#thinking about her (the flame nebula)

[actual-changeling]

Crowley screamed for Her when he fell because She wasn't the one who cast him out, she couldn't have been; the love so bright it blinded him whenever he reached for it was real, is real, it has to be.

He did not scream for God or the Almighty, he cried for his Mother, the one who had smiled at him with a tenderness unlike any other and named him Starmaker.

They rushed by him, his stars, when he fell, colourful streaks blurred by the tears in his eyes as the grace defining his every cell left him, scream after scream. Crowley called for Her, seeing blinding white taking shape, and he dared to hope, stretching out an arm right before the flames of hell swallowed him whole.

In his weakest moments, curled up on the concrete of his balcony with his face bared to the sky, he tries to believe that a hand, slender and familiar, had been reaching for him. Tries to believe that She still loves him, that She never left him even though he left Her.

Crowley stretches one hand skywards, watching the stars twinkle between his fingers, and all he has left to offer is a whisper, the same question that ripped him away from everything good, everything light.

"Why?"

Every time, he asks. Every time, all he receives is silence, and then he waits until dawn washes away his creations. Crowley unfurls his wings on those mornings, presses them to cold concrete and metal in a doomed attempt to try and soothe the ever-present burn caught in his feathers.

If he closes his eyes, dizzy with uncried tears and cramping muscles, the morning sun slowly warming on his face, it almost feels like it did back then when he was tumbling through nebulae and constellations; rage and disappointment both so laced with fear they became one and the same.

Sometimes, when the tethers connecting him to hell and earth are two shackles holding him down, he thinks about flying as high as he possibly can just to let go and feel the air rushing through his feathers - so he can pretend there is nothing waiting for him, nothing but stars and more stars, and empty spaces for him to fill.

When he inevitably moves, his wings stiff but momentarily soothed, he remembers that he doesn't need to do anything at all to reclaim that feeling. It is enough to drive too fast with too much fizzling rage only to let himself be broken apart by his longing when Aziraphale is always, always an arm's length away.

Crowley lies on his back, the Bentley cold beneath him, one hand stretched out to the sky, reaching for the stars, reaching for him, his eyes violet, his lips familiar.

Sometimes he still thinks he can see Her reaching for him as his wings wither and his stars burn.

Sometimes he thinks he can see his angel looking back, his tears blinking comets burning up in the atmosphere.

Sometimes he thinks he never stopped falling.

-

edit: now with amazing art by @ghoullerr 💚💚

[1800titz]

Potential…. apocalypse AU… maybe coming to patreon this week?

The wagging flame dances in the gloam of his eyes. Molten. Flinty with burnt orange— unwavering. Staid, despite his next words.

They’re blunt. Crude. Tit for tat, verbalized with the same indifference of handing cash over a counter—

(Nobody rides coattails, anymore, not in this world. Quid pro quo— a transactional proposition of his offer, days ago.)

“I think it’s about time you suck my cock.”

Her mouthful gets stuck to the back of her throat. Clogs her windpipe, on her gasp, until she’s coughing, twisted, spewing kidney beans onto the loam. Y/N wipes the back of her shuddering hand against her mouth, rheumy-eyed.

(And it’d be a shit denouement, wouldn’t it? Quietus, at the edge of a rotting world, choking on her food.)

His eyes list. The fork scrapes the bottom of the can— a portentous, hollowed click of metal on metal. “…Don’t you think?”

Her face spumes with heat, the back of her throat still raw, closing (on the words that bubble there, tangled).

Until, finally— “Sorry?”

“…Quid pro quo. I—“

Detached negotiation— a trade in the esse of …whatever she can offer, sloppy and slick. And that’s the pinnacle of mutualism, today, isn’t it? When mankind disintegrates and reverts, the raw remnants are what they are at the core; ironclad— animals.

“Feed you. Keep you warm. Give you a place to rest your head for the night. And you…”

There’s stardust in the glint of his teeth. Bared in the proxy of something friendly, when really, maybe, they just ache to snap and consume. The constellation of her purpose, unfulfilled, in the film over his heady eyes. Jet polynyas, blown. Mirrors for the fire when his voice croons in a honeyed char, treacle over embers—

And, that’s the thing, isn’t it? What her cosmos dealt to her— him, in the ashy nebula of existence.

“You give me the view of a pretty girl between my legs. A wet mouth on my cock.”

[cuubism]

a time of need

Hob’s having what he’d thought would be an easy Sunday, puttering around the house catching up on chores and rest, when the worst headache he’s ever had splits down the middle of his skull.

It’s worse, even, than the time he’d taken an actual cleaver to the forehead, and woken up two days later still unable to see out of one eye. Hob’s hands shake and he barely manages to make it to the couch before he collapses. He shuts his eyes in agony and—

--then he’s in the Dreaming. So fast, between one blink and the next. And he knows, instinctively, that he was called here, by Dream or by the Dreaming itself. But he’s never been called like that, with a call full of such pain.

He staggers to his feet in the throne room. The sky high overhead, usually a placid field of stars, is swirling with red star matter, like the Dreaming has fallen into the heart of a nebula. It casts a crimson sheen over everything.

Lucienne is hurrying towards him, steps clicking sharply on the marble floor. “Hob? You should not be here. Lord Morpheus has closed off the heart of the Dreaming.”

“Trust me, it wasn’t intentional.” Hob takes in the deep creases in her expression as she reaches him. “What’s going on?”

“We are under attack.” She squeezes his arm, imploring. “You must go.”

“Under attack? What, Hell?” Hob remembers Dream mentioning it had happened before.

Lucienne shakes her head. “No. I do not know the details.”

A cavernous boom! echoes through the hall, shaking the walls. Lightning streaks across the sky, jagged scars that leave harsh afterimages in Hob’s vision. He pales at the sound. “Is he taking them on – whoever they are – by himself?”

“The dreams and nightmares are helping as best suits this kind of fight. But you must go.”

Hob shakes his head. “No, he called me for a reason. Where is he?”

“Hob—”

“Lucienne. Please.”

She relents, still troubled. “He is outside the palace gates, I know not precisely where. You will be drawn to the nexus of his power, I am sure.”

That’s good enough for Hob. He runs down the palace steps and across the bridge to the gates, reaching them much faster than he thinks should probably be reasonable, but then again he is in the Dreaming. The gates open to let him out, and then clank shut behind him.

The feeling of power is much stronger out here, as if the palace and its grounds had been held in a protective bubble. Lucienne was right about Dream’s power drawing him in; Hob finds him easily, standing at the bank of a river that seems to now be flowing with lava instead of water, and he’s just— just surrounded by… creatures.

Hob can’t define them any better than creatures, they are amorphous and shifting, claws and teeth and legs and wings emerging then disappearing again. He wonders why they haven’t gone to flank the palace, attack from all sides, before realizing that just as Dream’s power has drawn Hob in, it is also drawing the creatures to him. Making him the only target.

He isn’t carrying a weapon or even wearing armor or anything, and Hob’s heart pounds as he runs to him, and—

A creature leaps for Dream’s throat. Dream reaches into the air – into a dream? – his arm disappearing, yanks, and pulls a ribbon of flames straight through the creature’s body, throwing it out across the landscape. Grass scorches, and the other beasts in the fire’s path screech.

Another is leaping at his back, hundreds of teeth appearing from the shrouded mass of it in midair. Hob’s about to shout a warning, but no need. Dream turns, flings open his coat. The creature barrels in and falls into the swirling galaxies in the lining, its shriek cutting off sharply.

More run for him. Dream disappears into a dream, then reappears seconds later, a good twenty meters from where he’d been.

On the edge of a cliff.

A cliff which the beasts that charge for him hurtle off of, a cliff which was definitely not there before, because Dream brought it with him from the dream, mother of God, how is Hob even supposed to help here at all?

Well, fuck it. He’s got to try, doesn’t he?

As soon as he thinks it, there’s a sword in his hand. Dream doesn’t make note of his presence, but he must know Hob’s there, mustn’t he? Dream called him there, though God knows why.

Regardless, the creatures are so focused on Dream that Hob is able to take out two of them with his blade before they even notice he’s there.

They don’t… die, in the way he’d expect. They sort of scream and explode into dust, drifting off in the wind. He hopes they aren’t just going to reform or something.

“You are creatures of warmth,” Hob hears Dream say, across the field, to the rest of the creatures. It seems like there are more, not less, like they’re multiplying. God. “Please enjoy my warmest hospitality.”

A vicious blizzard descends on them. 

Snow whips in wild gusts across the landscape, ice biting Hob’s cheeks. He can’t see Dream very well anymore. He hears a splash and a creature howling, and imagines Dream must have pulled a frozen lake from a dream about ice skating, or perhaps from a nightmare about drowning. 

He makes his way towards Dream, determined to stay by him so he has someone at his back, even if that someone is Hob, whose powers here are meager in comparison to Dream’s.

He finds creatures in the snow and slaughters them, all of his sword work from decades past coming back to him. They come at him with fangs and claws and tails bristling with spines, but Hob isn’t afraid. His desperation to keep Dream safe is far more powerful than that.

Irrational, to want to keep Dream safe in the Dreaming. But he feels it all the same.

“This is my realm,” he hears Dream growl from somewhere in the storm, voice reverberating despite the howling wind. “It bends to my wishes. But you? Let us see how you like the dark.”

And he turns off the sun.

The Dreaming is plunged into absolute, pure darkness the likes of which Hob has never seen. There’s no moon, no stars. Hob blinks and throws his hands out, trying to balance.

And then realizes…

He can see.

Somehow. Not with his eyes, quite. But with some kind of direction at the back of his head, like the Dreaming itself is guiding him. Neat, that. Also quite likely to drive him mad if it lasts for any amount of time.

He follows the direction of Dream’s voice and finally gets close enough to see him again. There are still so many damn creatures, where are they even coming from? They are blundering now, in the dark, but must have other senses for they’re still managing to, eventually, turn for Dream. Hob watches him turn the ground beneath a group of them into quicksand. They scream and flail as they sink.

“Do you not tire?” Dream asks, idly. “Do you not relent? That is disappointing, for I tire. Of gravity, in particular.”

The realm turns upside down.

Hob’s feet stay planted on the grass as his brain spins wildly to reorient itself, but the creatures aren’t so lucky. They go tumbling down – or up? – into the air, screaming. Hob wonders if Dream’s just accidentally done the same to the entire realm, but no— looking behind him, he can see the core of the Dreaming, the palace, all the residences, still oriented the same way. Opposite to them. What in--?

Maintaining two sets of opposing gravities at once seems to be costing Dream. His chest heaves. He flips them back over again, pushing his sweaty hair back from his face. The sun pops back up into the sky, too, which is… Hob decides to interrogate it later and just be grateful for the light.

“Dream!” Hob calls, as soon as his dizziness subsides.

Dream spins to him, seeming startled. “Hob?” 

So then he didn’t realize Hob was there, at least not consciously. By the time Hob reaches his side, the sword has dissolved from his grasp. “Fuck. That was… insane. Are you okay?”

Dream looks at him, brow furrowed. The rushing winter winds die down as their eyes meet, leaving drifts of snow behind. “Why are you here? You should not be here, it is not safe. I have closed off the heart of the Dreaming. How?”

“You… called me?” Hob says. “I think.” 

Dream’s frown deepens. “I do not… recall. Regardless, you must go. The Dreaming is not safe at present.”

