#ruin of the house of the divine visage

[sticksandsharks]

Devoted (To You)

An exclusive A5 print I made for the Ruin Of the House of the Divine Visage Kickstarter for the comic written and illustrated by my wonderful friends @evegwood and @spiremint!!

[spiremint]

RUIN OF THE HOUSE OF THE DIVINE VISAGE IS NOW A PROJECT WE LOVE ON KICKSTARTER!

In a monastery where revealing one's face is an affront to the god housed inside its very chambers, what happens when one young man accidentally sees the face of another?

RUIN is the brand new collaborative graphic novel from @evegwood and @spiremint, a 130-page comic about religion and queer romance. Buy the completed graphic novel on Kickstarter!

RUIN is also being posted as a webcomic that you can read for FREE at visagecomic.com! Follow @thunderstormstudios to get new page updates every Tuesday!

[thunderstormstudios]

RUIN OF THE HOUSE OF THE DIVINE VISAGE IS NOW LIVE ON KICKSTARTER!

In a monastery where revealing one's face is an affront to the god housed inside its very chambers, what happens when one young man accidentally sees the face of another?

RUIN is the brand new collaborative graphic novel from @evegwood and @spiremint, a 130-page comic about religion and queer romance. Buy the completed graphic novel on Kickstarter!

RUIN is also being posted as a webcomic that you can read for FREE at visagecomic.com! Follow @thunderstormstudios to get new page updates every Tuesday!

[spiremint]

(1 hour) (!!!)

(ruin launches in 4 hours)

[saintobio]

LONG LIVE THE VILLAINESS !

amidst the tale of sweetest love and bitterest revenge, the fallen empress is cast back ten years into the past to correct her sins and avoid eternal damnation, even at the price of betraying her once husband, the very cause of her downfall.

♱ pairings. gojo satoru, fem!reader

♱ genre. enemies-to-lovers, period piece, medieval au

♱ tags. ooc, regression, crown prince!gojo, noble lady!reader, politics, classism, clan wars, religion (catholicism), misogyny, violence, war, rebellion, suggestive, smut, gore, double life, explicit language, more to be added

♱ notes. this fic draws heavy inspirations from the webnovel ‘sister, i am the queen in this life’ and manhwa of the same name. it’s basically a fanfic of that series bc i am obsessed with it :’D

♱ status. on-going (slow updates)

♱ SECOND TIMELINE TO AS YOU LIKE IT ♱

PROLOGUE.

ACT I. THE LADY

ACT II. THE CROWN PRINCE

ACT III. THE KNIGHT

ACT IV. THE STAR CROSSED LOVERS

ACT V. THE BLESSED

ACT VI. THE SIN

ACT VII. THE REVELATION

ACT VIII. THE ENEMY

ACT IX. THE LOVER

ACT X. THE EMPRESS

EPILOGUE.

PROLOGUE 

Like plunging beneath the surface of water and then, abruptly, breaking through to the air above—your body jolted as if awakening in a new world altogether. You drew in a long breath, your eyes fluttering open to reveal the ceiling, both familiar yet unfamiliar in its greeting. Swiftly, you surveyed your surroundings, noting with growing recognition the confines of your old room within the De Roma estate. The estate! 

You were not in the palace of Caelum, but in the estate of House De Roma. A surge of realization flooded through you as you dashed towards the nearest mirror, confronting your reflection with wide, startled eyes. 

No... could it be... that you have returned to your body, ten years prior?!

In the mirror, the reflection staring back at you was not that of the notorious wife of the tyrant Emperor Satoru, but of a 20-year-old maiden, the eldest daughter of Duke de Roma, with fuller cheeks and a more youthful appearance. You could not shake the feeling of disbelief, wondering if this was all just a dream, so you reached out to touch your arms and felt the flesh beneath your fingers, trying to convince yourself that this was an unexpected reality.

Oh, you were back. You found yourself returned to your former self, a decade younger, but now armed with the knowledge of your past life's actions and their consequences. Alongside this newfound understanding, the gift of clairvoyance had also been bestowed upon you.

And for what? Why had the heavens above returned you to your body? Was it for revenge, a second chance, or perhaps punishment?

Suddenly, a loud, deafening sound pierced your ears, and a blinding white light enveloped your vision. Your body became as still as a statue, and it felt as though your soul was transported to a fourth dimension where divine intervention seemed a lot more plausible to exist.

As your soul hovered in the liminal space between life and death, you found yourself standing before a figure cloaked in billowing robes, her presence commanding and her gaze piercing. This figure was Fortuna, the ancient Caelan goddess of fortune and fate, her visage austere and unforgiving.

“Are you aware of the sins that stain your soul?” 

“Have you felt the weight of your transgressions, the consequences of your actions that have wrought suffering upon your people and brought ruin to your empire?”

Her voice echoed through the realm with the divine judgment that weighed upon your conscience, while her gaze penetrated to the core of your being and demanded honesty and accountability in the face of your past misdeeds.

“Will you atone for your sins?” 

“Will you seize this opportunity for redemption, or will you squander it in self-pity and remorse?”

As you stood in the presence of the ancient goddess, grappling with the heaviness of your sins and the daunting task ahead, a brilliant light had all of a sudden illuminated the space around you. From the heart of this radiant glow emerged the figure of Archangel Raphael, his presence heralded by a chorus of angelical voices and the stirring of celestial winds.

Clad in robes that seemed to shimmer with the intensity of celestial light, Archangel Raphael's presence commanded attention, his wings unfurled behind him in a display of resolute authority. If Goddess Fortuna was intimidating, the archangel was fearsome all the more. His gaze, intense and penetrating, swept over you with a gravity that left no room for evasion or deceit.

“Empress of Caelum,” he spoke, his tone firm and unyielding, and his voice carrying a billion years of heavenly existence, “You stand accused of grievous sins, crimes that have shaken the very foundations of your empire and brought suffering upon your people.”

There was no trace of softness in Archangel Raphael's demeanor, no room for mercy in the face of wrongdoing. His presence was a testament to the uncompromising nature of divine justice, his strictness a reflection of the solemn duty entrusted to him as an Archangel of the Almighty. This, no doubt, was the face of a true and formidable executor of justice.

And you, the subject, had angered the divine beings that guarded the Caelan Empire, so much so that God himself sent the goddess of the land and one of his archangels to mitigate your rightful punishment.

“By the decree of the Almighty, you are granted a second chance to amend your sins and redeem your soul. You shall return to the mortal realm, to live your life anew and correct the sins that have stained your soul.”

“Should you fail to rectify your past transgressions, should you stray from the path of righteousness and succumb once more to the temptations of darkness, know that the consequences shall be severe and eternal.”

“For those who squander the gift of divine mercy shall be cast into the deepest depths of hell, where they shall endure a punishment of unending torment and suffering.”

In the presence of Archangel Raphael and Goddess Fortuna’s equally stern gazes, you were keenly aware of the magnitude of your transgressions and the severity of the judgment that awaited you. But even as you trembled beneath the weight of their scrutiny, you knew that their presence also offered you the opportunity for redemption, with your only task to prove yourself worthy of divine mercy.

Indeed, it was by your very hands that hundreds and thousands of Christian souls shed their blood. Innocent lives, both young and old, were cruelly taken at your command. The citizens of Caelum who fell sick from the spread of the plague. The esteemed Caelan advisors of your husband’s primogenitors, skinned alive and speared in pikes by the Tiber River. The wrongly accused maid who suffered the indignity of serving your husband, paraded unclothed through the streets and subjected to the brutality of the pear of anguish. The gallant and dignified knight, tortured mentally and physically in the atrocious dungeon. Now, you find yourself thrust back into the horrors of your former life ten years hence. A life of a noble lady who ought not to be blinded by her destructive love for the empire’s crown prince. 

Yet, could you truly navigate this life without ascending to the position as his empress?

As you tried to commune with the divine beings afore you, a haze in your vision transported you away from the heavenly space, realizing that you were already drawn back into the reality of your chamber, inhabiting the youthful frame of a twenty-year-old daughter of a duke. You found yourself too astonished to move, too shaken to speak, and too afraid to take any action in this new lease of life blessed upon you. At that very moment, your state of reverie was disrupted at the arrival of your maid, who entered your chamber in a humble servant garb.

Milena. The maid whose life was cut short by your hand in your past existence due to petty thievery. “My lady,” she spoke with a hint of respect and urgency, unaware of the ill-fate you had given her in your past life, “A visitor has arrived at the gates and requests an audience with you. Shall I show them in?” 

Too soon? Need it truly be so soon to engage with the people from your past life immediately after awakening to your old, yet younger body? Gazing upon your maid through the mirror, you asked, “Who is that intruder you speak of?” 

She bowed her head, her stance shifting into one of apologetic deference. The way she firmly stood by your door was a message to you that the intruder was not someone you could easily reject the presence of.

“The visitor is His Highness, Crown Prince Satoru.” 

⊷⊷⊷⊷⊷⊷⊷⊷⊷⊶⊶⊶⊶⊶♱⊷⊷⊷⊷⊷⊷⊷⊷⊷⊷⊷⊷⊷⊷

[inhibitcomic]

That's the end of the chapter........... AND THE END OF BOOK TWO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Inhibit is going to be TEN years old in January, which is a frankly disgusting amount of time to work on one project. Some of you have been here since the very beginning and some of you have just recently started reading but however long you've been along for the ride, thank you!! I love getting to make this story for you.

I have a whole bunch of stuff I want to talk about so bear with me:

Inhibit is going to go on hiatus until 2025! I have really overworked myself these last few years (did you know I am also an event organiser and publisher???) and I'm also um GETTING MARRIED so I need to give myself some breathing room. I'm not sure when exactly in 2025 but I can guarantee it will return. I'm fucking crazy, I'm finishing this comic.

But fear not, because we still have some guest art to come before the hiatus kicks off! Starting next week there'll be some wonderful guest pieces in place of updates so check back in to see that.

My partner and I are releasing a new fully finished graphic novel on Kickstarter next month, alongside its release as an ongoing webcomic! It's called Ruin of the House of the Divine Visage and you can follow along RIGHT HERE!!!!!!! LAUNCHING VERY SOON!!!!! Follow my social media (all the links are in the sidebar on the right) if you want to find out when it launches, or bookmark the site and check back in a couple months.

Next week a second Panel Redraw Contest will launch! The first one ran way back in 2019 but with the release of Book Two (availableinprintrighthere) I thought it was time for a second round. You'll be able to see all the rules over on the Webtoon mirror!

I have decided to stop posting on Patreon and use it solely as a monthly tip jar. Updating the Patreon is just another thing on top of my already overwhelming to do list and I have already been steadily decreasing how much work I'm actually posting there over the years, which isn't fair to supporters. However I don't get paid to make Inhibit and the only money I make from it is from donations through Patreon/Ko-fi and sales of my books so if you've enjoyed Inhibit then a couple of quid in the donation jar is always appreciated!

[lacklusterhero747]

Building a Fabula World, Part 4

Enigmas and Mysteries In our next step the book asks, "What are the great enigmas and mysteries of the world? The questions left unanswered, and the truths that are now indistinguishable from legend?" Each person at the table is then asked to provide at least one mystery that they would like to explore during the campaign, or think would make the world more vibrant and interesting.

Marring the face of the desert of The Zlota Sovereignty is a thick swath of burning ground, a quarter of a mile across and burning a sickly greenish-gold. It's been burning for time immemorial. The sand near the burning has been turned to a greenish glass, but has melted so far down and is so tough it can't be mined. The black, oily goop that burns doesn't seem to have burned down at all, as though it's being replenished from the depths. No one knows when or how the burning began, or what the burning substance is, it's just always been and always will be.

Where do the divines come from? The Golden Path say they coalesced from the faith of the members at the time of the first prophet, but others theorize that they're something else. Perhaps even abominations forged by remnants from the war against the heavens. Who knows the truth? Only the highest members of the order…

About 75 years ago, a new form of tree seemingly sprung spontaneously into existence: the Meatloaf tree. It is a tree that, no matter how much you protest, grows fruits that are in fact literal meatloaves. They're pretty delicious, not gonna lie, but no one knows why the fuck this is happening.

Somewhere on the outskirts of The Alumen Dominion, there is an old, deserted mansion that is said to appear and disappear at random times and in random places within a rough geographical region. The house seems ancient and decadent, despite its disrepair, and anyone who enters the house never returns. No one has managed to investigate the phenomena directly, because the house seems to be resistant to being observed with any scholarly intent to discern its true purpose.

Somewhere, in a relatively unpopulated part of the wilderness, there is a cliff face that will periodically shift and change to look like the visage of some random person or creature. Sometimes it depicts a famous person, other times a relative nobody. Sometimes it even depicts species of animal that either no longer exist or never existed, and no one is sure why.

It is said that at the elemental center of the world, where the pulse of the world tree converges, there is a mystical valley, in which the font from which all magic as mortals know it flows. It is said to be guarded by the fey, but it is unknown if the fey are truly the font's guardians, or if the font simply produces as result of the outpouring of magical energy.

The world's second, smaller moon, depicts what appears to be the face of some creature on its dusty red surface. Some scholars who have studied the Precursors ruins claim that the world did not always have two moons, making its origins a mystery just as much as why it seems like the face on the moon is always watching.

How is the leader of The First Names--an extremist, ecoterrorist styled faction within The Folk--capable of seeming to constantly escape death, returning over and over again each time he is captured or vanquished.

More than anywhere else, I feel like this is where some of the particular brand of weirdness that has been cultivated within in our group really shone through.

