. She wanted him – badly. She had him in the palm of her hand; it was time to clinch it.

Swallowing back her longing, she spoke slowly and breathlessly. “I did see one future that might please you.”

Iblis just held his hard gaze on her. When she didn’t continue at first he inclined his brows, prompting her on.

She bit her lip, fighting to stay focused. “In this particular future, you manage to enslave this monster. Should this future pay out, the monster will simply disappear, and things will, more or less, resume their course.”

Iblis furrowed his brow. “Disappear? Just… gone?”

The woman nodded back at him.

“That seems a little too convenient,” he told her, his eyes and scars still burning. “Knowing you like I do, I’d say you’re just trying to appease me to get what you want.”

“It’s true, Ibibi,” she said quickly, a little flustered. She wasn’t lying, but he’d definitely caught on to her game. She had to seal the deal quickly. “It’s not a simple future. A lot of things have to happen to achieve this outcome; if even one of them goes wrong, it could still end badly. But, should things go as I’ve envisioned, the monster will disappear and Midgard will be left in shambles. Humans and unhumans alike will be clambering in the wreckage of the world for something to give them hope. It’ll be the perfect setting for you, The Great Deceiver, to lead them astray.”

Iblis regarded her hard. He searched her face, trying to pick out any hint that she might be lying, but found nothing. He was quiet for so long that, when he did speak, it made the witch jump.

“What has to happen?”

Lilith reached out to push him away as she rose from her throne. His proximity was becoming too much to keep her thoughts and composure straight. “It’s quite simple, Ibibi,” she said, walking passed him. She came upon another tree and wrapped herself provocatively around the trunk, grinding her pelvis against a low branch. The rough bark against her waiting skin sent little waves of pleasure through her. It helped her clear away the amorous haze that was clouding her thoughts, and also gave her a chance to tease the Shaytan King a little more.

“All we require is the aid of another monster that can equally sway fate the way this monster has,” she told him, her voice more even.

Iblis scoffed and threw his hands up in frustration. “Oh! Of course! It’s so easy, why didn’t I think of that?” he rambled, making Lilith laugh. “What are you laughing at?”

“You’re so cute, Ibibi,” she said, still riding her branch. “I’ve given you hope for the future, now come and fuck me. I’ll tell you the rest afterward.”

“You’ll tell me now,” he commanded in reply. Knowing that she was trying to draw him in, he’d stayed defiantly by her throne.

Lilith sighed, uncoiling herself from her tree and starting back toward him. “Fine. Answer me this, then? Do you know how many monstrous beings have ever changed the course of fate like this? I’ll give you a hint; you were the first, and this monster is only the third.”

“Then who was the second?”

Reaching Iblis, the woman took his face between her hands and looked him dead in the eye. “Granqueliel.”

A chill ran down the shaytan’s spine. It was a name he hadn’t heard in eons; never thought he’d hear again. He swallowed around the lump that had appeared in his throat. “What does he have to do with anything?”

“Everything,” Lilith told him. “He is an extraordinary being, whose existence can alter fate. He is the key to turning this situation around.”

“He’s also dead,” Iblis reminded her.

Lilith sighed again, shaking her head. “No, no, no Ibibi, he never died.”

“He’s as good as dead!” he bellowed, throwing her hands off. “What good is a being who no longer exists?”

“But he does still exist,” Lilith insisted.

“Liar! You speak lies to please your own wanting cunt!” he accused, his scars burning brighter than ever. An aura of yellow-orange flames erupted around him, condensing into his hand in the form of a burning sword. He raised the weapon over his head, snarling in rage, and brought it down at the woman.

“I am not lying, Lord Iblis Shaytan,” Lilith whispered, calmly closing her eyes.

The proper use of his name halted the shaytan’s blade just an instant from splitting her skull. He held it there, poised to strike, while glaring at her from behind the licking yellow blaze.

Lilith remained perfectly still, eyes closed. There was little that could be done when Iblis got that way, but playing to his ego was one of them. She waited until she felt the heat of the blade move away before allowing herself to relax.

“Speak, whore,” Iblis told her sternly, letting his sword fall to his side but not dissipating it.

Swallowing nervously, Lilith opened her eyes and spoke in a quivering voice. “G-Granqueliel still ex-exists,” she stuttered. “H-He reduced his entire body and s-soul to pure energy, but with no physical f-form to contain that energy, his existence s-simply dissolved.” She cleared her dry throat once, trying to compose herself more. “All of that pure energy that is him still exists here in Midgard. If it could all be gathered together, every last bit of it, his soul could be reforged. Granqueliel can be reborn.”

Iblis couldn’t believe his ears. Granqueliel. His best friend. His protégé. The man that had refused to stand with him during the Rebellion. The most naturally gifted khudue to have ever been born. There hadn’t been a khudue in the Nine Realms in eons; not since The Fall. If Iblis could revive one – a zalamkhudue, no less – and bring it to his side, then it would tip the Game in his favor. If it could avert him from the fate of Níðhöggr, that was even better.

“How?” he asked the witch. “How do we bring back Granqueliel’s soul?”

Relief swept through Lilith’s body and she let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. Iblis nearly killing her had been the most powerful turn-on of all. She could feel the abundant wetness between her thighs. She was going to live, and even better, she was going to get the reward she so painfully desired.

“I’ll give you a spell,” she told the shaytan as she relaxed.

Iblis watched as she lifted both of her hands, each covered in a deep green-black light. She reached out to him with her right hand and tapped her index finger into his sternum, sending the glow into his body.

“That’s half the spell,” she whispered, her voice low and sultry. Licking her lips in anticipation, she brought her glowing left hand to her collar and ran it slowly downward. Between her breasts, over her stomach, between her thighs. Finally, she cried out as she inserted her left index finger into herself. Her body quivered and she fell forward into Iblis’s chest, who dropped his sword and caught her in his embrace.

“The other half’s in here,” she invited him, looking up through lidded eyes while fingering herself. “You know how to get it.”

