#the sheer betrayal of the other kingdoms they fight against when they realize that one of their own kin has sided with the fae

[llondonfog]

foams at the mouth from the thought of briar valley soldier!silver

[multi--kpop--fanfics]

There’s Blood On The Crown

prince!Xiaojun x queen!reader

genre: angst, horror, royalty!AU

warnings: heavy dark themes (blood, major character death, betrayal)

Part of THE CROWN - a collab call by @earth-to-that-asian​

Word count: ~1.7k 

Author’s note: The fic was beta read by @jaemotel and @intokook , who also made the header (thanxx bby💕). Inspired by the song Intro: Crown by Purple Kiss

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

What do you say,

What if I ruled the world?

“Now, you may rise, Your Majesty, Queen Y/N”, the priest announces and you rise from your knees, the diamond crown resting proud but heavy on your head. You walk towards the balcony of the castle and look down, where the rest of the civilians awaited for you. You were their Queen now, the one who would guide them through thick and thin, especially after your beloved husband’s death, the late King Kun. 

“All hail the Queen!”, the crowd chants as you raise your hand and wave, the beaming smile on your face acting as a facade, masking your true feelings - uncertainty, sorrow and most importantly, fear.

Fear, because you trusted no one in the council. They never liked you in the first place, not only because you were the late King’s wife, but because you were also a very skilled fighter, one of your most valuable assets, hence why you were the Grand General of your kingdom before getting married to Kun. 

These weasels hated seeing a woman in power, simply because they wanted that power for themselves. But none of them had the guts to step up and claim the crown. They only knew how to scheme, bribe and conduct murders without ever getting blood on their hands.

There was only one person you could trust, the only one who truly recognized your strength and dedication to the crown - Prince Xiaojun, Kun’s brother and your brother-in-law. He was the only one who welcomed you with a warm smile and would always be respectful towards you. Everyone in the kingdom knew of his gentle nature and the civilians were always delighted to see the two of you take walks through the town. He treated you like family. And family is always there for you, just like Xiaojun today. You turn your head back and smile at him, an equal smile spreading across his handsome face. However, by the time you have turned your head back, his smile is instantly replaced by a clenched jaw and a stern gaze, burning with hatred and jealousy.

Nobody knows

It means nothing to me

Xiaojun enters the throne room, fully-armored, his sword sheathed on his back and his hunting knives strapped on his sides. You were seated in the throne, your white cape falling gracefully around you, the diamond crown and your silver chest armor shining from the sunlight that is creeping through the colored glass windows. Your image is a sheer contrast to Xiaojun’s, his armor being pitch-black, almost resembling an angel of Death.

“Ah, Xiaojun, what a delight to see you!” you state, smiling to him. “I haven’t seen you wear this armor in a long time. May I ask what’s the occasion?” you ask with curiosity. “I have decided to go hunting” he replies nonchalantly and you smile even wider, unaware of the true meaning behind his words. “That’s wonderful! Perhaps I could join you? I’ve been dying to leave the castle gates and get my blood boiling through some action” you slightly pout, albeitly tired from sitting around and letting your armor and sword get rusty. 

He chuckles at your reaction and he unsheathes one of the daggers from his arm and traces his finger along the edge of the blade. “I will not have to leave the castle to go hunting… In fact, my prey is right in this very castle” he states and takes slow yet steady steps towards your direction. “I-I don’t think I follow..” you stutter, fear starting to take over your senses. “What I am trying to say, dear Y/N, is that my true prey is not just within this castle - It’s right in front of me”. The realization then hits you.

It’s invisible but you know it’s mine

So where do you see yourself?

“You want the throne?”, you ask in shock, not wanting to believe that the one person you trusted ever since you stepped your foot in the castle was the one who wanted your fall. “I don’t want just the throne. I want the power that comes along with it”, Xiaojun admits, his ominous gaze fixated on you. The imminent danger awakes you and you yell with all your power towards the throne door.

“GUARDS!” and within seconds, your two strongest guards barge through the throne room, clad in heavy armor. “Prince Xiaojun has attempted murder against the Queen and is hereby guilty of commiting betrayal to the Crown. Seize him at once!” you yell and the guards point their weapons towards Xiaojun, who has seemingly raised his arms in surrender. “The accusations Her Majesty has made against me are completely false!”, he bites back, “Besides, I haven’t attempted murder..”, he adds and silently pulls out another dagger from his sleeve, “..Yet”. 

In a split second, he throws the daggers towards the guards and he hits them both in the blind spot of their armor, their cloth-covered necks, the sharp blades of the dagger cutting through the flesh. The guards are now flat on the marble floor, their lives slowly slipping away from their bodies that lay in blood. After recovering his daggers from the dead bodies, Xiaojun hears the familiar sound of a blade being unsheathed. He turns to you and he sees you holding your sword, your cape discarded on the floor, standing a few meters away from him.

“Finally, the queen has stepped down from her throne!” he spits, his voice dripping venom. "The Queen has a crown and she will do everything to protect it. Even if it means killing the prince", you prepare yourself and get into a fighting stance. "How ironic, to share the same goal at a moment like this", Xiaojun points out and unsheathes the sword from his back, "It's a shame you won't be alive to witness my success".

I am running for the crown

I keep breathing when you drown

You charge at Xiaojun with full speed, your sword in a secure hold. He throws a dagger at you to cut off your advance, but you duck down in the last second and you avoid it, closing the distance between you in the meantime. You fling your sword upwards, in an attempt to cut through his waist armor, but he is fast enough to parry your attack with his own sword. "You're fast, I'll give you that. But not fast enough", he mocks and pulls another dagger from his thigh, landing a deep cut on your forearm, making you cry out in pain.

The blood is staining your pristine blouse, but you don't care - you only want to stay alive in order to defeat Xiaojun. You kick his knee with full force and he groans, falling on his knees. "You know better than underestimating my skills, Xiaojun", you hatefully spit back and get up. You switch your blade to your intact arm and swing it towards his face, but he raises his arm and catches the blade mid-air. "I don't - I'm just reminding you how inferior your skills are compared to mine" he replies and holds the blade still, his fist now bleeding from the sharp edge. "You haven't even landed a proper cut on me, yet your arm is still bleeding from a mere dagger", he continues and stands on his feet, twisting his arm and the blade as well. 

You grit your teeth as you fight back the pain from your own arm being twisted and you lift your leg to kick him in the face, but alas, he's fast enough to swing his sword again and land another cut on you, this time on your leg. You feel the muscle joints being ripped apart and you scream once again, the blood gushing from the fresh wound. Xiaojun takes advantage of your vulnerable state and pulls the sword out of your grasp and throws it at the other side of the throne room. He then kicks you on the chest and you fall flat on your back, the diamond crown falling from your head. You try to stand your ground, but Xiaojun immobilizes you with his own body.

"It's truly a pity, Y/N. We could have been the most powerful and loved royals in the world… But you just had to fall in love with the fool of my late brother, didn't you?", he asks and caresses your cheek, the pretentious affection making you scrunch your face with disgust. "You will never be like Kun, you monster" you grit your teeth with anger, "Do you know why? Because he was always faithful to the people. Because the people are the true crown-" 

You never get to finish your sentence, as a dagger is piercing your throat, ridding you incapable of breathing. The stream of blood starts pooling around your spasming body, staining the marble floor, your clothes and the diamond crown that lays next to your head.

I believe myself no doubt

Xiaojun watches your last moments with a blank expression on his face, still on top of you. "Ironic, isn't it? The King and his Queen, dying by the same hand, clad in the same armor. Truly, the most perfect of tragic endings". You are unable to answer, the last of his words dealing the finishing blow to your form. You have stopped moving and a single tear falls from his face. "Even in death, you are still the most beautiful woman I've seen in my whole life, Y/N" he whispers and leans in to kiss your now lifeless lips. "Worry not, my love, you may meet your beloved husband now. The crown is in good hands".

He stands up and takes the blood-stained crown in his hands. He places it on top of his head, the blood dripping on his soft blonde locks. He slowly walks towards the throne, the edge of his sword scraping the marble floor and creating a line from the blood on it - your blood. He looks at the painting that rests above the throne, a painting of you and King Kun smiling fondly, wearing the same crown that now rests on Xiaojun's head. 

"You know, both of you were wrong. I never betrayed the crown. In fact, I was the only one who did everything to protect it", he speaks as he sits down on the throne, "And I succeeded, my beloved family. All thanks to you. You may now rest in peace", Xiaojun says with a soft smile on his face, making him look like an angel. 

An angel of Death.

My Lord

How come I never lost my faith?

[simpingforthisonedeer]

Chapter 7: Silver

Summary: tw: non-graphic suicide attempt but other than that, the chapter is completely sfw. The final battle with the diamond kingdom.

Notes:

- Today's chapter is shorter than usual bc im working on making the other chapters sfw so rewriting scenes, deleting them, making some stuff into innuendo etc so more people could read.

- I like to write bit more for the side characters because everyone's the main character of their story but they are relevant to the plot trust me ;)

- Be sure to check the notes at the end <3

Aika danced between spells aimed at visible enemies as she strolled towards Julius’ general direction. She took mental notes of his general attitude on the battlefield as she fiddled with her amulet, the same one she used in the Headquarters to move around unnoticed. The Amulet of Ignorance, the single most expensive magic relic Aika possessed, didn’t make her invisible, but it rather made everyone ignore her presence. If anyone were to look in her general direction, their eyes would glaze over and their gaze would move elsewhere.

Her own gaze landed on Julius’ figure, whipping around too quickly for ordinary eyes to track, but her eyes and brain processed images faster than any other man, except perhaps the only other Time Mage. She focused on observing his technique as she ignored the pangs in her heart. It’s been a week but he was still fresh on her mind.

Aika wondered if he would end up being one of her regrets.

She sighed heavily and put her feelings aside for the moment.

Julius may seem like all sunshine and smiles, but on the battlefield, he was vicious as he made split-second decisions and cut down enemies with efficiency. Clouds of enemies-turned-dust flew around him like an Augury, warning any and all of their fate if they foolishly chose to fight him. She noticed how he used the Chronostasis over a large area and immobilized enemies, but the spell only expanded so far if it touched someone first.

“He could improve that technique with mana method,” Aika thought as she moved her attention over to Evan and Jayce who insisted on fighting. Evan with his Hellfire Magic was raining literal hellfire on the enemy troops while Jayce with his peculiar Shape Magic deftly changed the terrain to his advantage as he tested out his newfound swordsmanship. Aika’s lips quirked up in pride.

He insisted she teach him herself but she was reluctant at first because as much as he was a genius, he was incredibly lazy. But Aika caved into his puppy-dog eyes and taught him the basics but he quickly developed his own style with the foundational knowledge and wielded his strangely-shaped sword quite well. He was no match for Aika due to her decades of experience but most mages these days don’t know how to counter swords well so he was pretty deadly on the battlefield.

Aika sidestepped a falling body as she winced at the mage in pity. It was an enemy mage, but she muttered a little prayer nonetheless to ensure his soul would rest in peace. Perhaps she should start praying after battle again. She used to sing a hymn in her fighting days to ensure the battlefield wouldn’t be tainted by restless souls and she could deign to do it again.

Right as she came to a decision about which prayer to use, an arrow struck her chest, more specifically her precious amulet. She stared in shock at the archer who had even detected her in the sea of mana. The masked archer lowered their bow and looked at Aika almost tauntingly before disappearing behind a hoard of mages charging at each other.

She wanted to go after them, but her first priority was to dodge the mages who turned on her because a mysterious woman just materialized out of thin air. She didn’t even have any identifiers such as a crest or a uniform, so as far as everyone is concerned, she was their enemy. She was glad that her scarf at least covered the bottom half of her face.

Aika cursed when she noticed from the corner of her eye that Evan had begun his ultimate spell. 

Another reason why she was observing today’s battle was to contain the range of Evan’s spell, “Hell on Earth,” but this was not the time. She tucked the broken amulet and arrow into her cloak pocket and shot up into the sky with a sigh. She loved her amulet, but she could afford to mourn later.

Aika threw her hood over her head until it covered her eyes and spread her biggest Mana Zone spell—Queen’s Domain—until it encompassed the whole battlefield. She peeled off her black leather gloves, which suppressed her mana, and unleashed her aura of forbidden magic and smirked at the poor bastard who fell out of the sky when he neared her on his broom. The three horns that sprouted from her forehead lifted the cloak and her vision zoomed in on the growing sphere of blue flames, swelling and stopping at the impossible size of 100 meters wide in the distance.

Everyone on the battlefield froze as they stared in dumbfounded awe at the second Sun in the sky. The silence was deafening, but it only served to make the ringing in Aika’s ears louder as she concentrated on immersing her mana into the sphere and ousting Evan’s out.

Mana existed on a different plane, another realm if you will, but it had the special ability to affect other realms while staying in its own. But the opposite isn’t allowed. Controlling mana that wasn’t your own or in a way that wasn’t permitted by your magic was forbidden by the Gods themselves. In fact, interfering with other realms outside the limitations of your own given magic is forbidden magic.

Aika didn’t believe in limitations. She knew her potential was endless, as characterized by her grimoire. She sacrificed parts of herself to break through the ceiling above her, so Gods be damned. They can’t stop her.

A feral grin spread across her face as the Blue Sun slowly began moving as per her command. She controlled her breathing as she controlled two large spells simultaneously. One spell moved the flames, the other was Queen’s Domain, which combined with a sliver of forbidden magic, froze enemies in place at the sheer amount of fear coursing through their veins. She moved closer to the Diamond troops that were about to be annihilated for better control.

This magic brought out the worst in her, and right now, it relished in the screams that filled the air as the army in front of her lit up in flames. Aika ignored the ugly feeling and concentrated on her breathing again as she prayed. They even sounded like the damned.

Aika thought the battle had ended at the horrific scene she had created, but the Spade Kingdom joined the fray, forcing Master Raymond, the Wizard King himself, to join as well. After she had made sure Evan was safely off the field to recuperate his mana, she stayed high in the sky, away from most of the spells as she continued to observe Julius while keeping an eye out for the assassin who broke her precious amulet. Her heart nearly stopped when giant tree roots whipped around her to strike at the ground. How in the world was she supposed to expect roots to sprout from the sky?

As she maneuvered around them, she watched as the eye-catching hair of the Captain of the Silver Eagles fluttered in the distance. To her absolute shock, the man stayed completely still right before spikes of hard rock impaled him. Aika shot towards him with a bone-rattling bang and caught him right before he collapsed. A young man, that was the mirror image of Captain Silva, raised his spears of fluid metal at her, ready to strike but she froze him where he stood with a stasis spell of hers.

“Miss Tolliver?” Lord Silva breathed as blood dribbled down his chin. Aika’s weg vanished as worry and empathy filled her. She quickly threw up shields around them as she rewound the time until the spikes disappeared back into the ground.

“Yes, It’s me. Everything’s going to be fine. I can heal you—”

“No!” he exclaimed, then let out a violent cough. She stared at him in horror at the implication of his words and actions. “I don’t want to be healed,” he whispered, confirming her suspicions.

Aika began closing his wounds at a slow pace, slow enough so he wouldn’t notice.

“Why?” she asked mutely.

To her absolute shock, his stoic face crumpled as tears streamed like molten silver down his cheeks.

“I just want to see her again,” he choked out. He just wanted to see Acier again. 

His tears and the sheer heartbreak in words made her heart clench. Aika steeled her resolve. She wasn’t going to let him do it no matter his reasons.

“No life is worth more than your own,” she spat, caught up in her own emotions. His attempt to take his own life brought back memories she would rather forget.

The Captain slackened in her hold, unable to retort. She instantly healed his wounds and watched as the blood receded. Aika picked him up with a sigh as he quickly lost consciousness at the abrupt changes to his body. Healing fatal wounds in this manner wasn’t recommended but it was necessary during battle.

“Is he alright?” Julius’ voice piped up out of nowhere. Her heart leapt to her throat. She turned around and there he was, a few meters away, brows furrowed, and eyes full of worry before they widened in surprise when he realized who he was talking to.

“Aika…” 

The roar of the battle and the clanging in her head deafened as she took in his appearance. Wild hair, stormy eyes, blood-smeared cheeks and singed robes that whipped around in tandem to spells being hurled behind him. 

She felt a sort of burning betrayal as she cursed her foolish heart because only one thought echoed in her mind:

He was breathtaking.

“Aika!” He exclaimed in alarm.

Julius was suddenly up in her space, forearm pressed against her collarbone as he pushed her aside. He stopped a flaming spear aimed at her back in its tracks as he barked,

“She’s an ally! Stand down!”

The Crimson Lion magic knight lowered his grimoire and looked helplessly at the frozen man next to him.

“Aika, please undo your spell on Vice Captain Nozel,” he commanded softly as she stared at him, wide-eyed.

Her spell fell as per his request and Nozel stumbled into an upright position, an indignant expression strewn across his face as he turned to Aika.

“Who are you? ” he asked shakely, and cleared his throat with an embarrassed flush.

“She is an ally, ” Julius asserted firmly. “We’ll take the Captain to the medical tent and you continue leading your men, understood?”

“Yes, Sir.” Nozel threw one last look at Aika before he ordered his men to focus on the enemy.

Julius turned to her with a grim face. “I will take us to the tent, if you are ready.” She nodded curtly. He laid an arm on her shoulder and she was whisked away, her vision adjusting to find that she was facing the heavy drapery of the medical tent.

A few healing mages around them jumped in alarm but quickly realized the injured man in Aika’s arms. She was quickly led to an empty bed with privacy curtains and she laid Captain Silva on it carefully as the healers took over and diagnosed him.

She explained his injuries and that she healed him but they wanted to be sure just in case.

Aika stepped back to let them do their thing and looked around to find Julius worryingly examining Silva’s prone form. He looked up and their eyes met.

Strangely enough, there wasn’t a shred of awkwardness in their gaze, but an intimacy of silent understanding, a mutual decision to set their yearning aside in the face of this war.

They both smiled in relief, almost in unison. He cocked his head at her.

“No hard feelings?” He mouthed. Aika nodded back, her heart lighter.

“No hard feelings.”

“I have to go,” he announced quietly as he bowed his head. She nodded again, her mood souring once more as she stared at the unconscious man next to her. She watched his back as he moved to leave the tent from the corner of her eye. She clenched her fist as indecision rocked within her, but she finally gave in to her first instinct.

“Be careful,” Aika called out. Julius whipped around in surprise and a grin lit up his face.

“Of course!” he replied eagerly, happy that she was actually speaking to him. “See you around!” And he vanished.

His enthusiasm brought a smile to her face but her mood was quickly interrupted by the sound of crashing waves as the ground shook. She braced herself against the metal railing of the bed’s headboard as she let out a heavy sigh.

That must be her Uncle Raymond with his grandiose water spells that could wipe out armies. She just hoped he wouldn’t use his mana zone spell that could choke people. That spell horrified even her of all people.

She shrugged off her backpack which stayed secure under her cloak and whipped out a chair. She plopped onto it wearily and glared at the silver-haired man next to her as if he was the reason for all her problems.

Aika slipped her gloves back on and rubbed her face with a groan as memories of friends and fellow comrades who have stood still and let themselves be ripped apart flashed in her mind’s eye.

She knew she shouldn’t care. He was not a friend of hers. In fact, he was quite rude to her, but this needless worry and giving into the empathy reminded that after all these years that she wasn’t corrupted, that she was still alive, that she was still human.

Aika watched with a proud grin as one last final move from Julius concluded the battle. Cheers erupted across the whole field when the Magic Knights realized their victory.

The Captains, with the exception of Silva, and the Wizard King gathered with the Diamond Kingdom’s Shining Generals to negotiate the terms of surrender. She desperately wanted to eavesdrop on their discussion but General Whomalt was still alive by the end of this battle and Aika promised him that the next time she saw him, he would be dead.

She made her way back to the medical tent and Silva was already up and about. He sat up on his bed and stared at his blanket-covered lap as emotions raced across his face. She silently strode over to her chair by his bed and he made no indication that he noticed her but Aika knew he did. He was most likely embarrassed by his moment of vulnerability in front of a near-stranger but she didn’t particularly mind it.

She sat down patiently and waited for him to speak but they just sat in silence.

“We won,” Aika informed in a subdued tone.

He grunted. His response irked her but she held her cool.

“I’m not going to tell anyone,” She assured him kindly.

“See that you don’t,” he snapped at her. She held her tongue but couldn’t help but sneer at his tone. This was exactly why she didn’t work with the Magic Knights as closely. Most of them she had observed were quite rude and had a superiority complex. His attitude was only making her miss her amulet even more.

“Arian!” A familiar voice exclaimed as the tent flaps flew open. It was her Uncle. Mages and injured Magic Knights around her suddenly scrambled to attention as the Wizard King homed in on the silver-haired Captain.

“Sir,” the embarrassed Captain gritted out. He pulled out a folded piece of parchment paper as Aika and Raymond nodded at each other in acknowledgement. She would need to tell her uncle at the very least so she can make sure that he talked to someone.

“Are you alright, Arian?” The Praying Mantis Captain boomed as he walked right in after the Wizard King. He pointedly ignored him and the other Captains as they voiced their concerns as well. He tossed his blanket aside and stood up as he handed the paper to her uncle.

“My resignation, Raymond.”

“What?!” His eyes darted between Silva’s cool face and the crumpled paper. “But the war just ended! You have still got loose ends to tie up before the resignation.”

He adjusted his uniform gruffly as he said, “I’ll let the Vice Captain take care of it.” He pushed past the captains, eager to leave. “He is more than capable.” He turned and looked back one last time. “But now, I must say my goodbyes to the men that served me.”

“What's the hurry, Arian?!”

Raymond’s question was followed by silence as Silva left. Everyone watched tensely at the bizarre exchange that raised more questions than anything.

“Well,” the Blue Rose Captain began as she cleared her throat. “We did say that we were going to resign right after the battle.” Her sharp eyes turned to the Wizard King. “I will hand mine in, tonight.”

All Captains except one echoed her sentiments and Raymond’s shoulders fell as his age seemed to catch up to him.

“And I would be the last to resign,” he sighed. He looked up at Julius and everyone’s attention turned to the Wizard King to-be. “I hope you are ready, Julius.”

The young Captain stood up straighter, his eyes eager and attentive for the responsibility that will soon be thrust upon him. 

“Though, I hope you do like paperwork,” Raymond laughed, knowing very well he doesn’t. “Because there’s going to be three times more work.”

All formality melted away as Julius groaned at the thought and the Captains laughed.

Aika released the breath she didn’t she realized she was holding. She just witnessed history firsthand, yet again, but it all felt so new to her. She touched her chest. 

Oh.

It wasn’t newness, no. She had witnessed far too much to feel as if anything was new. It was actually the gratitude that set her heart racing.

Notes:

- In the future, Julius will get character development, because as lovely as he is as a person, he can't be a centrist as a leader if he wants to create real change. - In this fic, you'll see him be more proactive with the kingdom's problems and actually use his power outside the Magic Knights. - I'm not only planning development for his character but also his powers. As I have heavily implied throughout my fic, Julius is not human here and we will see that more in the future as the secrets unravel. - I'd personally recommend reading the wiki page on the tree of sephiroth and even better, catch up with the manga. But you don't have to, bc by the time i get to the manga spoilers part of my fic, the anime will prolly be there(fingers crossed).

[warrioreowynofrohan]

Stormlight Archive Character Thoughts - Kaladin

I’ve got piles of thoughts about the Stormlight Archive, and I want to start getting them written down in the lead-up to Rhythm of War.

For people who haven’t read The Stormlight Archive yet - spoilers! (For the first three books only.) If you’re interested in reading the books in future - or, for that matter, if you’re not interested at all and would rather not have them clogging up your dash - you may want to apply some kind of filter to skip these posts.

Kaladin is easily one of my favourite characters, and a lot of that comes from how deeply he cares about people, even people he doesn’t know, and his astounding level of determination. More than any other character in the books, he has to fight for every inch he gets, he has people placing roadblocks in his path literally every time he takes a step forward, and he powers through it all.

Let’s recap. First, at only fifteen years old, he joins the army to protect his younger brother, only 13-years-old, who has been forcibly conscripted due to the town’s brightlord having a grudge against Kaladin’s family. It’s like a sadder version of The Hunger Games, where he can’t even volunteer in place of his brother, just go with him and hope. Soon after their conscription, his brother is forced onto the front lines and killed in front of him.

Kaladin keeps going. He excels in the army and is made a squadleader before he is out of his teens. He spends all his pay bribing officers to send young people who are unprepared for war to his squad, and he protects them; he bribes the support staff to prioritize his men when taking injured soldiers from the battlefield, so they will live. He becomes a legend to his men, who call him Stormblessed. His men are slaughtered by a Shardbearer, a terror that no ordinary soldier could hope to overcome. Kaladin kills the Shardbearer. His commander, the one lighteyes Kaladin still trusted, steals the Shards, slaughters his men to cover it up, brands Kaladin as a slave, and sells him.

