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gryfon-spanish-werewolf · 5 years ago

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So You Can Always Find Me

Couldn’t disappoint @elsa-agdardottir when they’re such a great enabler. Unfortunately the fic in which I want to put the astronomical ring isn’t quite ready to be published yet, but I didn’t want to leave you hanging, especially when you asked so nicely xD. Soft inspired by @vago-art‘s piece here also.

Rating: M

Tags: Blood and Injury, post-Frozen 2 derivative

Words: 4,119

Characters: Anna, Elsa, Olaf, Kristoff, Sven, Nokk, Gale, Earth Giants, Bruni

Hook: “Now we can’t fail,” Kristoff jokes, trying to ease the tension. “He’s counting on us. Literally.”

“And so is Elsa.” Anna looks out into the forest that yawns before them, then digs the ring out of her pocket. She holds it out before them like a compass needle, the flickering hues of her sister’s magic leading them on.

Wind whips past Anna’s cold-numbed ears as Sven picks up speed, galloping across the snowy trail. They couldn’t risk traveling by lantern light, so she and Kristoff were picking their way through the darkness by the gleam of a blue-glowing bauble - a ring with an expanded center that whirls like a pinwheel as they race headlong into the night.

“Stop Kristoff, right here!” The little glint of magic in the center ring has just swung wildly to the left, leaning away from the delicate chain being gripped firmly by Anna’s hand.

She swings herself out of the sleigh before Sven even stops moving, catching herself with one hand on the ground. The magic pulses, dimmer this time.

“Anna?” Olaf’s voice is weak, so unfamiliar in comparison to his normal jubilance. His little stick arm waves above the rail of the sleigh. “Are we here? Did we make it?”

“I... I think so Olaf,” Anna calls back, palming the ring and putting it into her travel cloak.

“Then I’m coming too,” Olaf says, and she hears him trying to get up.

“Whoa whoa there,” Kristoff warns, laying a hand down into the sleigh. “You stay here. Someone has to make sure Sven doesn’t wander off.” He chucks a thumb over his shoulder and Sven grunts what he thinks about that comment.

“He’s right Olaf, you need to rest.” Anna approaches the side rail, heart squeezing in her chest.

Olaf had started flurrying hours ago.

They’d been preparing for bed. Olaf was picking out a book to read and was reaching above his head, one hand holding his other arm up way high, when he suddenly dropped the book and more came tumbling down after. Anna was about to shake it off as typical Olaf clumsiness when the snowman didn’t immediately burst out of the pile with a laugh. Instead they had to unbury him, and when they did Anna had grabbed Kristoff’s shoulder hard enough to bruise.

She couldn’t do this again.

Olaf’s snow had turned the color of roadside slush, tossed up by carriage wheels and horse hooves. He did sit up, but slowly, gently, as though he were exhausted. Little snowflakes sloughed off his form and twinkled in the candlelight. Olaf and Anna exchanged a wordless look and Anna had bolted upright, digging in the nightstand drawer for the ring.

The one heavy as a lodestone in her pocket.

She leans over Olaf and kisses him on top of his carrot nose. “You sit tight, we’ll find her,” she sniffs, smiling through her tears. “We’ll be back so quickly you won’t even notice we’re gone. Ten minutes, tops.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” Olaf smiles back. Then he started counting backwards from six hundred.

Anna turns away and wipes at her eyes. A warm arm falls over her shoulders and pulls her in for a hug. “Now we can’t fail,” Kristoff jokes, trying to ease the tension. “He’s counting on us. Literally.”

It had been a gift from Elsa. She’d commissioned it ages ago, soon after the Great Thaw, but the right materials had to be procured, the right master craftsman located, and the right price named. The last part had mattered the least, but the rest were very normal, worldly things and as time passed Elsa had worried the perfect gift would somehow not arrive on an auspicious enough occasion. In the end it was meant to be a birthday gift, but with the events occurring in the third year of their reconnection, Elsa could really see no better time like the present. Elsa had bestowed it on Anna after her coronation ceremony, the castle asleep, Olaf and Kristoff making sure everyone had gotten home for the night. She had hidden it behind her back in a charming black box lined with velvet.

The ring was gold, carved with Arendelle’s famous crocuses and the sunflowers Anna loved so much. Immediately Anna had insisted she put it on, but Elsa stopped her. “Open it,” she said, guiding Anna’s fingers to the multiple, overlapping edges. With a quick flick the ring popped open in the palm of her hand, revealing a free turning, miniature astronomical globe made of smaller, concentric gold rings. They were also engraved: marking signature constellations, runes, and star signs. “And one more thing.” Elsa tapped the ring and Anna saw beads of her magic coalesce to one point, drawn from the metal like rolling beads of water. Elsa stepped to the side, then further away. Anna sat transfixed as the glowing blue orb shifted along golden curves, skipping between rings as it tracked Elsa around the room.

“So you can always find me,” Elsa had said as she placed the ring and its accompanying necklace over Anna’s head.

Now, Anna rebinds the chain around her wrist, the metal cold against her skin, hoping against hope that Elsa had spoken the truth.

This part of the Enchanted Forest is unfamiliar. Dark trees stretch and claw at the overcast sky. Snow crunches underfoot, louder than it ought to. Anna keeps a close eye on the ring, watching for any new signs. Elsa’s personal snowflake spins slowly in the center, silent. They walk without speaking, the quiet around them stifling.

After a few more minutes Kristoff nudges Anna’s shoulder and points ahead. A faint shimmering is coming from the trees a short distance away, winking in and out like fireflies. They dash ahead, coming to an obstacle of unwelcome familiarity. A mist wall billows before them, an opaque curtain taller than the peaks of Arendelle castle, nebulous and shifting with each draft of bitter wind. Anna checks the ring and her heart drops. The magic still urges them onwards, but now their path is blocked.

“What’s all this?” Kristoff nudges a snowdrift with his boot. Footprints are scattered in every direction, twigs are snapped and dead leaves poke through large indents in the snow, as though something warm had lain there. Though it must have been only briefly, because all the footprints led away from the wall, many of them in a hurry. Even more curious was the strange gap between the wall and the prints themselves, as though some force had pushed whoever had been here away and not let them closer.

“I don’t know,” Anna replies, “but I don’t like it. These aren’t Northuldra shoes, they’re too heavy.” A chill went down her spine that had nothing to do with the cold.

“Elsa was able to get through this before,” Kristoff scratches the back of his head, “but she’s on the other side now.” He puts his hand up to the mist, not deep enough to bounce back, just enough to let it coat his gloved fingers. Anna understands his frustration. Family - the weird, lopsidedly happy thing they’ve made over the last few years - is beyond this wall, and behind, fading away in a sleigh, both far from home. And they’re helpless to do anything about it.

“She just,” he makes a whooshing noise while his hand skates upward, “and it lifted. I really hope it wasn’t some spirit thing because I wouldn’t even know where to start trying to find the others.”

“Maybe,” Anna gazes upwards. The edges of the wall dissolve into the clouded night sky, seeming to go on forever. “Or maybe that’s exactly what we need.”

She tentatively pushes her hand forward, cautious of the repulsion effect that seemed to sling things out as quickly as they were slung in. A smile burst forth when, incredibly, the wall didn’t immediately reject her. An opening appears, not as tall or grandiose as the first time, but enough of a tunnel for her to walk through.

“Anna…” Kristoff breathes, voice low in wonder. “How did you do that?”

Anna shrugs sheepishly. “I’m half spirit? Blood related to one? A bridge has two sides?” she offers, but then shakes her head. “I’m not really sure, it was just a feeling. I remember how you and Olaf were repelled by the first wall, but I never actually got to touch it. Elsa did, and the whole thing opened up for us.”

“Well I’m glad it did.” Kristoff extends his arm and gives her the lead, “We should move.”

Anna takes his hand and they enter the tunnel single file, the entrance closing behind them.

Time disappears. They could have walked for seconds or hours, but there was nothing around them that indicated that the outside world as they knew it existed at all. The tunnel continued before them at the same rate that it ended behind them. Then, a blue glow shone from Anna’s cloak. “The ring!” Anna fumbled with cold fingers to pop the device open, and when she succeeded it cast an eerie glow on the walls around them. She holds it up with both hands; it’s brighter than before, and the snowflake spins just a little faster. “Elsa must be close,” Anna says, and takes a step forward.

A section of the ceiling falls like a stone, landing between them in a plume of vapor.

“Kristoff!” Anna whirls, already feeling the skidding of her feet as the mist pushes her away. She sees it pulling at him too, his body already obscured by thick vapor, but in the opposite direction.

“Find her, Anna!” Kristoff yells, trying to cut through the barrier with great scoops of his hands, but to no avail. His voice fades as the distance grows larger and he cups his hands to his mouth, “Bring her home!”

More mist descends and the force is stronger, shoving her along as Anna tries to keep her balance. The ring bobs ahead of her, turning the mist into a galaxy of stars, whistling past her ears. Her journey ends abruptly when Anna is thrust back into the forest at high speed. She takes a moment to steady herself, and puts the ring on her finger, before looking around.

