#its all fun and games until someone falls into the pit of the void

[thanatoseyes]

My mental health?

My therapist says I should talk about my mental health more and I only have like three friends. So I thought I would type it out here. I've had delusions and hallucinations that lasted intensely for a month and while recovering they lasted for a few more months after that. It didn't get better until they upped my dosage of medicine and I still feel like it's not enough sometimes. I don't get the hallucinations any more, but sometimes I get so stuck in my head that it starts to get a little bit delusional.

Some delusions that I've had were as follows:

Believing people were out to get me.

Believing people weren't who they said they were.

Believing that the people that I loved had been replaced with something else.

Believing that the people I loved were trying to cause me harm (i.e. by drugging me).

Believing that people were vampires and there was a hierarchical system.

Believing that the people around me were reincarnations of gods and people from myth.

Believing that the literal devil and angels were walking amongst us.

Believing random strangers were people I knew.

Believing that certain hand signals meant certain things.

Believing that people were talking about me when they really weren't.

Believing that everyone's thoughts were connected in some way, sort of like a fungus.

Now I don't believe those things. I'm taking antipsychotics, anti depressants, and mood stabilizers.

In the hospital I was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder with Psychotic Features, but since then I've had another diagnosis Bipolar NOS (not otherwise specified). My symptoms don't follow a regular bipolar diagnosis be it bipolar 1, bipolar 2, or Cyclothymia. I have the symptoms, but they don't check all of the boxes.

Really, the only things I need to be working on are my agoraphobia and paranoia.

All of this sounds like a lot and it is something I haven't actually told anyone. I've told my therapist that I've had delusions that people aren't who they were, but I just left it at that. The rest of the stuff sounded too fantastical and I didn't really want to get into it with them. They weren't my first psychologist, but they have been my longest. I have an appointment with them in a few days. I'm hoping it goes well.

I'm better now. Far better than I have been. But sometimes I'm afraid I'll forget things. I usually have a great memory, but when I was having my psychotic episode time became a bit of a blur and reality started to shift. It was hard to keep track of what I was dreaming and what was real. It turned everything into a messy puddle.

Again, I'm better now. I guess if anyone has any questions I'd be happy to answer them. . . I'm not really expecting anyone to read this. It's just something I'm dealing with and I'm hoping if someone reads this they won't feel so alone, because I've felt alone. I felt more alone in those months than I have ever felt in my life.

Au revoir.

[lord-explosion-baku]

Thorns

Plot Summary:

Big changes are to come to Sir Cornelius Hollowstone’s School for the Phenomenally Gifted when the Supreme, the man with the living embodiment of magic itself, Toshinori Yagi announced his long awaited retirement. Six witches and six warlocks were to compete amongst themselves in trials to see who will be the next to reign over the the magical community as the Supreme.

Pairings: it’s complicated

Warnings: dark themes, occult themes, swearing, vulgar insinuations, sexual themes, slight bullying, one mention of suicide, drug use insinuation, just dark stuff idk uh

A/N: hi! I got this idea in my head while I was at work and I had to write it down! It’s a magic school au and like GIS, there’s a lot of pairings and it gets a little complicated. I just thought I’d post the first chapter here and then with updates the rest will be on my AO3 like I do with most of my serieses! (Serieses sounds wrong uh) but basically!!! Magical school heavily inspired by American Horror Story: Coven! If you can’t watch American Horror Stiry then I suggest that you don’t read this because it’s gonna get pretty dark and kinda spicy! It’s not a smut fic but there will be smut. Just throwin this into the void. For a better summary about what this story is gonna be about, you can check my AO3! Hizzzaaaht! (Everyone is aged up to 18 or older)

Magic exists but it’s nothing.

Magic is to casters the same way that instapots are to mortals. Magic is a cheat; a means to make everyday things easier to casters who have far too much power to exert and not enough time to brew their morning coffee. Magic is unbiased and has no laws to abide by until somebody was bound to come around and make them. Magic can open your car door when you’ve locked your keys on the inside but magic can’t force people to fall in love and it can’t bring people back to life. So it’s nothing.

Or so you thought.

Magic was nothing until you learned that magic is everything.

You were a third year at Sir Cornelius Hollowstone’s School For The Phenomenally Gifted, aptly and absurdly named after a famous warlock who hailed as Supreme three hundred long years ago, who once settled the war between casters and the demons in the underworld by slicing his entire right arm off and feeding it to a hungry hell pit. This would actually be your second year attending Hollowstone since the all girls academy you previously attended in your first year was shut down due to poor funding and the plague of talking rodents that infiltrated the school grounds who had demands that no caster was willing to meet. The current Supreme, the man with the living embodiment of magic itself, Toshinori Yagi, was all too willing to flex his power and rule that the boys and girls academies would be merged in hopes of bringing the magical community closer together. However, if anything, that just made everyone all the more competitive.

Witches and Warlocks did not agree on a lot of things and part of the reason for that was because there hadn’t been a witch reigning as Supreme in almost four hundred years, half because one warlock Supreme from the past lived to be over two hundred years old and half because the witches just gave up as a whole.

There was a power imbalance in the community as well that was very obviously misogynistic in its own right. When the time came for a Supreme to retire, both witches and warlocks were to compete amongst their selective gender for the titles of High Priestess and High Priest. After the two champions are chosen, they must compete against one another to see who will be ascending as the next Supreme. Many odd years ago, a warlock Supreme made the preposterous law that when the High Priest champion became the Supreme, the High Priestess champion would be forced to marry him. He made it law on the grounds that he had fallen deeply in love with his champion counterpart, Harleen Blackwater, who did not reciprocate his feelings. Upon hearing the terrible news that she was to wed the Supreme, she exhausted the dauntless task of taking her own life, resulting in the tradition of High Priestesses ending themselves when they did not become the next Supreme, as one last hail to Lady Blackwater. Of course, that wasn’t mandatory. The tradition was never set in stone but when it did happen, it wasn’t something that the community would bat an eyelash at. It just be like that sometimes.

The school year was starting out with an excited frenzy, much to your annoyance, because Yagi had just announced his retirement which meant the trials for the champions were about to begin. Six third year witches and six third year warlocks were to be selected to compete for their champion titles and that was all anybody could talk about. You, on the other hand, didn’t care for the trials, rather, you wished you didn’t. Of course, big changes like this piqued anybody’s interest but you were a cynical witch and a mundane one at that. You were called a T.Di witch, which stood for Telekinesis and Divination. Mortals would think “oh wow, telekinesis! That’s super OP!” but it wasn’t. Not in your world. Telekinesis was the most versatile of the seven affinities and though, when used correctly, it could be very powerful, more often than not, it was only used to float objects to lazy casters. Everyone had telekinesis. To put it simply, you weren’t special. Your other affinity, divination, was looked down upon in your community. Divination: the ability to obtain direct knowledge of an object, person, location, or physical event through a relating energy. Basically if someone needed something to be found, you suddenly became their best friend until you helped them with their lost item and then you’d get tossed back into Loser Village, population: you and Izuku Midoriya.

Most third years already had two of the seven affinities, those seven affinities, the seven divine powers granted to casters, being telekinesis, pyromancy, divination, transmutation, decensum, vitalum vitalus, and concilium. Poor Izuku Midoriya was just a T warlock; he could only use telekinesis and, on top of that, he still had to use a wand. Wands were given to first years so they could get a better grip on channeling their magic. After understanding the basic fundamentals of magic, second years learn to wield their power with their hands and by the end of the of the year, all students should have a better grasp on it. Midoriya was still a ways behind. You felt sorry for him but at least he was pretty decent at memorizing spells. As the two of you were each other’s only semi-casual friends, you helped each other out a lot. He was quite intelligent so he was your encyclopedia and since he was always losing things, you were his finder’s eye.

So you knew that the trials had absolutely nothing to do with you. You hoped whoever was to become the next High Priest and Priestess were two casters that were interested in changing the law a bit but it would most likely be two students who’d already been royal assholes to you. Still, you’d probably end up watching some of the trials, particularly the trials involving memorization or wit but other than that, you’d stay away from the discourse.

You spent most of your time in the herbology room, which was where you were now, since it was the classroom nobody could really use magic to excel in unless one had chlorokinesis like Ibara Shiozaki. You liked tending to the plants. They didn’t care if you were a T.Di witch nor did they talk down to you. They only showed you their appreciation by blooming for you after you’d fed them all your tender love and care.

You were lucky enough to aide for Professor Aizawa’s Herbology 1 class, which proceeded into his Herbology 2 class that you were taking straight afterwards. After taking his Herbology 1 and Potions 2 classes the previous year, he had quickly become your favorite professor at Hollowstone and you, hopefully, had become his favorite student. When the class you aided for ended and it was passing period, Aizawa would ask you for answers to problems he already knew the solutions to, just to humor you and test your knowledge— a fun game that you appreciated.

“A warlock has been struck with a hex that has caused him to convulse and vomit uncontrollably. He’s lost all his teeth in the process. Would you use hawthorn, licorice, or juniper to wean him away from his ailments?”

You stopped tapping your pen on the lab bench you were sitting on and brought it to your lips, eyeing your teacher to see if he was giving you some sort of tell, but Aizawa’s expression was as unreadable as ever.

“Is he suffering from any other kinds of symptoms? How is his heart?”

“Same as it was before the hex and he has no other symptoms aside from the ones I’ve listed.”

“Alright then, that’s easy! Juniper!”

In response, Aizawa quirked a brow, signaling that he needed more than just a simple answer. There was always a catch with him.

“Juniper and…” one steady tap of the pen on your lips brought the answer to your head, “yarrow!”

Aizawa reached out, grabbed the pen away from your lips and placed it next to you on the bench, a ghost of a smile playing on his lips. “Go on.”

You pulled down on your school skirt, always needing to fidget with something when you had to concentrate. Aizawa rolled his eyes and you jokingly scowled back him.

“I would use the juniper and mix it with crushed yarrow. No-! I’d cut the juniper and fuse it with yarrow extract, then that together and give it to the warlock. Then maybe to relax his muscle spasms, I’d have him smoke some lavender because... I’m nice.”

Aizawa clicked his tongue and took your pen from the bench. “Clever witch,” he said, opening his notebook to scribble in it.

“What! That was noteworthy?” You said with a little more excitement than you wanted to show him. If anything, you didn’t want to be a loner and a teacher’s pet but getting Aizawa’s approval was something special to you.

“It was. I would’ve crushed the juniper and something with the same properties as yarrow together and brewed that together but letting the juniper soak in yarrow is close to genius. And I probably wouldn’t have even thought about bringing lavender into the equation. I’m impressed.”

“I carry around dried lavender anyways and I’m always trying to think about what I can use it with,” you grinned sheepishly, trying to hide how thrilled you were at receiving his praise.

“You know, I’m a little disappointed in you.”

You frowned. “I don’t smoke the lavender myself. I just carry it around with me.”

He chuckled. “That’s not why I’m disappointed… why aren’t you taking my potions class this year?”

“Oh…” If you were being honest, you didn’t dislike potions but the students that were going to be taking the class were a whole lot of people you wanted to avoid. Getting bullied at an all girls academy was one thing but now that you had witches and warlocks laughing at the T.Di witch, it was a little overbearing. “I had to choose between aiding and potions and… I don’t know. I guess I really like plants.”

“There are plants in my potions class.”

“Yeah.” And other really gifted casters but you didn’t want him to know how insecure you were.

“Hmph,” he closed his notebook and eyed your school bag that was draped across the chair you were supposed to be sitting on. “So you carry dried lavender around?”

“Mhmm…” your face began to flush.

“And you don’t smoke it?”

“Ha?” Your breath caught in your throat. In the witching world, there weren’t a whole lot things you could get in trouble for but you’d consumed enough mortal media to have a slight fear of getting in trouble with authoritative figures for your recreational activities. “I mean, maybe if I’ve been a bit stressed out.”

“Huh. I wouldn’t have guessed. Do you mix it with anything?”

“Professor!” Your face grew hot and the tie around your neck felt too constricting. You knew that you weren’t in any kind of trouble but you couldn’t keep your stomach from forming nervous knots.

“There’s no need to be embarrassed, I really am just curious about you,” he grinned, amused at your obvious fluster. “So, you have some on you?”

You looked at your teacher and sighed. To hell with it. Reaching over, you grabbed your bag from off your chair and shook the little pouch you kept your treasure in. “If you want some, you’re gonna have to tell me what you’re going to use it for.”

“You might find it hard to believe but a teacher’s life is far more stressful than a student’s. I have… ways of destressing but a little added lavender could be quite beneficial,” he took the pouch from you. “How much can I take?”

“You can have it. I’ve got some growing in the makeshift greenhouse outside my dorm. It’ll be ready for me to clip any day now.”

He looked at you with surprised amusement. “During Autumn?”

“Well,” you smirked, “I am a clever witch.”

“That you are.” Aizawa thanked you and pocketed your pouch. At that moment, the chimes from the bell tower sounded the end of passing period and the beginning of class; a short eerie jingle you still hadn’t gotten used to even after a year.

“Big surprise,” Aizawa sighed, “everyone’s late.”

“They’re excited,” you said pointedly.

“And you’re not?”

You shrugged. You were just thankful that your last school year had something that would keep everyone else occupied.

“Alright,” he tapped your bare knee, surprising you, “get your ass off of my bench before my students think that’s okay too.”

“My ass?” You laughed, hopping down from the table. “I’m your student too, Professor Aizawa.”

He started walking towards his desk. “Then you should know that I have strict rules for my classroom. No ifs, ands, or…”

“Butts?” You offered.

He grinned and snapped his fingers, conjuring signs to sit atop all of the greenhouse benches that read ‘NO “BUTTS!”’ You stifled a snort as your classmates began shuffling into the greenhouse.

Speaking of the the recreational use of certain herbs, in walked Hanta Sero and Denki Kaminari with two big stupid grins hanging off their faces. You already felt your shoulders begin to tense as Kaminari approached you.

“Hey, tiddy witch!” He tapped you on your back but you kept your head down, resisting the urge to roll your eyes at the horrible nickname. It had been an accident on Kaminari’s part last year when he read off a list of students in your charms class and when it came to your name, he read ‘T.Di’ as ‘tiddy’. Once he saw everyone laugh at his mistake, it was all over for you and the name stuck. You weren’t sure if he knew or even cared that the nickname bothered the hell out of you. “How’s it going?”

“Fine.” You pulled your notebook out of your bag and flipped it open to the next empty page, trying to make a point that you wanted to focus on your work.

“Just fine?” You could hear the smile in his voice as he sat on the chair next to you with Sero joining him. It was a shame that Aizawa didn’t have assigned seating in this classroom. “But we’re here!”

“Uh-huh,” you began scribbling down unimportant words so it looked like you were busy but you could still feel Kaminari’s eyes on you. Finally your gaze met his. “What do you want, Kaminari?”

“I need help finding something!” His golden eyes shined while his grin widened and Sero hit his shoulder.

“Dude, don’t,” Sero said, though he covered his mouth to hide his smile.

Kaminari looked back at Sero and snickered and turned his attention back on you. “Can you help me find it?”

Your eyes narrowed. Your brain screamed, ‘shenanigans!’ but a small part of you wanted to help; the small part of you that wished to be well liked. Against your better judgement, you asked, “what is it?”

“I can’t really say what it is but I can describe it to you!”

...That was the kind of challenge that you liked to indulge in. You sighed and said, “okay. Do you have anything on you that’s related to whatever it is you’re looking for?”

“Errmmm, yes and no… maybe you can just hold my hand while I tell you about it?” He rested his hand palm-up on the table.

Your eyes flicked over to Sero whose head was buried in his arms on the bench, shaking with hidden laughter. Suspicious, you took his hand. “Alright, shoot.”

Sero let out a snort and Kaminari snickered with him. “Cool. Cool cool. Uhhh, okay… how to describe it... Well, it’s big.”

“Okay, big,” you noted, closing your eyes to allow your mind to swim through the nether. A spiral of large objects made their way past your consciousness while you started your search for Kaminari.

“And it makes me happy?”

“Happy,” you whispered, barely even able to hear the chuckles anymore. You were focused.

“It can make you happy too… especially if we were both using it.”

“Mmhmmm,” your mind took you to the greenhouse outside of your dorms and swam over to a secret trampoline that was hiding deep inside the eastern gardens of the schoolyard. From what you could tell by holding his hand, Kaminari didn’t have any idea about either of those things. “What does it look like?”

“Well,” Kaminari’s voice bounced around in your head, “it carries blood… a part of it resembles a mushroom… there’s a long, throbbing vein that runs along the underside…”

Your eyes shot open and you quickly pulled your hand away from his. You saw exactly what he was referring to and it wasn’t lost at all. In fact, it was attached to his stupid fucking body! Fuck!

“Did you find it?” Kaminari gave you a toothy grin, Sero still hunched over beside him, shaking and lost in a fit of laughter.

“No!” You spat in a hushed tone. What an incredibly vulgar joke! Wasn’t that considered sexual harassment?! Judging by the look on his face, it didn’t seem like Kaminari cared. Boys were so dumb! “I’m sorry, Kaminari, I can’t help you. It turns out, whatever you’re looking for is a little too small for me to detect!”

Sero hooted, banging his hand on the table. “She totally saw it!”

Kaminari’s smile faltered only slightly. “It’s not small, I measured it last week! It’s slightly above average!” He let out an embarrassed laugh, “you’re so cruel, tiddy witch!”

You scoffed. You weren’t cruel, he was. He might as well had dropped his slacks and flashed you! At least then everyone else would be traumatized along with you. You turned away from him and snarled, “are you done?”

Kaminari was silent for a short moment. For a second you thought that he’d finished his teasing but then he waved his hand out in front of your face. “Hey,” he whispered, “hey, are you mad?”

You ignored him and leaned closer to your desk, trying to pay attention to Aizawa’s lecture but Kaminari wasn’t having it.

“Shit,” he scooted closer to you, “wait, I’m really sorry I’ve upset you… hey… tiddy witch…?”

When you didn’t pay him any mind he teleported himself onto the other chair next to you. Kaminari was a T.Tr warlock, meaning that he already had the affinities for telekinesis and transmutation. Transmutation was simply the power to move from one location to another without occupying the spaces in between, or, in other words, teleportation. Popping up out of nowhere was just one more thing to add to the list of Kaminari’s annoying qualities. “Please don’t be mad at me!”

Aizawa stopped talking about the different properties of several disintegrating herbs and glanced at your bench, scowling at Kaminari. “Is there a problem?” He looked from Kaminari to you and silence followed. “What could possibly be so important that you need to interrupt my lecture?”

“Nothing, Professor,” the two of you said in unison. As much as Kaminari bugged you, you weren’t about to be a rat— a poor ‘woe is me, life is a nightmare, nobody is nice to me’ kid. At least, not out loud and definitely not in front of Aizawa.

Not believing either of you, Aizawa scanned the room until his eyes landed on Shiozaki, who was on the other side of the greenhouse poking at some tomato berries.

“Mr. Kaminari, switch places with Miss Shiozaki.”

In an instant, Kaminari zapped himself over by Shiozaki and said something as preposterously stupid as “hey there, sweet thang,” only to have Shiozaki toss her gorgeously thick, vine-like hair over her shoulder, stick her nose up in the air, and walk across the room. She offered you a curt smile before taking her seat between you and Sero. You liked Shiozaki. Having the power of chlorokinesis easily placed her at the top of this class with you as a close second, so you were a tad envious of her abilities but it was the kind of jealousy that drove you to do better everyday. She knew about your one-sided rivalry and even though she wasn’t competitive by nature, she’d humor you by glancing over at your work from time to time to make sure she stayed ahead of you.

You tried to relax and focus on Aizawa’s discussion about how magically charged valerian root could knock a person out with a simple whiff if aged and acutely diced but you kept feeling Kaminari’s eyes on you. After you had gotten used to it, a folded note fluttered its way to your bench. You glanced back at Kaminari who had the same damn stupid grin plastered on his face.

The note read, ‘I really am sorry! Let me make it up to you by taking you to the Cherry Moon Ceremony!’ signed with a hastily-scribbled little heart.

You nearly gagged.

Hell would freeze over before you let Denki Kaminari escort you anywhere and the world would explode before you even thought about going to the Cherry Moon Ceremony! The witching community had some sort of festival for all holidays and every full moon. The Cherry Moon occurred on the first full moon of September. It involved everyone getting very close to nude, if not completely naked, and engaging in many lewd activities, often regarding a virgin or two. Casters were an open minded people and it wasn’t that you weren’t open minded but having been raised with a caster as a mother and a mortal as a father, you were probably one of the more conservative witches around and that was saying something considering how liberal your father was while he was alive. You wouldn’t call yourself a prude, though you haven’t done anything that says otherwise, but being scantily clad in front of your classmates as well as some teachers just did not sound like a fantastic time to you. But Kaminari didn’t have to know that. Kaminari didn’t deserve to know that the thought of going out with him to an event like that flustered you beyond belief. So instead of explaining yourself to him, you turned back to him and mouthed, ‘you don’t even know my name!’

Kaminari pouted at you before whispering to get Sero’s attention. Once Sero turned to him, Kaminari pointed at you and mouthed, ‘what’s her name?!’

Sero chuckled and turned back to face Aizawa, muttering, “like hell I’m telling him.”

You leaned in and whispered over Shiozaki, “do you even know my name?”

Sero offered up a half grin and tapped his pointer finger on his temple. Right. Like Kaminari, Hanta Sero was a T.Tr warlock but he was already gifted with powers outside of the seven affinities. He was clairevoyant; a telepath. He could read people’s thoughts as well as project thoughts into other people’s minds if he wanted to. That sort of explained why he seemed more empathetic than everyone else, though, if you were in his position and you knew what was going on in the poor T.Di witch’s head, you wouldn’t let your friends make so many jokes at her expense. Other than that, Sero was an alright guy but it was easy to forget that he was a strong caster since he spends so much of his time with imbeciles like Kaminari.

Sero snickered… did he hear that?!

“Now,” Aizawa’s stern voice interrupted your train of thought, “since the lot of you were late to my class, how about a pop quiz?”

The class groaned when dozens of flower pots appeared on the benches. Every pot held the same desperate and ugly plant that looked like they used to have flowers. It hurt your heart in a way.

“If you can return some of the plant’s chlorophyll, demonstrating a freshly green hue, you’ll pass. If you can get the flower to bloom again, you’ll get an A. If you’re unable to complete either of those tasks, it’s an automatic fail. Begin.”

Quickly, you got to focusing on your plant. You knew immediately that it was of the asteraceae family. When the plant was in better shape, it seemed like seedlings had dropped down into the pot. That could’ve been the cause of its diminished state, if not from being completely neglected by Aizawa. You grinned. Flower killer Aizawa.

Tenderly, you pinch the stem and tentatively traced the poor thing. You felt your energy surge through you and as your fingers caressed your flora friend, the green hue trailed along with your touch. Reaching an old bud of the plant, your fingers grew warm as the flower began to change and warp underneath them. The corolla started to form and in an instant a gorgeous pink chrysanthemum bloomed and blushed for you.

You let out a long, squeaky yawn. Making the chrysanthemum bloom must’ve drained a lot more of your energy than you thought it would… either that or you could have had a heartier breakfast that morning. You were pleased to see Shiozaki concentrated on her flower, desperately stroking its withered stem with no success and, taking a quick glance around the room, you saw that nobody else had gotten anywhere further; one witch had actually set her pot on fire! T.Py casters.

“If you hadn’t noticed, the plant is dead. And dead means dead. There’s nothing anyone could’ve done to make these flowers bloom. So,” Aizawa’s lips twitched up into that funny grin he did whenever he pulled a past one on his student’s, “you all fail.”

That warranted another groan from the class. You furrowed your brow. Your plant was very much alive. You didn’t fail. You did another once over of the entire room. You were the only student with a flower in full bloom in front of you.

“Now I do curve your grades and since I’m positive that everyone has failed, this quiz doesn’t matter. But you’ve learned a very important life lesson. Which is…?” A pregnant pause from the room lead to Aizawa pinching the bridge of his nose between his fingers in frustration. “Dead means…?”

“Dead!” Yelled one warlock from the back of the greenhouse. A wave of unenthusiastic “dead”’s followed.

“Tiddy witch’s plant isn’t dead!” Chimed in Kaminari, who, for some reason, still had eyes on you.

Aizawa froze. Slowly he turned to you. From the head of your bench, his eyes twitched down to your pot. “What?”

Finally, some good old fashioned recognition.

He walked over to behind your chair and leaned over you. He was so close that you could smell him; he had on a nice earthy blend with a hint of coffee. You tilted your head away from him. Liking your teacher’s scent was probably a bad thing. Morally gray, at least to mortals… probably.

“It appears you’ve completed the assignment,” he said in a low, hushed tone.

“This was rigged,” shouted a student. “It’s ‘cause she was the only one who wasn’t late! That’s favoritism!”

It wasn’t beyond Aizawa to pull something like that over to make a point to his lagging students but he looked awestruck. But it wasn’t a huge deal… you just healed a plant.

Aizawa cleared his throat and, not taking his eyes away from your pot, he asked, “each of these plants are exact copies of themselves. How did you do this?”

“I don’t know. I just,” another yawn escaped you and you hoped it didn’t look like you were bored or even smug with yourself, “I just did it.”

Aizawa examined your flower very closely. He brought his thumb to the steam and steadily traced your plant upwards, fingering the leaves. When he got to your ever-delighted Chrysanthemum petals, he tapped lightly on them, making some of the petals drop and flutter down gracefully on to your bench before they shriveled up back to their previous state. Aizawa clicked his tongue. He looked you straight in the eye. You held your breath. You were proud of yourself but you were sure you were about to get dragged behind your back again if Aizawa said something about you being a clever witch in front of everyone else… though hearing it again wouldn’t be so bad.

“You get a 90%. The rest of the class gets 50.”

You felt the room grow heavy. In Aizawa’s Herbology class, a 50 out of 90 was still passing but hardly. Most students took this class because they thought it was going to be an easy pass like his Herbology 1 class, so this wasn’t fun news to anybody.

There was salty energy in the air for the rest of the period but other than that, you and your chrysanthemum flower were forgotten about. When class ended, Aizawa instructed you to take the pot with you and take notes on any sudden developments your plant my form. “A pet project,” he called your task. “Take good care of it for me, okay?”

Despite your likeability plummeting after the incident, you were excited for your project. Your mind whirled with ideas on what to do with your assignment; what to do with the plant that wasn't supposed to heal. You didn’t want to disappoint Aizawa. You were, at least to him, a clever witch.

Tags for EVERYTHING (closed): @yandere-inamorata @miitaart @dessiedawnwritesfanfiction @wickedlewicked @chickennuggetsarequestionable @nevermorelanore @kpanime @ayeputita @captain-sin-allmight-queen @diisasterbii @iceformer @meganofmars @colagirl5 @colorbookshd @grimmjadeskye @sm0kingcrack @sarcastictextstuck @zellllyyyy @psionicsnow @mynahx3 @andie-in-tumblland @iamthe-leaf @midnightfeline666 @bungou-stray-alies-tales-of-aly -of-aly @rubyred-imagines @kattariapenn @heypartypeps @quirktaker @thecryingsombra @smbody-stole-mycar-radio @ghost-of-todoroki @geektastic84 @davalia @glixeo @rubycubix @mekakushi-dan-01-kido

[pathogenic]

Y’all are getting tunes whether you ask for them or not

1. A song that reminds you of your childhood

Orinoco Flow - Enya

One of my favorite songs as a kid. I still listen to it because I love the otherworldly feel it has to it. Plus now I associate it with Myst because the instrumentals are a lot like the Myst classic soundtrack. That matters because the Myst series is the only video game my mom plays and I have fond memories watching her play.

2. A song to sleep to

Bad Wings - The Glitch Mob

The Glitch Mob has a lot of tracks I find to be rather soothing. This one especially because it is slower than most of their other tracks. I actually found this one when I was playing my bed time Pandora radio like back in ohhhh 2014 I believe? So it works.

3. A song that your best friend loves

We’ll roll with Isa over @ aiiizawa 

Pay No Mind (Feat. Passion Pit) - Madeon

Feeling is pretty mutual on how much this song rocks. It is nice, bouncy, and the song just makes you feel warm all over.

4. A song that hypes you the fuck up

Never Gonna Stop (The Red, Red Kroovy) - Rob Zombie

I will not be surprised when I get a speeding ticket due to this song. It’s just that good and I will never not go apeshit to it. I also love the bass in the intro, it sounds fucking killer in almost every car/truck I’ve been in.

5. A song you like to daydream to

Here Comes the Rain Again - Eurythmics

It’s soothing, it has a sweet vibe to it, it also has a longing feel to it. It works for almost every ship of mine, it instantly puts me in a mood. What else could I want from it?

6. A song that’s on at least 3 of your playlists

Bite Me! (Chrom Remix) - Hocico

This one was recommended to me by a very dear friend and I just love it. It’s on my personal playlist, a playlist for a friend’s character, and my general VtM playlist. It’s just a really cool song.