Kaladin keeps going. He tries, time and time and time again, to escape, alone or with others. Sometimes he succeeds, briefly. But he is always recaptured, his companions killed. He breaks. He thinks he’s given up. Despite having given up, he tries to save another ill slave, offering medical advice on how he can be save. The slave-traders kill the man anyway. Kaladin is sent to the Shattered Plains as a bridgemen, an existence that is nothing but a painful journey to inevitable death.

He keeps going. He decides, against all odds, to save the men of his bridge crew, who are too beaten down to even want to be saved. He tries to order them to train; they ignore or laugh at him. He tries to inspire them to train; they look at him like he’s crazy. The man in charge of the bridge crew hates him and wants him dead, but is also afraid and in debt; Kaladin puts some of the minimal pay he recieves into bribing him to leave him alone. He tries to buy antiseptic to prevent injured brudgemen from dying of sepsis. He can’t. It costs more money than he will ever have. When the crew go on brudge runs, he stands in the most dangerous place, where he is most likely to die. He runs onto the battlefield, unarmed, to rescue wounded bridgemen from his crew. He heals them as best he can with his limited resources. When the commanders refuse to bring the injured men back to camp because their lives have no value to them, he finds a way to bring them back. The commanders refuse to feed the injured men. He gives up his own rations to feed them, but he’s going to run out of food, money, and medical supplies.

He keeps going. Acting on information from the apothecary, he gets his men assigned to heavy manual labour (which doesn’t make them happy with him) outside of camp and gathers antiseptic from a grass that grows there, to tend his men’s wounds and to sell to the apothecary for profit. He works nights to extract the antiseptic, with the help of a couple other members of his bridge crew. He keeps trying to train his bridge crew so they’re stronger, more practiced, and less likely to die on bridge runs, but many are still too beaten done to have anything to do with it. When he goes to sell the antiseptic to the apothecary, the apothcary tries to cheat him and buy it for a pittance.

Kaladin sees through it the apothecary’s deception, pushes him, and gets a decent price. He uses the money to buy food for his men, Rock makes them stew, and the group finally start to bond. The next day, when he starts training, most of them are willing to participate. Throughout this time, bridgemen kerp getting wounded, keep dying on runs. If this continues, there won’t be enough people left yo carry the bridge. This is intentional on the part of the commanders: they want him to fail, want to deny him any more crew members to replace the ones he’s lost. And then, when he demands more men and can pick one - he picks a one-armed man. Because the man would die immediately in any other bridge crew, and Kaladin is still the person who, when he was a squadleader, had unprepared soldiers sent to his squad so he could keep them alive.

He keeps going. He trains his squad to carry the bridge at their side, so they can use it to block arrows and not be defenseless on bridge runs. He tries this on the next run, because it’s the only way they won’t all die. It works. It also causes the army’s attack to fail, because enemy arches fire at the soldiers and the other bridge crews instead of his crew. And he’s finally told why his men are sent running into battle unshielded and unarmoured. Killing them distracts the enemy from soldiers who have value. He’s been labouring and striving with all his strength to save men whose only military purpose is to die. The commanders string him up in a highstorm to die.

Miraculously, he lives. And he keeps going. Secretly, he begins training his men to fight, in the slim hope that they can excape from the camp, fight off pursuers, and find freedom. On top of this, he starts rescuing and healing wounded men from other bridge crews. Because their lives have value, and no one else values them. And finally, they have a chance to escape - if they walk away and let a losing army be slaughtered by its enemies.

They turn back. A group of people who, months ago, were hopeless, apathetic, and waiting to die, sacrifice their chance at freedom to save men they do not know, soldiers of armies who have never shown any value for bridgeman lives. Men who barely know how to use a spear fight in a battle, a battle against unbelievable odds. (In organizing the retreat, Kaladin manages to take command of men who are stratospherically higher-rank than him, through sheer force of will and level-headedness.) And they win. And thanks to this, they win their freedom. Kaladin’s begun to realize he has powers he doesn’t fully understand.

He’s given immense new responsibilities. Where one he was in charge of maybe thirty or forty bridgemen he’s now in charge of hundreds of brudgemen and soldiers. He learns to identify other leaders. To inspire. To delegate. He considers telling Dalinar about his new powers, and then, just as he’s almost decided, the man who murdered his crew and branded him as a slave comes to the camp, and Dalinar wecomes him as a dear friend. Kaladin tells Dalinar the truth. Dalinar tells Kaladin he has no proof, and all the evidence and testimony is against him; and to all appearances, Dalinar does nothing. Dalinar appoints the man as the new head of the Knights Radiant, the group that Kaladin’s powers genuinely make him one of.

Kaladin keeps going. Despite all of this, he throws himself into a fight against four Shardbearers to protect Dalinar’s son, a man Kaladin doesn’t even like. Against all the odds, he wins. Sering a chance for justice, he demands the right to duel Amaram, his betrayer. Instead, he’s thrown in prison and narrowly escapes the king having him executed (note: Kaladin had previously risked his life to rescue the king from posdibly the most dangerous man in the world). For the second time, he has defeated a Shardbearer, an act that is supposed to instantly make you one of the highest-status people in the kingdom. For the second time, he’s been betrayed and punished for it instead. And then he finds out that the king is also responsible for ‘exiling’, to Kaladin’s hometown, the brightlord respinsible for his brother’s death.

And this is the point where he breaks and decides he’s okay with the king being assassinated. And then, because of that decision, he loses his new abilities and he loses Syl. And he still keeps going, and fights (and kills) a monster out of nightmares to save someone he doesn’t particularly like, and nearly dies doing it. And then, over a space of weeks, he pulls himself together, realizes he was wrong, and stands in defence of the king while still severely injured, about to pass about from blood loss, in a fight he has no chance of winning.

And, oh yes, he does all this while having clinical depression (in addition to some serious situational depression due to the absolute hell that his life is for a lot of the time).

Yes, I’ve skated over a lot of things here, and the involvement of a lot of other characters, but when you put all this together it is amazing. And that, not his powers, is what makes Kaladin a wonderful and intensely admirable character to me. His bond with Syl, and his abilities, are a result of the person he’s continually chosen to be, against constant, unimaginable obstacles. They’re not something that was just handed to him. Do I love his epic moments? Yes. But they work because they’re grounded on the foundation of everything else he’s chosen to be and do.

(I’m hoping to do a separate post focusing specifically on his arc in Words of Radiance, and on Moash’s arc, because there are a lot of nuances there that I want to dig into.)

And in Oathbringer, I love his scenes with the Singers in the first part. He meets people who he expects to be monsters, who both legend and personal experience has told him are monsters, and he empathizes with them and helps them. Because they need it, and because he cares. And I believe that on the long run, that will be a major and important strength, not a weakness. Throughout the books he’s struggled with the question of how you draw a line between the people you’re supposed to protect and the people you’re supposed to kill when there’s no obvious moral difference between the one and this other. I think that’s going to be resolved, and that his capacity for empathy, inspiration and leadership is going to be involved in helping the humans and the Singers to find peace.

[edmund-pevensie-just-king]

(Fic) Not So Just King

Summary: Edmund gets into an argument with Peter during a council meeting, and harsh words are exchanged. Beginning to doubt his position as the Just King and whether or not Peter’s feelings have really changed towards him, he runs off

Warnings: Self-deprecation, self-hatred, feelings of worthlessness, yelling, fighting, crying, and hurt/comfort

Ship(s): None

tag list:  @simply-ellas-stuff @bessfrog

“Peter, if you just listen to me, I think it would be a much better idea if we-” Edmund was cut off as Peter tiredly raised a hand, looking up from the battle map that he and a few of their advisors had been studying. It had only been six years since the Pevensies had become the Kings and Queens of Narnia, but the heavy weight of being a king had already worn Peter down. 

“Edmund, please. We don’t have time for another one of your tangents,” Peter said coldly. Edmund’s throat tightened and he straightened up, fists clenching at his sides. The general and soldiers at the table exchanged awkward glances between each other. 

“My ‘tangents’ are important input on battle strategies. I’m called ‘the just’ for a reason, you know,” Edmund snapped back, leaning over the table at Peter. One of the soldiers tried to interject but was cut off by Peter. 

“Perhaps Aslan made a mistake. You’ve provided nothing of worth in all your years as King. Why would you start now?” Peter growled. The room fell silent as the two kings, the two brothers glared each other down. Edmund’s hands shook slightly and he hid them in his tunic. 

“You’re right. You always are,” Edmund said bitterly, trying to keep his voice from trembling. Peter’s angry expression slowly faded to realization. “I’ll go. Leave the intelligent people to the decision making,” the Just King continued, turning away sharply and storming out of the hall. 

“Ed...Edmund, wait! Wait, I’m sorry!” Peter called, running down the hall after his brother. Oreius followed his king and grabbed Peter’s arm, stopping the man from pursuing the other any farther. “What are you doing?! I need to-”

“With all due respect, your majesty, I believe the Just King may need a few moments alone after your words,” Oreius said, bowing his head respectfully. Peter stood still for a moment, breathing heavily and staring at the large, oaken doors his brother had disappeared behind. After a gentle yet commanding tug from the centaur, Peter finally relented and returned to the table, his stomach twisting as he went back to planning. 

Edmund, meanwhile, had returned to his bedchambers. All of his windows had been closed and the curtains were drawn. He sat in the dark, curled up on his bed and staring blankly at nothing. Silent tears rolled his cheeks and his shoulders jerked with silent, contained sobs. He desperately wanted comfort, wanted Susan or Lucy, or hell, even Peter, to come in and tell him that everything was alright and Peter hadn’t meant those things, but he knew it would never happen. He didn’t deserve it anyway. He pulled the soft comforters on his bed around himself tightly, trying to simulate some sort of human contact. Edmund continued to shake and cry softly, burying himself in his blankets and shutting himself out.  

Peter thought Edmund would come down for dinner. As his sisters ate and talked, he didn’t touch his food once, staring at the doors and waiting for Edmund to come down. He never did. He never even poked his raven-haired head through the door. Peter had seen so sign of Edmund anywhere in the castle since their fight. He tapped his fingers anxiously on the table, the other hiding his face as he tried to conceal his nervousness from his sisters. There was no reason that they, too, should worry about their brother. 

“Have either of you seen Edmund today? I saw him go into his room earlier and he hasn’t come out since,” Lucy piped up suddenly, setting down her fork and looking at her two eldest siblings with curiosity. 

“I was just about to ask you two the same thing. It isn’t like Edmund to just lock himself away...Peter, do you know anything?” Susan replied. Both of Narnia’s Queens turned to face the High King, who had gone rigid and face drained of all color. Lucy frowned at her brother’s countenance, reaching across the table and taking Peter’s now shaking hand. The High King was startled out of his thoughts and looked at his sister. She repeated her question and he swallowed thickly. 

“Ed and I...got into a fight earlier today. I said some hurtful things. He...He may not have taken them so well,” Peter said quietly, closing his eyes and taking a shaky breath. He heard Susan gasp and begin to speak, but he didn’t let her. Standing up abruptly, his chair screeching against the floor, Peter made his decision. “I’m going in to check on him. I’ll either bring him down or stay upstairs with him; either way, tell the servants we are not to be disturbed,” Peter said, voice clipped but not sharp. Lucy nodded and followed him out of the dining hall to inform any servants who may enter their bedchambers not to disturb the two kings. Peter marched with purpose through the dark halls. It was late, the moon was already out and shining brightly through the stain glass windows. Edmund would have been alone for hours. Peter’s heart ached at the thought of his brother, his little brother, holed up and left alone with his agonizing thoughts, and it was all Peter’s fault. He reopened an old wound, he knew that, and one that Edmund hated the most. The poor boy had always been insecure about his place at Peter’s side, and his older brother had essentially confirmed his worst fears. 

Peter could hear Edmund crying through his door. It was a hollow, depressing sound that sent Peter reeling. He had done this. He had been the one to hurt his little brother like this. How could he? What was wrong with him? The sheer guilt almost made the high king turn away, but then his brother let out a heartwrenching sob and said, “I’m sorry...I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Peter couldn’t take it. He pushed open the (surprisingly) unlocked door and came in quickly, searching wildly around for his brother. Edmund sat bolt upright in his bed, hair sticking up and messing and his face wet with tears, eyes puffy and red. Peter froze, hand still on the door handle. 

“If you’ve come to yell at me some more, go ahead. I don’t care anymore,” Edmund croaked, his throat so raw from crying he could barely speak. Peter’s heart twisted and he clenched his jaw to stop himself from crying. Edmund stared at him for a moment before curling up on his bed again, hugging a pillow to his chest. Peter closed the door gently and Edmund relaxed, thinking his brother had left the room, but he immediately stiffened again when he felt the bed dip beside him. His breathing grew quicker and his knuckles were white as he gripped his pillow and quilts. He said he wouldn’t care if Peter yelled more, but he would. It would hurt. His heart would shatter. It was already broken, but there were just a few cracks and chips. If Peter persisted, Edmund knew it would break completely. 

“Oh, Ed,” Peter murmured, unable to help himself as the tears in his eyes slowly began to fall. “I’m so sorry, You have no idea how sorry I am,” he continued. Edmund flinched as his brother rested a hand on his shoulder, and continued to stay rigid as the other boy tried to comfort him. “I didn’t mean what I said. You’ve contributed so much to the Kingdom...even in the first battle, breaking the witch’s wand and your genius idea with the eagles..” Edmund was by no means relaxed, but he was listening now. Peter’s voice was breaking. “I’ve been awful to you, I really have. I don’t expect you to forgive me, but I want you to know how sorry I am.” Edmund was quiet for a moment. 

“A simple ‘sorry’ isn’t going to fix this,” he said coldly. Peter’s hand stiffened where it was on Edmund’s back, and the Just King was surprised at his own harshness. He didn’t regret it though, Years of always being second best, always being compared to Peter, always being beaten down and insulted just for who he was came rushing out in that simple sentence. Edmund didn’t realize it, but Peter sensed that. 

“I know, Ed. I didn’t expect it too. I just...I want you to know. You can take all the time you need to forgive me. Or not forgive me at all, it’s your choice. All I know is that Narnia needs her Just King. Narnia needs you, Edmund, and my words are meaningless against the backdrop of your accomplishments. I promise.” Edmund choked up, squeezing his eyes shut and letting out a shuddering sob. He wanted to believe Peter so badly, but doubt and fear reigned supreme in his thoughts. How could his subjects trust him after his betrayal? What if Peter had been right earlier, even if he hadn’t meant it? He started sobbing harder and gasped when two strong arms wrapped around him, pulling up from his bed. Edmund found himself pressed against a crying Peter’s chest, who buried his face in Edmund’s hair. Edmund struggled weakly for a moment before finally giving up, sobbing heartbrokenly into Peter’s chest, clinging to the back of his older brother’s tunic and practically wailing. 

“It’s not fair! Why does everyone always hate me so much?” Edmund cried between shuddering sobs, curling up against Peter and clinging to him like a lifeline. “I just want to help! I just...I just want people to know I’m there! That you aren’t the only good one! Why- Why can’t anyone see-” Edmund started sobbing too hard to talk. Peter just held him, rocking his little brother in his arms and shaking slightly as tears fell down into the dark hair. He couldn’t believe his brother had been bottling up so much pain. Peter ran a gentle hand through Edmund’s hair, and the younger man’s violent sobs turned to choked crying, then slowly faded to whimpers. 

“They will see, Edmund. I swear they will,” Peter promised fiercely, cupping his brother’s face and wiping away the tears as he kissed his temple. Edmund sniffled and closed his eyes.

“You aren’t exactly the best at keeping promises,” Edmund said, and Peter was relieved to hear the slight joking tone. His mouth even twitched into a tiny smile when he teased Peter. 

“Well, I’ll do everything I can to keep this own,” Peter said sincerely. Edmund nodded and wiped his eyes, sighing softly. Peter held him for a moment, his own crying slowing to a stop. Edmund closed his eyes and rested his head on Peter’s chest, arms wrapped lazily around his waist. Peter went to offer Edmund some dinner, only to see his younger brother fast asleep in his arms, exhausted from the emotional turmoil and the crying. Peter smiled and settled the younger King down onto his bed, drying his face of any lingering tears before making the final decision of his day. He got into bed beside his brother, returning him into his arms and holding him while he slept, hoping to chase away bad dreams and horrid thoughts. Peter had almost lost Edmund once. He wasn’t about to let it happen again. 

[jiminthestreets-bonesinthesheets]

Final Fantasy: At Lucis End - CH 1

Fandom: Final Fantasy XV, Final Fantasy 

Rating: Mature

Pairing: Noctis Lucis Caelum/Original Female Character(s) 

AO3

Masterlist

Summary:

    A treaty. A light at the end of the tunnel that King Regis had been staring down for years. A proposal. A wedding that stands to save the lands. A betrayal. That could tear it all down. And a love. So strong yet so torn.

    The war between Lucis and Niflheim could come to an end, but much will have to be sacrificed along the way. And in the end, would it even be enough? Would the loss of life, love, and family be enough to save the people of Lucis? Or will it all come crumbling down in the end?

*** MY WORK IS NOT TO BE POSTED ON ANY OTHER SITE WITHOUT MY EXPRESS WRITTEN PERMISSION. THOUGH REBLOGS AND COMMENTS ARE SUPER LOVED AND APPRECIATED! THANKS FAM!***

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Chapter one

     "And in the heat of battle, Lucis’s fiercest warrior, lands flat on her ass all so she could look cool while taking down a Bandersnatch,“ Libertus leaned back in his chair as he recalled the memory from years ago, snorting a laugh before he continued, "here she was thinking she was hot stuff, goes running in, trips over her own feet, goes catapulting across the battlefield, and ends up skidding back first through a huge pile of who knows what. I was laughing so hard I couldn’t even fight.”

     "Why is this your favourite story to tell?“ A female voice asked from beside him, "I’m pretty sure everyone here has heard it a thousand times already, and gods know I don’t want to relive it every time you get drunk.”

     He laughed again and slapped a hand on the table, “Because it was the exact moment that you finally learned your lesson and realized that what Nyx was always telling you was true. Battles are not won through sheer strength or brute force, but-”

     "But the will with which a warriors heart bleeds for their lands and people, and their willingness to die for their loyalties. Yes, I know.“

     "At least you’ve learned something,” he snorted another laugh and slapped a hand on her shoulder, shifting her armour, “but you were young then. Nyx had just taken you in not long before that, and you thought you were the strength with which Lucis would win the war. So, despite Nyx telling you to hold back and think out your strategy, you go running in, all swollen ego and cocky grin, and in the end you landed in crap. Literally, you smelled like shit for six days after that.”

     She laughed into her drink, despite the embarrassment it was a good story, even she would admit that, “Whatever, I still killed it.”

     The entire table of Glaives erupted in laughter at the pair’s usual banter, “Glad to see you managed to carry over at least some of that ego. But now look at you,” he gestured to her, “you truly are the kingdom’s greatest warrior. Strong, smart, the best fighter I’ve seen in years, and now you stand side by side with the king and his son. You’ve made the Glaive proud. Araceli Ulric, pride of the Kingsglaive.

     "And this has officially gotten too sappy for me,” she downed the last of her drink in one go and stood from the table, “I have to go find Nyx anyways, we have some strategy to work out before another attack. So be ready for a briefing tomorrow.”

     They all groaned in mock annoyance as she turned and made her way to the exit of the bar with a wave behind her.

     "Libertus!“ The name was heard faintly over the chaos inside the bar. He looked around but saw no one, then it was heard again, closer this time, "Libertus!”

     He turned to see a familiar face running towards him, bouncing between the people and scattered tables before he came to a stop where he was sitting. He leaned on the table close to Libertus, “My friend, I come bearing news.”

     "Domenic,“ he turned towards the man beside him, a member of the king’s advisors who he had known for years, "what’s so urgent?”

     "This news,“ he began with a shake of his head leaning in even closer, "if the king knew I had given you this information, it could be my end.”

     "You know I would never betray you. What’s wrong?“

     He took a quick look around then leaned back into Libertus, "We must find Nyx. It involves Noctis.”

     "Is he alright?!“

     "Yes, but…” he moved back and waved for Libertus to follow him, “we must find Nyx. This information must be passed on to him and then Araceli, and it cannot come from anyone else. She must be informed, but it must be Nyx who does so, for if she hears it form anyone else gods save their soul. And If she hears it straight from Noctis it could be bad, she must be prepared. We both know she will need her time to think before addressing the issue head on.”

     "Let’s go then,“ he stood, albeit slightly wobbled, and hurried out the door with Domenic, "explain to me on the way, I know where he’ll be.”

~~~~~~~~~~~

     "Have you seen Nyx?“

     "Sorry, Lady Ulrich, I haven’t seen him today.”

     "No worries,“ she said as she continued through the halls of the citadel, "I’ll find him eventually.”

     She continued to wander, searching every room of the citadel and finding the usual staff and Glaive members who always filled the halls, but could not for the life of her find the one person she had been looking for for the better part of her afternoon.

     She turned down yet another hallway when her name was called from behind and she turned with a smile, immediately recognizing the voice, “Nyx! I’ve been looking for you all day! Where were you?”

     She turned and walked back to where he had stopped walking. “I have to tell you something.”

     "And we have work to do,“ she ran the last few steps towards him and gave his chest a light jab, dipping and diving while she laid a few more light blows, play fighting with him as they always did, though this time he wasn’t playing back, "we have to rethink strategy before we are attacked again, and have it all prepared for a briefing tomorrow with the rest of the Glaive. So tell me in the strategy room.”

     "No, Araceli,“ he tried to grab her hands and keep her still but she kept dodging him, "let me tell you now. You’re not going to like this, and it needs to come from me.”

     "Why?“ She dodged his hands again and pretended to punch his jaw.

     "It’s delicate,” he finally manages to capture her hands and hold them still in front of him as he continued, “it involves you.”

     "Me?“ She looked around Nyx to where Libertus and Domenic were standing at the end of the hall, watching on with unmoving expressions, then back to Nyx, "What’s going on?”

     "When I tell you this, I understand you’ll need time, anyone in your position should-“

     "Nyx, tell me what’s wrong.”

     He took a breath and squeezed her hands still in his, “Lucis and Niflheim came to an agreement today, a peace treaty was signed.” she eyed him and nodded, “The treaty called for peace between the two lands on the terms that Noctis marry the Niflheim Princess Lunafreya. He’s leaving in three days to start the journey there, and Regis wants you as part of his envoy.”

     Nyx let her hands go when he felt her pulling them away, watched as she backed away from him with furrowed brows and her lip between her teeth.

     "I know you’ll need some time, but-“

     "When did this happen?”

     "This morning.“

     "Does Noctis know?”

     Nyx sighed, he knew where this was going, “Yes,” she scoffed and looked away, “but it’s not his fault, everyone wanted it to come from me.”

     "Why?!“ She turned on him, anger in her eyes, "Why did it have to come from you?! Why couldn’t he tell me himself?!”

     "This is why,“ he tried to reach out and take her shoulders but she jolted away, "you can’t be angry with him, this isn’t his choice.”

     "He still could have told me,“ she shook her head as she backed away, "we are best friends, basically grew up together, we’ve been through so much, trained side by side. I…”

     Nyx sighed and spoke softly to her, almost afraid to scare her off, “I know this is a lot to take in especially considering how the two of you…” he could see the tears in her eyes welling, ready to spill over, but also knew that there was no way he could comfort her right now. Nothing would make this better, nothing could change it. “You have three days. Take them and sort your emotions, figure out what you want to do, and then talk to him when you’re ready.”

     "This is…" She couldn’t even finish, her voice choking her as she just turned and started walking down the hall, eventually turning into a run, then Nyx watched as she warped herself away.

~~~~~~~~~~~

     She ended up on the far side of the castle before she stopped breathless in the courtyard out back. She had been running and warping for what felt like hours. She was exhausted physically and emotionally, and still felt like she had made no progress in sorting out any of her thoughts.

     She wiped her forehead on the back of her sleeve, huffed to catch her breath, and kept her back to the large double doors to the citadel when she heard them open behind her.

     "Araceli.“ She closed her eyes as she recognized the voice. "Ara?”

     She turned slowly towards the voice, the last person she wanted to see. “Prince Noctis”

     "You know that’s not necessary between us, formalities.“

     "Isn’t it?” She stares at him a moment before she says, “Perhaps it should start to become common practice then, since you are now to be wed then crowned king, I should no longer be so familiar.”

     He looked her over, saw the redness in her eyes and cheeks, the anguish clearly written on her face, and nodded, "You know.”

     "Yeah, I know,“ she nearly whispered, "wish it would have come from you though, wish we could have talked about this before I had to hear it from Nyx.”

     "I didn’t have a choice.“

     "I know,” she ran a shaking hand through her hair and slapped it against her side, “this was your father’s choice, I understand that, but…”

     "I’m sorry,“ he choked, nearly in years himself, "but maybe we-”

     She backed away stopping him in his steps towards her, “Noct, no. These are your father’s orders, your king’s orders, there’s nothing we can do to change that.”