Her throat closes up.

If the forest had seemed dark and full of shadows before, then this was a nightmare.

Large ice walls loom overhead, their edges windswept and sharp. Entire tree trunks are frozen mid-snap, suspended by the thick ice that encases them. Swords, hatchets, lances, and crossbows litter the ground, bolts are buried in trees and ice, and broken against the side of boulders. Helmets sit upturned and waterlogged, banners drip with the acrid smell of seawater. Weapon sheaths, coats, and boots hang from the uppermost branches of trees, wayward and wild in their adornment.

“A fight? Here? And whatever it was,” Anna says, stunned, “it must have been something for the spirits to react so… violently.”

Her pulse has been pounding since she first saw evidence of battle, but now it kicks into high gear because everything: every water trail, trough of upturned dirt, scattered debris, and far flung ice bolt, radiates from a common center, and she knows who she’ll find waiting for her.

“Anna,” she says. “You came.”

And it’s crazy how, after everything she’s seen, after everything she’s been through, what halts Anna in her tracks, freezes her in place the way being an ice statue never did, is the sight of her sister covered in her own blood, on her knees in the center of a clearing of her own making.

Elsa is not well. Her eyes are clouded and she cradles her middle. Her dress bleeds red, the hems sodden with it. Between her arms are tiny rivers of her life, slipping across her forearms and pooling at the crooks of her elbows.

Anna sprints forward, skidding to a halt on her knees before Elsa, kicking up snow and dirt. Her hands hover everywhere and nowhere, unsure where to begin.

“How did you know where to find me?” Elsa lifts her head, and it takes effort. “The mist wall… the spirits… We couldn't find a way out after the- the fight.”

Anna, breathing hard, mind racing, rips the ring off her finger and shoves it close to Elsa’s face. Her fingers tremble as she undoes the clasp and the astro-globe unfurls. Elsa’s snowflake shimmers into existence, but flickers like a guttering candle flame. The edges of the ring become blurry from tears.

“Ah,” is all Elsa says after a long moment. She clutches herself tighter. “I should have known.” Then she smiles. Beams. Pain gives her eyes new creases. “Not exactly how I thought it’d be used, but I’m glad it worked.”

“That’s all you have to say for yourself!?” Anna can’t keep her voice down, even when it makes Elsa flinch, but she tries. “What even happened here?”

Elsa’s breathing is shallow and erratic. “We were… I was… attacked. Ah-!” She grips her abdomen, fresh blood leaking between her fingers. She bows her head, face shielded by her hair.

“Alright okay, know what? I know I asked but tell me later.” Anna shifts so she’s at Elsa’s side. “I need you to lie down, can you do that for me?”

Elsa nods slowly and lets her head be guided onto Anna’s knees. Her skin is flushed and feverish, radiating heat even as Anna retracts her palm in surprise. Elsa’s pulse thunders in her throat, and while normally that would be a good sign, Anna knows it’s wrong. She’s seen her share of cuts and scrapes, most of them on herself, but this was something else.

And the smell…the wound had already started to turn.

Anna shucks off her cloak and begins folding it lengthwise.

“Anna,” Elsa croaks. “No, you’ll freeze.”

“Save your breath Elsa,” Anna replies quickly, looping the garment under Elsa’s back, “and… lift your arms when I ask.” She tries to stop the shaking in her hands. She needs to be precise. “Now.”

And she… doesn’t look. Her hands work by themselves, wrapping and tugging and bundling it all up into a knot on Elsa’s left side. Elsa gasps and her eyes shut tightly at the new pain and pressure but Anna can’t risk making the bandaging too loose.

“Can you stand?” Anna supports Elsa with a hand on the small of her back. Elsa’s legs tremble as she attempts to put weight on them, and Anna has to catch her when she barely makes it halfway up. Elsa stares at the ground between her legs, panting.

“No, I... ,” she shields her eyes with a hand. “My head is… hot.” Goosebumps form under Anna’s fingers as Elsa actually shivers.

It’s bad. Real bad.

“Where are the spirits?” Anna asks.

“On guard. Waiting. Looking for a way out.” She senses Anna’s confusion. “When I was injured, there was a great sound from above, and the mist came from nowhere to shove the enemy back. I think it was Ahtohallan.”

“It trapped you in here?”

“Unintentionally, but yes. It sensed that I was in danger, but not the cause.” Elsa winces as she shivers again, grabbing Anna’s shoulder for support. “It knows that I still am, but not… the nuance. But you, you seem to have gotten here just fine.”

“It pushed Kristoff away, so it might still give us trouble.” Anna bit her lip, thinking, “But we need to get you out of here, now.”

“Call them Anna,” Elsa says, her voice low. “They will listen to you.”

“How?” Anna chokes because she’s never seen Elsa look so weak. She’s leaning on Anna almost fully now, her eyes half-lidded.

“You already know.” Elsa’s head falls to Anna’s chest, and Anna can feel her rapid breathing like it’s in her own chest. “Just… wish, and they will come.”

And Anna doesn’t know how Elsa makes it seem so effortless, so natural and elegant, because the only thing she can think of to do is slam her hand into the ground and beg.

Nokk bursts out of a standing puddle of water a few meters away, whining and bucking with fervor, it’s nostrils flared and head tossing. Gale descends from the clouds and whistles around them, the leaves and snow in it’s form comforting as it caresses her face. She feels the giants long before she sees them, but they emerge above the trees, craggy faces downcast and concerned. Anna casts her gaze about for the telltale magenta-purple flames of Bruni, but he’s nowhere to be found. A shame, because while she can’t think of a practical use for his talents at the moment, he never failed to bring a smile to Elsa’s face.

Anna addresses them. “I’m bringing her back to Arendelle, she needs medical attention and I need your help to get her there.” There was a pause. Gale bobs in a somber vortex, Nokk’s tail flicks back and forth, and the giants look at each other. Then they all advance at once, each trying to pick Elsa up or move both women from the ground in distinctly unskilled or uncoordinated ways. “Wait, stop!” Anna cries, and they cease immediately, backing up. “You have to be gentle,” Anna says firmly. “She’s hurt. Badly.”

This time, they wait for her direction, and Anna’s voice rings out so confidently commanding that it almost sounds foreign. “Gale, can you lift Elsa up and put her on Nokk’s back? We’ll travel back to the others and get her onto something more solid.” She turns to the giants, “I want you to look for the people who did this. Gale will help you pick up all the- well, everything here. I don’t want it to stay in the woods and become dangerous for the wildlife. You’ll have to wait until we’re further away though, since your footsteps shake the earth and will jostle Elsa.” Their faces fall and Anna summons her warmest smile. It came easier than she expected, knowing they genuinely cared. “I know you want to do more, but I promise, your job is very important.” Her eyes sharpen with her tone. “They can’t get away with this.”

Gale, who has been hovering over Elsa while Anna spoke, finally lifts her off of Anna’s legs, so slowly and tenderly that Anna almost starts crying again. Nokk presents it’s side, watching with it’s imperceptible gaze as Elsa is lowered onto it’s back. Elsa’s eyes are closed but when she is nestled against the horse’s neck she stirs, frosting the water horse below her into a solid form.

She meets Anna’s eye and smiles softly, a little more light in her eye than before.

They begin walking to the mist wall, stepping carefully around trees, ice barriers, and weapons buried in the snow. Anna keeps her hand on the Nokk’s flank, trying to judge the sway of the ground beneath it’s hooves and steady Elsa when necessary. Gale drops objects from the trees behind them, and every clatter of metal and muted thud of cloth and leather widens the scope of the attack for Anna.

“There were so many of them,” Anna remarks. She looks down at her sister, “I’m sorry you had to fight, Elsa.”

“I don’t know what else they expected,” she replies, a tired half smirk on her lips. “I could understand not knowing about the spirits, but the whole Ice Queen thing has been public knowledge for three years.”

“I… can’t believe you’re cracking jokes right now,” but Anna smiles back nonetheless. It disappears just as quickly. “I’m serious though Elsa. I know you,” she hesitates. “I know you never want to use your powers like that. Against people.”

Elsa looked down at Anna’s cloak around her middle. Anna’s heart skips a beat when she realizes a small but growing patch of red has started to appear. “They didn’t give me a choice.”

She extends her arm towards Anna, limp against the Nokk’s side. Anna shifts her hand on the horse’s flank to take her sister’s. She fights the shudder of revulsion that snakes up her arm; Elsa’s hand is slick with her own blood, but Anna can’t deny her, or herself, the comfort. “I didn’t want to hurt anyone,” Elsa says quietly.

Pride and remorse clash between Anna’s ribs. If anyone could beat back an unknown number of assailants while still barely putting a scratch on them, it was Elsa. But Anna regretted that being the case at all. Not for Elsa’s sake, who she knew would lament even one ounce of hurt, but for the ones who dared to even think about harming her family.

They deserved much, much worse.

She was going to need more boats to punch people off of. Though others had told her later that Hans had gotten off easy, attempting to slay royalty and really only getting a black eye for his troubles.