A burning chasm of unknown origin, with an equal unknown fuel source (a reference to a game that particular player and I played in YEARS ago); a companion moon that seems to observe the world counterposed by an ever shifting cliff face that depicts unusual images; even a seemingly immortal leader of an extremist faction and some sort of haunted house that flickers in and out of reality.

And then, of course, there's a meatloaf tree. Honestly it just felt like we ought to let it ride, given how dark the rest of the campaign document had really become. A stupid inside joke just felt like a soothing balm.

Again though, plot hooks certainly abound. Stand out ideas like this world's particular vision of the Fey, and what they mean in the greater context of the setting, or the true nature of the Sovereignty's divines have really pushed my thoughts on what the plot might be in particular directions, but all of this has uses to be sure. Points of interest becoming nodes on a line that I intend to weave through the world.

All that's left now are the Threats.

[evegwood]

I'm back at Thought Bubble this year at the Quindrie Press table, Bubbleboy C11! I'll have copies of Inhibit as well as VERY limited copies of me and @spiremint's new graphic novel RUIN OF THE HOUSE OF THE DIVINE VISAGE!!

We're going to be at Thought Bubble next weekend, along with a whole host of creators we've worked with! Come along to Bubbleboy C11 to browse our selection of amazing work, including the brand new THE SECOND SAFEST MOUNTAIN, and be sure to stop by the other Quindrie creator tables.

Bubbleboy Hall: @chrislaumanson C5 @toadlett C10 Quindrie Press & @evegwood C11 @elljwalker & @pppondi C13 @juliecampbell C15

Redshirt Hall @devereauxs-doodles E16 @kroovv B13 @bethfuller B5

[seancekitsch]

Venus

A/N: warning for alc mentions, unprotected sex, some kinky slapping dom/sub stuff, my normal freak ass shit

-

Loving Klaus was easy, you found. Easy to have it open and known and free than to feel yourself wrestling with the feelings the way you had been a month prior. A month of ‘I love you’ and a month of really feeling like the two of you were a proper couple, at the very least like the two of you were real people. His siblings noticed it too, the shift. Like you were finally one of them, and it felt nice to belong. You really hadn’t ever felt that way before, not without drugs, and that was only belonging through wanting to get something out of someone else and not just the people themselves. Last week the holidays had come and gone, and you were honestly surprised his family had included you in the celebrations, despite the fact that you and Klaus had thrown them all a birthday party two months prior. Their holiday traditions were weird, donuts and eighties music and bickering, but it was nice. The week spanned on and turned to the final night, new years, finally the family happy to be seeing a year that isn’t some fucked up version of 2019 (one that Klaus has told you over and over his brother Ben was alive and absolutely cruel and you were married to your ex and clearly using) and finally ready to move on from it all. This timeline wasn't perfect, not by a long shot, but it was the one you both had together and it was the one his family fixed. Tonight was for celebrating, for dancing and drinking and forgetting your worries. It's fun, but it's only a matter of time before Klaus takes you home or to a forgotten spare room. Allison opens up her house in the city to her family and their guests. The night starts with dinner, which is a big potluck of foods that don't go together but all of the Hargreeves favorite foods. You can tell exactly who brought what, and no one is surprised by the insane amount of take out you and Klaus brought. There's cocktails which are actually made with care instead of mixed up sloppily like a child making potions out of shampoo in the tub. 

It's around 11:25 when Klaus pulls you down the hall towards the guest room, shouting, “I am but a weary traveler! My Panacea and I need a respite before we keep entertaining you all!” which was met with rolling eyes and a few flinches at the abruptness of it all, but a steady fondness as the backdrop of it all.

Klaus drops to his knee the second the door is locked, and grabs your leg to hike it up. Your back comes to rest against the wall, jamming coats out of your way to get comfortable as he presses his plump lips to the shiny toe of your boot. His breath fans out, almost fogging the shiny fake leather of your boot before he starts kissing. He presses kisses from the tip of your toe up to where the arch of the side of your foot would be, then licks the rest of the way up to the ankle, moaning as he does so. A prayer, a promise, his devotion on display. This is Klaus wanting to be used, wanting to be objectified and made yours.

“I’m going to get famous again, baby.” He kisses the toe of your boot one more time before moving up and resting your foot on his bended knee. He pushes your skirt up, all the way to where your thigh meets your hip, and his hands are all over your leg as he speaks.

“Prophets gonna rise from the ashes, and this time I’m gonna build it all in your image,” his teeth rake the sheer tights at your calf, ripping at least one hole in them. They were new. “The whole worlds gonna worship you just like I do, fraulein.”

You’re halfway between a chuckle and a moan as one of his thumbs slides up into the back of your knee and the other presses a harsh circle to your inner thigh, right below where the panties of your lingerie begins, if you could even call them panties. They were a mess of mesh and lace that you saw in the mall and you just had to get them and their matching bra, even if now they seem a little gaudy. Klaus likes them, though, and got excited when you got dressed for tonight when he saw them laid out on the bed. He wanted to tear them off of you the moment he saw them, and he would do just that. His hand snakes its way up over your clothed cunt, making you groan at the contact, before he reaches the waistband of your tights and yanks them down  with your panties as far as he can, pulling them to where your boots prevent them from coming off, essentially giving Klaus control of how much you can move during this tryst. Its now that he puts your leg down, letting you stand up straight again in front of his bent figure.

“Hit me,” he begs. Klaus’ eyes are blown wide with lust, even in the dark.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Hit me, slap me across the face,” he begs again, “Make me hurt, tell me ‘Klaus I want you to bleed for me’ I’ll do it.”

He gets this way sometimes. Arousal floods your system in the same vein as concern. If Klaus wants to be hurt, he’s usually already hurting. 

“No, Klaus we don’t have time, let's talk about it,” You say, already sinking down onto your knees to join him, to cradle his face in your hands and to make him feel better.

“Doc, Doc there’s nothing wrong. I need relief. It's like, like a cure.Yeah. I’m hard as a rock, love, I need relief.”

Purely kinky. Consensual. If it's what Klaus wants, who are you to deny him of it? You rise up onto your feet again, preparing yourself to hit him. To Klaus, even in the darkness, he can make out that you look like something otherworldly, bigger and greater than human. You wind back, apprehensive but willing to do anything for him, something he recognizes not casually. As your open palm makes contact with his left cheek, a shuddering moan makes its way up from deep inside his stomach, out through his throat and past his lips orgasmic in execution. 

“Again, please.”

And you indulge him twice more, until you're sure the hot skin on his face is reddened. There's a certain kind of thrill in knowing that your hands will leave a mark on him, that he’ll enter a new decade with your hands printed on his visage. Those three slaps are good enough to sate him for now, as he rises back to his feet, pressing his lips to yours as his hands go straight to your hair, any semblance of style you had put to it would be out the window in seconds. He backs you against the door until you hit it, then you both start to slide to the floor. He guides you down gently, taking extra care to remember the tights holding your ankles hostage, and lays you down against the hardwood, the warmth of his old faux fur trim jacket like a blanket to cushion you as he pushes your skirt back up to your waist.

He bends you in half, pulling your legs up to meet your chest; your boots clanking together on his shoulder as he pushes into you, immediately filling you to the hilt. This angle is nothing short of divine for you both, your legs pressed together making you feel just that much tighter wrapped around Klaus’ cock, and the angle leaving you mercilessly open to his thrusting.

“This is the tightest, wettest little cunt I've ever had the pleasure of serving,” Klaus whispers as he pulls out and slams back into you before setting his pace.

 He's fast, working against the clock, and against every nerve ending in your body. You don't try to stifle the moans as his thrusts rock your entire body along the floor. He fucks like a man with a gun to his head, hitting you deep each time, a staccato of his name falling from your lips as he pants and growls in your ear. You feel your orgasm coming before you can warn him, and the spasming of your body surprises you both earth shattering, convulsing waves of pleasure hit you, and all you can do is cling to each other as it ruins you. The spasming of your muscles triggers him as well, and you can feel every drop of hot white cum that he shoots into you, filling you deep.

He kisses you, muttering little ‘I love you’s as he pulls out, gently pulling your thighs off his shoulder and pulling your panties up; rolling your ripped tights up with the utmost care and dedication before you reach for him again to help you stand, shaky knees and dizzy from his affections. Love drunk as well as martini drunk, ready to face midnight.

“Klaus, Klaus I need to find a restroom before we go back out there. I need to clean myself up.” You can already feel his sticky white dripping out of you, no doubt making an irreversible mess of those panties he liked so much. It would be uncomfortable to sit, to move unless you got to the bathroom and got yourself fixed up. Klaus whips back around to look at you as his hand grasps the doorknob.

“Don’t you dare, you venus in furs, let it be a reminder of what's going to happen when we get home.” there's pure evil in his tone and in his smile, “Plus, you'll miss midnight if you run off on me.”

He pulls the door open and leads you back out into the festivities.

[abarbaricyalp]

@sambuckylibrary

SamBucky Halloween Prompt 8: Horns/Wings/Claws/Glowing Eyes (I went four for four)

Just an angel and a demon blending in

Rated M: I feel it gets a little spicy and intense so just an excerpt this time (AO3 link in the notes)

Keep Thee In All Thy Ways

Bucky was just about thrumming out of his skin. Not entirely figuratively.

Sam, beside him, was much more composed. But there was a ready grin on his mouth that he usually kept a little more hidden. All the promises in that grin were not helping Bucky keep himself contained. They sought these events out like a challenge, chances to be their true selves without attracting too much attention. Or, at least, the bad kind of attention. Krampus celebrations and monster conventions and horror movie events all kept them sated throughout the year, but Halloween and haunted houses were easiest. And parties like these were Bucky’s favorite.

“Can we?” he asked, looking up at Sam with clear blue eyes. Early snow had started to filter down around them and melted instantly on their skin. The party below continued to rage. There were so many moving bodies and fires that Bucky wasn’t sure they’d even noticed the flurries yet.

Sam nodded his permission and Bucky stepped back. He rolled his shoulders back in his perfect coat and brought his hands up to smooth his hair from his face before relaxing enough to reveal the large, curling horns over his head. They always came out first, the hardest thing about himself to hide. He shook the humanness from his arms until the one turned into a gnarled hook of a hand and the other grew claws straight from the skin. By the time he looked up at Sam, his teeth had sharpened and his eyes had gone black. Natural. Easy "Too much?" he asked.

It was a moot point. As always, Sam was more impressive, with his dour massive bloodied wings and dozens of white glowing eyes. Some hung in the air around him, some traveled the length of his cheeks and neck. When he unbuttoned his shirt, several more blinked from his shoulders. The extra arms, dripping molten gold, antler and bone protruding through dark skin, were always a favorite that Bucky somehow forgot about year to year. Above everything, a gold and blood halo curved from Sam’s temples to the air over his head, almost taller than his wings.

“Come on, take off your pants,” Bucky goaded as his hands fell to his own sharp pressed slacks. A smooth, dense black fur pelt ran over thick thighs and narrow shins to fiery hooves. It was always the same for him. Sam could choose any animal he wanted.

“I thought we could match today,” the angel said and kicked his pants aside. His fur was much thicker and fluffier, curled the same way the hair on his head did but several shades lighter. His feet were not on fire, but each step left gold and ash in its wake anyway. Bucky reached over to smooth his hand down the side of Sam’s thigh and Sam shuddered against him.

“I forget how hot you are like this,” he said, and used a lower hand to drag Bucky’s palm over his side to rest low on his belly, against the first thatch of hair leading to his legs. Bucky scratched his fingers through the thick fur to the skin below. Sam’s upper hands pulled Bucky into a rough kiss, all ancient bone and brimstone against impossibly soft mouths. After millennia of existence, Sam still managed to catch his lips on Bucky’s teeth and bleed into his mouth. Bucky figured it must’ve been some declaration of love at this point.

“Do you have a cute little goat tail?” Bucky asked, dragging his good hand down Sam’s back to his ass.

“We should go before the snow piles up. We’ll be too easy to spot if we’re melting snow banks everywhere we walk.”

Bucky pouted, though it was probably lost in the rest of his visage. Logically, he knew that they only had so much time in their real bodies before something exploded or electricity stopped working or entire towns lost their minds at once. Never mind that staying stuck in a human body for ages on end made Bucky lose his own mind.

As it turned out, those who partook in the glories of plants that tripped them the fuck out on the Earthly plane were remarkably good at not losing their mind around ethereal beings. Halloween parties designed to get people high and then scare the shit out of partiers with gruesomely realistic costumes were exactly the kind of place Sam and Bucky could stop being human for a while longer than normal. It had the added benefit of never having someone be able to seriously claim they saw an angel or a demon, plus it usually converted a few people one way or the other.

These were very good parties.

“No fucking way,” someone laughed at the outskirts of it all. It was darker out here, but that meant nothing when Sam glowed white-hot and golden from head to toe. The partier reached up and waved his hands around the floating eyes. Bucky shoved him back.

“Don’t ruin the illusion, man,” Sam laughed back and tossed one arm over Bucky’s shoulder and the other around his waist. Antler and bone sunk into Bucky’s flesh and set him alight inside. “Took me forever to balance.”

The guy held his hands together in front of his face and bowed a little. “Righteous, man.”

Bucky wanted to tell him he had no fucking idea.