Iblis let out a soft sigh. “You are an exasperating wench,” he told her, his tone holding something akin to affection.

Lilith gasped in surprised when he suddenly spun them around, turning her so that her back was to him. He shoved her roughly forward so that she was bent before him, her hands supporting her on the seat of her throne. He grasped her hips tightly, blood trickling where his claws bit into her creamy flesh, and positioned his reinvigorated erection.

Leaning forward, careful to not yet penetrate her, he brushed her hair to the side and whispered in her ear. “This spell had better work, bitch,” he cooed, his breath blistering hot on her skin. “Or else I’ll kill you.”

His threat drove her wild. “It will, my Lord,” she whispered submissively.

“Just a curiosity,” he went on, his voice growing husky as he rubbed his cock against her quivering nether-lips, “How quickly will Granqueliel’s soul revive?”

Lilith had hoped he wouldn’t ask that, afraid that the answer might put him off. She couldn’t lie to him, though; not when her prize was so close at hand. “His soul has been spreading across Midgard for eons,” she told him, practically panting with need. “It’ll take about a thousand years to gather it all, give or take a decade. Oh please, Lord Iblis, don’t make me wait any longer.” She pushed her backside against him, trying to achieve any pleasure she could, but his grip held her in place.

“A thousand out of the fifteen hundred years till my demise,” he murmured, straightening back up. “That’s cutting it awful close.”

“Granqueliel will not fail you,” she whined, still struggling in his grasp. “His revival will mean your survival.”

“Hm… he was quite gifted,” the shaytan concurred, raising his member the slightest bit, the tip resting firmly against her entrance. “Just remember it well, witch; if this doesn’t work,” he thrust suddenly into her, growling out the last three words, “I’ll kill you.”

His words and his assault undid her. Lilith cried out and spasmed as she came around him, collapsing to the throne in ecstasy while the King of the Shaytan fucked her like no one else in all the Nine Realms could.

[dancyon]

the gods took them back (the problem with having a heart)

Finally posting the fic I wrote for @exyordeath-zine. My wonderful artist was @still-waiting-for-godot. 

Mind the warnings, this fic is as dark as they come, like a SOA AU would be. It will be under the cut and I am linking the story on AO3 for whoever likes reading there better. http://archiveofourown.org/works/12731550 

TW  Violence, Graphic Death, Suicide, major character death, references to non-con, slavery

Putting it under the line because long fic is long

Prince Kevin didn’t know when things changed. He didn’t know if one day he woke up and realized it or if deep down he’d always known.

Prince Riko wasn’t himself anymore, but he was a shapeless, sharp teethed shadow at the corner of his eye.

The war had been going on for years, centuries, eons. There was no end, no hope, no light. The soldiers were becoming restless and hungry for the shores of their homes. Their eyes were blank and heavy after all this time, but their mouths were sewn shut by fear of Prince Riko’s knife, of King Ichirou’s cool gaze and omnipresent mind, of the Butcher’s unstoppable rage.

Even Prince Nathaniel had learned to mind his tongue more often than not, which was a vast improvement. Nathaniel was perhaps the sharpest mind their army possessed when it came to tricking their enemy and surviving this bloody and endless war that the Gods begged for, but Riko was still Hero of the Ravens, he was still their number one fighter. Nathaniel’s rebelliousness wouldn’t have ended well if his spirit hadn’t been curbed since the beginning.

“Let us do all the work, why don’t you Princess Kevin?” Nathaniel’s voice mocked behind him in a Northern dialect that few knew around them.

“Prince Riko won’t be happy to hear you speak a language he doesn’t understand.” Kevin answered in the same language, pushing those dangerous thoughts out of his mind.

The Gods might whisper them in Riko’s ear just to have some entertainment.

With a scoff, the younger warrior set down on the ground behind the tent Kevin was leaning against, mirroring his posture.

“Riko is preoccupied with the Foxes.”

With a smirk, he bit into the old apple ration he had brought with himself. Something flashed through his eyes, there and gone in an instant.

Kevin frowned, a voice nagging him in the back of his mind. Nathaniel had been awfully quiet lately. Or as quiet as someone like him could be, all fire and melted silver in his veins.

Averting his eyes, he let it go. The Butcher’s son was a grown man and he knew how to take care of himself. Most of the time, at least. He wouldn’t be unnecessarily reckless.

“Nonetheless, you shouldn’t.” he repeated.

“Well why are you answering in the same language then?”Nathaniel shot back with a glare and a softer smirk, more private joke than biting and vicious anger.

“The Foxes won’t keep him preoccupied forever, Nathaniel.” He couldn’t recognize his distant voice when he talked.

“They don’t have that kind of manpower. The end is close.”

So close. What would they come back to? Ruined houses and a Riko with only half of his soul still intact?

“Is it really?” His friend’s voice brought him back to the present.

Nathaniel’s eyes were averted towards the sky of the late afternoon, his expression terrifying.

Kevin’s blood ran cold.

“Nathaniel,” he started, something like dread filling his heart. “What –”

Brusquely, he was interrupted.

“Don’t worry about it Kevin. I’m fine.”

Getting up, he tossed the rest of his apple to the side and turned to leave before stopping suddenly and turning his head back to stare at the taller one.

“Why don’t you go check on Jean?” he asked quietly.

Kevin’s blood ran cold again.

Jean, as it turned out, had just been eaten alive and spit raw by something that looked a lot like the bite of Riko’s knifes.

Hands shaking, Kevin filled another cup of cheap, disgusting wine and threw it back in one go, his nervous energy rendering him unable to sit still.

Finally, after enough mead had mellowed his panic, he turned to the hunched and bruised figure on the bed.

“What did you do?”

It came out with more accusation than Kevin had intended, but it was already out of his mouth before he could stop it.

Jean was too tired to glare at him, he simply fumbled with the edge of his bloodied chiton. “Nothing.”

“Jean –” Kevin started through gritted teeth.

Jean and Nathaniel were his responsibility, but he couldn’t do anything to protect them.