Elsa’s thumb running across the back of her hand reeled back her train of thought. “One thing kept me going though, through the madness of it, even after I got hurt.” She flinches and her other hand presses delicately against the red fabric. She clutches her sister’s hand, “I told myself to be brave, just like you Anna.”

“You mean to tell me you weren’t afraid?” Anna’s laugh is stilted.

Elsa breathes for a moment. “Were you?” she asks quietly, “When you were freezing to death on the fjord, and running across the dam?”

Anna squeezes back and her voice shakes. “I was terrified. Being brave doesn’t mean you’re not trembling in fear. It just means you have the resolve to stand up and keep going.”

“...I was so scared,” Elsa whispers, a single tear falling down her face. “I'm still scared.”

“I know,” and this time Anna’s voice breaks. She presses a kiss to Elsa’s temple. “I know Elsa, and I’m so sorry. Please hold on just a little longer.”

“Anna, I’m so tired,” she says faintly, the wind liable to steal the sound completely. “Please, may I sleep?”

“O-Of course.” Anna combs hair away from Elsa’s face, her own slick with tears. “Rest, Elsa, you’ve been through so much already.”

Elsa shudders through an exhale, her forehead pinching up as even the simple need to breathe inflicts pain. “Be there… when I wake?”

Anna couldn’t help herself now. A sob bursts from her chest and she clutches Elsa’s hand like a lifeline. “Always. I’ll always be here, Elsa.”

The barest trace of a smile turns the corner of Elsa’s mouth up. Then her whole body goes slack. Her hand loses its grip and for a full, heart-pounding moment Anna thinks she’s lost her, but then she sees Elsa’s chest rise and fall and knows she’s alive, just unconscious.

She cries all the way back to the sleigh.

Kristoff meets up with her after clearing the mist wall, which disappears as soon as they finish crossing. He pulls her in for a hug so fierce she can scarcely breathe, but she needs something solid right now and let’s him even though it aches. Bruni chirps sadly on his shoulder, pattering this way and that to get the best look at Elsa he could. Kristoff explains that he found Bruni outside the wall, huddled under a rock. An apple-sized singe mark on Kristoff’s chest speaks to how the little spirit was when he found him.

Anna had tried her best to ignore it, but when Kristoff’s face goes pale she has to check and see how much worse it’s gotten. Somewhere along the trek back blood had started to seep into Nokk's body, like drops of sickness in pure water. They snaked deeper into the horse’s belly, meandering red tendrils suspended and animated with every movement.

The moment Gale lifts Elsa off Nokk it crashes to the ground, no longer solid, splashing loudly into the snow and ice. Anna feels Nokk go and sends her thanks, even as it leaves a red trail behind. Elsa is laid next to Olaf, who reaches, “...2...1…” and then opens his eyes. “Elsa?” he says softly.

Elsa’s eyelids flutter as she wakes. Her eyes are still clouded, but brighten just a little when they catch sight of Olaf. Her voice strains then she speaks, “You’re still here.”

“I’m still here,” he nods. “Can’t… get rid of me that easy.”

As Anna gets into the sleigh to keep watch and Kristoff snaps Sven’s reins, she sees Elsa reach across the small space between her and Olaf. His twig hand meets her halfway and they hold each other like that, both weak and exhausted. They drift off almost immediately, which Anna is grateful for, despite how it also ties her stomach in knots.

The trip back home is long and silent.

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rplinkhoward · 5 years ago

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Kay. -cracks knuckles- -remembers that I can’t crack my knuckles because I’m a pussy and ‘it hurts’ sometimes- Uhh....so headcanons.

Obviously, I’ve mentioned that Link and Allen are on the dance team. They are always paired up because they work really well together. Plus Allen has a bit of an effeminate body...well okay not just because of that it’s also because he knows how to move like a woman. Before Allen came along, Link only did solos.

Allen terrifies the shit out of Link at dance practice because he wants to do all the difficult and risky moves. Link doesn’t like how much faith Allen puts in him sometimes. Even though he doesn’t drop him often, it has happened (only in practice), but even then Allen is always confident in Link.

Road and the Noah twins are also in the dance team, though the Noah twins are also in choir. They always try to convince the choir teacher to let them sing heavy metal pieces. It never happens. Although they came close and only because Allen knew the song and was amped up about it to. Also Allen knows how to do screamo because of Cross so there’s that. He doesn’t do it often, but he is capable of it. The reason why Allen knows how to move like a woman is because he’s watched how Cross’s mistresses (and later Anita) moved and he would mimic them because he found them beautiful and he found it entertaining. However, sometimes he’d mimic them as a form of mockery (for those mistresses he didn’t like because they found Allen to be weird/disgusting because of his scar and stuff).

Lavi is a theater brat (because let’s be real, he reads a lot, he can easily recite Shakespeare with no problem). Lavi usually plays the mischievous characters but can take on serious roles and be great at it. Allen will help out with stage make-up for performances. Everyone knows he’ll be good in theater but Allen doesn’t because he’s a. busy (has choir and does do cheerleading off and on). Plus Allen hates reading and anything to do with it because he learned how to read and write at a later age than his age group (because he traveled with Mana and all that ladi da. Not a whole lot of time for schooling but he has some really good street smarts, even if he gets lost easily). He hates it because it’s hard and due to past bullying and humiliation via peers and some of his teachers who only made it more stressful.

Krory and Miranda were Oral Interpreters (reciting a poem, speech, etc in a dramatic way. Sort of like theater but minus the play performances). They loved to do duet skits together. Miranda and Krory also managed to do play together for the last two years of their high school career and they were darling and wonderful at it! <3 (They were freshman when Allen, Lavi, and Link were in elementary school).

Krory was of course Allen’s tutor when they were both in school. He still tutors Allen even after graduating.

Krory and Miranda want to write a book together. They also want to open an antique, sort of a ‘fixer upper’ shop where people can bring in their possessions to get fixed. Krory also dabbles in rebinding old books <3. It’s still a learning process for him but ‘You’re doing great sweetie!’

Lena gal is a track and cross country star! When Allen and she were young they used to race each other all the time. Even though she’d always win, Allen still like to do that with her. Alma would always find some way to trip over his shoes and face plant into the dirt. Lavi would always find ways to cheat via shortcuts.

Alma and Kanda do judo together but Kanda plays basketball on top of judo. Alma is a cheerleader because of their bubbly personality. Alma did play basketball with Kanda when he was younger though.

Madarao, Goushi, Tokusa play football. Tewaku does choir but switches to cheerleading later on once she gains more confidence in her self image (she’s self conscious over her facial markings). Kiredori is the sole creator of the schools chemistry club (because she likes to make poisons) and entomology (because she loves to collect bugs since it freaks everyone else out, plus she’s just interested in it). Lavi is her vice president of her entomology club. Tokusa is a member of her chem club just for the sole purpose of stink bombs and being chaotic with his sister.

I will probably make headcanons on the adults later.

#gotta take it slow otherwise I won't get shit done lol #it'll all just be in my head instead of in my drabbles lol #link howard #madarao dgm #kiredori dgm #tewaku dgm #kanda yuu #modern au!#allen walker #lavi bookman #alma karma #road kamelot #jasdevi #devit #jasdero

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momestuck · 6 years ago

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Let’s read Hiveswap Friendsim... volume 18!

Imagine I edited the final shot of End of Evangelion here to put trolls on it. That’s more effort than I’m actually willing to put in. Imagining it is probably almost as good.

This chapter is fittingly called “Of Endings, Many”.

The opening narration is kind of pointed and sarcastic. It jokes about saying trite things like ‘the circle is complete’... and then goes elsewhere.

“You’ve got enough friends, now you need answers-” - and then it interrupts itself, realising it’s just the intro screen.

I wonder who writes the intro screens?

This time we have... another jadeblood, and also a final pair of purplebloods, the second troll pair.

Lanque

Lanque is written by the mysterious “V”, who previously managed to get us to lick a clown’s armpit and then wrote some interesting things about intertextuality. I have high hopes!

Content warning: Lanque’s story deals explicitly with sex with a man, in a situation of dubious consent on the player character’s part.

Lanque’s theme I’m sure I recognise from Homestuck proper, though I’d have to do some digging to see what it’s reprising. It’s called “yall know i just do the music right” - another James Roach piece.

It begins with us getting a call from Lynera. The narration somewhat uncharitably says “that nutty bitch is exactly the sort of destabilizing influence your life needs right now”. In a positive, not sarcastic way at least.

She wants to start making friends herself...

The narration is really in a hurry this time around. We reprise the party background from the last episode.

I appreciate the kind of breezy enthusiastic chaos in V’s writing.

We’re in a cape, bra and fishnets. A perfect outfit for the final chapter.

Wow the narration just isn’t giving a shit anymore. Final chapter striking hard.

We try to figure out whose hive we’re going to... and oh shit, it’s Ardata’s. First troll we ever met, as well. The party is described as a “frathouse rager” - which, Lynera acknowledges, is not her scene at all.

Is the narrator already drunk? Or is Ardata fucking with our head again?