“Why? Isn’t the fight over?”

“No.” Dream looks out at the horizon. A wave of sickly, mixed colors is growing there, like oil spreading across the sky. “The real fight has yet to begin.”

“What? What about all those creatures?”

“Those were scouts. Hunting dogs.” Dream huffs. “Their masters thought perhaps they would get lucky and catch me unawares, not have to dirty their hands. Foolish. They will pay for it.”

Hob looks around, horrified, as that oil keeps spreading upward from the horizon. With it, a wave of what Hob can only describe as grayscale follows across the landscape. Color leaches out of everything and disappears. Dream watches this, expression tight but measured, following the arc of the spread.

“Aren’t you going to do something?” Hob asks.

“Let them expend their energy. Color is immaterial, I will restore it later.” 

“Lure them into complacency?” Hob guesses, faint.

Dream nods. He looks even more dramatic with no warmth to his skin, all stark black and white lines. 

“What are they? The invaders?” Hob asks.

Dream hums. “The closest waking world corollary would be… bacteria. It is a sickness, of sorts. They would infect and devour us.”

Hob means to say something intelligent but what comes out of his mouth is, “Bacteria have hunting dogs?”

“Well, they hardly have teeth of their own,” says Dream. 

Hob shakes his head, as if that could possibly help to clear it. “And you’re going to fight these things on your own?”

“My dreams and nightmares are already helping me by letting me pull from them, so that I do not have to create everything from scratch,” says Dream. He watches as the oil spill completes its transit of the sky. The only color now is the swirling above them. “This is not a fight of physical prowess. You must leave.”

“I can’t die, Dream.”

“I would not see your mind shredded on my behalf.”

“Is that going to happen if the Dreaming doesn’t fall?” 

Dream frowns. “Not… likely. And the Dreaming will not fall. I will not let it.”

“Then it’s settled,” Hob says.

Dream sighs. “You are monumentally stubborn.”

“That’s what got me this far in the first place. Can’t stop now.” 

That pulls a tiny smile from Dream. “No. I suppose not.”

A shudder runs through the landscape, vibrating under Hob’s feet. Then another, like the ground itself is shivering. Hob shifts to maintain his balance, as he might once have on the deck of a ship. Dream doesn’t move at all, like the shivers travel right through him.

The air goes hot, then cold, then blazingly hot again, struggling with itself. The snow around them starts to steam. Dream’s jaw clenches, and the temperature drops violently once again, below freezing. Hob’s breath fogs in the air.

Dream is glaring at the horizon. “Stay present,” he tells Hob, in the tone one might use to call, On your guard!

Never bring a sword to a battle of minds, Hob thinks deliriously. His blade hasn’t rematerialized, and it would be useless anyway. Hob himself feels useless, but like hell will he leave Dream’s side.

“How did they even get in?” he asks.

“The boundaries of the Dreaming are porous to permit the passage of dreamers,” says Dream. “Unsavory things sometimes slip in as well.”

“Often?”

Dream’s eyes glint. “Only when enough time has passed that the folly in doing so has been forgotten.”

It’s in moments like this that Hob really thinks about how old Dream is. It’s easier to conceptualize his age in this way, funnily enough. An ancient lord once again protecting his kingdom from invaders is something Hob’s mind can grasp, even if the timescale in this case is absurdly long.

“Going to teach them a lesson, then?”

Dream smiles, slow and predatory; Hob sees in it the nightmare of every prey animal that has ever dashed through a dark forest, fleeing the gleaming of teeth. “Oh, yes.”

He closes his eyes. His fingers flutter at his side, like he’s plucking the strings of an invisible harp. Snow lifts in swirls around them, though there’s no longer any wind. Another shiver runs through the ground.

“What are you going to do?” Hob asks, at a whisper. He doesn’t know why he whispers; it just seems right in the face of the approaching power storm.

“There are known ways to destroy a waking world bacterium,” Dream says. His eyes are still shut, brow furrowed in concentration. “Burn it out, freeze it out. Take away its sustenance. Make the environment unsustainable for it. But bacteria that feasts on dream matter cannot be destroyed by something as simple as temperature; the temperature is, after all, a part of the Dreaming itself. It can gorge itself on the heat and cold as easily as on anything else.” 

“So what will you do, then?” Hob asks.

Dream’s lips quirk up in a smug smile. “I am the Dreaming,” he says, not actually answering the question. “They cannot have me. If they insist on having me, then I will simply not exist at all.”

Before Hob can so much as say wait!, Dream's power screams into being around them more tangibly than Hob’s ever felt it, the air charging up with electricity, the fabric of the realm warbling around them. His ears pop with the pressure change, a whine pitching higher and higher in the atmosphere and making him wince, and Dream’s form fuzzes in and out like TV static.

Dream’s hands rise at his sides like he’s finding his balance in the shifting world around them, or perhaps conducting the dreams in an invisible orchestra. He hums, pleased with whatever he can feel rumbling through his power. Then he presses his hands outward.

Hob… doesn’t know exactly what happens, then. 

It’s like everything blinks out, then back on again, like turning on and off a light switch. It’s so quick his body doesn’t even react until several seconds later, when a tremor of unease shivers up his spine. For it wasn’t like before, when Dream had blacked out the sun – Hob would swear that in that millisecond of darkness he felt nothing, not the ground under his feet, or the air he was breathing, or his own clothes against his skin. He’s not even sure he existed in that moment.

Everything around him is exactly the same, except that those threads of oily color circling the sky have disappeared. Just like that, gone, the bacteria dead, or at least banished, and Hob has no idea what Dream even did.

Everything in the Dreaming looks the exact same--

--except Dream.

Dream looks like he tumbled down a cliff then ran ten kilometers through bramble bushes. His hair is falling in clumps over his forehead, his long coat torn, his forehead prickling with sweat. His nose is bleeding, the red of it shockingly bright as color leeches back into the gray landscape, though he pays it no mind as it trickles over his lips. His hands are shaking where he holds them out, fingers now closed into fists.

“Any of you who have survived,” he snarls, glaring up at the sky, presumably speaking to the remaining bacteria, “carry a message home to your people. Enter my realm again, touch a single one of its inhabitants, and I will personally unmake your entire species. Do not test me.”

Is unmaking a species even in Dream’s power? Hob wouldn’t have thought so, but he wouldn’t care to test that theory right now, were he the species in question.

Dream wavers, then, and Hob just barely manages to lurch forward fast enough to catch him as he falls. He goes to his knees in the snow, and Dream collapses against him, shaking horribly. He coughs, a horrible, wet sound, and blood spatters Hob’s shirt.

Hob’s heart jumps into his throat. “ Dream —” He tries to get him down onto his side, but Dream clenches his hands weakly in Hob’s shirt.

“I will be—” he starts, and is cut off by more coughing, blood dripping from his lips. “Fine, in—” Another spasm of coughing. A tremor shakes violently through him.

“Shhh.” Hob holds him close. “I got you.”

Dream heaves for breath. He feels feverishly hot, now, sweating and shivering. “What the hell did you even do? ” Hob asks, running a hand over his back, a bit frantically.

“I unmade the Dreaming,” Dream says, each word a wheeze, “ripped it back into-- into its original grains of sand. Thus. Expelling the bacteria. Into the void that surrounds us, where it-- cannot survive. And then I put- put the Dreaming back, exactly as it was. It must--” he wipes blood from his mouth with a shaking hand, only succeeding in smearing it all over his cheek-- “must be done in an instant. To avoid causing harm.”

“What?” Hob breathes, a vast understatement for the horror and awe that he feels. “Dream, what?”

“Breaking my ruby gave-- gave me back power I hadn’t-- hadn’t seen in eons.” He coughs once, hard, spitting up more blood onto Hob’s shirt. “Nevertheless, I may be… down here for a while.” 

Hob smoothes a hand over his shivering chest. “It doesn’t seem like it’s avoided causing harm.”

“Causing no- no damage is impossible, but I managed to contain it within-” he wheezes-- “within my- aspect- and not the rest of the Dreaming.” 

“I didn’t even know you could bleed,” Hob says faintly. It’s more disconcerting than feeling the world unravel around him to see Dream shaking and coughing up blood. He’s heard that Dream was weakened when he first escaped his long imprisonment, before he’d recovered his tools, but this is on another level. 

“Usually, I cannot,” says Dream, which doesn’t help at all.

“Alright, let’s get you down, then.” Hob maneuvers Dream to lie on his side on the ground. Dream rests his head in Hob’s lap, eyelids fluttering. Around them, the world seems to waver, and then stabilizes again. 

Dream feels it, too, and says, “Worry not. The realm is stable. It is merely. Reacting to me.”

“My concern’s really you right now, love,” Hob says, running a hand through Dream’s hair. “Though it’s good the place isn’t going to collapse.”

Dream hums at his touch, closing his eyes. His breathing’s evened out, but it doesn’t seem like he’ll be getting back up under his own muster anytime soon.

It’s not long before footsteps crunch in the snow behind them, wingbeats by their side. “My lord!”

“Lucienne.” Dream’s voice is a low rumble against Hob’s thigh. “Matthew.”

“Boss!” Matthew lands on the ground beside them, Lucienne reaching them a few moments after. Matthew’s gaze catches on the blood on Hob’s shirt and he says, “You hurt, Hob?”

Hob shakes his head and nods toward Dream. Matthew squawks in alarm, feathers puffing up, and flies up to land on Dream’s shoulder, nudging at his hair with his beak.

“I am fine, Matthew,” Dream says without opening his eyes. It’s somewhat unconvincing considering how hoarse his voice comes out, and the fact that one of his ears is now bleeding.

Hob is… fairly convinced that he will be fine, once he’s rested. Fairly. 

“Just put himself through the ringer, that’s all,” he says, wiping the blood that’s trailing from Dream’s ear away with his sleeve. “We’ll go home, get some food in you, have a nice bath, and get some rest, hm?”

Dream hums in agreement. “Lucienne, how fare the dreams?”

“Everyone is frightened, but safe,” she reports, then adds, sounding fond, “They were a bit confused by the sun going out.”

“Yeah, that was an interesting party trick,” Hob agrees, and Dream chuckles.

It’s still bloody cold out here, post-blizzard. Hob doesn’t trust Dream’s usual I don’t feel temperatures excuse when he’s so drained of power, so ripped apart. 

He gathers Dream up in his arms again, wrapping his coat tighter around him. “Let’s get you in from the cold.” 

“So… we’re just not gonna talk about that moment when we all went to the shadow realm, then,” Matthew caws as Hob gets to his feet, lifting Dream up with him. “Do I want to know what that was?”

“Probably not,” Hob tells him, as Dream says, “Hob Gadling, I am capable of walking.”

“Uh-huh,” Hob says with no confidence. “Sure, love. Just indulge me. Consider it some kind of foreplay for later, if it makes you feel better.”

Matthew mutters, “Ick,” but Dream smiles and relents.

“Much later,” Hob warns him. “Mister Coughing-Up-Blood.” 

Dream rolls his eyes, but allows Hob to carry him.

Fortunately, it’s not far – the Dreaming transports them quickly back to the palace, though with less certainty in the movement than usual. “Lucienne,” Dream says as Hob divests him of his long coat and lays him in his bed. He looks like he’s about to try to pop back up, and Hob presses a hand to his shoulder, subtly keeping him down. “Please instruct everyone to let me know immediately if they find anything awry. The realm is cleansed, but I do not like to take chances.”