“Kevin.” The Northerner answered almost pityingly.

“I’m war spoils and I belong to him. I didn’t need to do anything for him to take his anger out on me.”

“Why was he angry then?” Kevin finally snapped.

“The war, of course. Minyard destroyed one of our battalions in the East all by himself. King Ichirou is starting to doubt Prince Riko’s ability to defeat the Foxes.”

Riko must have been furious, that special brand of anger that consumed him flesh and bones, the one he reserved for his brother, unable to do anything else except bow and obey.

“Yes.” Jean agreed to the unspoken sentiment.

Riko ten years ago wouldn’t have taken his anger out on his subordinates. But Riko from ten years ago was so far away in the past that Kevin was starting to doubt his existence.

“The King threatened to give me to someone else if he doesn’t find a solution soon.”Jean’s tired and defeated voice brought him back to reality, and he was filled with horror.

“He will kill you if King Ichirou tries to take you away.” He said with perfect clarity and surety.

If there was one thing that Riko hated, it was when someone tried to take something from him. He would rather break his toys to pieces himself.

“Yes.” Jean said again, indifferent. There was very little that interested him lately, and his own life was not one of those things. On his list there were only Kevin and Nathaniel, sometimes Thea, sometimes watching the Sun and praying for Apollo like his father before him in the temples of his land.

Kevin left him there, eyes lost watching the roof of the medical tent and thinking of the Sun and his God.

Seven days later, Jean could finally sit up in bed on his own, but Riko’s rotten mood hadn’t gotten any sweeter. His aim was true and his sword was lethal, but the dark cloud hovering around him was killing the soldiers’ morale.

They had started whispering again, low and scared, malcontent jumping through the men like a plague and rendering them careless and angry.

Kevin was scared, a sense of foreboding gripping his heart. They couldn’t lose. They wouldn’t.

He’d been praying to Athena diligently ,and he’d even sacrificed a doe for the Gods, its blood warm and thick as it painted the earth red.

They couldn’t lose. They wouldn’t get out of this alive if they did. Riko’s fury would know no bounds.

King Ichirou would let him tear his soldiers apart while he watched on his high stands, hands unblemished and eyes ice cold. Maybe he would send his Butcher to rescind their limbs from their bodies and carve their burning flesh.

With a shudder, Kevin wiped the sweat off his brow, his muscles aching from the exercises he had put his body through in the training rink.

Shielding his eyes with his hand he looked at the sky. The sun had just passed its highest point. Apollo would start his descent very soon, and Artemis would take her turn up in the sky.

Thinking of Artemis always made him think of Nathaniel. He wondered where he was. He hadn’t seen him around recently, which was unusual. He liked to annoy the people around himself with his loud presence and unending opinions over everything and anything.

His absence was strange during such a fragile and unsecure moment for their army.

The familiar chill he felt lately whenever the Butcher’s son cameto mind was back. Sending a quick prayer to Athena for his fool of a friend, he turned to leave the training rink to his fellow soldiers, their dark stares glued to his back as he dried his face with a cloth one of the slaves offered him, her face blank and her hands steady.

He was thinking about Thea, her dark skin and her fierce eyes, when his trained soldier ears picked up the conversation that two men were having.

“He should have the title, I tell you!” a soldier snapped, only to look around horrified, making sure no one had heard him. He turned back to his friend’s poisonous glare.

“You fool! You don’t go around yelling such things if you want to keep your tongue in your mouth.”

“I’m just saying.” The first man continued in a much quieter voice. “Prince Kevin is simply better. We all know it. Perhaps-”

“No! Stop saying such foolish things. You will get the both of us killed.”

“I want the war to end!” he insisted in a voice that sounded almost desperate.

Kevin was trembling behind the pillar that was hiding his body from view, feeling cold all of a sudden as he realized where this was going.

Athena, don’t let him finish his thought!

But the idiot finished his thought, the Sun and his friend and Kevin witnesses to his stupidity.

“Maybe if Prince Kevin were to lead us, we could be done with this endless torture sooner, and we could go home!”

They were all going to die.

Voices spread like wildfire when the troops were bored or tired or hungry. They needed words to stuff their empty bellies instead of meat and bread. Two hours later, the rumors found their way to Riko’s ear like they always did.

The soldier would never see his home and his land again.

The public execution would have lifted the men’s spirit in normal circumstances, or at the very least scared them enough to get back in line, but it had the opposite effect. The soldier had voiced what everyone had been thinking, and as Riko’s mood darkened, so did the soldiers’.

Kevin wandered around their side of the camp, restless and scared.

Oh, how far they had fallen. The mere idea of Riko’s anger terrified him so. They had shared a cot and a sky and a single life in two. They had promised each other fame. And now here he was, out of his mind with fear and viciously, humiliatingly grateful that Riko had not taken his fury out on him.

What a wonderful warrior he was. The Gods must be so ashamed of him. Maybe his cowardice was the reason they had been losing so many battles lately.

The Foxes’ Monster must have been something else entirely, for the Gods to favor him so. He had heard rumors that Zeus had chosen a favorite in the war, but he had believed them untrue. He wondered now, if perhaps there was some truth to it. Zeus had remained neutral to the conflict since the beginning, but Kevincouldn’t help himself.

What if?

With a weary sigh, he made his way towards the makeshifttemple they had erected, a sacrificial squirrel in his satchel.

He was expecting the temple to be empty as the last rays of sunshine chased each other across the sky, Apollo’s carriage finally resting after a long day. He was most certainly not expecting Nathanielto be there, crouched kneeling in front of the small altar with a candle and a wild rabbit in his hands.

The younger one tensed slightly when he felt someone enter the temple and break his privacy. Folding his arms over his lap, he turned his head slightly to look at an aggravated Kevin with narrowed eyes.

Kevin sighed in relief and exasperation.

“Should have guessed that it was you. No one else waits for the night to fall before making their offerings.”

No one else prays to the Virgin Goddess, he meant to say, but Nathaniel already knew that. He knew Kevin like he knew his knifes, from the sharpest edge down tot he worst imperfection.