7. A song that you love from a genre you don’t usually like

Train, Train - Blackfoot

Rockabilly is something I want to get more into, but I really am so choosy. This was one given to me by my Dad and he was absolutely right to. The song fucking slaps.

8. A song that you liked when you where 10 that still slaps

Imaginary - Evanescence

I’ve loved Evanescence since I was a little one and I’m still right on that. Amy Lee’s voice is amazing and I still listen to her very often. This one was my favorite as a kid because on the Fallen album, you go from Tourniquet with it’s full orchestra ending and then it drops to this single violin in the intro and that rocked. I was always so excited to hear it as a kid. I also loved shouting “FLOWERS”. Didn’t really know any of the other lyrics until much later.

9. A song that makes you want to go on an adventure

Uncharted Worlds - Sam Hulick

Is it cheating to pull from a game OST? Either way, this song always makes me want to explore the galaxy. Lucky bastards in ME.

10. A song you’d want to dance with your partner to ( or future partner )

Ragtime Cat (Ft. Lilja Bloom) - Parov Stelar

I’ll take my L on this one, but I do genuinely love electro swing, I love swing dancing, and this one feels like the perfect one to dance with. It has a fun tempo and I also love the jump between new and old in this song.

11. A song to stomp around and pout to

Happy? - Mudvayne

I mean really, what else do you need beyond a passive-aggressive nu metal song to be angry to?

12. A song to listen to whilst you lie in a meadow

Wheel in the Sky - Journey

Sounds like the perfect place to contemplate, and Wheel in the Sky is the perfect song to do that with. Think about the future and fate while enjoying a good tune by Journey.

13. A song that reflects your views on love

Sparks - Faith and the Muse

Kind of my go to love song? There is a reverence and a hesitance in this song that really speaks to me. Love is scary, but it’s alive and well.

14. A song to sing to the sun

I could have been cheeky and picked The Sun by Gothminister, but I won’t

Honestly, I’m not sure how to read this, so take something that is definitely a daytime tune with Song 2 - Blur

Not a “sun” song, but I always associate it with the kind of sports I like and that as close as I can get.

15. A song you like that sounds like its on the soundtrack to an indie coming of age film

Volcanic Jig - Natalie MacMaster

Feels like the kind of light, bouncy stuff they would play in an opening scene to me.

16. A song that you like that romanticises being a teenager

Electricity - Red City Radio

At least part of it. It has a growing up with someone you like kind of feel to it and part of that would have to be being a teen. Beyond that, evidently nothing I listen to matches this either.

17. A song that makes you want to grab your friends jump up and down dancing and screaming the lyrics

Devil’s Dance Floor - Flogging Molly

Mostly because it’s just the song stuck in my head really bad, but that chorus, it sounds so fun to sing!!

18. A song that you like that the lyrics are just so beautiful they’re practically poetry

Oh I regret using Sparks already

Love You To Life - Grace Jones

Might as well be a poem really! Just take a listen and enjoy.

19. A song that you can imagine listening to in an abandoned church ( if it isn’t hozier im judging you, but whatever )

Listen to more artists

Sunday Morning - The Bolshoi

I would pick this one for a number of reasons - first off, it has a good sort of distant feeling to me that matches an abandoned place, second it has to deal with negative feelings with Christianity, which would match my mood best while standing in a church, abandoned or not.

20. A song from the soundtrack of a film that you like so much after the film finished you immediately looked for it

Warrior Falls -  Ludwig Göransson

Yes, it is a Marvel movie soundtrack, but consider - The drums in the Black Panther Soundtrack rock. Now to be honest, this is like one of the only movie soundtracks I have saved. If we went video game, then god it might have to be

Assassin’s Creed IV Black Flag Main Theme - Brian Tyler

AC soundtracks in general tend to fucking rock, but this theme is so powerful every time I hear it, I’m fuckin ready to be a pirate.

21. A song for when the sun has gone down and you are feeling absolutely buck-wild with exhilaration!

Augen Auf - Oomph!

I have so many songs that work for this. This is normally when I listen to music so I have many Manic Energy Songs. 

22. A song that makes you feel like you’re strolling through Ancient Greece living your best life

Very specific indeed, but perhaps Antvmnos - Eluveite ?

Tell me it wouldn’t be perfect to stroll a Greek shoreline with.

23. A song that when you listen to it you’re transported to a liminal space, time is pointless and you must sit and wallow in the void that remains

Black Car - Beach House

I listen to this song and my mind is instantly somewhere indescribable and unknowable and all I can do is listen, relax, and go through it. It’s very pleasant to me.

24. A song to listen to on a long drive when you have the really strong urge to keep driving until you find somewhere to start a new life (preferably a europian city whose language you don’t speak)

Perhaps not that exactly, but a song that makes me want to be a weary traveler seeing sights most can only dream of is Far Horizons - Jeremy Soule

[sagoliilynx]

The End of the Beginning (3)

((This is a long one so I will put it under the cut. Also a word of warning, while I edited the graphic stuff out, there is still some obvious indication of self harm. Steer clear if you are worried that it might get to you.))

Once it had been an Au Ra, though it was impossible to tell if it had been Raen or Xaela. At least as far as his knowledge of the race from his home world extended. Here they were called something else, but they still sported the same features that he was used to. Not this thing though, gone was natural skin pigmentation and now flesh looked as if it had been carved from white stone, a statue come to life. The thing’s right arm was malformed, larger and longer than it should have been, and ending with a large clawed hand. It was almost as if the man had started to mutate but that change had been halted. And then there was the eyes, pale orbs devoid of emotion, unblinking as if the thing was a machine with no soul. Maybe it was.

“You better use the crystals or you’ll be dead. Either way it is fun for us!”

Lan was unsure who had spoken, but he still took note of what was said as a plan started to form in his mind. He had little time to consider things though as the monster charged him, that huge set of claws swiping so closely that he felt the air stir in passing.The Miqo’te found himself on the defensive for now, diving and dodging the attacks leveled his way by the much larger and stronger foe.

Someone in the cheering/jeering crowd above tossed down a hand axe and wooden shield, far from ideal equipment, but better than nothing. A dive to the side saw Lan scoop the implements up and ready himself for the next attack, one he met head on now as he took the hit with the shield. The wood seemed to be a meager barrier between him and those vicious talons, but it held and it gave him the chance to counter with a downward swing of the axe, blade biting into flesh at the monster’s shoulder. Of course whatever drove the beast now helped it shrug off the blow, viscous green blood oozing from the wound.

What followed was a flurry of activity as they traded blows, Lan working to avoid as many as he could, while the monster seemed to just take each hit and keep coming forward. It was brutal combat the likes of which Lan had not been a part of in a long time, and deep down part of him thrilled in the life and death struggle with the odds against him. But the tactician’s mind told him that he would falter before this thing did, he would need to end it soon. He had the answer, but implementing that answer was easier said than done.

Lan began to give ground, something that once upon a time his instructors would have screamed at him for, something that would have earned him so many damn flutter kicks as punishment. But those days were long gone, and real warfare had taught him that at times you needed to yield just a bit to gain the advantage. “Force them to hunt me, they will play my game, and play by my rules. I will be close but still untouchable.” That old litany slipped found his lips as his shield was battered and he stepped back a few more fulms, a deadly calm settling over him as the thrill of the battle slipped away. Indeed all emotions started to unravel within his mind, that familiar calm of the inner void engulfing feelings and distractions alike. Supreme focus.

The creature’s massive claw reared back and up to strike another blow on the meager wooden barrier that stood between it and the prey before it. But when it swung it’s arm it struck the top of the side of the pit, a bit of an overhang thanks to the uneven nature of the hole. The lethal hand actually striking a few of the crystals that lined the impromptu arena with a force that saw some of the shards impale the big palm. Color began to drain from the claw, pale aether flowing into the stones. Something that was not unnoticed by Lan. Another piece falling into place even as he launched his counter with a deathly calm that rivaled the monster’s. 

Seizing the opening, Lan hooked a leg with the blade of his axe and pulled even as his own powerful legs drove him forward with his shield leading the way. The monster stayed on his feet despite being staggered by the Seeker it faced. But Lan’s plan was fully realized when his feet left the ground and with surprising agility for someone of his build actually climbed the former Au Ra and kicked off and up. Midair he hurled his shield at the monster, a distraction, and a chance to free his hand before it found purchase one of the larger crystals that lined the hole. Feline grace brought him swinging up above the lip of the pit even though his handhold came loose in his hand. Even in that calm he allowed a sliver of pride to briefly seep through as the gathered cultists  gasped in shock. The Miqo’te was on them before some of them even had time to react, a savage dervish of steel and fist that tore through his enemies. 

Shouts rang out as the shock subsided and Children scrambled to arm themselves and take on that man that had somehow managed to bring so much havoc right into their midsts. But ganging up on a single man was not going to be their only worry as a great claw slammed into the lip of the pit and their other prisoner hauled itself up. Too late did they realize that the acrobatic feat they had witnessed had knocked out more than just one crystal. The strange phenomenon that had held the mutated Drahn weakened enough to let the creature free. And now it butchered them as some fled and others attempted to fight.

Of course the other threat they had to contend with, Lan, was still cutting his way through the few that opposed him. Having acquired a sword to pair with his axe, he did look every bit of a monster himself as blood spattered his skin while he ravaged his enemies. There was a plan behind his attacks though, and it was realized as he came face to face with the Elf that had seemed to be the one in charge, the one that had managed to discover him in the brush. The same Elf that grinned wickedly at him as blade of his own came to hand right before they clashed.

Chaos raged around them but somehow the two men fought undisturbed as if it had been a duel agreed upon. Lan found that this particular enemy was a match for his own skill as a blademaster and theirs was the dance of death only one would survive this encounter. Steel met steel as they clashed with such intensity that blades actually chipped and at times their movements would seem a blur to the outside observer. Bit by bit the Elf started to press the Seeker, and his grin grew as there was an evil flash in his red eyes, he was confident that it was almost over….

Sword came down in an arc that would deal a mortal blow to the last chief of the Free Tribe...hand it connected. Red eyes widened in surprise as Lan used the handle of his axe to block the attack, and those eyes widened more as a shortsword tore through flesh, organs, and bone. Lan buried the blade to the hilt in the Elf’s chest with such force that he felt the crack of the ribs transmitted through his weapon. Victory was at hand as he brought the axe up now, ready for it to deal the final blow. But a hand wreathed in sickly green aether struck like a viper, fingers closing over Lan’s left wrist like one half of some hellish manacles. 

And the sensation shook that inner void, a feeling like a fever accompanied that green energy as it engulfed his hand and begun to creep up his arm. The void collapsed, but that did not signal the end for Lan’s fight as he pulled downward and twisting the still embedded sword, the blade tearing a path through the Elf’s body before finally severing the spine. Like a puppet with its strings cut the Elf finally collapsed dead, vile aether vanishing before his body even hit the ground.

And Lan fled, the leader’s death was not going to go unnoticed even in the chaos of the mutating creature’s rampage. He would not be there to see the monster shifting more and more into a true sineater form, but the cultists would get a front row seat for that change, the last thing many would ever see.

He kept his wits enough to alter his path enough to go to where he had hid before his capture and retrieve his leather bag, the contents of that bag more precious than most anything else he owned. His left arm was starting to go numb as he continued his flight, his sense of direction pointing him toward where his hidden cave would be. Something told him that he needed to get there fast.

“Lan…” 

“Lan…” The voice sounded distant and distorted, like someone trying to call out to him across a malms wide sandstorm.

How long had he been running now? His left arm hung limp at his side, the numbness having creeped upward along it. Why was his flesh darker? It was hard to think, hard to do anything other than run. Something was wrong, very wrong…

“Lan..that is corruption magic...it will spread more until you die.” It was a familiar voice but still so distant.

“Hannah? Where have you been?” As always, it would make him look mad if anyone saw him talking to someone that was not there. Only one other person aside from him had seen the mysterious woman that was able to speak to his mind.

“N..o...t..me...weak co..ion. ...must remove...o..or die….” 

It was harder to hear her now, as if their connection was breaking apart. He staggered over a root as his flight continued and he tried to puzzle out what she was saying. But then clear as day an image flashed in his mind: His arm starting to turn a sickly black, bloated and diseased, and that disease starting to spread to the rest of his body. Another image flashed, the axe he still managed to hold…

He staggered once more, finally stopping to slide down against a large tree. Weary eyes looked at his left arm just as veins of black creeped further upward, almost to his elbow now. In the feverish, exhausted haze he now knew what message Hannah had been trying to convey. Whatever that Elf had used on him was going to spread like a blight through his body, infecting him until he died here on this strange world, not the end he had wanted for himself. Sapphire eyes moved from the corrupted limb to sweep over the axe in his right hand...He either trusted those images and possibly lived, or he ignored them and certainly died. No more battles to fight, no more tribal history to uncover, and hardest of all, utterly alone. Would Anstarra and Nihka miss him? There would be no chance to finally speak with Jancis again as promised….No chance to uncover the secrets of the Free Tribe. Death was not to be feared, but perhaps it was not time for that meeting just yet.

The strap of his bag would make an adequate tourniquet, and his vest could be fashioned into a bandage. He would need a fire too...He stared at the axe for a bit more as the change his life was about to undergo firmly took root in his mind. Would he still be a soldier? 

The sound of someone growling in pain through gritted teeth had been loud enough to travel quite a distance even in the thick forest, and it helped the two hunters find the one that they had been dispatched to locate. The two members of the Night’s Blessed followed the signs and the smell of smoke until they happened upon a small clearing with a smoldering fire. But it was the clearing’s sole inhabitant that they focused on. Slumped over against a tree was a tanned Mystel man with the smell of seared flesh still clinging to him, that smell coming from what was left of his arm. Resting by his right hand was an axe, still bloody from the deed that had been done. “By the Night…” The evidence was clear, and what they could see of the now detached limb made it clear that it had been a matter of survival, and a very painful act. It had to have been awkward to try and wield the axe in such a manner.

The Blessed quickly fashioned a litter and gathered both the unconscious man and the odd metallic book next to him up before setting off. The Guide had sent them to find this guy for whatever reason, and they would deliver the poor bastard, if he survived long enough to get there.

[midorree]

Gay Minds Think Alike

@paperhatcollection co-wrote this with me, they are so fucking talented, and I had a blast writing this with her! Give her as much love as humanly possible, and we hope you enjoy this wreck of a fic! 

Love is a funny thing. It’s hard to define, harder to understand, sometimes changing with the winds and other times a sturdy rock in an otherwise turbulent river. Sometimes it’s like a recurring idea or a thought you can’t shake from your head, or as much a part of your like as your voice or the way your heart skips a beat when you see you one and only soulmate. Sometimes it's slow, built up over a thousand small moments, other times you trip and crash headfirst into a crush.

Sometimes it’s like tripping on the top step of a staircase and tumbling your way to the bottom, where you land at the feet of your crush.

Which is exactly the situation Anti found himself in, laying on his back at the foot of the stairs, his gay dumbass gaze locked onto the face of Chase Brody standing above him.

The first thing Anti was aware of was the way his breath was knocked from his lungs, but he wasn’t sure if it was from the fall or from the way that Chase was looking down at him. Anti found himself captivated by the gaze, his breath caught in his throat by the way Chase batted his eyelashes, or maybe he was just blinking, but Anti didn’t care. He wasn’t sure of the angle did something, or if he’d gotten a mild concussion, but Chase was so pretty. It was as if the gates of heaven glanced upon his pitiful existence just to give a taste of what it all felt like. When Chase opened his mouth to speak, it was as if a chorus of angels backed his words, the light about them nearly forming a halo around Chase.

“Woah, dude, did it hurt?”

Anti felt himself grin, a look he imagined to be sly but in reality, looked rather dopey. “You mean when I fell from heaven?” he asked, almost certain it would end in his favor.

“In what world would you fall from-” Chase frown, shaking his head ever so slightly and sighing, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Never mind. No- when you fell down the stairs, are you okay? That looked like it hurt, dude. And now you’re just kinda… staring off into space, I think?” He added a small wave of his hand back and forth over Anti’s field of vision, checking if his eyes moved along with the movement. Anti blinked. Once, twice, then refocused on Chase, the vacant look finally falling from his face.

“Oh.” Anti tried to ignore the way the lump in his throat turned into a rock in the pit of his gut. “Um… yeah. I’m uh, I’m fine. Yeah. No problemo here.”

Chase shrugged. “Alright man, if you say so. Need a hand up?” he offered, holding out his hand to Anti. Anti’s mouth went completely dry as he looked anxiously at Chase’s outstretched hand; endless possibilities flashing through his mind.

He could grab Chase’s hand and try to play it off coolly, standing to his feet in a smooth motion that would allow him to regain some of his composure. He’d pull Chase’s hand closer, planting a kiss on the back of his palm and wink to him, and totally embarrass himself because he’s got Clumsy Bitch Disease and it’s fatal, so he’d definitely mess up somehow.

Maybe his own hands would clam up and he’d gross Chase out, and then he’d never speak to him again and he’d die alone with fifty cats as his only company. The saddest part being, one of the cats would definitely be named Chase. Maybe even Marvin if he were up for it. One day once he was old and alone he’d wake up to find out Chase the cat had passed away peacefully in its sleep, and he’d mourn the last link he had to his lost love while gazing sadly out his window. It would be raining.

Maybe he’d trip over his big fucking feet again and pull Chase down with him, and then Chase’s weight would be pressed against him, their lips inches apart, their eyes meeting-

Anti made a low whine in the back of his throat, acutely aware of the clock ticking faster and faster as he left Chase hanging for a response.

“No, I- fuck you.” Anti blurted out.

Even before the words had fully left his throat, Anti could feel his internal narration freeze in panic, then go into maximum overdrive. Before Chase had a chance to register what dumbass sentence just came out Anti’s mouth, and before Anti could see the look on his face when he did, Anti had glitched out of the current plane of existence, hoping his useless gay soul would just hang on a string and he would die a quick painless death.

Chase blinked then shrugged, sighing inwardly to himself. Geez, some people.

-----

In the quiet of dawn, when the world was just beginning to wake from its gentle slumber, and the first rays of morning’s light snuck through the thin gap between closed curtains when Chase shot upright in bed with the sudden realization that Anti wasn’t delusional, he’d been trying to court his dumb butt.

If it hadn’t been six in the goddamn morning, Chase probably would have screamed bloody murder. “Oh my god,” Chase whispered-screamed to himself, shoving the blankets aside and nearly tumbling out of bed in his hurry to stand. “Oh my fucking god, oh man, I’m so dense, what the fuck-” his efforts to stand did ultimately end in him tripping and hitting the floor with a loud THUD, but Chase was up the next moment, too absorbed in his breakthrough to notice the collateral damage. “Okay Chase, calm down. Maybe Anti didn’t realize what he was saying- he probably got a concussion falling down the stairs or something, you know how egotistical that glitch is,” He gulped. “I hope.”

“I mean, not that… I… well it has been awhile since I’ve been with someone, but…” Chase paused and gave himself a light slap on the side of his face. “No, bad Chase, you’re projecting. But what if I’m not- I mean, it wouldn’t be so bad, would it? Anti’s not that bad a guy once you get to know him, and he’s got those fucking eyes, that shitty laugh of his that’s always so much louder than everything else in the room like he’s trying to make sure everyone pays attention to him.” And it fucking works, by the way. Chase couldn’t count the number of times he’s felt his gaze pull towards the glitch, his attention stolen in a moment, left breathless as he watches the way Anti effortlessly manipulates the room with a word or a gesture. Chase felt himself shiver just thinking about it, picturing the gleam in his eyes, the smirk tugging his lips up.

“Oh, fuck,” Chase whispers to himself, shoulders slumping downwards. “I’ve got it bad.”

He shook his head, staring blankly at a wall, before returning to his bed. He sat on the edge, letting his head fall into his hands, taking a deep breath as a shudder ran through his body. The worst part was, this could still all be in his head. He didn’t actually know for sure if… oh fuck, this was just like him too, wasn’t it? Chase didn't exactly have a history of… successful relationships, to put it bluntly.

Love isn't fun. Sometimes it’s hard, harder still once you’ve lost at its game. Sometimes love is the thing that fuels you, that keeps you going on during cold nights, while other times it’s the thing that takes half of your soul and throws it into the void. Sometimes it’s like a dream, blissful and sweet, while other times it’s a melancholy memory, bittersweet in the moments you know you’ll never have again. And sometimes… sometimes it feels like your only source of air, like something you could never live without, no matter how many times it chews you up and spits you out.

Yeah, Chase Brody was a dead man.

-----

Maybe, Chase thinks, a bus will run me over and my problems won’t matter anymore.

No such luck was waiting for him, it seems, as he made his way downtown. Maybe the recording studio would be on fire, and they’d have to cancel recordings for today. Wouldn’t be the first time, although Marvin had sworn to Ireland and back that he’d be more careful with his magic from that point on. Or maybe Anti was too busy editing footage for everyone's videos, and he wouldn’t leave his editing room for the entire day, and Chase wouldn’t have a chance to talk to him.

Too bad as soon as he walked into the office, he was smacked in the face by reality, and left breathless by the smug grin Anti was sending his way. Somehow, he seemed to radiate a confidence Chase could only wish he had, even when casually standing by the water cooler and flipping through a script for someone’s video. Chase faltered to a stop, catching Anti’s eye from across the room and giving a weak wave in response. He was almost sure the beating of his heart was audible to those around him.

In reality, Anti was baring the dopiest smile a gay man could bear, staring at his favorite person head-on. Soon enough, he had the thought that Chase may be weirded out by his staring and proceeded to pretend he was doing something important. Such as flip through a finalized script that was already good enough to be on camera, and ‘scan it for errors’. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Chase halt midway across the room, glancing back over in time for Chase to flash him a grin and wave. Anti nearly short-circuited, causing him to drop the papers, which fluttered to the ground and fanned out into a heap around him.

Cursing under his breath, Anti knelt down to recollect them, trying to hide his apparent blush from embarrassing himself in front of his crush two days in a row. From across the room, Chase gasps in surprise when Anti drops his papers, rushing over to help. He wasn’t even sure if Anti noticed him right away, at least not until they reached for the same paper. Their hands brushed, Chase’s resting on top of Anti’s, a slight spark leaping between their connected hands.

Than Chase panicked, jerking back and somehow managing to hit Anti square on the nose.

“Ow! What the hell?!” Anti snapped.

“Fuck- shit, I’m sorry!” Chase blurted out, dropping what few papers he’s managed to collect back onto the floor. He reached out towards Anti, unsure what he’d really be able to do but wanting to make sure he was okay, only for Anti to jerk away and glare at him. Chase flinched and pulled his hand closer to his body, his gaze dropping to the floor. “Uh, um, I thought you might need uh, you might want a hand?”

“I’m fine,” Anti grumbled, gathering the remaining papers together in a pile and straightening them out. They weren't in any way shape or form in the correct order, but Anti didn’t care right now. No, instead he was just focused on the annoyance bubbling in the back of his head, cause that was better than focusing on the bubbly feeling he got when he looked at Chase’s cute, apologetic face. He started to reach out before catching himself, wanting to comfort him, but he knew if he started to do that he’d end up a stuttering, nervous wreck before the minute was over.

“I… I have to go. Gotta, um, reorder these.” Anti awkwardly stammered out, standing and almost dropping the papers again, before catching them against his chest and turning to leave. As he did so, his jacket caught in the air, flaring out and fanning around him like a cape. It was somehow an even more dramatic flair than what Marvin was able to manage, and that guy wore an actual cloak.

“I like your jacket.” Chase blurted out, standing quickly. He coughed into his fist, his throat suddenly remarkably dry, and he nonchalantly edged closer to the water cooler. “I mean uh,” Chase paused to lick his lips, which suddenly felt as dry as his throat did. “That’s a really nice jacket, Anti. It suits you.” He licked his lips again, mostly because his saliva was depleting rapidly from his mouth. He grabbed one of the paper cups from the cooler and finally got himself a drink, drowning it in a single gulp but somehow still just as thirsty as he’d been before. When he looked back up from his cup, he realized Anti had ceased storming off, and was staring at Chase with an unreadable expression. Oh- Oh fuck. Chase had assumed he’d already left. Instead, he’s watched as Chase stopped and gulped down an entire cup of water, in the middle of a fucking statement.  “Uh, I, um. You… jacket, uh, looking good?”

Anti, oblivious to what Chase’s message to him was, stated, “No, you can’t have my leather jacket, you already stole Jackie’s.” and turned around and left.

It was an hour later, after Anti had reordered the script and begun editing footage for Jackie’s latest ‘parkour’ video (it was actually just him on patrol, but no one needed to know that) that Anti removed his headphones, stared off at a blank wall, and realized Chase had been complimenting him.

“FU-

----

“Henrik, I fucked up!” Chase yelled, bursting through the door to Henrik’s makeshift clinic.

Henrik sighed, putting down his clipboard. He didn’t look surprised in the least, just tired. “I knew it. Where did he stab you?”

“Uh… what?” Chase asked, confused.

“You tried to steal Anti’s new jacket, didn’t you?” Henrik paused, sighing. “Oh, I’m sorry, ‘borrow’ his jacket, just like you’ve ‘borrowed’ clothes from the rest of us. I still want my sweater back, by the way.” Chase was pretty sure that sweater was currently folded up in one of his dressers, right next to one of JJ’s spare bowties and one of Jackie’s jackets. But now wasn’t the time for that.

“What? No! I just… had a realization…” Chase began, faltering and adjusting the brim of his hat, glancing around the room as if expected someone to leap out at any moment.

Henrik looked puzzled for a good second before his expression cracked, an assuming smile turning the corners of his lips. “That have certain feelings for Anti?”

“How the fuck did you know that?”

A small smirk teased on Henrik’s oh so smug face. “A little birdie told me.”

And by birdie, he was referring to the fact that he’d listened to Anti rambling on about his crush for hours over the course of his visits to Henrik’s clinic, during which Anti had managed to compare Chase to everything from the sun to a Greek god. The amount of giddiness Anti radiating from Anti could power the entire goddamn planet, and Henrik found watching his half-assed attempts at catching Chase’s eye akin to watching a morning soap-opera you kinda hoped would turn into a trainwreck of gay feelings.

“I mean… Hen, I’ve been out of it so long, what if he doesn’t like me back?” Chase asked, his voice raising several pitches from his panic. “What if he rejects my attempts? What if I try and bring him some coffee to flirt with him, but I spill it all over his shirt and he hates me forever? And the tension in the office raises a lot? And what if because of that, the others start to hate me? And then I have to move out of the country, change my name to Scooter Bronan, and become a drug dealer on the lonely streets of LA!”  

Henrik almost felt bad for laughing, but not by a lot. A drug dealer? Preposterous, Chase wouldn’t be able to sell water, a legal substance, without a license.

“Henrik!” Chase whined. “Stop laughing, I’m serious!”

“Chase, would you do me a small favor for me?” Henrik asked, as he stood up from his desk and walked towards a storage closet. “Get in the closet.”

“Is that a metaphor? I’m openly gay-” Chase began, only for Henrik to cut him off with a dismissive wave of his hand.

“I’m aware, get in the closet, please.” He opened the door, smiling welcomingly, yet Chase was getting mixed signals from the whole ‘get in the closet’ thing. Reluctantly, he stepped into the closet, letting the door shut behind him. Chase settled down on an upside-down bucket, listening to Henrik move around the clinic from the other side of the door. After a moment, he heard Henrik speak up again. “And Chase? Please be quiet for a moment, if you would.”

“Alright…?”

Nodding to himself, Henrik set his plan in motion. First things first: alerting the other disaster gay. One text later, and Anti was coming any moment now, not aware that Chase was in the closet. Literally speaking, of course, everyone knew that Chase swung both ways, and Anti had been over the moon the first time he’d found out about it.

Glitching into existence already sitting on the examination bed, Anti was holding a five-hour energy bottle that he threw back into his mouth and downed it all in one go. “Henrik, you’re not going to believe this shit.”

“Let me guess, you have a crush on Chase?” Henrik asked, grinning to himself as he set about changing the bandages around Anti’s neck. He’s done this so many times, he could probably manage it with his eyes closed.

“Oh, haha,” Anti said with a roll of his eyes. “The usual, anyways,” he tossed the now-empty bottle behind him, where it landing it the trash with ease.

“Show off, how many times did you practice that at home?” Henrik asked.

“Moving right along,” Anti replied without missing a beat. “So you know how eye contact is something important for every humanoid should have a grasp on?”

“Yes?”

“I forgot how to maintain eye contact when Chase was looking at me, and I dropped a bunch of papers in front of him like an absolute clutz,” Anti explained, sighing dramatically. “Now Chase probably thinks I’m the biggest doof in the whole office! And he punched me! I’m never washing my face again, by the way.”

“Yes you are, your I’m forcing you to take a shower.” Henrik cut in. “A crush is no reason to abstain from basic hygiene.” Normally, he’d already been halfway done by now, but Henrik was going slower than usual. “Anyways, I’m sure he doesn't think that. And what really happened?”