Ardata declares that it’s a ‘kiiickback’ for all the ‘world’s fiiinest iiinfluencers’... and neither me nor Lynera is invited. Apparently she heard about it from someone called Lanque, who’s also not invited.

What is up with this narration? It’s coming across like a standup performance.

At that point, Ardata drops a... nsfw warning on us.

I didn’t actually realise this volume had an ‘accompanying mature content description’. I think what I’m gonna do is... obviously I’m gonna play the chapter, but I will put specific content warnings before sections of the post that have potentially triggering content, and if there are explicit images, I will pixellise out any explicit bits before I embed them in the post. spoiler alert: this ain’t exactly Ladykiller in a Bind there.

That’s a hell of a warning, huh. Especially given the previous armpit-licking chapter by ‘V’ was about at the absolute limit of sfw horny anyway. Fuck knows what they’re about to inflict on us now.

Also: James Roach’s track name is starting to make sense. Apparently he wants to distance himself from this episode, semi-ironically at any rate? God, what are we in for.

So, presumably the ‘oof, you’re too scared’ link takes us to an abrupt end to the chapter, we’ll check it later. Let’s go on in.

Quick soapbox: as much as I hate the kind of shallow analysis that throws around ‘problematic’ as a summary judgement of a work - nah actually, you can’t just disclaim shit under ‘challenging or controversial material’. By the same token that you can write whatever shit you want in a Homestuck computer game, critics - and random nerds on the internet, which is to say, the entire audience of this game - can discuss it however we find appropriate.

Nevertheless, you haven’t actually done anything worse than make me lick a clown’s armpit so far, and we can approach challenging themes in a way that says something meaningful and important, so let’s see what you have for us, V. To be honest I’m expecting some kind of portrayal of sexual violence given all the disclaimers, but who knows.

The party sounds like hell.

To Lynera, who remains glued to our arm, it’s ‘more than she was expecting’. But before we can leave, Lanque arrives.

I was wrong about what I thought was Lanque’s theme. Lanque’s theme is a slow, mournful saxophone piece. Maybe the music before was Lynera’s theme, and I just forgot how it went?

The narration mentions a ‘curious red stain’ on Lanque’s shirt. They’re obviously going for a whole ‘sexy vampire’ type thing with him. Maybe a Twilight parody, with Lynera in the Bella role? That would be a little dated, though.

I vaguely recall that it was said at some point that the jadebloods were all women. Which makes me suspect that Lanque is a trans guy, and this story is gonna touch on themes of transness and such. That could be something I completely confabulated, though. I’d check the wiki but no doubt it’s been updated by now, and I don’t want to spoil myself on this arc.

He seems to be in a flirty mood. Not sure how old either of these two are supposed to be.

Oh yeah. The knifemeter actually hasn’t shown up in this episode so far. He expresses surprise that Lynera has friends. Or at least, friend.

Eesh, this guy gonna be another Zebruh?

Lanque asks about us and we blather about being an alien, and also general disaster.

It’s really hard to get the sense that this is a loud party where we can barely hear each other over the noise, given both the narration and the soft jazz background.

He says something about not biting unless asked. So if it’s not already obvious... either a genuine rainbow drinker (hey, if Kanaya could do it at age 6 sweeps/13 years, no doubt he could at age... whatever age he is!), or someone who likes pretending to be one.

Anyway, our protag is apparently not overcome by friendship lust at this point, and tries to play wingman and put Lanque’s attention back onto Lynera. This... doesn’t go as well as expected.

(2.43 sweeps, that is - about 5.3 years)

Hmm, why would that be? This could be like, a transphobia thing? Do trolls have that? I’d say of course they fucking do, but apparently they don’t have homophobia, and their gender system... well who the hell knows how troll gender works, having all the signifiers of gender in the real world but none of the material consequences.

Anyway, Lanque calls Lynera a ‘nasty little bitch’. But then immediately says he’s not one to criticise.

So... maybe it’s not a trans thing? We’ll see. Lanque continues being a huge dick, suggesting that Lynera is interested in him because the ordeals are coming, and she wants to take the chance to fuck before they roll around.

Lynera is kind of... not surprisingly pretty hurt.

The narrator challenges Lanque on his rudeness without a choice.

Ah, the classic ‘she deserved it’ defence. Second only to the ‘it didn’t happen, but if it had, they would have deserved it anyway’ defence.

The protag demands to know why Lanque even invited Lynera if it was just to have such a huge go at her like that. Lanque’s explanation is... kind of unclear.

It’s not like she got much of a chance to defend herself there. So far my impression of Lanque is: this guy’s a huge cock. Or possibly a huge nook. Idk what the troll equivalent is.

The narrator decides to ‘Switzerland out of’ this conversation. They say this out loud, of course. Who needs an internal monologue, these days?

Lanque invites us to stay - we’re ‘much more interesting’ anyway. Eesh. I’m inclined to look for a ‘fuck right off where’s my pepper spray’ button, but that’s just me being a lesbian I guess. (Pepper spray is also illegal in the UK. I’m pretty sure.)

Yeah, you said it. He says he’s got ‘less time to waste than most’.

Bryn sees a meta joke about the narrative structure, Bryn clicks the screenshot button.

(Speak of the screenshot button, I had to rebind it to make it easier to paste the screenshots, you see in Ubuntu-- oh, you’re asleep?)

Anyway I kind of expected a choice around about now, but no, we barrel forwards, and end up dancing with Lanque. He takes our hand and leads us to another part of the house.

At that point, Elwurd shows up! I wonder how much of the cast is set to make an appearance in this chapter. If it’s all 35 trolls we’ve encountered so far, this is gonna be a long chapter!

Elwurd seems to be Lanque’s dealer. Not sure what drug she’s selling exactly. Apparently ‘you a drone?’ is the Alternian equivalent of ‘you a cop?’...

Anyway, Lanque buys the drug, and peer pressures us to take it. We’re like, nuh-uh.

We did not, we tell him, ask him to buy drugs for us.

I’m proud of you, protagonist. At the beginning of this story you’d have done anything to get a friend.

At that point, Diemen makes his reappearance. We really are going through the entire cast here, huh.

Yeah. That one’s just too obvious.

Anyway, undrugged, we get to dancing.

God, V, we get it, you want to fuck trolls. The narrator goes with it, though.

I find it kind of interesting how, like... our protagonist in the beginning and ending sketches is pretty much like, a marshmallow, indicating that they represent some kind of AFGNCAAP. But over time, little assumptions leak in. For example, we’re some kind of American nerd - our education system included a ‘high school’, and we had the option to learn Spanish there. We are relatively physically unfit. The wordplay suggests we know English.

Sometimes it’s deliberate - clearly someone made a choice to make it so that our protagonist has opinions about rap and knows a bit about professional wrestling, to suit the themes of the chapters. Those aren’t like, presumed traits assumed of the Homestuck audience, but things that kind of carve out a specific identity

So yeah... we’ve already had the whole ‘cheese person’ thing in Fozzer’s route, and here they’re straight up declaring the protag has pale skin. (Which doesn’t mean they’re white, necessarily, but they are apparently not Black, say.) I think that’s kind of a shame - a wasted opportunity.

Homestuck has already traded a lot on the ambiguity of its characters, which the fandom tends to read as implicitly white, except for like, a relatively small corner. This came to a head at points - most infamously the ‘CAUCASIAN’ controversy during the trickster mode phase, when Hussie ‘jokingly’ declared that his previously ambiguous characters (shaded pure #FFFFFF white, implying a ‘blank slate’) were ‘CAUCASIAN’ in bright flashing letters - at least while in trickster mode. After backlash, the panels were left as-is, but ‘CAUCASIAN’ was replaced with ‘PEACHY’.

Friendsim could have been an opportunity to improve the record a bit, especially as its narrative explicitly addresses many questions of societal oppression and occasionally makes explicit analogues to racism. But... they didn’t do that. Alas.

Anyway, moving on.

Apparently I’m very predictable because the very next panel addresses this exact line of thought.

I feel like this and the ‘not racist’ joke in the previous arc by ‘V’ are kind of... well I don’t know anything about ‘V’, and what they might be intending by these jokes. Here, it’s kind of parodying the whole thing in Homestuck rather explicitly... but whether it’s like, challenging it? There’s definitely a reading that’s like... pointed sarcasm, challenging the source material’s noncommital laziness.

Hey art interpretation is hard lol.

V’s writing is unusually striking, in a way I’m not quite sure how I feel about. I will think more about that once we’ve fully explored this chapter.

Things are getting pretty meta. He comments how we’re paper thin and he can see our blood. We’re like, ok, so you’re a vampire then?

This is the kind of thing! Writing that’s like... on the edge of like, telling a story and just directly talking to the reader, pushing us to engage with ambiguity and metaphor.

To release the tension a bit, the narrator does a ‘sexy dance’.

Anyway, we don’t get to find out what Lanque really thinks of our sexy dancing. Because at that point, Bronya shows up. Lanque decides it’s time to go.

...to a respiteblock, where else. So much for this being a friendsim and pointedly not a dating sim.