     "But Ara-“

     She stopped him with a hand up before he could make the hole on her chest any deeper. "I shall take my leave now, my Prince,” then she turned on her heel to leave and he stopped her with a hand on her arm and she shook it off much to his surprise.

     “Please, don’t go.” she could hear the desperation in his voice but closed her eyes to try and block it out.

     “But I can’t stay, even after you’re married.”

     “What do you mean?”

     She took a heavy breath, looking up to him with pure anguish in her eyes, “I can’t stay. After you’ve been taken and wed, I’ll have to move on. This… us, whatever this is, it can’t continue after your wedding. And should I stay here it would only prove to be far too difficult to resist being close to each other, as close as we’ve always been, and that wouldn’t be fair to either of us or your new wife. So I’m leaving Insomnia.”

     “You don’t have to leave,” he shook his head, a desperate look in his eyes, “I want you to stay.”

     “Why?” she raised her hands and let them fall to her sides heavily, “Once you’re married, what else have I got left?”

     He didn’t say anything more, didn’t really know what to say, or if he could say anything around the hole that had just been punched into his gut. So instead he watched speechless as she bow curtly, something she only ever did out of pure teasing, and left.

~~~~~~~~~~~

     “Well that went just about as well as I thought it would.”

     Libertus was back at the bar he had been at the day before. It was now coming up on dawn and he was sitting across from a very unusually quiet Nyx who still had not touched his drink. Libertus was already halfway through his second.

     Nyx ran both of his hands through his hair, and without looking up from the table muttered, “This is going to break her.”

     “Yeah, it is,” Libertus nodded, looking into the last dregs of his drink before downing it, and waving at a waiter for another, “do you think she’ll talk to him? Tell him?”

     He shook his head, “Her stubborn ass, no.”

     “She has to!” Libertus waved a hand then slammed his fist on the table, nearly knocking over his new drink as the waiter placed it beside him, “This is literally her last chance! Their last chance!”

     “I’m not sure it would make a difference, Libertus,” he crossed his arms across the table and finally looked up, “even if she did, Regis’s words are final, the treaty’s already been signed. I don’t think there would be a way around it, at least not a way that wouldn’t result in the continuation of the war. Regis is trying to end it, she won’t get in the way of it, and Noctis will do whatever he needs to, to help.”

     “And what good is that if our sweet girl and the little prince are both miserable in doing so?”

     “It’s not really a question of being miserable, Lib, it’s a matter of lives. Many of which have already been lost fighting this damn war.”

     He sighed and looked back down at the table as Libertus spoke again. “Do you think it will even matter?” He didn’t look up, but he knew exactly what Libertus was talking about. “I know Regis is tired, and we’ve lost so much already, but do you really think that this peace treaty will end this war?”

     Nyx just shook his head, “It won’t.”

     “Iedolas wants control, we both know this,” he nudged Nyx’s arm, gaining his attention, “and there’s something off about this treaty if you ask me. I mean, after all these years of fighting, why now come to Lucis and suddenly offer a peace treaty? Iedolas was fighting for dominance over the territories, this doesn’t gain him anything.”

     “It doesn’t make sense,” Nyx agreed, “nothing makes sense. Having Noctis marry Lunafreya doesn’t give Iedolas any power, it actually shifts the power completely to Noctis. It gives him rule of Lucis and Niflheim when he’s crowned.”

     “I don’t know,” he shook his head, “there has to be some sort of alternative motive to this but I just don’t know what yet.”

     “Well, the prince leaves in three days,” Nyx said, finally taking a sip of his drink, “I think we should try to figure out as much information as we can before Noctis reaches Niflheim, and keep the Glaive close to Regis. Maybe we can figure out what’s behind this treaty and stop Iedolas before he can do whatever it is he’s planning.”

     “Yeah, and stop this ridiculous marriage while we’re at it.”

~~~~~~~~~~~

     Noctis walked slowly to the edge of the roof of the citadel. He had known that the second she warped away from him in the halls, this is where she would be, but he had decided to give her some time to herself. And as dawn was just starting to hit the horizon, he came to sit beside her, looking out over the swirls of pinks before them.

     “I don’t want you to go.”

     “I have no other choice,” she whispered.

     Noctis risked a quick glance at her face, cheeks littered with freshly stained tear tracks, “There is always a choice, you’re just taking the harder road out of pure stubborness.” She just shook her head. “I thought we were friends.”

     “Are we?” She looked to him then, and he just stared back slightly worried, “Or is there more lingering between us?”

     “I…” he turned and looked down over the city, away from her gaze.

     “Yeah, that’s what I thought,” she turned and looked back over at the rising sun, “but there can’t be more between us now. Not when you have a wife. And I won’t sit back and be left to stand at a distance only to yearn for what she has that I know I can’t, nor can I be a constant distraction to you. It wouldn’t be fair to either of us, Noct.”

     “So you’ll just leave?”

     “What do I gain if I stay?” She pulled her knees up to her chest to wrap her arms tightly around them. “A life of disappointment? A broken heart? I can’t go through that. It’s already hard enough that I’ll have to be a part of the envoy that will deliver you to your waiting bride, and then have to sit through a wedding that I wish with all my being was not taking place. But I will do my duty and make sure you get there safely, and then once you are wed and back inside the walls of Lucis, I will leave. You’ll never see me again after that, it’s for the best, for both of us.”

     “I don’t want that.”

     “You can’t have it any other way.”

     “So let’s leave.” She turned to look at him, his expression completely serious. “Both of us. I don’t want to marry Lunafreya, but I’m being forced to because of this treaty, because my father and king is telling me I have to. But now that we both know the truth, who cares.”

     “Noct…”

     “I only want you.” He placed his hand over hers and she sighed.

     “You don’t mean that.”

     “Of course I do,” he shifted closer to her, “I’ve meant it for years.”

     She shook her head, “That’s not what I meant, Noct. You and I… we wasted so much time where we could have been together, but now we can’t do that. Regis is trying to make peace for the people, and you have to marry Lunafreya to do that. And no matter what, Noct, no matter how we feel about each other, you can’t run away from Lucis. These people need you, and I know that in your heart you could never leave them behind.”

     “But-”

     “Noctis,” she stopped him, “years ago I ran away from something I should have never left behind. I disappointed a lot of people and I will never be forgiven for what I did, this is my punishment. For all the lives I failed I will never be allowed to live the one I want.”

     “I don’t believe that.”

     “You don’t know what I did,” she sighed, “and if you knew, I don’t believe we would be so close.”

     A moment of silence passed between them before he looked back up to her and asked, “Why didn’t you say something before? About how you felt.”

     “So many reasons.”

     “Tell me them.”

     “I can’t,” she shook her head.

     “Why not?”

     “I told you, Noct,” she turned to look at him with a sad smile, “you would look at me differently, and I won’t have that.”

     “I could never,” he answered confidently.

     “You say that now, but you would.”

     “I wouldn’t care,” he shook his head, “no matter what your past holds, I want you to be in my future, always. I will always love you, I always have.”

     She wanted to say it back, but she knew she couldn’t, not when Noctis had a duty to his kingdom before anything else, and she couldn’t get in the way of that. She took a deep, stabbing breath, then said instead, “But you can’t, you must love the Princess Lunafreya now.”

     “My father, if he knew about us he-”

     “Would not change his mind,” She bit her lip, trying to hold back the next onslaught of tears she could feel coming, “as the king demands so shall it be done.” Another moment of silence passed between them, then she asked. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

     “I was afraid,” he nearly whispered, “I was afraid you wouldn’t feel the same and then you’d leave me, but it turns out that’s what I got in the end anyways.”