“Oh- um, he tried to help me pick up the papers, you know, cause he’s a perfect fucking angel, but then our hands touched and I think maybe I’m not so dead inside? Maybe this man is the cure to fucking cancer?” he sighed dreamingly. “There was a spark between us, I just know it. Or, you know, maybe it was my glitchy electrical powers zapping him, cause he ended up yanking back and smacked me on accident.” Anti paused than shook his head. “It was an accident, so I’m not really upset at him.

“Anti,” Henrik began. “We all know Chase could stab you and you’d be on your knees thanking him for breathing in your direction.”

“Cause he’s fucking perfect, that’s why.” Anti snapped. “Have you seen that guy? He’s so sweet and caring, he puts others well being in front of his own, and just- have you seen the way he looks when he helps someone? That pure smile on his face, I don’t know how he does it, but somehow he manages to make me think that maybe the world isn’t so doomed after all? And when he laughs just makes the room brighter, it makes my entire day when I can make him laugh, I’d do anything for it.”

Anti paused and chuckled. “And I swear every time I hear it my heart’s gonna beat out of my chest. I don’t know how much longer I can take this without bursting at the seams from all these stupid feelings, but I can’t just make a move, what if he doesn’t like me back? I would die alone with fifty cats, one of which is named Marvin, and I have to spend the rest of my life referring to Marvin as human Marvin, and I never speak to Chase again because he’s allergic to cats and he won’t ever come near me. I’ll have to quit and get a new job and move towns and call myself Connor and become a shell of former self.”

Henrik hummed knowingly, glancing at the closet. “What exactly do you feel for Chase?”

“I… I kinda…” Anti began, then muttered under his breath.

“You kind of what, Anti?”

“I kind of love him?” Anti whispered, grinning sheepishly.

“I can’t hear you,” Henrik said, tilting his head and leaning back. “Could you speak up, please?”

“I said I fucking love him?! Okay?! Henrik?! I love him!” Anti screamed,  face turning a light shade of red.

Nodding to himself, Henrik finished applying Anti’s clean bandages and smoothed them out, double checking his work before backing away and dusting off his hands. He spun on a heel, crossing to the closest door, and opening it while stepping aside to reveal a very shocked and very blushy Chase Brody.

“Alright, was that straight enough for you?” Henrik asked than caught himself and chuckled. “Ah- my bad, I should wait for you to come out of the closet, shouldn’t I?”

“Wait, wait, wait, wait, I’m not-” Chase stammered, not prepared for the fuckery that Henrik has laid down in front of them.

“Nonsense!” Henrik cut in, grabbing him by the arm and leading him out of the closet. “We were just talking about you, actually! Weren't we, Anti?”

Anti opened and closed his mouth without saying anything, looking from Chase to Henrik and back to Chase again. “Henrik! You set me up, you son of a whore!”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, you were talking about Chase on your own account, weren’t you?” Henrik asked, unable to stop himself from smiling right in Anti’s face. “Why, I couldn’t have stopped you if I’d tried!”

“You could have! You could have stopped me right there!” Anti screamed, pointing at the now empty closet. “Chase was in the fucking closet the entire time, and you didn’t have the human decency to stop me from being gay!”

“It’s called doctor-patient confidentiality,” Henrik explained. “If Chase didn’t want to come out of the closet, I had no right to force him.”

“I didn’t even know what I was saying, I don’t even like Chase! I was just exaggerating to be funny! You like drama, so I gave it to you!" Anti protested.

“You… you were?” Chase asked, his voice soft, broken, and his expression crestfallen. He sniffed, scrubbing at the corner of his eye as he looked off, trying not to appear too heartbroken and failing spectacularly. “I… oh. Well, I hope you had fun, Anti. It’s not like some of us actually care about our feelings.”

“No! Chase, I didn’t mean to- please- I don’t- what- Henrik! See what you did?” Anti asked, turning back to the doctor and unable to keep the desperation from his voice.

“Me?” Henrik asked, putting an arm around Chase’s shoulder and bringing him closer, comforting him. “I didn’t do anything, except listen when my friends came into my clinic of their own accord and start gushing to me about their crushes.”

“I should go.” Chase blurted out before anyone could say anything else. “Anti you… you enjoy your game, just leave my heart out of it.” he pulled out of Henrik’s arms, heading towards the door with a slow, dragging pace.

“No, you’re not going anywhere, we need to set some things in order,” Anti said, sliding between Chase and the door, placing his hands on Chase’s chest. “I… I didn’t mean it,” he admitted, fidgeting in place. “I… Chase look, I’m really fucking dumb sometimes, and I don’t work well under pressure, and I’m pretty sure Henrik has been stealing my brain cells during my visits-”

“Actually, I’ve been trying to replenish them you disaster child.” Henrik cut in.

Anti glared at him than softened his expression when he returned it to Chase. “Chase, the truth is I… I um, I … Feel… good when I’m near you I… you… we… have something? Please? That we don’t have with the others? You… I… love… I love you.”

Chase sniffed, rubbing his face with one hand than looking up at Anti with a sly grin, all traces of his sadness gone. “Is that so?” Chase asked, leaning closer and grinning. “Cause, I think I love you too,” he admitted, planting his lips on Antis in a quick, stolen kiss.

“I… uh, holy shit, what, hands, do, I, um, fuck, Chase-”

“Chase, you broke him, his last brain cell was a gift to you.” Henrik gasped, placing a hand over his heart. That dramatic bitch.

Lifting one of Anti’s hands in his, Chase interlocked their fingers together, smiling at his new boyfriend. Anti still having yet to form a coherent sentence, managed to stammer out something that vaguely sounded like ‘You… smile… good’. Chase giggled and planted another kiss, on his cheek this time, tugging him towards the door. “Common, let’s go break the news to everyone else before you crash completely.”

Maybe love wasn't so bad after all.

[mimiplaysgames]

Strength to Protect the Things That Matter (Ch. 28)

Pairing: Terra/Aqua Rating: T Word Count: 11,864

Summary: Terra braves the Realm of Darkness to find her.

A/N: THERE ARE NO SPOILERS IN THIS CHAPTER - there can’t be. I’ve finalized the outline for this thing back in May, and it’s barely changed. I have gotten messages from readers worried that I wouldn’t get this fic done before the game releases, and while I appreciate so much the concern and enthusiasm, this is simply impossible. I’ve said it many times, but this fic has a sequel, and there is just no way for it to finish. It will just continue on being an AU (hopefully). That being said, I’ve had a lot of fun with different concepts of what Terra would see in the RoD, and I finally get to the reunion that I’ve been wanting to do for so long. I think of this as what Aqua truly deserves (or based from the trailers, an AU where Aqua meets Terra in the RoD, as opposed to Ansem SoD). I’ve been absolutely mortified, to the point that it has affected my mental health severely, from sharing this. But at least it’s here. This chapter makes references to The Black Cauldron (1985).

Reunion

He doesn’t know how he is still alive after drowning, but it’s a blessing. It means he’s finally close to her.

Though Aqua isn’t anywhere to be seen. His face half-submerged in murky water, on a sloped hill, Terra groggily opens his eyes. It appears to be night.

Then his eyes snap wide. He yells.

His shoulders are heavy and strained, his back writhing from the snaps of nerve shock. It is as if the burden of a body his same weight is rung on top of him, making it difficult to stand up.

But it’s his throat that hurts more, his blood pumping as though an invisible person has a hand gripped around it, squeezing to cut off all air, and strong enough to leave bruises. To breathe scratches him and swallowing burns, and with every effort to raise himself from the ground, the weight of it all gets worse. That familiar headache makes itself known, like his hair being ripped clean from its roots.

The Realm of Darkness must be giving Xehanort better hold, and he’s trying to wrestle control of the body back.

Terra summons his armor to cover him, enclosing him in a protective shell that stands between himself and the toxic atmosphere around him. But more importantly, it traps Xehanort within him. Most of the pain is alleviated immediately, gradually fading away as if falling asleep. The headache still lingers and it’s still uncomfortable when he swallows, but it’s manageable.

His ankles are deep into the water, his cape gently ghosting the surface. Behind him is a small town, with cobblestone streets, dimly lit lights, and architecture that begs to be inviting and warm, like an old-fashioned vacation resort.

Though it’s quiet. Ahead, the water is so dark it is black, and clean like waxed glass. This must be where he came from. The reflection of his armor is so crisp, it’s like looking in the mirror.

Deep in the water, a red lightning bolt strikes. The reflection turns its head and steps away.

Terra stumbles backward with a yelp, unsure what he’s been expecting. He knows the Realm is sentient, and he supposes mind games are a part of that. Anything can happen. Panting hard, he tells himself to get it together. No use letting everything scare him.

The town ahead is quaint enough – if it had people. He can imagine that it normally would have children running around, laughing. Bakers yelling about their goods. Mothers shopping through several stores. Men dragging their wares. People just trying to get to where they need to go. But Terra is completely alone.

Through a window, he sees drawings made by children lying across a coffee table in front of a television set, which is off. On the dinner table just beyond is half-finished food. But there is no one there to enjoy any of it. If he doesn’t know any better, it looks as though the family who used to live here had to abandon their home in the middle of a typical evening - when events turned into an unknown catastrophe, or it was their lives they’d had to give up if they chose to stay. And they never came back.

Not all of the houses are in good condition. Some of them have roofs ripped open, the pieces hovering above in the sky as if frozen in time. The stone streets are cracked, and several of the buildings lean into the water. Like the entire neighborhood is slowly sinking. 

On second thought, the town is rising from the water, and he realizes why the architecture here is so familiar.

This is Traverse Town.

Or a part of it, creeping its way into the Realm of Darkness. There isn’t much time left for that world to continue standing. He must hurry.

The sound of his shoes against the stone is loud, each clank reverberating way too much. As though he’s begging to be found by predators. He almost wishes he can speak out loud just to have some other noise to diffuse his steps… but what if that makes them come faster? And still, some part of him needs to hear something. He hasn’t been here long and it’s already too quiet.

A radio sits on an open windowsill of a small house. The room behind it is dark, and all he can make out are the shadows of empty furniture. There is only a single light, deep in the very back of a hallway, and it’s too dim to really show him anything else. Some part of him is grateful that he can’t see much – lest there is someone sitting inside he doesn’t know about. If there are any people walking in the Realm of Darkness at all.

He flicks a switch to turn the radio on. No power.

He flicks it back off and walks away from it. Static. It comes so sharply that it nearly screams through the rustling of its commotion.

And it’s so loud. He scampers over to jerk the switch back and forth, but it won’t shut up.

Then he hears it, muffled and barely audible. “Terra.”

Her voice.

“Aqua!” He lifts the radio and talks right into the speaker. “Are you okay? Where are you?”

The static turns off.

He tries the switch again, but there is no response. No power.

The hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Something is moving inside that house, like a person shifting on a couch.

Rocks roll down the corner of the street, where it turns around the block. A shadow creeps behind a lamp post until it disappears. Out of the corner of his peripheral vision, by a closed crate, something blinks. Yellow eyes stare at him through a second-floor window in the house adjacent to him.

He drops the radio and summons his Keyblade. Like trapping prey, the Heartless leech out from between the cobblestones, surrounding him.

These are stronger than the ones he’s faced in the outside world. Even if small and primitive, darkness here gives them a kick. His strikes don’t stun them as much, and every attack drains him. He only destroys half of them when the headache stings, but he continues – delivering throw downs, massive swings, bright shockwaves. Until it’s quiet again, though who knows when the next group will come, especially after all the noise he’s been making.

But he’s exhausted, leaning onto the Ends of the Earth for support. This isn’t normal. The use of his Keyblade shouldn’t feel like it’s trying to suck him dry of life. Maybe in this place, when Xehanort shares a space in his body, the light he uses depletes its ability to protect him. 

Then he shouldn’t use darkness at all here, and should probably be more careful in choosing his battles from now on. After all, keeping his sanity is worth keeping control over his body. He swiftly follows the street until it abruptly ends, leading up a tall, grassy hill. It may be a leg-sore to climb all the way up, but the ocean on the other side is a no-go as well.

It’s a normal climb up, until the ground underneath his feet starts to crumble, collapsing under his weight. He sprints faster, sometimes stumbling onto his hands and knees with every shift under him. He reaches the top, the crumbling dirt pausing before it reaches the peak, as if it gives up on trying to kill him. Like a sore loser. Sentient and tricky, indeed.

Looking back, the way up is completely gone, a giant pit of nothing taking its place. The remnants of Traverse Town, floating in the air like a painting, now sit in between an endless hole and an infinite ocean on the other side.

That ocean is the entrance he took to get here. The message is loud and clear: the Realm is telling him there’s no way out.

“I’ll find another way back,” he says defiantly. He can’t let it get to him. He’s come too far.

Onward he goes. A path of dirt and stone through tall trees that are sparse enough he can still see the sky. Who knew the Realm of Darkness has stars – slightly dimmer than usual, but odd. There are different night skies, as though they’ve been snipped off from whatever world they came from and were pieced together. The bushes he passes by don’t move, because there aren’t any critters to rustle through them. All the animal calls that are normally present in the woods are not to be heard here. No wind to bother the leaves. Some branches hang low enough to hit his pauldrons and his helmet, and this alone is the loudest thing he can hear for miles.

Clearings and valleys also have their limits. They taper off cliffs into a vast blankness, where artificial stars from who knows where will also hover.  Sometimes, the ground is split in two, with a lower level of undiscovered territory and mounds of dirt floating in the air as if to stop themselves from getting lost in the void.

What is left in the Realm of Darkness are shards of a world.

And a bunny.

A white, glowing rabbit, waiting in the middle of the trail, its nose twitching.

“What are you doing here?” He crouches down, surprised to see that it doesn’t seem afraid of him. It is incredibly round and fluffy – incredibly adorable, so much so that it hurts to look at it. And it stays long enough for him to suspect that this can’t be a trick.

It shines with such a pure, white light, it is exactly like the dolphin that led him here in the first place. A light in the shadow. An alebrije. A spirit guide.

It’s when he realizes that he has imagined Aqua’s spirit guide as a rabbit before that his heart swells with excitement. “Take me to her.”

It runs and he follows, past stone benches and idyllic arches. There is an abandoned gazebo, with carvings in the wood that depict angels, flowers, and hearts. This area is romantic, the kind of trail that a couple would take to find a private, intimate getaway or to host a wedding. Flowers grow around the shrubbery here, but they disappear as soon as he comes near them. With sunlight, this place would be peaceful. But here, the false night sets this up like a haunted venue, its attractive and charming exterior just a lure for a trap. Enough to make him wonder if scorned lovers are waiting to abuse their revenge on unsuspecting passerby’s.

The rabbit is gone, but at least it led him far enough to suggest a direction for him to go.

He passes by another clearing. And then he sees her.

On a stone bench, right at the edge of a cliff. Cross-legged, with her palms to her knee, Aqua sits calmly as she surveys the ground. As if she has been waiting this entire time for him. Her blue hair is the same length it has always been, and she is so close he only has to take a few steps to touch her.

He doesn’t have the time to care much about how hard his heart is beating against his chest. “Aqua…”

Her gaze comes slowly, and her expression is as a blank as a doll’s. Not a care in her eyes. Something is wrong with her, and he nearly shouts in anger over the thought that the Realm of Darkness has harmed her.

He nears himself with an outstretched hand. “Aqua, I’m here. You’re safe.”

He’s within inches of her when she cranes her neck back to its limit, as if trying to see behind her. Her body follows the weight of her head, and she slips backward off the precipice.

Terra lunges forward to try to grab her, yelling out her name and his denials over such a grotesque sight. He misses. His reflex grabs the foot of the stone bench before falling off himself, and he watches her tumble against jagged rocks of the level below beneath, landing with a sickening crunch that sounds like crushed plastic, her limbs splattered and obviously broken.

She isn’t real. She’s just a mannequin.

He struggles to pull himself back up, rolling over to his stomach when he’s safe on solid ground. This isn’t real.

It is hot inside the armor, sweat dripping down his shoulders and his forehead. He hears that crunch over and over again in his mind, and it’s suffocating. He wails at the image of her throwing herself like that, and he flips his helmet off in an attempt to cool himself. But there is no breeze in the Realm of Darkness, so he sweats and heaves all the same.

“She wasn’t real. She wasn’t real,” he keeps saying, hoping that hearing it out loud will make it stick, that he just didn’t see her get crushed.

Maybe it isn’t a good idea to have his helmet off. His headache comes back and it pounds at his temples, hard enough for him to see lights. He opens the jar of Tifa’s thick brown potion, and swallows the rest of it until it is empty.

Soon enough, the headache melts away and he relaxes. He wiggles his helmet back on, the easing sensation of the potion traveling through his limbs as if being enclosed in the armor traps this symptom of relief and will continue to keep it that way. Terra studies the empty jar. She made this brew so compassionately and it has now outlived its usefulness. I should thank her when I get the chance, for letting me get this far.

The rabbit makes itself known after hopping out of some nearby bushes. It stands on its hind legs, surveying the area. The Realm may want to try to claim him for itself, but it’s as though the rabbit knows the only truth that exists here. Everything else is a distraction.

“Wait for me.” He stands up, shakes off the last image of the mannequin in his mind, and leaves the empty jar behind.

The rabbit fades in and out, only really appearing when Terra makes a misstep. It lets him guide himself otherwise, learning to trust his own heart to find her. And he walks, forgetting he is hungry and tired. Eventually, those feelings simply don’t exist anymore, and all that is left is just the need to go forward because there is nothing else to do. Thinking about it too much sends him into a state of worry.

It makes him regret not bringing Riku along with him.

What if he never eats again? How does he even begin to search a place this huge for her? What if the Realm shifts and changes their locations, making it so that they will never reunite? 

Anytime he thinks he won’t find her, the rabbit will appear. As if to say, You already have.

It isn’t until he hears the splashing of water that he realizes he’s been walking for what seems like hours and he’s suddenly shin-deep in a swamp. He hasn’t been aware of where the domain has changed. It just does.

The trees here are so much more compact, roots stretching upward so it makes it hard to through them, with vines reaching into the murkiness, and plants so tall they make it hard to gauge how deep they run. The water is so dark there isn’t a way to see into it. Quite frankly, he’s lost.

“Now what do I do?” he asks out loud, hoping the rabbit hears him. He wades through the water, telling himself to calm down, using breathing exercises taught by his Master in an effort to ease his mind and listen to his heart on where to go next. The foliage is so thick, there’s isn’t a clear path he can take next.

The silence is maddening, and he aches just to have something, anything, to speak to him.

“I need to get out of here.” He probably shouldn’t be talking too much out loud, for fear of what will hear him, but it’s better than not hearing anything. It’s too quiet.

The Realm of Darkness decides to comply to his wishes, and a pig’s shriek vibrates and pounds across the entire area. From every direction, sounding as if it is dying from a brutal beat down, or a gas leak, or an electrocution – something that is letting it suffer as long as it can until it can go on no longer. It comes in waves, like the wind. The squeal will pass by him, until it comes back around. It’s so horrid, he attempts to cover his ears, but his helmet won’t mute the sound. He needs to save it from its misery. But with the way it travels, it’s more like a specter. And it can probably hurt him.

He spins and heads the direction he came from, but something grabs his ankle. And its force is strong. It pulls. He stumbles to his knees, nearly getting submerged.

With a yell, he summons his Keyblade and sends a blast of intense light toward the direction of whatever has hold of him. Let free, he scrambles to the edge of the bank, where he can at least stand on mud.

Searching the water for what grabbed him shows him nothing, until he notices a bright blue color rise to the surface. It is shaped like a star, and it glides there, as if beckoning him to grab it. Aqua’s very own Wayfinder.

He shivers. His first instinct is to dive headfirst to take it. It’s hers, and the Realm of Darkness cannot claim it. He stares at the floating Wayfinder, trying to give himself the best reason not to reach for it. Wondering if whatever that grabbed him is actually her, and if he has just seared her with his Keyblade. The image of raising his weapon against her fills his mind, and-

“It’s a trap,” he says out loud to the Realm, as if to declare he has it figured out.

In response, the swamp water bubbles, and the Wayfinder disappears, like a light being turned off. But what rises in its place are a pair of bright yellow eyes. And another pair just behind a plant. And another underneath the roots that stretch so far above the surface of the water, its tree knows it is toxic.

Terra finds himself surrounded by hundreds of pairs of eyes: shadows that surround him on tree branches, in between twisted trunks, coming out of the water and the mud, forcing their way through bushes, climbing down vines. There are so many of them, he’s certain they can easily force him down the water.

The Keyblade is a marvelous weapon, and when he conjured it for the very first time, he was a boy ready to face any danger that lay ahead of him. Believing he was invincible. But it comes with costs. With an entity like Xehanort still inhabiting his body, using the power of light through the Ends of the Earth is the equivalent of forcing himself to run for his life after having survived a multitude of whiplashes to his body. Tifa’s potion barely does much to keep it all at bay. It hurts. It’s tiring. The old man simply waits to take over, and the headache that comes only grows with every swing.

And these Heartless just won’t stop coming.

He scurries away from them, tripping over enlarged roots, squeezing his way through tight spaces in between trees, ripping away vines that get entangled onto his armor. He doesn’t know how many Heartless are chasing after him now.

The rabbit is on a branch high above the water, dashing across, telling him to change direction.

But once the spirit guide passes through an entanglement of bindweed, the Realm decides it has had enough. The trees expand and turn, enclosing the bunny within their grasp, until it is no longer seen. He uses his Keyblade to hack away, but to no avail. It’s gone.

He desperately crawls through the swamp until he leaves the muggy terrain behind. Until he reaches a vast, empty wasteland. Though this doesn’t stop them from stalking him. An army of Heartless creep out from the swamp, coming at him at full speed. He proceeds to run away from them and sees something worse: hundreds of towering Darkside Heartless, very aware of his sudden presence in the vicinity. The horizon beyond has a soft glow, and Terra can barely make out a castle in the near distance.

A Darkside moves to attack. Terra dodges. Out here in the open, he is completely bare.

He makes for the castle. Sprints. Pants. He tries to steady his labored breathing as he wills one leg to dash in front of the other, avoiding the large, black hands that try to grab him. The army of shadows behind him swarm the wasteland, keeping up to his pace. He pushes himself to run faster, his lungs ready to burst from the exertion it takes to propel beyond his top speed. The castle is near – it is completely foreboding and looks to be abandoned, sitting atop a dried moat. A wooden, chipped drawbridge is already down, so he makes for the inside – at least it’s good enough shelter to avoid the Darksides.

The bridge falls apart just as he enters the castle. He immediately collapses onto the floor, wheezing as hard as the pig he heard in the swamp. His whole body shakes from such adrenaline, and for a moment, he’s too weak to pick himself up.

He can at least roll over, surveying what is waiting for him on the other side of the dry moat. Nothing. The Heartless chasing him are gone, as if they were never there to begin with. Just a vast, empty space of dirt. But now, there is no bridge to allow him to go back. The moat is deep and steep enough that it’d be impossible to climb out of.

“Damn it,” he says, his breath too shaky. “I lost the rabbit.”

He allows himself to rest until his breathing starts to slow down. There is no way to go but through this castle. It is dim, and despite that there is no moon outside these walls, there is a faint light that seemingly comes from nowhere, just enough to see what is around him. The castle itself is old-fashioned, built out of stacking stones together, and it is in dire disrepair. Some of the walls have crumbled, and the stairs leading to the upper floors are now large dirt heaps. Tapestries and flags are shredded to pieces. It is just as lively as a tomb.

Eventually, he manages to stand, and casually walks through the hallways. Dust poofs upwards with every step he takes. A door slams.

He whips around, and sees a door sliding across a wall, as if it exists in a separate plain of time and space. It stops in front of him.

He’s exhausted, and despite that he doesn’t want to follow whatever guided tour the Realm has prepared for him, he’s desperate enough to play the game. Just to do something. Anything to keep him from getting bored.

He opens the door and it leads to a solid wall. The door then slams shut and slides away.

“Is this some kind of sick joke?”

Another door slams. Several move around – the ones in the upper floors where he cannot reach are just there to taunt him. The ones on the lower floor move so fast, there isn’t a point in bothering with them. So he ignores them, until he finds himself a stationary one that he is sure hasn’t moved anywhere.

It is locked. Then, as if to mock him, it slides away. 

Walking through the castle is a trek of ignoring all of the closed doors, and he bides his time in exploring large passageways. Wagons, haystacks, wooden tables, ceramic mugs – all have been left behind by whoever used to run this place, all worn out and overused. He wonders if the castle was in this condition when it still existed in the Realm of Light.

But most places in the castle are out of bounds to him, either leading him to a door that leads nowhere, or a door that moves away when he gets too close. Essentially, the Realm makes itself clear – there is only one way to go, he just has to find it.

And he sees it – an open door, with a visible hallway beyond. Finally.

When he approaches it, it slams in his face. He opens it, and there is now a solid wall instead.

He normally would never describe being played around like this as heartbreaking. But now, the need to get out of this castle is the same as the need to eat in order to stall death.

He fights the desperation to beg the Realm to let him go.

“I need to stay strong,” he says to no one in particular. To himself. To the Realm.

How he wishes he could talk to somebody.

“I can’t give up. Maybe there is another passage somewhere that I haven’t seen yet.”

He walks down a hallway he’s sure he’s been through before. But where else can he go? Several steps in, the floor disintegrating beneath him. He lands on stone below with a thud, his armor the worst kind of cushion to break the fall.

But at least the soreness is more bearable than the headache. This lower level is darker, the hallway more narrow. On the one hand, it’s new so it’s at least something for him to do. On the other, what lies ahead of him now is a stairway that spirals downward, which isn’t the direction he hopes to go.

With no other choice, he climbs down, and they eventually open up to a large room – the first room in the castle he’s ever been able to enter. He cannot see enough to tell what is inside, but it looks terribly messy, the floor full of stacked objects. There is a throne on the opposite wall, and near it a massive, steel, heavy-looking black cauldron.

Upon closer inspection, there is a body sitting on the throne. A ferociously tall man, dressed in a red, hooded robe. At first, Terra thinks that he’s looking at decoration on the throne, fashioned to resemble antlers of a stag. Until he realizes that it isn’t the furniture with poor taste, but the man. The man has horns.

This isn’t a man. Terra takes a sharp inhale, a memory from years ago creeping into his conscience. As a boy, he used to be obsessed with reading books about all sorts of dark tales and magic. One in particular is the most famous failure for Keyblade Masters in all history: the fall of Prydain, a world that enveloped itself in darkness and has been banished from the Realm of Light for centuries.

This is the body of the Horned King, a skeletal being who is the reason for that fall. His undead army rose to take over the land, and there were so many deaths that the world had no way to survive on its own light. Terra has read enough of these books to know exactly how the Horned King was drawn, and his familiarity is unmistakable. The skin on his face is so thin that it sticks to every fold in his skull, is fingers scaly. He is a legendary fiend of darkness, recorded by Keyblade wielders who have been defeated in their attempt to save this place again and again. For too long, Prydain has been missing. Eraqus used it as an example in his lessons as the worst-case scenario to happen to a world when a Keybearer is unable to do his job.

To think that Terra has stumbled into such a domain is a danger that is technically undefined.

He immediately steps backward in an attempt to get out of the room. There is a crunch. The mess he has stepped on – no it isn’t a mess, it is a bone. A skeleton. The room is riddled with them.

The Horned King stirs in his chair, growling. The sockets of his skull slowly glow a bright red, as though he’s been asleep and has just been disturbed. And he unleashes a nasty snarl at the sight of Terra.

A puff of green smoke bursts from the black cauldron, almost as if on command. It spreads over the mass of skeletons like a noxious gas, and soon enough, they all twitch with sleeplessness.  First Heartless, now the undead.

Terra summons his Keyblade and begins to chop away before the ones near him get a chance to stand straight. Damn the headache, damn the tiredness – he needs to survive. The Horned King bellows, and his skeleton army follow suit.

Their old weapons of war don’t cause much damage to his armor, but that isn’t the worst danger. What is most imperative for Terra to avoid is to be surrounded and be swallowed by them. With his Keyblade, he strikes the ground, shaking the walls so much that dirt drops from the ceiling. He strikes again, and stone collapses on top of a group nearby.

He makes for a different hallway, hoping to find an exit out of here. Away from the power of the cauldron, which has its mist covering the entire room by now. Away from the skeletons that are chasing after him, swinging their swords so lazily that they swipe at the walls. There is a door.

“Please let it lead somewhere.”

It does, to a hallway full of skeletons waiting on the other side for him, crawling over each other to get to him. None of their eyes glow like Heartless do. Perhaps it is the power of the cauldron that made them immune to being swallowed up by the Realm. Maybe it’s because they have already died and the Realm has no use for them.

Either way, Terra is now surrounded, the skeletons clawing at his helmet, pulling at his cape, dragging him down to the floor to subdue him. To drown him. To crush him.

A swing of his Keyblade onto the ground and it sends the ones closest to him flying. He moans in pain from the use of it, the helmet practically locking the agony inside.