She inclines her head in understanding, casting a small smile in Hob’s direction, too, for good measure. Presumably for his efforts in keeping Dream lying down.

Matthew lands on Dream’s knee. “Seriously, boss, you good? I don’t know what was going on exactly, but whatever it was felt… not great.”

“I am ‘good,’” Dream confirms. “Some amount of damage is usually sustained in fighting off an illness, is it not?”

“If that’s how you want to put it,” Matthew says.

“I’ll look after him,” Hob reassures them both.

They take their leave then, Matthew giving Hob a little salute with his wing, and then Hob and Dream are alone. Hob slips Dream’s boots off, laying a blanket over him, then sits beside him on the bed, resting a hand on his chest. “Are you feeling any better?” he asks. “You have to let me know if it gets worse, I’m dead serious, Dream.” 

“I’m not certain what weight that carries when you cannot die,” Dream says.

Hob raises an eyebrow. “Try it and find out. Now, still.” 

He finds a damp cloth – thanks, Dreaming �� and starts wiping the blood from Dream’s lips, and his hands. 

“I see now why the Dreaming called you here,” Dream muses. “No one else would dare speak to me in this manner.”

“The Dreaming called me?”

“I did not. Not intentionally. I would not have brought you into such a battle.”

“Well, I wasn’t much help anyway,” Hob observes. He tips Dream’s head up and gets him to drink some water, likewise manifested by the Dreaming. “You did all the work with your world-bending powers.”

“Perhaps you are a reward,” Dream suggests as Hob lets him lie back down. He finds Hob’s hand and kisses his fingertips. 

“Oh, yeah? A prize for your heroism?”

Dream tugs on his arm. Hob slips off his own shoes and discards his blood-splattered shirt, and obediently lies down beside him, gathering him in his arms. Dream cuddles up to him, giving a pleased hum, resting his head on Hob’s shoulder. “A comfort.”

Hob runs a hand through his hair and kisses his forehead. He still can't help but worry a bit, after everything he saw Dream do, but it's good to see him feeling more comfortable. “Sweet thing. You were very brave. Clever, too.” 

“You do not have to praise me for performing my function,” Dream grumbles.

“Yeah, but you love it.”

Dream mutters again under his breath, but doesn’t move away. Hob squeezes him tighter, and he softens again. 

“Get some rest, now,” Hob tells him.

“You will stay?”

“Course. Think I’ll abandon my king in his time of need?”

Dream hums, evidently pleased.

“But am I going to wake up with a terrible hangover after this?” Hob asks. “Whatever the Dreaming did to summon me felt like getting hit over the head with a pickaxe.”

“Maybe,” Dream says, sounding only the slightest bit chagrined about it. “It had to pull you through the barrier I had constructed.”

He tucks his nose against Hob’s throat, snuggling closer, and Hob just sighs, defeated. “Worth it, to be here for you,” he admits, and feels Dream smile.

[calmariah]

1) I am now extremely invested in the Dante/Variant connections because of your posts thank you very much

2) What are your thoughts on the whole 'nebulae' thing - from ctrl-f-ing the story log site it's come up quite a bit. Plus it references Harold's pages from Ruina

3) I am using that Dante gif forever and ever it is a gift most fine and true thank youuuuu

Thank you very much!

Putting Canto 7 and Library of Ruina related thoughts below the cut due to spoilers.

(I had no idea there was a story log site... I didn't have to fight Sancho five times...)

The nebulae mentions were something I noticed, but didn't bring up because I don't really have a clear picture on what they are.

The word nebulae comes up three times in Canto 7.

In 7-17...

SANSÓN: It is a deep, deep place where no one dares tread.

SANSÓN: The deepest part of the City, once challenged by countless adventurers, Knights, and Fixers…

SANSÓN: A quiet, terribly tranquil place inhabited only by the floating nebulae…

He refers to the Ruins, here.

In 7-36...

BARI: The war against the nebulae beyond the Outskirts is all but written.

BARI: Humanity's inability to find satisfaction is the very hunger that leads to war. It is an inevitability.

BARI: ...Look at me. Talking the ear off of someone who's about to forget everything.

And one last time in the post-credits sequence.

SANSÓN: I will spark the flame again and again should it go out.

SANSÓN: So that the fallen nebulae's homeward journey to the star may not be veiled in shadows.

SANSÓN: Once that is over and done with...

SANSÓN: ...I suppose I shall also become a sovereign of a star, guided to my promised, eternal respite.

When I saw this last mention from Sansón, I originally went "ooh, that's easy. Nebulae = Dante!"

Demian refers to Dante as "one who fell from the skies" afterwards. So 'the fallen nebulae' making a journey back home to the stars felt like it made sense.

But, no. Nebulae is plural-- nebula would be singular.

Whoever, or whatever Sansón is referring to, it's multiple people or things.

Let's look at how the word nebulae is used in Harold's key page-- which, thank you for bringing that to my attention.

"In the universe that is the City, a center of mass forms for each person who bears a wish for something, and clusters of dreams comparable to interstellar matter gravitate toward those centers.

Driven by the force people exert in their efforts to reach those goals, such nebulae repeatedly expand and contract, until they finally fulfill their wishes—creating a Star whose glow we can observe.

The people who witness the sparkle of that Star admire how brilliantly it shines in the dark, and entertain the hope that they will shine as brightly one day, making yet more centers in the universe…"

Her story uses the word nebulae to describe the 'common person' and their dreams-- motes of potential that one day might evolve into a Star of the City.

(I'd already been entertaining the thought that Dante's star as mentioned in the prologue might somehow refer to a Star of the City. I somehow don't think it's supposed to be literal.)

And indeed, this is very much how the word nebulae is used in our own reality. Floating clouds and clumps of space dust that might one day roll together into a star.

The City wouldn't have any use for such nebulae, because an individual human life is broadly viewed as meaningless.

This actually reminds me of 'Children of the City'...

"Now it's time for another vendetta Going through the shelves, picking out my prewritten persona Children of the city see only the neon stars Reflected upon the murky gutter sky Don't ask me why I desperately wish to be included in the city's night"

The City only sees the neon Stars. It doesn't need to spare a thought to the drifting nebulae, the regular faceless person.

'Children of the City' is all about how Yan feels shackled to and oppressed by the system.

"Only eat, or write, or pull the trigger with your right hand Only thing that's left is to work on following commands By the time you realize, you'll be restrained to a desk And with your dreams on the floor you comply, eyes chained to the test"

His situation is obviously heightened because he was also being led by the nose by the Prescripts. But I think his plight can broadly be felt by everyone in the City.

Or indeed, everyone out of it, too. The few drifting nebulae in the Ruins. The nebulae in the Outskirts, who the City apparently reviles and will at war with.

(...Is the war metaphorical? I have no idea...)

So, yeah. In three of the four cases it's used actually, we can still quite easily interpret it to mean 'the common person.'

The Ruins are inhabited only by the common person. It is an inert land not controlled by the City.

Bari thinks there'll be a war with the 'nebulae' beyond the Outskirts. We know from Miracle in District 20 that the Outskirts are inhabited.

The City has no use for people outside its borders, though. No use for their dreams, either.

But like Harold's key page says, every nebula has that gravitational force. A person can't survive on their own, and a person can't create a Star on their own.

Those clouds of dust-- those nebulae need to drift together and choose to stay.

And I think that's where we can understand Sansón's final use of it.

I think the 'fallen nebulae' isn't just Dante, because it can't be. I think that he refers to all thirteen of the Sinners.

Sansón did directly contribute to this step of LCB's journey. Him lodging the Golden Bough into Don Quixote's chest made La Manchaland form again.

They would've never faced Sancho's past, never helped her wake up without him.

If he does mean the Sinners, it would mean that they're all on, someway, a 'homeward journey to the star.'

Since they're all cloudy nebulae bundling together, might it imply LCB could become that star one day?

Maybe Dante's star?

To be honest, it's difficult to pin things down. Team Demian already communicates in riddles and metaphor-- and if Bari really is part of Team Demian it seems she's not entirely any better!

To conclude, I don't think nebulae refers to a specific class of entity or anything, or a specific group. I think nebulae are the common people of the City, the Ruins and the Outskirts, and the dreams they hold.

If they come together, they could make a Star.

Or... a star. Sometimes they treat the word star as a proper noun and sometimes they don't...

(That was long winded... I didn't plan or proof read this... Sorry! Asks will probably be a lot more stream of consciousness styled than my normal theory posts.)

One last time, thank you very much for sending in an ask!

[cloudyswritings]

Moth Lore: Of Blinding Light, and Malignant Flame

Alright y’all, welcome to some more Hollow knight speculative biology/lore crafting!

Slumber:

Radi and Grimm actually started out as one unified god of the dreaming realm. This god-Slumber- was a being more on par with Unn at her prime(check out my thoughts on the best slug, they’re somewhere probably) and was the functional opposite to the void. This was true both in scope, and in behavior.

notably other gods we see in canon still make use of essence and dreams(ie white palace, and godhome to and extent). All essence and the dreams of both mortals and gods alike used to fall under Slumbers ponderous gaze

Thematically Slumber opposed the void in a couple of ways. First it was bright, among the brightest of the first generation of bright gods even. Second instead of devouring ideas, people, and gods that entered it, it instead preserved them as sort of echoes(this is how the radiance clung on) functionally these echoes appear as ghosts but they’re really more like imprints on the dreaming realm. In some places these imprints punch through to the waking world, becoming wounds and sorta spilling essence out(Slumbers blood, though I think it’s probably more like how crinoids use sea water as blood basically)

Slumber, if it ever bothered to take a form, would be some sort of grub or large caterpillar(lifeblood creature?????)

It really was essentially the foil and other half to the void and so despite the differences between the two they also operated similarly, with neither really taking physical form or engaging in direct battle with one another, if anything their “fight” looked a lot like one giant chess game played over time with gods and mortals servings as the pieces. The end goal was seemingly over who could get the most gods and mortals to fall into their realm/be absorbed by them. So basically politics and a popularity contest.

Going back to the “wounds” that sometimes happen, ie dreamnail and all it’s shit with ghosts, these only began occurring with the birth of the Radiance, and represent the weakening of the borders between the dreaming and physical worlds.

See what happened is that over time “lighter” dreams sorta moved towards the outer edges of the dreaming/Slumber, and the “denser/heavier” ones got pushed towards the center, and eventually congealed into the nightmare heart.

Interestingly this makes Grimm the older sibling(kinda the heart and Grimm are very much not the same thing)

Anyway all of lighter dreams eventually accumulated into the Radiance, when she was born Slumber officially stopped existing as one deity, before her birth it just had a semi independent heart.

You’ll note both of their births parallel stars with Radiance effectively having been born from a nebula and Grim mimicking an early born red dwarf star or a small black hole.

they both parallel/represent a binary star system.

After they come into existence Slumber ceases existing, but dreams and nightmares continue to share a realm for a while.

Radiance

She has far broader range of powers compared to the heart and Grimm, this is because of how she was formed. She’s made of a much larger variety of dream/essence compared to Grimm, and came into being from that larger distribution condensing.

Starts the fight with the Heart that eventually ripped the two realms apart because it actually had/has a stronger hold on those entering its realm and had begun to infringe on hers by sheer spiritual gravity/mass accumulation.