     She sighed, looking out over the kingdom below them, the sun now past the horizon and whispered, “I’m sorry, Noct.”

~~~~~~~~~~~

                                                     NEXT

A/N: Sooo yeah, thats chapter one, so let me know what yall think XD And I promised i would tag @wisteriayamashi my new friend!! *waves* And I’ll also tag @prettyprompto @tea-time-with-devil-traps @idiotflowerex  If y’all know anyone else that would be interested please tag them! And if anyone wants to be tagged for furture posted just let me know XD

<3<3<3</p>

[lotornomiko]

Light Grasping Darkness (1 of 6, mostly work safe for 1)

Old, old fic of mine...touched up with tweaks to words, grammar, sentence structure that sort of thing. Nothing too major a change, just the perfectionist in me trying to make it a smoother and more enjoyable read....I got the urge to reread this, and of course, couldn’t make it through without trying to “fix” it. And someday I really need to write the sequel, Light Seducing Darkness.

I believe this was my first foray into Hook Emma/Captain Swan fanfic. It starts out i guess R rated, but by chapter two vastly becomes super smutty. This is set in season two, is an AU, has Rumplestiltskin character death. According to fanfic net I originally wrote this in July 2013..., long before season five made Hook as a Dark One a thing. XD

As such, it was written with some thoughts in my head, (I looked at my old author’s notes) where I had thought Hook wasn’t aware of what would happen if he used the dagger on the dark one. I firmly believed he wanted to get his revenge and die, and would have been pissed to find himself stuck as the new Dark One. Although in this fic, from what I remember, I don’t think I gave him much time to be pissed, between the evil queenS orders, and the lust that quickly spilled over in an effort to combat it.

Will be posting all six parts of the completed first in a series fic onto my tumblr, as well as updating it at archive and fanfic.net. Will be posting on tumblr as I finished going over each chapter. 

There are moments, all too brief respites, where everything stands frozen and still. It is a lie, the quiet that it brings giving them the illusion of the luxuries they no longer have. Chief among them is time, every moment stolen, every second bringing them closer to what just may be their deaths. However, there is no time to grieve, no time to wage protest against an unfair fate. There exists only now, the running and the plotting, readying themselves for a war they are ill equipped to fight under the best of circumstances, and that was before Gold had been killed.

There's no time to mourn him, no time to do anything more than acknowledge the fallen. Gold stands to be the first in what will become a string of massacres, the worst nightmare of many coming true as Storybrooke falls under the power of not one, but TWO evil queens.

Maybe, just maybe they would stand a chance if it had only been Cora and Regina to contend with. Maybe then they could have won, somehow backed only by the power of the savior, a power that she herself didn't understand and had barely begun to explore. But there had never been time, and Emma had never seen need to truly explore the potential within her, the magic that left her so frightened and disturbed.

She regrets that now, a million if only running through her head. Wondering if only she had made the time, if only she had put aside her duties as sheriff, if only she had taken seriously Gold's attempts to tutor her. Nothing and no one can change the past now, not Emma as the savior, and not even Gold with all the power of the Dark One at his fingertips.

All that power had done little good once Gold had lost control of the dagger. Enslaved by the one who controlled the blade, Gold had been rendered helpless, unable to do anything to ward off the death that had finally come calling.

It wasn't just that they had lost a valuable ally in the war against evil. It was the power the evil queens had gained, the magic that was now theirs to command. A power they were all to quick to use, despite the fact that their tool was a staggered weapon at best.

Emma tried not to shudder as she remembered the scream that had followed Gold's death. The scream that had been unlike anything she had ever before heard, the pain and shock of what was happening registered within it, leaving the Dark One confused, fighting against fate, against orders. That resistance to do as commanded, was the only reason why Emma and her family were still alive. Was the only reason why they were able to run long enough to scheme. Not that the Charmings had much in the way of ideas, not when the dagger was so essential to defeating that which was coming.

It was hard not to give in to those hopeless feelings. To not wonder what chance they stood, with the power of the Dark One turned against them. Even as Emma fought against despairing, she acknowledged that she didn't know enough, not to fight and not to use the power locked inside her. For all that lack of, there was hope, Emma realizing that although she didn't know much about being the savior, the young woman also didn't know enough to truly believe the Dark One was completely unstoppable, dagger aside. And she disliked immensely the pitying looks her father and mother both gave her when she had said so.

Perhaps it was because they were of the other world, and always had lived with the knowledge that there was no true way to destroy the Dark One. Even before the existence of the dagger had become known, the people who had lived in the Enchanted Kingdoms, had grown up believing in the Dark One's invincibility. They had learned first hand, the failures of those who had made attempts on the Dark One's life, had been terrorized and manipulated for years far longer than Gold had been alive.

The Dark One already so terrifying, had become something else entirely under Rumplestiltskin's control. The man had twisted the legends, distorted truths until the name Rumplestiltskin was feared, the man rather than the monster fear, and with that faded memory had gone many’s truths behind the dagger. Through his masterful manipulations, most had gone on to forget that the Dark One had once been a slave, that whoever possessed the dagger had controlled the beast. Forgotten about, it was now a painful reminder that had been slammed into them, stark and potent in its devastating truths.

It was that reminder that was snuffing the hope out of David and Mary Margaret's eyes. That and the memories of those failed attempts to kill, to corner, to even contain Rumplestiltskin and his power. They remembered well the hardships, and the sheer desperation that had led the Blue Fairy into finally discovering a way, albeit a temporary one. A  way meant to hold him, to imprison him long enough so that a single generation of people would have peace of mind.

There would be no repeating that way, even if the Blue Fairy had been capable of repeating that spell. In the realm of Storybrooke, even with magic brought back into it, there simply wasn't enough of the Enchanted Kingdoms in this land. There wasn't enough of the ingredients needed to power the spell, no time to prepare, no location secured to act as a prison. There wasn't enough of anything, David and Mary Margaret knowing this, and thus choosing not to build their daughter's hopes up.

They held back, but didn't stop their daughter from scheming. Desperate plan after desperate plan came flowing, none of them seeming plausible, none of them offering true hope of survival.  Emma wouldn't, couldn’t, give up, not even when faced with the Dark One, watching as her gun's bullets slammed into his black leather clad chest.

Was it the bullets or the pain of them that seemed to confuse him? He'd actually look down, stare at the small holes in his clothing, smoke curling upwards out of them. His hand would raise, finger fitting into one of the holes. No blood, the skin already healing, mending together as though the bullet had never torn it open.

No further proof was needed that their weapons were useless. And yet Emma kept on firing. Watching the body jerk back with each shell's piercing, seeing the expression on the Dark One's face, a lost look of a despair all his own. She didn't truly understand the expression, or the reasons behind it. Why would he allow such pain to color his eyes? Pain that had nothing to do with the bullets, or Mary Margaret's arrows. Hadn't this been what he had wanted? Hadn't he pursued Gold over time and space, in an effort to bring about his end and claim his power? Hadn't he become exactly what he had always wanted?

Emma didn't know  that she was jumping to conclusions. Didn't know, and truth be known, wouldn't have cared. She was blinded by what she saw as his betrayal, cursing herself a fool for ever even giving him a moment's benefit of doubt. She should have known better, DID know better. Once burned, you never, ever give a person a second chance to hurt you. And yet for him, she had. For him she had pushed back the betrayals, choosing to ignore how he had left her and her friends, even her mother, to die in a rotting dungeon, or of the time shortly after, where he had been set on killing her.

Nothing personal he had claimed. And she had believed him! Was it her own guilt at work there? Was it the fact that Emma had not only abandoned him, but left him trapped at the top of a beanstalk, that led her to grudgingly bear him no ill will? Was it that same guilt that made her feel responsible, made Emma think that if she had done one thing differently, none of this would have come to past? Or did she simply regret not killing him when she had had the chance?

No way to know, no time to mull over the what ifs. She was out of bullets, and he was coming, his black leather riddled with smoking holes, but his body otherwise fine. More than fine, if one ignored the anguish of his expression. Always a handsome man, that beauty had become more pronounced, devastatingly dark and seductive, all the better to lure foolish maidens to their ruin.

Emma wasn't foolish, but even she couldn't look at that dark beauty and not be affected. She rebelled against the want that fisted inside her, total defiance spurring her to fling her gun at him. His arm raised, the gun bouncing off harmlessly. She barely registered the sound of steel being drawn, the borrowed sword in her grip as she took up a new stance, readying herself to die fighting.

David was somewhere to the right of her, a sword that had slayed dragons, in his hand. Arrows came from the left of her, Mary Margaret rapidly depleting her stock of projectiles. They were catching on fire, bursting into smoke instead of striking him, though the Dark One hadn't seemed intent on defending himself.

With a challenging scream, Emma and her father both rushed the Dark One at the same time. David's sword twirled in his grip, slashing downwards one moment, then attempting to belly thrust the next. Emma's blade met the metal of his hook, the Dark One effortlessly holding her back. She didn't fight his shove back, instead rebounding, spinning round to come at his head from a new angle. But the blow didn't connect, his hook there, stopping her blade, even as David mercilessly hacked away at his sides. He came away with nothing for his troubles, save to chip away bits of the leather of the Dark One's coat.

Emma bit out a frustrated sound, lashing out with her legs. At best the target she chose would distract him, at worse leave him infuriated. Her knee connected, and for a second it seemed the breath blew out of the Dark One. Her father quick to seize the advantage, went for the Dark One's heart, intending to split it in half with his blade.

And then David was airborne, a self presevation of the Dark One sending Emma's father flying. He didn't go far, the forest too crowded with trees, one of which he slammed into headfirst. Emma heard her mother scream out, Mary Margaret running towards where David had landed. He wasn't moving, the sword slamming tip first into the ground, inches away from his body.

Emma didn't dare think that David might be dead. Didn't dare allow herself to fear she had lost a father she had barely begun to know. She just tightened her grip on the hilt of her sword, grim determination in her to somehow bring down this monster.

The sword was caught mid blow, wrenched free of her hand by an unnatural force. She wouldn't let that deter her, striking him close fisted in the face and coming away with a hand that had gone numb from the contact. An arrow flew, just missing the Dark One's face, Emma hearing Mary Margaret screaming at her to run.

Even if she wasn’t stubbornly rebelling against such a command, there was no chance to flee. The Dark One had grabbed her by the throat, lifting her up off the ground. Leaving Emma choking one instant, growling the next. More arrows flew past, Mary Margaret refusing to take her own advice, refusing to abandon her husband and daughter to this unstoppable monster.

Emma felt her mother's frustration, as she kicked out with her legs, clawing at the arm of the hand that so effortlessly held her up off the ground. She didn't want to believe she was going to die like this, one hand digging her nails into his, the other held towards him in a warding gesture.

"Hook..." She barely got out his name, her voice sounded like gravel in response to the grip crushing down on her throat. "Please..." Emma hated that she was begging, but her options had run out. There was nothing left to do, but plead with a monster, hope there was enough of the man left inside him, to listen and show mercy.

"Emma..." The Dark One had hesitated, his grip relaxing slightly. Sorrow colored his sea dark eyes, an expression so unsettling on he who had once been nothing but wickedly flirtatious. Emma saw then that he really didn't want to do this, that he was truly enslaved by the dagger. That he was fighting even now, the compulsions of his mistress' command. And yet it would do none of them any good, could only delay the inevitable.

"Fight it." urged Emma, still speaking in the raspy tones forced on her by that bruising grip of his.

"I want to." He admitted, and then his grip tightened again. "But I can't..."

She tried to scream in frustration, but it came out a mere whimper. How did one fight, how did one hope to win against the Dark One's power? How did anyone do anything but lay down and die, when faced with such unfair odds.

"Help me." The Dark One gritted out through clenched teeth. Emma's eyes had widened, the woman shocked completely at the Dark One's plea. "Save me..."

All seemed frozen, waiting for Emma's answer. But how could she save him, when Emma couldn't even save herself? The familiar frustrations bloomed within her, Emma wishing she understood the power she was supposed to have. Would it have been enough? Was there anyway for the product of true love to combat such an ancient, and all powerful evil?

Her vision was blurring, the grip on her throat slowly but surely suffocating her. Wetness pricked at her eyes, but Emma refused to give in to tears. Sound echoed from a distance, Mary Margaret's scream barely more than a whisper. She saw faces of her past float before her, Neal, her son Henry, that of her parents and friends. Even Gold appeared, a ghostly vision of the past that helped remind her that the power was within her, Emma merely had to focus to find it, to know what she needed to do.

Difficult to focus when one was losing their tenacious grip on reality. Emma reached out, her hand making contact with the Dark One's chest. He felt warm, so full of life and vitality, in comparison to the cold that was streaking icy tendrils through her. Emma wanted that warmth, wanted to use it to stave off the cold. Her hand moved, doing an unconscious caress as she dipped inside his shirt to touch directly on his skin.

So focused was she on the warming feel of his flesh that Emma almost missed the look that flashed in the Dark One's eyes. Almost didn't see Hook looking back at her, the pain and surprise being eaten away by something primal. It was sin of a most wicked kind that gazed out at her, the ever flirtatious pirate longing for something she had never been prepared to give him. Emma would give it to him now, if it meant they stood a chance of surviving, if it meant it would buy Mary Margaret enough time to flee.

With the breath being choked out of her, Emma directed her touch lower, her accidental caress gaining purpose. The breath hissed out of the Dark One, Hook looking as though he was the one struggling to breathe now. His eyes were swallowed up in desire, when her hand slipped into his pants, Emma not bothering with being coy, or teasing, directly grasping hold of his cock, and giving it a purposeful squeeze.

Hook reacted immediately, the grip on her throat loosening as his erection sprung to potent life. Emma had a second to be amazed, and even made breathless and dazed, she didn't miss the cocksure smirk that he gave her, Hook proud of himself and the formidable size of his erection. He had been right to boast, and a part of her was actually anticipating feeling that length of his thrusting inside her.

Continuing to touch him, to stroke and grip the focal point of his arousal, Emma looked Hook right in the eyes, a smirk of her own inviting him to play. "What say we take this some place more private?"

It was all she had to say, Hook's arm going around her waist, pulling her against him so that her breasts squished against his chest. Emma didn't allow a second of hesitation to affect her, knowing there was no room for doubts at this point in time. This was the right course, the only course, and though it might just be delaying the inevitable, it might just buy the needed time. Time for her to figure out her powers, or time for Mary Margaret to find Ruby and Henry, and flee to where the Dark One's powers could not follow.

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

To Be Continued....

[antimundi-blog]

the crystals

In the eons that the Star has been extant, there have been a total of five Crystals that were granted throughout the long course of the world’s history. Blessed by the gods, the Crystals themselves are manifestations of cosmic energy. When the world was first created, the gods were at their most powerful. Before the Hexatheon became the primary gods that ruled the world, the Forgotten and the Hexatheon alike were responsible for the creation of the world. Needing their power, when they finished creating the world and its inhabitants, the gods realized that there was no longer any need to maintain the sheer and immaterial levels of power they boasted. Channeling their power, from the first made four thousand years ago, to the youngest that was Lucis’ Crystal, the Crystals came into being as divine fonts of power connected to the Star and the gods themselves. 

Solheim’s Crystal - The first made was Solheim’s Crystal, bequeathed to the fledgling Empire of Solheim from Ifrit and granted to his human descendants and successors that would become the dynasty of Solheim’s sultanate. Solheim’s Crystal was first made four thousand years ago and imbued with Ifrit’s power. It was also blessed in junction by the sun goddess, Eos, granting the Crystal the following elements: Fire, Solar, and Knowledge. Those connected to the Crystal of Solheim through the sultanate’s royal blood are able to wield every level of fire magic, all levels of solar-influenced magic to banish away darkness, while its knowledge is less an element than it is a passive ability that allowed users to see and commune with unseen gods and spirits normal people couldn’t without it overwhelming their human minds. However, Solheim’s Crystal was destroyed in the First Astral War and now only a shard of it remains. Its elements are the sun & fire.

Accordo’s Crystal - The next Crystal to be made was Accordo’s. A kingdom under Solheim’s control, the then-Kingdom of Accordo was the most powerful maritime power in the world. Known for its fleet of vast and beautiful ships and swaths of land that once belonged to Niflheim under its control for natural resources, its power was said only to be second to the empire’s itself and made the sultans extremely wealthy. Made from the blessings of Leviathan who was heavily worshiped by Accordians in those days, Accordo’s Crystal was gifted to the Doges & Dogeressas of Altissia whose royal blood alone could unlike its power. It granted its users dominion over controlling water, the weather, and allowed for passive abilities in divination and using water for scrying. Though it is still in existence, Accordo’s Crystal was seized by Niflheim hundreds of years ago when Accordo was assumed by Niflheim as one of its territories. Its elements are water and the weather.

Niflheim’s Crystal - Before Niflheim ever came into being, the Khanate of Neva was ruled by Khans and their Khatuns in the frigid north of the world that was Shiva’s dominion. In those days, Neva was a fiercely contended territory locked in a perpetual civil war between itself and Solheim that sought to make the Khanate its own. Answering the prayers of the Khan at the time--the first Aldercapt ancestor--the god of the region, Alexander, the God Fortress, & the Archaen granted the Khan a Crystal in order to bring the peace that they sought. This Crystal granted the users, through Aldercapt’s line, the abilities of control over earth and metals and manipulation of crystallization to use as armor and for offense. Regarded as the first betrayal against the gods, this Aldercapt forwent the promise of peace and instead used the Crystal against Alexander and killed the God Fortress, converting him into an aerial fortress located in Gralea whereat his death was. And it has been kept there ever since. Its elements are metals and earth.

Tenebrae’s Crystal - As it is rare for Crystals to bear more than one patron god, Tenebrae’s Crystal is unique that it contains not one, but three. During the First Astral War, the First Oracle was gifted with this Crystal forged from Eos’ light, Bahamut’s holy power, and Fenrir’s inhuman force of will. Granted to the first Oracle to assist the Chosen, Somnus Lucis Caelum, Gentiana Fleuret, the demigoddess daughter of Bahamut and a human woman, granted power unprecedented to her line. Tenebrae’s Crystal granted dominion over Light and Holy elements for offense and defense, healing powers, the ability to commune & summon with the gods, and gifted superhuman constitutions to those of its royal blood that included durability and the ability to harbor the Starscourge without immediately succumbing to it. While it served Gentiana well, it was seized four hundred years ago in 356 M.E. by Niflheim when they invaded Tenebrae and killed the Oracle of the time. Its elements are Holy and light.

Lucis’ Crystal - The youngest of the Crystals, Lucis’ Crystal is the first and only Crystal to have ever been forged from the heart of a goddess, this being Etro. In the aftermath of the Astral War, before Ifrit succumbed to death, he plunged into the depths of Pitioss, prison of the gods, and rescued Etro before the Starscourge borne from her consumed her entirely. As her darkness threatened to take over the Star should it have reached her heart, he built a pyre on Ravatogh and lit it so it would purify her remains. Then, using his left arm that wound up becoming scarred and tainted, he extracted her heart and found that it had crystallized when it cooled, being what remained of her heart. However, when the others eventually caught up with him, Somnus and Bahamut struck Ifrit down and slaughtered him without much of a fight. Bahamut retrieved the Crystal made from Etro’s heart, purified what he could, and gifted it to the Lucis Caelums for their service during the war. Lucis’ Crystal bears dominion over death, dreams, time, and dark magic. Warping--a means of moving through time--and use of the Armiger are forms of dark magic tempered by Bahamut, whilst vestigial abilities of Ardyn’s healing allow for enchantment by making curatives as the line of Lucis is incapable of white magic. Though Umbra & Pryna are Fenrir’s offspring, Umbra is connected to the Time element strongest while Carbuncle rules over its dominion over dreams. Its elements are death, dreams, and time. 

[bulletandsophia]

Some Meta (Tinfoil?) Because Episode 4 Had Me All Shook. Spoilers Included, Beware.

Okay, so I’ve few more thoughts about what can happen to the show moving forward. I think I’ve seen enough material from the past four episodes to create this somewhat long assumption on the endgame ship.

First and foremost, I am a fan of a good piece of literature (defined from here on, as I’ve studied in the university, as a piece of text or material from whichever medium or channel) and a well-thought literary criticism. I am keeping an open mind on this one so I hope you do too so we can create a healthy, substantial, and fascinating discourse. To keep it clear, this is mostly show-based analysis. 😊

And so, here we go. Read below the cut.

After seeing episode four that just for some reason blew me away not only on the execution and craftsmanship but even more so on the emotional depth that almost all of the characters in that episode have conveyed. I’ve already written a short recap on this particular episode in a previous post but in summary, I thought the episode gave us all what we wanted and rightfully, in GoT style. It was confusing, terrifying, and most definitely opened to A LOT MORE to interpretation.

The episode is both plot and character(s) driven that for me, it moved so much of the story in all characters’ respective playing field. Just a quick recap of the instances that has inspired me so to think of this meta:

1. Jon and D*ny finally have a semblance of a real conversation that made us see where their priorities still lie. Jon in the North, D*ny of conquering all of Westeros. Emphasis on “still” because this scene can inspire even more shifts in their dynamic. To where? That is the most exciting part.

2. Stark children Sansa, Arya, and Bran are finally all together in Winterfell surrounded by both angels (Brienne/Pod) and demons (Littlefinger) that could potentially put them in a tug-of-war. But ultimately, House Stark is back.

3. Jon and Theon dealing with past issues rekindled in a short but very tension-filled reunion. Might seem random. But I believe, it’s not (initially because of Dadvos’ reaction) but you can see why later on.

4. Tyrion and Jamie having some sort of similar realizations (of fear and disbelief) after witnessing D*ny’s fury and destruction on the battlefield.

With all these impressions and material to work on, a huge question has run rampart after this episode leak. Is the endgame Jonsa or J*nerys? This episode was filled with moments for both ships to shine and sail and I say they are both sailing very well. But again, in consideration of ALL that is happening (cue here LF’s words of wisdom: everything is happening all at the same time), we cannot simply disregard characterization, context, AND the other characters in order to make a ship happen.

First, Jon and D*ny are definitely going somewhere. I cannot entirely say yet that it will be full-on romantic or tragic or chaotic for episode four left this (too deliciously) vague for me. But they are intertwined both in the aspects of claiming the Iron Throne and in defeating the White Walkers. What I love is how blatant this knowledge is that I don’t even have to explain why. For anyone with the right senses, matched with the aforementioned knowledge of their intertwined fates, the simpler and almost only logical thing to do is to place Jon and D side by side as the power couple. It is a good picture. It is an efficient picture. But of course, this is GoT and as I see it, showrunners are putting in as much tension between the two to deny the audience the quick and convenient union of “ice and fire”, creating an even more plausible chemistry a la the usual love-hate relationship trope. But as of now, Jon and D*ny are sure of their intentions and priorities in defeating the Walkers and getting the Iron Throne respectively. It is then in these contrasting goals that their true dilemma lies. At this point, they are not agreeable with each other. While some may argue that there is also a clear attraction, this mere reasoning cannot reconcile their beliefs and allowing it to be is a disservice to both characters. And so, as I can see it, and mentioned in my previous post, something drastic will have to occur to make this partnership believably happen.

With episode four, I can now fully understand those supposed “leaks” comparing J/D with Lyanna and Rhaeger later on. It actually makes sense. And if it does happen, I will be so glad for it. Because for Jon and D to get together, it will have to be some sort of an epic “betrayal” not only for the realm, but to their current disposition and beliefs now. The look Jon had in the cave scene where D mentioned his pride and of sacrificing his people because of it, is a look of a person conflicted. D*ny’s words are challenging Jon’s honor and loyalty to the North/Starks. This creates an internal dilemma for Jon. He does not want to betray his people and yet we also know how he is so desperate for help. So how then can Jon get the queen’s support? This question has opened up tons of interpretation in which I conclude will make J*nerys actually happen—but not without its bitterness. Because first and foremost, I believe, for that ship to happen, both J and D have to sacrifice and shed some parts of who they are now.

For Jon, it will be his biggest gesture and by far, his biggest character shift yet because the possibility of J/D happening first lies in the notion and acts of Jon Snow falling in love with D. Like truly falling in love with her. He has to admire her truthfully, honestly and with a passion despite everything that has happened and despite everything D has already done. This choice that Jon will make will also be despite the North, his beliefs, and despite his siblings. Jon will choose D and evidently, not his honor (cue here Maester Aemon’s words: what is honor compared to a woman’s love, etc.) This then makes the J/D-L/R parallel sensible. This is a version of J/D against the rest of the world, against all the odds.

BUT THEN, we were also bombarded in the past few episodes of how Jon should be smarter than Robb and Eddard—both of whom died because of honor and love. So, another way to read this (and probably the most intriguing) is for Jon to perhaps do the other way around. Jon—loyal to a core to the North and his family—will shed his honor (unlike Ned) and will be unburdened by love (unlike Robb) for ironically, planned and with selfish intent, he has to make D fall in love with him and earn her trust.

Ultimately, as King, this is Jon Snow finally playing the game of thrones.

The only silver lining here is for D to be the one to change, and not Jon. For J/D to make sense, she needs to clear up her issues and questionable judgements on leadership, morality, and power. That is then her big gesture, to fall into Jon’s ideals and principles and of the people he cares for. This will be her paradigm shift from all that she’s worked for and believed in since so many seasons ago; accepting that she is not fit to rule (and not born to rule, once Jon’s identity is finally revealed) and finally shedding off the madness and ruthlessness in her (madness that episode 4 can attest to). She has to see Westeros the way Jon sees it too. She has to be remorseful with her past (and future?) horrific actions (again, once she finds out Jon’s parentage). So, for as long as D’s hunger for the IT won’t recede, J/D is the narrative and the tragedy of Jon losing a core of his self for it, emulating the same mistakes his parents did before him, embodying and solidifying that he is indeed both ice and fire, and starting an unnecessary war, betrayal, and conflict between the kingdoms (and perhaps, even within his siblings)—only this time, it’s much worse, what with the bigger threat of the undead that still looms.

So how does Jonsa play in all of these? Were we all just delusional in seeing those parallels? Were we overanalyzing Jon’s protectiveness? No, I’d beg to differ. I think all these Jonsa hints are even more deliberate as we are also now (assumed) to go canon with the J/D ship. I actually love how these two ships are playing side by side. Because even if small, short, and unseen by the casual viewers, Jonsa hints are scattered all over the episodes since season 6. I’d like to believe that this has a specific and special reason in the narrative. Because while J/D might be the epic, tragic, right-in-your face love story, Jonsa is not. Or I think will it ever be.

I think it’s never supposed to be that anyway because as I see it now, again considering all of the things that is happening, Jonsa is the story that has to creep up with melancholy realization for both Jon, Sansa, and us, the audience, as soon as the dust of war has settled. And if I were to believe that D will find her demise beyond the wall fighting the walkers, then this leaves Jon with only one option: to go home. I still couldn’t fathom him wanting the throne. And before anyone can even raise this, Sansa in this scenario is NOT and NEVER will be a second option. Not when, as I said, she has been creeping up since season 6. She is then, as we’ve seen, already a part of Jon. His reactions in anything that concerns Sansa is a reflex; they now share a quiet natural bond.

As what we have witnessed, listed, and gif-ed (lol!), these Jonsa moments are already too many to be disregarded as simple accidents. I think these moments are planted for posterity and to serve as a reminder for us as soon as the war ends of their certain dynamic building and buried in the middle of all the magic and the spectacle. For all the parallels showrunners have made for Jonsa, Ned/Cat is the most evident. And what else do they perhaps want to make us remember but of that sheer joy, love, and relative peace Ned and Cat had and portrayed in season one?