In the midst of the actual party, monsters danced to shitty music and shittier live music played over the stereo. Horrific costumed faces swam in and out of focus as they came together and fell away in the firelight. Smoke was thick and potent from the fires and the partiers alike. As much as Bucky did like the smell of cigarette smoke burning into lungs, the temptation to put his arm in one of the fires was more overwhelming and he let the flames bite and burn into his bad arm.

Sam took a deep breath and leaned more heavily into Bucky’s side. “Fuck, do you remember sacrificial votives?” he breathed, all eyes falling shut.

“I remember everyone who has ever worshipped or prayed to you,” Bucky answered and drew his arm back from the flame.

Sam clicked his tongue and sucked on his teeth. “Don’t act so modest. You always got better flesh offerings than us.” He reached for Bucky’s arm and brought it to his mouth, laving his tongue over the charred skin. It flaked off in his mouth and then healed neatly behind his ministrations.

Bucky grinned, firelight catching on brimstone teeth. “We encouraged it. That’s on you for suggesting animals and money.”

“Money,” Sam scoffed and shot Bucky a baleful look from the crook of his elbow. “When offerings became truly about human sacrifice and not divine gain.”

“Mmm, you know I adore when you get traditional on me,” Bucky purred, tucking himself against Sam’s chest. He took his arm back to run his hands down Sam’s strong abdomen. He wrapped the hooked hand behind Sam’s waist and Sam stepped forward into the embrace. “Let me worship you and put your mind at ease about sacrifice and gain.”

I promise there’s more! Please read the rest on AO3!

[savior-of-humanity]

In a house of stone and splendor, in the deepest part of the Underworld itself, a river of blood began to bubble.

From it’s murky depths a figure rose -- seemingly a human at first glance, but the air of infernal divinity that surrounded him, the Greek chiton draped over his flesh, combined with the way fire trailed in the wake of his steps as he walked from the crimson waters, easily told otherwise. A sigh escaped the man, hand raising up to wipe and flick away whatever blood lingered in his hair.

“Well... let’s give it another go, I suppose.”

--

From a thicket of trees and underbrush, a hulking beast stepped forth - it seemed like a dinosaur at first glance, covered from head to toe with thick, armor-like scales, and sported an impressive shell adorned with massive spikes that curled forwards and towards it’s head. As the creature leaned down to drink from the nearby creek however, something caught it’s attention.

A subtle shift of it’s body, it’s scales began to rattle and shimmer with various iridescent hues - before suddenly a gunshot rang out, and the bullet struck one of it’s spines only to be completely deflected. With a low warning cry it turned away from the creek, disappearing back into the forest.

--

Somewhere, out in the middle of nowhere, a machine rose.

It gradually stood - slow and shaky, almost like a newborn taking it’s very first steps. Burning blue ‘eyes’ surveyed the area, scanning from left to right, before eventually it turned it’s attention to itself. The way it opened and closed the hand of one of it’s limbs, as well as bringing the other to one side of it’s head, could only be described as being a manner of curiosity. Or confusion, even.

After a few minutes the robot diverted it’s attention from itself, and began to walk off towards the distance in a random direction.

--

On the horizon, an immense cloud of red dust twisted and churned, reaching far, far up into the darkened, blood-red sky.

In the center of the storm, which had by now consumed an entire unfortunate city, stood a entity. Tall, massive, it’s figure a stark contrast from the ruined buildings that stood like gravestones around it’s intimidating form. Somewhere in the distance, a song could be heard - faint and distorted, yet somehow legible.

“Raapavu upada pruvti aakasaha, kranahi kiranaha Agni udaka...”

Immense flocks of bird-like beasts flocked around the gargantuan being, encircling the creature yet giving it a wide berth. They would turn to flee, however, when it began to move.

“Raboye kaalam mruytu dootha, mounam dhaa mounam phalu isha...”

Slowly, the beast shifted it’s head - eyes blinking open, burning bright and yellow amongst the miasma of crimson.

“Sagkalpa Samvada Kevala Karma, ishiwara Pooja hair hara gaana...”

It began to raise it’s visage towards the heavens above - jaw unhinging open, it’s maw and dorsal spines suddenly awash in an intense blue glow, whilst floating rings of energy began to manifest in front of it’s head.

“Amritam avusoonyam pradarasha, dharma satsung udayam, Rutham Rutham medha...”

As it finally unleashed a beam of light towards the sky, a deafening sound could be heard - a cacophonous roar, a noise that heralded the End-Times, the beginning of the end, the harbinger of Armageddon itself.

[spiremint]

RUIN IS DONE AND YOU CAN READ IT ALL RIGHT NOW!!

In a monastery where revealing one's face is an affront to the god housed inside its very chambers, what happens when one young man accidentally sees the face of another?

Ruin of the House of the Divine Visage is the graphic novel I'm printing with my partner Eve Greenwood. If you like repressed gays living in a monastery, then this comic is for you! 130 pages of blooming love under god's oppressive gaze await.

Download the whole thing from my patreon! This is the only place to read the whole comic until it goes to print later this year.

👁👁👁 EDIT AUGUST 14, 2024: 👁👁👁

THE KICKSTARTER HAS ARRIVED!

And in fact, we've already passed 50% which is just crazy!

Please check out the Kickstarter to see the beautiful sample copy of the hardback book and the extra goodies that come along with it.

[spiremint]

we funded eariler today while i was at work thank you SO much 😭😭😭

WE'RE FUNDED!! THANK YOU!! THIS COMIC IS GETTING PRINTED!!!

we are hooting and hollering, thank you SO much for all the love for this project. we can't wait to make this the most gorgeous book we possibly can!!

In a monastery where revealing one's face is an affront to the god housed inside its very chambers, what happens when one young man accidentally sees the face of another?

RUIN is the brand new collaborative graphic novel from @evegwood and @spiremint, a 130-page comic about religion and queer romance. Buy the completed graphic novel on Kickstarter!

RUIN is also being posted as a webcomic that you can read for FREE at visagecomic.com! Follow @thunderstormstudios to get new page updates every Tuesday!

[cyberneticlagomorph]

Is there anything more daunting and dangerous than the blank white expanse of a page? 

It glitters and glows like the spit-slick teeth of a predator, hungry for words that you cannot give it. No matter how much you want to. 

Its gaze alone freezes all trains of thought, even in the minds of Writers and authors and artists alike, even those more powerful than I. 

And as I sit here, trembling, at the mercy of Writer's Block and my own anxieties… I can think of nothing that I want more than to run, to leave this page blank, and my readers guessing. 

The End is Nigh, dear readers, and I am afraid. 

So very afraid. 

"I'm afraid too," says the rabbit we all know and love, his legs swallowed by moss and weeds and misshapen dreams. He stands right where we left him, sword in hand, broken sky above, the End of Everything staring him down. 

All seven of Her glowing green eyes blaze with something worse than hate, and I wish for all the world that this was a much different story. A happy story, with a happy Ending. 

But I've never written a happy Ending in my life.

There is silence now, neither Protagonist or Antagonist moves or breathes or blinks.

They know that this is how it Ends.

One of them will die today. 

So it is Written. 

So it will be.

"Shut. Up." The End snarls, lips curling back over venomous fangs that drip oily green liquid onto the cracked asphalt below. Flowers bloom from the puddle, and spread like a rainbow rash down the street. "This. This is all YOUR fault!"

I know. 

I'm sorry. 

"LIAR!!" Her scream echoes across the fourth wall and cracks my computer screen. 

This…

This is where I leave you, dear readers. 

I'm sorry. 

Fangs sink deep into the papery flesh of the Narrative, tearing it apart as it is poisoned. Thorns grow from its wounds and strangle it like trembling hands. 

Writer be damned.

Plot be damned.

I am the End of EVERYTHING, I will End this miserable excuse for story on my own terms. 

Or die trying. 

You have not won, sweet stupid rabbit, no one can save you now, no one will stop me now. The world is a page upon which fate is Written and I will burn it all to the ground. May its ashes be lost and forgotten. 

Your dark eyes narrow at me, bone blade glittering as you charge. But I am in control now, and I don't play fair. 

Deep beneath the earth, humans sit snug and safe in their bunkers, thinking themselves free of the horrors outside. From the canteens comes a deep and terrible shattering like teeth against an eggshell, and a figure crawls lazily from the steam wafting from any number of bubbling pots set on stoves across the world over.

She smells of cooking meat and blood drenched in exotic spices and honey. Stick thin, and dressed in a chef's uniform. Her sleeves and hands are stained with the blood of the starving.

She has no face.

Only bright white teeth.

She manifests in the homes of the rich, stuffing them fat with delicacies that humans have no names for. Each minuscule morsel is completely tasteless covered in edible gold. Like the kind of fare you'd find at high end restaurants, going for hundreds of dollars a plate, even though each serving is barely a mouthful. 

She appears in slums with bread made from ash and bone, rat stew, and tainted water.

Pots boil in city centers, a roiling soup made from human offal that nothing in this world or the next could ever hope to surpass.

The poor eat their rations, their bread, their stew and grow sicker and hungry. Skeletal and drooling like rabid animals, they stuff their faces with food that offers no nourishment until there is no choice but to turn on each other. 

Screens grow undulating limbs and crawl from the wreckage of humanity, their screens blinking wetly like the eyes of a crying child. On each one is a broadcast, a man with red eyes smiles a reassuring smile and says,"Hungry? Eat the rich."

And they do.

A hoard of near zombies growl and gurgle as loud as their empty bellies, they hunt down the wealthy, and they FEAST.

Pestilence rises from the pus and rot and ruin and watches as all the good Jack and his friends had done is undone in a flash.

Among the riots and feasting is a cop, his riot gear reflecting the terrified and feral faces around him as he marches slowly onward. There is nothing behind his helmet. 

Only malice.

Only power.

Only slaughter. 

Only Death.

I don't have to tell you what comes next, what Death does when he gets his hands on a victim. The sounds of bullets ringing out into the night can tell you, the smell of tear gas in a crowd can tell you, the cries of innocents choking out their last breaths in steel cuffs, wrists rubbed raw and bleeding can tell you. 

Death is not merciful. 

He is not kind or quick or clean.

He is inevitable. 

You know it.

And he knows it.

This world will collapse under the weight of its own sins and I will be here to watch it dissolve like candy floss in water. 

Tears stream hot and blue down your face, and your grip on the Vorpal sword trembles. They are not worth your tears.

They stole you, beat you, broke you.

Turned you into a monster and then threw you away like you were NOTHING. 

You should hate them as much as I do.

You should be glad for their suffering. 

They deserve to die.

Like HE deserves to die. I turn my gaze skyward and watch the world split as the armies of Heaven pour down like a wrathful rain. 

The Divinity burns your skin, doesn't it Jack? And yet the smell of Angels makes your mouth water. 

You are no better than I am, I think. A man made monster set loose upon the multiverse, expected to play nice and fit in the niches carved for us. But we don't, no matter how hard we try, how good we think we are, we are torn apart again and again and again until we are unrecognizable from our beginnings. 

I think I could have loved you.

In another story.

In another lifetime.

We would have been good friends at least. 

But it's too late for that now, and as the first wave of Angels assault me with Heavenly fire, I part my jaws and give them some fire of my own. Green, as bright and beautiful as the first leaves of spring, it turns their armor into bark and their marble skin into flower petals. They fall to the ground like confetti, and I claw my way up to Heaven.

The Gates bend and break beneath my weight like wire, nothing and no one can stop me as I wrap HIM in my coils, slowly constricting. My venom burns holes in HIM that grow fruit trees, and each fruit contains the knowledge of the multiverse. I want HIM to die slowly, to watch as HIS playthings suffer and burn because of HIM. The humans cry out, and they pray, begging, pleading for HIM to save them. But HE can't, HE won't. 

What GOD would make a world so empty and hopeless as this? What GOD would let HIS followers murder and hate and destroy entire cultures in HIS name? 

HE never wanted this, never wanted it to come to this, HIS teachings have been mistranslated and manipulated for millennia and now there is nothing left but hatred and sin. 

My jaws part above HIS head, ropes of green spittle tarnishing HIS crown. HE does not fight me, how pathetic of HIM.

White hot pain explodes through my tail.

There you are, sweet hero, stupid rabbit. 

Go home Jack, this doesn't concern you. 

"But it does," you twist the blade, dislodging my scales and rending my flesh. My blood slithers up your sword, trying desperately to burrow inside of you and turn you Green. "You said that you think you could have loved me… well love me now, it doesn't have to be this way… I could… I could take care of you and help you heal, we could do it together." 

You offer your hand, bloody and trembling. 

The sound I make is inhuman and hard to describe in words, it is disbelief and venom and vengeance all at once. I stretch myself down to meet you, my eyes are the size of houses, and they reflect your trembling visage like great green mirrors. 

"You're right, I should hate them, hate everyone… but I don't." a swallow, you taste copper and butterscotch, "I used to but I-I found people who cared, I found people who I love and who love me back and they make my life worth living… they gave me a reason to get better and stop hurting people… let me be your reason."

You reach out and touch my face, my scales are warm like the sidewalk in summer. 

I crush GOD in my coils and HIS blood rushes over you like a wave.

There is nothing that can fix this, fix me. 

No love will quiet the hatred in my heart.

I do not deserve kindness or redemption. 

Love might have tempered your monstrous hearts, but it won't do the same for me.

Only one of us will make it out of this story alive. 

"So it is Written." You say, solemnly. 

So it will be.

My coils curl around you, quick as lightning. Your symbiote is the only thing keeping you from being crushed like a soda can, I hope you know that.

I don't waste time, and fling you down…

Down…

Down…

Towards earth.