Basically it was getting too big and she also really cared for her dreamers back then, though this eventually warped into possessiveness in the lead up to the fight.

She doesn’t actually care about nightmares though, like she doesn’t find them distasteful until after the spilt.

The battle between her and the Heart took place entirely in the dreaming and was really less of a violent but brief struggle and more of a cruel, protracted, and deliberate war between the two where each one attempted to twist and distort the nightmares and dreams of mortals, the goal being to turn dreams into nightmares and vice versa in a way the other wouldn’t notice, essentially they were trying to poison or override eachother.

Radiance largely won this, just due to the width of her power when compared to the Hearts, that said the Heart become far far more insidious as a result of this.

the final excision of the Heart came when the Radiance had managed to subvert most of its agents, both in the mortal and dreaming world. She essentially gave the Heart the choice of being subsumed or fleeing and it, being much wiser, fled.

Radiance uses the techniques she learned during this war to create the infection.

PK reminds her of the heart, which is one of the reasons she really hates him.

Radiance thinks the war is over, the Heart very much disagrees, and likely wins in the long run. This scheming is actually why Grimm befriends/allows Ghost to summon them, it clues ghost in to other possible alternatives to taking THKs place, eventually leading to the void consuming Radiance.

Also Radi literally doesn’t have a heart, like her body is entirety missing one. This isn’t a huge deal for her, especially because she’s the goddess of dreams so like, runs on dream logic basically. In general most gods could survive something as fatal as literally cutting out their own heart, but not with as much ease as she did.

She isn’t aware if how it’s hurt her conceptually though.

The Heart may have been responsible for terror and all manner of horrors, but it was only out of those horrors that growth and compassion could spring. Over time it’s absence causes her to grow callous and her realm to grow stagnant

see the Heart may only mostly be a metaphorical heart, but it also was responsible for basically cycling and refreshing dreams, dreams that had gotten too old/stale were drawn into the Heart, becoming nightmares, and then after a time returned to being dreams, albeit completely unrecognizable.

Basically it did what hearts do, pump shit, and without it Radiance is literally a corpse and doesn’t even know it because she’s so disconnected.

Grimm

Grimm himself is one of the few bugs that was left over from the war between the Heart and Radiance, he was sort of a high priest and advisor to the heart. It was at his advice that the Heart fled, and to honor him and keep the Heart(which was grievously injured) alive they settled on the symbiosis we see in game.

The ritual is basically the divine version of both a dialysis machine, and iron lung, and a pace maker.

it allows the heart to survive outside of its body(which is now Radiance) and continue to perform and use abilities most whole deities are capable of.

Needless to say it’s an agonizing form of existence, but as the millennia pass it gets more and more bearable, it may even be possible for it to grow its own “body” for a lack of better terms if it were to gain enough followers.

Due to the nature of the Heart as well as Grimms natural curiosity, members of the troupe tend to be cycled through rather frequently. They get picked up, offered the chance to forget their troubles(whatever they may be) by wearing the mask of the troupe. By the time they’ve completely forgotten who they were they either try to leave the troupe and become a refreshed version of themselves(like Nymm) who aren’t burdened by their past, or they choose to stay and let themselves dissolve, becoming one of the troupes specters and fusing with the heart itself. Essentially they’re something between blood cells and stem cells that the heart is using to rebuild.

Meanwhile Grimm is just kinda chilling and also happy to be traveling the world and seeing new and beautiful sights.

this sorta parallels how the heart feels, it misses the beauty of dreams, but it also found beauty in twisting them into nightmares as well so who knows.

In hindsight this post was way more lore than I intended it to be, so I’ll be making a more biology focused one in a bit, it’s kinda just my headcanon/context needed for the next post.

[hellmouthcity]

QUICK FIX - Nebula x Reader

details: fluff oneshot , fem/nby reader. this is somewhat of an AU where nebula sticks around after yondu’s death for a bit

summary: you’re an electrical engineer temporarily hired by the guardians for ship repairs and general weapon tinkering. nebula’s cybernetic arm has been acting up a little lately, so it’s a good thing you’re around to help! if she’ll let you.

You never thought being on a spaceship for not even a month would drive you this insane.

A few weeks back, you got a request to stay on a ship for a little while to be around for emergency repairs, since this band of weirdos seemed to always be having emergencies. When you saw it was the Peter Quill who wanted to hire you, you immediately accepted. Who hasn’t heard of them! It isn’t every day you get to hang out with the Guardians of the freakin’ Galaxy, even if you were just the repair guy.

Unfortunately, the crew here was just as unstable as their ship. It was a wonder how they didn’t blow the whole thing up from impromptu ‘weapon tests’, which consisted of the guardians firing blasters at each other in some twisted game of tag. They were a little rowdy for your taste, but you all got on well enough.

Peter, despite his douchery, was actually a pretty normal guy. He even liked to joke and have fun like your friends back home. He cared a lot about his ship, which you found a little respect in. He’d instruct you on the problems, and you’d find a solution. That always earned you a high-five or a pat on the back. The others seemed to tolerate him, especially Gamora. Your interactions were short and sweet, but she was kind. You noticed her get a little looser whenever Quill was around. It was gross in a sweet way.

On the other hand, Gamora’s sister was as far as you could get from social. She hasn’t said a word to you the entire time you were here. Sometimes you forgot she was even part of the team. On the rare occasions she’d leave her room, she was never around for long. You’d look at her as she passed by sometimes, wondering what she was like under her intimidating black eyes and cold shell.

You didn’t think about that for too long. You could tell her friendship had to be earned, like a wild animal that you had to let come to you. She seemed to be having a few problems lately. Technical difficulties. You heard from Rocket that her cybernetic arm [which you still think is insanely cool] has some problems shifting to weaponry mode. You wondered if she’d approach you about that.

Right now, you were fixing an airlock malfunction at the main port. It was having a problem with sealing properly after it closed. Yet another emergency. With oxygen escaping, and all that. At this point, you were used to all the high-pressure and near life-threatening circumstances. You just worked with your space visor on, which was coming in more and more handy these days. Everyone was in their respective rooms. You were alone out here at last!

There was one little problem though - your blowtorch was fresh out of juice. If only there were someone on this ship with a blowtorch arm modification! And if only it WORKED!!!

You exhaled through your nose at the thought of Nebula suddenly turning up to offer her help. It was the most unlikely thing in the galaxy, probably. No way that would happen. Just as you stood to go inform Quill about you issue, you nearly bumped directly into the girl you least expected to see.

“Ah- geez! You snuck up on me!!” You exclaim, surprised that she seemed to have indirectly read your thoughts. Nebula just looked at you, black eyes seeming to pierce right through you. You shivered. Looks like you had to do the talking. “Um. I’m trying to fix the air lock, but my blowtorch just ran out,” you explained, pulling the trigger to demonstrate. No flame came out. “...and last I checked, there’s no fuel for this on the ship. So, I kind of hit a dead end.”

Still, Nebula said nothing. For a moment, you wondered if she was even capable of speech. Then you heard a weird kind of… grinding sound. Both of your attentions drifted down to Nebula’s arm as it sparked and jittered in an odd way. She grunted, smacking it with her other hand. It sparked even harder, and eventually stopped moving altogether. She couldn’t even move her fingers. She let out a noise of rage, shaking the immobile part. You couldn’t hold in a little giggle. Her head snapped up to face you, and you instantly went silent.

“Is this funny to you?” Nebula demanded, voice deep and serious. You hadn’t heard her voice before. It was powerful and threatening. She meant business, and it felt like you wore pyjamas to the interview. You took a step backwards, a little worried for your own safety. She may not have a functional arm blaster, but she could still knock your lights out.

“No, no, sorry. Very serious.” You said quickly, avoiding her glare. She let out a short sigh, now more closely examining her malfunctioned part. You looked, too. If only she’d let you get in there, you could fix it… “You know, I could try and help you out with that.” You offered nervously, hoping she wouldn’t just turn around storm off.

“What makes you think I need your help?” The luphomoid snapped, jerking her head at you. You dropped your gaze a little. You kind of expected this reaction.

“Well, it’s just… it could be a little hard to repair one-handed, if you planned on doing it yourself.” You tried to reason. She looked at you, eyes narrowed like this was a trick.

“I’m perfectly capable of doing this on my own.” She told you firmly. You nodded, stepping back a little further in surrender.

“Right, understood. Just keep in mind I’m here if you ever need help.” You hoped she’d change her mind, but she wasn’t there with you yet. She just strode past you in the direction of her room, on her way to independently repair her own arm like the badass she is. You smiled to yourself, finding this cyborg a little silly. You crouched back down and decided to take a break. You’d continue in a little. And who knows? Maybe Nebula would change her mind.

Not even 15 minutes later, you heard footsteps heading in your direction. You looked up from the wrench you were adjusting to see Nebula had, as predicted, made a return. It seems she had no such luck in making the repair on her own. She was purposely avoiding looking at you, [working] fist clenched. She was embarrassed!! You decided to pretend like you weren’t expecting it.

“Oh? Back so soon? I would’ve thought you were going to fix your arm yourself!” You teased from where you sat, a little smug. “After all, you’re perfectly capable of doing it yourself.”

“Quiet!” She shouted, making you flinch. Okay, so Nebula’s not a fan of playful sarcasm. Noted. “You offered a service free of charge to me. I would be a fool to decline it.” You looked up at her, nodding in agreement.

“Yeah, that’s true. Glad you came to your senses.” Carefully, like you were trying not to spook a feral creature, you stood. “I knew you couldn’t resist me.” You joked, and Nebula scoffed. She tried to roll her eyes, though it wasn’t exactly noticeable.

“Just do your job.” She spoke bluntly. You offered a smile and started to reach for her arm so you could examine it. She instantly jerked back and you retracted your hand.

“Well, I kind of can’t if you won’t let me see what’s up.” You tried to explain. Nebula’s eyes darted between your eyes and your hand, and she relaxed her shoulders just a little, almost an apologetic look drifting over her face before it was replaced with her signature cold neutrality. Slowly, she approached you and raised her arm, almost defensively. You cautiously reached out and started feeling for some sort of seam where a section could be unscrewed, but this was an odd piece of machinery. It was segmented in a lot of different ways in a lot of different places, so you weren’t really sure how to get a peek inside.

Nebula seemed to notice your confusion, so she sighed and rotated her arm so that her palm was facing upwards. On the underside, you saw a larger rectangle that stood out a bit from the rest of the metal. You quickly bent to collect a tool from your set, then stood to pry the covering off. And wow, was it even more complicated on the inside. You were used to things like this, though. Artificial automation is your jam. It didn’t take long to find the issue.

“Found your problem! Your hydraulic springs have popped out a little. I’m guessing these are what enable your arm to transition so smoothly to different physical states. If these springs undergo a lot of winding up then unwinding in a rapid manner, they can accidentally pop loose and you have to reset them.” You explained, motioning to the issue as you described it. Nebula watched intently as you spoke. “And as for the lack of movement, one of your circuits got tripped. Too much power started flowing through it, I’m guessing when you tried to force your arm to shift. Maybe don’t do that again, for future reference.”

“I see. Can you fix it?” She demanded rather than asked. You went down again to get another tool, returning with a thumbs up upon standing upright again.