“I can’t lose to Xehanort now,” he yells to himself.

More of them come. If light is too taxing in a world of darkness for him, then perhaps powers of nothingness will do.

In his mind, Terra wills the particles in the air to combust, exactly the way Xemnas does it. He allows himself to really feel how annoyed he is at his situation, until he’s ready.

“Get away from me!”

Several bombs of energy explode in the air, destroying some of the skeletons and sending others away. But his body also reacts to the bombs, and like catering to his need to keep a far distance from his enemies, Terra flies backwards – and stays afloat.

Xemnas’ telekinetic powers apparently also lend themselves to levitation. Except Terra cannot control it, and this is the worst timing to learn. He continues to float backward as if there isn’t any gravity to slow him down, hordes of skeletons committing themselves to a futile attempt to grab him from below.

“Wait, wait.” He flails his arms around, trying to grasp at anything that will stop his levitation, his fingers merely brushing on the wall. He digs his Keyblade into the stone, suspending him in midair so he can finally land on his feet, the creeping mist of the black cauldron disturbed by his landing.

There are still the skeletons to deal with. 

And they are powered by the magic of the cauldron. Maybe if he disturbs it…

Using the explosive energy of nothingness, he casts aside all of these shells of former humans, trying to make his way to the cauldron. It’s easier than he anticipates, considering how light-weight they are and that their tattered armor cannot handle being attacked by Xemnas’ powers.

The Horned King roars when he nears, his army of undead suddenly skirmishing to ambush Terra. This at least tells him that he has the right idea.

“In your despair, as you face what ails you most, you will perish,” the Horned King says, his voice an echo.

Terra scoffs. “How dramatic.”

His Keyblade glows with a bright light, and he strikes the ground. Cracks form and make their way to the cauldron. Then he sends out one of Xemnas’ explosions to keep fiends off of him. He strikes the ground again to force cobblestone into stacks against the cauldron, the foundation underneath becoming unstable. Another one of Xemnas’ explosions for self-protection.

Summoning the energy he has left, his Keyblade glowing even brighter, he hurls a shockwave strong enough to topple the cauldron over, spilling its acidic contents all over the room. Fire that burns nothing but green swallow the area, escalating in height to such an extent that even the undead soldiers are unable to survive its flames.

The Horned King desperately barks in a language Terra doesn’t understand, but no matter. There is enough chaos to slip away. The King and his stupid army can continue to rot in this Realm. He stumbles out of the room, the flames burning brighter and threatening to take him with them. It emits a bright enough light to illuminate a new door further down, and at first he struggles with the handle in his panic. It opens. A staircase.

“Thank goodness,” he says painfully, clutching his side. Shutting the door behind him, he seals it with his Keyblade, despite how exhausted he is. The flight of stairs spirals upward, continuing on and on. It’s an incredibly high tower, but hey, at least he’s away from that horrid room.

At the top is a large room, with a tall mirror leaning against a wall covered in a tattered, taupe carp. Shelves of vials are on one side of it, and weapons are displayed on the wall on the other. Chests litter the space. There is a window with multiple diamond-shaped panes showing him the wasteland outside. There still aren’t any Heartless lurking about – at least not right now. A single forest grows behind the castle, though it’s too dark for him to see how far that stretches.

He sits on the floor, catching his breath. At least it’s quiet. And relatively safe.

Though he now has to find a way to escape this tower. He has to endure, to find her.

“Aqua,” he says groggily, “just hold out for me a little longer. I’m almost there.” He doesn’t know why he said that. He doesn’t actually know how much time he has in this place, and whether he’ll have enough of it to finally set her free.

Four taps on glass, like a knock on a door.

Immediately he looks toward the window, expecting to see a Heartless hovering outside. Nothing.

Four taps on glass. It’s coming from the mirror.

Whoever is behind it, or inside of it, wants his attention.

His throat grips. A part of him feels that he shouldn’t look, no matter what. His life is already enough at risk. And yet, he’s alone in this room, and as long as the mirror is there, it is an unknown danger, which is worse. It pains him to stand up, but he shuffles his feet enough to approach the mirror, his hand slowly reaching to grab the tarp.

He takes a breath while the fabric is gripped in between his fingers, stalling the exposure. Four taps on glass, this time louder.

He pulls it away. He had expected to see a Heartless, or maybe a twisted version of his own reflection that can act on its own. Maybe one of himself, with gold eyes and white hair.

But it is her.

Aqua’s face is deadpan through the mirror, her eyes as hollow and reflective as glass itself. “Did you come here to save me?” she asks as she steps through, like it is a doorway.

Her voice is robotic and sinister.

It sounds like her, yet it doesn’t. It mimics the same tenor, the same melody that he would hear out of the real Aqua. Which he hasn’t heard in years.

He knows she isn’t real. Yet hearing her voice nearly sends him to tears.

“Aqua,” he says immediately. “No, you aren’t- I can’t believe it-”

“What makes you think I want to be saved by you?” There is a Keyblade in her hand, but it’s warped, fizzling in and out of a black fog and he cannot recognize it.

“You aren’t real,” he summons his own, anticipating a fight.

And a terrible fight it is. The phantom clones herself, warping in and out just to tease him. To send him cheap attacks. To confuse him. He is suddenly surrounded by many Aqua’s, until there is only one. And then there are many again. She comes close to him, enough to nearly touch his visor with her lips. Enough for him to see his own reflection in her glass eyes. Then she disappears so another can hit him from behind.

Which is his greatest weakness – seeing her like this. It nearly makes him unable to swing his own weapon against her body. He keeps telling himself she is a fake, but it’s hard to believe. The phantom moves like Aqua. Dodges like Aqua. Casts spells like Aqua. How many years has he spent sparring with her, and let it be damned if this thing can read his memories so she knows exactly how to react to his movements.

“Don’t you think I deserve to be with someone better?” she asks before another attack. Her magical blows are so devastating, even when he blocks them, that he’d rather give up than to keep trying to survive them. He’s too tired.

And her voice hurts, too. She asks this question as if she knows how he truly feels, but is too afraid to say it himself. As if admitting it would mean absoluteness. Aqua does deserve to be with someone worthy of her. Yes. But if he agrees out loud, then that truth is bona fide.

“You aren’t real,” he says louder. He cannot get sad now. He cannot give up now. He raises to strike, and she blocks. For a ghost, she is incredibly strong.

She counters and hits him directly with an electrical force, as though harming him means nothing to her.

“I don’t want you,” she says, her voice keeping its steady directness while being disquieting all at the same time. As if what she is saying is a matter of fact.

He is on his knees. “I know already,” he says, upset enough to produce tears in his eyes. “Please, enough.”

She raises her mockery of a Keyblade. “In your despair, as you face what ails you most, you will perish,” she says. She swings with a dark force so massive, he is sent flying, crashing through the window.

He falls from the tower, traveling miles as he speeds closer and closer to the ground. He tries to summon his latent powers of nothingness, trying to get them to halt his near-inevitable crushing fate. But nothing is slowing him down. “Stop, stop, STOP!”

Mere inches from the ground he finally halts, hovering above the ground in a suspended levitation. Learning this power is going to take some getting used to. Terra swings his arms around, but it only forces him to awkwardly spin in the air.

He lifts a finger into the air, as if to command. “Put me down, gently.”

The power simply drops him, and all of his muscles take the shock inside the hard shell of his armor as he hits the ground. It’s ridiculous how sore he is right now.

Groaning, he drags himself to sit on the precipice of a boulderstone. The amount of sweat is massive, the heat unbearable. He has come a long way, and it has been nothing but near-death experiences, frights, and doubts.

Doubts.

It’s not that he doesn’t know already that the Realm of Darkness will give him no comfort. But he silently begs for anything to relieve the heat. He pulls the helmet off, and – as to be expected - it doesn’t make him feel any better. There is no breeze to cool off the sweat, and no amount of oxygen to help him breathe any easier. If the Realm is playing with him this much, and has such power to control where he is heading, how is he ever going to get to her? What if the both of them wander around the Realm, traveling in opposite directions, where they never find each other, for the rest of time?

Does it mean that all of his attempts are futile?

Does it mean she truly doesn’t want him here?

In all honesty, Terra hopes that his wishes have a place in the light. That he can return to the Land of Departure, and share the thrones with those closest to him. That he can watch the light of the sun through the colors of the stained glass, and study them well enough to remember their patterns this time. To search for his own way to become Master. To watch Ventus rise to that status, and see him grow to be a man. To have Aqua share his bed. To wake up next to her every day, and hold her close to him. To be in awe of her presence and accomplishments. To be wanted and welcomed back into his family. To be home, where the sun is so bright, it illuminates everything in the academy.

The Horned King’s castle doesn’t stir, but merely stands tall as it probably has for hundreds of years now, looming over him. There is not a single star in the sky of this fallen world. Terra is completely alone in this wasteland, not a sound to be heard. Not a rock tumbling by. Not a leaf dancing in the wind.

But the rabbit is here. It pants heavily, as if it has been frightened out of its life. Its nose twitches, and its ears are pressed against its head. It hops closer and closer to Terra, as if to seek some comfort.

“I know,” he nods in agreement. “This place sucks.”

At least this is better than having only himself to talk to. Or that phantom.

“I can tell this place is trying to punish me, and I can’t say that I disagree with it,” he says. “I’ve become what I said I wouldn’t, and I can’t imagine that she’d ever accept me as I am. I wanted to be someone worth her attention. But to be the cause of her suffering…

“I know what I want isn’t important. What I need to do is to find her, but I haven’t-” He takes a deep breath, the headache getting worse. “I honestly don’t know to survive this. I don’t know how I could ever make it better for her, and that scares me. I don’t know if I’ll ever get another chance to prove myself, or be forgiven. I don’t know if I’ll be allowed to have a good life in the future. I wish this headache would go away, I would give anything-”

He holds his head, taking breaths until some pressure is relieved. But it lingers. Not that it compares to what Aqua has been through, considering the insanity he has just witnessed. Even if the powers that be decide that he will never have a decent future, she still needs help.

“I can only just stand up, carry on, and walk forward. Even when it’s hard, or when I think I can’t go on. If I just continue to do something about my situation, then something’s gotta give, right? Something has to happen?”

The rabbit slows down its own breathing, traveling in uneven circles, as if beckoning him to follow it.

“Maybe I’m just looking for hope where it doesn’t exist, but I needed to get that out of my chest. Thanks for listening to me,” he says with a small smile. He puts his helmet back on, and pushes off his hands to stand up. He is completely sore and tired, and every step he takes is a bit of struggle. His feet practically beg for him to rest.

This time, the rabbit waits for him to catch up to it, stopping every once in a while for him to approach. They go through the forest, which is the foggiest place he has beenin this Realm so far, but just as quiet as all the rest. The trees here are so tall, he can’t make out any branches. There are no roads or trails. Nothing to help him discern a sense of direction. Just thick trunks that sprawl out every which way. If he gets lost here, he can certainly walk a never-ending labyrinth.

It’s eerie almost, but he nearly makes the fog out to be a portal of its own, a system separate than the rest of the Realm, like a blanket that is covering him from the darkness. With the bunny staying so calm, Terra doesn’t get the sense that danger lurks here, even when he cannot see far ahead of him. With each step, he focuses on relaxing different parts of his body – his mind, his arms, his knees, his neck – as a way to build up the energy to continue forward. He’ll stay sharp once the rabbit gives him reason to.

As long as he keeps going, something’s gotta give, right? Even when he knows, deep down, how it will end?

It doesn’t take long until the forest opens up to a wheat field, tall grass stalks swaying in the wind.

Wind.

Yes, it exists here. It’s very gentle but it coaxes the wheat to respond. Stars shine up above. A great distance ahead of the fields are these menacing electrical towers, but neither of them are connected by any power lines. They are illuminated by moonlight.

Which is the first sign of natural light he has seen. When he looks downhill, far beyond the wheat, beyond a field of grass, beyond rock formations, is a small beach where the moon nearly sinks itself into the water. It’s quite a walk from where he is standing, but he can see nonetheless.

A trail lies ahead of him. And the rabbit is gone.

“Not again.” He jogs forward, bending over to see if he can spot it in between the stalks. “Come on, where are you?”

No sign of it. Terra’s jog hurries into a run, his armor clamoring from all of the movement but he doesn’t care who listens. He needs his guide. And truth be told, he just can’t stand to be alone anymore.

It isn’t until he nearly runs into something that he skids to a halt. And his breath stops. And his muscles tense up.

She has her Keyblade out, holding it ahead of her in a defensive stance. Her eyes are wide in shock, her hair short, her face still young even after all these years.

The Keyblade in hand is his Master’s Defender. Aqua waits for him to make the first move, her eyes narrowing in anticipation.

Aqua. Her eyes are expressive this time. He can see that she anticipates everything to be a trick, quickly trying to analyze when he’s going to snap at her. He can basically see the wheels in her mind turning.

“Aqua…”

She shudders as she blinks, as if she cannot believe what she is hearing. She only lowers the Master’s Keyblade by a small margin. “Terra?”

The phantom may be a good mimic in everything except the feeling. But this is her. He can drop to his knees and sob until he dies, but at least he can die knowing he has done something right. And despite it all, his heart pounds so heavy it will keep him alive through the release. It’s her.

“Aqua, it’s really me.” He dismisses his armor to show her. He doesn’t know how sorry or tired or in pain he looks. He doesn’t care. “I’m here.”

Her eyes flicker at the sight of him. They glass over with tears, but instead of letting them fall, she dismisses the Keyblade and bolts to him. To take his hand in both of hers, squeezing them until she’s satisfied that they’re real. Her fingers are cold.

Before he can say anything, she looks into his eyes and searches them. “It’s really you…” She closes the gap and throws herself around his shoulders, holding him so tightly as if letting any room to breathe in between them would mean he would just be wiped from existence and she’ll lose him again forever. Like he’ll burst as a figment of her imagination.

It’s the same for him, wrapping his arms around her waist to pull her closer - because to let her go would be to let her slip through the ground and he’ll never see her again. To have her in his arms is to resurrect an old life: he’s been living a second one all this time – a lie, really - completely cut off from everything that gave him his identity. But now he’s home.

The exposed skin on her back is freezing cold, and he brushes his fingers against it to comfort her. Takes turns to wrap his arms to give her warmth. Runs his fingers through her hair and rests his mouth on the crown of her head. She smells like dust, not quite clean yet not dirty, either. As if time has stopped for her, too.

She digs her face into his neck, her tears falling down and spreading onto his shoulder. His strong Aqua, who hasn’t cried since her parents’ death, weeping into his shirt until it’s soaked. And he lets tears fall too, into her hair, because there isn’t a feeling like knowing he’s whole again.

“I’m-” This is the hardest part – to be bare. When he has been keeping something in, or lying about something else - now he has to expose himself. To finally say something that is as true as the softness of her body.

“I’m sorry it took so long to come see you,” he says, knowing it just isn’t enough after what she’s been through. Knowing how possible it is for her to reject it. “I don’t have an excuse. I should’ve done something sooner. I should’ve-” The phantom’s words pass through his mind. “Please don’t hate me.”

She brushes the hair strands at the back of his neck, her breath stabilizing. “I’m so glad you’re here,” she whispers into his ear, her voice breaking a bit. “It’s been so hard. I’ve missed you so much, Terra.”

Terra’s favorite stories growing up always have a hero taking off on an adventure, rescuing those who need help, defeating malicious entities that seek to wreak havoc. And yet none of those stories made him understand how much of a struggle it would take to endure such a feat. He’s lived his life not really knowing what made those heroes who they are. To hear her forgiveness is when it clicked. They are heroic because it justifies their existence, as much as hearing her relief justifies his own.

“I’ve missed you, too, you have no idea how badly.” Hearing this makes her stir, as if it means the world to her.

They rock back and forth in their embrace, neither making a move to separate from the other.

“I thought that no one wanted to come find me.” She sniffles.

His eyes snap open at such a strange statement. He has forgotten where they are, and how much danger they are still in. Surrounded by wheat stalks as tall as they are, with a faint moonlight meters away.

Terra finally lets go of the embrace and moves her to face him. “You don’t sound like yourself.”

“I’m sorry,” she says, sounding incredibly tired like she’s on her last leg. She has one firm grip on his upper arm, as if terrified of letting go. “It’s this place-”

“It gets to you,” he nods, holding a hand to her face, wiping the tears falling out with his thumb. It’s strange seeing her cry.

The tears that keep flowing are stragglers, her eyes abused by such sadness. Her hair is slightly frizzy, the bags under her eyes sag too much, and her face is so relaxed he can tell she probably doesn’t know how to smile anymore. Not to mention that her skin is paler than he remembers it to be.

And he realizes they’ve been gazing at each other for some time without saying anything. He should really say something. Profound. Or honest. Something heartfelt as he continues to hold her face. Anything.

“You look terrible,” is what he settles on.

Her eyes flicker and blink for a moment, registering what he has just said. The edge of her mouth twitches, like it’s an alien movement. Her brows furrow in confusion, but then release into contentment. She chuckles, and it sounds worn out. Small at first, and she pauses. Then she giggles again, her hand reaching to hold his wrist.

“Terra,” she says in between tiny breaths, as if this is all too taxing of an activity. “I don’t remember the last time I laughed.”

If he can come face to face with Kingdom Hearts, to meet his mother for the first time, to see the Master again – he’ll tell them there is finally a good reason to keep him alive.

She smiles and it reaches her eyes. Leaning into his hand, holding it between her cheek and her own, she gives him a sympathetic shrug. “I’m sorry you’re now stuck with me in the darkness.”

“As if being stuck with you is such a bad thing,” he says through a scoff, and then regrets it. He shouldn’t make light of her suffering, and yet he can’t help but feel that it would have never been so difficult for her if he was here with her the entire time. “Either way, I opened a Door to Light here. I’m getting you out.”

The smile fell, and her eyes widen. It’s clear she doesn’t believe it at first, but she knows him well enough to understand that he’d never lie to her like this. He’s excited, grinning as he watches her contemplate his message.

It’s like giving someone a surprise gift, eagerly waiting to see their joy when they open it. He nods at her, nearly in laughter as she starts to smile. “It’s true,” he says. “You’re leaving this place.”

She leans toward him, placing a hand on his chest. “Now?”

“Yes.” It doesn’t matter how many times he’ll have to say it. He’ll say it as often as he needs, just to make sure she understands. Just to see the sparks of eagerness in her eyes.

“And we’ll find Ven?”

What is supposed to be a sharp inhale he manages to slow down so he doesn’t seem flustered. Xehanort is listening. But he can’t let her know yet that there is danger. Not now. He holds her by the biceps, and reassures her in a way so he can change the subject. “Definitely. We’ll all be together again soon. But first we have to get you out of here. We can talk about everything later.”

She clasps his palm with hers, and squeezes tightly. The look on her face is indescribable, like someone who has been on the execution block has just been told that her future is guaranteed safe. “Lead the way.”

So they jog together, hand in hand, like they used to do as children. Every excursion through the mountains, the caves they explored, the creeks they discovered - they were always to be conjoined through their hands. This habit hasn’t faded in the years they have grown together, and while they are old enough that they don’t have to follow such a strict buddy system anymore, the hands will still come together in the most uncertain moments: when they get lost; when visibility is poor; when they are scared; when it rains hard; when they are traversing dangerous terrain – very much like the Realm of Darkness, when being separated could mean a permanent eternity apart.

“Do you know how we’ll get out?” she asks.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea to trace my steps back…” The Realm might as well have changed the layout by now, hoping to keep them in. “But I have friends waiting for us. We’ll be okay. I’m thinking I’ll just conjure a door from within, out of the darkness around us. It’s how I got in, anyway.”

She barely pauses before replying. “I have a friend waiting for me at the beach. I told him I wouldn’t take long in my routine walk.”

Terra chuckles to himself. Making friends in the Realm of Darkness. Of course, that’s so Aqua. “We’ll bring him with us. Don’t worry.”

They head downhill, through the shorter wheat stalks until they reach grassy foothills that level off as the beach gets closer.

Aqua grips his hand and keeps herself still, nearly yanking him backwards. “Terra, wait.”

The caution in her voice is loud. But there is nothing around them. “What is it?”

A rumble, which is soft at first but creeps ever closer with a sickening speed that makes his hair stand on edge. The ground shakes like it wants to throw them off their feet. Through it bursts a pillar of Heartless, squirming all over each other and spiraling as if to act as one tremendous force. The darkness emanating from them is massive, and without his armor, Terra feels the nausea overpowering him. This tower can’t be an easy one to defeat. He wraps his arms around her, for protection.

“Aqua,” he warns, hinting that the best course of action is to run.

“We have to.” She pushes through his elbow, summoning their Master’s Keyblade and beginning a sprint, ready to attack. Determined. Quick to react. Aqua. She reacts to this thing with evades that come so easily to her, she must have been fighting it for quite some time now.

Which means that running away won’t do a damn thing for them.

The tower has a sickening exertion to its attacks, easily breaking through his reflecting barriers. Since it keeps itself suspended in the air, his grounded techniques aren’t much use.

But she’s spectacular. Like a swan flying through the air, summoning trails of ice to skid and keep up pace with the enemy. She has built herself to be a Master in ways he has never expected, with choreographies that resonate with resistance and endurance. She dances with the light that shines through the Keyblade, building power until she and the area around her is bathed in it, with a force so blinding, and yet so beautiful, it keeps the tower at bay.

Sometimes.

As mesmerizing as she is, she shouldn’t be fighting this alone anymore.

He scurries to place himself under the Heartless tide, lifting his free hand up into the air, and focuses on the air pressure in between. Making all those particles combust exactly the way Xemnas would do it. With every explosion that comes, let there be another, until they swallow each other… until the tide has to pass through massive destruction when it travels, because it’s too late for it to turn around and avoid it anymore. With her in the air, she skids across ice suspended in the air and attacks with shockwaves from above – the two best friends squeezing this monstrosity right between their blows.

It retaliates – against her. She falls to the ground and rolls, and he stops his work immediately. Sliding over to her, he anticipates the tide as it turns and lunges toward them, which will probably take them both in one clean sweep.

He raises his palms from the ground up, summoning a barrier of nothingness as it stands tall and erect, and holds it as the tide crashes into it. Electricity separates some of the Heartless from one another, but it’s a terrible wall to keep up. The tide itself is too heavy and it nearly breaks it. He feels her hands on his biceps, leaning into him, as if to help him keep it up. He focuses on spreading those electric waves, to keep hurting this menace.

It backs off, and he can relax – for now at least. It circles back for another go around, and the thought of it even coming after her – that’s it.

He commands his Keyblade to warp and expand, setting itself as a canon that he props onto his shoulder. It will take all the energy he has in him, and he’ll probably won’t be able to walk anymore in this state when Xehanort wants to break free so badly, but it will do. For her.

The canon conjures a piercing, fiery light within, and with a yell, he exerts all of it into the tide, effectively breaking it apart and scaring it away, leaving the seldom welcomed stillness of quiet. He collapses onto his hands, his headache threatening to split his skull into two, as he whispers to himself that he’ll be okay. The pain will go away. He just needs time. Keep awake. For her.

Aqua crouches next to him, holds him by the forearm and gives his palm a gentle squeeze.

“That was impressive,” she says. He tries to retort that he’s learned new things along the way, but his heaving is still too much. “You okay?” She touches his face and he leans into her hand, nearly kissing it but stopping himself short, rolling his lips inward as he tries to practice self-control.

He takes several breaths until they slow down, and she patiently waits for him. She seems calm, collecting herself so quickly after such an intense fight. To think she has been doing this for twelve years and he can barely manage one night. That he succumbs to weakness in this place so easily.

“You’ve always been stronger than me,” he says with a chuckle that hurts. Not from the soreness, but from admitting how much better she is than him at everything.

“Terra, please,” she scoffs, massaging his forearm. Her voice is tired. “When we would arm wrestle, I always had to use two hands.”

“You even pushed with the weight of your entire body. You’d still lose.” He smirks, and she grins back. How grateful he is that they can talk as if time hasn’t passed for them, teasing each other like the Mark of Mastery Exam has never happened.

He should really summon his armor right now, with such a massive headache looming over him. But her touch – he can’t pull himself away from it. As if the grace of her fingers is the mark of light, melting away his concerns and dulling the pain throbbing in his scalp. He leans forward close to her, nearly touching her forehead with his. Even when it’s this dark, looking at her is the most calming feeling he could ever experience. She’s brighter than the moon. At least to him.

“There’s so much I want to tell you,” he says, wondering if desperation is making him choose this moment to confess. “We have to talk. About what happened. About us…” With that last one, his voice hitches. It’s terrifying, more so than the Heartless tide, to talk about where the two of them stand. “About the Master.”

She flinches at the mention of Eraqus, closing her eyes and taking a breath to calm herself. “I know. We have a lot to catch up on. But… I want to do it with a clean mind. Away from the darkness, you know? I just don’t want to spend another minute here. Please…”

That last word comes out as a whisper, her eyes pleading. She grips his arm tighter, and he realizes that she needs constant reassurance, as if she still has a hard time believing she’ll ever leave this rotten place.

He bites his lip, wanting to kick himself for being so selfish. “Of course, your freedom comes first.”

A relief passes over her as though she’s been anticipating bad news and has been given mercy instead. She throws his arm around her shoulders, having him use her as support in order to stand up.

“You’re going to love Traverse Town,” he says, noticing as they walk together that she again has a small smile to face, her cheeks plumping. He rests his head on hers, and she gives him a gentle nudge.

“Where?”

“I came from there. It’s a beautiful city, the kind you’d want to take a vacation in. The cuisine is delicious, and they have these colored lights that shine every night…” It’s perfect. When she’s free, she’ll eat. And sleep, most importantly. And by those beautiful lights that switch between color and white, he’ll give her gifts. Or if not, just laughs. Then he’ll tell her how he feels, and hope for the best.

The sand makes it harder to take steps, but she keeps a solid support for him. The waves here are gentle and unimposing. He can’t believe there is anything that is this placid in this Realm, but it sounds relaxing. The moon hovers just above the horizon, nearly swallowed by the water. It is so bright, it might as well be its own door to the other side. Funny, two days ago he stood on a beach in Destiny Islands, wishing that he could take Aqua to see the ocean. They might as well be gazing upon opposites ends of the same body of water.

She leaves him to sit on a boulder, but their need to touch each other lingers so much that they only let go when both of their arms are outstretched, her fingers gliding off of his. A man a short distance away in a black cloak sits, watching the waves dance. She tells him that it’s time to go – they can finally be free. Her friend is here. They’re going to be okay.

She keeps taking desperate glances back toward Terra, as if he’ll disappear in between. And yet, a small smile never leaves her face.

From the sound of the man’s voice, he is older, and he begs to be allowed a wee bit of time to stand up. For the sake of his back, he’s been sitting here for far too long. He leans on her for support until he’s on both of his feet, and then turns to face Terra.

“That man,” he says, his deep voice getting slightly louder, as if to caution her of an enemy. “We mustn’t go with him.”

That voice. A blonde beard. Terra shivers, and the muscles through his arms tense.

Ansem.

He doesn’t know why he knows that name, and he’s too scared to try to understand.

Aqua tries to reason with him, tries to say that this is a friend who has grown up with her since childhood – but Terra wonders if she’s fooling herself just as much. Maybe the headache that keeps coming back will always be inevitable, and he’s just delaying what will happen. Witlessly.

“A clever trick to play on a vulnerable girl, Xehanort,” Ansem spits, holding her arm as if to try to keep her at bay.

“I’m not Xehanort,” Terra mumbles loudly, his tongue unable to produce sharp enough sounds to articulate clear words. And it terrifies him even more. The headache roars and massaging his temples doesn’t work. His ears whistle so intensely, he’s afraid he’ll go deaf.

Aqua shoves the old man’s grip off of her, scampering towards her friend. “Terra, tell me how I can help you.” She holds onto his arms, trying to get him to sit straight.

He grabs onto her arms. Too tightly, maybe, making her jump. “I’ve left the door open for you,” he manages to say, praying that she can understand him. “Don’t give up. Keep going. We’ll be together-”

He yells from the pain, the headache spreading to his neck. The whistling stops, and all is silent. Eerily silent. He cannot hear his own breathing. Or the waves. Or her. He attempts to make sounds, feeling the vibration in his vocal chords, but he doesn’t know if he’s actually saying any words. Until the vibration ceases, and all commands to speak stop working.

She looks terrified. Brave Aqua, her eyes wide and her lips pursed, shaking her head as if denying what she is seeing. He wants to tell her that he’s scared, too. That she isn’t alone.

He digs into his pocket to pull out his orange Wayfinder, and presses it into her palm until she grabs hold of it.

He has to tell her. Somehow. He interlaces his fingers with hers in her other hand, holding it upward in between the two of them. Coaxing her to come a little closer. He cups her cheek, leaning forward to kiss her on the forehead. And he stays, letting his lips feel her skin, breathing in her hair, relaxing as much as possible as he savors this moment for as long as it can last.

Until he cannot smell or feel the sensation in his lips or fingers anymore. He opens his eyes. At least he can still see.