Countless Angels have been discarded this way, wings torn from their backs, left to the mercy of gravity. It never gets any easier. 

I tear a hole into space and crawl through it, into Fairyland, the place of my birth. 

I devour the Sun-In-Chains, my replacement, and plunge the planet into darkness. I skin my teeth into the planet's crust and empty my venom glands into its core. Fairyland becomes my twisted Eden, choked with blinding bioluminescence, thorns, and poisonous things that not even I have a name for. 

It's beautiful and terrible all at once. 

Like me. 

Like you too, I suppose. 

You plunge your blade into my seventh eye and send me reeling, screaming, flailing. My frantically flapping wings crash into a nearby planet and reduce it to dust.

I pluck the sword from my eye and snap it into pieces. 

You're becoming a real thorn in my side. 

Seven perfect fingers snatch you out of the sky like the annoying insect you are and start to CRUSH YOU.

I will tear you apart with my TEETH if I have to.

You've had every chance to run and hide, or join in my crusade and you denied them all. I have no use for you. 

Not even as a snack.

Or a toothpick. 

"Then kill me." You growl through clenched teeth, blood already flecking your lips and leaking from your nose. 

I throw you into a patch of thorns. Each and every one is serrated and ranges in size from a human finger to a school bus, you are impaled, skewered, crucified even. 

Neon blue blood running down to the soil beneath, feeding my Eden. 

And yet, you refuse to die.

Slowly but surely, you drag your broken body up and off the thorn, shakily levitating up to meet me. 

You stare at me with dead eyes, blood pouring from the opening in your chest. Your lips part and black flames flicker behind your teeth, smoke curling from your nostrils as the color drains from your eyes in inky tears, until there is nothing but black. 

Just like the hole in your chest.

You seem to crack like porcelain, to split in two like something precious dropped from a great height. What crawls from the darkness inside of you is something no human throat can utter, no human tongue can twist or shape itself the right way to name. 

It's said that Demons possess. 

But Angels abandon. 

But what can be said of creatures that man has no name for? 

The thing inside of you stares at me with eyes darker than the emptiness between stars, its maw is the belly of a black hole with teeth long enough to split a planet like an apple. 

It is the bleak black emptiness that existed before the universe, and will exist again when there is nothing but dust and dead silence. 

This… this is my Warden, my Prison, the creature tasked with my capture those eons ago. You are barely a speck in it's vast form, a limp and lifeless nucleus.

It roars, a sound that radiates across time and echoes across the multiverse. 

"FROM NOTHINGNESS YOU CRAWLED, TO NOTHINGNESS YOU WILL RETURN." the beast howls in a voice that echoes from every dark and terrible place in the multiverse and shakes me to my core.

I will not go without a fight.

It lunges, claws outstretched, the endless expanse of its hideous maw seems to suck all the light out of the stars, out of me. I sink my teeth into its throat and pull, my body curling around and around it. 

Its claws are impossibly sharp, tearing my flesh down to the bone. My blood falls to fairyland like rain. My face is grabbed and smashed into the planet's surface again and again. I crush the Warden close and set myself on fire, I am the LIGHTBRINGER, it will take more than some overconfident shadow to defeat me.

The Warden burns, it smolders and screams like steam escaping. I fling it away into deep space and charge after it, driving my seven horns into its belly.

I miss you by a hair, I feel you reach out and grab me just as I pull back. Amber chains snake from your weeping wound, to the Warden behind you. 

You have no control over this thing, do you?

No.

Didn't think so.

But still, you stubbornly grab your chains and pull. The Warden does not come to heel, so much as it melts, engulfing you in its emptiness like a suit. When you open your eyes, you nearly dwarf me.

Nearly.

Your fist collides with my face in an instant, sending teeth flying like meteors. I cannot tell your rage apart from the Warden and I'm not sure I really want to.

Run.

For a second, we are stars, two pinpricks of light twirling around each other in double helices, colliding and clashing with enough force to summon new stars from the ether. We are creation and chaos incarnate. 

We crash through debris fields, shatter planets and extinguish stars. Our blood becomes the new crawling things left behind in the wreckage. I'm smiling, the pain is dizzying, delicious, delightful. 

My venom turns you into a garden, and you tear me apart with your bare and bloody hands. 

Through it all we refuse to die.

Maws wide and screaming in tongues the universe hasn't heard since it was new, I am thoroughly seduced. 

But I am growing bored with this game.

I shove my hand through the Warden and tear you out. You scream in undeniable agony, I close my fist around you and squeeze.

The Warden hangs limp and dead in the darkness of deep space, slowly dissolving. 

Something oozes between my fingers. 

Not blood, far too sticky and cloying to be that.

If Hope had a color, what would it be? 

Would it be a color that only shrimp can see, and only gods have a name for? 

You pry my fingers apart, tears pouring from your eyes the same color as Hope. Hope flows from your mouth as flames, rushes from your open chest as ferns and flowers and vines more beautiful than I could ever create. You reach into the forest of your heart and pull out Kindness, sleek and soft and sharp. 

It melts in your hands, becoming a hammer, comically oversized like your Ma's. And then it grows, and grows, and in the blink of an eye it's bigger and I am. The swing alone takes out half a dozen solar systems before it hits me and sends me crashing through different universes and out the fourth wall. I land heavily on the Writer, dazed and bloody, your hand reaches through his broken computer screen and drags me back home, and there we float over the ruined remains of earth, the skin of my chest balled in your hand like a shirt. You kiss your knuckles and punch me hard enough to send me careening back down to the earth's surface, my crater levels a nearby city.

Do you care?

Are we beyond morals and niceties and caring about humanity? 

You teleport to my limp and broken body, you scoop me up into your arms and hold me close. 

I've folded in on myself several times, I'm barely the size of a person now. 

I can feel those amber chains slithering around me, they clasp around my throat tight enough to choke. 

I don't want to go.

Don't make me go.

I don't want to go back to sleep.

Please. 

I'm scared. 

I'm so scared. 

You don't let me go, as I break down and cling to you like a scared child you don't let me go. 

I wrap you in my wings, I shove my head under your chin and apologize when I stab you with my horns.

"I am your Warden, you are my Prisoner… you are the End of Everything, but I am the End of You…" your throat is choked with snot and tears as you squeeze me so tight I can barely breathe. "You… you deserve to be a Happy Ending and I refuse to live in a world without one."

You kiss my forehead and wipe away my tears. "We do terrible things when we hurt… you deserve compassion instead of imprisonment."

I can do nothing but sit there and bawl, choking on Kindness as thick and sweet as soft caramel. 

Seven times seven thousand lifetimes worth of hate and sorrow and trauma run from my eyes.

You sit with me until the crying stops, until my throat is raw and all I can do is whisper. 

I speak a Word, one that fixes the shattered sky and let's the sun shine properly again. 

The sun speaks their own Words and resets the world, turning the clock back to the day before my escape, I do humanity one kindness and let them wake the next morning as if the past week were nothing more than a bad dream.

I am made to fix my messes, to undo my misdeeds. 

The Horsemen are sealed away again. 

Fairyland is repaired to the best of my ability, although there is nothing that I can do for the Sun-In-Chains. What's done is done. 

GOD will be fine, HE'S GOD, and therefore more or less impossible to kill permanently. 

All evidence of my tirade is erased.

I am finally bound in amber, my powers diminished. I dread returning to the cold depths of the well, but you won't let that happen.

You refuse to send me back to that lonely place beyond dreams and take me home, to your home. Warm and safe beneath the soil, I curl up next to you by the fire.

And for the first time in your short and terrible life, you get a good night's sleep. 

[andagii-writes]

Oracle Calling

Hydrate me with a Ko-Fi!

Summary

(inspired by Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson series, as well as Supergiant Games’s Hades)

Miss Levinia is the master of The Oracle Winery, a quaint yet historic operation nestled in Napa Valley for the last couple centuries. Her day staff tends to the mortal patrons, but at night, the tasting room transitions into a haven for displaced demigods, Levinia their overseer and protector, "Switzerland," by some accounts. What begins as an uncharacteristically quiet evening quickly evolves into a night of revelation, when a specter from her past crosses her threshold. (7,501 words)

Cross-posted on AO3 and WordPress.com

Glossed lips pursed in a frown, and with deliberate severity in her gaze, tall, dark Miss Levinia stood, arms crossed, behind the bar of her winery’s tasting room. Only a faint hum pervaded The Oracle Winery, as though the evening had forgotten its role in Levinia’s routine, as well as an earlier camaraderie.

But rather than making herself maudlin by recalling those regulars—twin brats of Hades and their snuffling, oversized Cerberus pups—Levinia turned her attention to administrative catch-up. With no one barging in for asylum or medical attention for the half-divine, or even for a drink, she at least had the perfect amount of peace to attend to the tasting room’s inventory. Clipboard in hand, she wove between the wicker lounge chairs and glass-top tables, pen scratching notes on a log sheet. Wheat crackers and cheeses for the main bar. More bottles of riesling and moscato for the refrigerator at the secondary dessert bar. Prepare the menus for the upcoming seasons. Oh, and inventory the grocery bags the twins had left at the end of the main bar.

The twins had, for the first time, asked about the otherworldly fare they brought for her in those bags. What exactly did she brew with the stuff?

“You’d have to drink them to know,” Levinia had responded. “But you might find yourselves on an express ferry back to your lord father if you did.”

They asked no more and finished their drinks on their way out.

Without paying, yet again.

Shoulders heaving in a deep sigh, Levinia set aside her clipboard and unrolled the long receipt detailing the twins’ tab, readying herself for the weekly recalculations. Pen rocking between two fingers, she punched numbers on her phone’s calculator while her mind added more to the to-do list. Check the stock on the venom and hallucinogenic brews. Re-apply poison to the knives hidden under the bar top. Regular protective maintenance, though she avoided altercations whenever possible. After all, unlike most of Levinia’s patrons, The Oracle afforded her a boring life of stability and routine. The day staff, a rotating roster of demigods, maintained the vineyards, the cellars, and the tasting room, while Levinia oversaw the operation at night, when she donned her waistcoat and customer service smile, and presided over what the brats called their personal Switzerland.

Though she appreciated the mystique and respect, even ancient Miss Levinia saw distress in the face of constant monotony. She enjoyed her stability, yet the quiet made her reminisce, made her memory clear away the fog over her childhood, made her consider the stars outside as she once considered the stars above the ocean spray of her old home.

Home? She scoffed at herself. The Oracle was home. She’d made this place her home. Even halfway across the world in this foreign wine country, history ensconced her, in a petrified forest further up north, neat rows of grapevines at her flanks, and splendid wineries for miles in either direction, each lot boasting more history and grandeur than the last. Among the pueblo-style bungalows, stone castles, and even a mountaintop vineyard that required an airborne cable car for access, The Oracle Winery stood proud yet modest, little more than a glorified cottage.

Levinia, sighing, rolled her shoulders. With the tasting room’s mood lights dimmed to gentle amber flares, The Oracle needed a distraction as well, lest it fell into a fitful doze with her. Music, she thought, would lift the spirits of the place. She added that note—'hire nightly entertainment’—to her list, since she, unfortunately, never inherited her father’s knack for revelry.

As she started her calculations again, a breeze swept outside, disturbing the ivy leaves and grapevines to a gentle rustle. A visitor had arrived.

Levinia re-rolled the twins’ tab and nestled it against her register. Whatever came through her doors deserved her cordial welcome as thanks for the break in the evening. Tugging her waistcoat straight, she drew back and fastened the curlicue waves of her hair with golden ivy pins: mementos, Mother once claimed, of Father.

The doors opened. Levinia curled her lip in her customary slight smile. She started, “Welcome,” then choked in surprise. As she stared wide-eyed at the silhouette on her doorstep, her smile hardened into wariness.

She knew that broad shadow. She remembered that height.

‘No,’ she told herself, shaking her head. ‘I don’t know. That’s not—My mind’s just playing tricks.’ Just a specter from her memories. Reminiscing had never been good for her. She sucked in a sharp breath and loosened her clenched hands. What an embarrassing mistake to make of a likely regular patron. Or an enemy. ‘Come on,’ Levinia scolded herself. ‘You’re working now.’

Even while eyeing her customer, Levinia kept her tone civil. “Welcome to The Oracle Winery,” she said again, then gestured to the bar stools. “’Tis the tasting room. Have a seat; tell me what you need.”

The man stooped to clear the threshold and said nothing as he closed the door behind him. Levinia curled her lip in slight offense, but swallowed her snap. After all, most of The Oracle’s first-time patrons kept to themselves, usually out of sharp distrust. The same probably held for this man. Curled hair sprung in stray sprigs from under his hood, some shade of dark color muddied by the amber lights. His shoulders filled out the corners of his thick jacket, zipped all the way up. Despite the suffocating choice, a strange gracefulness helped the man to navigate his long legs as he turned about, apparently investigating every possible corner of The Oracle.

Levinia lowered her hand to an alcove under her counter, brushing her fingers along the handles of her hidden knives. Why survey the space so? Looking for surveillance or a way out?  Yet, strangely, no sign of intimidation came off his height or hooded visage. No anticipation prickled in his silence. Rather, Levinia thought as she drew her hand back, a welcoming gentleness surrounded him.

Which made Levinia offer her hand instead. “Shall I take your coat?”

He shook his head, electing instead to partially unzip his jacket. After a hesitant moment, hands firmly balled in his pockets, he finally spoke. “You’re not asking who I am?”