“I sure can. This won’t take long,” you went quiet as you went into focus mode, recoiling the spring and even tightening a few loose bolts in other areas. You flipped a breaker off and back on again, and her arm jolted back to life. After applying a little mechanical lubricant, you closed her arm back up. “All clear!”

You confirmed you were done with a little finger-gun motion. Nebula looked at you, then flexed her fingers, which all responded accordingly. Her eyes snapped back up at you in disbelief, and you grinned.

“What did I tell you? I’m good at what I do.” You decided to toot your own horn just a little. But now it was time for the real test. Could her arm shift successfully? The panels and segments started to shift around and change, rounding where her hand was into a little cylinder-like structure. She twitched, and a small, blue flame sprouted from the tip. You looked up at her with wide eyes.

“You were trying to help me this whole time..?” You asked, stunned. She looked away from you, like she was checking if anyone else was near. The coast was clear.

“Guess we’re even.” Nebula said in a different tone that her previous harsh words. Your face crackled into a smile.

“Aw, thanks Neb-”

“If you let anyone one know I won’t hesitate to throw you into space myself. Understood?” She glared directly into your soul, making sure you knew she was serious. But you didn’t feel so threatened anymore. You kept smiling.

“Understood.”

[imaginatorcreates]

The Stars Were Made For Falling

27 June 2024 — 28 June 2024

Summary: An angel and a demon watch the stars fall. It's a lovely sight, if only one of them didn't think that the Almighty was casting out his creations.

Word Count: ~1.5k words

Author’s Note: Inspired by a comic by @glorfy-the-bright-haired-ellon

Also on AO3

It was the night after Adam and Eve had left the Garden of Eden did the angel of the Eastern gate and the serpent that tempted the first humans decide to relax a little in Eden. After all, the Almighty was going to destroy the garden, as the paradise that had been made for the two humans no longer suited them now that their minds had been opened to the knowledge in the world. However, as the angel and demon could conclude, it was still a lovely garden. Not exactly paradise, but lovely nonetheless.

The night blew a mild but chilly wind through the lush greenery, but neither angel nor demon paid much attention to it. For all the effort they put in to mimic the human shape in order to easily mingle with them (at least, once there were enough running around), they didn’t have to abide by the rules set into such a form. So despite wearing nothing but robes, the two weren’t cold.

Aziraphale’s eyes, hair white like clouds and eyes blue like the morning sky, flitted from one bright star to the next in the black of the night. His hands rested on his stomach, one over the other in a relaxed manner that he previously hadn’t shown that morning. How could he relax when he had been losing his mind over his decision to give away his flaming sword? Honestly, he still hoped he did the right thing; it would be disastrous if he had done the wrong thing.

Next to him, arms raised high and hands tucked underneath his head, lay a demon. He went by Crawly, but he seemed a bit unsure about that name. It had rolled off his tongue at the moment, but now that he thought about it, it didn’t exactly suit him all that well. His yellow, serpentine eyes stood out first on his face like two large stars in the sky. They were challenged by a mane of red hair, but it was the eyes that drew one in first.

Despite not needing to, Aziraphale gasped. “Oh look Crawly.” He nudged a finger towards the sky. “Those are new.”

Where there once was a clear night sky with dozens of stars was now replaced by streaks of light plummeting out of the atmosphere. The rate at which they fell was rapid enough to be seen by the naked eye, yet slow enough for one to marvel at it.

Crawly abruptly sat up. He gripped handfuls of grass as his throat closed up. His eyes prickled and the world blurred for a moment before he rapidly blinked. He could still feel the crank in his hands, the intricacies of his notes, the crumple of the heavenly blueprint. He could still feel the words on the tip of his tongue, and the burst of color that erupted from it. It was burnt into his retinas from before time.

I helped build those ones. You could cast me out, but not my creations.

“I believe the Almighty has named them ‘Shooting Stars’,” Aziraphale said, “which I think is rather lovely — ” The angel paused as Crawly shifted and buried his face in his arms. “I say, Crawly?” he whispered.

“She doesn’t care,” Crawly murmured through a faceful of black cloth. “First the questions, then everything we’ve ever done. Gone! Cast out like it’s nothing.” His hand tightened around his sleeve as he hissed, “No more stars left in the sky after this, would that be perfect enough for Her?”

“Crawly…” Aziraphale reached over to rub the demon’s back, then thought better of it and placed his hand back on his own lap. “I’m sure that there are enough stars left that a small handful wouldn’t make much of a difference.”

“But it does!” Crawly pointed at the sky and spat, “I named that one. And that one was part of a nebula several lightyears to the left. And that one is well on its way to becoming a red giant.” He could’ve spent days naming each star, each ball of hot gas that he personally created. Did anyone even understand that he wrote over three million pages of notes trying to understand the concept of matter? What about gravity? And light! He found light to be the most beautiful concept of them all.

And now he was watching the light fall victim to gravity, lost to matter itself.

Aziraphale tapped his fingers on the ground and lightly chewed his bottom lip. He was an angel, meant to do good. The being sitting next to him was a demon, meant to do bad. He would get in trouble for aiding a demon, but if he helped a demon because said demon was feeling anguish…then he was still doing good. He was reducing the suffering of someone else, even if that someone was a demon.

The angel didn’t enjoy having to do all those mental gymnastics to reach that conclusion, but he let out a huff and turned to Crawly before he could back out. “Crawly, if you’re up for it, I want you to pick a shooting star and make a wish.”

Crawly glared at Aziraphale. “Is this a joke? Are you trying to toy with me?”

“No! No, not a joke at all. I’m quite serious.”

A pause, then a scoff. “Fine.” The demon pointed to a particularly bright star as it streaked across the sky and said, “I wish I could hold that.”

Aziraphale nodded. He snapped his fingers and loudly said, “Alright. Your wish has been granted.”

“That’s stupid, Aziraphale. Stars are a ball of flaming hot gas! You can’t just hold it…” Whatever else Crawly had planned to rant died in his throat as dozens of flickering lights started to appear in the air around him. They gently flashed and flitted about, lazily floating past Crawly’s eyes. Only up close did the demon see clear wings, six legs, and an abdomen that was brightly lit up in bioluminescence.

“The Almighty calls these, ‘fireflies’ or ‘lightning bugs’,” explained Aziraphale. “They’re very lovely insects and she hasn’t released them everywhere quite yet.” He shrugged and quietly added, “I thought you might like them.”

If Aziraphale said anything else after that, perhaps a mutter or a gentle exhale, Crawly didn’t hear it. All his attention was focused on the glowing insects that flew around the pair. He reached out and cupped his hands around a larger firefly. He could feel the fragile insect buzz around his hands, occasionally causing a light tickle to be felt. He opened his hands just a hair and saw the insect flickering and fluttering about, looking for a way out.

When he had berated Aziraphale over not being able to hold a star in his hands, he had lied.

He was a demon after all.

He had held a very tiny star before he fell. He had whispered to it that everything would be okay, that he would let it live for longer than the fated six thousand years that the Almighty had planned.

He let the firefly go and it flew away, flickering like a star fallen from the sky on Earth.

------

Six thousand years passed, and there were still plenty of stars in the sky. Shooting stars, or as known by its other name of ‘meteor showers’, still frequented the skies. Such a thing occurred tonight with a perfect view in South Downs.

Crowley poked his head out the window after rearranging a lush arrangement of colorful flowers in a vase. “Angel,” he called. “Make a wish.”

“Is it another meteor shower, dear?” Aziraphale called from the living room. His nose was buried deep in a book.

“Yeah, so make a wish.”

“Hmm.” The sound of a book snapping shut echoed before he said, “I wish that a certain someone would finish up soon so he could step outside with me to watch the stars.”

Crowley snorted. “Is that all?”

“Oh, if you’re asking for more, then I also wish that same someone would come over and kiss me silly.” When Crowley turned around, he saw Aziraphale standing in the kitchen. His arms were crossed and he had a kind yet devilish smile on his face. Little bastard of an angel. “I have plenty more wishes in mind, dear.”

Crowley crossed the kitchen and gave the angel a kiss on the cheek. What a nice person he was to do such a thing, deep down. “Then I’ll have to kiss you stupid so I can catch up.”

Across South Downs, and as far as Soho, people saw a clear sky with dozens of meteors flying across it. People also saw dozens of little flickering insects flying past, with them being most heavily concentrated in South Downs. But people who lived near a certain bookshop (it was now almost always closed) swore that they saw a few insects there too, flying in tandem with each other.

As the stars fell from the sky, the fireflies danced on Earth.

[calissarowan]

I was just thinking about Bloom’s wager against Nebula. I mean, she won and got the wizards that trial, and Morgana said she’d given up revenge, but…what if she’d lost? If Nebula had defeated her, would Bloom have kept her word? Would she have gone into Sibylla’s cave and taken the wizards to Nebula? A deal is a deal, after all, and Bloom made Nebula keep her end of the bargain. Would Bloom just have walked into the cave and told Sibylla that she had bet the wizards’ lives and lost, so she had to take them to Tir Na N’og to face whatever horrible punishment Nebula had dreamt up? Sibylla would have definitely not been happy about that, but we’ve seen that she doesn’t interfere, so maybe she’d have to give in and give Bloom the wizards. So then rustic fairies show up in the wizards’ cave and say they have to come to the throne room, and Bloom has to miserably explain that she has to take them to Nebula. How would they react? I imagine horror, anger, and fear. And Ogron would probably feel really guilty, since surrendering to the Winx was his plan, so this is only happening because of him. Gantlos would be scared out of his mind for Duman, because he’s so sick and can’t face whatever Nebula’s planning. But they don’t have any magic, and Ogron said he was willing to abide by the Winx’s judgement when he surrendered, so they don’t really have a choice. So Bloom just has to Zoomix them to Tir Na N’og, and Nebula’s there waiting with warrior fairies, who probably grab the wizards as soon as they see them, and Bloom just has to stand there helplessly watching, because she made a deal, and she’s bound to keep her word. Nebula would probably gloat about having the Fairy of the Dragon Flame as her errand-girl, and Bloom would have to stop herself just attacking, because she won’t win a fight against these odds, so she just stands on the beach and watches Nebula drag the wizards away to do things she doesn’t even want to think about to them.

But! Maybe, later on, after she’s gone back to the other Winx, feeling guilty as hell, Tecna points out that she agreed to take the wizards to Nebula. She didn’t say anything about making sure they stayed in her grasp. So, realising she’s now free from the terms of the deal, Bloom rushes back to Tir Na N’og with the Winx, and they transform and burst into the throne room, action-hero style. And Nebula’s furious that they’ve interrupted the wizards’ punishment, but Bloom just attacks, and the Winx win the fight, because they’re the Winx and no way are they leaving the wizards here. Maybe Roxy even manages to get through to Morgana, appealing to her conscience over what she’s doing. Either way, the wizards are rescued and Bloom spends like an hour apologising while she heals everything Nebula did to them, and Sibylla probably gives her a lecture about betting people’s lives, because that is such a bad idea, and things could have turned out far worse than they did, and then everyone just passes out and sleeps for at least a day, because they’ve all had such a day that they just can’t face anything else for a minimum of twenty-four hours.

[kitty-is-writing]

Unusual Associations tag!

Found this on an open tag by @mysticstarlightduck & thought it looked fun!