The pain, it has also completely subsided, his whole body going numb. No more headache. No more soreness. She gazes into him, moving her mouth to say something but he can’t hear what.

He doesn’t like the look she is giving him, and he can’t apologize or ease her worries. He searches the beach, looking for any sign of hope. Any sign of light.

And there, he sees it. A bird with a short beak, waddling on the rocky shore, though its reflection can’t be found in the water. It shines a soft, white light, just like the rabbit. Its feathers ruffle, a crown briefly standing up before it shakes itself calm.

A cockatoo.

Ven, what are you doing here? You’re supposed to be asleep.

Sleep.

It sounds so welcoming right now, to let the exhaustion take over and he can then heal. Not that he has a choice in the matter. It will take him over, letting him drift into ecstasy, the best slumber he’ll have all week. The last image he sees is the cockatoo flapping its wings. He falls, unable to feel himself hitting the ground. Just a never-ending drop, and it’s blissful.

I didn’t get to tell her how I felt about her. That’s fine. I’ll do it when I wake up.

A/N: NO IT ISN’T OVER. I’ll say it one more time, but there is a sequel to this. It wasn’t planned that way at the beginning. But after so many internal debates with myself over the summer, I’ve decided that it was just so much more organized to split my story in two. This was always the halfway point. The next chapter literally picks up where this leaves off.

That being said, I want to thank my readers from the bottom of my heart. It’s such a strange thing - even though the story isn’t over, I am burying my baby under this title, which has stuck with me for almost a year now. It is like creating a void, and I hope that the sequel can fill it. For all those readers, who have been with me since the beginning, who have discovered this somewhere along the middle of its journey, and who have just joined on the adventure - but especially to those who have stuck it out to the end, THANK YOU SO MUCH. Your support has kept this girl alive. Literally.

As for the sequel, I’ll see if I can salvage what I can from KH3 to adapt to it. “A Powerful Enough Dream” will simply be a very divergent AU. I’m sure some of you are wondering what that would even look like, especially since I maintain the position that I wish Aqua fell to darkness out of her own volition. I posted a preview called “Sonne” on AO3 exclusively to show what that looks like!! (I’m sorry I won’t post links directly to this, I’m scared that Tumblr is going to hide my post). If people are receptive enough to “Sonne,” then I’ll consider continuing this story.

For those of who are disappointed that Terra hasn’t met Dark Aqua (which I have warned that I wasn’t going to go there with this story), I have written a new fic called “The Ocean On His Shoulders” that honors that. <3

[matthew-niverse]

Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep: Destiny is Never Left to Chance

The Keyblade War.

"In ancient times, people believed that light was a gift from an unseen land by the name of Kingdom Hearts. But Kingdom Hearts was safeguarded by its counterpart, the χ-blade.

Warriors vied for that precious light, thus beginning the "Keyblade War." The violent clash shattered the χ-blade into twenty pieces—seven of light, and thirteen of darkness. And the only real Kingdom Hearts was swallowed by the darkness, never to surface again."

—Master Xehanort

Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep was a huge turning point for the Kingdom Hearts franchise. It’s where they began to experiment with the battle system and it’s where the story REALLY began to get complex.

The battle system now uses a mechanic called the Command Deck (right). This is where you can equip separate special attacks with their own separate cooldown times. This battle system is also used in Dream Drop Distance. Many disliked this system, as it made it possible for you to spam multiple of the same broken ability.

(Thunder Surge is Godly)

The separate cooldown time let you cycle back and forth through the same type of command, had you equipped it multiple times. Personally, I didn’t mind it. The Command Style (left - Thunder Bolt) system -a form of Drive Forms- was a fun addition that made the gameplay satisfying enough.

The Shotlocks were especially fantastic, though a little broken. Enough about gameplay, back to the quote from Master Xehanort!

In ancient times, there was only one world.

After the events of the Keyblade War, the whole world was overshadowed by darkness.

However, small fragments of light survived within the hearts of children. This restored the world. However, not completely. The one world was split into many disconnected worlds. If pure light and pure darkness clash, the x-blade will be reforged. Now back to Birth By Sleep!

Xehanort, back when he was a young lad, travels to the Land of Departure to train in order to become a Keyblade Master.

He spars with his fellow pupil, Eraqus. Their respect for each other seems to fade as they grow older however, as Eraqus believes that all the darkness in the world should be eliminated whereas Xehanort believes it should be controlled.

Xehanort wants darkness to exist in equilibrium with light.

He wants to use his apprentice, Ventus, as a vessel for him to pass his own heart into, as Xehanort’s body is now old and frail.

Ventus proves to be too weak for this, so Xehanort extracts the darkness from Ventus’s heart to create a new being, Vanitas.

Vanitas is a being of pure darkness, and from him comes a new breed of enemy known as the Unversed.

These creatures feed on negative emotions. Xehanort plans to pit Vanitus’s heart of pure darkness against a heart of pure light to summon the x-blade. Acquiring this blade would grant him the power of Kingdom Hearts.

The splicing of Ventus’s heart leaves his heart fractured, so Xehanort takes Ventus to Destiny Islands to die, but at that moment Ventus’s cracked heart is touched by the heart of a newborn baby named Sora.

Part of Sora’s light goes into Ventus to fill the void left by Vanitas’s creation.

Ventus survives, so Xehanort takes him to Eraqus to be trained with Eraqus’s other students, Terra and Aqua.

Xehanort finds that Terra is another suitable vessel for his heart to go to, so he begins to manipulate Terra into turning against his friends.Terra visits Destiny Islands where he runs into a young boy named Riku.

Terra sees strength, similar to his own, within the boy and performs the Bequeathing, a ritual in which a Keyblade Master has someone touch their Keyblade to inherit the power to wield one. In this moment, a Keyblade called “Kingdom Key” chooses Riku.

Also around this time, Aqua runs into a young Kairi in Radiant Garden.

Kairi accidentally grabs hold of Aqua’s Keyblade, and ends up inheriting the power to wield a Keyblade.

Meanwhile, Master Eraqus finds out about Xehanort’s plan to use Ventus to summon the x-blade and, in order to prevent Xehanort from gaining the power of Kingdom Hearts, he attempts to kill Ventus.

Terra shows up to save Ventus and, while Eraqus is weakened, Xehanort lands the final blow.

Eraqus fades into light.

Xehanort tells Terra to find him in the Keyblade Graveyard (where the Keyblade War took place many years ago) so Aqua and Ven follow.

There, Xehanort transfers his heart into Terra, creating Terra-nort.

Meanwhile, Vanitas possesses Ventus and the two fuse to create the x-blade. This summons Kingdom Hearts out of the darkness it was lost to during the Keyblade War.

However, Aqua shows up with Mickey to defeat Vanitas and shatter the x-blade. Kingdom Hearts disappears into the darkness again.

Ventus, with his heart fractured again, is in a comatose state. Aqua remembers what Master Eraqus told her.

“Should anything happen to me, and you find the legion of darkness at our doorstep… I ask that you take my Keyblade and use it to lock this land away. Generations of Keyblade Masters have been charged with keeping this land safe. Light and Darkness exist in balance here and there are those who would abuse such neutral ground. This is why our predecessors devised a certain… trick.

Just use the key, and this land will be transformed. From that day forward, all who visit this land will be lost to OBLIVION, none ever able to solve the mystery. None, Aqua, except you.”

The Land of Departure transforms into Castle Oblivion -the setting of Chain of Memories- and Aqua hides Ventus’s body in the Chamber of Waking until he can be reawakened.

She then goes to Radiant Garden, where Terra-nort is waiting for her.

They do battle and, unfortunately, Aqua falls into the Realm of Darkness. Terra-nort loses his memory but he retains a subconscious longing to experiment with the human heart.

Ansem the Wise finds him and raises him as his apprentice.

Ventus’s fractured heart leaves his body, and finds its way back to Sora’s heart and merges with him in order to be whole. A year later, Terra-nort starts to regain his memories of being Master Xehanort.

He, along with Braig -Xigbar as a human- convince Ansem the Wise to experiment with hearts in order to extract their darkness.

These experiments creates the first Emblem Heartless.

In one “experiment”, Braig and Ansem’s other apprentices, Dilan, Even, Aeleus, and Ienzo, lose their hearts and become Nobodies. Lea also happened to be there at the time. Ansem the Wise finds out what they’ve done and refuses to let them continue.

Terranort, now fully back with Xehanort’s memories, banishes Ansem the Wise to the Realm of Darkness. Xehanort proceeds to extract the darkness out of himself; his heartless taking on the name of Ansem.

Ansem (Seeker of Darkness) leads the Heartless to swallow as many worlds as possible while the Nobody, Xemnas, leads a group of Nobodies called Organization XIII.

Ansem the Wise discards his own name to become DiZ (Darkness in Zero) and escapes the Realm of Darkness to Twilight Town. He spends his time researching on the Heartless and Nobodies hoping to eventually stop Xehanort’s plans.

Aqua remains lost to this day... Birth By Sleep had a lot to wrap your head around compared to the past Kingdom Hearts games.

You have to play through the three stories of Terra, Ventus, and Aqua in order to get the full picture. The gameplay, despite being extremely unbalanced, was generally satisfying. Even if the game wasn’t hard-

or in some cases WAY TOO HARD-

the flashiness of the battles were entertaining enough.

Even more entertaining was the story. What a ride this one was!

The secret ending Blank Points cutscene really snaps your heart in half. It’s great! All in all, Birth By Sleep would’ve been highly recommended… had it not been on the PSP. Good thing Square Enix rereleased every Kingdom Hearts games on the PS4 though! Birth By Sleep gives the backstory to what will eventually have to happen again in Kingdom Hearts 3, The clash between the 7 Lights and the 13 Darknesses.

[clonerightsagenda]

So last year before I wrote A Horrible Kind of Nice for Gill’s bday fic I was tossing around other ideas and toyed with an exploration of what SBURB 2.0 might look like. I initially planned to do an ensemble fic and grabbed two random characters out of a lineup for the first scene (in this case Aradia and Roxy) and then things... got away from me, and it ended up being about them? Even though I have never given that dynamic much thought before or since, beyond that they would probably be agents of party chaos if unleashed. If I had recently gotten a new item of clothing I would have assumed it was possessed and that’s why this got written. I wasn’t sure what to *do* with it, but since it’s 4/13 and the cat’s out of the bag about TLC ‘let’s restructure SBURB’, I guess I will toss this out there. I don’t know where it came from or where it was going, but I got some fun pesterlog lines out of it.

It’s a slow morning until Aradia Megido swoops in through your open window.

           “Holy shit,” you say, spilling cereal over your sheets. “Where’s the apocalypse?”

           “I could use your help,” she says. “Are you busy?”

           When have you ever been busy? You whiled away most of your time as a kid hobnobbing with carapaces, making up stories inspired by your mother’s books, or waiting for friends to get online. Your session had been one long wait for the gods to arrive, and your victory so far has felt like marking time until the next disaster that has always been lurking around the corner. So no, you’re not busy. Not like Aradia, who darts in and out of the house so much you’ve barely met her. She’s exploring, checking out Earth’s past and future, identifying good brooding cavern locations on the planet where the matriorb will hatch, and scouting the new universe for signs of the game sneaking through. You’d think she did it to avoid the rest of you, but she’s always friendly when she’s around – friendly enough to invite herself into your room via the window.

           “For you I’m willing to snub tea with the Queen of England. What brings you to the Rogue’s windowsill? Need something burgled?”

           “I am hoping your class can help me out.” Her wings fan in and out. The opacity setting’s down to let her squeeze inside, and they’re mostly the suggestion of color when the light hits them right. “I’ve been looking for signs of SGRUB that might have slipped past us, but the universe is a big place, even when you have plenty of time. I though the Rogue of Void might have better luck pinpointing what I’m looking for in the middle of so much nothing.”

           “So I can’t find a needle in a haystack, but if you launch the needle into space I can latch onto that bad boy right away?” It sounds reasonable. You don’t know much about what your powers can and can’t do. Someone mixed with a game guide – even one for a different Aspect – might have a better perspective. “Why not? If I do any more thumb twiddling they’re gonna fall off. When do we leave?”

           “How about now?”

             God tiers can breathe in space. You hang just outside the pull of Earth’s gravity and enjoy the sensation of not burning, freezing, suffocating, irradiating, or any of the other metal ways the vacuum of space usually kills people. It’s stuff like this that makes Jade throw up her hands and grumble. Science has a lot of explaining to do.

           With your eyes closed, you try to scan through the near infinite blackness. SBURB is part of you. It reconstituted your body out of light and ash. Surely you can pluck its traces out of the biggest void around.

           “I think I’ve got something,” you say. “Cute little planet. Good neighborhood. Nice place to raise the kids. I’ll bring us in.”

           The surface is sweltering. You push through jungles lusher than the pictures Jake sent you and jump as huge insects buzz and click past your face. There’s no sight of civilization, and Aradia offers to jump you both forward in time. There has to be sentient life here sometime. Otherwise SBURB wouldn’t have landed.

           “Nah,” you say, pushing away some ferns and earning your first glimpse of the frog temple ahead. “No point in riling up the locals. Let’s take a look without interruptions.”

 When you step inside, Aradia heads right for the carvings. It’s in the reptilian script you recognize from before, and you wish you’d thought to bring along the cipher you all worked out on that last day of the game.

“Sollux is the one who did the translations last time,” she says, running her fingers over the grooves in the stone. They don’t look cut but grown – and they are. No one built this temple. It hatched from a game construct launched from a session that’s paradoxically already underway. “I can’t tell from this whether it’s from the old system or not. We’ll have to take pictures.”

           “On it.” Unlike in the Medium, you don’t have a connection everywhere, but you snap a picture and hope you remember to send it to him when you get home. “It’s too bad there’s not a release date stamped somewhere. Sburb 2.0, patched and modded by the alphabet soup session. No need to thank us for the continued health and safety of your civilization. We’re just that dedicated to a good gaming experience.”

           “Maybe it says something like that somewhere! I can read the pictograms; it’s the code that’s throwing me.” Her voice trails off as she moves down the wall.

           A pebble clatters somewhere behind you, and without thinking you wrap shadows around yourself and flicker back to the doorway. Aradia looks up.

           “Thought I heard something,” you say, your face heating up. You totally bailed on her. By about five feet, but that doesn’t matter. Some brave adventurer you are. She’ll never ask for your help again.

           “Temples can be spooky sometimes.”

           “I wasn’t scared. I’m just on high alert. Can’t let the team anthropologist get carried off by a bunch of bloodthirsty natives. Of course all those stereotypes are pretty racist, since it’s more likely a bunch of natives will get carried off by bloodthirsty anthropologists.” Great, you’re babbling. “Point is, gotta keep on your toes. Look, maybe I should keep in touch, in case something happens and I have to zap us both home. It’ll look bad if I show up in the kitchen and then remember I ditched you a zillion light years away.”

           “I can take care of myself, but if it makes you feel better, go ahead.”

           You reach to grab her elbow and immediately drop it. “Whoa. You’re running hot. I thought DS and Hal were bad with the overloaded computer thing they had going on.”

           She shrugs. “I’m low on the hemospectrum. I think you guys are a little chilly, actually!”

           “Color-coded and temperature-controlled for your convenience.” You whistle. “You trolls really have bio-organization down pat.” You take her sleeve, loosely.

           The two of you walk deeper into the temple. You’d have been in and out by now, but Aradia takes her time and you’re stuck keeping pace with her. It’s not that bad, though. She catches things you wouldn’t, stopping to coo over a butterfly fanning its wings or a patch of emerald moss growing over the stones. She’s also the one who contemplates a statue of good old Bilious Slick for a moment before pressing down on its left eye. There’s a groan of shifting rock, and a passageway opens up at your feet.

           “Coming?” she asks, and pulls you down the stairs two at a time.

           You leave what was left of the daylight behind you, and you’re debating draining the battery of your phone using it as a flashlight when you hit the bottom. There’s no treasure chest or pit of skeletons, like you might expect at the end of a secret temple passage, but what you do find makes your heart race nonetheless. Two circular platforms. One purple, one gold.

           You look at each other. Then, together, you step onto the Derse transportalizer.

           And here you are again. The darkness of the Medium spreads out in a sheet of black that looks false with its absence of stars. The purple spires of Derse reach up overhead, and it’s almost like you never left at all.

           Without meaning to, you’ve let go. You rise into the air toward a tower that dwarfs most of the other structures on the moon. It’s one of six. When you reach the window, you take a breath and peer in. You’re almost expecting to see a dreamer curled up inside, maybe an evolved form of one of the planet’s insects rolling over and fluttering its wings, but the bed is empty. Of course it is. Any players for this session are a long way from being born.

           Your surroundings look hazy. From the corners of your eyes, you can almost see through the Gothic architecture. You get the sense that if you turned your head too fast, huge chunks of the world might not have loaded in. “This is a potential future,” Aradia says when you touch down at her side. “It isn’t certain it’s going to happen yet.”

           “I didn’t think it worked that way.”

           “It didn’t before. But we’re in a new world order.”

           Footsteps ring out in the street, and you see two Dersites coming your way. The halberds they’re bearing look very real. They stop a wary distance from you and gesture in your direction with deliberate motions of their hands. You’re used to this – the carapaces living near your home didn’t speak much either – so it’s your turn to translate. “They want to take us to their queen. I’m not really feeling it. You?”

           She shakes her head. “If the layout’s the same, I know the nearest telepad to Prospit. Race you!”

             You come in a close second, and the transportalizer spits you out on a planet of blinding gold. You take a moment to catch your breath, but as soon as you look up you lose it again. Because Skaia isn’t there.

           Maybe it’s because you were a Derse dreamer, but you never liked Skaia. Its light was too harsh, like a fluorescent bulb without a dimming fixture. You’d felt it on the back of your neck with an illumination that had weight.

           The light at the center of this session is softer, and it’s filled with colors. Streamers and patches of vivid light flow in undulating patterns through its depths. The chessboard tier one Battlefield isn’t visible through the haze, but you’re reminded of silk curtains drawn around a stage, all color and delicate flow.

           “Aradia,” you say, with rainbow lights dancing over your skin, “I think this one’s ours.”

 -- tipsyGnostalgic opened memo on board Operation Skaiasurp –

CTG: guys

CTG: we found a session we made

CTG: n im pleased 2 announce that its SUPER GAY

 A system develops. You locate SBURB artifacts scattered throughout the universe and drop temporary transportalizers on site somewhere no wildlife is likely to stumble into. Then Aradia takes her crack team of amateur archaeologists/ruins pillagers to check it out and bring back the information Sollux needs to make a call. If there's access to a potential session, Rose expands her walkthrough with scraps of lore and information from agents willing to talk. She suggested bringing the sprites for their game guide insight, but Hal hasn't taken her up on it yet, and Davesprite refused in terms that another mother might wash his mouth out for.

Aradia doesn't need to tag along on your location jobs, but she does usually. You're grateful - it's nice to have the company. There's not much lonelier than outer space.

You need to be somewhere quiet and separate to focus, but floating in a void gets boring, which has led you to your favorite surveillance spot.

The Mare Cognitum stretches out before you in an expanse of dust and blasted rock. The surface beneath you should burn you (or freeze you? You're not sure of the details - maybe it's both) but being a literal goddess has its perks.

"You know, footprints here don't fade," you say, drawing a smiley face in the dust. "There's gonna be a really confused rover rolling around here someday, trying to figure out who's been walkin on the moon with converse. And poor NASA's still trying to explain the stars."

Aradia nods, eyes fixed on the Earth. Your home planet looks fragile as a dreambubble in the distance. The sight hasn't gotten old yet. It makes the trip worth it, even if you have to get a full brush-down when you return. Jade freaked when you bragged about hanging on the Moon ("There's no erosion there - the dust particles are nightmares on a molecular level! You can't bring that back here for people to breathe in”) and now you have to pass inspection before being released into the general population. Still, it's worth it, you think, as you tap your feet and send clouds of dust rising in your own localized atmosphere, each mote beautiful and invisibly deadly.

           “It’s quiet here,” Aradia says.

           “Well, yeah. We’re the only people in thousands of miles. There are radio waves bouncing around, though.” You put a hand to your ear. “How delayed are those? Think we could catch the Beatles?”

           “That too. But I meant no one’s died here.”

           “I forgot you heard dead people. Is that all the time?”

           “No. And Earth is better than Alternia. There was a lot of violence there. We sent adults off planet, which cut back on the death count, but it also meant most of them were children. That made it harder to reason with them.” She points toward Earth. “Have you seen that house a block down from us with the yellow window shades? There’s a spirit there. An old woman died peacefully in bed. She’s staying around to watch over her descendants. She hasn’t moved on yet, but she’s happy. I’ve never seen that before.”

           A whole planet, and not one person who died in peace. “I can’t decide if you’d love or hate museums,” you say out loud.

           “Museums?”

           “They’re like… whole buildings full of old shit. Art, or dinosaur bones, or whatever. You can go look at them and read about where they came from.”

           Her eyes light up. “A catalogue of the past?”

           “Sort of. I’ve never been to one myself, obviously. Unless you count my house.” You’d felt like you lived in a museum sometimes. Everything was an exhibit of a world that no longer existed. Sometimes, especially after talking to Jane, you felt more like you were living in a crime scene, surrounded by pieces of evidence you could use to piece together a narrative of your mother’s last years. You weren’t trying to identify the culprit – you knew who’d done it. The person you searched for scraps of information on was the victim.

           She jumps to her feet. “We should go! I’d love to see it.”

           “Can’t you look at Earth’s past by going there?”

           “Yes, but seeing how people interpret it in the present is just as interesting.”

           “If you say so.” You get up and dust yourself off as best you can. Jade will do the final scan. “We’ll do a group trip. I think everyone will be glad to get out of the house.”

             It takes some coaxing, but eventually everyone agrees. You see stirring the group up as one of your sworn duties. Jane got on your case for being the team's party girl. In the bowels of a planet shaking itself apart, she'd accused you of never taking anything seriously. But sometimes people need levity. During SBURB, the sheer shittiness of your situation hadn't had a chance to fully hit you, not when you needed to stay alive. After the game, the weight finally landed, and you all dealt with it in different, terrible ways. The worst is past, but it's better to keep people occupied. The problems start when they have time on their hands. Your enthusiasm isn’t faked, either – you’ve never been to a place like this before.

Even with your more notable members incognito, a horde of teenagers entering the museum raises eyebrows. You’re not their main age bracket. Before the guards can decide to follow you around, you spread out. Terezi trails behind, stubbornly trying to read the Braille labels. She’s been teaching herself, since plain black text is harder for her to sniff out than the color coded kind. She has to keep smacking Dave away, who pretends to read the labels and makes up ridiculous stories instead while Karkat mutters along to the audio guide. Kanaya sits down in the Impressionist gallery like she’ll never move again.

           You leave Rose locked in a staring contest with an extremely creepy statue of a tiny man and drag Aradia off to the museum’s one mummy. You figure if anything’s going to be haunted, it’s that.

           “Nothing,” she says.

           “Really?”

           “Nope!”

           “Man, the guy’s gonna want his money back. Some afterlife he got. It would’ve been sweet to get to visit all the world’s museums, even if you do have to deal with a bunch of class tours rubbing their noses on the glass.”

           “This is how some of your cultures sent off the dead?” She bends down to look at the peeling hieroglyphics. “It’s fascinating. They knew how to throw a corpse party.”

           “Biggest damn corpse party around.”

           You follow her through room after room (John and Jane challenged each other to find the grossest baby Jesus and almost crash into you while racing through the Medieval section) and she stops in front of an oil painting. “Is that haunted?” you ask. “Will the eyes start following us around Scooby Doo style?”

           “It’s not haunted, but…” She peers closer. “The creator left a little bit of themselves behind, and I can feel it. They must have loved their work very much.”

           The painting is from four hundred years ago. You try to imagine making something with so much love someone can still feel it, that much later.

           Your path takes you out to a main courtyard, and Aradia sinks down on the edge of a fountain. "This is incredible," she says. "I wish we'd had something like it on Alternia. Some highbloods collected memorabilia, but it wasn't organized like this, and we couldn't come visit whenever we wanted."

"Maybe that can be a career goal, now that we're all cogs in the capitalist machinery again. Can't keep living off Jane's inheritance forever."

"Career?"

"You know, job?” You wave a hand vaguely. Real World Twenty-First Century TM shenanigans are something you’ve only studied in the abstract. “What you do when you grow up so you can pay for shit. Of course that involves going to school usually, which would be an accomplishment for most of us."

"This can be a job?"

"Someone has to do it. What did you guys do on your planet?"

"Lowbloods like me would get assigned menial tasks in support of the Empire’s basic functions. If we showed useful skills we'd be conscripted into the Empress's forces to conquer new worlds. With my powers, I'm sure they'd want me." She shivers and dips her fingers into the water. "They'd want Sollux too."

"What, there's a demand for tech skills there too?"

"Something like that. So you can choose here? What would you pick?" she asks, a little too brightly.

You shrug. "Growing up in the future there weren't many career options except fisherwoman and apocalypse gear model. Now... I dunno. I kinda liked messing around with the frog's DNA back on our last day in the game, making all those tiny little changes that made huge differences. I know it's not like that in real life, but genetics might be cool. Making something besides mutant kitties. Maybe I could cure non-universe cancer."

           “That sounds neat.”

           It does. You hadn’t voiced it before, but now that you have, you wonder why it hadn’t occurred to you. There are lots of ways to make the world a better place. Sometimes you change the way the whole multiverse system works, but sometimes you can work a little closer to home.

 A few weeks later, you visit Calliope while she’s touching up the latest comics pages she and Jake have drawn. Almost everyone has been a guest artist for them; who can say no to that face? Someday soon your Catwoman expy will bust out of prison again. Her colors are more muted and smudgy than usual. Still lifes and landscapes were her favorites at the museum, but she liked Impressionism too.

"I wanted to ask you," she says. "Next time you go to one of those sessions that belongs to us, can I come?"

"They're kinda boring," you say. It kills you knowing you're in a universe where Calliope will grow up bullied and alone and time has tied your hands. All your instincts say not to let her near another game session.

She frowns – she can tell when you’re babying her, and she always puts her foot down. "You all helped, but I made it in the end. I want to know I did it right."

           In the end, you cave, like you always do. (Jane got talked into letting her buy a whole tub of edible glitter on the last shopping trip.) The first session you located is only a transportalizer hop away. You don’t let go of Calliope’s hand the whole time. If anything goes wrong, she’s not getting left behind. When she sees the replacement Skaia up above you, she gasps, and you tighten your grip on her fingers.

           “Can you… talk to it?” you ask after she’s been staring, rapt, for a few minutes. “Is it you?”

           She blinks, jarred out of whatever trance she was in. “Oh! No. It’s not like that. It’s not a person. Skaia wasn’t the other me either, exactly. It was more… a way of thought that had been installed. Closer to an AI, although nothing as advanced as Hal of course. It doesn’t have a soul. It’s the same thing here.” She floats upward, and you bob along after her. “I can see what influences I left behind, but it’s chosen its own way to develop. It looks like painting water.” Before you have time to worry about the consequences, she dips her hand into the lights. The colors swirl around her fingers and form the suggestion of shapes. It looks like two people standing on a foreign landscape, but before you can make out the details the image breaks apart again.

           “Not as high def as the clouds,” you say.

           “It’s not fixed.” She pulls her hand out, and you almost expect her fingers to be streaked with color. Of course, they’re clean. “It *is* like paints – there’s the base materials, but you can make different pictures yourself.”

           “Possibilities.”

           Calliope sinks downward to stand on the gold brick walkway, and you settle next to her. “That’s what we fought for.”

           You squeeze her hand. “You did good."

           “You found this place with Aradia?” she asks.

           “Yup.”

           She nods, eyes tracking the swirls overhead. “Hmm.”

           “Hmm what?”

           Calliope shrugs. “Nothing!”

           “Bullshit. You said that hmm intentionally. But two can play at that game.” You turn your head. “I’m ignoring you.”

           “I am a chronicler, Roxy. I like to know what’s going on so I can take good notes.”

           “You mean you want to stick your nose into all our biz. Well, I’m not having it.”

           She keeps her expression professional. “Is there what you would refer to as “biz”?”

           Is there? You hadn’t thought about it. You guess… you don’t mind hanging out with her. Any day when she shows up asking if you want to check out a new planet is a good one. She’s got a nice laugh. But beyond that… You’ve had so many false starts it’s hard to distinguish between genuine attraction and your latest desperate crush. You’d committed to taking it easy for a while to “find yourself” or some shit instead of chasing after people just because you don’t want to be alone. How do you tell when that process is over? Does a little light go on; does the oven ‘ding’ and say Roxy’s ready? The problem with self-development is that there’s no progress bar, and no one hands you an achievement badge. You have to gauge those kinds of things on your own.

The pause has been dragging on too long. This calls for drastic action. “Oh no, the gravity on this planet is way too high,” you say, collapsing on her shoulder. “I can’t stand up.”