He used a gruff tone to mask his voice, but its familiarity echoed in Levinia’s ears. She choked down the knot tangling in her chest and replied, “You can tell me if you want, but I won’t ask or tell. That goes for anyone visiting at this time.”

“Say I tell you, and you realize you’d rather throw me out. Would you do so?”

Levinia grimaced at the poorly-veiled sentiment. “I can’t break my own rules, now can I? Just don’t make any trouble for me.” She held her breath, as the man slid into one of the barstools before her. “So, what can I get you tonight?”

“Just a glass,” he sighed, shoulders relaxing. “A black, if you please.”

She considered the hooded man, his head low. “A ‘black’ wine at The Oracle,” she murmured, hands on her hips, “is considered divine fare. So don’t disrespect me. Take your hood off.”

The man flinched and threw a glance over his shoulder, the motion freeing another curling lock of dark hair from his hood. “You speak so fearlessly,” he said, a chuckle lacing his voice. “Like a goddess of protection. Or a mother. Have you become one since I last saw you?”

He had dropped his gruff tone as well, opting for a natural mellow accent, one Levinia occasionally heard in her faded recollections of Father’s bedtime stories. He used to talk about foreign lands, waters, and adventures.

“I only ask,” the man hurriedly added, likely in response to Levinia’s lips pursing into a thin line, “since there was no one back home to tell me what had happened to you.”

“And just how long ago did you visit those ruins?” While she had stopped herself from spitting, a dangerous edge sharpened her voice. “And no, I’m neither goddess or mother, heaven forbid me. All I do is make and maintain the rules of my house, so again, no trouble past those doors.”

He folded his hands over the countertop, still refusing to meet Levinia’s eye. “I remember that. Your mother had a similar rule.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake.” Stomach roiling, Levinia covered her face and counted each long second of her breath. “Just take your damn hood off, Father.”

“I—I believe you have me mistaken.”

“Let’s not play this game. You might as well be standing before me in full regalia. Where’s your wand? Your chariot? Your attendants? What happened to excelling at disguise?”

“To protect the mortal eye, yes. But you, your mother…” He finally, sheepishly, shed his hood. The rest of his curled hair, some tied back in a half-pony, cascaded over his shoulders. “Your mother had a sharp, fearless eye. You’ve clearly inherited that.”

Levinia’s stomach, which had coiled backwards, now pitched forward, as she let the specter’s words and visage sink in. She remembered that voice. That face. She hated that she’d seen through him so quickly.

Mother called him Daeon. And he hadn’t changed, even after hundreds upon thousands of years. Levinia’s lord father Dionysus, despite his languid, unshaven features, still held traces of the young father who once cradled Levinia among the vineyards. No disguise could hide the gravitas of his divinity.

Remembrance stung in Levinia’s eyes, as she ground her palm into one. She’d prepared for everything—riots, medical emergencies, death threats, ichor hunters—but not her own father’s return. Why did this have to be her distraction for the evening?

Daeon went on, his voice wavering. “Levinia,” he said, “you’ve grown so much.”

“Time does that to a little girl,” she snapped, squaring her shoulders. “You missed Mother’s deathbed.”

“I swear to you,” he said, “Hades was to notify me as soon as she arrived at Elysium, but, nothing. I even made the journey below; I was ready to bring her back.

“But she wasn’t there. You sent her off correctly, didn’t you? An obol under the tongue?”

“Even if I hadn’t, the old attendants would have made sure of it,” Levinia spat. She laid her palms flat against the countertop and counted the seconds of her breath. In, slowly. Then out. “So let’s face the truth, shall we? You were too afraid to watch her go.”

“Not true. I knew where she was headed.”

“Then why? How hard could it have been? We lived on Olympus’s doorstep! Just a few steps outside, Father, and you could have seen Mother off yourself!”

Mother, who, after Father had disappeared that distant morning, waited upon the balcony every night and stared across the sea. She wistfully called it “The Promised Spot.” Yet that soft longing eventually hardened into bitter anger, solid until her final breaths when she begged Levinia to look after the family’s treasures.

The memories prickled into fury. Levinia stepped back from the bar top. Heaved another deep breath. Her staff called her tough, but, she reminded herself, the master of The Oracle Winery operated with far more finesse and impersonality regardless of the customer she faced. She straightened her back and cleared her throat. “Pardon me,” she said. “I’ll get you your drink.”

Taking a glass from the rack, Levinia knelt below as she guessed her father’s expression. Despairing, hopefully. Or guilty. Regretfully reminiscing. Self-pity, she told herself, she’d slap.

Above her, Daeon released a burdened sigh. “I had a theory,” he said, “that perhaps her soul had wandered elsewhere. You sent her off properly, yet she never arrived at Elysium. Never even saw Hades or Persephone to receive her decree.”

“Can’t say I care about your theories,” said Levinia, flipping a switch under her bar top. Soft amber light illuminated a cabinet below the register, as she produced a key from her pocket. “Take them to Athena or, I don’t know, Aristotle, since you’re so willing to head back down there. I’m sure Hades stashed him or some other philosopher in Elysium.”

“I’ll…consider it.” His tone deflated, yet he went on. “Your mother. Was—how angry was she?”

Levinia turned the lock on the cabinet. “She once promised to eviscerate you herself, if you came back while she was alive.” She simpered at her father’s groan and opened the glass door. Inside, mounted on its side, sat a plain, sealed amphora, a spigot retrofitted at its base. “But she never doubted your divinity.” Unpinning one of her ivy pins, Levinia felt about the patterned crest above the spigot. She turned the pin and fitted it into the crest, at the same time sliding the wine glass into place. “She never abandoned the craft you helped her master.”

“Which I see she also passed on to you.”

Holding the glass at a tilt, Levinia released the spigot. Dark red wine slipped in with hardly a bubble. “I like to think I did well by her.” She gingerly pulled the lever back, removed her hair pin from the crest, and stood, pocketing the pin as she nudged the cabinet shut. Pinky cushioned under the stem, she set the filled glass before her father. “But if she kept any secrets from me, she left them in this brew here.”

Levinia crossed her arms, as her father’s features creased with bafflement. “But why would she keep anything from you?”

Despite his confused tone, however, a strange, sharp clarity glinted in his eyes. Without realizing, her father had already, dimly, divined an answer, but needed a few moments longer to solidify his conclusion. Levinia shrugged anyway. “Experiments. Signatures. Something like that, if I had to guess. All she said was this one’s not complete ‘’til it received the blessings of Lord Dionysus.’” She gestured to the glass. “But you’ve already guessed that, right, wine being your domain? So go on. You’ve kept her waiting long enough.”

“With all of my gratitude,” Daeon replied, and picked up the glass. He tilted the wine toward the light and watched The Oracle’s amber lights flare through the deep red. His guilty remembrance softened into a fond smile as he brought the glass to his lips. He closed his eyes. “She’s created a masterpiece. I can tell already.”

Levinia rolled her eyes.

After another long moment and final deep breath, he tipped the glass back for the smallest sip.

Wonder filled his features then, his eyes practically glowing, while Levinia smirked. An old giddiness stirred in her as Daeon took another sip, longer this time. Then another. And another.

“Take your time,” she chuckled, dimly recognizing her own honest simper. Old memories stirred within her, reminding Levinia of fond memories of mother-daughter winemaking—to remind Father to come home!—until Mother had faded into a lonesome morosity some long, horrible time ago. After that and over the years, Levinia’s own love had withered into a desiccated husk of sadness, leaving her with the professional motions of winemaking, but none of the zeal.

‘Until,’ she thought, ‘now.’

“She’s mulled it well,” Daeon sighed. “There’s a bite, yet it’s kind. Soft.” He held a melancholic smile in his features. “As though she’s speaking to me. But this isn’t like her usual brews—what is that I taste? Persephone’s pomegranates?”

“As if she’d let you have the fruits of the dead. You’re tasting cherries, from what later became the Ottomans.”

“And the grapes?” Desperation strained his voice. “Did she use a blend?”

Levinia snorted. “Of only the grapes you raised. She wouldn’t agree to anything else for the private collection.” As her father put down his glass and cradled his head, Levinia swallowed the rest of her rebuke. She couldn’t berate his sincerity any longer. “I looked after what I could after you left. Still do. I’ll never be as good as you, but I did my best.” She smirked, sardonic. “Even stopped myself from burning them down, especially that ugly one with all the ivy.”

“Because Lyridice taught you to regard that one as though it was me.”

Mother had begged not only for the protection of the wine amphoras, but also, with sharp emphasis, the old grapevines in the private garden terrace. “For your father,” sighed a resigned Mother. “He’ll return to you during your long, long life. I promise.”

And now, millennia later, that promise had finally delivered.

Levinia raised a brow. “How did you figure?”

“I could never reach you through them,” Daeon reluctantly answered, “but I could still hear you. Your prayers. I heard both of you, whenever you called upon me through that grapevine.”

Levinia’s head spun, sour rage prickling again at the back of her throat. By force of habit, she had continued her one-sided conversations with the ivy-choked grapevines, increasingly so after her mother had passed. Even though passing time left her home in ruins, Levinia protected those plants with her life, taking them from the terraced gardens above the Mediterranean and across the world from new home to new home. Currently, they stood still and peaceful, enshrined in Levinia’s private garden.

And she still talked to them when she tended the garden. Through that conversation, Levinia realized, her father had found her. “I knew I should have burned that damn bush,” she hissed, every word pinched with more venom than the last. “So you really did know when Mother passed. You knew as soon as I told you and you still chose to not come home?”

“Forgive me, Levinia.” Distress mounted in Daeon’s voice. “I beg you to forgive me, but I know—I’m not—!” He sighed. “I’m not foolish either. You can’t forgive me. I heard that as well. Loud and clear.”

Levinia, remembering her wailing curses before the grapevine, bit her lip. Had her straight honesty then already done the damage she wanted? She leaned against her countertop, replying in a tight voice, “So what are you really here for? Obviously not to ask after Mother.”

“Lyridice has always been my reason—both of you have always been my reason.” Head cradled in one hand, he swirled his wine with the other. Exhaustion shadowed his features as he mockingly snorted, “Zeus advised me against coming here, ‘til I questioned him on his own children, those he left behind on this earth. He granted me some of his understanding then.” He lifted his head and met Levinia’s eye again. “Lyridice prayed that I look after you, Levinia. I’m sorry it took so long.”

“Your point?”

“I’m here to take you home with me. To Olympus.”

She stared, fighting to keep her expression of ennui while pure rage pounded harder and harder against her temple. Home? Olympus?

With Dionysus?

Her breath ran icy hot through her nose, as dumbfounded Levinia curled her fingers around the edge of the countertop. The wood groaned under her grip. Even Daeon pulled back. “So that’s it?” Her stomach lurched over and over. Her eyes, her cheeks, her ears, even her neck and throat, all burned. “This? After all these years? Do you take me for a damn child?”

“It’s for your safety—!”

“—My safety?! Where was this proposition when the pirates showed up? When they burned down our home looking for ‘divine ichor,’ answer me that!”

“I never heard—when was this?”

“Who cares when it was! They hung me—hung me, Father, do you hear me?!—draining me for my blood! Where were you then?!”

“I was looking for your mother!”

“You mean my dead mother?”

“She wasn’t—Levinia, listen to me—Lyridice’s not in the Underworld. She promised to wait for me at Elysium without drinking from Lethe, but I swear to you, she wasn’t there.”

She could have snatched up the glass on the table and smashed it into her father’s face. She could scream at the insolence, the disrespect, but she swallowed the rage scalding her throat. How had she not already vaporized or combusted? Pressing both hands to her temples, Levinia blew out a long, thin, tremulous breath. Then regarding her father with seething disappointment, she blew another breath and lowered her hands. Fists balled, she rounded the bar and stood before Dionysus.

Miss Levinia lifted one hand and pointed at the door. Her voice, icy and curt, sharpened further as she hissed through gritted teeth. “Get out.”

She snapped against his protest. “Mother was more right about you in her anger,” she pressed, “then she ever was in her love for you. You choose to smear her memory? Deflect your responsibility to her? Then I won’t listen to another second of this asinine talk, you hear me, especially in here! Get out!”

A shocked Daeon rose before her. “I never smeared or deflected—!”

“Yet you insist she’s not where she belongs?”

“Zeus forbade me from asking after Lyridice!”

“She was beneath you anyway, is that it? Leave her in peace!”

“I have been fighting, Levinia, fighting for leave this entire time—!”

“And it’s only now that Zeus is granting you this oh-so-necessary permission to see me? To look for Mother? Spit out that wine and cry me a river! Mother must have drowned herself in Lethe, just to avoid seeing you again!”

“By the Styx, child, relinquish your stubbornness for just one moment!”

“Take your patronizing and shove it, Father, because that stubbornness was all I ever had! For years, for centuries, for so goddamn long, all I ever had was that stubbornness to live! To survive!” Every nerve, every breath, every bone in Levinia’s body rattled. Yet somehow, as she regarded her father’s perturbed expression, she scoffed. Why even bother anymore? Why care so much now? Suddenly exhausted, she turned away. “So leave me to it. What’s another lost child to you or the gods, anyway?”

She tottered back behind the bar, as Daeon, shaking his head, fell back into his seat. “You were never lost to me,” he said. “Never.”

“Thanks for the nice thought,” Levinia muttered, “but you’re lying. Get out of my store.”

He lingered, however, drumming his fingers against the bar top. “Divine ichor,” he reflected. “How could anyone have figured that out about you?”

“Live just twenty years past your dead mother without looking more than a teenager, and people start wondering. And don’t try your persuasion on me. I’m of your blood.”