We are, it seems, safe. Lanque politely asks if we’d like to kiss. There’s another reminder that this is a very nsfw not for kids scene about to go down in this room right now.

So that’s apparently going to be our decision here. FUCK THE BOY/DO NOT FUCK THE BOY

...no, that’s not our choice. We’re kissing the boy no matter what. This is also portrayed in first person view, because consistency is important!

Apparently our blood tastes ‘sharp and dangerous - like a weapon’.

I feel like this is about to answer a whole fucking lot of fandom questions. At least as far as Hiveswap canon is concerned - arguably a separate entity to Homestuck canon, though obviously, like an expanded universe, designed to be read almost exclusively with intertextuality in mind. An elaboration, I guess.

There’s more like... hey check it out we’re going NSFW. Still nothing like a choice button yet.

One thing I find interesting is like... while this game is packed with lesbians of various stripes, and evidently many of the writers are gay or bi women, all the trolls who get really horny scenes have been boys. (Two of them written by ‘V’, admittedly). Mallek first with his shirtless scene, then much more recently Marvus, and now Lanque.

Also look at these guys. Pretty sure V has a type.

Anyway, the narrator makes the mistake of saying something vaguely derogatory about buckets.

Not sure like... what he finds derogatory there. Mentioning ‘buckets’ vs ‘pails’ (might be a distinction between reproductive and non-reproductive sex?), or saying that he doesn’t seem to have one? He says it’d be his first time.

With an alien, huh. *xenofucker fist bump*

Instead of a sex scene, we get a lore drop.

Once he gets shipped offworld, there will be no more ‘sneaking out of the caverns’. To Lanque, this effectively means his life will be over. This is his last chance to fuck!

A little overdramatic, dude!

Before we can get to it, Bronya interrupts.

So we get interrupted by Bronya. This is finally our choice point. Do we dob Lanque in, or do we fuck?

Regarding ‘problematic’, the main thing I’m seeing is like... Lanque is, at best, barely of age. Since he’s talking about getting shipped offworld soon, I’m guessing he’s close to troll adulthood. In terms of real-world narratives, this is taking on the general tone of ‘college story’ - complete with allusion to a frat party.

I think like... I’m going to read this whole visual novel, and write what I think about it. However, I can also totally understand why you would not want to read this kind of ‘first time’ story. So I’m going to leave that branch to a readmore at the end of the post. Above the cut, to give you all some kind of ending, and we’ll go down the ‘call his mum’ branch. Lol it’s not nearly as nsfw as they make it sound, there’s nothing that really need readmores, nevermind this lol.

Bronya busts the door open and tells him to get dressed immediately.

Lanque gets his mean streak back on, and goes in on Bronya now.

He does love the word ‘bitch’, does Lanque. He tells her she’s not actually his lusus (oh yeah, lusii... it’s been a while since we’ve seen one honestly. The last one was the goat.) She slaps him. He pretends like it was a sex thing.

This is not pretty. Bronya launches into a lecture on Lanque: sneaking out, being an ass to Lynera, and...

Yeah, maybe it’s a good thing we didn’t get further involved.

Apparently he’s not deterred by the fact that we literally called Bronya up to get out of fucking him, and adds us on Chittr before he leaves.

So that’s an ending. Sweet look, protagonist.

But it’s not the ending ending. We get a final screen.

Sure, I want to understand. Is this going to be some kind of direct artist-to-reader commentary on what they were trying to accomplish with that chapter?

The text box turns white, and the font changes. I bet this is Doc Scratch. So no, probably not that. In fact, this segues straight into the epilogue. I think there are different versions of the epilogue depending how you approach the final chapter, or else we were supposed to play the other branch before Lanque, so for the sake of putting the epilogue at the end, I’ll save it for a future post. (I’ve already written it up.)

Now, the other Lanque branches. First of all, refusing at the NSFW notice.

So they poke fun at the reader for like, not accepting the NSFW notice. Uh-huh. You know that Steam doesn’t automatically give a mature content warning if you’ve set up your account that way right? Which I guess is my own fault lol.

Anyway, doing this leads to like... a totally different arc, and a totally different canon. Huh, I genuinely expected they’d like just end the story there.

It’s a cozy party now, apparently.

This version of Lanque is... different.

For one thing, he’s got a flower crown. And instead of soft sexy jazz, we have a pretty piano piece. He says hi to Lynera and me.

Hmm. Not entirely un-hornified, then.

Lynera gushes wildly about us, recapping a whole bunch of plot.

It turns out, rather than taking drugs and having sex and other such risqué things, this party is a chill poetry reading.

So I realise this entire branch is just like, an extended joke at the reader. Look how un-edgy this is. We’re going to support our friends and read poetry.

In this one, instead of asking to kiss us, he asks to hold hands before we read poetry. And he says this is a poem about a past relationship, and it might be a bit raw.

We get Lanque’s poem, in full.

I was going to copy-paste the whole thing in, but it’s quite long, so let’s be uncool and respect copyright or whatever because my fingers were getting tired. It is quite good... addressing loss, and memory, and the lingering influence of a past relationship. It makes me wish I had ever developed the ability to appreciate and comment on poetry, because I feel like I just don’t have the vocabulary to comment on it, or what it might connect to, or anything else. The narration agrees: raw, emotional.

I imagine, though perhaps this is presumptuous, it is reflecting something quite real in the real life of ‘V’.

Lynera also gets the chance to read out a poem. She happens to have one on hand. It’s about Bronya, sure enough, and her loneliness and alienation.

Afterwards, she is self-deprecating.

This version of Lanque is kind and reassuring - the complete opposite of his persona in the sexy branch.

We leave with Lynera after hugging it out. Reading her poem, and being with other trolls in this way, seems to have really helped Lynera. There’s another pointed bit of defensiveness at potential critics.

Soapbox: This is the state of discourse, where the complex feelings we have in relation to fictional works must get flattened out into strict ‘rules’. A character can easily support lesbian and bi interpretations; it can be a relief to bi people and upsetting for lesbians when one of those possibilities is ruled out by having her express interest in a man (not that this, ultimately, rules out lesbian interpretations, since a person can of course be mistaken about their feelings).

To lesbians, it is perhaps likely more salient that many characters they identify with end up expressing attraction to men, and this can seem like yet another instance. To bi women, narratives about picking a ‘side’ are perhaps more likely to be salient, and it can be relief to have an explicitly bi character.

The only conclusion we can draw is that gender is a hellish system of punishment and exploitation, and we should seek to be kind to each other and also abolish it forthwith, write our own stories, and abolish the stranglehold that capital holds on all aspects of our lives including the symbolic media we use to understand the world.

All that said, this repetitive defensiveness about ‘problematic’ writing does kind of annoy me a bit, even if I can understand where it comes from. Let your work speak for itself.

Anyway, that’s enough huge essays (I say, falsely). Let’s finish out the branch.

“...right?”

This branch finishes out with a poke at the whole structure of the game so far - the good endings, bad endings, and so on. We’ve not made a friend, but we have made a stronger connecting with an existing one.

I’m not sure how seriously we should take that given the way ‘valid’ has become pretty much a joke word, if this is still an extended dig at the audience, but there we are.

That was a surprisingly long and rich branch for a first choice, which is kind of nice, actually.

If we click ‘no’ on ‘do you want to understand’...

We just get a game over screen with us sitting in our watchtower looking sad.

So now... it’s time for the nsfw section discussed above. Except... it’s a total fakeout.

First of all, we get an implication that it’s not his first time at all. Anyway, then we get to it. Which is to say, we get a fade to silly anime joke. God, this is like those old 4chan stories where they’d set you up for a sex scene and then rickroll you or something.

We get a ‘dorito faced anime boy’ joke I guess?

Afterwards...

Lol.

Anyway, in this branch, he doesn’t add us on chittr. Lol.

So yeah we die of shame. Welp.

God I can’t believe I thought this would actually go there. Of course it would be a joke at the audience.

Looking back, well, you know, reading the metaphors: he’s a predatory guy and lied through his teeth to get into our pants. Obviously it’s not his first time; obviously he’s not about to bugger off to space and never have sex again T_T, obviously the shit he said was just to get us to fuck; this isn’t just cheesy narrative tropes but within the fiction him playing the protagonist in order to get us to fuck. Complete with the whole attempt to drug us, and make it very unambiguously rape. (Which no doubt Elwurd knew). He got us to explicitly consent before we did anything, but also did enough shady shit so as to make that ‘consent’ kind of questionable when viewed later.

Viewed in that light... what I originally thought was just someone writing a horny fantasy about a hot dominating guy who’s totally into you~ is actually like... a pretty sharp piece of writing about shit pulled by men. There were plenty of warning signs - the ‘objectifying’ way he looks at you, the way he attempts to drug you, etc. I would like to imagine that IRL, rather than taking it as a piece of fiction, I wouldn’t be vulnerable to the same tactics. (Well, obviously I wouldn’t from a guy, at any rate). But it’s kind of a nicely written piece to make you feel stupid and taken advantage of afterwards like... why the fuck did you go along with this.