           Calliope is sturdy despite her slight frame. Your weight doesn’t make her stumble. “I’ll take this as a no comment, then.”

“Damn straight.” You slouch a little more for good measure and then stand up. “If there ends up being something solid to comment on, which at the moment there is not, you’ll get the scoop from me. But until then, no sensational tabloid journalism, ok ma’am? You have ethics to consider.”

“Cross my hearts,” she says solemnly.

           “Double the protection. I dig it.” You shake your head. Now that Calliope’s introduced the idea, you can’t seem to knock it loose. “Let’s get out of here before some chess people think we belong in jail.”

 TG: hey jane

TG: wut activities might u recommend for introducing an eligible alien bachelorette to the wide world of humanity

TG: i ask bc uve appointed urself seeing eye human 2 ur own space invader

TG: evn tho i swear she gets around better than most of us ffs

GG: Still sour about her getting the last cupcake? :B

TG: that cupcake had my name on it and u kno it

GG: You snooze, you lose!

GG: We watched your future torrent of Broadchurch last night.

TG: ok ur translation thing is totes adorbs but a

TG: thats not rly introducing her to the WORLD

TG: and b

TG: i dont need competition from david tennants face

GG: What about Jodie Whittaker?

TG: she was p hot as the 13th doctor ngl fashion choices aside but shes 2 woeful in that one 4 my tastes

GG: Wait, what??

TG: WHOOPS

TG: pretend i didnt say anything bc SPOILERS :X

GG: :/ GG: Just to make sure I’m not off base, we’re talking about Aradia here, right? TG: mayb GG: So you two are an item now? TG: no

TG: i mean TG: not rly

TG: weve been hanging out

TG: n then callie IMPLIED there might be something goin on and I thought welllll TG: u kno

TG: shes cute + fun + im super single

TG: so why not give it a shot rite

GG: Why not indeed.

GG: As for a grand tour of humanity, I don't know.

GG: What does she like?

TG: shes down 4 everything thats the problem

TG: if i set her loose shed probably come back having joined the circus

TG: or the mob

TG: anything fuckin goes

GG: You've been out beyond the solar system so much, I doubt there's anything that exciting to see here.

GG: Maybe you should just treat her to... a regular day out!

GG: Show her what you two have been missing gallivanting around in outer space.

TG: hm

TG: mayb

TG: btw when r u gonna make ur """"thing"""" official n stop wanderin around the perimeter tryin not 2 set the proximity lights off

GG: I don't know!

GG: When are you going to admit you're angling for tips on a date?!

TG: hey now

GG: How does that old rhyme go?

GG: Roxy and Aradia, sitting on the moon.

GG: K-I-S

TG: H-A-V-I-N-G personal + emotional conversations that r none of ur damn business n shouldnt b construed from

TG: u big buffoon <- rhyme scheme bitches

TG: but like

TG: in strict confidence

TG: comin from someone who walked u thru the BISIS and so deserves some fuckin respect here

TG: were u gettin vibes of any sort off her

TG: by any chance

GG: Roxy, she's spent maybe a month tops on the planet!

TG: uh huh

TG: and ur gettin vibes off ME bc im the desperate loser who tried to mack on john 2 seconds after meeting him

GG: I can't believe you've set your sights on every possible interpretation of my father figures.

TG: lol i do it JUST 2 annoy u

GG: And I wasn't going to say that! I just haven't seen the two of you interacting that much, is all.

GG: The problem before was that you felt lonely, right?

GG: That's what you told John, that you were looking for a relationship so there would be someone for you.

GG: Do you still feel lonely?

TG: nah

GG: I should hope not! We're bursting at the seams here.

GG: You spent all of yesterday holed up with Dirk and Jade working on those transportalizers.

TG: it wouldve gone faster if sollux had helped instead of complaining about how i beat him @ mario kart

TG: 'this game looks like it was programmed by a wiggler smearing its own droppings on its hiveblock walls' my ass i won fair and square

GG: Oh, is THAT why I saw him playing that game at 2 am this morning?

GG: Karkat was his competitor, but I don't think it was much of a contest.

TG: trainin 4 a rematch huh

TG: he can try

TG: earths champion will remain unquestioned

TG: damn tho 2 am is like peak wildlife sighting time in the living room

GG: They haven't quite shaken being nocturnal!

GG: Anyway if you're not feeling lonely, maybe this is authentic.

GG: Maybe you really do like her.

GG: You wouldn't be the first among us to seek out an extraterrestrial paramour!

TG: no i would not ;) ;)

TG: (wonking intensifies)

GG: Hush, you!

GG: How come we haven’t had to watch you go through one of these “bi crises”?

GG: If I recall, you spent most of your time singing the praises of the menfolk earlier in our adventure.

TG: the menfolk

TG: u did it jane u singlehandedly got rid of any attraction i had 2 them good job

TG: no no jk jk

TG: like

TG: idk

TG: part of it was i didnt want to weird u out

GG: Ah yes, dear sweet Jane who can’t handle the truth again.

TG: look u barely grasped the concept of bisexuality!!!

TG: i didnt want u treatin me weird ok???

GG: I would never have done that to you.

TG: not INTENTIONALLY

TG: but r u SURE u wouldn’t be like ‘w8 r u hittin on me then’ or some shit

GG: …

GG: Maybe. I could cram my foot in my mouth with the best of them sometimes.

GG: So it was all a ruse for my benefit?

TG: not entirely

TG:  u kno I was tryin so hard 2 b what the empress didn’t want me 2 b

TG: + part of that was embracing the conventional 21st century girl routine

TG: which is also unfortunately super het most of the time

TG: dunno y i was tryin 2 prove myself 2 an evil alien witch + loads of dead peeps but there u go

TG: let her wall me in2 a corner there unfortunately

TG: but evn if i wasnt as DIRECT about it

TG: i always knew

TG: ppl r hot janey

TG: loads of ppl r so hot n im not gonna discriminate there

GG: Aradia does have some charm.

GG: It can’t hurt to try it out.

GG: Have a day planetside! See the sights.

TG: mayb ur right

TG: doin something NORMAL might sort some shit out

TG: c if she actually likes hangin w/ me or is comin out just 2 b polite

GG: Good luck.

GG: And Roxy?

TG: ye

GG: I think anyone should be happy to hang with you. :)

TG: <3

           It’s hard to decide what to show as examples of “daily life” when it’s all strange to you too. In the end, you elect to wander. The two of you stroll downtown, drifting toward storefronts or flowerbeds whenever something catches your interest. It’s too bad malls died out. They’d be perfect for this kind of activity.

You're still not used to big crowds, but you breathe deep, straighten your spine, and remind yourself you're a god. Aradia, on the other hand, loves it. She strikes a pose mimicking a mannequin and exclaims over a set of tiny measuring cups. Watching her, something inside you unspools. You're not a god, or an outsider; you're just two girls checking out some stores. For all anyone knows, you’re on a shopping trip.

           “Hey,” you say, reaching for something familiar. “Want to stop by a makeup counter?”

             It’s different actually sitting down at one of these things instead of nabbing what looks good with your appearifier. You don’t know which sample to try out first. Luckily there’s a self-service option with a bunch of temporary applicators. You don’t want some sales person messing with your face. “Hey,” you say, grabbing a tube of lipstick. “I bet this would look great on you.”

           Aradia takes it, and her eyebrows rise. “Gold? That’s a high caste marker. If I wear cosmetics, I’m supposed to wear my colors. Or my moirail’s, if I had one.”

           “They regulated makeup? Truly a sign of a dystopia.” You pick through the available samples to see if you can find any of your favorites. “Normally I wouldn’t recommend gold with gray, but you’ve got warm enough undertones. Now Terezi? No way.”

She uncaps the lipstick and eyes it. "You're good at this."

"Learned by watching old Youtube tutorials and ganking samples from makeup counters in the past. Callie liked it too, so we bonded a lot. Of course I didn't know then she was covering up the whole skull alien thing. I just thought she was insecure. Who wouldn't be, with her jerkass bro calling her ugly all the time?"

She doesn't need to know all the details. Only Dirk and Calliope know everything, although you've kinda sorta mentioned it to Jake and Jane, not that you think they fully understood. You hadn’t aspired to Platonic girldom only to rub it in the Empress’s face. It's funny how applying the trappings of femininity from a dead civilization could still ease your dysphoria a little, even though it's not like a bunch of judges from Ladies Weekly were watching and nodding in approval. You're in a God Tier body now, every cell fresh baked and new. No clerk is going to steer you away from the women's section.

           “How does it look?” Aradia asks, jolting you out of your thoughts. She’s found some sort of glittery eyeshadow too and managed to get it on perfectly. It looks great on her.

           “You’re pretty,” you say out loud, and then regret it. You didn’t mean to sound surprised. It’s just that Aradia has always been Aradia. She hits you with her personality first, and that overpowers everything else.

She doesn’t get offended, but she sure gets even. “You’re prettier than I thought at first too.”

Your smile drops. “Gee, thanks.”

She frowns. “Did I say something wrong?”

“Not if that’s what you meant to say.”

“I try to say what I mean. It’s good to be honest.” Her gilded lips twist into the closest you’ve ever seen to a frown from her. “But sometimes people don’t seem to like it. You humans look so different. It took getting used to. I mean, your hair’s light, and you’re not even old. Once you get over that, though, it makes for a nice picture.”

“Do you wanna frame me?”

She hesitates. “Did I mess up again?”

“Nah, I’m messin with you. It’s ok if you’re blunt, god knows Jake’s noshing on his foot all the time and we still love him, toenail breath and all. Our gang could use a lil more plain speaking. Just go easy on my self esteems, ok?”

           “Ok…” She drops her latest applicator into the used cup and clears her throat. “Is there a mirror?”

           You find one for her, and she giggles at her reflection. “I look like I’m pretending to be an Heiress.”

           “Come on, your fishy highness,” you say. “Let’s check out the park.”

 A rack of city bikes for rent stands near the entrance to the park, and she rushes over. “Two wheeled transportation devices! I haven’t used one of these since I was a wiggler.”

           Jane’s been busy practicing to get her license, but John has coached you on a few wobbly laps around the neighborhood. How hard can it be? You’re a god, for fuck’s sake. “I’ve got some change. Want to try them out?”

           It takes a circuit of the park before you’re moving smoothly, but your confidence grows with every minute. Even if Aradia learned on another planet, she hasn’t forgotten. She careens past you, laughing maniacally, and you pedal faster to catch up. "Watch out for the curve!" you yell, but it's too late. She skids off into the grass, leans so hard to the left you think she's going to flip over, and then crashes into a pond, sending a flock of ducks flapping for safety.

She's God Tier just like you, but you still turn an ankle jumping off and running over. "Are you ok?"

She's still laughing, sitting down in the water with her knees green with pond slime and her hair hanging in dark tangles around her shoulders. The gold lipstick, against all odds, has hung on. Damn good product design. "That was GREAT."

"No rainbow sparklies, so I guess you got off easy."

"I've taken much harder knocks than this." She stands up, dripping muddy water. "I'd better rescue the bike, though."

You're both wheeling them back onto the path when you see the orange vests of park security. "Uh oh." Maybe you should stay and explain yourselves, but years of dodging drones has made you suspicious of law enforcement, and you don't want humans asking Aradia too many questions. Hell, you don't know if you could answer all that many. You're practically an alien temporally. If you woke up from a faint to someone asking you who the president was, you’d have no fuckin idea. "Want to run for it?"

Aradia doesn't answer, just drops her bike and sprints for the trees.

You follow, and you're both laughing hysterically between breaths. Aradia keeps gasping "They're after us" with the glee of a kid running into a toy store. The security officers don't bother following you - you see them stop to collect your bikes - but neither of you stop running until you collapse against a mossy boulder deeper into the woods. You press your hands against your thighs and catch your breath, while Aradia's giggles slowly die down.

"Now that was more like Alternia," she says. "They wouldn't cull us if they caught us here, would they?"

"What? No, no way." Is that why she'd run so fast? "They might check to see if we were drunk and kick us out. We don't kill people for existing here." Then again... John told you about being followed by the clerk the last time he went to a gas station for a soda. Rose holds Kanaya’s hand in public like a challenge. "It's not as obvious as the hemospectrum," you say at last. "It's not supposed to work that way. Sometimes it does, though." Is that better? At least Alternia was up front about listing off who got protection and who got killed. Here, they pretend things don't work that way, but kids end up dead all the same. "It's not paradise."

"Nowhere is."

You run your fingers over the boulder. Someone, sometime, has scratched their initials into it. "Maybe once I've lived here longer I'll want to keep looking for something better. But I guess it hasn't lost its shine yet. Like, maybe people suck, but you know what sucks more? Being one of the only people on the planet.”

           Her gaze snaps over to you. “Do you think that’s why I leave so often?”

You hadn’t meant it that way. Once she’s brought it up, though... she does bail pretty regularly. “I don’t know. Almost as soon as we got here you were zooming off to the past or the future or other planets. Did you get sick of us that quickly?”

           “No, not at all!” She tucks a waterlogged strand of hair behind her ear. “But there’s so much to see, even if I have all the time in the world. I got excited.”

           “You’d think you’d seen a lot already. You were bumping around in everyone’s memories, right?”

           “I guess so. But the dream bubbles aren’t real, exactly, and in SGRUB I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to appreciate the sights. Back on Alternia I was a peasant class. I had to be careful exploring because I might risk being attacked. Traveling isn’t safe for the lower castes. Now…” she spreads her arms. “I have a chance.”

           “I spent my whole life staring at the same bit of ocean. So I get wanting to see something else. But I’m worried if I leave for too long, they’ll keep making friends without me, and I won’t be able to catch up, you know?”

           It’s easy to feel that way when for so long your only presence in your friends’ lives was a flashing icon on a computer screen. If they didn’t want to talk they could click you away. In the session, you’d felt worthy of your Aspect, fading into the background while everyone spiraled around the Jake English event horizon. Being technically doomed makes it worse. You know they won’t turn you away, but you can’t help worrying the timeline will suddenly catch on and expel you, or you’ll come back from a trip to space and they’ll have forgotten you after all.

           “My friends and I have spent a long time together,” Aradia says, snapping you out of morbid daydreams. “Not those versions, exactly, but almost every other. Actually, it’s nice to spend time with someone new.”

           “I can see where you’re coming from. I mean, I don’t have five billion friend memories, but we’ve got baggage. Hells of baggage. Imagine one of those movie timeskips with all the spinning headlines.” Those exist, too. The Derse tabloids had started out writing nasty rumors about Jake and Jane, but they labeled you and Dirk traitors soon enough. “Drama, drama. But it’s not enough that I ever wanted to run away, or at least not for long.”

           “I’m not running away!”

           “I meant for me,” you say, although it sounds like you’ve touched a nerve.

           Aradia leans against the boulder and shifts away from you. "When I visit other places, I'm not passing judgment on your planet, or on you,” she says. “Maybe we just have different priorities."

           The comment sounds like a rebuke, and it stings. Why would you be a priority to this girl from outer space, anyway? You only met a few months ago. And yet… admit it or not, she’s becoming a priority to you.

           Chalk one more up to the not interested column, you think. Out loud, you say, “Wanna get home? The security people might remember to do their jobs and track us down.”

           “Ok.” Aradia looks back at you and smiles, but in your eyes at least, it looks forced. “Thanks for showing me around. It was nice.”

           “Anytime,” you say. What you don’t say is, if you stay.

 -- tipsyGnostalgic [TG] started pestering tentacleTherapist [TT] --

TG: hey mom lil help here

TT: I'm the mother today?

TG: yup bc i need guidance

TT: Ok, let me put on my required string of pearls.

TT: Mental, emotional, or spiritual?

TG: do i gotta pick

TT: Generic guidance it is.

TG: hows dating an alien goin

TT: Swimmingly.

TT: I've leveled up to being able to unironically express affection without my face heating to the boiling point.

TT: It's my part to slow global climate change.

TG: im proud of u

TT: Thank you.

TG: so i was wonderin if the 2 of u evr have misunderstandings

TG: u kno communication probs that come from like

TG: CULTURAL HIJINKS

TT: Ceaselessly.

TT: At least the two of us didn't have to work through the "murder as a competitive sport" cognitive dissonance.

TT: To put it in her words, Kanaya is "The Weak Bitch Who Is Only Down With Murder When Absolutely Necessary And Even Then I Prefer Not To Get My Clothes Dirty"

TG: of all of us arent u the bitch most down with murder

TG: evn if technically jade n jane got u beat

TT: I may in fact be that bitch.

TT: Or I'm all talk. Hard to say.

TG: yeah i think janes had 2 have the whole murder as a cultural value talk but i was thinkin more like

TG: idk

TG: priorities

TG: r they not super social

TG: do they not grasp the concept of TALKING or HAVING FUN

TT: Allegedly trolls are not a social race.

TT: There tends to be a lot of infighting. There used to be twelve of them, remember?

TG: ye we hung out w/ their corpses

TT: It can make them struggle with interaction.

TT: Something we of course excel at.

TG: totes

TT: Kanaya was worried making me talk about my feelings would push us in the wrong quadrant.

TT: Part of that was her personal history, though. It’s complicated.

TT: We all have our neuroses.

TG: ok ok now sidenote TG: this isnt rly important xcept for like TG: my personal self esteems

TG: did kanaya evr think u looked weird

TG: u kno since ur not a troll

TT: Hang on, let me text her.

TT: She says, "You Looked Strange At First But I Got Used To It".

TG: harsh

TT: The betrayal.

TT: The heartbreak.

TT: Etc.

TT: Does that answer your question?

TG: i guess????

TG: idk aradia was kinda super blunt but im not sure she meant it that way???

TG: she seemed surprised i got touchy about it so i guess i was overreactin

TT: You realize they have different personalities too, right?

TT: Although bluntness does seem to be common.

TG: shouldnt xpect were poster hotties for another species

TG: maybe alternia didnt have a devoted cadre of monsterfuckers just waitin 4 their chance

TT: Their depravity knows some bounds.

TT: Also,

TT: Dave says if you shack up with an alien he's disowning you.

TG: tu or tg

TT: Which do you think?

TG: ily kiddo but maybe well gang up on u and disown U instead

TG: how do u like them apples

TT: i hate this family

TG: b a good son and give rose her keyboard back

TT: I'm on my phone, actually.

TG: what is he evn doing there

TT: The five of us are playing Scrabble.

TT: John just deployed the Q on a triple letter score. Things are getting heated.

TG: and uve got me on speaker

TT: No, I think he caught a glimpse of my screen while trying to spy on which letters I have.

TT: I'm not actually spelling out your personal business on the board.

TT: Jade wants to know if you had fun on your date, by the way.

TG: for FUCKS sake

TT: This household keeps no secrets.

TG: it was FINE EVERYTHINGS FINE TG: weifjsdlk

TG: heres a bunch of letters for ur scrabble game im out

Not long after your "date", Aradia fucks off into nowhere again. You've been spending a lot of time out in space yourself, so you try to distract yourself by hanging out with everyone else. Can't afford to miss out on whatever in-jokes have sprung up lately. There's nothing worse than being left out of the latest household meme.

It goes alright. Jade's been teaching you to read music. Calliope wants help brainstorming her Halloween costume. Davesprite trashes Alternians for your benefit until you tell him to knock it off. But when you find yourself at loose ends, you get testy. Being alone isn't a value marker. You know that. At least, you hope you do. But it's oh so easy to feel like it's a judgment made by everybody else.

           You’re not sure why you’re sulking so much. You’ve been rejected before. Of course, John was a crush born of one shared, terrible experience, and he’s a good friend now. Deep down you’d always known Dirk was off limits. Maybe it hurts this time because you thought you might have a chance, that someone might actually like you, and then they left the whole planet to get away. Serves you right for hoping.

-- tipsyGnostalgic [TG] started pestering timaeusTestified [TT] --

TG: hey wanna hang out

TT: I'd love to, but I'm on dinner duty tonight.

TT: I've got like twenty recipe websites open now, and I think my internal monologue has been replaced by a middle aged white woman who's losing interest in her marriage.

TT: Then I have to get Jane to drive me to the store before she coaches me through things like boiling water.

TT: Didn't you remember? You're usually first in line to watch me humiliate myself in the kitchen.

TG: idk

TG: guess i thought maybe SOMEONE in this house of like TWENTY FUCKIN PEOPLE might be free 2 spend time w/ me

TT: Uh.

TT: Wait, seriously, is everyone else gone?

TG: i dunno

TG: feels like it

TG: or mayb im just used 2 getting ditched lately

TG: like the last stick of gum in the package chucked out the car window n oozing pink goo all over in the gutter

TT: This Aradia thing has really gotten to you, huh?

TG: no its fine im over it

TG: i dont know how srs i even was it was prolly another of my stupid infatuations bc some1 looked at me

TG: and shes not interested so wutevr

TG: im just bored

TT: Trust me, I don’t prioritize you over this fucking recipe odyssey.

TT: However, I also would rather not get eaten alive by a bunch of people asking where their dinner is.

TT: I’m minimizing the tab, though. You’ve got my full attention.

TT: Do you want me to come upstairs?

TG: no not if its gonna be some psychoanalysis session

TG: thats the LAST thing i want

TT: I haven’t been treating you like that, have I?

TG: no!!

TG: its not ur fault its just TG: shed rather be zippin around in space than here with us n when i brought it up she basically said i wasnt a priority 2 her

TT: Just like that?

TG: i mean

TG: MORE OR LESS

TT: Lest I talk about myself, this sounds a little like the problem I had with Jake.

TG: which 1

TT: Jesus.

TT: When he started getting distant, I assumed it was something I'd done.

TT: And then I overreacted by clinging tighter like a shellshocked ball python, because I was terrified of him slipping away.

TT: If I'd asked him why he was backing off, and he'd told me he needed some space, maybe we could've skipped some of the resulting interpersonal bloodbath.

TG: whoa whoa slow down

TG: r u

TG: dirk MOTHERfuckin strider

TG: tryin 2 give me relationship advice

TT: It's not from me.

TT: I'm paraphrasing a demiurge who looked down upon me from his golden snake-throne and in the hissing language of Heart itself said,

TT: "Talk to your ex, you piece of shit."

TG: lmao is that rly what he said

TT: There was more poetry involved.

TG: quote it to me xactly i wanna hear this

TT: I didn't write it down.

TT: The exact words were lost in the overall sentiment of the moment.

TG: which was pants shitting terror

TT: Actually by that point I was more annoyed that one more fucking game construct was passing judgment on my life choices.

TG: 2 pissed 2 b afraid

TG: ur natural defense mechanism

TT: Whatever works.

TT: He was right, though.

TT: We weren't holding hands and prancing through a field of daisies after talking it out, but it did make things better.

TG: i mean

TG: u were KINDA holdin hands

TG: if only 2 not die

TT: I don't think that counts.

TG: the fact remains

TG: so ur sayin

TG: i should ask her y shes avoidin me + the planet earth

TG: evn tho last time i broached the subject she flipped out

TT: Yeah, maybe.

TT: If it’s important to you to try to see if this thing can work.

TG: and if she says 'its specifically 2 avoid u' what then

TT: I don't think that's likely.

TT: But if she does, then it's her fucking loss.

TT: You're amazing, Roxy.

TT: Anyone would be lucky to have you.

TG: aw shucks

TT: I'm serious.

TT: Remember when we had the whole group bonding thing in the heart of a self-destructing planet?

TT: It kind of rubbed off on me, I think I've learned how to be motivational.

TG: the old dirk wouldve built a 'how 2 date' robot and unleashed it rite

TT: And then the robot would steal your girl, and I would be in the shit again.

TT: I've learned my lesson.

TG: thx

TG: ill give it a try 4 u ok

TG: and if u want my input i vote pick the recipe w/ the cutest baby pictures in the anecdote

           You must draft a hundred opening lines. Maybe you even would have sent one of them eventually, but Aradia beats you to it, showing up on the front porch one day without bothering to tell anyone she was coming home. You’re alone in the living room watching My Cat From Hell, so you’re the first one to see her.

           “Hi Roxy!” she says, and you nearly throw the remote across the room.

           “Oh. Hey.” You fumble with the buttons until you find mute. This isn’t what you planned for. You’d kinda assumed when you worked up the guts to talk to her it’d be through chat. Face to face is more vulnerable. She’ll be able to see what your expression does instead of what you choose to reveal with carefully selected typography. You can’t even DO a :/ in real life that easily.

           “Did I miss anything?” She takes off her goofy Indiana Jones hat and tosses it discus-style onto an armchair.

           “Nothing much.” You’d come up with something witty but, uh, comeback machine broke. Now there’s a meme you can’t use without getting blank stares.

           She nods. “I found another new world with the game. Want to check it out?”

           She’s acting like nothing’s changed. That rankles you. “If you found it already, you don’t need me.”

           “I don’t need you, but it’s not as fun on my own. I thought you might like to come.”

           You point toward the armchair. “You put your hat down. You’re not going to stay at all? In and out, just like that?”

           “Are you upset?”

“No. I… You still… want to hang out?”

           “Why wouldn’t I?” Her wings flutter. That’s a tic you’ve noticed with DS – he tucks and untucks them when he’s nervous, an adaptation of Dave interlacing his fingers. Is she on edge?

           “Well, you kinda bailed. And we’d just…” Argued? Split? “I thought it might be my fault.”

           “Of course not.” Her wings are really jittery now. A lock of hair is blown forward, and she reaches up to tuck it back. “It gets a little much down here sometimes.”

           “Guess a crash course in human life was too much for any of us.”

           “It was kind of overwhelming.” She smiles. “But it was fun too. I’d like to do it again sometime.”

           Wait, what? “Like, in general, or you mean with me?”

           “You did an excellent job as tour guide last time. I’m sure you can find more to show me.”

           Is she flirting? She delivers every line so on the level it’s impossible to tell. “Uh, well, name the date,” you say. “There’s a whole damn world and I haven’t seen most of it either.”

           “I’ll be in touch.” Her wings finally settle and fade into nothing. “Now I’d better see whether Sollux has converted my room into a file cabinet again.”

           It’s only once she’s gone that you realize you didn’t do any of the things Dirk suggested. You still don’t know why she keeps leaving. You told her you weren’t upset. Sheesh. Maybe you need to visit Nix again so your own personal snake goddess can tell you how much you suck.

           Time passes. You’ve learned to recognize the first few bars of Never Gonna Give You Up on a treble staff. Jane snags her license. Calliope’s Halloween costume is a hit. You don’t know what you and Aradia are. She still comes and goes without warning. When she’s around, you’ve taken her a few places – to an arcade, to the zoo. The outings are fun, but you’ve never even taken her hand for anything but transportation purposes. What’s the point of getting close to someone who might not be there tomorrow? The last time, she’d said, “I had fun!” and you’d said, “Yeah, me too” and shoved your hands into your pockets. She’d looked almost disappointed, but what was she expecting? Sollux has been giving you dirty looks. You give him dirtier ones right back. If he thinks you’re toying with his bffsy’s heart, he can take it up with her.

December 21 is drawing near. Some crackpots with a big following insist the Mayan's calendar ends here and, rather than considering it might work like the modern kind, have assumed the world is ending. You don't remember which of you suggested an apocalypse survivors party as a joke, but it caught on, and at some point as the concept snowballed it gained sincerity. It's 2012. The world already ended, although only you and a few friends know. The world was gone, and it came back, and you're still here. You're all still here.

Plus, it gets rid of the problem of picking which cultural holiday to celebrate all together.

           You stay close to home to help with preparations, and Aradia sets a personal record staying put for over two weeks straight. John insists on showing the trolls every holiday movie he can get his hands on for cultural immersion, and you and Jake now have to put up with choruses of “You’ll shoot your eye out”. Rose and Dave are having a truly horrendous ugly sweater competition. The 21st rolls around, and while a bunch of tinfoil hat enthusiasts are expecting the world go up in flames, you party. Jade has strewn greenery yanked from the woods everywhere. Kanaya found some ornate candlesticks at a thrift shop that elevate the table’s style, even if a few people have already almost set their sleeves on fire. Karkat gets weepy giving an impromptu speech, and you all cheer to cover your own watery eyes. You made it. You really did.

           Calliope breaks the tension by unveiling an actual physical scrapbook she’s been putting together out of pictures copied from phones and snapped in secret. There are green cherub thumbs in a few corners, but that adds to their charm. The group spends a few minutes flipping through the pages documenting the last eight months. There’s Jake posing on one of the statues in the museum’s sculpture garden (directly before near-apprehension by museum security). There’s Dirk and Dave in their matching fake college hoodies, which spurred a flurry of copycat orders. There’s Jane sweating bullets behind the wheel for the first time while her dad gives her an encouraging fatherly thumbs up. It’s your lives for the past nine months, flat on paper with decorative paper framing. After your first sixteen years, it’s amazing that a life can be so full.

 Most people clear out of the dining room after that, although at some point Jade will strongarm people into tag teaming the dishes. Jake is trying to convince John that Pacific Rim is the perfect film for the season, even if it won't officially come out for another year. Davesprite keeps ambushing people with a camera.