Rules: pick an OC and describe what you associate with them in each category

I'll go with Ember and Soris because they're fun to write, and Caiara because I haven't done much with her lately. (below cut since this is a long post)

Soris

Seasoning: paprika. he thinks it goes with everything, and can't explain why. he doesn't care who thinks he's weird for putting it on cereal.

Weather: light rain, the kind that seems as if it's barely even raining but sticks to hair and clothes.

Colour: deep navy blue, rich dark red.

Sky: storm clouds at sunrise.

Magical power: he prefers fire, but uses ice just as often.

Plant: brambles.

Weapon: a sharp tongue and cutting sarcasm. also magic.

Social media: I think he'd use Xitter but complain about it constantly.

Makeup: none.

Candy: chewy licorice.

Fear: heights.

Method of long distance travel: carriage, or boat if water is involved.

Art style: line art that he won't admit to actually enjoying drawing.

Mythical creature: Black Shuck.

Stationery: he'd be fascinated by clicky pens if they existed in his world.

Celestial body: comet.

Ember

Seasoning: salt, and lots of it.

Weather: the heavy, humid atmosphere before a storm.

Colour: all shades of red and orange.

Sky: clear, bright blue with no cloud cover at all.

Magical power: fire and lava manipulation, she is half flame spirit after all.

Plant: eucalyptus.

Weapon: the fire dagger her uncle gave her, if her own magic isn't enough.

Social media: she'd absolutely be a Reddit troll for fun, and maybe Instagram for actually talking to people.

Makeup: heavy black eyeliner and blood red lipgloss.

Candy: lemon flavour boiled sweets.

Fear: betrayal, and losing control.

Method of long distance travel: her flame form.

Art style: stick figures, usually in rude poses.

Mythical creature: phoenix.

Stationery: pencil and scraps of paper.

Celestial body: white dwarf star.

Caiara

Seasoning: parsley and a hint of garlic.

Weather: warm and sunny, with a light breeze.

Colour: pastel greens and burgundy.

Sky: bright, hazy blue.

Magical power: she's a natural Seer, and has worked hard to develop her skills with nature magic.

Plant: carnations.

Weapon: a heavy wooden staff, in the event she has no other choice but to fight.

Social media: all of them, briefly, before she gets bored with them.

Makeup: pale blush and earth tones.

Candy: sticky syrup cakes.

Fear: her mother remembering her.

Method of long distance travel: previously horseback, but flying once she discovered planes exist.

Art style: pencil sketches, coloured in.

Mythical creature: spriggan.

Stationery: fancy quills and vellum parchment.

Celestial body: nebula.

***

I'll tag @leahnardo-da-veggie , @eli-t-spoon , @rhiannonhgarrard , @agirlandherquill , @charlesjosephwrites plus open tag!

[ackerfics]

FAMILY LINE — a house of the dragon fanfiction | aegon ii targaryen x oc

act one, chapter one: aesira and aether, aether and aesira (wc: 5.2k) | masterlist

ACT ONE: nigredo

— primordial matter births the beginning of a magnum opus. the threads of the greatest misery is woven into a beautiful existence rising in a sky of a thousand bursting nebulae. the darkening of her soul will never put a stopper on the divinity flowing in her veins, dim the glow of her cheeks kissed by the gods, nor snuff out the constellation illuminating with each step she makes. for this is how a relic reaches its zenith; there would be no story unless the heroine crawls on bloodied elbows and weeps out tears enough to nourish the realm.

112 AC

Aegon didn’t know he had cousins from Father’s side of the family until the funeral of the Siren of the Vale.

Strangers are everywhere and all he could do was hold onto Mother’s skirt with one of his hands while his younger siblings cling with both of their arms as if Mother is going to disappear with the mummified body in front of the people. Helaena is crying, squeezing her eyes shut and her mouth murmuring nonsensical things that Aegon doesn't pay any attention to on a given day. They’re probably weird statements about the spine-crawling insects she’s starting to show interest in — Aegon doesn’t need to hear that, thank you very much. Aemond, his youngest sibling, turns away from the sad sight and presses his face on the crook of Mother’s neck. Aegon can see that the action causes her discomfort, with her belly round with another sibling, yet she runs a gentle hand over the back of Aemond’s blond head in an attempt to prevent his cries from surfacing through the silence of the burning ceremony. The oldest of the family looks away and instead focuses on the Septon conducting the final farewells to the once enchanting Aellara Targaryen.

He’s never met her but just like Father’s first wife, she surrenders to the flames as is any member of the Targaryen bloodline.

Once the Septon finishes his preachings, a cry rings out in the crisp salty air of Dragonstone, the final place to witness the glory of the honoured deceased. Heads turn and almost immediately, a look of sympathy and pity washes over their faces.

At the centre of the babe’s wails isn’t Aegon’s younger brother. The little boy is too old to cry without any reason. The source of the cries comes from a newborn babe protected in a black swaddle lined with embroideries of little birds clutched against a girl’s chest, a girl only at the same age as Aegon. Beside her is another boy of their age weeping with shaking shoulders, tiny fists furiously rubbing his eyes and leaving behind messy tear tracks and red-rimmed skin.

Mother gasps a hitched breath. “Oh, gods.”

Aegon looks back and forth between Mother and the children, two of which have tears streaming down their faces in a never-ending spectacle while the girl only stares at the mummified body with burning eyes that are likely to shed tears at any moment. She keeps bouncing the babe in her arms but it wasn’t enough to quell his shrieks. Despite that, Aegon finds her pretty, which isn’t the most appropriate thought for the severity of the ceremony. So, he looks away from blatantly admiring the girl’s aesthetics. The babe is crying for his mother. The boy of five name days is also crying for his mother. Aegon is left wondering why the girl isn’t doing the same. He glances at her again from behind Mother’s skirts, trying to imagine the smiles that could light up her face. He thinks they would be no doubt the most radiant thing he’ll ever see. Aegon was told snippets of the children’s mother, how she is—was—the most beautiful woman in the realm, and thousands of ballads dedicated even at her passing. Surely the woman’s beauty will live on in her daughter.

Teary lilac irises framed with curling, pale eyelashes arrest his cornflower ones, fully making him look away with burning cheeks.

“Where is their father?”

“The Rogue Prince?”

Little Aegon’s ears perk at the title.

His uncle is built from the Smith’s mould of the Warrior. He’s only seen the man a couple of times growing up. With the way he walks, Aegon instantly wants to be like him. The confidence and smugness oozed in waves with every step — he dreams of stomping the bricks of the Red Keep with those. But Mother doesn’t have any good things to say about him. He always hears her grumbling to Father about his atrocities, and how it affects and dishonours his lady wife. Aegon’s little stomps stopped right after overhearing Mother’s words. Guilt seeps into his little body. He doesn’t want to become someone that ignited this much reaction from the members of his family, especially Mother.

“He’s not even with his children. Poor things. It’s like he holds no heart. Look at how they’re shedding their tears.”

True enough, Daemon Targaryen is standing at the back of the small gathering. Aegon inconspicuously tilts his head to look at his once idol. The man looks nothing like the dashing prince the men and women of the court are either fawning over or fearing. There are no tear tracks like his sons nor the devastated look possessed by his daughter. Aegon’s uncle stares at the body with eyes rivalling that of the souls crying for salvation. His eyes hold nothing of the fiery glint of mischief he always carries while sauntering in the Red Keep. The usual manic grin tugging at his lips is reduced to a flat line, almost a frown. As Aegon looks closer, he can discern a sheen of cloudy mist covering the limbal rings of his lilac eyes. What is his uncle seeing?

“It’s time for the cremation.”

The responsibility lies with the husband. The Blood Wyrm is trilling right at the top of the hill with two dragons the size of a house and a little one that looked like it just emerged from its egg, most probably those of the children. (Aegon feels the rising jealousy at how their dragon eggs hatched; his egg turned stone cold after his third name day.) Even with the snake-like dragon emitting noises for his bonded, Daemon makes no move to remove himself from his perch, his hands tightly grasping each other in front of him. The clicking in the blood-red dragon’s long neck increased in volume as the silence stretched. (Aegon heard stories of how dragons resonate with their riders’ pain after having bonded so deeply. Father told him that Daemon’s bond with Caraxes is one for the history tomes. Maybe Caraxes wants to end this suffering sooner than later.) With the husband indisposed despite his presence in the funeral ceremony, the Septon turns to the children with a troubled visage.

“Young Lord Aether, as the heir of Aellara Targaryen’s bloodline, it is with heartfelt humility that we request for you to initiate the cremation.”

Aether, the boy’s name, tenses at the statement.

Aegon feels Mother’s hand on his shoulder.

“Take your time to collect yourself, my Lord.”

The girl takes one hand from their swaddled younger sibling’s head and intertwines it with her twin brother’s. Aether blinks at the contact and meets the girl’s gaze. He crumbles, it appears that another sob is bubbling in his throat. Aegon presses himself deeper into Mother’s skirts. He can hear Helaena whimpering from Mother’s other side. The eldest son of The Peaceful King continues watching the lonely twins. He takes in every tremble in the boy’s shoulders and the wordless looks coming from the girl. It must be extraordinary to have someone share a soul with you in the womb; having to communicate with mere thoughts is a feat in itself. 

Finally, Aether separates himself from his sister. Little steps start the cremation. One of the smaller dragons at the hilltop stands straighter than before. The red of the scales only glints once the sunlight perfectly hits the beautiful creature at the right angle. Just like his bonded, the dragon stalks with small, pounding steps until it stands at the bottom of the hill. At the same age as the little boy, its wings cover the entirety of the people attending the ceremony, encompassing everyone under the shade of its protection. It waits for the command. Aether lets out another cry, his hiccups wrenching the hearts of many, even Aegon’s. The dragon leans forward at the sound of its bonded’s weeps.

“Dr—” Another sob. Fast-paced breathing.

“Aether,” the girl calls out in a wobbly voice, trying to calm down a restless babe in her arms. 

“I-I can’t do it, Aesira,” he replies while rubbing his eyes.

Aesira.

The Septon intervenes. “My Lord.”

“I-I don’t want to do it.”

“You have to, my Lord.”

Aether cries out. Now, both of his fists cover his eyes.

Aegon sees Father shedding a couple of tears.

“Everything’s going to be alright, Aether,” Aesira’s voice is tiny but it carries through.

At his sister’s words, he takes a deep breath. “Dra—” Aether makes eye contact with the gold-flecked emerald eyes of his dragon. Maybe Aegon is imagining it but the dragon tilts his head down as a form of encouragement for the young boy. “Achilles,” the creature of legend stretches its neck to the heavens, mirroring its bonded, who lifts his chin in the air, “Dracarys!”

And to fire Aellara Targaryen succumbs to.

From ashes we were moulded, to ashes we will return.

“The wild will find itself in the jaws of the beast it created. First delight against first delight. From within, the three-headed dragon sprouts from a bud.”

“Will you stop doing that?” Aegon snaps, nearly breaking the writing tool he has in his hand as he looks up from writing basic words to fix a horrified look on his sister.