“But your ichor’s mixed, a far cry from that of the gods.”

Levinia rubbed her temples and squeezed her eyes shut as the dust cleared from her memories. Her mother had died, her father disappeared, and the people of that old vineyard had all passed on, leaving behind rumors of a ghost girl wandering the ruins of that once-hallowed estate. In the following lonely years, she ran pirates and treasure hunters for loops around the ruins and cackled at their bumbling expense, until they lashed her by her ankles and heated their cursed knives. “Details,” she mumbled. “Humans don’t care for them when they’re afraid of death.”

Pulling back from the counter, Levinia embraced herself, flinching as her body recalled the searing lacerations, one by one. Her breath shuddered in the icy hollow of her chest. ‘It’s all in the past,’ she told herself. ‘Just nightmares now.’

Just a nightmare. The distant memory of her mother’s voice sounded so close in Levinia’s head. But now you’re awake. And see? Mother is close to you. Father is always with you. The nightmares can’t reach you now.

“Levinia.”

She jerked back to reality—eyes wide, nose flaring, breath still shallow—to find her father offering his hand. “I thought,” Levinia snarled, albeit weakly, “I told you to leave.” Doubt and nostalgia pummeled her inside as she regarded the open palm before her. When was the last time she’d seen and held this hand?

“You spoke so many times before the vines—in joy, in anger, in sorrow—yet you never spoke of your suffering. Why?”

“Because…” Neither snark or sarcasm broke past the knot of honesty tangling in her throat. To tell, or not tell? After all, the last time she spoke to her father about her fears was the night before he disappeared. That was the last time they held hands.

What was that fear again? What had she told him? Levinia stared still at the offered hand, long fingers, knuckles somehow graceful, skin tanned by the Mediterranean sun. That same hand had given her a spoon of honey to soothe her, when she woke up screaming that night.

It was a nightmare.

Just a nightmare.

Wasn’t it?

A nightmare, of a thick black sea crashing forth from beyond an infinite horizon. Dark water coiled up her ankles and seized her wrists and throat and pitched her into the brine. The shadows flooded her nose and darkened her vision, whispered yet screamed, sang yet cried. She flailed and kicked for the surface, but the choking darkness dragged her lower and lower. Something—someone—grabbed her by the root of her soul, and she stilled, paralyzed. Ever deeper she sank, ever aware of the unending depth; she was returning somewhere, a place neither Mother or Father, a place from which her soul shrieked for escape.

She told Father this nightmare after crying against Mother.

Father left the very next morning.

“If you were listening at all after that,” Levinia finally responded, “I didn’t want to give you a reason to truly abandon me.” She laid her fingertips against her father’s. Like hers, and like she remembered, they were soft, maybe a little dry from tending the grapevines. And as she’d done so often as a child at the dinner table, she tapped her fingers against his, lightly, to escape Mother’s rebuke though she laughed eventually.

“It was never my intention—I didn’t mean to—no.” He curled their fingers together and gently gripped Levinia’s hand. “None of that matters.

“I’m sorry, Levinia.”

The apology hung thick, slowly permeating. Tears beaded in Levinia’s vision.

“I’m sorry, for leaving you so alone, so suddenly. I’m so sorry.”

She laid a hand over her eyes and turned her face askance. Biting her lip, she shook her head and swallowed in choking shudders. Miss Levinia, always stoic, never shed tears, not even for friends or close associates. Not even, she hoped, for her father.

Yet he, in silence, tightly held her hand.

“Levinia,” he then started. “As a child, you so desperately wanted to see your lord grandfather. I denied you that, but, do you remember how you tried to persuade me? The one thing you tried?”

Levinia, afraid of a habitual snap coming out instead of a question, sucked in another breath.

The one thing she tried?

The words came out before her foggy memory cleared. “I stole one of the wine amphoras,” she said. “A heavy thing of some special brew you made with Mother.” Lifting her hand, she narrowed her eyes and cocked her head, her memory’s eye following the movements of that little girl. “I… I drank some of it. And I fell asleep.”

Daeon nodded. “Then you had your nightmare. But, hear me, Levinia. It wasn’t just a nightmare.” He took her hand in both of his. “Your divinity shone when you told us about it. That wine opened your vision—your power. You had a vision with far more clarity than even some of Apollo’s oracles.”

“Talk about a stretch of the imagination.” Levinia sniffled. Still turned aside, she drew back and crossed her arms. “I’ve had no prophetic visions since then.”

“Have you had a wine blessed by your father since then?”

Her father’s smugness instilled Levinia with further disbelief. “You’re not a god associated with prophecy.”

“So let’s call it an epiphany. That you call this winery ‘The Oracle’—fate has good taste.”

Levinia wrinkled her nose. Still, the man had a right to believe whatever he pleased, so long as he provided the information she wanted. She crossed her arms. “Epiphany it is. So what did I see?”

In the ensuing silence, Daeon’s features fell again. He folded his hands together. “You’ll believe me, then?”

“I won’t guarantee it.”

“That’s fair,” he snorted. “Your unquestioning faith is certainly far more than I can ask for.” He took a deep breath. Then, despite the uncertain furrow of his brow, he began. “We took some time to decode your epiphany. We still have some disagreement about the details, but overall, we think you saw the seas of Chaos.”

That shapeless, tumultuous beginning of all? Levinia raised her brow. “What about it?”

“Them,” Daeon corrected. “They’re an entity, as well as a place. Considering what happened to you in that dream, there’s reason to believe They’re rising.”

“You’re insinuating that Chaos—which just is, and once abdicated Their supremacy—has adopted purpose and direction?”

Daeon chuckled. “And there’s the disbelief. But you’ve noticed the shift in this world, haven’t you? Humanity is slowly sliding this realm back into Chaos, as though to meet Them halfway.”

“Humans have always been a chaotic species. It’s their fate.”

“So you believe the Moirai designed the arrival of their siblings? The children of Nyx?”

“You say it like they’ve never been around.”

“Certainly, they’ve always had their governance over humanity—in dreams, in sleep, in death—but have they always been here, among the mortals? They’re becoming more and more deliberate in their duties, and the humans resist those machinations. You know what defiance of destiny invites.”

Defiance of destiny is the rejection of the gods’ order, and thus, a ticket for Chaos to emerge. The ichor hunters of Levinia’s youth demonstrated as much in their desperate resistance against death, and her network had reported even more: retribution stirring within and between countries, mass, fatal siren calls of both needles and firearms, older generations passing ill will rather than wisdom to the young. “So it was all one cohesive pattern,” Levinia muttered. “They’re goading humans to reject order.”

“Thus allowing the primordial gods even greater reign across the mortal realm. Their efforts will cloud humanity with the mists of Erebus, and so ready this world for Nyx’s sovereignty.” Daeon’s voice fell. “Once Nyx veils all in primordial night and refuses return to Tartarus, Chaos will surge forth to reclaim what They bore.”

“Unbelievable,” Levinia snorted, shaking her spinning head. “You inferred all of this from a drunken nightmare I had as a child, and you’re only now coming with a full analysis of it?”

“We had to be sure we correctly understood this particular thread of fate. Our preparations needed to be perfect.”

“And leaving lovers and demigod children behind in the meantime?”

Here, Daeon met Levinia’s eye. Guilt, and at the same time, conviction, reflected in his expression. “That was never my intention. We all had our parts to play in this matter, what with closing the gates of Olympus…”

Levinia blinked, eyes bugging out. “Come again?” she scoffed. “Zeus would have you and his family abandon this realm?”

“I’m sure,” Daeon interjected, “I’m certain, he made the decision with a heavy heart—humans have always fascinated him! Yet I hear the scale of this conflict won’t compare to the war against the Titans, or so Poseidon assures.”

Levinia pressed her fingers against her temples, her scrambled disbelief pounding a headache. Slowly, she parsed her thoughts.

One, her father sat before her at her bar. He wanted to take her home, to his home of Olympus.

Two, the children of Nyx, even Nyx herself, worked to set the humans against themselves. To invite Chaos back. And Levinia had had a dream prophesying this some long, ancient time ago.

And, according to Levinia’s up-til-then absent father, her assuredly dead mother had somehow missed the road signs and ferry to the Underworld. She never took her rightful place among the dead.

“Whew…” She lowered her hands and laid them flat on the polished bar top. Refocus, she told herself. What’s here? What’s now?

Herself, first of all. Her father and his unannounced visit. The wine between them, Mother’s “Prayer”—Ah, Levinia, I am so sorry. I’m nobody more than a winemaker’s daughter and yet I find myself wishing—though Levinia would not tell Dionysus this name.

And then The Oracle. She’d been here so long, along with others too. Others that mattered. “What about the other kids like me? You’ve all abandoned us for so long—now you have a plan?”

“We’re in disagreement there as well.” Daeon met Levinia’s sharp, accusatory glare and hurriedly added, “I will grant you protection, of course, but some would rather maintain Olympus as hallowed ground, and prepare those children for war instead. A crusade, they say, to restore order.”

Did you hear, Levinia? Your father finally has his throne among the Olympians! Apparently, bringing his mother back from Hades was the final test of his divinity. And now she’s ascended as a deity on Olympus too!

I… I wonder, if that honor could ever be extended to me?

Soft orange flares glowed in the crystal of Levinia’s neatly lined glasses. She asked, quietly, “Would you have protected Mother, were she still alive?”

“That’s why I made my way to the Underworld again.” Daeon murmured, as if their whispers could somehow reach the shade in question. “Hades was cross with me, but I had every intention of bringing Lyridice back. Only, she wasn’t in Elysium.”

Semele was beautiful—is beautiful. You see, beauty makes the difference between two mortal women. Look at me. I’ve always been cross. I’ve never been beautiful. I’ve this ugly red mark on my face that I wrapped and hid every day, yet your lord father unveiled me. Looked upon me. Embraced me and called me beautiful. I told him he’ll someday wake up from those delusions.

But now, without him? I miss him, Levinia. I miss him more every day.

I tell myself he’ll come home. Do you think the gods will forgive my vanity?

“She would have waited. You’re right about that, at least.” She waved aside Daeon’s touched, tearful look. “At least I’m still here. You’d have me head for Olympus as a refugee, then?”

Noting her father’s affirming nod, Levinia regarded the quiet winery. For sanctuary within Olympus, she’d have to give this place up. Whether this “rising” of Chaos happened tonight or within the next five hundred years, Olympus would supposedly protect her. Her father was luckily one of the kinder Olympians who reveled in celebration more than sacrifice.

But the more pragmatic gods meant to outfit their demigod children for war. With war came carnage, meaning those abandoned kids would inevitably be the first casualties. The thought soured in the back of Levinia’s throat. “Can’t you extend your protection to the rest of our kind?”

Daeon folded his shaking hands together. “It’s my word against those of older siblings and my father. Some have no kindness or wisdom, but I will continue asking them to reconsider. Demigods or not, our children shouldn’t have to suffer their parents’ whims.”

Levinia snorted. “You could say that twice and a few times more.”

“Please, Levinia.”

“I don’t think so, Father. I’m not as bitter now, but I still have a right to my anger. Rage is also part of your domain, after all.”

She smirked at her father’s exasperation, yet Levinia’s thoughts wandered again. Less fortunate kids had no divine or living parent to speak of or with. Those lost children floated about and survived, until rumor clued them into a haven nestled in the heart of some far-flung wine country. Half-disbelieving, they stumbled on, following the word of equally mistrustful kids until they fell upon the doorstep of The Oracle. Levinia gave them food, drink, a bed, a bath, no questions, and only one rule: no trouble. After a few silent days, they usually asked about their almighty parents, because surely Miss Levinia and her network would have answers, but she always gave her sobering response of, “No one knows.”

Now she knew—Chaos is coming and the gates of Olympus are closing—but then what? Absent parents never had sudden changes of heart. Even Dionysus needed a reason. So how would an answer change any of the demigods’ circumstances? If Levinia left The Oracle, where would those kids go next?

‘They’re resourceful,’ she told herself. ‘They know how to get by.’ Yet a sense of proud duty answered, that without Miss Levinia, who knew the ways of the divine children because she was one too, the kids had nowhere else to go. After all, she maintained the store’s front not only for her devotion to winemaking.

She tapped the bar top. “You’ll be returning to Olympus,” Levinia finally answered, “without me.”

“Without—wait—without?”

Levinia smiled despite the pang against her chest. “Ah, Father. Think of it like this: if I could get you to choose me over your other children, would you stay with me here among the mortals?” She noted Daeon’s alarmed, ponderous expression and waved her remark aside. “You see? Much as I would hate and appreciate my lord father’s company, either I would have to abandon this place, or you would have to stay with me in this possible war-zone.” Levinia took a dry cloth from a cabinet, wet and wrung it, and began wiping down her bar top. “I don’t think we can compromise either of our positions.”

Understanding visibly dawned in Daeon’s expression. He said nothing for a long while, only picking up his empty glass to let Levinia wipe. Then, “Tell me, Levinia,” he started, “about this place. You never spoke much about it through the grapevine.”

“Professional necessity,” Levinia replied. “I said nothing about this operation in case someone up there didn’t like the idea of a bunch of demigod children gathering in one place.”

“How long have you been doing this?”

“Since I realized humans believe immortality’s worth bleeding a kid dry.” She snickered at Daeon’s flinch. “I’ve had a lot of help, since I’m moving shop all around. This place is only a couple centuries old.”

“Why reveal this place to mortals as a winery?”