Nathaniel hummed his assent and then he went back to preparing the altar for his sacrifice, lighting the candle and pouring some goat blood over the altar before slitting the rabbit’s neck and letting its blood soak the ground and spill on his naked toes just as the twilight turned to night.

Settling down next to the redhead, Kevin stayed in respectful silence and prayed along with his friend as he prayed to the Hunting Goddess, words in the Northern accent slipping out. His mother’s tongue, Kevin realized. Artemis had protected a fleeing Mary, wife of the Butcher, and her small, fierce son. She had shaded them with her shadow and hidden them in her forest leaves until Ares had interfered and ripped them away from her arms. Even after all this time, Nathaniel felt safer at night when he could feel her presence andher watchful eyes.

“Keep him safe.” Nathaniel finished his prayer in the common tongue and blew on the candle to extinguish its flame.

Furrowing his brows, Kevin purified the altar and started preparing his own sacrifice to Athena, his squirrel left to the side for the moment as he lit his own candle and burned incense before grabbing the squirrel again.

He was aware of Nathaniel’s silent presence at his side, but he didn’t say anything until his sacrifice was complete, knowing better than to not offer his full and undivided attention to his Goddess.

After he was done, he laid his things aside and turned a stern look on a still uncharacteristically quiet Nathaniel.

“What have you done, Nathaniel.” His voice sounded void and dark to his own ears.

The other man twitched, uncomfortable, but he didn’t answer.

“You were not praying for Jean, were you. Or me.” The inflection of Kevin’s voice turned it into the accusation it was supposed to be.

“You certainly were not praying for your King and your Prince.”

When he remained, again, mulishly silent, Kevin stood from his kneeling position and pulled his friend with him.

“We are not doing this in a sacred place” he ordered, “Come on.”

The younger one let himself be dragged along until they were outside of the temple, but he pulled away as soon as they were under the open moon again.

“We are not doing this at all.” He corrected, finally speaking up as he held his head high and glared at Kevin. “Stay out of this Kevin.”

With a huff, he turned to leave, but Kevin took advantage of his bigger and heavier form to keep him rooted to the spot.

“Nathaniel! Don’t be stupid. Look at what happened to Jean. You can’t-” He was roughly shoved away.

“Do not tell me what I can or cannot do, Kevin! Stay out of this.

If you’re too much of a coward to do something about your childhood best friend psychopath, then I will!”

With those last parting words, Nathaniel ran towards the welcoming forest that swallowed him whole.

In the days that followed, the rumors did not die down, and Riko’s eyes kept getting darker and darker, nothing like the excited boy he’d once known what felt like a lifetime ago. Someone had taken Riko’s soul in the last decade. They had smashed it to pieces, and then they had put the pieces back together in the wrong order, adding other pieces along the way: discord, fury, viciousness, jealousy, ruthlessness and everything ugly that walked the earth, every shadow and every discord the Gods dispersed on the ground.

Kevin tried to stay as far away as possible from the boy he had grown up with. He spent his days training away from prying eyes to give their men as little to talk as possible. Sometimes he went to Thea, letting her strong arms hold him afloat. Sometimes he sat with Jean as the other man went about his everyday chores, dead-eyed and quiet in a carefully crafted way. More often than not, he was unable to find Nathaniel and worry and weariness were eating him alive. Riko would notice his absences soon.

But Kevin had miscalculated. Riko didn’t get the chance to notice the screaming absence that was one of his main strategists. The troop’s malcontent had reached the higher ups so strongly that the King had been forced to intervene.

Kevin was no idealist. Chances were, King Ichirou had known all along, since the first word was uttered that first day. What had prompted him to act only now was unknown to Kevin, but he didn’t pretend to understand the way his King’s mind worked. Nathaniel might have been able to explain it to him, but Nathaniel’s state of mind was as questionable as the King’s or his brother’s.

Kevin supposed some things were simply genetic. Nathaniel’s craziness was a shadow of his father’s muted and less noticeable, but still ferocious and vicious. That was probably the reason why he could see through Riko like glass.

The beginning of the end started on the dawn of the fifth morning after the rumors about Kevin’s superiority had first started.

The King had called a meeting.

When Kevin entered the tent, Riko was already there, stiff backed and furious in front of the King, but some of the officers had still to show themselves to what would probably be a very painful and dangerous meeting.

From the corner of his eyes, he noticed Nathaniel’s invisible shadow enter the meeting space and settle in a hidden corner, where he could see and hear everyone.

Kevin frowned at his skittish behavior, but he quickly turned his attention away, not to draw any eyes to the younger man.

“Riko.”

The King’s voice had not been openly insulting in the sudden quiet of the pavilion, but for property’s sake he should have used at least some sort of honorific.

Kevin was overwhelmed by anxiety as he suddenly realized where this was going. Riko’s hands curled into fists and his fingertips white where they were scraping his own skin raw.

Pity choked him when he looked at Riko, but he tried to push it down to the deepest corners of his heart. His once brother had stopped reacting well to pity and compassion a long time ago.

“I heard things have not been going very well lately for our side.”

The King waited patiently and coolly for an answer, which came soon after, his brother’s voice tightly controlled but failing to match the King’s indifferent composure.

“It is nothing but a small nuisance. A bump on the road, if you will.”

The only comment he received in return was a dismissive hum and careful scrutiny.

Kevin had foolishly believed that the meeting had been called to talk about the war and find a solution while at the same time taking Riko down a notch or two. He had been only partially right.

The King did not want to humiliate his brother. He wanted to completely destroy his soul and devour any life left in his eyes.

The reunion came to an end as soon as it started with King Ichirou’s next words.

“Your slaves and your goods belong to someone else now, as does my army. Kevin will be my new General.” A short, deliberate pause followed the shocking revelation. “You can leave now, brother.”

The soldiers scrambled away, terror moving their feet faster. They were smart. Riko would build a mountain of corpses and strip the life from the earth for this.