Jon and Sansa IS Ned and Cat reincarnate. With all these parallels and hints, with Sansa’s competency in ruling, her undying belief in goodness (‘If I’m to be queen, I will make them love me.’), Jon’s stil intact honor, bravery, and love for family, hugely echo Ned/Cat’s ideal courtly, familial life that we have not seen for so long. Jon and Sansa, relieving this scenario again one moment at a time, only affirms that they are or can be, the dream of spring, the two people who can rebuild a home again (vs. J/D’s partnership that saves). And at this point of where we are now in the story, it is literally a wishful thinking. It cannot be realized. Yet.

But, as soon as the WW are defeated and Jon comes home, we can have this. We can finally have this. And no one—any character who had the privilege of witnessing Jon’s protectiveness with anything that concerns Sansa and what with Sansa’s constant talk of Jon—can argue that they did not see this coming. Always, even if just a hunch (LF and Davos’ suspicions), it has always been there. Then on the other hand we, as the audience, both casual and in-depth, have the power to look back on the literature and surprise ourselves with the ingenuity of it all.

It has always been there.

But the best pay-off for this ending is perhaps the fulfillment of Jon and Sansa’s dreams. A loving household they can finally live in. Together. And with the restoration of peace, Jon can also then redeem and revive the honor, the loyalty, and the love he had probably lost along the way in fulfilling his prophecy.

BUT if indeed, it comes to an end where Jon had changed and transformed (to a half-dead, the Night King, D’s husband if she survives, or ultimately shedding the remaining Starkness in him), the bittersweet truth still lies so glaringly. Because we can look back to all these moments and realize that Sansa is Jon’s what could have been. She is his once dream fulfilled before all the chaos, the prophecies, and the truth changed, possessed, and occupied him so. She is the other reality he could have had. As the audience, our power again to revisit each and every episode since the reunion can realize how they could have also worked so, so well; the quiet parallel to the more dramatic, glamorized, and epically soap-opera way J/D has or can happen.

The last three episodes of this season will surely change (or add) more to this thought but at this point, with the promise of bitterness, blood, and eventual spring, this is where I can see the end game going. And so while J/D can become canon, I believe that this does not make Jonsa any less true. Both endgames are a realization and a contrast of the dreams (Jonsa) and the destiny (J*nerys) of the song of ice and fire himself, Jon Snow.

Whew! What do you think? :)

[thetakenpokemon]

The Visions of Sorrow [Part Two]

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[PoV: Zen’Ro]

As the three siblings prepared for eternal war, going forth from Fundament to the Ammonite moons, they each had something to offer to one another and their spawn.

Auryx instructed that they were to become as numerous and fertile as seeds ‘in rich flesh’; Xivu Arath mandated they were to become tumors in this flesh, hungry and defiant; and Savathûn commanded that they drink the Worm’s poison, to grow in death.

At this point in time, the Hive biology had matured with their newfound power and began to leave behind their weak flesh.

Their names...I can’t pronounce the names of their species, but I can understand what other races called them.

Wizards are the fertile females, capable of sexual or asexual production. From their spawn come the Thrall, which grow into Acolytes, and if they survive by feeding their Worm...they evolve into one of three.

They evolve into Wizards, to produce more spawn.

Or they become Knights, the powerful backbone of the Hive army.

Or they become Princes, which eventually ascend into Ascendant Hive once they've enough offerings to the Deep.

The ruling siblings instructed the Hive that their purpose is to liberate the universe by killing all that is not free, devouring and eating everything that is not worthy of life’s ruthlessness.

Yet even then, Auryx wondered on how the Hive would survive They are dispersed among many moons, how would they stay in communication with each other?

Savathûn however reassured him. She told him that she had been studying their God’s movements between dimensions as well as Auryx’s own movement from his throne, concluding with that the movements were one and the same. She advised practicing the logic of the Sword so that they may imitate their Gods.

Xivu Arath laughed at this, she claimed that she was already proficient with this knowledge, and thus demonstrated by cutting a wound between her moon and another. Within these wounds is a realm that allowed them to walk between the fabrics of the material plane.

Through this the Hive discovered their own macabre of ‘faster than light’ travel, they described it as ‘green fire’ and ‘joyous screams.’

Armed with their newfound knowledge their kingdoms thrived within the ‘Sword Space’, in the Ascendant Plane, born from the sibling’s minds and worms. The glory of Auryx, the knowledge of Savathûn, the might of Xivu Arath, and all others were encapsulated within. It was described as coterminous with everyplace the Hive touched, they were thus united, ‘speech and food’ passing between them.

With this Auryx proclaimed the title of ‘First Navigator’. He declared that his throne is to be made of Osmium, that the sword realm was where he died, and that their thrones are to be established in this untouchable place.

And so over the next twenty thousand years, as reckoned by the Hive they made war upon one another. Savathûn flatly told Auryx not to forgive her for her betrayal, instead he must take revenge and prove himself. Xivu Arath however was merely annoyed at the two, thus also made war against them both.

This was how they established their religion and their love for each other, by fighting continuously in the abyssal planes and lightning palaces of their ‘sword spaces’, their ascendant realms. Through their fighting, they practiced and refined their deaths.

During their wars they sent out ships to seek out other worlds of the universe, searching for other species to cut down. Eventually they would find these alien worlds and the siblings would forsook their civil war, to suddenly fight united.

To reach these worlds they had to cross the intergalactic void, leaving Fundament far behind. Auryx took the chance to establish a court, calling it the ‘High War’. Savathûn named hers the ‘High Coven’; while Xivu Arath arrogantly claimed that the world was her court, wherever conflict existed. In these courts they would practice Sword Logic, to challenge one another in battle and learn from each other’s demise.

During one of Savathûn’s wars against an alien species, Auryx took the opportunity to kill her. As her fleet were chasing the last of the alien species, Auryx came upon her flank and destroyed her warship, thus killing her and some of her spawn. He told her that he did this to reprimand her for exposing herself.

After this they exterminated the rest of the alien species, in which Auryx felt both immense sorrow and joy. Sorrow that the species will join eighteen other species that have been exterminated in the past century, and joy because the Hive was putting down cancers. He felt vindicated, excited that the Hive was ‘cleaning’ the universe. He called themselves a wind of progress, tearing apart the scabs and parasites of the material world, shaping it to its final form.

He then asked a rhetorical question: ‘What was its final shape?’ A fire without fuel, asking the same question that was itself. It was self-vindication, something the Hive must strive for.

Auryx believed sorrow and joy to be one and the same, like love and death. His astronomers told him that they were nearing the Deep, nearer to communion. He believed them, for his worm was fat and contented with the worlds its host fed it.

The Hive were nearing perfection.

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Centuries later...Auryx came to a realization.

He, his siblings, and the Hive itself.

They were slowly killing themselves.

By nature with their compact of the worm it would grow accordingly to the tribute it gained from their killings; but in doing so it lusted for more, going beyond their ability to feed it.

Auryx felt betrayed, he cried out that they would never be eternal.

The power of the Hive is so great that entire species are shattered upon first contact, and so over three hundred worlds had been exterminated to this efficiency.

But this was not enough. As Auryx’s curiosity grew - his wanderlust to explore and seek out new life to destroy, so did his worm. He would be consumed, yet he could not stop lest it killed him faster. He was trapped in a never-ending cycle of staying one step ahead of it. This would also happen to his sisters, for their cunning and conquest would expand past their worm’s appetites.

Auryx feared that one day they won’t be able to feed their worms, and so die unfulfilled by having not finding Taox. For despite having razed over three hundred worlds, they found no trace of the traitor.

That is...until one of their ships eventually found the world that harbored her.

The world contained a nation called the Dakaua Nest, the alien race discovered her frozen body within a ship dated back over twenty-four thousand years. Taox explained to them of everything, from the rise of the Hive to the extermination of the Ammonites.

Fearful, the Dakaua Nest contacted an allied world of the Ecumene and informed them on their findings. After looking over Taox’s interview and how that seventeen worlds of the listed worlds had noticeable disappeared over the past century, the Ecumene agreed that their world faced extinction if they don’t act against the Hive. So they rallied their weapons and immediately fought back when the Hive eventually arrived.

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The battle lasted for hundreds of years, and yet despite the numerous victories the Hive had achieved in past wars...they had begun to lose. The Ecumene’s weapons proved to be far more powerful than they ever anticipated, capable of destroying entire ships upon touch.

Defeat creeping up their shoulders, the siblings realized that if they were to lose this war...their worms would consume them.

Within the sword space the three mutually embraced. The surrounding Hive looked upon them with contempt, seeing this as weakness. The Hive note to themselves that they’ve never despised their leaders before, they muse over whether they failed their gods due to the numerous setbacks in the war.

Savathûn admitted that she’s at her end. Despite her planning she cannot escape her worm’s insatiable appetite, no matter how hard she tried.

Xivu Arath added that the harder she slaughtered and fought, the more her worm demanded.

Auryx mourned his repeated deaths against the Ecumene ‘War Angels’; that he dared not go back into the universe for fear he needed his own strength to protect himself, instead of granting tribute to his worm.

Xivu Arath advised to her siblings that they should rest and regather their strength and Savathûn begged the silent Worms for answers. Upon hearing the desperation of their gods, the surrounding Hive wondered if their crusade had finally come to an end.

But then Auryx realized the weakness they’re showing, and thus rebuked with a roar. ‘Have you learned nothing?’ He shouted. ‘Would you deny our purpose? Whatever we do, we will do by killing, by an act of war and might. That is the final arbiter we serve, that violent arbiter, and if we turn away from it we deserve to be eaten. No! We must obey our natures. We must be long-sighted, and cunning, and strong. We must take this gift the Worm our God has given us, this challenge, and find a way to keep existing!’

Xivu Arath asked them how would they feed their worms; in which Savathûn chimed in that she knew a way, but it won’t work unless they increased their killing far beyond their recent attempts - the killing of billions. Xivu Arath then pointed out that the Ecumene’s sheer might dwarfed that of their own, that they can’t kill what is stronger than them.

Auryx then spoke, telling them he knew a way. However in order to pull it through, it required a power greater than their own.

And so Xivu Arath turned to him, telling him to kill her and use the killing logic to show that he’s mightier than her. Savathûn also tells Auryx to slay her, to use the killing logic to prove that he is smarter and more cunning than her.

So with his sword, Auryx cut down both his sisters. By the laws of killing logic he had proved to the Deep that he is mightier than Xivu Arath and more cunning than Savathûn, in doing so in the ways of Sword Logic he had inherited their combined strength for his own.

This all took place in the sword world.

Their throne world.

Thus meaning that his sibling’s deaths were true.

Were final.

...

Equipped with their combined strength, Auryx marched to one the Worm Gods deep within the sword world.

The Worm God named Akka, Worm of Secrets

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Auryx approached Akka, telling him that he knew that he kept secrets, that the worm would not give them to him.

Akka responded saying that he does not ‘give’, for giving is the way of the Sky. In the ways of the Deep, one must take.

Auryx acknowledged this, thinking back to the bargain on Fundament with the Worm Gods. The worm larvae were given to them, not taken. That is why they ate at the Hive’s defeat.

The Worm of Secrets knew the truth, but held onto it till it became a lie. Auryx then declared that he will act upon the Deep’s wishes, and take the knowledge for himself, but Akka then said that the Hive King’s strength was not enough..

Auryx heard this, but knew this was a lie. He fought with his God, using his powers combined with the mind of Savathûn and the might of Xivu Arath. With his power he slew Akka, his god. 

With the deed done he only took what was needed, a weapon to defeat the Ecumene.

He carved the knowledge onto the Tablets of Ruin and wore them on his waist, then he approached the Deep directly. He proclaimed to it that he was the King of Shapes, then he communed with it saying that he ‘desires to learn all secrets of our destiny’.

The conversation itself was not shown, but the Worm Gods were pleased.

And so rising with his newfound power, he was Auryx no longer.

He was Oryx; King of Shapes, Carver of Tablets.

He was Oryx.

The Taken King.

[sychophantome-arc-blog]

RULES:  List five tropes fitting your character, then tag others to do the same. (Tropes Wiki)  REPOST! DO NOT REBLOG.

Tagged by: @emperorled senpaihasnoticedme Tagging: i spent way too much time on this in general. under a Read More because jfc, does this thing get long &&. you can thank Rena for this getting out of hand + @tricange, @trickstre, @humanprayers, @entreve, @seraphxx, @dieuteur​, @okamio​, @qrowned​, @shindera​. + FYI: this layout is 5 tropes of both boys (then Keep Reading kicks in) which starts the 5 tropes for Arata and 5 tropes for Joker as last.

SUGAR AND ICE — A character with a Sugar and Ice Personality has two distinct sides, one cold and distant, the other warmer and open. In some cases the differences between the two aspects of the character’s personality are so radical as to be shocking coming from the same person. Often this extreme polarity is due to some form of traumatic experience or social awkwardness, though occasionally it might resemble a full-blown Split Personality or one-man Red Oni, Blue Oni or Good Cop/Bad Cop. Their dual nature could also simply be the way they are, with no explanation otherwise given.

FALLEN HERO — Not all Villains are born. Some are made, and none are more tragic than the Fallen Hero. As the name implies, the Fallen Hero used to be a hero before doing a Face–Heel Turn. They may even have been an Ideal Hero or another equally optimistic archetype, up until the moment when they suffered something bad enough for them to lose all faith in good and idealism, be it the loss of a loved one, too many good deeds coming back to bite them hard, betrayal by someone they trusted the most, too much distrust from those who should have been allies, or some other faith-shattering event. It might even be a drawn out process of seduction to The Dark Side or fall from grace.

RAGE AGAINST THE HEAVENS — It could be that the Cosmic Plaything has had enough and shouts Who’s Laughing Now? It could be someone who believes they can do a better job being God. It could be that God is a jerk or even evil. It could be as complicated as the higher planes of existence are revealed to be run like a mad, hopelessly bureaucratic corporation — too concerned with rules, regulations, and maintaining the Balance Between Good and Evil to give a damn about the helpless mortals stuck in the middle. It could also be something as simple as revenge or, even simpler, a search for a good fight.

TECHNICAL PACIFIST — If you live in an action-adventure universe, violence is one of those things that you just can't escape. (After all, you cannot spell pacifist without a fist.) This can be a real problem if you want your lead character to be a new-agey tree-hugging intellectual, because, after Hunter S. Thompson died in 2005, how many gun-toting hippies do you know? So you end up with the Technical Pacifist. The Technical Pacifist is willing to beat people up as much as he wants. He may even get a few fatalities through the fridge. However, once it comes down to a choice between killing the villain and not, the Technical Pacifist will not kill the villain.

THE GOOD KING — Honorable, virtuous, wise and understanding. He cares about his subjects no matter how seemingly unimportant they are and puts their well-being above his own. He governs the land fairly, is a Royal Who Actually Does Something and is often very modest about his rank and position. He also tends to be soft spoken, but when a Good King raises his voice, you’d better listen. Remember, good does not always equal soft. Above all else, a Good King cares about his kingdom and his people and will sacrifice himself to protect them, even if that means putting Honor Before Reason.

SOCIALLY-AWKWARD HERO — A heroic character who shows tremendous courage in the face of life-threatening danger... but becomes overwhelmed with knees-knocking fear in ordinary social situations. For such a character, confronting a legion of sociopaths and a chainsaw-wielding maniac is far preferable to meeting his girlboyfriend’s family or making idle chitchat at a cocktail party. Extremely common in shows for the kid and teen audiences, since viewers of that age often feel socially awkward themselves.

GUILT COMPLEX — A person with a Guilt Complex is someone who routinely puts blame on his/her own shoulders. It differs from The Atoner in that whatever happened cannot possibly be their fault, and their justification for blaming themselves is usually a stretch, sometimes taken to ridiculous levels. It differs from Apologizes a Lot that it’s not just a Verbal Tic or a way of expressing sympathy for someone else, they truly believe if they had done something different, whatever negative situation they were in would not have ever happened. And they feel this way all the time, in all situations, to the point where it basically becomes one of their main character traits. Often forms with “I should have...” or “If I hadn’t...”

HEROIC SELF-DEPRECATION — No matter how much they do for the world or what their loyal friends tell them, they’re still incapable of believing that they're anything more than useless. Every little mistake leads to a massive display about how it’s all their fault and how they’re just not good enough. Praise may lead only to Dismissing a Compliment. It doesn’t matter how many lives they’ve saved, worlds they’ve rescued or bad guys they’ve defeated—their self-esteem remains in negative figures and they’ll still have a periodic Heroic B.S.O.D., rendered useless until someone can snap them out of it by telling them they’re wonderful. And someone will. Because for every hero with terrible self-esteem there’s a group of True Companions on standby to give them encouraging words and speeches, usually with at least one Get a Hold of Yourself, Man!.

BADASS BOOKWORM — This character is a quiet smart guy or girl who is physically unimposing, but with Hidden Depths of formidable physical and practical skills. They are Brains and Brawn, with brains dominant. Their physical abilities might result from applying their genius to solve physical challenges like math problems. Their attention to detail might also result in a Diagnosis from Dr. Badass. While some badass bookworms are surprisingly strong, others might be Weak, but Skilled, relying on flawless technique or supernatural abilities. Sometimes a bookworm can lack any special physical traits, but has access to an Impossibly Cool Weapon or enough firepower to make toe-to-toe combat, as they say, academic. A favorite weapon of the bookworm might even be what's always close at hand.

THE CHESSMASTER — Chessmasters can sometimes be on the side of good, but if so they’ll almost certainly be the Anti-Hero (the Pragmatic Hero variation) at best or the Well-Intentioned Extremist at worst, as it’s very hard to plan a Chessmaster scheme that doesn’t sacrifice a few pawns along the way. Heroic Chessmasters are very often introduced as a Mysterious Employer. The Svengali, in acting for the (supposed) good of his protégés, will often be this (and if he isn’t, he’ll pretend).

THE TRICKSTER — A trickster is a character who plays tricks or otherwise disobeys normal rules and conventional behavior. The Trickster openly questions and mocks authority, encourages impulse and enthusiasm, seeks out new ideas and experiences, destroys convention & complacency, and promotes chaos & unrest. At the same time, the trickster brings new knowledge, wisdom and many An Aesop. Even when punished horribly for his effrontery, his indomitable spirit (or plain sheer foolishness) keeps him coming back for more.

SMITING EVIL FEELS GOOD — This is a hero who feels enjoyment, elation, and great satisfaction, when they kill or beat up the bad guys. They may be otherwise strictly moral, well-intention, and selfless, but when they’ve decided you're better off dead than alive, they’ll kill you with a smile on their face, and may even take additional satisfaction in ending you in sadistic ways. They’re not a Blood Knight, though; they never lose track of their purpose, and they don’t seek villain-killing on their own, they just enjoy it when it happens.

FREEDOM BEFORE GOODNESS — Someone who is more Chaotic than Good. They value freedom, and feel that they and others should be free to pursue their own desires—it just so happens that what they desire is to do good. They do not see doing good as a “duty” and may actively resent any attempts to compel them to do good even if the stakes are high, but will probably end up doing them anyway, justifying their actions by saying that this is what they want to do. They are also the type most likely to get annoyed by being called “The Hero” or something similar. This is also the type most likely to be a Loveable Rogue who commits crimes for their own gain, but balance it out with Never Hurt an Innocent and doing lots of good elsewhere in their lives.

KNIGHT IN SOUR ARMOR — The world is filled with idealists who believe in truth and justice and devote their lives to fighting for it. And then the world keeps letting them down. For them, Being Good Sucks. But rather than giving up on their goals, they replace their shiny armor with a full plate of pure cynicism. These characters realize they live in a dark, cruel and brutal world and choose to fight not because they believe they will truly make a difference, but because it’s the right thing to do.

THE MAGNIFICENT BASTARD — If there was ever a character that deserved to be called “Magnificent”, that character is the Magnificent Bastard. The Magnificent Bastard is what happens when you combine The Chessmaster, The Trickster, and the Manipulative Bastard: bold, charismatic, independent, audacious and genius. Capturing the audience with their charisma, incredible intellect, mastery of manipulation, and boldness of action, this character is a show-stealer, demanding your reverence at every turn.

[aceb133]

Star, Queen of Mewni: Part III

First Chapter Previous Chapter Next Chapter

Gonna try to get these out on a weekly basis from here on out, but we’ll see how that goes. Now, onto the story.

Towering above the northeastern reaches of Mewni, the Jaggy Mountains were a harsh, unrelenting place at the best of times. The air was thin here, and what little there was of it whipped and howled through the narrow passes and craggy rocks, biting savagely at any exposed or insufficiently covered skin. It was a brutal place, where few monsters, and even fewer Mewmans, dared to tread.

As the sun began to rise over the towering eastern peaks, slowly dripping light into the narrow valleys and through the branches of isolated pines, Grazgul Redclaw began to pace nervously. Tall, powerfully built, and covered in a long, thick fur cloak that hid an expansive hide of reflective green scales, Grazgul was not a monster accustomed to fear. But he couldn’t help but feel his twin hearts racing within his barrel chest, accompanied by a hideous sinking feeling that, of all his friends, of his family, he may have very well been the only one to have escaped from Butterfly Castle alive.

It was supposed to have been easy: Under the cover of the Queen’s birthday gala, several groups of monsters would infiltrate the castle, stealing corn and supplies that had been ‘lost’ by sympathetic Mewman guards and Monster staff, and stored in caches hidden throughout the castle. Grazgul and others had been suspicious of the supposed Mewman generosity from the start, but the opportunity had been too great to pass up-but instead of securing vitally needed supplies for the growing Monster Liberation Front, the guards had turned on them, slaughtering the surprised where they stood. The attack had been as sudden as it was brutal, and of the monsters in the group he had infiltrated the castle with, only Grazgul had escaped alive.

The claws at the end of Grazgul’s fingers dug into his palms as he balled his fists in rage at the still-fresh memory. When he and his brothers had conspired to join the newly formed Monster Liberation Front ten years ago, it had been in the spirit of youthful frustration rather than genuine rebellion. But in the years since, he’d turned increasingly bitter towards the Butterfly Kingdom, watching as the nobility constantly tried to weasel out of what few concessions they’d given Monsters in the Corn Redistribution Act and the New Monster-Mewman Accords. He’d watched as monsters had continued to starve as the Mewman nobility feasted and profited on year after year of record corn harvests. And yet, he’d allowed himself to believe that, perhaps, some Mewmans could be trusted to help them in their struggle-only to be rewarded with bloody betrayal.  

As Grazgul brooded, the sun continued to climb higher into the sky. As the hours passed, the unrelenting chill began to wear his resolve, and he wondered if he should give up begin the trek back to the Eagle’s Nest alone. But then, just as he’d given up hope, a dimensional portal tore itself open before him. Out of it stepped a half-dozen figures, each immediately shivering as they were blasted by the freezing air. To his immense relief, Grazgul immediately noticed that one of the monsters was his younger brother, Razgriz. Bounding forward, Grazgul wrapped his brother in a tight embrace.

“It is so good to see you, brother!” Grazgul said, holding Razgriz as tightly as he could. “I was beginning to worry I was the only one who escaped!”

Razgriz smiled. “It was not an easy thing. We fought off the Mewmans and escaped, but it took all night to evade their patrols on our way to the Spider’s Lair.”

“But then? Was the safehouse compromised?”

Razgriz shook his head. “You know these monsters as well as I do, brother. Each one would rather die than give up the Front to the Mewmans.” He glanced back at the rest of the group, but Grazgul did not follow his gaze. “There were merely… difficulties when we arrived, that took some time to sort out.”

“But what of you, brother!” the monster said, thumping Grazgul on the back. “When we met Stoneface at the Lair, he said you all had been killed!”

Grazgul stepped back and thumped his chest. “They tried, but no Mewman sword can penetrate my hide. I survived, if only just.”

Razgriz looked down, sadly. “But… not Misha, then.”

It felt as though an icepick had been driven into Grazgul’s heart. Solemly, he held his brother again.

“No,” Grazgul said, “Not Misha. We were separated in the initial fight. I tried to find him, but when I did, it… it was already too late.”

“They set us up!” one of the other monsters shouted, interrupting the brothers’ reunion. “The guards let us in jus’ so they could kill us, then blame us for whackin’ the Queen!”

Grazgul stepped back, the shock momentarily stunning him out of his grief. “What? You don’t mean that the queen….”

The monster, a small, rat-faced goblin who went by the name of Clam Johnson, nodded. “Ya know that explosion, the one right ‘fore the guards turned on us?  Blew Queen Butterfly sky high!.”

“She might be alive, though.” Razgriz cut in. “Stoneface said-“

“Stoneface is old and half-blind, ya really gonna believe him?” The goblin crossed his arms. “Monster’s so sentimental, I bet he made it up jus’ so he wouldn’t have ta face the fact Queen B got whacked.” He smiled. “He fought her in the old days, ya know. Used to say he bet he coulda taken her if she didn’t have that wand.”

Grazgul looked away from the conversation and stared out beyond the mountains, over the wide plains that swept across Mewni. Even from this great distance, the Butterfly Castle was still clearly visible on the horizon-an unescapable symbol of the dynasty’s power. For the past fifteen years, Star Butterfly had been the face of that power-and without her at the dynasty’s head, the future suddenly seemed much less clear.

Grazgul looked back at the assembled monsters. “So, IF the Queen is dead… who is in charge?”

Razgriz grimaced. “I do not know if it is true, but when we reached the safehouse, several monsters told us that Renwick has declared himself King, and his wife queen.”

Grazgul snarled. He knew Renwick-every monster did. In the old days, he’d often led “Security patrols” into monster territory, hunting monsters for sport and burning entire villages. It had brazenly violated what few protections there were in the Monster-Mewman Accords, but Renwick hadn’t cared, until he’d finally been censured by Queen Moon Butterfly.

As to his wife, Grazgul didn’t know anything about her-but judging by the fact she’d married Renwick, he doubted she was much better.

Sighing, Grazgul patted his brother on the back and looked around, facing the long and winding mountain trail before them. “If this is true, we must hurry. News travels quickly, but if the boss has not already heard of this development, we must inform him at once.”

Razgriz nodded, and began to trudge forward. Silently, the other monsters began to follow, forming a ragged line of shivering beasts. To his surprise, he saw Mikhail Bulgolyubov at the end of the line, and began walking over to him.

“Chef Frog, it is strange to see you here.” Grazgul said, curious. “I don’t recall you having authorization to come to the Eagle’s Nest. Why are you…”

He stopped as he saw the figure behind Bulgolyubov. Standing in the ankle-deep snow, teeth chattering in the cold, and clutching the thin remains of her evening dress for warmth, was the heir to the throne of Mewni, Princess Constellation Butterfly.

She looked up at Grazgul and smiled nervously.

Incredulously, Grazgul looked back at the rest of the monsters, and then back to Connie. Several of the monsters, including Razgriz, had stopped and were glancing at each other nervously.

“What is…” Grazgul started, “Why… how…”

“She found us, before the Mewmans attacked.” Bulgolyubov said. “She helped defend us, and let us escape.”

“It’s true, brother.” Razgriz said. “Had she not been there, I don’t know if we would have been able to hold them off. Not to mention, they attacked her as well.”

“Even so, you would take the heir of the Butterfly throne here? To the Eagle’s Nest?” Grazgul threw out his arms. “Brother, have you lost your senses? Do you realize what this means?”

He pointed out to the Butterfly castle in the distance. “Renwick will be looking for her! Queen Butterfly, if she lives, will be looking for her! And if they find us, everything we have worked for will be destroyed!”

Grazgul looked on at the other monsters, who shuffled uncomfortably under his gaze. The wind had begun to pick up, and for a brief while there was no sound on the mountain but the air howling around them.

Finally, it was the young Princess Butterfly who broke the silence. “You are…” she said nervously, “Very hard to find. A-and,” she continued, her teeth chattering in the cold, “If they do find us, I’m not going to… umm…”

The sight of the freezing girl stuttering in the snow cooled slowly cooled Grazgul’s rage, and he sighed. Slipping off his thick cloak, he instinctively recoiled at the shock of the freezing wind against his bare scales. Shaking it off, he tossed the cloak at the princess, who, surprised, nearly dropped it in the snow.

“Wrap yourself, Butterfly, it is cold up here.” Grazgul said. “We will take you to our leader, and I shall let him decide your fate. Is that acceptable to you?”