Though given that this kind of thing is something that people like... actually go through, I feel like they could have warned for it better than ‘challenging and controversial material’. Yes, that might have robbed it of some of its power; but it would also mean that it wouldn’t trigger people who have trauma over this exact kind of thing.

So.

“V”.

Honestly, my strongest feeling about “V” is one of respect. Both their stories have been a weird blend of cheeky, challenging and playful, with some very astute elements and an enormous amount of energy and intensity. They’re prepared to fuck with the reader in ways both silly (lick the troll’s armpit!) and rather more serious (this whole arc), they fuck around with canonicity and narrative structure in creative ways... I wonder what else they’ve written?

There remains only these two clown twins, and the epilogue.

Barzum and Baizli

To finish out the set, we have another pair. The Alternian text says ‘The Soleil Twins’, so I guess that’s their surname. The twins are written by Kieran Miranda, who previously wrote Azdaja, Stelsa and Charun.

The story begins with day nearing, and the protagonist friendless. They get the idea to like... head over to relax with Skylla, but before they can, they run into a house.

A very haunted looking house.

An easy choice for us to begin. ‘No fucking way’ naturally skips this arc, right?

Nope, back at the house. We get another choice: leave left or right. I picked left. I doubt it matters.

Yep, that kind of house. We can’t escape.

After a struggle, we reach the door.

Inside, we immediately pass out with a sense of nausea. Lovely. This can only go well. We hear something like bugs skittering away.

The mansion does at least seem to be explorable. Unfortunately, the door leads to a portrait gallery full of clowns, which is not the most welcome place to end up.

Someone tunes one of the portraits. It turns out to be a TV. Dramatic piano chords come in.

Oh hey it’s some friends.

Their shtick is that the one on the right finishes the one on the left’s sentences, the one on the left speaks in all lower case, and the one on the right speaks in all caps.

They want us to find them. They’re very bored you see, and want to play a game. This is, I understand, an allusion to the Saw series of horror movies, in which I gather a person places people in buildings full of sadistic traps, monitored by various cameras and a small puppet with spiral cheeks. So I guess that’s us now.

We get our first real choice.

I think the door is too obvious. If there’s not another exit, we’ll have to take the door anyway - though that’s likely a different branch, realistically speaking.

We discover a hidden door. Behind it is... a hole in the ground.

I guess we have instant-death options later than usual in this chapter. Our final thought is about the terrible loss of our Chittr profile.

Well, that’s fine. Let’s see what happens if we go straight into the house instead of wandering around.

Approaching the house immediately just skips the wandering around; the text is the same. It was a fake choice. Skipping forward, let’s see what happens if we take the obvious door, not the hidden one.

As we move down the hallway, the lights come on and the walls start bleeding. Lovely. Glorious sense of interior decoration. Tip top.

Beyond the door, we end up in another dark room. Maybe this one will be more of a true CYOA, with death options in every room.

But no. Not immediately, anyway. Ropes come out of the ground and tie us up. The two trolls who were watching us make themselves known.

Carnivalish music kicks in. We finally get a clear view of our captors.

Baizli right (allcaps), Barzum left (lowercase). I’ll try to remember that.

The twins say some predictably sinister stuff about removing our intestines (acid tubes, in trollspeak). The narrator grumbles about once again being reduced to the status of ‘torture muppet’.

When we express a desire to leave, Barzum and Baizli swap both demeanour and capitalisation rule. Now Baizli looks sad, and speaks in lowercase, while Barzum is pissed and speaks in caps.

These two twins, in the tradition of creepy twins, seem to share one mind. Which means they can hardly prank each other! They need someone else.

They rev up a chainsaw and suddenly... we’re back in the same room we started.

Looks like we’ve had another bit of time fuckery from The Powers That Be. Compare Fozzer. The loops kick in, faster and faster. Glued. Buried alive.

Having read the epilogue, all I’ll say is that it seems like someone is trying very hard to push us onto a timeline that ‘works’.

There’s a joke about time loop movies which I don’t get because I haven’t seen very many time loop movies.

After ‘20 or so’ loops, we decide we’ve had enough. But we get a choice of what to do about it.

Let’s try ‘Fuck this.’ first.

This turns out to mean attempting to intimidate the twins instead of begging them to release us.

While they’re baffled by this display, we make a break for an air vent. Surprisingly, we make good our escape. There’s a mention of all our jogging training with Stelsa, which happened in a non-canonical timeline - there was a whole thing about it! - but fair enough. Guess that’s another thing that persists between timelines. Or maybe the protag just thinks they went jogging with Stelsa in this timeline.

We find we’ve missed a bunch of texts from Skylla while we were out, and plan to head over there. But alas... the space loop is still in effect.

We end up back at the house. Unable to escape from the pocket dimension, the branch ends...

So let’s try the other option: ‘remember who you are’.

Come, try to remember...

And that is, of course... FRIENDSHIP. This time, we have something to say to the clowns (after ensuring we haven’t pissed ourselves).

Not killing us is apparently a novel idea for the twins. Or rather, they didn’t plan to kill us - just cut us up a bit, unaware that we wouldn’t heal right back up. The protag corrects the misconception.

So now we’re teaching the creepy clown kids the meaning of friendship. Novel!

The lights come up and they put on a little circus show for us. Apparently this building is not their hive.

They show us various other dangerous-looking circus tricks with the torture/circus equipment. Ah, says the narrator, so risking their lives is these kids’ hobby.

It turns out these kids hatched from the same egg. They tell us they do in fact share a mind entirely - one mind, two bodies.

And at last we end up chilling out and sharing stories.

With this friendship established, we sense a shift of some kind. We take this as a sign that the door might have finally opened.

Not only is the door open, but the ‘pocket dimension’ has dissipated too. The power of friendship! ...or fulfilling some secret design of whoever created the pocket dimension. Mmm.

How touching.

There’s a fakeout victory jingle, which turns out to have been a prank. They explain that... the creepy blood seeping walls and so on were their ‘chucklevoodoos’, but as for the time loop... Not them at all.

“Do you want to understand?” asks the prompt again. Time... for the epilogue.

#momestuck #lets read hiveswap friendsim #sex cw

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bibliofantasy · 8 years ago

Text

A Cat & Her Books

My mind is my cat. When allowed to wander, it loves making a mess of my study. It tips over bottles of ink onto important treatises. Other times it decides that it will slide right onto what I am writing – making it impossible to commit further words to page. All these crimes I can forgive it. It is the cruel reading I cannot forgive.

Most days are not so bad. Usually it scampers through old textbooks I have left scattered about. In fact, some days it is even helpful. I owe it a great debt for those times - my cat is an excellent scholar. From its perch upon my arm it will watch me write. Seeing something of interest it will begin purring while brushing its warm black fur against my neck. The soft pillows of fibers do wonders for the craned neck, and its tail will tap out a happy beat over a book resting on my desk. That is when it plants its paw upon my arm and whispers, “Remember”. Helpful charts, figures, and stories whisk through my head. Usually the exact one I need for the sentence I am writing.

But sometimes, it is vicious.

Sometimes it decides to dig past my buffer of important documents. Anthologies on epistemology and short works on psychology are left scattered. Sometimes it takes no interest in any of the toys and traps I have set for it, the bundle of playful unsolved rats I keep tucked away in my cove of books go unhunted. Sometimes it is a darling and leaves a dead one for me by my journals – a puzzle solved and lain bare to the dimmest of eyes, even my dark chasms of earthy hues. But when the spirit is upon it, none of those games meet its fancy. Instead – it slips under my collection of books, disrupting them just to tug free a single nondescript black leather tome by its paws. A book better left hidden.

We have played this game of cat and mouse many times, long before I decided I never wanted to see that book again. At first it was easy. When it was young I would slide a new cover over the book and that would be the end of it. A kitten sees more by its eyes when it is young then its soul. But as it grew, simple tricks became too easy to see through. Further leveraging the game, I would set to tearing out the pages in the dead of night when she sleeps and rebind them in a new book of completely different wrappings. For years, it could not find it. Those were peaceful uneventful years.

Unfortunately, cats have a way of growing on you.

What makes my cat the worst? It is never vindictive, if it were I could simply scorn it. No, she is wide-bright eyed and bushy tailed, no venom in those glances. The feline was born with an innate curiosity – a curiosity that is often how I garner my bread and butter. A curiosity that I have cultivated for all its life. The darling means no ill will, it is much like a child revisiting an old bedtime story. When it finds the blasted book it tugs it to me. Sometimes I can refuse it, there is work that needs doing or company over. But other times it catches me without excuse. Other times it catches me while I rise from slumber. With the first rays of sunlight frittering through the window, the darling presses cold hard leather against my cheek. Tilting its head in the way it knows I cannot resist, jade pools transfixed on mine, it brushes its warmth against me while peering into my depths.

I am difficult, but fair. When it catches me so completely I must concede. Bundling us in blankets, I hoist the sweetie into my lap, letting it curl into a ball and bury its adorable whisker covered face in the warm folds of cotton. The familiar word that is her namesake wisps by my ears, “Remember”.