Levinia shrugged. “Tending to and establishing this network takes money, you know. I make good wine, and some of the kids want jobs. So I help them by keeping this place in operation throughout the day.

“Kids are smart, see. They rotate their own roster and keep me a secret. The humans believe the original owner’s long dead.”

Daeon, tracing the rim of his glass, finally smiled. “A compelling ruse. You truly do make a fantastic protection goddess.”

“Don’t joke like that,” said Levinia. “It’s just volunteer work. I only started this because I needed a place like this as a child. Figured there were others too.” She eyed her father’s glass, its bottom caked with the last drying drops of Lyridice’s “Prayer.” Then squaring her shoulders and straightening her waistcoat, Levinia folded her hands behind her back. “Well then. You have your answer, and assuming you’re telling the truth, I shouldn’t keep you. Thank you, Father, for finding me.”

To which Daeon regarded with a somber shake of his head, before he broke into a chuckle. “I see you’ve inherited that terrible habit of hers,” he said.

“Habit?”

“That dismissive tone. Lyridice was always cross, even as a young woman. I believed I could persuade her to soften her edges, but I never succeeded.” He snickered, low and fond. “I couldn’t. She was bright. Hardworking. Sensible and fearless. She eventually revealed her vulnerability to me, but I always found her snap quite charming.”

“And I’m her daughter,” Levinia snorted. “Notice, that while you confused me and pissed me off, you never persuaded me.”

“I stopped you from throwing me out.”

“Save your breath. That wasn’t your persuasion.”

“So you say, but I believe I can yet convince you to come with me.”

Levinia narrowed her eyes. “If you’re telling the truth, your father’s gates will close before you convince me to do anything, much less rely on your protection.”

“Is that a challenge? I do intend on returning to enjoy Lyridice’s masterpiece a few times more.”

“Then take the entire jug. I’m sure she’d like that.”

“Do you think it’ll lead us to her?” Eager hope made him breathless, as he leaned forward on the bar top. “She asked you to preserve this wine for a reason, something more than simply my blessing.”

Levinia raised a brow. “You’re overthinking it. She left no records or recipes, and told me nothing. So I doubt you’ll glean anything from this brew, let alone where she could be other than avoiding you in Elysium.”

“She was never a woman to back out of her promises.” Hands folded, Daeon stared, pensive, at the glass before him. “Zeus will leave the gates open to the very last minute. I’ll find Lyridice by then.”

Levinia, still wordlessly impressed by her father’s faith, shook her head.

Then a wind stirred outside, heralding the arrival of another visitor. Two, in fact, by the sounds of familiar motorcycle purrs and deep, soul-curdling barking. Levinia eyed the glass panes of her doors and watched as the twins’ silhouettes approached The Oracle. Sensing drawn blades should they recognize an Olympian at their favorite haunt, Levinia cleared her throat. “Consider yourself taken with a grain of salt,” she said, “but I’ll see what I can find on my end.”

The statement had her father beaming. “A grain is better than none,” he said. “Know that I’m proud of you, Levinia.”

She averted her eyes from Daeon’s smile as the flare of her own ears choked her smartest responses and left her grumbling, “Now I do.” While she snorted against the embarrassed tangle in her chest, her gaze darted across the tasting room. Setting her eyes back on her father then, she knew, spelled trouble for the still-restrained tears prickling across her face. “And, uh, if you could kindly see yourself out soon? You’ll—you’ll send the brats running for the hills.”

Daeon turned toward the doors, where the twins peered through the glass. “Well, that wouldn’t do,” he said, softening his voice. The doors swung open, revealing the twins already in their ready stances, hands clenched over the handles of their weapons. “I’ve truly overstayed my welcome, then?”

The brother’s black steel sword and the sister’s ebonywood flute shone orange under The Oracle’s amber lights. Lips pursed, Levinia eyed her returning customers and shook her head. “Truly,” she replied, flinching at her own cold civility. “Go on. Get out.”

Yet Daeon kept his steady grin. He rose from his seat and buried his hands in his pockets. “I hope you’ll allow me to come back, then.”

Heart leaping up her chest, and with little trace of her old bitterness, Miss Levinia returned Lord Dionysus’s radiant grin, albeit with a huff. “’Tis a promise,” she said, “and I’m personally holding you to that this time. Don’t come ‘til the store’s empty, you hear?”

“Loud and clear, my dear. Loud and clear.”

He lifted his hand in farewell, and bowing his head, passed the tensed twins on his way to the door. The door closed behind him, and like fading smoke, Father disappeared into the night. Levinia released her held breath in a deep exhale.

The twins, sheathing their weapons, slid into their stools. They leaned over the bar top, brows furrowed, eyes narrowed and shoulders tensed. Who was that man in that hideous purple hood? Did he seriously have leopard print down the sleeves and sides? That hoodie alone’s enough for an assassination request, Miss Levinia, and—friendly reminder—the twins had cleared their schedule for the evening. She knew, right, that if she ever were in trouble, she could ask them, and they’d do whatever necessary to return their favors. And their tab.

Levinia nodded, blankly rinsing her father’s glass. A part of her cursed the twins for their prickly mistrust. Another part applauded herself for avoiding an altercation between god and demigod. As she drew her sleeve across her wet eyes, she dimly registered another part of herself fading—the rage that once flared in the back of her throat, up into her head, and all through her body for centuries untold. And as she dried her father’s glass and set it next to the amphora in her sealed cabinet, a newly assured part steeled her new gamble: Mother’s prayer would again bring Father back home.

Now her business began. “You two—you’re alright,” Miss Levinia remarked, beckoning her customers to calm down. She wore her customary smile again, improved, she realized, from the new stretch of her lips and the crease of her eyes and cheeks. “I just got hold of new information for you and the other brats. New job too, personal this time.”

She set two glasses before the twins and retrieved a new bottle from the wall behind her. “I need you to find a missing shade in the Underworld. And relax; this round’s on me.

“We’re celebrating tonight.”

[corruptapostasy]

The Only Option

Chapter One

Summary:

“...A sleep-induced sickness? I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

No cost too great.

“It...It..It’s in my head..It..It won’t go away...”

No mind to think.

"You may have seen me put a blade through Her heart, but I was foolish to think She was really gone."

No will to break.

“The Void bends to no one. It merely makes room. It asks a price, but never asks in words. You must pay in kind."

No voice to cry suffering.

“...No matter what happens, just know that I will never stop loving you.”

“Oh, my Root... I’ve known that since the beginning of time.”

The Only Option: Chapter One

“M-My King, The Watcher’s Report has come in for you to look at.”

The King blinks out of his musings as the voice rings out through the silence, and he looks over to see the trembling visage of the advisor, holding up a stack of stone tablets, all of them bearing the insignia of his disciple’s mask, before carefully extending a claw to tap the surface of his work desk. “Thank you, Wek. Set them down here.”

“Y-Yes, My King.” The little bug scrambles to do exactly that, placing each tablet down like they’re made of spun glass, giving one last, long, reverent bow before quickly shuffling her way out of the room, visibly flustered to be in the presence of her great God.

He couldn’t help but sigh a little after watching her leave, giving a little shake of his head; sometimes he wished his nobility wouldn’t act so fearfully reverent towards him whenever he walked by. It was almost tiresome to be around those that worshipped the ground he walked on, especially when they acted so very nervous around him and his visage. He lets his gaze stray to the tablets and let out another, heavier sigh, before walking over to his desk and sitting down in his chair, taking a moment to let his tail hang over the arm rest and for all his legs to tuck against his carapace, before he picks up the nearest stone. The tablet was encased in a grey slate, displaying Lurien’s mask, acting as a fail-safe, preventing anyone lacking his divine touch from opening them and reading the contents inside. He idly presses his thumb against the outline of the mask, watching as the slate cracks and crumbles, before dissipating into white fragments of light that dissipate from view. The writing of the tablet glows white against the smooth black surface, and the King begins to read.

“Lively Crossroads: Temperature was around 72 degrees, with a mild breeze coming in from up above. A minor confrontation broke out involving two drunken pill bugs outside of a tavern, one of them being arrested while another was sent to the local hospital for minor wounds and cracks to the shell. A family of newcomers were properly settled down into their homes, and repairs had to be made to several street signs after being dented inwards by a group of rowdy adolescents.”

The King couldn’t help but hum to himself as he read over the transcript, giving it a once over at least two or three more times before finally setting it down, deciding that nothing in the Crossroads needed his attention as of this moment. Nothing needed to be fixed, no crimes needed to be judged, all the subjects seemed relatively happy, going about their daily lives. Perfect.  He picks up the second tablet, repeating the unsealing process and beginning to read once again.

“Greenpath Gardens: Temperature around a steady 86°, with a light fog surrounding the Lake Of Unn. Gardeners are hard at work taking care of the various fauna, including the lilies and the tulips. There was a small breach in one of pipes in the north-west side of the Gardens, in which the acid had eaten away at the surface of said pipe, which had rusted due to what seems to be negligence in cleaning duties. No one was greatly injured, however one of the Menderbugs was sent to the City hospital for minor acid burns.”

The King couldn’t help but curl his lip in a soft sneer, not out of anger or disgust, but simply irritation. The damnable acidic liquid was a rather unavoidable aspect of the Kingdom, and one he couldn’t help but need to work his way around. He had his suspicions that the acid originated in the depths of the Fungal Wastes, where the spores of the mushrooms and the chemicals of the soil somehow mix into the water pouring in from underground streams, creating some kind of foul reaction that causes the water to turn acidic, which in turn begins to leak into other areas of the kingdom. He would’ve sent Menderbugs to attempt to plug up the water, perhaps work on making pipes that would funnel the water into other sections of the kingdom, but he had a suspicion that the mushrooms subsisted entirely off of this bubbling broth, and the Mantises wouldn’t exactly take kindly to their home lands being slowly killed off due to starvation. Best to not ruin the treaty, especially one that they worked so hard to forge.

He finally lets out a sigh upon re-reading the last section, before making a mental note to have one of his advisors send a message to the managers of the Gardens; he wanted to make sure that they covered the cost of the injured bug’s medical bill, as well as the broken pipe, if it wasn’t already fixed. The fact that the Report didn’t say was almost unusual. He picks up yet another tablet, but pauses in opening it, looking up from his work to tap a claw against his desk in idle thought before simply nodding to himself in silent agreement. He picks up a hand-held bell off of the surface of his desk, ringing it briskly, at least three times, and there was a small bit of silence before the soft fluttering of wings is heard, and two bright white eyes peek out from beneath a spherical shell. The King merely glances back to his work and undoes the next seal, speaking loud enough so that his creation would hear him. “Go down to the kitchens and bring me my meal.”

The creature doesn’t say a word, and merely disappears out of sight. The King starts to read once more.

“City Of Tears: Temperature around 67° degrees, no winds, and a steady rain throughout the day, week, month, etc. Soldiers had to apprehend a thief that tried to mug one of the citizens in one of the many back alleys of the city, and he is now being held in the capital’s prison. One of the houses over in the Elevated District is in dire need of repairs due to water damage, and several doctors had been seen wandering the City making house calls due to an undetermined sickness, seeming to affect the old and the young.”

That last part immediately grabs the King’s attention, and his claws stiffen. Illnesses were unfortunately common from within the capital’s depths; constant, endless rainfalls tend to soak through even the toughest of metal plating or expensive cloth, so doctors and medical professionals were always busy tackling the common cold and such. Nothing too out of the usual in that regard, but sick subjects wasn’t exactly something he wanted, nor was it something he needed, especially if children were getting ill, as well as the fact that the illness in question had yet to be properly identified. The water damage to that one building was concerning as well, especially since most of them were crafted from stone and glass. Perhaps he would have to have his architects try to figure out a way to more appropriately funnel the rain, to make it so that it wouldn’t lead to such inconvenient problems.

There was also Lurien himself. He had read the Reports for as long as he had bestowed him the title of Watcher, and they were usually much more detailed than this. Much more thorough. It was strange, though it didn’t exactly concern him; he knew Lurien better than anyone, and he knew that the oddity of a bug happened to be somewhat of a workaholic, the type that tended to not rest all that much, and when there is no rest, work tends to get sloppy. Perhaps he ought to pay him a visit, just to see how he’s doing. After all, it’s high time he steps out of the Palace grounds, at least for a little while. Being cooped up for too long was something he could never really tolerate, as vexing as it was, but he couldn’t blame himself for his little quirk; it was nothing more than a primal instinct from his long dead days.

He sees a flicker of movement in the corner of his eye and looks over to see the little creature floating back in again, its beady white eyes narrowing behind its shell, tendrils of black slipping out of the seams, holding up a plate of roasted meat and cooked vegetables, as well as a goblet of sparkling wine. He reaches out to take the platter from the creature, nodding to it before moving to set his dinner on the desk, next to the rest of his unopened Reports. He speaks, barely with any thought in mind, his voice quiet and unassuming. “Thank you.”  

The little Wingsmould floats there, no indication that it heard anything at all, before moving to float away, the tendrils of black slipping back into its core, like they were never there to begin with.

••••

A week passes in the kingdom’s depths, slow and steady, before the King finally realizes that something is wrong. He began to see it in the Reports as the days went by, small, almost inconsequential details, ones that slipped by his grasp and grew to become troublesome problems.

“A Doctor from the City came to the Crossroads to visit a sick child, one who had been displaying several odd symptoms, including sleep deprivation.”

“A bug fell asleep on one of the benches in the Western side of the Garden and began to display what seemed to be sleeping fits. When he was woken up, he seemed delirious, as if not knowing where he was.”