Kevin didn’t move, speechless, until Nathaniel’s cold touch on his hand brought him back to reality. He followed the man out of the tent in a daze, terrified. Riko had just been stripped of everything he had by the only man that could save or destroy him with a look, and he had just been skinned alive. His army did not belong to him anymore, his swords, his horse, his slaves.

Oh Gods, his slaves!

Finally getting out of his haze, Kevin choked out a “Jean” to a hovering Nathaniel, and they were both off towards Riko’s tent, where guards where collecting their former General’s belongings.

Jean was already out in the early morning sun, stone-faced like always, but strangely emptier.

Riko was there as well, sitting on the ground with a lowered head, hair covering his eyes. He was still like a corpse. He watched immobile as his horse was led away and Jean was pushed towards the Butcher’s tent.

Riko’s things would go to the Butcher. Riko’s people would go to Kevin. Jean was Riko’s thing.

Frozen, Kevin could only watch as one of the only people he considered a friend walked towards his end, towards the one and only man in the camp who could and would hurt him more than his previous owner.

Nathaniel’s grip on his bicep tightened until Kevin could not feel his blood circulate anymore.

Riko disappeared after that, and no one had the courage to look for him. Nathaniel had wandered off as well, doing whatever it was that he did these days and probably laying the road to his own demise.

Kevin went to Thea instead, needing her deft fingers in his hair and her confident lips on his. Thea had been his since they had raided the South and killed her brothers, but she had never been his. She never would be. They had spilled too much of her blood.

They had their deal, of sorts. Thea would be there with her dark skin and her fierce, painful smile. And at the end of the war, they would cross swords. Only one of them would walk away alive.

He had hoped, with time, to show her that they could find an understanding with each other. He would be good to her, and she could have whatever he had to give, but settling was not in her nature.

She might even come to love him, but she would never forgive him. She would take his blood as revenge, or she would spill her own.

His head was resting on her shoulder as she combed long fingers through his dark hair when armed men entered his tent and ripped her away from him, pulling her outside.

Kevin followed them, horrified and confused until he met Riko’s eyes. This was to be his punishment then.

Thea looked at the two of them with knowing eyes, realizing what her fate would be before Riko even spoke.

“She belongs to me now.”

Kevin trembled, his mouth opening on an instinctive response he was smart enough to keep to himself. Riko did not like being told “no”.

Helpless, he searched for Thea’s eyes, begging her to understand.

He could not go against Riko. Not even now. Not even for her presence at his eyes, or for the promise they’re made to each other.

Thea offered him a rare smile, her head held high.

Before anyone could stop her, she reached for the sword of the guard that was holding her.

The metal glistened under the sun as it tore through her flesh like butter, her hands pushing it as far as they could into her spilling guts as she wheezed for breath, blood gurgling from her mouth.

Someone was screaming, and Kevin realized that it was him when a guard grabbed his arm to stop him from running to her side.

Her face showed no regret, only content at having taken something from Riko, who was furiously shouting as well, having fallen to his knees and desperately trying to keeps her insides in her body.

The Elysium Fields welcomed their new sister as she found her final resting place in their midst, and Riko got denied yet again what he desired. She had taken the rest of her life in her hands, and now she was finally free.

The days that followed were dark and twisted. Riko was as violent and volatile as always, and Jean’s absence pushed him to try his limits with what his soldiers would shoulder before they snapped.

Nathaniel was, again, notoriously absent.

Kevin felt on the edge, as if the smallest push could make him tumble down the rabbit hole and never come back. Something was coming.

Three days later, Jean learned something from Thea. He limped to where the sea met the earth and he gave himself freedom, the smallest spark of life back in his clouded eyes as he begged the Gods to take him.

Apollo heard his prayer and answered.

After Jean’s death, Riko’s rage seemed to settle. If he could not have Jean, then no one would have him.

That was when he started paying attention to Nathaniel’s absences.

No one had heard anything during the night. No commotion, no screams, no nothing.

This is why it was such a shock when the soldiers started waking up one morning, and instead of collecting their daily rations, they huddled towards the executions stand.

A pyre had been prepared and a white faced, trembling Nathaniel had been strapped to it. The flames had not been lit yet, and Riko stood in front of everyone with a torch and a triumphant smile.

“Beware! This is what happens when you betray your leaders.”

With a cold smile, he gestured to a bound Nathaniel as Kevin pushed his way to the front, horrified.

“This coward has been working with the enemy! He has been meeting with the Foxes’ Monster every night. He is the reason we have been losing. And he will pay for it.”

Riko let the shocked voices die down and Kevin felt his blood leave his body all at once. No. It was not possible. Nathaniel couldn’t have –wouldn’t have!

But he was just standing without a sound, looking towards the forest with a faraway expression. He was not contradicting anything Riko was saying.

Finishing the last parting words of his speech, Riko threw the torch on the pyre an on an unresponsive Nathaniel.

Kevin screamed, all instincts of self-preservation forgotten as he dashed forward to stop the fire before Riko stopped him, pushing himto the ground.

Kevin looked at him wild eyed and scared.

“You don’t get to take this from me Kevin.” He snarled raising the hilt of his short sword and bringing it down on Kevin’s left hand with a sickening crunch. “This is mine, you do not get to take this as well!”

Kevin was so shocked that he didn’t even feel the pain in the beginning, until Riko started to bring the end of the sword down again and again, and Nathaniel’s scream started echoing in the camp, the only noise except Kevin and Riko’s breathing; Kevin’s own yelling; the crunch of the bones in his hand being disfigured without repair.

As the darkness of blissful unconsciousness reached for him, he thought that Artemis was reaching for Nathaniel right in that moment to take him back to the wild like she had done for his mother.

[inadeeptrance]

Me, God!

Playing with the idea of serializing short stories - some of my own and some retellings.

Ten sentences a day. Here we go: A retelling of a sci-fi story I read eons ago.