The third child of the King blinks away the stupor that clouds her eyes. Her fingers are twitching on the tabletop, the army of ants bringing crumbs of honey cake going around her still appendages. Helaena is always doing that — being creepy and staring at something for too long. Aegon caught her looking through him but most likely never seeing him at the same time for she was too busy mumbling things under her breath like the witches he read from the fairy tale books in the royal library. It never fails to drop a chill down his spine. It doesn’t help that she appears to mirror the dolls she receives from the court ladies for her name days; with those wide, soulless eyes of glassy blue and clothes elaborate, pieces of thick material sewn together to accentuate the ruffles and gems. So, while Aegon wears disdain clear on his face, Helaena simply stares and stares, huffs for a moment, and goes back to guiding the ants to their destination and giving them more honey cake crumbs. 

What an oddball.

Days spent learning lessons with Helaena are always bathed in silence. Or heavy murmurs coming from his sister. Yet both of them have certain quirks that will make their Septa place a hand on her forehead. Aegon is too restless. Helaena is too out of it. Both of them never finish their work for the day, so it keeps piling up on the tabletop of the study. Today is the same as always. Except that there is the prospect of The Keep accepting three permanent residents at the end of the moon.

One moon after the funeral of The Rogue Prince’s lady wife, the question as to where the children should be warded is brought into the light. Apparently, Prince Daemon Targaryen disappeared without any note, only leaving on dragonback and leaving behind large prints on the ground. The children aren’t orphans but in all rights, with a dead mother and an absent father, they are considered as such.

Mother expresses her worry each time she visits the nursery, exchanging hushed whispers with her handmaidens. They were children, she says with brown eyes that carry too much emotion for a Queen. Father, on the other hand, asks Aegon and Helaena, Aemond being too young to understand, if they would ever like it if there are more children for them to play with. Aegon thought that there are more than enough children for him to share his dragon figures with; Mother is pregnant with his youngest sibling after all. Father dismisses that with a light laugh that Aegon has never seen. Your cousins need a home, he says with a reminiscent sheen covering his words, they’re children born from the sister of someone I will always hold dear. This dearest someone is the beautiful blonde woman enclosed in four gilded frames at the atelier of the castle. Her portrait is the most extravagant among the rest and it glows right when the streams of light hits it perfectly.

To preserve the memory of King Viserys’s first wife, The Red Keep is open to welcoming her niece and nephews, never to be sent to the jaded regions of the Vale.

“Do you think they’re going to play with us?” Aegon asks with his eyes set on the letters of the common language he was assigned to follow. He hears Helaena whisper something in the wind. “What was that?”

Like somebody catches her sneaking her hand in a jar of newly baked treats, Helaena stops. She keeps his gaze on the table, following the scuttling of the ants. “I hope she likes ants”

Aegon knits his eyebrows. “The girl?”

Helaena nods.

He then laughs. “What girl would like insects?”

His younger sister purses her lips. “A friend.”

“Well, that’s boring. And gross. And weird.”

Helaena keeps quiet before continuing her little conversations with the ants.

The scribbling of a writing tool against the stiffness of the paper fills in the silence. Until his sister once again opens her mouth in a dreamy drone for a child of four name days, “Hearts are cradled within the palms of the abandoned.”

She’s holding the babe close to her chest again.

Aegon stands beside Mother’s seated form in the nursery, her hands once again seeking solace on the swell of her belly. He remains the only child that has to be present while the others toddle with the wetnurses. But that doesn’t stop him from being restless. Aegon keeps on fidgeting in his spot, only stopping when Mother slightly pinches the skin of his upper arm in an effort to make him as still as a five name day old boy can be. The jut in his lower lip is apparent as he looks at the children of the same age as him. The both of them are a little shorter than him but for some reason, little Aegon doesn’t have the heart to meet their eyes. This is not the time for you to be shy, Mother tried telling him moments before the handmaidens escorted the new residents to the nursery, where they will be settling in since they’re not at an age where an entire bedchamber is given to them. Aegon spots new mattresses on the floor and another crib for the babe.

“Hello, young ones,” Mother greets them with a good-natured smile.

“Your Grace.” The girl crosses her ankles and curtsies in a grace that puts dancers to shame. She notices her brother not paying any respect to the monarch sitting in front of them, so she nudges him at the side, eliciting a loud groan from him. The boy bows down with one arm on his heart and the other behind his back, but not before glaring at his sister at the corners of his eyes.

“Your Grace,” the boy mumbles, which earns him another dirty look from the girl carrying the babe.

Mother’s smile slightly grows at their manners. It pleases her. They straighten when she waves a hand. It’s an action that showcases Mother being a Queen in every way. Aegon doesn’t like it. It means she’s dismissing him away. “Aesira and Aether, am I correct?” The both of them nod. “I hope your visit to the King comes out fruitful.”

Aether nods while Aesira adjusts their little brother in her arms. She’s the one who answers Mother. “Uncle is a kind man. We deeply apologise for making you wait, Your Grace; he showed us a beautiful model of Valyria and we exchanged stories that took up most of the time.”

“How do you like the model?”

A spark lights up Aesira’s eyes. Her shoulders lift in purely concealed enthusiasm. Her brother snorts a little before painting a smile on his lips like he finds this sight a constant in his life yet it never fails to amuse him. “I find it intriguing, Your Grace. It’s a subject I will always find myself drawn to.” She looks down at the small tuft of hair peeking through her brother’s swaddle. She carefully tucks it in, making the babe squirm and nuzzle into the crook of her neck, his tiny hands gripping the material of her dress. “The model must have taken so long to assemble. I notice it’s not even finished yet.”

Mother nods. “When I first saw it myself, I thought it was a marvel that the King’s passion radiated from. You can ask one of the Maesters to lend you more books about it.” She then fixes her attention on the silent Aether beside Aesira. “What about you, little Lord? Has anything captured your interest? Is it not the model?”

“None yet,” he answers. Aesira once again nudges him. “Your Grace.”

“This is my eldest son, Aegon,” Mother says with something inside her throat, right at the word son. She gestures for him and he takes it as a cue to stand a little closer to her and the pair. Her hands are flat on his shoulders. Aegon prevents himself from squeaking at the weight of them. “He’s eager to have new playmates.” Mother then looks down at him, her brown eyes reflecting his wide-eyed stare. “Aegon, won’t you show him your toys? I’m sure he’s going to find joy in them the same way you do.”

Aegon wants to cry. In the years that he remembers, he has always shared things with others. No moment was purely dedicated to him that was tickling his brain. He counted himself as lucky when Helaena was born because that would mean his toy dragons and soldiers were still his. Those crumbled when Aemond followed two years after his sister. Now, he doesn’t have anything left because if you’re the eldest child, you don’t exactly have a constant thing in your possession. The attention that wasn’t already on him was taken away. Mother never looked at him twice again with two siblings in tow (with a third coming around any moon now), fighting for her appreciation and Father’s glances. With three new children running around the Keep, getting both of those is merely a far-fetched dream. How can he compete with more people who look like the pretty portrait in the atelier?

It takes him longer to answer, the hands on his shoulders weighed more than he can fathom. “Yes, Mother.”

The answer satisfies Mother for the smile on her face is something he sees for the first time. There’s pride mingled in the small pools of her irises, glinting ever so slightly that Aegon finds himself awe in. He wants to be at the other end of that look. It makes him feel like he has done something right at such a young age. 

“Now, I will leave you children be. I will retire in my chambers until we sup. Aegon,” she calls out. The little boy can’t hide his pout. “Be nice.”

There are no pats on the hand, no caresses of a mother’s touch in between his hair, and there is definitely no trace of that prideful look Aegon caught a glimpse of. With the flutter that of a butterfly, Mother exits the room, bringing along with her the train of her red day gown. Aegon remains staring at the door, not knowing what to do next but fiddle with his fingers, he’s taken out of his stupor by someone clearing their throat. It’s a high-pitched sound that has him nearly jumping out of his skin. He turns around and finds himself in the centre of an expectant gaze.

“Your mother told us to play,” Aether supplies, with eyes void of any emotion except expectancy. He’s staring at Aegon the way Helaena does it. It jolts him and he nearly shouts for the boy to stop doing that if not for Aesira interrupting.

“Aether, don’t be so disrespectful,” she lightly scolds. “This is not our home. We’re only guests.”

“This is our new home, Sira,” Aether rebuts. “And I want to see if his toys are better than my old ones back in Dragonstone.” Like it’s more of a priority than anything.

Aegon takes a step forward. “I have wooden dragons that we can play with.”

Aether’s eyes narrow. “What dragons?”

“Balerion, Vhagar, and Meraxes. Though Aemond took Vhagar and he’s never returned it since,” he scrunches his face as if the idea of his wooden dragons being stolen is a rancid thought. Aegon never forgets to throw a dirty look at the young babe sleeping in the older cribs of the nursery. In between Aemond’s pudgy hands is Aegon’s Vhagar. He’s long since given up on taking it from his little brother, seeing firsthand how strong a babe’s grip can be. Plus, his cries are not the sweetest to listen to either — they’re piercing and if possible, can shatter even the thickest of glass. After his attempt at taking it back, Aegon experiences Mother’s anger that nearly made him cry as well. So, now Vhagar is Aemond’s and the other two are left within Aegon’s toy chest, wherein the contents have significantly dwindled through the years. “Don’t bother taking it from him; he can be a bit of a banshee.”

They’re like gems — Aether’s eyes. Aegon has only ever seen such a colour on a lady’s neck, encrusted with the finest of glittering gold, and ears where they are dangling for their lives. They glow under the dim light of the nursery and Aegon doesn’t know what to feel about it. It is reminiscent of how his uncle Daemon stares at the things he finds interesting during his visits to the Keep (before he was exiled, again, as told by Mother when he asked about Daemon’s whereabouts). A little half-smile tugs on Aether’s lips, almost elfish in a way that it’s full of mischief.

“I want Balerion then.”

Aegon feels his world crumble.

“Aether,” a soft voice nags.

He finds himself staring at the pretty girl carrying the babe. Aesira has her eyebrows in a downturned arch, her lips mouthing that she’s sorry for her brother.

“What?” The younger blond boy swivels to his sister. “We’re guests, as you say, right? I think Mother told us back then that guests always have to be attended to by the hosts. Aegon,” he waves at him, “is clearly the host.”

“Mother also told us to be decent and mindful.” Aesira stops glaring at her brother and softens her entire face to make Aegon feel better. “Do you want him to take Balerion from you, my Prince?”

Aegon’s face burns at the undivided attention given to him by the girl. While the violet of Aether’s eyes is startling, all wildfire without calm, Aesira’s is a soft lilac, the serenity upon contact. His little heart pounds away in his chest. The squeezes are enough for him to twist his face in a grimace and one of his hands to cover the area above the racing organ. The sensation spreads from his heart to every part of his body until it reaches his eyes, altering his vision to see this girl in a different light. She’s all sunrays and stardust — so bright that little Aegon has no problem being blind.

“No,” Aegon answers her question after a few minutes of stalling (staring).

“Stop looking at me like that, Sira.”

Aesira giggles. It’s a sound akin to a choir of seraphs. “I think Balerion suits Prince Aegon quite well.”

Aether fixes him with a disbelieving expression. Aegon holds himself so that he won’t squirm because Aether shares the same judgmental mask on Mother when she’s not satisfied with his appearance; always fussing about how his vest doesn’t match with his eyes or how his hair seems unruly to be called neat. It’s akin to being cut open and being spectated. The younger boy shrugs, making a sound at the back of his throat that Aegon likens to a goat. Aether, the dragon’s diet, befits the image Aegon has in his mind regarding this weird boy. “He doesn’t seem ‘conqueror’-like to me. I still prefer to play with his Balerion toy dragon. I look more like a warrior than him.” He puffs out his chest as if his words require him to be prideful.