Princess Constellation, still holding the heavy fur cloak in her hands, nodded. Quickly, she wrapped herself, and practically disappeared under the thick furs. Grazgul had to stifle the urge to laugh-though the princess was not a terribly a small girl, the image of her struggling under the garment sewn for Grazgul’s massive frame was a mirthful sight to see.

Once again, the assembled monsters began trudging up the mountain trail. Narrow, winding, and dangerous, the trail was little more than a rocky, ice-covered path that cut through gorges and along sheer cliff faces. Fortunately, though dangerous, the path was not particularly difficult-so long as one closely watched their step.

As the group walked down the path, Grazgul made sure to keep close to Bulgolyubov and Princess Butterfly. He wasn’t surprised the frog had taken a protective stance towards the Princess-after all, his family had always been far too close to the Butterflies for Grazgul’s taste. What surprised him was the Princess. Grazgul had a very firm picture in his mind of the typical royal-soft in mind and body, so far removed from the rigors of the life of the average peasant or monster that they’d be useless outside of their castles and keeps. From the looks of it, Princess Butterfly was certainly soft in body, but there was a sharpness to her eyes, and tightness to her pursed lips that suggested a hardness he had not expected-especially given her reputation.

As the party passed by a sheer rock face that towered for hundreds of feet above them, Princess Butterfly finally broke the silence. “So,” she said, barely audible over the roaring wind, “Who are you?”

“Who I am is not-“

“That’s Grazgul Redclaw, toughest monster this side o’ the Forest o’ Certain Death,” Clam Johnson shouted. “’im and ‘is brothers been with the Front for what, eight years now?”

“Ten.” Razgriz shouted proudly from the front of the party. “Only the Boss and the Chosen have fought longer than us.”

“The Front?” Princess Butterfly said. “You mean the MLF? I think my mom told me about you guys, aren’t you… uh…”

Grazgul looked at Princess Butterfly, bemused. “The…?”

“Well, uh, my mom called you poopheads, though I think she may have said something stronger when I wasn’t in the room.”

Grazgul and the rest of the monsters laughed uproariously. “And so we learn the judgement of the mighty Star Butterfly!” Razgriz chortled, “We are poopheads, all!”

“Tell us, Princess, what else did your mother declare us to be?” Grazgul said. “Dingbats? Losers? Perhaps something more profane?”

“She, uh, didn’t really like talking to me about you guys.” Princess Butterfly said. “She…”

Grazgul could see tears beginning to well in the girl’s eyes. In spite of himself, Grazgul was overcome with pity, and laid a hand on her shoulder. To his surprise, the girl instantly wrapped around him, sobbing.

“There, there.” Grazgul said awkwardly. “Do not worry, Princess. If there is one thing that we monsters have always known about your mother, she is tenacious. Whatever happened at the castle, I am sure your mother survived it.”

“Bbbbut I saw… they said…”

Grazgul awkwardly leaned over and gave Princess Butterfly a hug. “If she has passed, she will live on in your memories.” He said, his own emotions beginning to overcome him, “Just as Misha does for-“

Then, before he could finish, he felt the rock beneath his feet begin to crumble. Instinctively, Grazgul pushed the Princess away, back towards the rock face and towards Bulgolyubov. Then, the ice and the rock gave way, and before he could react any further Grazgul felt himself slipping and falling. As he began to slide, he tried to grab something, anything, that would keep him on the mountain-but it was no use. His hands were numb from the cold, and the rock slippery with ice. Within seconds, the eyes of Princess Butterfly and his fellow monsters disappeared past the cliff edge, and Grazgul began falling freely, the wind howling in his ears as his helpless body tumbled through the air.

As he fell, Grazgul merely looked up at the brilliant blue sky, images of his brother Misha flashing through his brain. In this brief moment, there was no fear.

I suppose, brother, he thought, we shall meet sooner than I’d-

Then, he stopped falling.

Shocked, Grazgul looked around and saw himself surrounded by a pulsating pink glow. Then, without warning, he was slowly lifted up, rising back above the lip of the cliff. He could see his fellow monster watching, bug-eyed, as Princess Constellation tightly gripped her magic wand and directed Grazgul back onto stable ground.

At once, the spell was broken, and Grazgul fell to the earth. Fortunately, though he landed roughly, he did not slip-and, breathing heavily, he took a moment to close his eyes and process the events of the past thirty seconds. When he opened them, he saw Princess Butterfly staring at him, then to her wand, and back, looking almost as shocked as he felt.

Not knowing how to respond, Grazgul extended his arm and patted the Princess on the shoulder. Then, he walked past the rest of the monsters, past the teary-eyed Razgriz, and began marching forward, desperately trying not to think about how his life had just been saved by the heir to the Butterfly throne.

----------

By the time they reached the Eagle’s Nest, the sun was already high in the sky. Connie, for her part, was utterly exhausted, both from the arduous hike and the previous night’s events as well as from carrying the giant lizard-man’s cloak. She was thankful for the protection, however-without the thick layers of fur surrounding her, she was sure she would have frozen to death on the cold mountain slopes.

The entrance to the Eagle’s Nest, as it turned out, was a narrow opening in the rock face barely visible from the outside. Slipping in through the narrow crevasse behind Chef Frog, Connie was suddenly overcome by a rush of warm air. The small, narrow cavern was hardly warm, but it was a welcome relief compared to the frigid temperatures outside.

The journey wasn’t over yet, however, Hunching over to avoid hitting his head against the low ceiling, the giant lizard-man continued to lead the party forth, navigating by memory and feel as the light turned to shadow beyond the path’s  first turn. Before long, the light had vanished completely-and the only thing keeping Connie on the path was the dim outline of Chef Frog in front of her.

Suddenly, the group stopped, and Connie nearly collided with the monster in front of her. Other than some mutterings from Grazgul, there was nothing-no sound, and no light.

For a second, Connie wondered if she should run away. She trusted Chef Frog-at least, she thought she did-but she didn’t know any of the other monsters.

Well, she thought, that wasn’t quite true-she did know they were members of the MLF, the Monster Liberation Front, but if anything that made it worse. She’d been truthful when she’d said her mother didn’t like discussing them, but Connie was well aware as to why-they were considered an extremely dangerous radical group, one whose actions threatened to derail the extremely fragile peace between Monsters and Mewmans.

But, even though Connie was sure she’d be able to slip away unnoticed in the sheer darkness… she remained where she was. After all, where would she go? Even if she could escape the dark cavern, and even if she could make her way down the cold mountain… if Uncle Renwick really had declared himself King, she doubted he would accept her back into the castle with open arms.

The image of Sir Ernest charging her, sword drawn, flashed through Connie’s mind, and she shuddered. As ludicrous as it sounded, and as insane as it felt, Connie was sure the safest place was here. With the radical monster separatists.

Connie was suddenly taken out of her thoughts as a loud, echoed CLICK reverberated through the cavern. A second later, the dark space was filled with light as a door opened out of a rock wall before them, pushed open by a hunched, hooded figure.

“Come inside, quickly!” the figure beckoned. Connie didn’t hesitate, and followed the rest of the monsters as closely as she could. The hooded figure barely gave her a second glance as she rushed past him, and quickly pulled the door closed behind them.

Connie looked around, her eyes slowly adjusting to the light. Though they were ostensibly still deep in the mountain, the cavern had been carved out to create the appearance of a brick passageway, approximately fifteen feet wide and lined with blazing torches. All along the walls were elaborate carvings of monsters and mewmans, many captioned in a strange language she couldn’t read.

“You are late.” the hooded figure said, speaking in a low, gravelly voice. “We have already heard reports that the mission went… poorly.”

Grazgul nodded. “It is true. The Mewmans double-crossed us, and killed many of our best monsters. We alone were able to escape.”

“Treachery of some sort was not unexpected.” The hooded figure said. “Hopefully you will reflect on this the next time you support an operation that hinges on the charity of Mewmans, Grazgul.”

Slowly, the lizard-man nodded. The hooded figure then turned to Connie, and she felt a sudden chill.

“As for our guest… the Boss has been informed, and has requested an... audience. You, Princess, shall come with me.”

Chef Frog stepped forward. “I shall go with you, Princess.”

“No you shall not.” The hooded figure said harshly. “The Boss wishes to see the Princess, and the Princess alone.

“But do not worry, Bulgolyubov,” The figure continued, “The Boss will be meeting with you later to discuss your failures personally.”

Chef Frog croaked.

“Now come, Princess. The Boss is not a patient monster, and neither am I.”

Nervously, Connie turned back to the assembled monsters, and gulped. Taking the fur cloak off her shoulders, she walked over and handed it back to Grazgul, who accepted it wordlessly. Then, she turned and followed the hooded figure, who had already started down the torchlit passageway.

Keeping up wasn’t easy. The hooded figure moved at its own pace, paying little heed to Connie as it glided through the twists and turns of the underground structure. For her part, Connie was barely able to keep the figure in her sights, often seeing little more than a glimpse of the figure’s tattered cloth disappearing around the next corner. Finally, however, the figure came to a stop, standing just outside a large, stone door.

“These are the boss’s chambers,” it rasped. “You will meet him in here.”

It took a moment for Connie to respond as the gasped for air. “You’re not coming in?”

“It is not my place.” With that declaration, the hooded figure departed, leaving Connie alone.

She looked up at the door. It was a massive slab of granite, covered in worn and faded carvings, centered around a massive fleur de lis, with no visible knob or handhold. Nervously, Connie reached forward and gave the door a gentle push-and slowly, but smoothly, the granite swung aside.

Stepping through the portal, Connie found herself in a large, dimly lit room. At first glance, it appeared as though every available surface was covered in papers and books, with multiple tables and shelves stacked in front of each other to provide additional space. Along the walls hung a half-dozen maps, several of which Connie recognized as being of the Butterfly Kingdom, and others of places she’d never even heard of.

As she made her way deeper into the room, her heart began to palpitate. Was this some kind of game? A trap? Where was-

“Princess Constellation Butterfly, I presume.”

Connie spun on her heels and instinctively raised her wand, her heart pounding in her chest. A second later, she lowered it as she saw who had addressed her. Out of the darkness, an old, bird-like creature was slowly hobbling towards her, eyeing her with a strange curiosity. Notably, one of the creature’s eyes was covered in a large eyepatch, and its right arm ended in a short stump just below the shoulder.

Connie stepped back, instinctively clutching her wand closer to her chest. Years of proper etiquette training instinctively ran through her head, but Connie instantly disregarded all of it. Now hardly seemed like the time for a curtsey. “Are… you the boss?”

The creature glared at her for a moment, and looked her up and down. “Rather forward for royalty, aren’t you? Not even a curtsey or a proper introduction?”

Connie bit her lip. “Well-“

“In any case, you’d be right,” the creature said, and hobbled over to a chair. “This is my hideout. These are my monsters. This-“ he gestured a tattered red flag in the corner, the symbol of the MLF-“is what I have built. That makes me, the boss.”

Grunting with the effort, the monster climbed into a chair, and sat down facing Connie. His one eye met her two, and she felt as though he was staring right through her.

“So, Princess,” the monster said, “What brings you to my keep?”

The question was obvious, yet Connie felt floored by it. From the moment she’d witnessed the attack on the castle, she’d been running on a combination of fear and adrenaline, and had actively avoided even thinking about what had happened.  For a moment, all she could do was stand and stare stupidly at the odd creature in front of her, who merely stared at her with a mildly annoyed expression.

“I was...” Connie started, and stopped. “My mother-“

“She’s not dead, if that’s what you think.” The creature said.

A mix of confusion, relief, and disbelief washed over Connie. “But, I saw-“

“Did you see a body?” the creature asked, in a condescending tone that seemed to question Connie’s intelligence.

“No, but”

The creature laughed-a high pitched sound that was half a screech, and half a rasp. “If anyone knows your mother-and may I just say I have the displeasure of knowing her better than most-than they’d know Star Butterfly wouldn’t be killed by such an amateurish attempt. Of that, my girl, you have my word.”

He leaned forward. “So tell me, why are you here.”

It felt less like a question, and more like an accusation. “I… I was running.” Connie said. “I was running, and I found Chef Frog, and then the guards attacked, and I… I fought back, and I ran away, with your monsters.”

The creature remained silent, so Connie felt forced to continue. “And my mother was… I thought she was…” Connie took a deep breath to calm herself down. “I thought my mother was dead, and… I didn’t want to be in the castle anymore. And when the guards attacked the monsters… I had to stop them!  And then afterwards, there was… there was just nowhere else to go.”

The creature listened intently, studying Connie’s face. He then leaned back in his chair, tapping the fingers of his remaining hand against the armrest. “I see.”

There was an awkward silence, in which Connie felt as though the monster was somehow judging her. “But…” Connie said, “You said my mother’s alive? Really?” For the first time, there was an air of hope in her voice.

The creature nodded. “Royal gossip travels fast on Mewni… if it is inaccurate at times. I’ve already heard three different stories, and that was from the same two-headed monster. Your mother, I am sure, is alive, though apparently she has abandoned the castle for now, leaving your hideous aunt and uncle in charge.”

“But,” the monster said, raising his one visible eye, “Even if she were there, would you really want to go back?”

“What? Yes, of course!” Connie said, her eyes welling with tears. “I thought she was dead!”

“But why go back to the castle? Don’t think even we haven’t heard the whispers, the rumors.” The creature threw up his arm, and began talking in a screeching sing-song voice. “Constellation, the Princess who can’t do magic. The defective Butterfly. Oh, how could it be, that Star Butterfly’s daughter could be so worthless? Maybe it’s because she’s the daughter of a queen without a king! Maybe-!”

“That’s enough!” Connie shouted.  Her wand crackled with green energy, and the Boss grinned.

“But you and I both know that’s not true.” He said, eyeing the wand. “You can feel the power within you, can’t you? Just waiting to be channeled? You just can’t… find the words.”

Connie stared at him. “How did you…”

“There are not many people who have experience with such magic.” The Boss said. “I suppose your mother, she’s too busy, too impatient to truly help you? After all, everything comes naturally to Star Butterfly, why wouldn’t it come naturally to her daughter? And your other teachers, if you have any, oh well I’m sure they’re no help at all.

“So tell me,” the Boss said, “Are you really in such a hurry to return to the castle so soon? To the backtalk, the judgement? The treachery of the nobility, the sworn protectors who would stab you in the back?

“I could teach you, you know. Teach you like nobody else could. Better than your mother, even. Only through me, could you truly understand the power of the wand.”

Connie stared, her mind not fully comprehending the insane offer. “But, my mother-“

“Oh, psh.” The Boss threw up his hand. “Star Butterfly can take care of herself. She’s not the important one in this discussion. Frankly, you could leave this room and go find her yourself if you wanted, I really don’t care.”

He grinned, and leaned forward in his chair. “Or, you can stay here, and I can teach you things about magic even your mother doesn’t know.”

Nervously, Connie looked down at her wand. Ever since she’d received it, she had wanted desperately to wield it as effectively as Star Butterfly had, to be someone that her mother could truly take pride in. And in all the time she’d had it, she’d failed, and had suffered shame after shame because of it.

And now, here was the answer, staring her right in the face.

She tightened her grip on her wand, and bit her lip, caught in a moment of indecision. “I… I need to think about this. I can’t just-“

The Boss sneered. “Do you want to learn magic, or don’t you? Always hesitating, always running away. You ran from the castle, and if you step out that door you know you’d just run away again. I bet you’d even run away from that wand if you thought you could get away from it.”

Another rush of anger flared in Connie’s mind. There was a part of her that was screaming at her to run, to escape from this place, to find her mother. But that part felt distant, obscured by the haze of exhaustion and emotion that had been slowly building up since the previous night. Instead, what she felt most was the longing-the longing of finally proving she had what it took to become what everyone so desperately wanted her to be.

Hesitantly, Connie held out her hand. The Boss looked at it, grinned, and met it with his own. His skin was cold and rough to the touch, and Connie nearly pulled away reflexively. In that moment, she felt as though she’d made a terrible mistake-but it was already too late.

“Excellent.” The Boss said, releasing her hand. “Now get out of here, I’ll send someone when I’m ready for your first lesson.”

Slowly, Connie stepped back, and walked slowly over to the door. The Boss had already begun ignoring her, turning to a thick stack of papers emblazoned with the Butterfly family crest.

As she reached the door, a pair of questions rose to the top of her mind. “Uh… Boss…”

She internally recoiled at calling the disdainful monster before her “Boss”, but he looked up all the same. “What is it? Didn’t I tell you to leave?”

“Where will I be staying?”

The Boss looked at her like she was stupid. “Why should I care? Go find an empty room, or kick somebody out, or something.”

Connie bit her lip again. Even though she’d just agreed to learn magic from the boss, she already wanted to get as far away from him as possible. In the moment, it took all of her restraint to simply not run out the door that instant.

But she needed to know.

“Boss… sir… who are you?”

The creature laughed. “Oh Princess, surely your mother’s told you about me?”

Ludo smiled. “You already know who I am.” Next Chapter

[moonsandstar-s]

The Final Warning - Chapter XXI

Chapter XXI - Extinguished 

Summary:  As the year draws to a close, peace has finally dawned. The time for unity has arrived. In the Vytal festival, it is time for heroes to rise, bringing glory to their kingdoms. But as autumn dies, the first winds of winter blow over Remnant, chilling the hearts of the people; breathing doubt into their souls. Long-buried secrets will triumph, and every action will have a consequence. Ruby must reconcile herself with her own fate. Weiss struggles to escape her legacy. Blake cannot erase memories. Yang’s search leads her into more peril than ever— but none of them can outrun fate. Shadows turn on shadows, and bonds shatter as they are tested to the limit. For in dividing them, they will fall and burn; at the eye of the storm, no peace lasts forever. In the end and beginning of time, there is a place where the sun never rises, and the dead delight to teach the living. A great danger is rising from the darkness. It’s time to take sides. The final warning is coming. The first chill of winter is the most deadly; it is the chill that kills more than any other. The first betrayal is the most damaging; it is the act that shatters bonds of love and trust, crushing even the strongest heart, tearing teams apart. AO3: http://archiveofourown.org/works/7745314/chapters/21309935 Blake 

She had not noticed the stars, had not prayed again, and thus, clouds rolled in from the east, roiling banks of snow clouds that smothered the starlight.

Blake paused once she had made it out of the thick of the fighting in the courtyard, breath rasping harshly in her lungs. Each lungful of air she took seared her throat, it was so cold, but she welcomed the clarity it gave her. She clenched Gambol Shroud tighter, imagining she could feel its heartbeat, but she knew it was just her own frantic heart, racing against her ribs, pouring all her anxiety into the Bond. I must find Yang before it’s too late.

She moved forward, over broken glass that lay glittering on the pavement outside the promenade of the cafeteria. Someone had punched out the windows of the massive room, and within, the tables lay haphazardly amid slabs of stone. It looked like a hurricane had torn through the cafeteria and left it in a terrible mess. She looked closer, squinting; there was a shadow moving in the back, near the pillars. It was a broad-shouldered figure with a head of bright hair, but the firelight, undulating with shadows on the walls, confused Blake’s eyes. Frowning, she leaned forward, Gambol Shroud at the ready, in case it was an enemy— a White Fang lackey, perhaps, or a robot solider. “Yang,” she called. “Yang— is that you?”

At her voice, the shadow spun around, still crouched down. Their face came into view, and Blake staggered back, her breath punched out of her chest in sheer astonishment.

“It’s been too long,” said the figure, straightening up and looking directly at her with a slow, lazy grin uncurling across their face. “You have forgotten what I look like at a distance. I did not think you would. But you always were so terribly bound by your own desire, Blake, that it blinded you to reality.”

The firelight fell fully across its face— his face— the narrow shape, the curve of the mask, the rise and fall of his scarlet hair, like the rise and fall of fire, the burning inferno that had made him what he was.

Adam.

In what could have been eternity or only seconds, every memory that mattered rushed through her mind: the mission of Forever Fall, drifting away from him on a traincar, a shattered Bond, shooting Ayran in the skull, Yang’s face as she broke Mercury’s leg, and then Adam’s voice, in all those nightmares she had endured every night. In all that time, she had never thought she would see him again, had never dared to imagine it. For better or for worse, once she had cut the cord on a train that had separated them forever, it was over. She would only ever have to see him again in nightmares.

Except he was here, and that had been an illusion. A beautiful, terrible illusion.

“You hesitate, my love?”

At the sound of his voice, her bones went cold, and the trees whispered with a terrible, mocking laughter. He cast a flickering, looming shadow to spill over the broken rubble, right up to the walls. Blood splattered his chest and his weapon was drawn, shining scarlet.

“You’re here with them, aren’t you? Here with Cinder’s attackers.” She hardly recognized her voice when she spoke, and she didn’t know why it was steady and firm, when she was shattering inside. “It’s me you want dead, Adam. It always has been. You have no quarrel with the students of Beacon. Why are you doing this?”

“I have every quarrel with them!” His amusement fell away, replaced by an embittered, snarling loathing. “They’re human, all of them, your team and your partner! You and I were going to change the world once, Blake. You promised, do you not remember? And you turned your back on that promise so easily, do you remember that? We were destined, pet, destined to light the fires of revolution, destined to blaze at the head of the ranks, and you gave it up. For what? For this? For them, humans who will talk to you and work with you and even sleep beside you, but will never consider you equal to them?” He swung his blade up, lashing out at the body of the student beside him, planting his heel on his chest. “You’re a fool, and you always have been. Equality is never going to happen, not in this world. But superiority shall, and you will not be a part of it. I gave you every chance, Blake, and you ran away, because you are a coward, and have always been one. I will be the one to triumph alone, with my own fire, my own revolution. Consider this the spark.”

She wasn’t aware of jerking her own sword out, fury igniting her blood. She only felt a white-hot surge of hatred towards him for bringing the two of them to this, and she felt power arc through her as she sprang forward, broadsiding him just as his blade plunged down.

He howled in rage as he was thwarted, and she drove her fist into his face with all the force she could muster, feeling the bones in his nose splinter. Blood gushed out, creating a grotesque scarlet mask. He retaliated with a snarl, planting his foot in her chest, and she crashed backward, rolling with his weight as they tumbled through the dust and blood. He roared, battering her with all the unbridled rage of a hurricane, and she could only barely withstand the onslaught, agony— more than she had ever felt in her life— splitting her skull.

She raised her blade just in time as he drove downwards with his. They met in a fiery clash of metal, screeching and spitting sparks, and she realized why he looked so shocked and furious all at once: this was the first time they had clashed in any true, physical way with hatred and enmity. The first time she had ever dared to fight against him.

“I’m not running away,” she snarled, ears pinned flat against her head as she drove upward with every ounce of force she could muster, muscles trembling with the strain. “Not this time, Adam.”

There was a very ugly look on his face, like an animal that he had thought was tame had suddenly turned on him, and bitten him. “You will,” he spat, his sallow skin drawn tight, his eyes glinting bloodred in the firelight. “It’s all you know how to do.”

She felt pain explode through her as he suddenly reared back and slammed his heel into her abdomen, thrusting all his power into the blow; he had grown so much stronger in her absence, and the force of his kick tossed her backward as easily as if she were nothing more than a rag-doll.

She skidded across the floor with a yowl of pain, feeling the broken glass open up gashes in her skin as she hit a slab of rock and crashed to a halt. A flicker of movement flitted through her peripheral vision, and she snapped her head to the side, horrified as she saw a Creep. Its beady eyes fell upon her, filled with mindless rage.

With a snarl, it charged towards her, only to be intercepted mid-leap, broadsided by a streak of red that crashed into its side. Blake’s eyes rounded as she saw Adam sink his sword in its neck, black blood splashing across his skin as the Grimm squealed before collapsing, and fading. He had saved her— had he come to his senses, after all, and changed his mind?  

She realized she could not have been more wrong as he turned towards her, snarling, like a tiger with its claws out.

“You came woefully unprepared for this, I’m afraid,” he cackled, sheathing his blade and spitting a stream of blood to his right contemptuously. “Now you’ll pay, my dear.”

She swore at him, and he grinned, a grotesque sight.

“But not before you suffer for your betrayal, pet,” he said, his voice soft with a frost like the first creeping, killing chill of winter. He came before her, his eyes twinkling as if she were nothing more than a show, a display for him. “How does it feel, knowing that your entire life has led up this moment? Every thought, action, word, has been to bring you to here and now? That you are mine to use, to discard as I please?” He crouched close to her, a mad, Chesire-like grin spreading across his face. “You were never Ayran’s, you know. You were always mine. And this was always my fate! You lied! You said I had a choice! But there never was one. I would never have let you go, I would track you down to the ends of the earth to make you pay for what you did.”  

She was chilled as she remembered her dream.

I will find you. I will hunt you down and bring you back. I will follow you to the ends of the earth and beyond, track you wherever you hide. I will pull you back kicking and screaming and lock you up where no one will ever find you. You can't leave me, Blake, you can't, you can’t—

Her response was to summon up all of her flagging strength, to arch her neck and spit in his face. He drew back with a snarl, lifting his hand as if to strike her again before lowering it, not wanting to risk killing her.

“Now I am going to explain to you what is going to happen, so you may know the pain you are going to feel… and the pain you are going to cause.” He crouched beside her, and she could feel the heat of his semblance blazing up around him, could feel how he wanted her— to play with and destroy her— and it sickened her. “Your team is enamored with you, aren’t they? They believe you are good. That you have not killed and lied, just as I have. But I know the truth, Blake, and I know you have murdered and stolen, that you are just as damned as any common criminal. But you are worse. You are a traitor, a turncoat, with a foot in two worlds. You murdered a man who gave you everything, who once believed in you—”

“Ayran wasn’t a man.” She curled her lip, and the skin on Adam’s face tautened in anger. “He was a monster.”

“Monster or not,” Adam said, “he took you in— took you into the arms of the White Fang, gave you everything, gave us both everything— and you murdered him, Blake!”

“He killed my parents!”

“He should have killed you too. And you got your revenge, didn’t you? Yet still, you aren’t satisfied… because your heart is dark, dark as night. Don’t deny it!” Adam’s eyes narrowed. “Truth always triumphs, pet. Now, I am working with a human to ruin this human monstrosity of a place, and she ordered me to stick to the course, to not go after anyone in particular. But I have found a way to circumvent this, my dear, because I would never truly ally myself with a human.”

He’s gone insane, she thought in horror, seeing the unhinged glint in his scarred eyes, the mask looking like a raw wound. He is really, truly insane. Oh, Adam…

Perhaps he misinterpreted the sorrow on her face, because his eyes narrowed menacingly. “Are you hoping for a savior, my darling? You pray in vain, I am afraid. Not even your precious team— cowardly good-for-nothing humans— can help you now, not while you and I are cloaked in these shadows. And you will not be joining them ever again, my dear, for it’s awfully hard to reside with a team when they are dead.” His eyes shone with madness and glee, his voice growing exultant. “I shall go forth, Blake, and kill them one by one. That little team leader of yours, the human who slaughtered Roman Torchwick so mercilessly? I’m going to come back and gut her, I will torture her until she is begging for death. The brat Schnee, I’ll make sure she dies as painfully, as well, as she deserves. Perhaps I’ll kill her with Dust, how fitting would that be, that she perishes by what gave her the undeserved title she bears now—”

Blake felt her heart hammering away in her chest, a choking feeling in her throat; there was so much pure terror within her that it was impossible to express it. She had passed from mere fear into something much, much more, and dimly, she wondered if her own traitorous body would overload from her fear and fail her now, when she needed it most. She saw her team, the people she loved most in this world, flash before her eyes—

Ruby, laughing at a joke, silver eyes sparkling, before her face became solemn and pale; Ruby, who was like a little sister to her, who had faith in her from the very beginning; Ruby, who had lost so much but still held hope in life and love—

then Weiss, smiling her small smile, her blue eyes glimmering with warmth. She was one of Blake’s best friends, opposite from her but amazing just the same, someone she would trust to have her back through anything; Weiss, who bore her cross with such quiet dignity—

and finally, Yang, the one she loved more than she could ever imagine loving anything, her sun and stars; Yang, who’d been through hell and back for those she loved; Yang, who burned with a quiet fire that could never be extinguished for long; Yang, who was in danger now because of Blake’s past, because every damned thing had come back to haunt her, as he had always promised it would…   She was afraid. She knew the Bond had to be overloading, and she knew Yang would surely be coming to see what was frightening her so horribly, but she couldn’t come now, she couldn’t, Blake was powerless once more…