--------------------

The pulsating hum of the oxygen machine. I am not ready to open my eyes. I let my free-hanging head move forward and backward with the rhythm of the machine. I am putting away the prospect of discovering my surroundings as much as possible. The logical part of my brain decided to retrieve survival skills. That’s right. Take deep breaths and get the life-giving air back into the system. Let the first thought consume your being. It did so with the rush of a dreadful rise of bile from the bottom of my being.

Yup, I have crash-landed on an unknown planet.  

I can't keep putting this out much longer. I need to check my surroundings. The fact that I am conscious and breathing is a good sign. Perhaps I am indeed still alive. What is the next step in that lovely survival routine? Check for injuries. I felt no pain. The sickening feeling was more shock than anything else. "God, let there be no surprises.", I told myself and immediately chuckled. I am not supposed to believe in God.

I allowed myself to open my eyes. Either I had lost vision or there was no light. These were not good options. I waited for a decent amount of time to see if my eyes adjusted well enough to identify objects. Just as I was about to give up, a green light flickered in the console. Tears welled up in my eyes as I realized it was the indicator for the ship’s oxygen being available and stable.

‘Wow!’, I told myself, ‘I am capable of emotions!’ What is this place doing to me? I’ve thought about God and cried within minutes. With that thought, I slipped out of consciousness once more.

I woke up to light hitting the side of my face. Light! I had no hesitation this time in opening my eyes. The planet I had landed on had enough revolutions to get light from a benevolent star somewhere. The light was pouring through the one porthole to my left that had its shades up or maybe the shades were broken. I stumbled to the porthole equal parts groggy and delirious. I had blacked out much before the ship entered this planet’s gravity field and had no clue what it looked like. I had woken up in the dark the first time. In the few steps that it took me to the porthole, I imagined ten different terrains and kept switching back and forth on the prospect of finding life.  

I peered beyond some odd smoky whiff of a cloud. My first thought as I took in the view was that I had been teleported on top of a giant tiger. There was no other way to describe it. The different shades of melanin that give a tiger its orange, black and brown stripes made up the prairie-like scenery. The blacks were probably shadows cast by the orange structures that stood out of the ground in odd shapes and sizes. I need to switch on the thermal sensors to see if any of these were living breathing lifeforms. That thought brought my focus back to the inside of the ship.

The navigation cabin looked pristine suggesting that the ship hadn’t completely nosedived. There was no fire damage that presented itself. The small vessel was designed for all terrains. Apparently even this one. The TAU-73 is a minimalist expedition vehicle with living space for two. Two. A ship built for two. A ship assigned to two. There should have been two people on this expedition. I wasn’t ready to think beyond that just yet. I looked out of the porthole once more. Light. Land. No life.  

I sat in the pantry, working out a plan to explore the surroundings. I will need the ship's diagnostic kit and some form of honing device to get back to the spaceship. I marveled at my capability to think logically under these conditions. It would have impressed the bastard who didn't give me my right to man this ship. Maybe not. I used the anger to focus on the task at hand. The spaceship was undoubtedly not mobile anymore. The navigation and communication controls were dead. The pantry was stocked with water and oxygen plants in functioning mode. I'll live. Tomorrow, I shall explore.

Tomorrow didn’t arrive for several hours. The inky darkness seemed to last forever. I used this time to explore the spaceship from the vertex to the basement with the aid of a flashlight. I could potentially live here for eternity. Imagine that! No, that is not right. Did I deserve this? Were there opportunities that I missed? I stopped myself from getting caught in that web of guilt.

When the light did present itself again, I suited up and stepped out with several tentative steps. 

The gravitational pull was manageable. The orange surface was a bit spongy, and as I bent down, I noticed that it was porous. I realized what had happened. I wasn't on a planet. I remembered now that I was in deep space with no celestial body in sight. It must have been a meteorite or a shard of a distant planet explosion. In all of the galaxies, it found my tiny spaceship and crashed my party. What are the odds! I got out of my reverie and rose to my feet as I felt the ground move. It felt like the whole place was going to cave in.

I ran as fast as I could back to the spaceship. Although I hadn’t ventured far it felt like an eternity before I reached the entry port and locked the door behind me. I looked back through the porthole. It made no sense. There were several shiny gems all over the surface and it looked like they were all vibrating. I couldn’t hear them but it seemed like there was a collective hum in the air. Then several of the gems popped and tentacles grew out of them. They went shooting straight up for about five feet and stopped before beautiful colorful fluorescent flowers bloomed all over the meteorite floor. I was flabbergasted, to say the least. I knew what was happening.

The ship I was manning was not just an expedition vehicle. It was also called the “God Ship”. In the ship’s payload were everything needed to start life on a dead remote planet and accelerate evolution. When I had argued with my partner and left him behind, I had left with the full payload by mistake and in the crash, the seeds must have scattered all over the surface. Now, they were growing and evolving. The materials also had the ability to create an ecosystem which while not able to create water can create the conditions for rain. I looked out again. No, it wasn’t raining and I couldn’t see water anywhere. As I kept looking out, a chill ran down my spine as I realized the next steps possible with the evolution kit. Amphibians and Invertebrates will quickly come to be but the water was critical. The big orange rocks started to move on cue.

Except, they weren’t rocks. In the absence of water, something strange and horrific had taken the place of amphibians. They looked like reptiles and were as tall as the plants that had sprung all over. They walked like foot soldiers and organized themselves under the plants. They paid no attention to the spaceship. I looked at the one closest and saw that he was looking up at the sky. All of them were looking up. I followed their gaze. What looked like a dark cloud descended and started separating. Wings flapping a swarm of locusts checkered the sky and they flew down to the flowers. 

A feasting orgy unfolded in front of my spaceship. The flowers swayed and attracted the locusts. The locusts fed on the nectar from the flowers. As they started flying back, the lizards jumped in the sky and quite a few of them caught the locusts mid-air and swallowed them whole. The rest of the evolution kit got into the action - the ones that were supposed to create rain. In the absence of a thriving atmosphere, electric sparks ignited the sky with no rain to show. Some grew into full-blown lightning hitting the meteorite floor which in turn would trigger more plants to be seeded. I was enthralled by the food chain I had inadvertently created. When the lightning stopped, the light wherever it was coming from died and the inky darkness returned. I could make out the surviving locusts fly away and the lizards going back to their coiled state. It was dark once again in my world. The one I had created.