You pick up your glass (sparkling cider, of course; you cleared the local grocery store out of their selection) and slip outside. The bright lights from inside stream out into the shadowy backyard. You tilt the glass and let the last few carbonated drops trickle into the dead grass. "Happy apocalypse day," you mutter.

"Same to you."

You jump, and the glass tinkles to the ground. "Shit, you scared me."

Aradia's smile fades. She's leaning up against the side of the house, her dark hair merging into the shadows. "I thought you knew I was here. Who were you talking to?"

You shrug and bend down to pick up the glass. There's a chip in the rim. "It's stupid."

"Doubt it."

"It is."

"Dare you to tell me."

"I was talking to the other Roxy. Dead Roxy." You look up at the sky with its strange new stars. "She'd hate to miss a party like this."

Aradia walks over to join you in contemplation of the heavens. This close, her body heat chases off the chill. "I like to think the dead go somewhere happy. It makes up for some of the unhappiness here."

"Are you unhappy?"

"No, I can't complain."

You try to remember when she slipped out here. After dinner? She'd had a ball with the party blowers and hit Sollux a few times on the nose. "Why are you out here?"

"I was thinking about leaving. I've been here for a few weeks."

"But it's holiday season!"

"There's so much left to see. Lots and lots of planets, and the past and future of all of them. They're waiting for me."

"Let them wait."

Aradia folds her arms over her chest. It’s cold out – the warmth from the party is leaching off your skin. With her body temperature, does she feel it?

"Why do you keep running away?" you ask. “You said you like to tell the truth. And I want to understand. See, Jake was always running away, because we were putting so much pressure on him and he didn’t know how to deal. That didn’t mean he didn’t want to hang with us, he was just getting the social version of a DDOS attack. So if it’s really because you like it better out there than down here, I can live with that. I’ll stop bothering you. But if it’s something I can change… I’d like to help. I’d like to see you stay.”

Aradia sighs. Her breath streams out in a puff of white. "No one told me to guide the dead,” she says. “It's something I decided to do, and I was good at it. The furthest ring is strange at first, but heroes of our Aspects master it quickly. I mastered my friends too. I knew exactly what they need and what to say to them. I don't anymore.” She glances behind you, where silhouettes move behind the sliding glass door. “This... all this, even them, it's new. I'm not sure I'm good at it."

Living together means sometimes you overhear conversations you shouldn’t. A month or so ago, one of your pictures toppled off the windowsill, and you’d gone rooting around behind the bushes looking for it when you heard Aradia and Terezi walking by. Terezi snapped, “I didn’t ask to be part of another of your handholding therapy sessions.”

           You sunk deeper into the bushes and cloaked yourself in void. This sounded like a bad time for Terezi to sniff you out. “I thought it might help,” Aradia replied.

           “I don’t need help. I know all that stuff about guilt and responsibility. I just need to be sad for a while. Remember sad? You used to brood all the time in our session when you weren’t breaking things as destruction therapy.” Shit, this was definitely something you shouldn’t be overhearing.

           “I’m sorry.” Aradia’s tone stayed level. “Other versions of you were happy to hear what I had to say.”

           “I bet they were.” Terezi groaned, and you could imagine her pressing her fingers to her forehead. “I know you want to be nice. After the last few sweeps it’s sweet someone does. I was in a bad place, and I would have appreciated this then, but now I need a chance to get over it on my own. We’re not the dreamers you spent so much time with. The same solutions won’t work with us. I appreciate it, but it’s frustrating when you’re treating me like a machine that you can punch the right combination of platitudes into and a happy ending will pop out.” She’d paused, and when Aradia stayed silent, said, “That sounded mean, didn’t it? I’m not very good at being nice. I’m sure you picked that up.”

           “You’ve given me things to think about,” Aradia said. She didn’t sound angry. She never has.

           “Yeah, and I’ll think about what you’ve said too, but mostly I need time. The kind even you heroes can’t give me.”

           “If I can ever help –”

           Terezi nodded. “I know where to find you. Well, sometimes.”

           After she went inside, Aradia stayed in the backyard long enough for your back to ache. Then she spread her wings and took off. You didn’t see her again for weeks.

 Is that what this is about? Is that why she keeps leaving? Because she doesn’t know how to act, and she’s afraid of messing up? You think back to the few times you’d made it clear she’d hit a wrong note, the way she’d tensed up and got uncertain. Can you forget what it’s like to live in realtime, without cheatcodes at the ready and the ability to reverse and try again? It’s kind of like when John had taken the training wheels off your bike, and you’d crashed more trying to be extra careful. What you have to do is go faster to keep your balance.

"I'm not good at any of this either,” you say. “I spent the first few weeks of our victory lap getting the shakes from booze withdrawal again. I get nightmares most nights - not deep meaningful coherent shit, I don’t even remember most of it, but I wake up freaked out. My kids are here and they're people who are messed up too and I want to help them but god, I'm not a therapist, I can't even help myself. And who the FUCK knows how a checkbook works." You flick the rim of the glass and it chimes. "It's been months and I still kinda want a drink."

"I've never met another you," she says. "I don't know what to say."

"None of us have done this before. We're all... fucking up for the first time. Out there you were like... replaying the same levels of a game over and over because you knew all the tricks, but sometime you have to move on and click a dialog option without knowing what it'll do. Sure, sometimes you'll make a mortal enemy or fail a quest, but sometimes you won't." You scuff your foot over the damp patch in the dirt that's all that's left of your libation. "We can't keep thinking about dead people all the time. And tracking down the game… it’s important, but this here matters too.” This is turning out cheesier than the party platter you ordered for tonight’s party, but it’s too late to back down now. “You… matter to me. Maybe I don’t know you that well, or know what makes you happy in a million universes or tidbits like that, but I’d like to. I’d like you to stay. The dead are dead, and the future’s coming. No one can stop it. But the present’s here. And it’s the holidays. That’s the best time for presents.”

That gets you a little smile. “Time puns are my weakness.”

“I’ve got an endless supply of dumb jokes, I promise.” You reach out and put a hand on her shoulder. Shit, she’s warm. “We have forever, but we’re only gonna be sixteen once. Do you want to spend all of it in outer space missing dead people?”

" I'm done with dying," she says.

"Wanna give living a try?"

Both of you are hit with a bright flash of light that leaves you jerking away and blinking stars out of your vision.

"Hope that turns out," Davesprite says. "I alchemized a fuckin nova flash. I call it the retinablaster 5000 and it's a leading cause in early onset vision loss."

"Don't make me sorry I birthed you," you say, rubbing your eyes. You hadn’t even heard the sliding door open. As a professional sneak, you’re falling down on the job. Rogues shouldn’t get taken by surprise.

"You didn't. John birthed us all out of slime and I bet he regrets it every single day of his life. Jake won the arm wrestling contest and Terezi says using Hope powers isn’t cheating because of course she favors being underhanded, so he’s putting in your future-pirated movie. We’re saving you seats, unless you guys want to stay out here freezing your asses off."

“We were having a moment,” you say, with as much haughtiness as you can muster.

“Oh, one of those. Well, we’re not holding off on pressing play, so finish it up.” He slides the glass door closed, and the noise from inside dies down. The lights from the kitchen still spill out onto the dead grass, painting it gold. It’s the kind of little detail Aradia likes. She looks at it quietly.

“You can’t miss Pacific Rim,” you say. “It’s a must-see.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, it’s about friendship and science and cancelling the apocalypse, which are all part of the reason for the season. Plus there’s robots with sickass swords, and what else do you need from a feature film?”

“Someone to watch it with.”

“That helps,” you agree, and hold out your hand. “Come in and stay a while?”

She grabs it, and her warmth chases the winter chill away. "I think I will."

[mummified-game-review]

Fugue In Void: A Review

You just have those moments when you're in a store and are bombarded by people working there, constantly asking if you need help with anything, and you have to say over and over, No , I'm fine, thank you.

Then eventually when you do need help or have questions, then there is no one around.

Yeah that's what this feeling is.

Welcome to another Video game review, My name is Tony and today we are stretching the meaning of video games. Because today's game is more of an artistic experience. Today we are going to be looking at Fuge In Void.

This game isn't so much a game as it is a walkthrough experience where you walk through this series of buildings and rooms.

There are no enemies, no pickups, no on screen hud, and nothing in english.

This game is 100% walk around these maps and make your way from room to room falling down a pit, stepping on a switch, or looking at something interesting.

It's almost impossible to put into words what goes on in this game. Like what the meaning of it is. But I'm going to try.

So from the start there is a subway car that you hear driving by and the title of the game comes up and fades away. Okay no start menu that's fine. We’re jumping right into it. Lots of games do this on the first run though.

The game starts with this weird light thing coming towards the screen. And you’d be forgiven if you thought that this thing SLOWLY approaching the screen was something that you are meant to approach with some sense of control. Well no it's just moving SO INCREDIBLY SLOW that you’ll just have to wait for it.

Okay fine.

There are a lot of abstract things that come up and all of them can not be manipulated at all or move in the slightest. So you are stuck for the first 6 to 8 minutes of this game just watching weird things sort of happen.

Move down a tube that looks like warpspace.

Actual warpspace lights move.

Then a weird cascading square from a single point that then you fly into. Okay it's weird I've moved past the idea that this game will make any sense with its images.

So one thing's rolls after the next and suddenly you are shown this large body of water with rolling waves and something under the surface.

That something rushes to the surface and it's a long never ending bridge.

Cool. It's got a great black and white theme to it. Neato.

Then finally the camera shows a first person look down the length of this bridge. Into the nothing black of the sea all around the camera.

Wait, camera? Yes, now it's finally time for you to control something in this game.

Fun. So it's not a white bridge but a concrete bridge that when you look at the bloom falls away and you are able to see the poured stone. And it's just an effect that the world is doing to stimulate your eye dilation.

Sort of like if you're in a dark room you can see everything but if you stare at a bright light then everything around the light darkens a bit.

So you slowly walk down the length of the bridge from a dead end towards nothing. But eventually I start to see a long building in the distance appear.

Am I dead? I'm dead aren't I.

Lots of falling imagery and then a rough sea with a bridge all white? Yeah I'm going to put money down that I'm dead.

Its slowly becoming “if the directors of What Dreams May Come, were inspired by Dune, and wanted to make a walking simulator, with a Horror Void soundtrack”

Anyway, so you walk towards this purgatory castle and there's still nothing to see. Just a lot of concrete floors, walls and roof.

Up and around the corner you find a hole with large balck pipes moving down.

Alright I guess up your nose with a rubber hose. You jump down and it takes you to another room that's nothing but grey concrete rooms and some back pipes.

This is sort of the crux of the whole game. There's a lot of interesting construction and areas to look at but there's nothing really to do in the game. Just a lot of rooms with a switch. Nothing hidden. It's not like you’re going to discover anything weird or unlock a secret hidden ending.

I mean maybe there is one but with no save feature there is no way i'm going to walk all the way though the game just to get back to the temple with all the sand and try all the different buttons. Just before the big door. So maybe there is something different there.

The whole game feels like one of those things where someone who was good at making Void soundtracks wanted to make a game and they did.

The music in this game is Spooky adjacent. Like there could be something spooky happening tomorrow but not today.

It's the lack of anything actually scary showing up right now. That makes you feel like maybe the spooky thing comes out later. Things aren't ready to be spooky, you can hang out and chill here but the spooky delivery says it's in transit and will be delivered by end of day tomorrow.

Lots of what might be whispers around the corner. But nothing that actually sounds like voices either.

Sounds of things moving through pipes. But nothing moves.

Dark corners are more made to make a feeling of unease or show off interesting ideas, rather than hide anything.

The game does a lot of interesting things with this lighting stuff.

There is one room that you’ll come across where two bright lights are going back and forth alternating between them being either on or off.

In this room there are a ton of empty cubes that don't bounce light or anything they just are only illuminated on one side by one active light at a time.

Giving this weird effect of them being invisible when the other light is on.

Very interesting idea.

So the game goes on and on for about 45 to 50 minutes depending if you're like me and you want to look at every nook and crevice.

Showing off some interesting ideas and concepts. I liked the freeway in the sand with the altar under the sun. That was a fun level. Cool visuals.

But sadly there's nothing that the game tells you is true about what you're seeing. So there are things to see and experience but the meaning of what they are is all up to you.

That is until it gets to the “end” of the game. Then it says something and it's like an understanding of what it all meant. But also an unfulfilling cap to what the game was all about. And what you the character were doing this whole time.

But Who am I to say that? What one person might think about this game might be different than others. I thought it was a purgatory thing but turns out I was wrong and it was something else.

I Don't know, maybe it's something I missed and something deeper was happening. Maybe it was something to do with the bricks in the room at the end.

I like how the end ties things together sort of.

But there's nothing to say about the meaning of it either.

So that's about all I can say about this game. It's a good walking experience. If you are looking to play this then Its Name Your Own Price on itch right now so you can just click the link in the description and go experience it for yourself.

Despite not being able to say much in the way of critically examining the game it's still an interesting experience. Of light and darkness. And how we navigate through it. Go check it out.

If you did play this game. Did you jump down any of the holes in the 9 hole room with the spinning purple rings. I walked all around that room and eventually the game faded out the screen and put me in another room.

If you didn't play this game are there any other walking simulator games like this in the Racial justice bundle. Games that are quiet and empty. Anything that is meant almost more for meditation than to actually be play’d. Let me know in the comments.

In the meantime, did you know that Concrete can not exist outside an atmosphere. From what I've been told, if there was no air around the earth. All the concrete buildings would turn to dust. Crazy.

You all do the youtube dance, Like, Sub, Bell, Comment, tell someone you know about these videos.

And as always friends. Keep Digging, and we’ll make it out sometime.

See you in the next one.

[shannaraisles]

Set In Darkness

Chapter: 56 Author name: ShannaraIsles Rating: M Warnings: None Summary: She’s a Modern Girl in Thedas, but it isn’t what she wanted. There’s a scary dose of reality as soon as she arrives. It isn’t her story. People get hurt here; people die here, and there’s no option to reload if you make a bad decision. So what’s stopping her from plunging head first into the Void at the drop of a hat?

Twinkle Toes

"Gentlemen outside, ladies inside ..."

The delicate strains of the lute underscored Josephine's gentle reminder of where they were supposed to be at this point in the dance. Palm to palm with Dorian as they circled in time to the music, Rory found herself once again sending mild disapproval through the ether to Cullen, who had somehow managed to avoid taking part in these interminable lessons on etiquette and courtly behavior. This little group certainly made for an interesting learning experience.

"Still don't see the point," Sera was complaining on the other side of the room, snickering as her partner - Leliana - corrected her direction with just a touch to her shoulder. "Anyone asks me to dance, I'll kick 'em."

"No, you will not." Vivienne sighed wearily. "You will politely decline. Bull, darling, you're squeezing again."

"Sorry, ma'am," the big Qunari agent apologized, concentrating on loosening his grip on the First Enchanter's fingers.

"Please remember not to close the distance between yourself and your partner when you spin," Josephine called. The ambassador had taken on the task of teaching Kaaras to dance, and despite all initial fears, he was proving to be surprisingly good at it.

"So just how big is this going to be in two weeks' time?" Dorian asked as Rory spun tentatively out under his arm and back in to lay her hand on his shoulder and fall into the waltzing part. He gestured to the bump at her middle.

It was definitely a bump now, more difficult to hide despite its relative smallness. Her pants no longer fitted, her dresses were starting to feel snug, and Cullen had had to cut new holes in the leather of her belt after a particularly petulant outburst when she could no longer fasten the thing comfortably about herself. Thankfully, however, it was still small enough to disappear in the flouncing layers of skirt Francoise was gleefully putting the finishing touches to.

"Not too much bigger than this, I hope," Rory answered Dorian's query with a half-shrug. "Otherwise even with the dress I'm going to have to be careful not to get too close to people."

He looked down at the smooth bulge, with its unmistakable shape, gently intruding on the space between them. "I am still mildly astonished that there's a baby in there," he admitted quietly. It had been a while since he'd had to correct her when it came to dancing - while everyone else was concentrating, the two of them had managed to hold some interesting conversations. "I daresay it won't be real until the brat starts to kick."

"You're so complimentary." Rory chuckled, shaking her head gently. "If you ever say the word "fat", I will kick you."

"I will deserve it, if I do," Dorian assured her with a smile behind his mustache. "Not that I would, I am the soul of civility."

But protest as he might, the altus was fascinated by her pregnancy. She hadn't thought he'd be all that interested, really, but it was Dorian who had noticed she winced whenever wine was offered to her and had taken steps to make sure it didn't happen again; Dorian, who had gently suggested that perhaps she should start wearing the dresses rather than squeeze into her pants; Dorian, who was reading textbooks on midwifery and child-rearing in his spare time. He didn't seem entirely sold on the idea of ever actually interacting with the baby, but he was certainly invested in making sure the pregnancy was a successful one.

Given the way things had been left with his father in Redcliffe, it was doubly surprising that he would care quite so much about friends who must, in some way, remind him of the "perfect" son Halward had wanted instead of him. But Rory appreciated the way he went about it, that understated way of just doing things that needed to be done, saying the right things to Cullen when he was in a state, absently pulsing heat into her when they met in chilled corridors. Dorian was becoming possibly her best friend here, and she really wasn't sure how to tell him that. Especially since, in the games, he only ever admitted to being friends with the Inquisitor.

"I do hope you two are speaking Orlesian," Vivienne called as they whirled past the ridiculous sight of her still trying to teach Bull that he wasn't allowed to just pick her up and swing her around the floor, no matter how much easier it was.

"Comment ne pouvons-nous pas avec vous écouter chaque mot?" Dorian answered her in flawless Orlesian, sending Rory into giggles that were echoed by Sera on the other side of the room.

"I am not listening to every word you say," the First Enchanter objected, but there really was very little she could do about it - the altus had already managed to whirl his dance partner to the other end of the carefully cleared floor.

"You know, I'm getting the distinct impression that they don't believe I'm more than capable of holding a conversation in Orlesian by this point," Rory drawled, hesitating for just a moment as the music changed.

Only for a moment - the pressure of Dorian's hand on her side changed subtly, and she remembered what came next with that gentle guidance. It was a shame she wouldn't be able to dance every dance with him, really; once she was with another partner, there was every chance she was going to forget how this went entirely.

"You are going to be a spy for the evening," the altus pointed out in amusement. "As well as furthering your own career, no doubt."

She giggled, falling into the promenade with him easily. "My career is the last thing on my mind when it comes to walking into that snake pit, Dorian."

"My dear girl, one of the Masters of the Guild has invited you as his guest," he reminded her with a low chuckle. "You may be a Mistress of the Guild before the night is through!"

"You sound more excited about that than Granthis does," she protested, glad to see him relaxing once again. "Evy's the one who should be joining the Guild; she's got more talent for healing than I ever did."

"Ah, but sadly the captain and his wife will be returning to Skyhold only a day after we leave for the in-bred glories of Halamshiral," Dorian pointed out in amusement. "You will simply have to ... what was that charming phrase you used the other day? Ah, yes. Suck it up."

Over the sound of Rory's uncontrollable piggy-snort of laughter, Josephine called out, "Turn and bow, the dance is over."

"I should never have told you what that phrase meant," Rory giggled as she curtsied to Dorian, rolling her eyes at the look of pure mischief on his face.

"But you make such adorable noises when I use it," he protested innocently, accepting the gentle slap she gave to his midriff without comment. "Truly! That sweet little snort is the brightest light of my day!"

"If you make me do that at the Winter Palace, I may have to spike your wine with something that'll make you see dancing fairies," she threatened, though they both knew she'd never do it.

It was a strange sort of friendship they had, but it was friendship, and one she treasured. If there was anyone she felt she might be able to tell about her not-very-Thedosian background, it was Dorian, but it felt cruel to lay that burden on his shoulders. He didn't deserve to hear all about how weird everything here was to someone who had grown up with electricity and indoor plumbing. But she also knew that if she ever did let anything slip to him, he wouldn't immediately assume she was dangerous. Dorian, of all people, knew that what was presented was never the whole story.

"Very good," Josephine was saying, looking over the four of them who were supposed to be learning how to dance. "Sera ... perhaps you should only dance with members of the Inquisition."

Sera rolled her eyes, making a slightly rude noise. "I'm not dancin'," she informed Josephine easily.

The ambassador restrained her sigh, and didn't bother to argue. Sera was problematic, but she had insisted on being at the Winter Palace along with everyone else, so all Josephine could do was lay a thin veneer of etiquette over the Red Jenny's habitual attitude and hope for the best. She looked much happier with the progress of Bull, Kaaras, and Rory, though.

"The same time again tomorrow, please," she told them. "We will be starting on the quadrille, which is the last of the official court dances you will have to learn. Rory ... please wear the shoes."

Rory just about managed to hide her wince. "Yes, Josie," she agreed in a resigned voice.

She hated the shoes. Oh, they were beautiful. Leliana had gone all the way to Val Royeaux to commission them herself, and had returned with the materials and the cobbler to make certain they fitted to perfection. The only problem was the heels. Rory had never really worn heels on Earth, and here on Thedas, she was more than comfortable in her flat boots. Learning to walk and dance in shoes that had a two inch heel, however comfortable they were, was not a fun experience.

"I do solemnly swear not to let you fall over unless I am underneath you," Dorian murmured to her, earning himself another soft piggy-snort that made her cringe.

"Okay, you are officially bad for my composure," she informed her friend fondly. "I have to get back to the infirmary. Merrill was threatening to drop in, and Gustav has no idea how to handle unfettered enthusiasm."

"Back to the grind, I see," he agreed, moving to walk with her as the group left the study to wander back to their own amusements. All but Kaaras, who had an entire nation's worth of titles and names to learn in two weeks.

It didn't seem long enough for them to be comfortable with what they needed to know. It certainly was looming in Rory's mind, made worse by the fact that she was technically going to be there alone. Oh, she trusted Granthis; she was sure he would go out of his way to make sure nothing terrible happened to her; but a part of her desperately wanted to either be left at home, or to be wearing that silly uniform and glued to Cullen's side all night. The gown - which was, admittedly, beautiful - was also going to be utterly unique at the ball. She was going to draw attention just standing quietly in a corner, whether she wanted to or not. But it was all a show. Her role was to be vacuous and alert for anything she might overhear, to distract the nobles with her unusual style of dress and her dazzling charm (or lack of it) so that Kaaras and the rest of them could do what they were there to do in the first place.

It didn't help that she genuinely had no idea which way her Qunari friend's opinion would fall when it came to the outcome of the evening. She'd thought he would ally with the templars; instead, he had conscripted the mages. On paper, he might seem to favor an alliance of all three, to keep Orlais focused on itself, but in practice, who knew what he might decide to do. Or not do, she reminded herself. She didn't want to think about the very real possibility that her friend might just stand back and let someone be murdered in front of him, but she couldn't get away from the knowledge that Cullen was inclined to support that decision himself. Every now and then, Thedas threw these differences at her - differences in opinion that made her modern mind reel back from the consequences of. I'm just glad that I don't have to make that decision.

She paused on the steps outside the door to the main hall, hugging her arms about herself as she let the chilly breeze clear away the cobwebs. Down in the lower courtyard, she could see the rawest of the raw recruits being put through their initial paces; habit drew her eyes up to the battlements opposite, where Cullen was watching them critically. Unusually, though, he wasn't alone. Garrett Hawke was leaning against the stone wall of the gatehouse tower, the two men apparently in quiet, slightly awkward conversation. And that's another thing not to look forward to, she remembered with an unhappy sigh. The siege of Adamant was on the far horizon, on the other side of the Winter Palace, and Hawke might die there. Gods, what if his Warden friend is Alistair? That's going to hurt me. But the choice would be a no-brainer for Kaaras, very likely. To choose between a mage who was slowly becoming a friend, who understood the pressures he was under in a way no one else ever would, and a Grey Warden who would not have that same emotional impact with him ... it wasn't a choice, not really. For the first time, Rory found herself hoping the Warden was Loghain. That would serve him right. But again, she couldn't help feeling glad that the decision would not be hers to make. She would simply live the consequences with everyone else.

Her hand rubbed absently over the little bulge at her waist. There really was no mistaking that she was pregnant now, but at least layering up could still conceal the obvious evidence. Well, the tummy evidence. She bit her lips against a grin. Cullen had taken obvious delight in helping her to adjust her new breast-band to fit when it became obvious that her ladies were putting on weight. She couldn't help feeling proud of them - she'd always felt a little lacking in the breast department. Pregnancy had certainly perked them up a little, though she had a feeling that wouldn't last. Still, she intended to enjoy them while she could.

Letting that grin loose, she jogged down the steps to the upper courtyard, heading toward her infirmary with purpose. Two weeks, and she wouldn't be here to hover and annoy everyone for at least another two weeks. She wanted to be certain everything was in good condition for Evy's return.

Thinking of Evy broadened her smile as she passed the tavern. The newly-weds had been summarily dismissed to the Free Marches for a honeymoon, where Bann Trevelyan and his family were hosting them more than happily. If Aveline Vallen can do it, why not them? She'd received precisely one letter from her friends, which had consisted of a ridiculously long description of the feast Evy's father had thrown and all the people who were there from Evy, and a slightly shorter, definitely smug description of what it was really like to be a husband from Rylen. They were gloriously in love. It might almost have been sickening, if she hadn't known the feeling intimately herself.

Still, she wouldn't see either of them for a month. As Dorian had said, they were due to return the day after the inner circle decamped to Val Royeaux and Halamshiral. It was already strange not to have Evy right here to tell her how to behave around the various noble visitors; not to constantly run into Rylen in the evenings as he came ot the infirmary to collect his lady love. She missed them, but she was glad they had this chance to enjoy being married before life and war rolled in on top of them again. They were lucky not to be coming to the Winter Palace. If she could get out of it, she would.

She pushed opened the door to the infirmary, ducking inside with a reassuring smile for Gustav. Work now, worry later. Much later.

[sugary-shot]

Beautiful Liar

Summary: What happens when the person you cherish so much leaves you in the darkness? You're falling down, no one to catch you down there and no one to hold your hand to prevent you from falling down the endless dark pit. You're sinking in quick sand, drowning in the darkest place in the sea. And that's what happened to Kuroko Tetsuya.

He loved each and every one of the Generation of Miracles, and yet they treated him like garbage- playing him for their own sick amusement. After realising that he wasn't meant to be by their side anymore, he broke. He turned, walked away;

And committed suicide.

The Generation of Miracles knew they were wrong. Heck, they wanted to rewind time and slap their past selves for being so inconsiderate for their beloved phantom's feelings. But no one can rewind time, no matter how many times you beg; the clock won't tick backwards.

Five years later, their former manager drags all of them to a boy band concert. As the concert starts, they all see their precious former teammate on stage, singing. Kuroko Tetsuya was still alive, but what happens when he doesn't remember any of them?

Chapter One: My Light That Vanished.

This beautiful lie, My one last lie to you, Even if it hurts, I hide myself under a mask to hide the truth..

"Kuroko, how could you?" A trembling voice asked over the phone, making the one on the other line shake slightly. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.. Ogiwara-kun, please forgive me," the other voice asked in a pleading voice, but the reply he got made him burst into tears. "I'm sorry, but I can't. I can't do it anymore. You're just the same as the other miracles. Cruel and selfish, just like them." The call ended like that, making the tealnette fall to his knees, hot tears streaming down his pale cheeks as he covered his mouth with his hand, trembling violently.

Thump. Thump. Thump. Swoosh.

The sound of the rubber ball being repeatedly dribbled across the floor of Teiko's third gymnasium resounded across the room, only stopping when the basketball player stopped running to throw it into the hoop. The friction between the shoes and the floor, the feeling of a basketball between his hands--

 THUMP!

The sound of the ball bouncing to the rim and to the board and to just make its way back to the floor without shooting; made the player wince, soon his legs gave up and he was kneeling on the floor, beads of sweat running down his neck as he breathed heavily. No matter how many hours I practice, no matter how many times I shoot, not even one would go in... Shaking his head, he took a few deep breathes and stood up, retrieving the ball that rested by the wall soon after he took a shot. He spun on his heel and made his way towards the hoop at the other side of the room, only stopping when he heard the door slide open. Is it time to go back already?

"'Sup!" A not so familiar voice greeted, his eyes scanning around the barely used and the rumored haunted gym. The tealhead player held the orange coloured ball between his hands, staring at the male who just entered. It was rare for someone else to use the third gym, considering it was quite far from the school gate, and some students were just too scared to practice alone or in small groups during the night. It was isolated from the Basketball Club's First till Third Stringers, he had the whole gym completely for himself. The tealnette walked towards the other, about to greet him when he noticed him take a step back, looking slightly (absolutely) terrified.

"Excuse me.." He started, extending his arm to tap his shoulder. The player immediately squatted down, his hands covering both sides of his head.

"I'm sorry for what I did, oh Gods and Goddesses! Dispel evil!" He screamed, his whole body trembling. It would be a lie if the so called 'ghost' denied that he didn't find the male cowering to be an amusing sight. He didn't bother portraying his amusement though, that would be terribly rude. Wait, don't I know him?