Adam was still talking. “— and your partner, the gold-haired one? I’m going to track her down, and I’m going to break her. I’m going to break her spirit in the way you should have been broken long ago, and I’m going to make her hate you, make her see the real you. And I will kill her before your eyes, so you may know true pain, so you may know, really, what you have caused, what is your legacy, that despite your foolish dream of changing the world, the only mark you will leave is hate and pain and betrayal, like you did to me—”

She stared up at him, a slow paralysis creeping through her, a disbelief, because this could not be happening, he could not be here, not again… and she couldn’t move, couldn’t escape, because the instant she showed defiance, she knew he wouldn’t hesitate to show her the true meaning of pain.

Do not go gentle into that good night—

“And at the end,” he snarled softly, leaning closer so she could see the dark light gleaming in his pupils through the mask’s eyeslits, “You will die too, Blake, after all the pain you have caused.”

— rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Blake turned her head away, unable to go on looking at his cruel face. The very thought that she had once loved him, had once loved this person, this monster who possessed such boundless cruelty, made her feel a sickness like she had never felt before. All she could see was him.

Adam. Once, he had been her closest friend, her confidante, her ally against the harsh world. Her partner, her mentor. Her one source of warmth against the coldness of discrimination. The Faunus who had always been able to make her strong. The boy who had guided her through the tempest of her childhood. The Faunus with so much determination who had helped her get back on her feet, all those years ago.

Traitor. The boy who had turned his back on her without her even knowing. The Faunus who had plotted with Ayran to slaughter all of mankind, to bring mercy to its knees. The one who had worked behind her back to manipulate her. The one who had not cared how many had to die if he could achieve his wants. The one who had allowed himself to be bewitched by the promise of power. The Faunus who had denounced humanity after being spurned, and had sought to take everyone down with him.

Her chest felt impossibly tight, and she fought for every breath, as she imagined a dying person might. He was gone. He was truly gone, and any trace of the person he had once been had died many, many years ago. The one who stood before her with such hatred in his eyes was not Adam, not anymore than she was Blake of the White Fang. Both of them had been changed in incomprehensible ways, altered by destiny, and she did not flinch as he raised his blade to slash at her again.

“Go on,” she said softly, not moving to protest as she closed her eyes. “Call me traitor, if that helps. Strike me again, if that will make you feel better. According to you, I deserve all of it and more. Do your worst, Adam. Knock me down, bloody my skin. Be the monster that should have struck me, not mankind. Fix fate’s wrongs.”

He stared down at her, momentarily stunned, a slow-burning fury, mixed with an emotion she didn’t quite recognize, broiling in his eyes. But before he could speak, or move to deal her another blow, a desperate scream broke into his words. A scream that made Blake’s eyes shoot open, made a jolt of terror race through her, so great it nearly stopped her heart.

“Blake!”

He swung his head up triumphantly, eyes landing upon her. “So the thought of your death does not make you cower,” he snarled. “But I think hers will. And now, Blake, I will make it my mission to destroy everything you love… starting with her.”

/ / / 

Yang

Yang sprinted through the ruins of the school, her lungs screaming for release, screaming for air, but she didn’t dare to stop. Didn’t dare to do anything but frantically track the thread of light that connected her to her partner, telling her where Blake was, telling her of the fear lighting up their Bond.

There was a visceral, pounding terror infusing every fiber of her being. She had been talking to Weiss when it had hit— asking her where Blake was— and then out of nowhere, like lightning, horror had lit her up from the inside out, and she had taken off running, not even bothering to tell Weiss where she was going, even as the heiress cried out in alarm behind her. But Yang knew the fear was not her own. It was Blake’s, and Yang knew that there was only one thing in this whole world that could make Blake that scared.

Adam. / / / 

Blake

“Get to your feet, my Blake.”

“Make me,” she invited, swallowing a wince as he prodded her sharply. “If you can.”

“Oh, I will,” he purred, and she drew back her lips in the beginning of a snarl. “Oh, Blake. You used to be so staunch, so firm, so strong… truly a warrior of the White Fang. And who are you now? Not quite a human, not good enough to be a Faunus… you’re weak. You have become so weak, so emotional, my love.”

Fury crackled through her, blindingly sharp. “I’m not your—”

“And shut that mouth of yours,” he snapped, backhanding her across the face; a hot explosion of pain radiated out, but she would not give him the satisfaction of letting him know he had hurt her. She met his gaze with blazing, defiant amber eyes. “It’s always gotten you in trouble, hasn’t it? You’ve always had too much of rebellious streak, too much of a disregard for who was really in charge. Just like that damned father of yours. Well, that’s why he died. It’s high time it was burnt out of you.”

Burnt. She swallowed a shudder. Yang’s call… she was coming now… and Blake had no idea what she would do when that moment came. I would die right now, Yang, if you could survive safely and never witness this, never witness what he wants to do to you and Ruby and Weiss… please don’t come. Please, please, don’t try to play the hero, for once, please, let me…

Let me go…

“Blake! Blake, please, where are you?” Her voice was incredibly close now, and Blake’s resolve crumbled as she saw her partner enter her view from the farthest side of the building, picking her way recklessly through the rubble. Adam’s teeth glittered in a wild smile, all sharp teeth and blood, as he saw her, and some part of Blake, some detached part that wasn’t crouched here in the shadow of her oldest nightmare, wondered if Adam could see himself in Yang. They possessed the same fire, the same strength, the same unkillable drive, the same inability to let go of Blake. Twin sides of the same coin, Adam in the shadow, Yang in the light. They were alike, more alike then either of them realized, and Blake had known it all along.

Yang finally saw her, and her eyes widened; she saw the blood on her face, the shadows of bruises, and the fear in her expression. Her eyes grew furious as she saw Adam, and she launched herself towards the two of them.

“Stay back!” he barked as Yang hurtled forward, leveling his sword so the tip of it brushed Blake’s throat. It stung like the coldest kiss of a snowflake, before warming as blood welled up from the barest nick of the blade; he took a visible breath before calming himself. “Take another step closer, Huntress, and she dies.”

Yang pulled up short. Her eyes flashed across to Blake; they had never been so full of terror, and the Bond… Blake regretted it, for the first time, she regretted being Bonded. This couldn’t help anyone— because the fear there mixed with her own, until it was almost unbearable. She met Yang’s eyes, her heart thudding so hard it felt like it would burst. Do as he says. Blake knew Adam was bluffing— he would not kill her yet, not before he had his revenge—  but Yang could not call that bluff, or he would kill her as easily as anything. Right now, she was a bargaining chip, that was all.

He began to pace as he spoke, all the while keeping a line between the two of them, his sword hanging loose at his side. Blake knew that didn’t mean anything. He could explode into deadly action in between one breath and the next if he wanted to, and she watched him as warily as she would watch a bloodthirsty panther.  

“You have no idea,” he laughed humorlessly, shaking his head as he paced, broad shoulders rippling with muscle, “about my Blake, my dear, do you, Huntress? I’m sure she’s talked at length about me, but was any of it the truth?” He looked from Blake to Yang, still grinning. “Oh, you see me here, threatening her. Now put a name to my face. She has never been able to shut up about her nightmares, so you should know me well.” His voice dropped to a mere hiss like the crackle of flame. “Do you know me, Yang Xiao Long?”

Blake’s breath caught in her throat as Yang ran one hand down her gauntlets.

“Of course I know you. Adam Taurus. Leader of the White Fang.” Her voice was remarkably steady, lilac eyes touched with the barest hint of red; Blake couldn’t tell if it was her semblance beginning to activate, or the reflection of the bloody flames. “But I’d prefer to call you coward. From Blake’s descriptions, you look just hideous as she made you sound. Wearing a mask to hide your ugly face—”

Adam’s face twitched, contorting for a moment with anger, before he controlled himself. “Mockery is the product of fear,” he said. “And you are very, very scared, human. Only a fool would not be. Of course—” He swung around to face Blake, all the while keeping his sword drawn— “You’d know her fear, wouldn’t you, can’t you feel it, running through your veins, doubling your own?” His voice trembled with loathing. “Because you Bonded again, didn’t you, even after ours—”

“Our Bond is broken,” she spat, cutting him off.

His mouth thinned out. “Broken as you will be, Blake. All in due time. And as our Bond is dead, so shall your new one die, too. Do you remember when Ayran said I would become leader of the White Fang, by your hand? That came true when you killed him, killed him without mercy, just as he killed your own father. Do you truly believe yourself invulnerable to the circle of balance? Our Bond broke because you left me. What goes around comes around, my love, and I swear, Blake, by the end of tonight, you will leave her— your Bond with her will be over, and you will break it.” He looked at Yang. “Willingly.”

The words she snarled back made him hiss in anger, before he roared with mirth, though his face still looked like it was carved from stone. “Oh, she has spirit, this one! Blake, why am I not surprised that it is her you’ve chosen, over me? And why,” he went on, his voice becoming chilled, “is it she that will die tonight, and not you?”

“Then come threaten me, not Blake,” she said, and her voice was remarkably level, clear and measured, but her eyes burned with something Blake had never seen before— something that scared her even more than Adam’s words. She had seen Yang’s fire and spirit— that fire had never burned Blake, had never burned anyone with the intention to hurt. But this looked like an inferno, a blaze that would kill everyone in the world to keep a single person safe. “It’s me you want, not her. I’m her partner, not you. You claim that humans are the evil ones, but you’ve turned into something worse than a human. Your jealously has warped you, just like Blake told me it had. You don’t want Blake out of some pretended sense of justice, you just want her to suffer because she had the nerve to say no to you. I know why you’re so obsessed with her. Because she was the one thing you thought you had total control over that ever turned around and bit you. You thought you owned her and you didn’t. No, I don’t know you, Adam. But I know your kind. I know the people who think they own others. But you don’t own Blake— you don’t own a soul. And I will never let you hurt my partner again.”  

His mouth twitched into a scowl. “Humans,” he spat, and Blake thought she could hear the shadow of a little boy, a Faunus trampled at a rally gone wrong. “Arrogant little scum, every last one of you.” He said it with all the coldness of the bitterest winter, all amusement fled from his voice, so it was hard. He turned back to Blake, and she flinched away as he ran a hand over her face, considering, before he dealt her another lightning-quick strike across the cheek. She shuddered, her adrenaline leaping in her veins, burning the pain away.

Yang was ashen, shaking on her feet, and though her eyes were leaping with scarlet fire, they were cold as ice. All the fear was gone from them. All that remained was hatred and rage. “If you dare touch her again,” Yang spat, voice hard with chilliness, “I swear I’ll make you regret the day you were born, you filthy bastard.”  

“You see! That is what a human would do, jump to threats and violence as persuasion. Mindless cruelty is all you know. This is your legacy. Whereas mine…” He leaned over and drew a possessive hand over Blake’s cheek. She staggered away, spitting at him, and he roared with laughter, reveling in his element of sick cruelty. “Mine,” he whispered, “is so much greater.”

“Let her go,” Yang snarled, sounding like a wolf, and Adam glared right back— Blake thought that they looked like two wild, mad creatures standing each other down.

“Come and get her,” he invited mockingly. “If you can, human. Before she dies.”

Then Yang’s eyes locked with Blake’s, and she saw the anger— not cold indifference, not icy detachment, not chilly aloofness— crackling within them. Every time they had discussed Adam, every heartbreak, every nightmare— they had all led up to this moment, this final confrontation. The final stand.

You cannot cheat nightmares. In the end they will have their own.

Something rumbled in the back of her throat, a low growl at first, but by the time she turned away from Yang and threw herself at Adam, it had transformed into a roar worthy of a lion.

Chaos erupted around her. She heard Adam screech with fury, his sword pricking her throat, only to be torn away as a shape flew over her. She blinked hazily as a howl of pain— Adam’s— rent the air, and she heard Yang’s shriek of anger as metal clashed against flesh. Then red light suffused the air, sharp as a knife. They were both fighting against him now— but Adam could fight armies alone.

“Yang, no!” Blake screamed as she unsheathed Gambol Shroud, watching him swing up his sword so the moonlight caught it, glowing silver against red. “His semblance— move!”

But Yang, now sporting a bloody gash on her temple, wasn’t fast enough. Blake hurled herself forward, feet slipping against the rubble, and flew into the path of the downward arc of his blade. She only had time to close her eyes and brace herself before he struck, screaming in fury at her defiance. She curled up, but nothing— no pain, no shattered Bond, no battles fought— could have prepared her for the agony of the blade slicing into her flesh.

She screamed, screamed as the blade sank deep into her side, bypassing any bone or muscle or sinew. It ripped and tore before withdrawing, and she was screeching like a mad animal, as soft lights exploded behind her eyes, like stars behind rain-torn clouds. She went to her knees, coughing up blood, wondering how it was possible to feel this much pain without dying, and she doubled over, the world receding to the barest flicker of flame as pain, feeling just like fire, flooded her veins, devouring her alive. She thrashed, trying to put out the flames, wondering how no one could see the burning, as the world swam before her, as she was only hanging on by a thread…

Blake!

Let me go, she thought dimly, aware her struggles were growing weaker, her spasms fading. Let me go, let me fade, before he comes back into…

And then came the scream. It was a wordless, painful lamentation, like a bird crying as its wings were torn off. It was the scream of pain deeper than the soul. It was Yang’s scream as she felt the agony singing like a wailing chorus through the Bond, and Yang’s pain as she saw— what she thought was— Blake’s death. But she was alive, if only for the moment.

If I die, Blake managed to think, so be it. I will die. But not without making Adam pay. I owe Yang and I will not go into the dark with that debt unpaid.

/ / / 

Yang

As soon as she hurled herself at Adam, in the thought that she was going to attack him for hurting Blake, for bringing down his sword and stabbing her with it, she knew she was going to die.

She thought she knew hate. She thought she had known what Blake had gone through. But nothing could have prepared her for this— this absolute creature of pain and terror and hatred. His eyes were full of hideous glee. His sword swung down.

And made contact.

Later, the memory of pain would still make her flinch. Later, she would forget the way flame ripped through her veins. But now— this was real, and death had taken her in its grip and was shaking her around and around and would not let go.

She was fire, she was blazing as brightly as a star, burning herself up in the descent. She saw Adam's eyes, now as cold and expressionless as a winter wind, before he smiled, and it was a thing of terror. The strike that blazed through her now was a pang of pure anguish so great that she thought it would stop her heart. It ended in a jolt of pure terror, and a flash of light red as blood.

Now she was falling through the air, her body weeping blood tinged with fire, the ichor of angels. Weightless. Someone was screaming, and she wondered briefly who it was, until she realized it was coming from her own mouth, rising high as the uncaring stars. As she fell, all she saw was Blake's terrified eyes, dilated with pure animalistic fear, staring behind her at something she couldn't see. Yang saw Blake's lips shape her name in a scream, but all she could hear was her heartbeat, roaring in her ears.

Then darkness slammed down around her.

/ / /  Blake

She found herself staggering to her feet, lurching into Adam’s path as he advanced upon Yang, who was lying on her side on the ground, curled up, body half-hidden from Blake’s sight. Pain flooded through the Bond in crashing waves, a pain more acute and crippling then she had ever known, leaving Blake gasping. The pain almost drowned her: she was as helpless as a child against it.

But then it all cut off. The pain, the emotions, everything, leaving Blake more alone than ever. She had been Bonded with Yang so long that she had forgotten what it was to be alone, but the feeling of absolute solitude was more crippling than ever, like someone had cut off some essential part of her… and then she realized the magnitude of it. If Yang’s side of the Bond was gone… if the pain was gone, if the feeling of her was gone… her aliveness and the feel of her and her emotions were gone, and the Bond felt dead… But how could that be, if Yang was okay? Surely she was just stunned. She would get up any second…

“No,” Blake muttered as Adam drew aside, casting Yang’s body into the light more fully, as she saw the pool of blood that was slowly ebbing out from her body. “No, no, no.”

“Yes,” he whispered as Blake saw what Adam had done, why his sword was wet and red with blood, why his eyes finally glittered with triumph. “She’s worthless now. What is a Huntress without her weapon?” He began to laugh loudly as Blake finally saw what lay there. “What is a human with a hand to inflict pain?”

Yang’s eyes were closed, her face so pale she looked like she were already dead. She was unconscious, the only mercy that the night had yielded. And next to her…

“No,” Blake choked. “No, you… she’s not..”

She could not comprehend it; her mind simply could not accept was it was seeing. Yang was a burning flame, bright and invincible. She had never been seriously injured, not beyond repair, because that was impossible. But there she was, lying there, and her arm… Adam stalked around to the other side of Yang, looking down at it, at where his sword had come down and sliced it off, as easily as one would take a breath.

There wasn’t a shred of remorse on his face, only a cold satisfaction, the face of a wolf after it had made a kill. “This is your payment,” he snarled at her prostrate form. “A partner for a partner. A weapon for a weapon.” Then he turned his face down, and spat on her. “The only mercy you get, human, is that you won’t be alive to watch Blake die, too.” He raised his sword again, preparing to kill Yang in one motion.

He didn’t even get as far as lifting it before Blake had flew at him, fury blinding her with tears. Her hands wrapped around his throat, a scream bursting forward from her throat. He staggered backward. “You!” Blake screamed. “You did this! You ruined my life and hers! It ends here!” She punched him the face so hard his head snapped around, bones cracking. “I should have killed you when I killed Ayran!”  

She thought she had known anger when she had attacked him earlier. That was nothing compared to this. Something had unlocked inside of her, flooding her with a fury that lent energy to her strikes. They both fell, punching with kicks and screams, but this time, Blake had one thing to match him: now her strikes sought his death, and her strikes were her final stand. She had killed Ayran, and she had never wanted to kill Adam, but she had never felt this much pure rage— this could only end one way— if he was too strong, she would die in the darkness.

Yang hadn’t been able to touch him for one reason, and one reason only.

She didn’t know Adam.

But Blake had grown up beside this boy, trained beside him, slept in his bed, eaten the same food. She knew his thoughts and hopes, fears and dreams, the way he thought, the way he fought, the way he moved. She knew Adam, and that was his undoing.

You think we can never be equal?

“You think you can kill me?” he cried, his breath hot against her ear. “After everything?”

“After everything,” she screeched, “you deserve it.”

He roared in agony as she kicked him squarely in the face, knocking his mask off to the side, his nose crunching as the bones broke. In retaliation, he smacked her away and she fell down on her back, just like she’d been when this first started. He raised his sword, intending to stab her through the heart. But he moved just too slowly, from where Yang must have injured him earlier, and again, as Blake slipped out from the reach of his blade, Yang had saved her life in the smallest of ways. Adam was on the ground for a moment, vulnerable— the briefest of moments— but it was enough.

There was only one thing for it.

Goodbye, Adam.

With a gut-wrenching cry of pain, she threw Gambol Shroud, feeling it as it left her hand. The air seemed to turn to syrup, time slowing to a crawl, as it spun end over end like a dark star. Adam’s eyes widened, scars stretching grotesquely, the firelight shimmering on bulged skin. And Gambol Shroud— her blade— her faithful blade that had been by her through everything, had linked her and Yang time and time again, and had saved her life, did not fail.

A good blade.

She watched, motionless, as time seemed to speed up again and the blade sank into Adam’s chest.

He stood there a moment, staring first at her, and then, as he looked down at where the blade stuck out from between his ribs, blood oozing out weakly, it was like he was a puppet, and someone had cut his strings. Adam fell.

He fell, crumpling to his knees, a bubbling, broken wheeze exhaling from his slackened mouth. He clutched weakly at the hilt protruding from his chest, and Blake could not stop herself from walking forward towards him as he struggled on the ground, a powerful monster reduced to a feeble shell. She felt like she was in a dream and nothing she said or did was really happening.

She took his head into her lap. It made her shudder to touch him, but she sat there, straight-backed and numb, as his glazed, scarred eyes slid over the fire-lit walls and then came to settle on her face.

“Bl…ake.” He looked up at her, gasping shallowly for breath, those gray-gold eyes, marred with scars, piercing into her. In answer, she picked up his mask, placing it over his eyes. “Your blade has… true aim. Just like… like with Ayran. I taught you how to… use it. I never thought it… it would kill me..."

Her voice was choked with emotion as she wiped blood away from his chest, but it kept coming and coming, a ceaseless tide, drowning, drowning just as Yang had drowned in her pain only yesterday, what felt eternities away. “You’re not dead.”

“No… don’t touch me… I can’t bear it if you touch me.” He raised his hand and lifted it up, placing it over hers, where her hand was on the gash in his chest. “Heart,” he whispered. “You threw to pierce my heart, and you did… just as you have every day since you left me.”

He’ll blame me until he’s dead, but I’ll never regret leaving him. He had turned into a monster. Another flare of anger bloomed to life inside of her. “I—”

“It was… not supposed to be like this. I trained you, Blake, and I trained you to throw a blade… straight and direct… I know you.” Blood glistened at the edges of his lips, a grim sneer twisting them. His voice was ragged. “No, I’m not dead yet… but you aimed to kill. And your aim… was true. There’s not much time left.”

She didn’t try to argue. She knew where she had thrown her blade— if she hadn’t hit his heart, she had hit something else vital, maybe even punctured his lungs—  and she could recognize the smell of death creeping in on the air, lingering in the way his face was getting grayer and grayer. She knew how to recognize death, because she had grown up with it.

“I’d like to say I regret a lot of things,” Blake whispered. “But I don’t regret this, Adam. I can’t. And I never will.”

He coughed, and a thick spool of blood rolled out from the corner of his mouth, his face pale and waxen-looking. “You killed Ayran,” he said hoarsely. “I didn’t… think… I would die by your hand… too.”

Blake bowed her head, hot tears stinging the edges of her eyes. Here she was, sitting— beaten but not broken— in a room in the academy she loved, alive while two of her partners were dying around her. “I didn’t want it to end like this. I don’t forgive you, Adam, but I don’t think you wanted it to end this way either…”

He turned his head slightly, his face pale in the light. He must be very close to the end now. “Two paths,” he whispered. “Two destinies. ‘One will lead to mankind's destruction; the other, your salvation. You have the potential to atone for your sins.’” His face contracted with pain, skin going taut. “But I never could atone for what I did… who I became… and neither could you. And you— you shouldn’t. So I shall… give… a final warning. Run, Blake. Run… away. The White Fang… will hunt you down. Because you killed me. This is their revenge, their way. If you are with the human… they will kill her too. Run. Run away from Vale and… never return. That’s the only way your team will be safe and survive. You’re… a danger to them. As you have thrust a blade in my chest… so they shall to you and to Yang. My death will not bring you peace, but only pain. The White Fang is a creature of vengeance. That is what… I made them.”

“No,” Blake hissed.

“I have chosen my path.” His eyes glittered. “Rage at the dying of the light, Blake, even now… I cannot change it… and going gently into that good night… death was never gentle, not with either of our parents or our fates... and neither was I...”

“Adam,” she whispered in horror as he turned his head away, exhaling a low breath, his chest’s movement falling into stillness. “Adam, no.”

But it was too late; his body was going cold, and when she shifted, he— his corpse— rolled off of her. She could recognize the eerie stillness of death on his face.

Blake’s head spun, black spots dancing before her eyes— from blood loss, or from loss of the heart? In all her nightmares, in every worst dream, she had never thought of Adam dying— or that she would kill him. She hadn’t dared to imagine it. She had wanted her revenge, perhaps, had wanted him out of her life. But not gone from the world forever. Even now, it seemed unreal. A world without him was like a world without night, or snow, or rain. A world that was uprooted from the center. Death had erased the lines on his face, softened his skin, made him younger. Hands shaking, she took off his mask and closed his eyes gently. He did not deserve her forgiveness— not after everything he had done— but she owed something to the boy he had once been, the boy who had saved her, brought her up after Brian and Maria died. Not to Adam, leader of the White Fang, but Adam Taurus, the boy who had loved her. Who had taught her to fight and how to survive.

“Goodbye, Adam,” she whispered.

He had died… and his last words were a warning to her. Not of reconciliation— she hadn’t expected forgiveness from him, nor had she forgiven him for all his crimes— but of a promise.

The White Fang will hunt you down, because you killed me. This is their revenge, their way. If you are with the human, they will kill her too. Run. Run away from Vale and never return. That’s the only way your team will be safe and survive.

“But first,” Blake whispered to the empty air, “I need to get Yang to safety. Then… I will run.”

I didn’t know it when I took my first breaths, when I became Adam’s partner, when I walked into Beacon, when I sought out Yang in the forest... but my duty is to protect her. I have been made to protect her. Only in death will I be kept from that duty. And to do that… I have to get her to a safe place, and then, because my presence ensures danger, I…

The answer came to her through her whirling thoughts like a shaft of lightning striking through the clouds.

I have to go. I have to go and never come back. I have to leave Beacon, leave the city, leave Vale entirely.

This is… this is goodbye. To both of my partners forever.

Numb— not quite comprehending what had happened, her emotions all locked in ice, except for the sense of urgency, to get moving, to get away from this place— Blake stood, taking the last steps away from Adam’s body. Each one felt like it carried her a mile, but she didn’t look back once.

Several feet away from him, sheltered underneath a broken table, was Yang’s body. Fear mixing with a horrible dread in her chest, Blake stood over her, heart in her throat. Was she already dead? She could live in a world with a dead Adam, but not a dead Yang. Adam’s death could shake the world. Yang’s would shatter it.

Her breath rustling out of her throat, she leaned down, touching Yang’s shoulder, not daring to touch the wound that Adam had caused her. “Yang,” Blake whispered, holding her partner’s face. She was unresponsive, her eyes flickering as if in dream— or something else, behind her eyelids. She felt slack, like a badly-jointed wax doll, her skin no longer burning with that inner fire, but cold as ice. “You can’t die. You can’t. I still need you.” I will always, always need you…

But Yang didn’t move at all, and she was as still as a statue. Heart splintering in two with agony, Blake closed her eyes briefly, leaning down to rest the top of her head against Yang’s chest. Tears stung at the corners of her eyes like white-hot pinpricks. Her heart pounding, she sat floating in the darkness behind her eyelids, resolutely trying not to think of Yang. But her face appeared against the blank screen of her closed eyelids anyway, not smiling at her but looking sidelong, and she could see the gold of her hair, the uneven curl at the corner of her mouth, and the sparkle of her eyes. All the marks and flaws and imperfections that made up the person she loved most in the world. Yang. She could almost hear her voice, too, saying her name, the way she had whispered it in the classroom so many months ago when she had told the tale of her mother, over and over again. Blake. Blake. Blake.

The words became almost like a heartbeat, an unbroken rhythms, before Blake’s eyes flew wide as she realized what she was hearing was a rhythm, the simplest, most beautiful tune of all: the beating of Yang’s heart.

[moonsandstar-s]

The Final Warning - Chapter XXII

Chapter XXII - Fight and Flight 

Summary:  As the year draws to a close, peace has finally dawned. The time for unity has arrived. In the Vytal festival, it is time for heroes to rise, bringing glory to their kingdoms. But as autumn dies, the first winds of winter blow over Remnant, chilling the hearts of the people; breathing doubt into their souls. Long-buried secrets will triumph, and every action will have a consequence. Ruby must reconcile herself with her own fate. Weiss struggles to escape her legacy. Blake cannot erase memories. Yang’s search leads her into more peril than ever— but none of them can outrun fate. Shadows turn on shadows, and bonds shatter as they are tested to the limit. For in dividing them, they will fall and burn; at the eye of the storm, no peace lasts forever. In the end and beginning of time, there is a place where the sun never rises, and the dead delight to teach the living. A great danger is rising from the darkness. It’s time to take sides. The final warning is coming. The first chill of winter is the most deadly; it is the chill that kills more than any other. The first betrayal is the most damaging; it is the act that shatters bonds of love and trust, crushing even the strongest heart, tearing teams apart. AO3: http://archiveofourown.org/works/7745314/chapters/21473954 Pyrrha 

The night had almost been too much to process, but now that they were standing outside of Beacon Tower, it hit her full-force like a ton of bricks. They were right at the base of the Tower, standing beneath the battlements, while a war raged below them in the vault.

I’ve killed Penny. Beacon is under attack. The defenses have failed, and a Grimm wyvern is set on the Tower. Amber is dead, and Cinder possesses all the powers of the Fall Maiden. Ozpin is gone.

She swayed slightly on her feet, breath coming fast and shallow, and then Jaune was there, one hand steadying her. “Pyrrha!” His voice was panicked. “Stay with me.”