[auds-art]

Elysian Dream: Ch 4. The Singing

The elf walked side by side with the god, each silent, leaving no footfall to speak of their movement. Well, she supposed she too was a god here—the goddess of spring with the incredible ability to create flowers and heal minor wounds. She could have snorted in derision. Such prestige. Yet, she shouldn’t be critical. She could feel there was much inside Persephone, much more than anyone expected. Elandrine sensed much would come of this Persephone.

Chasing the source of unfamiliar magic was difficult, to say the least. Every time they thought they were upon it, just around this next turn, this next corridor of the Underworld, it would vanish, only to reappear in a completely new location.

“If this dispersion wasn’t so randomized, I would say it was leading us into a trap,” Elandrine said, perhaps two hours into their search, exasperated. Solas nodded, glancing down at her.

“My thoughts exactly.”

“Do you recognize it at all, Solas?”

He nodded once, motioning her to be still a moment. He closed his eyes, and Elandrine could feel his own magic spreading out, seeking. It snapped back like the string of a bow, and he opened his eyes. “I do recognize it, I believe. I cannot be certain, however, until it is located.”

“Who is it?”

“Dirthamen.”

The god of secrets. The god of deceit. Elandrine swallowed, following Solas along silently now. What was she caught up in, this game of the gods?

As they continued their seeking, Elandrine became distracted. It was almost as if she could hear a soft song, far off, or deep below, she couldn’t tell. The longer they walked, the more certain she was that there was someone—something—singing, calling to her. She could tell Solas did not hear it; he was too consumed by the hunt. She would ask him later.

“I’m not sure I understand how this magic appeared,” she said eventually, breaking the silence. “I thought it was not easy to get into the Underworld.”

Solas looked at her askance, smiling slightly. “Normally, no, it is quite difficult—physically. Zeus can come and go as he pleases, without intruding upon me as he knows this is my realm. Others, however, must take the ferry. Yet this is no physical presence. Simply a curious bit of invading magic.”

Elandrine nodded, trying to focus. The singing was growing louder. “Do you hear that?”

Solas stopped, looking around quickly. “Hear what?”

She sighed. Perhaps she just needed sleep, or to eat a real meal. She shook her head. “Never mind. It must be nothing.”

Solas watched her quietly for a moment, but then nodded, moving forward. Once they rounded the corner, only to have this mysterious magic move again, Solas held out an arm, stopping her. “Enough of this,” he said, his jaw tight. He closed his eyes, and she could feel a great wave roll over her, making her skin feel alert, the small hairs on her arms stand on end. The wave did not seem to stop; it spread and rolled, and kept going and going, washing over her sensuously. Her toes curled and her eyes closed. A small gasp escaped her as the wave caressed her, pressing upon her like a lover. She leaned back against the rocky wall, unable to feel anything but this magic slithering over her skin like warm water. Her breathing was staggered.

Through the haze of pleasure, she was able to distantly realize what was happening. Solas was seeking the magic with magic; it might leave him momentarily vulnerable to a physical attack, but here in the Underworld, little could touch him. Solas was fast—his magic was smooth and quick and lithe, but this foreign magic was just faster. Elandrine let out a soft sigh, pleasure shivering through her still, and she let her magic spread into his. She heard his sharp intake of breath, and wondered if it felt as wonderful for him as it did for her.

It proved beneficial. Her magic was that of spring, growth, quickening, life. Rebirth. With her aid, Solas was able to overtake this invading force. He overtook it, surrounded it, and with a sudden snap of elasticity, drew it back to him. The energy flowing over her left in an instantaneous loss. She felt bereft, but there was too much happening to take notice. Her eyes flew open, and there he was, holding something eel-like, black and writhing and oily. Solas’ bright eyes were focused on the spell.

“What is it?” Elandrine whispered, feeling sick looking at it.

“A curse,” he said. “I believe it was meant to bring illness.”

“Illness?” Elandrine wrinkled her nose. “To an immortal?”

“To you.”

Elandrine jolted back, her eyes growing wide. “What…me?”

Solas nodded, struggling with the thing as it wriggled and writhed, slipping through his fingers only to be caught up again. “Yes. It brings decay, sleep, and frost. The antithesis of spring.”

“Can…can you destroy it?”

“I can,” he said, grinning fiercely as he fought with the curse in his hands. “I was hoping I could trace it back to the source.” His eyes flashed dangerously. “Can you deliver a message, little one?”

With movements almost too fast to see, he had twisted the thing into knots. He bent over it, whispering harshly, darkly, to the greasy curse. It shuddered violently, contorting into new shapes, twisting and turning over and over. It turned from pitch black to electric green—it morphed from slippery like spilled oil to slithering like a snake, dry and hissing. Solas gripped it tightly, tighter—tighter still. It let out a high pitch shriek and fragmented into a thousand pieces. They burst into bright green flame and burned up just as quickly, leaving nothing behind.

Panting, Solas leaned back against the wall, a wicked grin on his face. “Enjoy that, Dirthamen.”

Elandrine reached out and took Solas by the hand, squeezing it and threading her fingers through his own. “You should rest now. Come, husband, let’s away to sleep.”

Breath still ragged, Solas grinned yet again, a wolfish expression. “While I would savor the chance to sneak to bed with you, I am afraid it is near dawn, and Athene is awaiting me.”

Elandrine’s heart sank slightly. She had been hoping for some time alone with him, but understood that getting to the bottom of this mystery was more important. “Our wedding is not even consummated, and already he flees to another woman.”

“A virgin goddess,” Solas added, his grin spreading at her playful tone, “might I remind.”

Elandrine snorted, smiling back at him. “Tell that to Artemis. She sounded almost jealous when she was haranguing me.”