"Aomine-kun?"

Aomine stopped chanting prayers and enchantments and slowly turned around, finally noticing the boy who he didn't think he's ever seen nor noticed throughout the entire school year before.

 Our first meeting after we enrolled into Teiko Middle School was on the first day of Autumn.

Ever since we met you brought out the bad in me,   Every mirror that I shattered was a sad ending,   As we kept fighting, you told me that I was changing,   All the good things about us were slowly fading.

"Oi, Tetsu!" Tetsuya heard a familiar voice call out to him, but before he could even move to glance who it was, he felt the weight over his shoulders shift, feeling something heavy lean on him. When he looked up, he saw him; the one that encouraged him to play Basketball. The one who taught him to never give up, to persevere his passion for the sport. The one who was his everything.

"Where ya' goin'?" Daiki asked, and as a reply to the question, Tetsuya shook his head lightly. "Nowhere. I was just thinking about taking a walk before heading back home." Soon, they both heard light footsteps, quickly running towards them, getting louder and louder. When they looked over their shoulders, they saw a familiar girl rushing towards them.

"Aomine-kun!" She called, shouting exasperatedly as soon as she reached the two males. "You skipped class today, too! Do you really think you can pass the exams if you keep on acting like this?" She began nagging at the tanned male, reprimanding him firmly to keep his act straight, acting as if the other wasn't there. It was always like this, though Kuroko was quite used to it, actually.

"Tetsu-kun, help me! If he doesn't pass the exam next week, he won't be able to play in next month's game unless he gets an above-average score!" And that's when realization shot through Aomine's mind. "Ha? What do you mean by that?"

The Aquarius released a sigh, pushing him away and standing up properly. "During our basketball game next month, retests will be held by then. If you fail the exam, you'll have to sit in for the retests and thus, taking you right away from playing until the examinations are over. Simply put, fail and you won't be playing basketball. Nijimura-san also said whoever fails cannot practice, either. You'll have to run around the field, until practice is over for one week." That's when the tanned male's face paled, much like a white sheet of paper.

"What?! Why didn't I know this?!" He screamed, making the innocent tealnette cover his ears so he wouldn't have to resort to buying hearing aids. He subconsciously jabbed Aomine's side to stop him from whining and yapping about how he badly needs help. "Maybe if you bothered to attend classes and assemblies, you would've known that, wouldn't you?"

Flinching by his reply, he felt something wrap around his arm and when he turned to see what it was, Momoi was clinging onto him. "That's right, Tetsu-kun~!"

 I like being around them. But...

"I don't understand, Tetsu. The more I try, the more it makes it boring." Tetsuya heard the unmotivated tone in his voice, and it made the phantom stop on his tracks. "That's ridiculous, Aomine-kun. You'll find someone soon. I won't say you definitely can do it, but if you quit, you'll definitely won't." Aomine's eyes widened hearing those words, making him turn to the smaller tealnette. "Seriously.." He dragged the other to an alley, leaning towards his ear.

"This is why I love you." The last sentence made the sapphire eyes widen in surprise, and before he knew it, he felt cold lips on his right cheek. "Thanks for always being here for me, Tetsu. I really appreciate it." The Ace wrapped his arms around the shorter male, head resting on his shoulder. "I don't know what I would do without you.."

"Aomine-kun is such an idiot." He blurted out. "I would say the same. If you didn't tell me to stay, I know I wouldn't be here, making all kinds of memories with you and the others." He smiled, and for the first time, Aomine blushed. Wow, teasing him was fun.

"Seriously Tetsu, you're gonna pay for that." With that said, the tealnette felt the same lips again, but on a different place.

They were on his lips.

When they parted, Kuroko froze on his spot and Aomine let out a chuckle. "So cute.."

Soon after, Kuroko pushed him away and turned around, obviously embarrassed with the other's actions. "Idiot."

And they spent the rest of the evening teasing each other.

So, I locked myself up in out dark, cold memories,  As I replay our worst moments like a tragedy,  I was a monster at night who kept coming back,  But when the sun came out, I felt I was under attack.

"Hey, Tetsu. Remember that time when you said I'll find someone worth playing with? Someone worthy enough for me to call a rival?" He asked, and Kuroko nodded. "I do, why?" The taller male stopped and the shorter male looked at him, head lolled to the side.

"I can't find that person." The bluenette went straight to the point, making the Aquarius sigh. This again? "You'll find some--" Before he could even finish talking, the other cut him off with a harsh and tired tone. "When?"

"I'm not sure, but you'll find him." Aomine began laughing, shaking his head. "You just don't get it, do you?" Turning to face his teammate, Kuroko's own sapphire eyes widened when he looked into the other's own eyes.

They were dead.

It didn't have the colour nor the spark it usually did. It didn't have the shine that always reflected the light. His eyes were void of life, needless to say it made Kuroko's heart break. It was just... empty.

"Don't say something that isn't going to happen, Tetsu. The only one who can beat me is me. We both know that." Turning around, he began walking, leaving the petite man all alone by the school gate, deserted. The said male looked down before turning around and walking away, taking a different path home as the lingering feeling of isolation began to grow in him.

Kuroko felt useless. Aomine was there for him, cheering him up, putting a smile on his face, so why couldn't he do the same? He was frustrated by the fact that Teikō's ace was so stubborn. That, or the fact that his friend needs him and he doesn't know what to do. Ignoring him wouldn't do any good, but neither would trying to help him because he rejected all the needed help. Maybe I'll just try one last time..

After practice, Kuroko met with the other, saying that he'll be the one that Aomine was looking for. To his surprise, the latter laughed at him before standing up, pinning him on the lockers. The blue jewels looked bored into the other's, it made Kuroko feel weak and his legs trembled.

"You know Tetsu, you've been really annoying lately." Tetsuya's eyes widened, not believing that the one that was saying this was Aomine. Was the one before him truly his best friend? The one who said 'don't you ever give up'? The one who made his miserable days happy? Him? Aomine Daiki?

It was hard to believe that this was that same boy.

"Remember the time I kissed you? That was so you would just shut up. You actually had the guts to use my words back at me? Pathetic. I never actually had feelings for you, stupid. That's disgusting." Hearing those words, Kuroko looked at the floor, subconsciously clenching both of his fists as tightly as he could. "I don't need you anymore. You're completely worthless to me." With that said, his light took a step back, turned around and walked out of the locker room. And as the void in Tetsuya's heart continued to grow, his world turned dim and so did his hopes of finding the light in Aomine's eyes.

"He left..?" He placed a hand on his chest, clutching it. Looking down, Tetsuya felt as if he couldn't breathe. Those cruel words that his light-- no, former light said, was it true? Was that what he felt? Did he really have no feelings for him at all? "It hurts... Is — Is this what how pain feels like?"

Suddenly, the door opened, revealing a blond boy that the heartbroken child knew all too well... "Kurokocchi.."

I wanna let you go but my heart stays the same, I think it's best to move on,   I feel like letting go, let my heart drift away,   I think it's best if we just go our separate ways..

Next »

[cressthoughts-blog]

WWE UK Championship Tournament Thoughts

               WWE’s UK Championship Tournament provided what it promised: It was very UK, it had a championship, and a tournament. Thus, it is a success. FIVE STARS.

               Wait what? I should say more? That isn’t an acceptable standard of review? Well, shut up, Strawman. Let’s do this!

- God the facility is gorgeous. Definitely getting Hammerstein Ballroom vibes, which is always good. In general, it just makes the whole thing feel classy. It was like the whole tournament has its pinky up, slowing sipping Earl Grey and discussing the price of tea in China. It also makes for an excellent juxtaposition for the violence. I don’t know what it is, but the cinematic cacophony of the very nice ballroom and the brutal forearms made gave this event a sort of timeless quality.

 - The best part of overseas wrestlers is the stories of how young they started training. I swear they said something about Pete Dunne (ohmygod he’s amazing – more on him later) being 23 but having been a wrestler for 11 years. It’s like they live in Mad Max times and anything goes. If you had told me one of the competitors learned a suplex before he was potty trained, I’d believe you but secretly decide to Google it later, then forget and tell everyone about it even though I hadn’t verified it. It just sounds true, you know?

 - The first round had a ton of filler. A lot of these guys clearly aren’t ready for WWE. But someone had to get pinned, right? Good exposure for them too. In my head, I christened the first round “The Pay Me More Classic”. Someone’s going to catch up on some bills when they start getting booked again!

 - Every time a wrestler scowls at the crowd, drink.

 - You are dead.

 - I’m sorry.

 - Apparently, from this sample size, “I’m an angry lad from a tough family” is the UK’s most popular gimmick, narrowly beating out “Look at my weird ear” and “Moustaches are personality”.

 - It feels like there’s way more heels than faces here but that might just be because even some of the faces look angry. I’ve never seen more pissy looking people in one room since I was hanging out with Trump in that Russian hotel. Good times….good times…

 - I enjoyed the story told through the tournament. Inevitably every tournament tells some variation of the early injury story but I thought they did a nice play on it here. Bate didn’t sell it very well at first but he came out for the final match like he was about to tell some death bed secrets. And if you aren’t using wrestling tournaments as a format to tell stories, then what’s the point? Every wrestling tournament should be what we wish actual sports tournaments were. It should have the crazy upsets of every March Madness and the through-line of stories every good Superbowl matchup does (basically, anyone with Kurt Warner). In real sports, we don’t always get the best opponents because real life is a thing and some teams, no matter how fascinating, suck, but when you pick the winners? Wrestling tournaments should always be some variation of Cavs/Warriors or Indians/Cubs.

 - What caught my eye was the way they established Dunne as a threat night one. Every single match he wrestled after, the crowd was on their feet. Not because he was a good wrestler (but ohmygod he is) but because he had a character. The villain makes the story. By creating the mystique of Pete Dunne, every battle versus him was a mini-morality play, pitting the scrappy underdog who believes in not just himself but the tournament as an idea against a man so vicious he will destroy the very tournament he wants to win because he rather take everyone with him than die alone. Dunne is self-destructive, and therefore, more dangerous than anyone. A man who doesn’t even care for his own welfare is a hazard to everyone else’s. That gave the spectacular Mark Andrews and the underrated Tyler Bate (underrated because I don’t think he showed everything he was capable of until the last two bouts) someone to define THEM. Defining a babyface’s motivation is tricky because it’s so cliché and honestly, vague (“I wanna be the best!” “I just want to follow my dreams!”), but heels are inherently more complex, and thus, are useful for filling in the blanks of the hero; anything the villains stands FOR, we can presume the hero stands AGAINST. Dunne executed his role with vigor and gave the viewer the impression Andrews and Dunne were folk heroes. Just incredible.

 - God, Devlin is a mess. I mean, let’s just start with the fucking hilarious fact he DOESN’T want to be compared to Balor. YOU DON’T WANT TO BE COMPARED TO HIM?! THEN WHY DO YOU LOOK LIKE HIS STUNT DOUBLE?! Why would you even come out in that jacket with his stupid 90’s comic book character haircut (I’m lying, I love the Undercut) and walk down to the ring like you’re mo-capping him for a video game?! My theory is he doesn’t speak English, and thus his contradictory word salad is null and void. This is what I have to tell myself.

 - But it’s not just that. He was just average to be honest. I think WWE unfairly created expectations that he couldn’t live up to with an average but not exciting moveset (yes, this is somewhat required from heels, but it doesn’t mean he has to be boring either) and a lack of charisma his counterpart possesses in spades. His heel work came off like he was doing a bit, it never felt authentic for me. His face didn’t sell it and ugh, he never stopped smiling. If you’re going to smile, at least do a creepy one, you know? My number one problem with wrestlers is when you can tell they don’t believe what they’re saying/doing. Conviction is so important for this, more important that it is for a traditional actor, even, because wresting carries with it the uncertain expectation that it could be real. No one suspects Girl Meets World is real. But Raw is up in the air to a certain segment of fans, by nature of wrestling’s…well, nature. Devlin didn’t make me believe. He just seemed like he was having a lot of fun pretending to be a bad guy.

 - Though I’m working on the theory that WWE purposely oversaturated us with Devlin’s obnoxious backstory knowing we’d turn on him, like an intended Roman Reigns/Old Cena situation (aka NXT Bo Dallas, who was too beautiful for this world). This is dangerous: a self-aware WWE is the first sign of the apocalypse.

 - Whenever Michael Cole doesn’t have Vince McMahon in his ear, he’s startlingly competent. He did a great job calling the moves, setting up Nigel, and generally sounding like he cared. This is a recurring pattern (remember how great he was during Beast in the East?) and makes you wonder if they’re being overproduced. Or maybe Cole is just bored by Raw at this point. Yelling at Byron Saxton for three hours would tire me out too.

 - Pete Dunne is Kevin Owens by way of Daniel Bryan, and thus, shouldn’t exist and is a threat to tear a hole in spacetime. I can’t praise him enough, from his stiff looking work to his surprising willingness to both take and sell for smaller guys to his preternatural skill leering at people like they stole his birthday cake. I don’t want to fall into hyperbole here and make him out to be the second coming of Jesus (our savior lost in the first round, per the crowd) but with a little more training – cameras, presentation and the usual stuff almost finished grapplers polish up on – he’s Intercontinental Champion. Big fan.

 - Special space here to praise Danny Burch as well. Just polished to an insane degree, he had everything you look for in a television wrestler. The expertise of the Performance Center continues to just blow me away. Put this man back on NXT or promote him. But do something with him. If Pete Dunne is almost finished, Danny Burch is a complete product. Oh, and I’d be remised if I didn’t mention Wolfgang too. He comes off (along with Trent Seven) as the wrestler who is most themselves. Wolfy possesses that innate ability to endear himself because he’s clearly just a guy who loves this so much. That kind of thing goes far. It’s a natural relationship with the crowd, the kind of thing guys like Ziggler would kill for.

 -  All in all, it didn’t reach the highs of the CWC’s Ring of Honor Lite (same great taste, fewer calories!) meets WWE, but it on a whole, it told a better yarn and I’m so biased toward three act stories, so I’m inclined to favor the UK Tournament.- It was better than that new old-timey Pepsi but not as good as glass bottle Coke.

- It was better than that new old-timey Pepsi but not as good as glass bottle Coke.

[wwewriteclub]

Oct 21 Raw

With a new roster and an upcoming Saudi event, this will be the Raw that needs to solidify where we go into the next year. The important factor here will be getting over the new talent and new challengers. Where WWE has lacked in the past is establishing multiple talents at a time.  Andrade picked up a very good win over Ali and should be groomed as the next challenger for Seth Rollins, at least until Drew McIntyre returns. Buddy Murphy also falls into this category of someone who needs to be built up to possibly face the champ down the line. Fans need to also get acquainted with Humberto Carillo, who has a good look and amazing luchador skills. Pairing him with Sin Cara could fill the void of the Lucha House Party in terms of a flashy tag team and pitting him against Sin Cara early on could showcase his talents and agility early on with someone who knows the style well.

Raw’s tag divison lacks the most and an ideal situation would be to draft the AOP as the next challengers for The Viking Raiders. Another fun twist would be to bring the Usos back as heels. The Usos had a fun heel run in 2016 when they were over on Smackdown and are one of the few teams able to look good in defeat. If this isn’t the route they’re willing to take, we could hope for and anticipate a lot of hard hitting battles with Rowan and Luke Harper, assuming he gets drafted to Raw as well. 

With the women, it’s time to build a credible challenge for Women’s champ, Becky Lynch. A full heel turn for the Kabuki Warriors could add some layers for both Asuka and Kairi Sane, who we’ve only seen operate as babyfaces in both NXT and on the main roster. If NXT has moved on from its use of Io Shirai, having her come in and making them a deadly trio akin to the Black Lotus Triad in Lucha Underground could give us not only a new and vicious heel stable that we haven’t seen from the Women’s Division since...*sigh* Team BAD(?), but also gives us longevity for things Becky and Charlotte can do.

Also production wise to truly separate Raw and Smackdown, there shouldn’t be any Smackdown mentions, displays, anything. Raw is Raw on USA. You want Raw ratings. This could also add a layer to the probably planned Smackdown/Raw matches for Survivor Series THAT NEEDS A PRIZE. You did the Bragging Rights trophies, the “if you lose, you’ll get fired (but not really)”, the value is in showcasing the talents of the Superstars so the Survivor Series prize should be, the winning brand gets its own pay-per-view event next year or in December (we really really REALLY don’t need another TLC).

With all that out of the way, here is how I would write the Oct 21st Raw

 Opening Package Highlight the Draft, show results of Firefly Funhouse and Rollins attack/burning it down

Seth Rollins promo Bray Wyatt took me to a place I never thought I’d go in my career. He tried to put fear in me. And when you put fear in Seth Rollins, I don’t back down, I don’t cower, I come for you. He saw it at Hell in a Cell, he saw it last week when I burnt the Firefly Funhouse down, and he’s going to see it at Crown Jewel in our Falls Count Anywhere Match. Bray wants to play games, well he’s rolling with the wrong dice. If he thought he saw the worst in me before, he won’t know what I am willing to do to hold onto my Universal Title. I am the Kingslayer, I am the Beastslayer, and at Crown Jewel, I’ll be the Fiendslay- WYATT INTERRUPT Bray on screen, the remnants of the FFH behind him. Seth. You took everything from me. You allowed your pride to hold the hand of your anger. Your ego. I only wanted to help you, Seth. I only wanted to heal you. Make you whole. And now, The Fiend...The Fiend wants to tear you apart. The Fiend doesn’t want your vanity title. The Fiend wants your mind. Your body. Your soul. And he’s going to get it. All I wanted Seth, was for you to let me in. But now I have to let him out. And he will do to you, what you did to me. Destroy everything and anything you love. I’ll see you. At Crown Jewel. *evil laugh*

MATCH 1 The OC vs The Street Profits and mystery partner Street Profits mystery partner revealed to be Kevin Owens. KO hits stunner on Styles for win, sets up KO/AJ US title feud.

MATCH 2 Andrade w/Zelina Vega vs Cedric Alexander Andrade wins, keeps momentum going.

PROMO Becky Lynch makes an open challenge. I’m in a giving mood, I’m the WWE Raw Women’s Champion and the #1 overall draft pick. So I have one simple and quick question- who wants to step up to The Man? CHARLOTTE FLAIR INTERRUPTS Becky, you and I both know that “The Man” is synonymous with the name Flair. Last week was a fluke victory and you know it, I am the 10 time Women’s champion and I think tonight is a night that we usher in a new era on Monday Night Raw as I pick up my 11th title.  MATCH 3 Charlotte Flair vs Becky Lynch DQ finish via Kabuki Warriors attacking them both. Kabuki Warriors stand tall.

PROMO Lana and Bobby Lashley are having an intimate dinner somewhere. Cheesy, romantic, and quiet spot. Further establish Lashley being a dick to Hostess and Lana laughing about it.

BACKSTAGE PROMO Charly Caruso gets a word with Seth Rollins over what Bray Wyatt had to say. Rollins begins but looks at someone offscreen. Rollins looks up, it’s ROWAN. Rowan says the only monster he needs to be worried about on Monday Night Raw is him. Challenges Rollins to a match tonight. It’s set.

MATCH 4 Viking Raiders vs EC3 and Eric Young Viking Raiders win, decisive victory

PROMO Lana and Bobby Lashley at dinner. They insult the Hostess further, demanding their own private room. Hostess brings them to the back. Says their server will be with them shortly.

MATCH 5 Aleister Black vs Shelton Benjamin Aleister Black wins

PROMO Lana and Bobby Lashley are enjoying water/wine. Server is RUSEV. Rusev attacks Lashley. Lana is covered in water/food. Rusev stands tall.

MATCH 6 (MAIN EVENT) Seth Rollins vs Erick Rowan DQ finish via Bray Wyatt attack. Leaves Rollins laid out.  Sign off.

[its-just-like-the-movies]

I Heart Huckabees (04, A-)

Why this film?: Because I’ve heard too many good things about Huckabees to pass up the chance to watch it for a project, though I might have gone for a different film had I known about the smallness of Jenkins’s part beforehand. I’d like to say Flirting with Disaster, Let Me In, and Bone Tomahawk were the runners-up, but it was over once I saw that Huckabees was in his filmography.

The review: What’s the meaning of life? What’s the point of it all, in a world that can be both incredibly generous but perhaps even more cruel? Who are we, and how are we not ourselves, and how are we connected to the people and things and universes around us? I Heart Huckabees is premised on these questions, with a plum mix of earnest exploration as its protagonists undergo severe identity crises and rivalries, as well as the utter absurdity of these questions and the length folks will go to to engage with them or avoid them entirely. All of this is wrapped in an ensemble comedy stuffed to the nines with delightful performances, a bananas script, and some wittily used technical elements, every artist contributing their own distinctive flavor to the film while operating within an impressively light tone and assured directorial hand from David O. Russell. Everything looks effortless, and yet the seams never show or get tangled in each other even as the film hops between sincerity and skewering, never coming off cruel or too serious with its heady subject matter.

Jason Schwartzman is our entry point into the film, as an environmental activist and poet names Albert Markovski who believes that running into the same African teenager three times over the course of two weeks is definitely a sign of something. Scrambling to figure out what it could possibly mean, he hires Existential Detectives Bernard and Vivian Jaffe to help him out, though it becomes pretty obvious that his request won’t work out for a number of reasons. For one, the detectives don’t see this as a meaningful coincidence, and they start worrying that Albert is choosing to prioritize this over the far more serious and impending threat that his activist group is about to become victim to corporate takeover from the superstore chain Huckabees, spearheaded by the charismatic Brad Stand. Even as their methods for Albert to connect to himself  - and by extension, the universe - prove effective, their philosophy about the beautiful interconnectedness of all things do not give him the answers he wants and drive him further towards the allure of Caterine Vauban, a French nihilist who may have already turned one of the Jaffe’s clients to her way of thinking. Soon it seems as though most of the important people in Albert’s life are involved in this case either as new clients or people of interest, and it’s never entirely clear how much progress any of these investigations are making.

All of this reads as a dizzying amount of plot to traverse inside of a film waxing philosophical about the purpose of existence, so thank god for the film’s oddball sense of humor, alternating between earnest contemplation and having a laugh at how ridiculous all of this actually is. Dustin Hoffman, wearing a hideous oversized gray bowlcut of a wig as Bernard Jaffe, can shove Jason Schwartzman’s confused but eager client into a human-sized gym bag to help Albert unlock his connection to his own subconscious, and it’s allowed to be an insightful step forward to the man’s self-actualization and just plain silly. Conversations with the universe are realized at a level just above basic graphic design skills as characters inhabit fake environments and have their faces disassembled into rectangular floating bits that intermingle with other bits of other faces. The same swimsuit photo of Jessica Lange floats in a black void with whole or disembodied characters who repeat the same phrases directly into the camera over and over again. One technique to connect to your innermost self is called Pure Being, and is performed by whacking yourself in the face - by yourself or others - with a giant rubber ball until enlightenment is achieved. This does not stop a firefighter named Tommy Corn from falling into an even deeper pit of despair than the one his nihilistic ideologies were already courting, and he expresses his dissatisfaction by turning his hose on his fellow firefighters rather than the blaze they’ve already put out without him. Sometimes the film’s best joke is simply to put Vivian Jaffe in the middle ground or background of a frame as she’s following a lead, and sometimes that joke is made even funnier by showing Caterine Vauban skulking behind her with no one seeming to notice her.

But these examples lead more towards the silly than to the sincere, and the heart in I Heart Huckabees is more than worth defending, especially since it blends so well with the eggheaded comedy that the film somehow carries off light as a feather. Tommy Corn’s drop into despair is treated with the same level of care as Albert Markowitz’s, as Brad Strand’s and his girlfriend Dawn Campbell undergo their own reckonings after Brad hires the existential detectives purely as a slight against Albert and with no belief they’ll accomplish anything until they confront him about the persona he’s constructed for himself at work. “How am I not myself?” he asks, and which Bernard and Vivian parrot back at him, turning over the statement while gently mocking it after Brad had been so cheerily resistant to the mere concept of everything the Jaffes stand for. This statement is made even more dizzying not just by the corresponding crises of everyone else but perhaps most weirdly dramatized by fans, boys we’ve met before, getting autographs from an advertiser on photographs of the woman who had that position before her a few scenes after Brad makes this declaration. Caterine Vauban may be bottomless wellspring of nihilism, but she’s still able to provide a massive insight into Albert’s neuroses once he accepts her tutelage, though she’s just as willing to stir up trouble for the sake of proving a point. By comparison to her immediate action, the Jaffes come across as both the infinitely cuddlier option but perhaps less effective as they force clients to come to terms with startling truths about themselves, their rejoinder that it will all work out because everything is in sync with everything else seeming less concrete next to Vauban’s insouciance and conviction. The battle for Albert’s soul, dichotomized between the universal interconnectivity of the Jaffes and the universal emptiness of Vauban, is fought between two worthy opponents, and yet the film concludes with Albert and Tommy having found solace in a place outside of both worldviews that Albert would nevertheless have discovered without them.

It is tremendous that any film is able to find such a welcome solace between the absurd and the intelligent, earnestly exploring its very conceptual ideas about the world while still finding room to set that all aside and make fun of what these folks are doing to themselves for the sake of understanding themselves or refusing that understanding. Jon Brion’s score is operating on this wavelength, floating between loony and contemplative like a Regina Spektor album and deliriously entertaining throughout. It’s snazzily edited, shot with elegant simplicity, and smartly dressed its characters for the job they have, unless they’re wearing a bonnet in complete repudiation of said job. As bananas as I Heart Huckabees frequently is, David O. Russell and Jeff Baena have written it so that we’re always able to track what’s going on narratively and philosophically, giving the actors hilarious lines and even more hilarious characters for them to follow through so many spiritual crises. It’s miraculous coherent in tracking long-term arcs and one-scene scenarios, in glorious tandem with Russell’s direction and the enervating efforts of the cast. And what a cast it is; everyone in tune with a bizarre and slippery tone while contributing their own flourishes to difficult material. Jason Schwartzman is an ideal straight man for the film’s wackier characters to bounce off while charting his own arc, and Lily Tomlin and Dustin Hoffman smartly alternate between being the voice of reason and absolute loons. Isabelle Huppert is ideally cast as Caterine Vauban, crafting an unsettlingly poised and competent woman yet wholly in on the joke of a character whose dialogue reads like a parody of a Michael Haneke film. Jude Law and Naomi Watts are alarmingly chipper and even more alarmingly frayed as the corporate yuppy and his model girlfriend whose lives are unexpectedly changed by the arrival of the existential detectives, though her transformation is more sudden and pronounced than his is. Actors confined to only a few sequences like Richard Jenkins, Jean Smart, Talia Shire, Tippi Hedren, and Shania Twain are just as compelling as the primary cast members in the time allotted to them, but the very best, most brilliant performance comes at the courtesy of Mark Wahlberg as Tommy Corn, whose inability to get right with the universe is the funniest crisis of them all but just as weighty as the film’s most earnest breakthroughs. It’d be the kind of performance that’d make someone rethink their perceptions about an actor if his career wasn’t littered with so, so, so many nothings, but this is still the kind of artistic achievement that few actors can just pull out of their hat. The ensemble work is almost endlessly delicious, but Wahlberg has the honor of being its crowning achievement.

As much credit is owed across the board, none of this would be possible without Russell’s directorial vision. His handling of actors, juggling of tone, and navigation of theme is so smartly. If I’ve focused too exclusively on how I Heart Huckabees handles its philosophical leanings, its aim is just as sharp with how the game of hypocritical corporate bullshittery is played, how easy it is for lefty activists to get suckered by that game, and how quick they are to fracture without unity of approach even with unity of message. These ideas are able to fully inform its central themes as embodied by the character’s arcs, allowing them to be shaped by their careers and social standing rather than limply hanging off the central storyline. Russell is able to shape all of this without letting his control get in the way or become the actual focus of the film. Huckabees thrives on its looseness and spontaneity, and Russell is able to keep an unfathomable number of elements in play while making them as different as they need to be to rub against each other even as they’re all completely in sync with the overall tone of the picture.

So what does one walk away from when they finish watching I Heart Huckabees? Well, there’s the almost endless barrage of stellar performances, working magnificently with the heady and hilarious ambitions of a writer/director who’s able to balance the zany and the sincere without undermining any of the concepts that the film is contemplating, all while playing the whole thing as completely effortless amidst so many disparate yet magically cohesive parts moving together. Maybe you walk away with news ideas about life, if not new ideas about filmmaking. Maybe you go out and buy a big rubber ball or a human-sized gym bag. Maybe you wonder why there aren’t more films that are able to sustain such a bizarre premise through such an astonishingly light touch and with this much energy coursing through every last second of it. It’s a movie that makes you think about any number of things, sure to provoke any number of responses from the oddball behavior and hardcore debates about the meaning of all things, so get in touch with yourself and the universe to see what you thought of it. Or, yourself. Or, the concept of how no being can view anything outside the prism of their own relationship to it. Or, just have a good time. That’d be good too.