Moisture from the damp chamber builds along the fringe of my eyes. Brushing droplets away, I start reading words that should go unsaid.

#Little Black Book #Pesky Cutie Cat #Hungover Archives

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arc-rchk-blog · 8 years ago

Text

FICTION: Vitae Mortem

By Leon Lee

“Push forward!” someone yelled as the enemy line started to crumble, and the shield wall stepped closer, smashing the unwieldy tools into the frontline and forcing them back.

Breaches opened up all along the line, and they roared in triumph before charging in, swords and spears flashing as the screams of the dying rent the air.

Aurelia smiled. Her century had prevailed again, and the battlefield was theirs for the time. It was losing its fury, its chaos and its strength, the century surrounding the remainder of the enemy force and slowly pressing them inward until there were none left standing.

They roared triumph to the skies, bloodstained swords and spears raised before they rallied and turned towards the next group-

“Incoming!” A shadow fell over the battlefield, and a massive plume of dirt erupted in their midst. She heard it, tried to turn and twist and shield against it, but she was a fraction slow.

The shield was barely halfway up when something massive smashed against it, cracking the solid iron and sending fragments of stone and metal shooting into her chestplate.

She was slammed backwards, something painful snapping as she collided with something hard. The last thing she saw before the world swam black was debris raining from the sky, and a faint flame in the distance.

There were people talking near her when she woke up, her vision bleary and unfocused. They were little more than blurred outlines, but she could hear whispers, and strained her ears to try and make out the conversation.

“Four,” one of them said solemnly, and then they walked out of sight and sound.

She tried to get up, wincing as bullets of pain shot across her chest. A healer rushed to her side at the sound, and eased her into a sitting position. “Easy there. You’ve had a rough time of it.”

A touch brushed across her waist, and her eyes flashed towards him angrily. “Easy, easy!” He backed away, holding up his hands. “I need to check your bandages, make sure you’re not going to die on us after all that work.”

With a jolt, she realised that her torso was bound carefully in bandages, the white stained in some places with the dull sheen of dried blood.

She let him closer, and he began to carefully unwind a few of them, inspecting the flesh beneath with a critical eye. A gentle touch at her ribs, a light pressure-

Pain flashed across her body, strong and unwavering, and she grimaced as he quickly removed his hands. “Thought that might be the case,” he muttered, reaching for the herbal stock at the side of her bed.

“Hurts,” she muttered, raising an eyebrow at the purplish-black bruise that the removed bandage had exposed.

“If it didn’t, I’d be worried.” He had a small pile in a mortar by her bedside, grinding them up steadily with the accompanying pestle. “You cracked several ribs from that hit you took to the chest, not to mention the cuts and possible infections we had to account for.”

He added water and a sprinkling of some foreign powder to the mortar, continuing to work on whatever mixture he was making. “I’d say you’re lucky to be alive. A lot of others weren’t.”

The healer set the pestle aside, revealing a thick paste in the mortar. He eyed it critically, then dipped a finger in the mix.

“Hold still.” His finger touched the exposed bruise, and she bit her lip at the pain, screwing her eyes shut. Then a wonderful coolness spread across the injury, and her pain fell away, fading into a soft tingling.

She opened her eyes to find the healer applying that paste of his to the cuts that adorned her shoulders, having moved on from the patch exposed by her stomach.

“Could you-” She coughed, the motion sending black spots through her vision as her ribs protested. “Could you do my chest too? I don’t-”

She coughed again, massaging her aching chest. “Don’t think the bruise ends there.”

He obliged her, slowly unwinding the bandages from her torso. She heard him curse as every strip that fell away revealed more of her battered body.

As it turned out, the purplish-black bruise stretched across her chest, the skin discoloured and swollen angrily in some places.

She grimaced as they began to throb, and he began to apply the paste to her chest. “What the hell hit you?” he muttered.

“Catapult shot hit my century,” she murmured, enjoying the steady coolness that spread across her body as the healer worked his way across the bruise. “Took part of the debris to the chest, but my armor blocked a fair bit of it.”

He eyed her ruined chestplate in the corner, the metal rent in several places and caved in at its center. “I’ll say.”

She shivered as his hand went to her sternum, covering the last of the bruise in the paste.

“Alright, that should ease the pain and swelling for a while. I’ll need to rebind your chest so that your ribs will heal properly, though, otherwise we run the risk of you getting a bone through something important.”

He went about it rather quickly once she nodded, winding them tightly enough that she winced a bit at the pressure, but not so tightly that she couldn’t breathe.

Then he turned to leave, and with a jolt, she remembered what she’d wanted to ask. “Wait!”

He stopped, cocking an eyebrow at her.

“Is it true?” she asked. “How many of us did you manage to save?”

The healer sighed, toying with a corner of his shirt. “The messenger was wrong, if that’s what you mean, but not by much.”

“How many?”

He sighed. “Seven, counting you.”

No.

She slumped back into the bed.

“I’m sorry, but I have to go. There are others who need medical attention, and we’re short-handed as it is after that attack. Try to rest if you can.”

She barely heard the swish of the tent flap as he left, her mind humming with thought.

Seven survivors.

Out of her whole century, only ten. She’d known most of them well, had been close to far more than she should have. They’d been friends, family even. And they’d been wiped out, just like that.

That night, she slipped out of the medical tent. The sentries had seen her at the outskirts of the camp, of course, but they hadn’t opposed her.

They’d seen the determined look in her eyes, and an unspoken message seemed to pass between the two of them as they stood aside.

She caught a flash of sympathy in their eyes as she moved past them, and her mouth turned upward slightly.

Of course they would know. They were experienced soldiers, so they would know what it was like. They would understand what she needed to do.

The battlefield seemed disturbingly different, night veiling the chaos that she knew had taken place. Gone were the trappings of battle, no blood, no bodies, no weapons, no sound.

It would have been so easy to forget in that moment. So easy to believe for a second that her century hadn’t died here. But they had, and she couldn’t erase that.

She would remember, for them and for herself.

“We thought you might come out here.”

She jolted at the voice, whirling around and hurling a fist in its general direction. The man behind her dropped his torch and dodged with some difficulty, his leg heavily bandaged.

“Aurelia!” he called, and she paused, peering carefully at him. “Cassian?”

He offered her a grin, massaging his injured arm carefully. “Good to see that you were one of the ones who made it out.”

She could have hugged him in that moment, but her mouth ran away with her. “How-who else?”

He grimaced. “Atalanta, Gaius, Lucius, Aquila, Titus.” The list was short, too short, yet still more than she’d dared to hope for.

“So,” Cassian asked, “are you here to help? Or was it just to….”

He trailed off, and she frowned at him slightly. “I only woke up today. Did they assign us a task out here?”

“No. Not officially, at least. We’re giving our dead their proper rites.” He seemed to dull as the words left his mouth, and she could see wetness at the corners of his eyes in the flickering torchlight.

Almost unconsciously, she found herself moving towards him, placing a hand on his back in a gesture of unspoken comfort.

He looked at her, and some of the tension seemed to drain from his body as he gave her a small smile and stooped to pick up his torch.

She followed him over to where he said the others were working, explaining along the way.

“Officially, this isn’t something we’ve been ordered to do, but it has to be done. The legion marches at midday tomorrow, and our fallen brothers and sisters deserve their rest. The praetors know it. They know we’re here, but they haven’t stopped us.”

By now, her eyes had adjusted to the darkness, and she was able to pick out several forms trekking across the battlefield.

Cassian raised his torch twice, and the signal was answered promptly when a light flared to life in the hands of the other group.

In spite of everything, she couldn’t stop a smile from rising to her face at the sight of her comrades.

They seemed tired, and each had come away with their own injuries, but they all seemed happy to see each other. Even the ever stoic Lucius grinned as we approached, and Atalanta threw an arm around her when we joined the group.

“Good to see you survived, shield-sister,” she said, hugging the girl firmly despite the fact that her other arm was in a sling.

The embrace was returned carefully, exchanging similar greetings with the rest of them before they got to work. Their fallen brothers and sisters needed to be laid to rest before they could talk.

The sky was still dark by the time they finished, and Atalanta took up her torch. They couldn’t bury them all, it wouldn’t be practical in the time they had left, so they’d had to improvise.

She held the torch to the pyre, and flames quickly took hold of it. In seconds, the pyre was ablaze, wreathing the bodies of the fallen in a burning shroud.

Her ribs ached as she knelt before the pyre and recited the prayer for the dead. The others followed suit, and then it came to the hardest part. Saying goodbye.

Cicero, Drusa, Marcus, Hadrian……The list was long, longer than anyone would like, but they each paid their respects as the flames licked across the pyre.

The sky was starting to grow light when they rose from their vigil, making the slow trek back to camp. The sentries nodded to us. “You did well out there. Get some rest if you can, we’ve been ordered to march out a few hours before noon.”

A brief word of thanks, and then we walked past, exchanging a glance as we did so. “Tomorrow, then. We’ll rest now, find each other when we wake up.”