Solas’ smile slipped slightly. “She may well have been. That woman has been hounding me ever since I escaped her the first time.” He looked away, jaw working, eyes lost in thought. Elandrine felt her spine chill slightly.

“Is that story true?” she almost whispered, eyes wide. “She…she tried to force you into her bed?”

“She felt it a just punishment,” he added with a shrug. “She hasn’t quite ever truly understood the connotations of the word ‘no,’ you see.”

The goddess of spring felt her temper flare slightly. “That is rape.”

“I mentioned that. She didn’t seem to mind too terribly.”

Elandrine shook her head, feeling her throat tighten. “That makes me sick.”

“I told her I felt that way too. She may have slapped me—or perhaps that was after I laughed at the proposition. It was a long time ago, after all.”

“And she has been hunting you all this time?”

Solas nodded, grinning once again. “She chose an apt goddess, in a twisted way. She always did enjoy a good hunt.”

He stood up, linking his arm through her own and leading her back to her room—their room, she now realized. She had a sense it had belong to him well before she saw it.

“Do you think that’s why this has happened? Do you think that’s why she brought the Veil down?”

The god shook his head once, looking ahead. “No, no I do not. Not to bed me, anyway. Revenge, maybe. If I am being honest, I am surprised it is only Dirthamen helping her. They each have reason to be enraged.”

They reached the room, and Solas opened the door for her. She paused, watching him with eyes eager for knowledge, history—his history.

“What did you do?” she asked, her voice so quiet he almost missed it.

It was hard to look at her, but he had to. He cupped her cheek, ran his thumb over the soft skin. “Fen’Harel did what needed to be done. And it has earned me the name of trickster and traitor—yet I would do it again. To protect the world, I would do it all again.”

In a habit he was finding very rapidly to be at once fetching and arousing, Elandrine worried her lower lip with her teeth. She was trying not to ask what it was, he knew. She wanted to give him time. He respected her restraint. He hadn’t, after all, been straightforward with her, had he?

“She would have destroyed the world, you see,” Solas said. “She would have destroyed it all. She sought the perfect weapon, an unceasing arrow—the slowest is not always the least deadly, you see.”

“Andruil?”

“Yes,” he said, his voice a breath. “Yes, Andruil. She would have destroyed the world in her quest. And so I sealed them away—I locked them behind the Veil where I thought they would remain, in peace.”

“Why? What was her quest?”

He took a deep breath. That was the question, wasn’t it? He pressed his forehead to her own, his eyes closed tightly, as if he could hide from the truth. “To find and destroy you.”

Elandrine jolted, her heart leaping. “What? What do you mean? The Veil—I haven’t been alive that long. I’m only thirty-two. How could it be me? The Veil has existed for eons—centuries upon centuries, at least.”

Solas nodded once, stepping back, his hand slowly slipping from her cheek. “It has.” He sighed. “I will do my best to explain upon my return. I must go. Athene is not a patient woman.”

She grabbed his arm. “Don’t lock me in. I can’t stand it, being claustrophobic, like a bird in a cage. Let me explore, if I may.”

Solas regarded her steadily, but nodded. “If you can promise to not try to leave, as I would not you caught in the river, I will cast stronger wards to keep you safe. I shall only be gone a few hours today.”

Elandrine felt relief sag her shoulers. She thanked him with a kiss to his cheek, and she felt every muscle in him tense. He gripped her shoulder, squeezed it, fighting something inside himself, and then was gone in a swirl of smoke and shadow. Elandrine stood there, stunned, confused. What had he meant?

That would have to wait, she supposed, until his return. And she knew just how to occupy herself until that time. The singing, soft, insistent and unceasing, was almost calling to her. She turned to the left, hearing it still. She would find it. She would discover what, exactly, was making that dreadful, insidious music.

With a steadying breath in her lungs, she set out, heading deeper into the darkness that was the Underworld.

[tinymixtapes]

Constellation Tatsu announces new tape batch, shares tracks from Forest Walker, Ana & Ina, and Soda Lite

Oakland’s Constellation Tatsu, one of my favorite labels out there, is back with another trio of mind- and body-soothing ambient, New Age, and zoned-out cassettes. Tatsu tapes are my go-to jammies for early-morning chill sessions at home, before the insanity of the work day lays blow after blow upon my psyche. First up is L.A.-based Forest Walker, who many may know for his work in Seabat. When he’s not crafting gorgeous tracks like “Desert Lighthouse,” off of UV Sea, Walker works as an engineer at Hans Zimmer’s Remote Control Productions. While his day job sounds pretty damn cool, with credits ranging from Planet Earth II to Kong: Skull Island, I’m all in on UV Sea, a brilliantly transfixing album. Ana & Ina’s “On Dockweiler Beach” throws down some seriously nasty synth drone. The duo of writer Ashley Hoffman and visual artist Ian James (formerly of Sneaky Snake) have given us a sprawling, meditative tape to truly “get lost in,” ya feel me? James’s former band put out a tape that TMT Cerberus main man Jspicer reviewed eons ago, but I came back to his central question when I first heard this: another synth album? Of course this could be a druggy, dull Bandcamp release that no one but the creator and their fellow “gear heads” can get behind, but On Dockweiler Beach defies this jaded writer’s ability to cast it aside the way I normally do for so, so many promos. Stream below and you’ll thank me later. The last tape of the batch comes from Melbourne, Australia’s Alex Last, recording here under the Soda Lite moniker. If you were listening to the previous songs and wondered, “But what about the New Age??,” then “Habitat” will provide and then some. Crystalline synths? Check. Field recordings? Check. A mellow vibe? You know it. You probably skimmed my exhaustive overviews above, so stream samples of the new batch below, and head to Constellation Tatsu to grip those cassettes on February 13. http://j.mp/2k7Od4Y

[soonwellbefoundfic]

B!!!!! 💦💦💦 Can you chill!!!??? Please!!!! Mon Dieu! *clutching my pearls*

bew! consider this a b’day gift :)))