She took a deep breath, smoky air billowing out from her mouth in the frigid air. The stars whirled overhead, and her vision focused until she could see again, and the ground felt steadier under her feet. “I’m okay, Jaune,” she said, her voice sounding far away. Every nerve of her body felt stretched taut, tension ballooning between them. She knew part of her tension wasn’t just the suppressed feelings— she had felt Amber’s soul enter her body, however briefly, and it had changed her. For the slightest of instances, she had felt the edges of a thousand souls, all the Maidens from the dawn of time, whispering in her mind, not sleeping but barely awake. She had felt fire and smoke, the briskness of winter and the heat of summer combined, pure power thrumming through her. It had been the most exhilarating thing she had ever experienced, and the most painful in her life, because as the power and ambition had flowed into her veins, her own soul had been pushed out. When Amber’s soul had withdrawn, yanked out by Cinder’s arrow and the cold hand of death, flooding into Cinder instead— Pyrrha’s soul had returned to her body, but she had been changed by the experience, and she knew it. She had tasted raw, elemental power, and for Cinder to possess not even a quarter of it, as Pyrrha had tasted, but the whole thing…

“She has to be stopped,” Pyrrha said aloud. “If Ozpin doesn’t stop her… Cinder has power, enormous power. She could summon the wyvern here to the Tower. She could summon the Grimm, make a ruin of Vale, of Remnant.”

Jaune’s blue eyes glittered at her in worry. “How is that even possible? She doesn’t control everything!”

“She could— if she killed Ozpin and took all the Maiden’s powers.” Pyrrha took a rattling breath, one hand on Miló, the other resting on Akoúo̱. “She could control this whole world.”

“The… Maidens? I don’t understand… what?”

Pyrrha looked nervously at the Tower, imagining the battle raging beneath their feet, all the power of autumn reckoned against Ozpin. He would never be able to withstand such an onslaught, and she shifted on her feet, anxious to get going, to do something. “Jaune, we can’t—”

“No, listen. Pyrrha.” His face was hard with anger— not at her, but at the situation, at the sheer injustice of it all, and she could have almost wailed aloud in pain. “Down in the vault. That’s the decision you were worrying about, wasn’t it? That’s what made you so sad for so long. Whatever Ozpin was doing with that girl in the coma and you, and the orange light…”

She stared, caught off-guard. “How did you…?”

“I know you,” he said simply. “What was it? Why were you in the vault, why did Ozpin ask you to go, just… all of it. Why?”

She clenched her teeth. “We don’t have time to talk—”

“Pyrrha.” His voice dropped to a whisper, and she realized, with a swift, sudden shock, what tonight must look like to him— how she must look, chosen by Ozpin, forced into her role. “Please.”

Giving up, deciding that an explanation would be swifter than an argument, she let out a deep exhale of breath. “You remember the legend of the seasonal Maidens, Jaune, don’t you?”

He looked confused, as if it was irrelevant. With a burst of bitterness, she wished it was. “Yeah, of course.”

Ever-conscious of how little time there was left, she rushed out the words, stumbling over them in her haste. “The legend of the Maidens is true. All of it is true. There are four Maidens on Remnant, and they can wield magic without Dust, and they’re incredibly, incredibly, powerful. Ozpin knew it, the General knew it, so did Goodwitch and that Huntsman, Ruby’s uncle. I was called to Ozpin’s office about a week ago, remember? He told me all of this, but he told me that there was a girl—”

“The girl in the vault?” Jaune was paling visibly as she went on.

“Yes. Her. Amber is her name. She is— was— the autumn Maiden, but she was attacked a while ago— attacked by Cinder. Cinder wants her powers. She only managed to steal half of them before Ruby’s uncle saved Amber, and Cinder escaped with half the Maidens’ power, leaving Amber in a coma when she fled. Amber wouldn’t live forever, though, especially not in a coma, so Ozpin wanted to use me as a… a vessel for the rest of the power, so Cinder couldn’t take it by default when Amber died. But that didn’t work out, because Cinder struck tonight, setting up the tournament to fail, having Grimm destroy the kingdom’s defenses, and to engage Vale in battle while she went down to the vault to steal the Maiden’s powers. She wants the power of it, I guess, wants the sheer strength it will give her… and now she has it. She has the Maidens’ power.”

His eyes were as round as moons, his jaw sagging open. “That,” he said with apparent difficulty, “is one of the craziest things I’ve heard.”

She took a heaving breath. “You have to believe it.”

He shook his head, still looking faintly stunned. “Of course I believe it; I just saw it with my own eyes, and I trust you. But… what are we going to do now?”

As soon as he said, a loud noise ripped through the air, like shattering stone mixed with an echoing scream. The ground shook violently under their feet, and they both fell to their hands and knees as the stone bucked under them, the very air vibrating with a deafening roar. When it subsided, Pyrrha looked up, and her heartbeat seemed to stagger as she saw what was there.

Within the transparent windows of the school, like a comet returning to the heavens, a blazing orange streak was hurtling upward, towards the summit of Beacon Tower. They were far away, but as they watched the streak bear upward, fire emanating from its shape as it shattered floors and windows, Pyrrha knew who it was.

Cinder.

“But Ozpin was fighting her,” Jaune cried out. “If she’s gotten out…”

“She killed him.” Pyrrha set her jaw. “There’s not much time left.” She turned to Jaune, before a thought occurred to her, and she frowned. With a sudden, striking realization, like a sunbeam parting the clouds, she recognized what she must do. There was no one left to save Vale, no one to hide behind. No Maidens, no Ozpin, no heroes to save the day…

Except for me.

The thought came with a faint echo of surprise, and oddly enough, she didn’t feel dread, only an unwavering resignation as the answer came to her. There is no one left to fight Cinder, no one who could hope to stand against her.

No one except me.

“Go,” she said suddenly. “You need to get out of here. Get to the city— tell Qrow and Glynda what happened. Before it’s too late.”

He sucked in a sharp breath between his teeth. “But… what are you going to do?”

“I’m going to fight her,” Pyrrha said quietly. “Don’t you see? This is the only way, I have to do it. Not out of a sense of responsibility, or because Ozpin thought I would fight Cinder… but because I love Remnant. I love Vale. I love Beacon, and all of you… and she’ll destroy it, if someone doesn’t stop her. Jaune…. if I don’t come back…” She swallowed. “When I don’t come back… don’t grieve. Just… live. There’s no one to make pay. There won’t be, not after this. The only way you could possibly make it all okay is… be the best person you can be. Don’t let it warp you, change you… see the beauty in life.”

Jaune looked shell-shocked, and he reached out, holding her hands between his. “Pyrrha,” he said, whisper-soft. “Please…”

“There is a poem,” she said. “‘Do not stand at my grave and weep. I am not there. I do not sleep. I am a thousand winds that blow. I am the diamond glints on snow. I am the sunlight on ripened grain. I am the gentle autumn rain. When you awaken in the morning's hush, I am the swift uplifting rush of quiet birds in circled flight. I am the soft stars that shine at night. Do not stand at my grave and cry; I am not there. I did not die.’” She gripped his hands tightly. "I'll always be with you."

His eyes shimmered brightly, and then, in a mutual sort of understanding, they both leaned forward, and they were kissing. Her chest feeling as though someone had clawed a hole in it, she cradled his face between her hands, the face she knew so well, kissing him as if the world were collapsing around them— and it was, wasn’t it, in a way? All they knew, all she had ever known, was irrevocably changed. And she found herself savoring every sensation, every thought and touch and sound, for she knew— almost certainly— that they would, very well, be her last ones. For ever. It was one thing to have the uncertain threat of death all around you. It was quite another to walk into your own demise, knowing that you would not return, and accepting that you would die, you must die, no matter what.

And she was choosing the latter.

This, she knew, was her fate from the instant Professor Ozpin had summoned her and told her knowledge that changed what she knew forever. The boyish lines of Jaune’s features were resettling into harder, more angular shapes, and his face was wet with blood or tears, soot streaking his cheeks.  He tasted like salt, a cacophony of blood and tears and pain. And their very first kiss was the first kiss of goodbye, of farewell, an adieu, because she didn’t think she would see him again— she could feel it, deep inside, where she could feel her heart breaking and falling and crumbling. Adieu. What a tragic word it was. Not quite a ‘goodbye’, not an au revoir. Not a see you again, someday, for we will certainly meet again— but adieu, a goodbye. A reqiuem. A final, ever-so-final, parting of ways.

She pulled away. He was crying as well, tears carving clear paths down his cheeks, and his eyes— beautiful blue, and heartbroken— rested on her.

I love you, she thought. But I have to do this. You understand that, don’t you, that this must have always been my fate? The words were there, choking in the back of her throat like tears, but as they tumbled to the front of her mouth, they came out differently.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, an infinite tenderness in her voice. “I will never forget what you have given me.”

He clutched at her hands harder, tears streaking down his face. “Isn’t there another way? Pyrrha, you don’t…” His voice faded away. They both knew that it had to come to this, that she was the only one who was strong enough, but he was shaking his head, backing away from her. “I can’t let you do this. I can’t let you die, Pyrrha. I won’t.”

Hating herself for it, knowing it was the only way, she summoned a burst of polarity to her hands, knocking him backward into a rocket locker. The door clattered shut, locking him inside, and his blue eyes glittered out from the shadows, now panicked.

“Pyrrha! No, please! I can’t lose you, please…”

“You won’t lose me,” she said gently. “I will always be in your heart, Jaune. You can go on. I know you.”

With that, she dialed in a location, shutting her ears to his pleas, summoning the warrior inside of her, the one in tune with sacrifice and blood and fighting.

Destiny.

The locker shot away into the night, spitting blue fire, and she watched it vanish in a glimmer of sapphire the color of his eyes. Suppressing a thrum of pain and regret, she turned, and began to walk towards the Tower, towards her fate, towards her destiny… towards her demise. / / / 

Jaune

He staggered from the wreckage of the rocket locker, his knees singing with pain, all his limbs watery and shaking. He could taste salt on his lips, could barely stand, but he numbly wrenched his Scroll from his pocket, thumbing in a code on the shattered screen. Weiss’s face sprang up, a diagonal crack running down the glass just over her eye, and the garbled dial tone rang out in the air.

She picked up on the third ring. Once, many weeks ago, he would have been all fumbling hands and nervous words, but he could only laugh at the memory of how he had once felt for Weiss— and how dearly it had cost the person who he was close to losing now.

He could hear the roaring of Grimm in the background, because everything was going to hell, and he could hear Ruby’s scythe taking down one after another. “Weiss!” He cried, clutching the Scroll like a lifeline— and for Pyrrha, it was— “Please, you have to stop her!”

“What?”

“Pyrrha!” he shrieked, his heart in his throat. ““She’s going after that woman at the top of the Tower. Cinder! She thinks she can sacrifice herself to buy us time, but she doesn’t stand a chance!”  

“Jaune, what are you talking about? Where are you?”

“Don’t worry about me!” He stumbled, his shoulder slamming into the side of a building. He could feel tears streaming down his face, hotly blurring his vision. “Please— please, you have to save Pyrrha. I can’t…”

“We will,” she said urgently. “Are you okay?”

Sorrow exploded out from him, his voice a harsh cry. He could feel the Scroll leave his hand and he collapsed, harshly choking on his sobs. I cannot lose her, I can’t— just as I realized how she felt, how I felt, it was always there… Why was I so stupid? Why did I wait… why, why, why…

He looked up, seeing what was in front of him. He’d landed in the city, right in the middle of the battle of Grimm. Somewhere across the sea of darkness, there were other Huntsmen. He had to help now; he realized that. He couldn’t be the coward anymore, the one who stood idly by while other people sacrificed themselves to keep him safe. With a grimace, he unsheathed his sword in one fluid motion, watching the moonlight dance across the blade, and wishing fervently that things were different. He could never make it back to the Tower... but there was someone who could, and all he could do was pray - pray, and use the skills that his partner had instilled within him.

His sword felt different in his hand. Firmer. Stronger, somehow, like he’d finally grown into it. Like he understood it now, and he and the warrior inside of him were balanced, as one— at a cost. But the price was too much to pay.

He pictured her weeks ago before she had turned into the sorrowful person he had just been torn away from— her eyes laughing, her face encouraging, and always— always— loving. It was all he had missed and all he had never seen.

He saw the raging sea of Grimm, tearing through the streets. There were only four Huntsmen there to suppress the tide of darkness. Once upon a time, it would have scared him. But now he only felt cold. He lifted his sword, swaying a little on his feet, and took a step forward to confront a snarling Ursa. The sight of its mindless, hate-filled red eyes made him cower, before he steeled himself, a similar snarl taking over his features.

This is not how it ends.

He pictured his partner’s dying— dead?— face, and let his fury loose.

/ / / 

Pyrrha

Upon entry into the Tower, after sending Jaune to the city, Pyrrha found that she had been right. Cinder had defeated Ozpin. The broken elevator, still streaming smoke from its shaft, stood as a testament to her victory. She had gained the Maiden’s powers after murdering Amber, and used them to propel herself to the top, to the office, the summit of the Tower. Pyrrha knew that, from there, she would be waiting to make the final claim for triumph over Vale. She would try to get the Grimm wyvern to do her bidding, and it could destroy a building with the merest lash of its tail. Pyrrha couldn’t even begin to imagine the destruction it would wreak if it were to actually try on Cinder’s will. She had already won against Ozpin, and she had no clue that Pyrrha was there, at the base of the Tower, of how she was ready for this, for her fate.

She didn’t know that there was only one soul waiting to stop her.

Pyrrha stepped into the elevator, skirting the smoking hole that gaped in the center where Cinder had shot through. With a glance upward, swallowing past the fear in her throat, she reached out, feeling, with her semblance, all the metal in the elevator. Then, with a mighty surge, she yanked it up and felt herself shoot skyward like a cork popped from a bottle.

The elevators flew wide open as she reached the top, torn apart by the centrifuge, and she burst through them without hesitation, seeing Cinder standing there with her back to the doors. Every bit of training and power surging through her fingertips, Pyrrha hurled Miló out of her hand like a javelin, aiming straight for the Fall Maiden, for Cinder, for her final opponent.

The first thing she became aware of was four pairs of glowing eyes, the color of fire, resting on her— Cinder’s eyes, and then, behind her, the eyes of the Grimm. The wyvern. It was curled around the Tower in a horrible imitation, a mockery of a bird on its perch, but as she exploded into the office, guns blazing, it took to the air with a shriek and a buffeting sweep of its wings.

Cinder snarled, ducking out of Miló’s path with a sinuous ease, like a snake. “Fool,” she hissed. “Ozpin is gone. He holds no power over you, and the powers were never yours, this isn’t your fight—”

“You’re wrong.” Pyrrha’s voice was flat and cold as she stared at Cinder. Every nerve in her body humming with an eerie calm, she pulled Miló back to her grip with a flash of her semblance. “For every soul you hurt tonight and every destiny you manipulated in your own hunger for power, it is another reason for me to fight. You played with fate as if it was yours to control… mine and Penny’s and all the people who suffered tonight because of you. So I ask you: how can you think that destinies are for you to meddle with? A true warrior knows that destiny is never defined, and I choose my own path. This is what I choose, and you’ll never take Vale or another person’s fate as long as I live!”

Cinder’s lips curved upward, as if Pyrrha’s words were amusing. “You remind me of him a bit,” she said, a strange note in her voice, like a purr. “The same unfailing faith in your own will. The same belief in the eventual triumph of what was good.” The smile fell from her face. “But Ozpin’s beliefs didn’t save him in the end. His arrogance came to nothing. His strength didn’t save him. Nor shall yours.”

Pyrrha struck, then, flashing her spear out as Cinder summoned a burst of flame to dance in her hands, giving her face a ghostly, haunted look. She knocked Miló away with a snarl of anger, but Pyrrha summoned it back, and they stared at each other, each sizing the other up. They both circled each other, like hawks, like two predators locked in some ancient hunt. The distant shrieking of the wyvern echoed through the Tower, and then, as one, they struck, and Pyrrha could almost imagine a clap of thunder echoing through Vale as they smashed into each other.

Fire scorched Pyrrha’s back as she landed several hard strikes, and she flipped back, using the force to launch herself off the wall, feet planted firmly on Akoúo̱’s center. She flew forward like a bullet shot from a gun, the shield backed by her weight, but Cinder blocked her with a shove of her arms. Pyrrha’s chest heaved as she fought for breath, and then she gasped; Cinder was hovering in the center of the Tower, actually hovering in midair, like some magic levitating trick, but twisted, horrible and wrong. Fire burned under her feet, the awful beauty of autumn’s fire emanating from her eyes, golden glory blazing forth in the shadows.

“You see,” she rasped, “this is the power he promised you, the power he lied of, what he kept smothered and shrouded in secrecy, what was never yours—”

Snarling, Pyrrha charged, cutting off Cinder’s words mid-sentence. With a flick of her fingers, Cinder spun around, her hand flashing out as she sent forth an arc of fire that dived forward like a snake, spitting sparks. Forced to dodge it, Pyrrha rolled to the side before crying out as another stream of fire shot towards her. She jumped over it, landing on both feet, planted apart on the ground. She looked up, eyes streaming from the heat and smoke now curling through the room, but her whole body felt as though it was made of ice. A deep chill settled in her veins.

Six balls of seething, shifting fire had formed behind Cinder, casting a deadly red halo of light across her hair, a net of scarlet dancing across her skin. With a laugh lost in the roar of the flame, she flung them forward, and Pyrrha whirled and danced, barely avoiding them. She screamed aloud in frustration as she saw Cinder had moved yet again, the fire still shivering beneath her feet like a compass point.

Another stream of fire dove forward from the Maiden’s hands, a thick band of writhing lava, and this time, Pyrrha, with a muttered prayer, grasped Akoúo̱ and thrust herself forward into the midst of the fire, knowing Cinder wouldn’t expect it.

The minute she hit the roaring, spitting inferno, her Aura shivered with the effort of keeping her skin intact, but she could still feel the flame licking her skin, singeing it, as it spilled past Akoúo̱’s edges and spattered against her. Every pain she had ever endured, times ten, twenty, a hundred— every fight— nothing had been so hard as this, and her breath burned in her lungs, like acid, the smoke blinding her. She slammed into Cinder and immediately capitalized on her proximity, using Miló to assault Cinder with a flurry of slashes and jabs until her arm was streaming bright-red blood, tatters of skin hanging off her arm, mixing the reek of coppery blood with the sharp scent of smoke. Cinder swore loudly, grabbing Miló, her hands wrapping around the blade. It was clearly painful— her teeth bared in a rictus, a terrible grin of agony, but she powered through, blood welling from her hands and running down Miló’s glimmering golden length as she seized the blade and pulled it towards her, forcing Pyrrha to move with it, until her back was to Cinder. With a howl, Cinder kicked her right in the spine, sending her to her knees. Another kick sent Pyrrha crashing through a spindly table into the stone wall of the office.

Groaning, she struggled to her feet, the cold adrenaline of battle surging through her veins. She was bleeding now, but by no means beaten, and as she stared at Cinder, stared into her fiery amber eyes, she was struck by a feeling of power, illimitable power. She didn’t think for a second she could win this— not she, mortal as she was, reckoned against the pure power of a season— but there was only one thought in her head: I am doing this because I have to, and it will be enough.

It has to be.

Cinder flew forward, dipping low to the ground before skyrocketing upwards, taking Pyrrha with her. They grappled briefly in midair, each strike sending a shockwave through Pyrrha’s Aura, and a brief flash of terror flickered through her . What if she couldn’t do it? What if her sacrifice was in vain, and she couldn’t cripple Cinder enough to stop her, what if she couldn’t save the Tower, or Vale, or her friends, or any of it?

No, she thought fiercely. It is enough, because I am strong enough! I was the candidate for the Maiden’s powers. I will stop her!

She delivered several hard kicks to Cinder’s face, making her screech in pain and release Pyrrha, who plummeted the floor like a dropped stone. Landing on her feet, she upturned Miló, throwing it at Cinder, who deflected it with a wall of fire that roared up out of nowhere. Pyrrha called it back to her side, charging forward in a run as Cinder landed, and used the momentum to flip the Maiden’s body over and slam her into the floor.

But she underestimated the strength of the other woman, and Cinder did a back-hand-spring, landing on her feet. Desperate now, Pyrrha hurtled forward again, slamming her shield into Cinder’s skull as hard as she could and crying out as Cinder delivered a retaliating, stabbing blow to her abdomen, but she did not recoil from it. Pyrrha hit back just as hard, making the Maiden stumble, and as she staggered back, Pyrrha smacked Cinder’s hand with the blunt end of her spear, and then ducked around to slash her other hand with the blade. As Cinder hissed in pain, Pyrrha spun around and stabbed at her stomach.

She retaliated, scorching a blaze across Pyrrha’s arm with a spear of fire. Crying out in pain, Pyrrha gritted her teeth and snapped around to attack again, but Cinder was quick, too quick; she reached out and gripped Pyrrha’s shoulders, dragging her forward like she weighed no more than a rag doll. Still holding on, her fingers digging into Pyrrha’s shoulders hard enough to draw blood, Cinder performed a backflip, knocking her into the air. Pyrrha righted herself midair, hurling her spear towards Cinder, who dissipated six fireballs to knock it away. A look of surprised annoyance flashed across her opponent’s face as Akoúo̱ quickly followed Miló, nearly bashing her across the forehead, and she ducked it. Pyrrha summoned both her weapons back as she fell from the air, hands pulsing with polarity.

As she landed, Pyrrha launched herself towards Cinder and put her in a headlock, tackling her to the ground. They turned in midair, grappling like two wild animals, fighting to be the one on top, and as they smashed into the ground, a cloud of dust plumed up around them.

Pyrrha took advantage of the thick swirling silt to tighten her grip around Cinder’s neck, feeling her swallow against the blade as she choked with the applied pressure.

“Get up,” Pyrrha rasped, her voice sounding horribly strangled as she staggered to her feet, still squeezing her grip around the Maiden’s throat. She could feel her heartbeat under her palms, the age-old bloodlust of the warrior, the urge to drive down on that heartbeat until it ceased to be. “Get up, or I will kill you.”

Cinder got to her feet in one fluid motion, not struggling against Pyrrha’s grip on her neck. “Kill me as you killed another tonight?” she whispered, laughing coldly. “Or does a body without a soul not count?”

“Penny had a soul,” Pyrrha spat. “It’s you who doesn’t.”

At that, Cinder stopped laughing, and they both paused, at a standstill, both seeking a way out of the position. Cinder suddenly stiffened, and Pyrrha turned to look at what had caught her attention.

The wyvern had been circling high above the Tower during their battle, and now— at her bidding, perhaps?— it circled around and suddenly shot forward, veering up at the last second and barely avoiding hitting the summit. Pyrrha turned back to look at Cinder, who had begun to shift her position during Pyrrha’s distraction.

There was a smile on her face, a cold, quiet, amused smile, like they both shared a mysterious secret, and she did not struggle against Pyrrha’s tightening chokehold. Her hands were curled gently across Miló, holding it as one would hold something precious— not gripping as they had before, so that the blade cut and sliced at her palms and drew blood. She was barely resting her hands upon the metal this time, but Pyrrha realized what she was doing moments before it took effect, and she was too late to stop her.

Miló snapped into unusable quarters of metal, just as Pyrrha had done to Penny, destroyed parts of what had once been whole and functioning. The edges were still glowing with superficial heat, and the pieces of her broken weapon clattered to the ground. Pyrrha staggered back as Cinder took advantage of her distraction to elbow her in the chest before hurling her body backward. She went flying, hitting the back wall with a loud cracking noise, her skull slamming backward and sending waves of darkness lancing across her vision. Sliding to the ground, she let out a low moan, her vision hazy. But even with the darkness, she could see an emerald glow suddenly suffuse the room, followed by a great ripping sound, the noise of stone being rended from stone. Blinking away agony, she looked up, and gasped.

She was not met by the sight of the circular roof, but rather, the great expanse of the snowy night sky, filled with a mixture of wind-torn shreds of cloud, and stars. There was a crashing noise from far below her, and she knew it was the roof— cogs, gears, and stones— hitting the ground, followed by the CCT’s transmitter. The wyvern had hit the tower, and with it, it had knocked off the roof of the office, and the CCT transmitter.

A burst of sheer terror exploded in her chest. No. No, no, no… I failed! The Tower… Ozpin said the Tower mustn’t fall, and it has…

But she could not continue the train of thought; Cinder was staring at her, fire bubbling up from her bloody palms once more. Pyrrha sensed she was not about to strike; she was waiting, so the first move was up to her. Staring up at her, seeing the power that she so obviously held and controlled with ease, Pyrrha felt doubt thrum through her. She had never been afraid she might lose  a fight— never. But tonight was a night full of new experiences, and pain was making her movements sluggish, slowing her blood, clouding her mind.

“This is folly,” Cinder said, shaking away blood from her arm impatiently, as if the wound Pyrrha had inflicted was merely an annoyance, a pest. “Star-child. Did Ozpin make you believe you were special? You were only ever a pawn in his game and mine. The only difference is that I am honest enough to admit it to you.”

Pyrrha snarled. “I know you’re a murderer. A liar. A traitor. You killed Penny and Ozpin without any remorse.”

Cinder smiled. “Even for one like you, the pinnacle of virtue, the strongest of Huntresses, you who manipulates fate even with your semblance… to fight a Maiden is to die.”

The only fate I ever controlled was my own. “You fought Amber once,” Pyrrha whispered instead. “When you were mortal, as I am. They told me. And you lived.”

Something like surprise flashed over her face, before cold cruelty replaced it. “A weak Maiden, such as Amber,” she growled, “had no mastery of her incredible powers, no chance, no chance of winning against someone like me. It was only right for me to possess them; I would use them in far more powerful ways than she could have dreamed of. And if I beat her without the powers, on my own merits… what exactly are you expecting to do here, when I am far more powerful than any mortal has ever been?” Cinder lowered herself to the ground, her amber eyes glowing. “If you leave now, there is a chance you could survive, child, but if you do not, there is none. Do you truly believe that tonight will go down as anything but the first tragedy of Remnant, the night a Huntress child died, the night Vale succumbed to what was stronger than it?”

“It’s not certain,” Pyrrha said desperately. “The Huntsmen and Huntresses might not lose. They could rally.”

Cinder smiled. “That’s a chance you could take,” she said. “But listen. They have come to Vale now, those who create the shadows between the stars. They are drawn to places of slaughter and sorrow. Can you see?”

Pyrrha looked out the windows, and so did Cinder, seeing the wyvern circling high above them, a great black shadow that blotted out the stars. All sorts of Grimm fell from the length of its body, Taijitus and Beowolves and Ursai and Griffons, howling as they tasted the blood and misery in the air…

While Cinder was gazing out the window, Pyrrha struck. She lunged for Cinder, driving downward with her weapon, pinning her and burying the metal in the flesh near her shoulder. Blood bubbled up from the wound, turning her red dress redder. With a shriek of rage and pain, Cinder kicked her off, flipping to her feet with true fury now burning in her eyes, fire spitting sparks from them.

She shot up into the air, her lips drawn back in a terrible snarl as she flung barbs of fire at Pyrrha, one after the other so quickly that Pyrrha could not dodge them. The office was ablaze now in a whirling inferno, fire crawling up the walls, racing across the floor.

Pyrrha rolled out of the way of two rapid-fire blasts of flame thrown her way, but she wasn’t quick enough as a third blast of fire smashed her in the chest, sending her tumbling backward. With a scream of agony, she slammed into the wall before springing to her feet as the floor beneath her caught light, embers spilling out across the ground.

If I can distract her and make her think I’m doing something other than what I am…

It was a longshot, but it was the only thing she had left. Using one hand, muscles trembling with the strain, Pyrrha concentrated on using her polarity to raise every ounce of heavy metal in the office. While she did so, she squinted through the rising wall of flame, lifted Akoúo̱, and with a deep breath, flung it through the rippling orange wall.

Cinder backhanded the shield away with ease, smirking at the apparently weak move and at the same moment, Pyrrha swiped her own hand through the air and sent every bit of metal toppling on top of Cinder, burying her under a shining pile of silver and gold.

A scream of rage echoed from its center, and Pyrrha’s eyes widened as it began to glow red-hot, like a massive ember. The metal began to melt and fuse, and then, with explosive force, one of the cogs exploded outward, bearing down upon her. Cinder erupted from the center of the melted metal, swooping upward like an angel in flight, and still the gear was coming, flipping end over end. She turned to flee out of the way, but she was not fast enough, and it slammed into her side, knocking her backward. It crushed her under its weight and she hit her back against the broken pillar of the office with a scream, sliding to her knees, barely managing to stay conscious as a black, jagged wave of darkness flickered across her vision.

And with all the strain she had put on it— using her semblance, not being fast enough to avoid heavy hits from Cinder— her Aura buckled and shattered. Pyrrha staggered, gasping under the sudden fatigue that overwhelmed her.

Cinder’s teeth glittered as she bared them, breath rasping harshly in the sudden silence. Pyrrha thought she might be laughing— laughing at the foolish Huntress girl, throwing away her life to buy her kingdom time. “Foolish girl,” she repeated. “Do you honestly think you can win?”

With her Aura expired, everything seemed fuzzy, her limbs suddenly weighed down by heavy exhaustion. She was mortal now. Every strike to hit her would leave a wound. She fought for breath, struggling to her feet, the question bouncing through her skull— but she already knew. Miló was gone, and only Akoúo̱ was left now; she knew she couldn’t win. That wasn’t the purpose of it. She kept fighting anyways, because she had to. For Amber, for Ozpin, for Beacon, for Vale, for the world, for Jaune. She didn’t stop, wouldn’t stop, down to the last breath, even when she knew each breath could be her last.

“No,” she breathed, before running before and flinging Akoúo̱ out before her, one final stand.