“There was a mining accident over in the Crystal Caverns, one that resulted in the hospitalization of at least 2 miners. A third had sleep-walked and activated a dormant machine, one that the previously mentioned workers had been relaxing on taking their lunch break, and as a result, were nearly crushed under the weight of the pistons. The third bug has been taken into custody at the City prison. The injured bugs are in critical condition.”

That last Report was enough to have him finally decide to get himself involved; it was troublesome enough that this odd phenomenon was somehow occurring amongst the local populace, but the sheer fact it was impacting the focus and the minds of his workers had the potential to be dangerous, especially considering they were responsible for the cogs of the kingdom running smoothly. He could not afford to have this unforeseen affliction getting in the way of his work, the work of the people, and he needed to put a stop to it. Of course, in order to learn how to do such a thing, he first had to learn of this sickness, what it was, and how it worked, how it affected the body of those that were infected, and he needed to learn of it quickly, in order to avoid the potential of this sickness spreading to the populace.

It was his duty as King to analyze and eliminate any possible threats to his kingdom, to his people, and it was a duty that he would see through.

“Send a message to Lurien and Lady Monomon at once. Tell them I wish to discuss a matter of great importance.”

•••

He lets out a sigh, soft and subtle, as he walks along the Pathways to the Archives, an ocean of fog flowing around his feet, his gait regal and refined, just as it always has been, his tail idly twitching beneath his robes. The atmosphere was thick, heavy, and though the path was made of stone, there was evidence of nature growing all across it, patches of dew and moss that felt cold, soft beneath his feet. Bubbles grew out from the flora-laden walls, the ceilings, no doubt due to strange abnormalities of the atmospheric conditions that occurred this deep underground, and he couldn’t help but crane his head up ever so slightly to gaze at a particular one, thicker than the other ones he’s seen, less transparent, more plump, almost...spongy looking in texture, as if there some form of flesh contained within. Perhaps the bubbles were some kind of odd fungus that wrapped its prey up in its own mass to absorb the creature’s organic structure into its own? He wouldn’t put it past Monomon to cultivate such strange creatures, not with her and her scientific wiles.

As if even thinking of its gracious and ambitious mistress was enough to rouse it, the entrance to the Archives was revealed to him, a golden archway of light overrun with the moss and lichen of the canyon, looking as if it hadn’t been touched with a gardener’s shear or trowel in ages, and knowing Monomon, that very well could be the case. He casts one more glance behind him, to check if the equipment was secure, and that his guards from the City were still present, before turning to make his way into the glamorous bronze building, the bubbling and frothing of deadly acid so vigorous that he could feel the vibrations beneath his feet. Even as he walked amongst the narrow tunnel of the Archives’s entrance, he could hear distant conversation, the tone loud, one sounding much more irritated than the other, and he couldn’t help but let out a sigh and shake his head. Right from the start of his reign those two always seemed to be at each other’s throats, and it seemed that would never change. In a way, it was amusing, heavily so, (were circumstances different, he gladly would’ve sat back to watch) but it still didn’t change the fact that now was not the time for a petty squabble. He could begin to make out the words now, slowly walking closer, seeing the dark figures of his two closest disciples illuminated from the glow of the acidic pipes.

“And you’re absolutely certain that your experiments won’t end up causing any unnecessary deaths?”

“Oh don’t be silly! Whatever gave you such an outlandish idea? Like my precious creations could even hurt a lumafly.”

“Are you not aware that I see your so-called progress on these...things, and how they have a tendency to literally explode?”

“Oh, pfft! How cares about a little rattling of the pipes or two?”

“I do! And you should too! I know you have an odd tendency to bathe in this horrid acid, but I’ll have you know that most bugs die when coming into contact with it! And those are just the lucky ones!”

“...Ok, I will admit that there are a few...quirks, to the Ooma’s designs..”

“Quirks is putting it lightly, Monomon. Very lightly.”

“It’s nothing I can’t figure out. It’s probably an instability in their inner cores, some type of chemical reaction or rapid increase in pressure that causes it to react so violently.”

“I certainly hope you’re right. I wouldn’t want to send in a Report to the King about how the entire Canyon is flooding with acid because your Archives got blown up.”

The King finally reaches the end of the tunnel, walking into the main room, one of his hands slipping free from his cloak to lift to his mouth, letting out a soft clearing of the throat, the guards behind him immediately freezing to a stop and moving to position themselves on either side of the doorway. “Ehem. If you don’t mind, I’d like to bring this conversation to a different topic.”

Both Monomon and Lurien blink upon seeing their ruler, the former half-submerged in a vat of acid, the rim of the tank level with that of the floor, her upper tendrils resting against it, while the latter was standing at least a few feet away, his robes sparkling with that of gemstones and glamour, clearly having adopted the look from the nobles of the City. Monomon was the first one of the two to speak, her mask shifting into that of a grin, one of her tendrils lifting up to give the King a soft pat to the forehead, the sensation warm, almost slimy, with the slightest hint of an electric tingle. “Oh, terribly sorry, King. I just got a wee bit distracted is all while we were waiting for you to arrive. My little creations have been coming along nicely, and I suspect that by the end of the year, this Canyon could be a living electrical network!”

“You mean living time bombs.” Lurien shakes his head, his mask remaining as passive as always.

King merely lifts a hand to take Monomon’s tendril in his claws, giving it a soft squeeze before letting go. “That is pleasant to hear, Monomon, though it is best that we end that topic as of right now. Currently, as far as I know, the unexplained sickness has begun to build within the populace of the kingdom, and I need to see to it that I cure it.” His gaze shifts to that of Lurien. “Tell me, are there any new cases in any of the sections of the kingdom?”

His gaze peers into that of the King for a moment before he tilts his head up, and the small hole that’s been cut into the polished white surface of the mask begins to glow, the faint whispers of divinity beginning to fill the air. It was a sight that was both familiar and yet also not, and he felt the slightest of tugs within his being as Lurien’s blessing began to bloom to life once more. He merely watches, the dim memories of bestowing the blessing upon his second disciple, of flooding his body with his own divinity, his piercing bright light, flickering at the back of the King’s mind like a dying ember. Those times were somehow simpler, in all of it’s endless chaos, though they were days the King did not wish to revisit.

Finally, Lurien’s head lowers, and his expression somehow gains a more rigid look despite the mask never once shifting or changing. “...Two more cases as we speak, in the Crossroads. Two kids, one 10 years old, the other one 6.”

The King’s hands clench, his knuckles growing tight, before he turns to face the guards, giving them a stern nod. They silently drag forth a golden box in front of the two advisors, plated on all sides, marked with a large key hole, and place the key in the King’s now outstretched hand, before exiting the building in its entirety, never once looking back. Monomon went still, her mask tilting never so slightly, her tendrils curling in on themselves slowly, her voice slightly more quiet than usual. “..So, we’re starting off with that method, are we?”

The King merely moves to place the key in the lock. “No. This is merely a check-up; the doctors in the City are only experienced with minor illnesses or a cracked shell. They won’t know how to deal with this new sickness, not unless the information on how to do so is sought out and spread. And the only way to do that, is to examine an infected individual.”

He turns the key, swiftly, and the plating falls away with a loud clatter to reveal a beetle, no cloth to be seen on his body, his limbs bound in white chains, securing his arms behind his back, rendering him incapable of struggling. The bug didn’t make a single noise, and merely looked downwards, his expression looking vacant, with just the sheer vestiges of guilt dwelling within his eyes. Monomon slowly raises herself up on her tendrils, the tank she was submerged in rippling and sloshing, waves of acid spilling down the sides of the metal to drop to the floor, though she paid no mind to it. Instead, she merely lowered her mask closer to the face of the bug, and she went silent for a few moments. “..This bug is infected, is he?”

The King watches, his own expression growing steely, almost cold. “Indeed. He worked in the Upper Sector of the Mines, when he had fallen asleep. Apparently, in his sleep, he activated a machine that ended up nearly killing two of his coworkers.”

“...A sleep-induced sickness? I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

“Neither have I. And that’s what troubles me.“

Lurien slowly walks forward as well, bending down to stare the bug in the face, his expression unreadable beneath his mask. “...So, you called the both of us here to examine this fellow?”

“Essentially, yes.”

“Do we have any limits on what exactly we can do?”

The King lets out a sigh, lifting a hand to rub at his forehead, swearing he could feel a headache about to come on. “You cannot kill him, nor can you perform any acts towards his body that requires cutting him open.”

“But taking a look at all of the inner organs would be a viable way to examine how this virus operates.”

“For once, Lurien and I agree.” Monomon leans back to glance between the two of them, and when the King gives her a sharp glance, her mask twists into that of a sheepish look. “..From a scientific standpoint, it would make more sense. The flesh is going to show wear and tear from fending off the sickness, especially if it’s theoretically induced by sleeping.”

The King’s headache grows, and he can’t help but let out a groan, shaking his head in exasperation. “....You understand that cutting open my subjects is the exact opposite of protecting them, yes?”

“Of course, but we also understand that just looking him over from the outside won’t do much good.” Lurien shifts, and his hand lifts free from his robes to put a hand on King’s shoulder. “This might be the only way we can go about things.”

“You haven’t even tried yet.” The King’s hand comes up to rest upon his Watcher’s, but his gaze is unwavering.

“We don’t need to try, King. That’s the thing.”

Before the King can reply, the bug lifts his head to gaze at his mighty ruler, and shakes his head. “...I...I don’t want to hurt someone again.”

All three of them turn their heads to glance at the forlorn man, and Monomon is the first to speak. “..You think it can happen again? Your... sleep walking?”

The bug nods, softly. “I know it will. It…It’s been happening for a while. My... My sleep, I mean. It... It’s been weird..”

“How so?” The King steps forward, eyes narrowing in thought, in suspicion.

The bug visibly flinches away, a faint twitch of involuntary reflex, and his eyes show of both fear and awe all at once, and his voice, already hoarse and soft, starts to crack. “I...W-Well, the thing is...I never dreamt. Never had a dream once in my life. Just...I j-just fall asleep and wake up. But, at least a week ago, m-maybe two, I started dreaming. D-Dreaming of this...I-I don’t even know what it is...All I know is that it’s bright and hot and...and strong and...” He starts to shake, and his eyes start to fog over. “It...It..It’s in my head..It..It won’t go away...”

The King couldn’t help but stare for a moment at this, and a moment was already too long. He feels his knuckles clench under his robes, his tail quiver, and he straightens his spine, taking one deep breath, two, before finally speaking once more. “...Are you sure you want this? This can likely mean your death. Surely dreams aren’t worth that of death.”

The bug’s eyes snap back into focus after at least a moment or two of breathing, and he shakes his head, rapidly. “No, no, I want this. Do it. Kill me, tear me open, do anything you want. If it means ridding me of these dreams, of that horrible..That horrible...” He shudders, a full-body quaking that leaves the chains rattling like an unsteady pebble that’s about to fall from the lip of a cliff, his voice rising in volume, in desperation. “Do it, for the good of the King, for the good of Hallownest, do it! If this is an illness, I...I need you to find it! Find it and kill it! Before it gets the chance to hurt anyone else!”

The King finds himself unable to say a word, turning his head to glance at both of his disciples, to judge their reactions. Monomon was looking the slightest bit disturbed under her mask, her tendrils tensing and clenching in a nervous, almost skittish manner, while Lurien simply watched the whole exchange, his face forever covered within the depths of his mask, his head shifting to stare into his  King’s eyes. He slowly nods, as does Monomon, and no words are spoken. None needed to be. The King tried to keep his gait as impeccable as it always was, even as he heard Monomon call for her assistant, even as Lurien began to question the Teacher where she kept her tools. He never looked back.

When he was sure that no eyes were watching him, no eyes were perceiving him, he stumbled, sagging against the wall, as if he had just been struck by a fatal blow, lifting his hands to his face to see that they were shaking, shaking and trembling like a gods-damned child. He had just watched a bug, teetering on the scalpel’s edge of his own sanity, cry and beg for death, to be cut open and have his guts ripped out of his bleeding husk. Something within that sickness had contorted his mind, his thoughts, his very being until death seemed like a blessing, until he found himself staring into the figurative abyss and jumped head first into it.

And all he, the King, could do was sit there and watch. Sit there and let it happen. That bug, insane as he was, in essence, gave his life for him. For him and the glory of his kingdom. And all he did was walk away.

His hands clench.

...No. No, he could not let this cloud him. Cloud his mind. It was just...It was just one simple procedure. One bug. One sacrifice, for the sake of untold lives saved. That infected body had chosen his fate, chosen to die, chosen to sacrifice. He could do nothing to change that, and as his duty as King, he needed to focus his mind to the future. He could not show weakness. This was all it was. A momentary bout of weakness. A momentary cost.

His claws clenched so hard he could feel the soft shell of his palms creak, before he finally took a deep breath, and his emotions fell, cast down by unseen blades. Then he began to walk once more.

Not even a day later, he had received a Report from his Watcher, one that he had left alone for hours before finally opening.

“The Miner was examined with a simple glance over at first, and nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary. He looked and seemed completely healthy, aside from a slight fatigued look to the carapace beneath his eyes, and his jittery, skittish nature. Monomon’s assistant first took blood in an effort to see if there was any visible contamination, any oddities, and when, finally, the operation was made. His organs were worn, slightly so, as if put under significant stress, but aside from that, there was nothing. The sickness, as far as we know, is completely invisible to our eyes. My only question to you, My King, is this.

What do we do?”