Atalanta and Cassian followed her to the medical tent, while Lucius and the rest went to their own quarters. Most of them had come away with little more than concussions and scrapes, something which she thanked Mars for before her eyes shut.

It was a dull ache in her chest that woke her early the next morning, a headache pounding behind her eyes and a deep-seated tiredness in her body.

She grimaced as her ribs and bruised chest throbbed in tandem, waiting carefully for the ache to pass.

Then she made the mistake of trying to sit up.

Aurelia barely held the scream back as pain spiked through her chest. As it was, a choked cry left her lips, and she scrambled to bite off the sound.

“You warrior types,” someone muttered, and her eyes swept across the tent. “Always thinking you’re not supposed to show pain, like it’s some kind of weakness.”

Her eyes landed on the herbal stock by her bedside, finding a healer mixing some concoction in the mortar there.

“It makes our jobs a whole lot harder if you won’t say when you need help.” He set the pestle down and turned to her, and she blinked.

“You were the one from yesterday.”

A chuckle. “That I am. Were you able to find the remainder of your century last night?”

So he did know. She sighed. Of course he knew. “Did you tell the sentries to stand aside?”

He shook his head. “They did that on their own. They understand the need to honor the fallen. While I was hoping you wouldn’t have gone and undone all of my work, I expected you to do that.”

The healer held out the mortar to her, and she saw a familiar paste in it. “I’m guessing you’ll be needing more of this, then.”

If she was a more prideful person, she might have been embarrassed by how quickly she accepted. But Aurelia had never been particularly self-oriented, beyond the typical warrior’s pride.

He pretended not to notice when she made the occasional wince, or when pain spiked through her and every muscle went rigid.

That alone made her grateful to him, and she clung to that gratitude when she and the rest of her century were pulled into the praetor’s tent.

They stayed together when they were reassigned. They’d made sure of that, and for a time, things were right in the world again. There were days where she could lose herself in battle, let instinct guide her sword and forget about the days when there were more than just the six of them.

The battlefield had an order to it, an ebb and a flow, and she embraced it wholeheartedly.

Then one of them died, and it was like the world had shattered.

A lucky arrow had pierced the shield wall and caught Titus, burying itself deeply in his stomach. He slipped away as they pushed the opposing army back, their ranks breaking and bending before the legion, but Aurelia didn’t care. Her comrade was dead, and suddenly, they were six.

It was worse when they met again after the battle. There was a gap where none had existed before, and they wept. It had been chaos at the start, when they’d first joined a new century.

They fought differently, they acted differently. More ordered, more rigid, less adaptable. Perhaps that was why they had never connected with the members outside of their own group.

It dulled slowly over the next few months as they patched up the hole and moved on, and then it was ripped open again later.

Aquila had his side sliced open by a dagger in the midst of battle, though he quickly dispatched the one who’d given him the wound. They saw him in the infirmary later, bandaged and tired, and he swore he was fine.

He wasn’t.

The wound was poisoned, the edges of the cut tinged with an unhealthy yellow, and they could only watch as he grew weaker and weaker until one day, he gave into slumber.

When the legion routed the opposing force and publicly executed their leader, Aurelia was only sorry that her century had played so little of a role in the combat.

The battlefield was loss and pain and hate, broached only by the hearts and lives of the friends beside her and the soldiers behind, and she trained and trained to keep those safe.

Of all the people to fall, Lucius had been the one she least expected, yet she was still staring at him in the infirmary, his chest rising and falling in shallow movements.

Atalanta tried to put a hand on her shoulder, but she shrugged it off angrily. “It was my fault. I should be the one in that bed.”

She’d been careless. She’d lost sight of the battlefield for a moment in a killing fury, and found herself surrounded and overwhelmed. Lucius had barrelled through with a squad as she neared her limits, and she’d fought desperately to reach them.

A thrust through the heart to a nameless soldier in her way, and then she was within touching distance, her friend’s grizzled face wearing an expression of relief as he took in her exhausted form.

Then his eyes widened, and he threw her aside as a spear flew, goring him through the stomach as he moved to block the strike. He sagged, his face alarmingly pale, and she’d gone into a killing frenzy as she saw him clutch the wound, gathering the troops around her and routing them before rushing him to the infirmary.

He lived still, but he was weak. They didn’t know if he would even wake. She had failed again, and what had been seven was now four.

“No one else,” she swore silently, hacking at the practice target in a vicious motion that sent its head spiralling through the air.

The battlefield was chaos and hell and sacrifice, and she’d be damned if another of her friends fell.

“What I would give to be back in those times,” she mused, staring at the chart before her.

She’d kept her promise in the year that had passed. No one else had died. At least, she hoped no one had. She’d not heard about Lucius’s situation in a while. Not since she’d been promoted.

“The Iron Vanguard”, they called her, a moniker earned from the steadfast defense and relentless strikes that she’d perfected in all her training. She was fearless and unyielding and inspiring, a symbol of courage to the forces she led.

But looking at the chart laid before her, she saw no way to win. Retreat was unthinkable, but the numbers……Any reinforcements would allow for a chance of victory, even just a quarter-century, but command was terribly overextended, and as they stood now, she would need a miracle to hold this off.

She closed her eyes as she made her choice, picking up the full-faced stylised helmet that had become her signature as a warrior.

Atalanta, Gaius and Cassian entered the tent, each ready and waiting as she stood before them. “We fight,” she said heavily. “Pray for a miracle, or that Command sends us reinforcements in time.”

They nodded, sitting beside her as she sighed. “It’s been a long road,” Gaius rumbled, his deep voice ever a source of comfort for her. “It has to end somewhere.”

There was liquor hidden in her desk for special occasions, and she judged it as time, pulling the bottle out and pouring them each generous glasses before taking a large swig from her own.

“Perhaps it’s fitting that we face death here, after all this time. Our brothers and sisters fell seven years ago. Maybe they’ve finally decided it’s time for us to join them.”

“Slash, parry, stab, ram the shield into him and slice-” The soldier tried to counter, and she flicked her blade down the length of his to slam the hilt into his fingers, driving the sword through his gut moments later.

Another bore down on her, and the spear on her back was unslung, snapped in half as a mace bore down on it and its owner was impaled by the head-

There was one behind her, and she had no weapons this t-

A whistle split the air, and the man fell with an arrow in his neck, Atalanta lowering her bow grimly. She nodded to Aurelia as she wrenched her weapon free, ducking under a spear and retaliating with a shot that punched clean through the attacker’s leather armor.

Aurelia grimaced as she surveyed the battlefield. They were fighting hard, but they were still being pushed back by sheer numbers.

Still, she had to try, she thought, stooping to grab a shield from one of the fallen before charging forward into battle.

She lost track of time as the battle went on, the minutes and hours bleeding into an endless cycle of fighting, defending, killing until she was nearly coated in the blood of the slain.

They’d been reduced in number greatly on both sides, but the end was coming for them as the legion was forced back. She saw Atalanta still fighting valiantly, dodging a javelin with a lightning-fast movement before an arrow hit her in the shoulder, and with a growl, she rushed to defend her.

The archer was still on her feet, but struggled to fend off the two approaching her without the use of her bow. Aurelia caught one, ramming her shield into his chest and removing his head as he stumbled backward, while Gaius roared in from god-knows-where to tackle the other one, throwing him to the floor and ramming his polearm through the man’s throat.

Cassian joined them moments later, leading the remaining two centuries behind him as they rushed to their commander’s position.

“This is it, eh?” he yelled, directing the soldiers to form a shield wall around them. “Seems that way!” Atalanta called back, grimacing as she tore the arrow from her shoulder and pulled back the string of her bow.

Aurelia and Gaius stayed silent, their blades raised in preparation for the end. And then they heard it.

The sound of drumming hoofbeats was the only warning the enemy got before a force of cavalry smashed through their lines, carving a path through the bulk of the enemy forces to reach their embattled force.

Aurelia felt only relief as they approached, her mind whirring frantically. “They came through, they got reinforcements for us, we might actually turn this around-”

She heard a familiar warcry as they drew closer, saw the bulky figure of the lead rider, and then stopped dead as his face came into view.

Lucius grinned down at her from his jet-black charger, his greying hair and grizzled face the most welcome sight she’d seen in more days than she cared to remember.

“Am I ever going to stop needing to save you lot?” he called, wheeling the horse to slice a spearman’s weapon in half before stopping beside them.

If her face hadn’t been obscured by the helmet, he would have seen her dirt-streaked features light up. “You’ve been sleeping for ages, old man,” Atalanta called, barely flinching as she drew the bow with her injured arm and dropped an enemy archer. “It’s been us saving you for a while!”

The veteran’s grin only widened at that. “Suppose it means I’ve got to make up for lost time!”

His cavalry wheeled and turned for the enemy again, as did he, and she let a roar touch her lips for the first time in years as she rallied her own forces into a charge.

The battlefield was rage and pain and hate. It was pandemonium, chaos and death personified, but for the first time in too many days to count, with her allies and friends beside her, there was light at the end of the tunnel.

#rchk #pandemonium #arc #war

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