Aegon leans forward with his fists clenching at his sides. “I am named after The Conqueror. Of course, Balerion goes to me.”

“... I don’t see it.”

He wilts.

“But just this one time.”

The world is bright again.

Aegon runs to his toy chest and pulls out Balerion and Meraxes, carrying them like potato sacks under his arm. He chooses not to mind the grin of elfish mischief on his new friend’s face. He’s eager to have a new playmate that doesn’t mumble creepy things or cry when they get hit by a little bump. Aegon can tell — Aether is a fun person to be around with. And if Aether is present, Aesira is sure to follow, which means Aegon has something pretty to look at. Maybe he can convince her to play the princess kept in the tower, so he can act out one of his dreams as a worthy prince who rescues the fair maiden from her prison. That way, she can give him a kiss on the cheek as a reward and a handkerchief or piece of her dress as a favour for winning her hand. The thought of it sends Aegon in a rush of excitement.

“Play nice,” Aegon hears Aesira whisper to her brother. He tilts his head like a puppy.

Aether only snickers.

The younger boy, in fact, did not play nice.

What should be a nice game of conquering the territories of the Seven Kingdoms becomes a fight between the two dragons who are supposed to be allies.

It’s a miracle that Aemond doesn’t wake up from his deep nap at the noises Aether makes while trying to make Balerion surrender. But Helaena looks up from drawing random scribbles on her bound journal because of the sounds of wood scraping against wood. She looks down at her journal when she finds nothing interesting. At one point, Aegon’s hand gets included in the fray, biting his lip to not let someone hear his cry for pain. This is a game that his new friend is enjoying; he doesn’t want to spoil the fun. 

Aegon matches Aether’s enthusiasm. For all the times his hand is hit and the bursts of giggles Aether did, Aegon manages to pin down his Meraxes toy dragon on the floor. He expects the younger boy to feel dejected but much to his surprise, the giggles only increase. For once, Aegon doesn’t hide that he’s enjoying this roguish scene of child’s play. He doesn’t bite his lip when his hand is pressed between the wooden material, Aether doesn’t either. Their laughter rings out through the nursery that they don’t notice a certain babe’s fussing.

“No!” Aesira exclaims.

Aegon immediately turns his head to look at her.

“Ha!” Aether cheers. “I win! How about it? My dragon can beat any beast as long as I’m the rider.”

He doesn’t pay attention to his new friend’s self-celebration. His hand is limp around the wooden Balerion dragon.

Across from him, Aesira is in tears, bouncing the wailing babe in her arms. “Don’t cry, Daemian!” The babe keeps crying. Aesira is frantic now that the sound increases its volume. Her eyes keep flickering between the babe in her arms and the fussing toddler in one of the cribs. “Shh, Daemian, please. You’re going to wake up Aemond.” Aesira tries everything she can think of — patting the babe on the back, humming a lullaby that doesn’t help, cooing at the babe’s screaming face, and firmly hugging him close to her. Before long, she’s crying with him yet she’s more silent than him. “I don’t know what to do.”

Like a saving grace, a wet nurse barges into the nursery, movements distressed and searching for any mishap surrounding the Queen’s youngest child who is sleeping soundly after finding the most comfortable position, pudgy fingers still around one of Vhagar’s feet. Relief washes her face for a moment until she realises that the cry comes from the newest wards of the royal family. The wet nurse presses a hand on her chest, face scrunching in phantom pain before walking toward the three children forming a triangle on the rug-covered floor. She kneels in front of the weeping little ones, slightly leaning forward to give the girl all her attention.

“My Lady, I believe the babe is hungry,” the wetnurse placates.

“He always cries back in Dragonstone,” Aesira sniffles, “but he stops when I’m the one hugging him. Why won’t he stop now? Does he hate me?”

The wet nurse ruefully smiles at her. “I’m sure that isn’t the case, my Lady. He’s simply looking for his mouth to latch on. See how he presses himself on your chest? That is what babes do when they get hungry. Now, he’ll be as quiet as a snoring sheep once he’s drunk his fill. That is if you’ll let me, my Lady?”

The hesitance is clear on her face. If possible, she pulls the babe closer to her.

Aegon interjects, “Aemond always stops crying after he’s been tended to by his wetnurse. I’m sure it will be fine, A-Aesira.” He bites the inside of his cheek for the first time his tongue ever dares form the syllables of her name.

“Yes, Sira!” Aether cheers with a spurt of energy. “Damy is safe and you can play with us! You’ll be the maiden we’ll rescue in the battle.”

“I-Uhm,” Aesira looks down. “I’ll be with Princess Helaena instead.”

Her brother nods. “Alright. Just promise that you’ll be playing with us next time.”

They join their pinkies together and Aether goes back to facing a bemused Aegon while Aesira shyly introduces herself to Helaena.

“Don’t look so glum, Prince Aegon, Aesira never breaks her promises,” Aether forces a grin. “She’ll eventually come around.”

Aegon begrudgingly looks away from the little girl clad in the simple red dress that seems to outshine Mother. The boys continue their games with lesser enthusiasm than moments prior. This time, it’s Aegon who initiates the rowdier plots by bumping Balerion’s head into Meraxes’s. It garners a smile from the younger boy but it’s subdued. 

That night, when Aegon tries finding a comfortable position for him to sleep on his mattress and is left staring at the drab ceiling of the nursery, he catches Aether silently getting up from his mattress to sleep beside Aesira, who insisted that Daemian, their baby brother sleep next to her. It’s only as Aether wraps his arms around the girl and the babe that he realises Aesira’s shoulders are shaking. From then on, the children who unfortunately found themselves in a completely different world, one that’s separate from their own, only have one another against all odds.

Aegon turns away from them, ignoring the abysmal hole swallowing him from the inside out, and gives them the luxury of having their moment as theirs alone.

if you want to be added to the taglist, just reply or send an ask !! mwa

[lucifer-misadventures-au]

Hazbin Hotel/Helluva Boss AU: The Morningstar's Way! The Life Story of The Light Bringer

(Let me introduce you to my actual Main Hellaverse AU! You see, The Lucifer's Misadventures and Morningstar's Symphonic Tears are actually it's main variants! You see, I like making AUs of AUs because it's so fun and interesting 😋🤩! I think not many people does that kind of thing with AUs but either way, it's fun doing it! I hope you like it☺)

Long, Long ago... When the time was timeless, and the universe were still in darkness and silence... The are two powerful beings who are to halves of the the same coin, The Father of Light and Good and The Mother of Darkness and Evil, both knew and love each since the very beginning, they played, they travel, they discover, and most of all... They create, as the timeless time flew they both grew older and wiser, but, the more they grew, the more the differences between them was evident, The Father wanted to create a system, a system that he can give to his creations, he wanted his creations to be the role he created them for, but The Mother was a lot more hesitant and cautious, wanting her creations to earn to be the role they were created for. The Father is so curious and imaginative, wanting his creations to be born with their role, but The Mother is a lot more cautious and thoughtful, wanting her creations to earn their role... This slowly cause a rift between the two, neither of them can agree which method for the purpose of creation is right or wrong, light disagreements turned into big arguments, so big the rift became a Grand Canyon between two halves of a whole

The Father began to create his dream system, starting by creating who he call his "Children" also known as "The True Archangels", who are the first and highest of their Kind, The "Angels". The Father was ecstatic of his first successful creation, he then began to raise them as his children.

Michael The Archangel of Justice and Mercy

Uriel The Archangel of Wisdom and Fire

Azrael The Archangel of Life and Death

Raphael The Archangel of Healing and Medicine

Jophiel The Archangel of Love and Beauty

Gabriel The Archangel of Strength and Messages

Born, well, created, and raised to help lead and grow the system who The Father called it "Heaven", giving his children the power of creation to spread the wonders and joys

From The Seraphim, to The Cherubim, to The Thrones, to The Dominions, to The Virtues, to The Powers, and so on.

Heaven was a beautiful and prosperous realm, but it's still engulfed in darkness and silence, and with darkness comes with dangers

The most known fact is the Great War between to The Two Once inseparable Companions, fighting each other out of hidden grief and bitterness

Those hidden emotions are so strong it made the two powerful beings to become nearly unstable, so unstable their powers affected one of the stars, the very rare spark of flame that diminishes by a single touch, to become an unstable supernova,

The Father did an unexpected and uncharacteristic thing, leaving the battle to subdue the supernova that was ready to explode in any second. The Father went through a massive memory lane and self reflection, pouring his memories, his knowledge, his curiosity, his love, his desire of balance into subduing the exploding star

Then it happened

A blinding light appeared from the Nebula, revealing a little Angel, smaller the rest of The Angels The Father himself has created,

The Father was shocked about what he had just done, before he could snap out of his shock or had time to react, The little Angel took their first breath with a small yet powerful sneeze, instantly creating light in heaven, creating the first morning

Instantly, The Father fell in love at first sight with the little Angel, declaring them as their child

Lucifer Morningstar, The Archangel of Light and Creativity

"That's me! Hi this is Lucifer Morningstar speaking! But you can call me Luci! You already heard of the Story just now, right? Hehe, I hope you have! Because, you're in for a very, very, very long ride! I hope you all will enjoy the show...

This is the Full Story or My Life!"

[ckret2]

Per requests a few months back, I did say if I ever wrote something I thought I might cut, I'd post it here. So here, have a free scene: the first appearance of the Henchmaniacs, post Bill's death.

Ultimately, I will keep this scene; but as it's currently written I think it's about twice as long and half as interesting as it needs to be, so probably I'm going to tighten and polish it a lot to say the same stuff, but faster.

But that's a lot of words liable to be removed, so y'all get to see it as is before I start trimming it down.

####

"We should bail on this dump," Pyronica said, standing on one of the many edges of the Quadrangle of Qonfusion, staring out at the Nightmare Realm. The light of swirling neon-acidic cotton candy nebulas threatened to overpower the much smaller light of her limb flames. "Let's be real: this place wasn't our fortress, it was Bill's. I'm sick of this place. If you can call it a place." She gestured out at the roiling bile lights. Her movement, like the flap of a butterfly's wing creating a hurricane, was enough to set off crackles of lightning millions of miles long in the faraway distance. "All it'd take is a hard sneeze to knock the whole realm down."

Huddled on a nearby wall, staring out at the chaos with Pyronica, Paci-Fire said solemnly, "I want to stay, Mother. The Nightmare Realm might not be a 'place' to you, but it is the only home I've ever known."

"Probably one of my worst life decisions," Pyronica muttered. "You've never had a chance to know another home, Paci. You'd like living in a real dimension if you gave it a shot!"

"No." Paci-Fire crossed his arms. "I don't want to."

"At least think about it." Pyronica gestured again into the distance. "There's nothing to do around here! You've got to travel like a zillion light years to get to any dimensions worth visiting. You like destroying moons so much—wouldn't it be nice to live somewhere that has moons? Instead of going on a road trip to another dimension every time you want to drive a civilization to extinction?"

"And then what would we do? Go to our home inside that same dimension? Wait in front of the fireplace for the authorities to come knocking at our door?" A side-effect of growing up in the Henchmaniacs was that Paci-Fire regarded The Authorities as a nebulous bogeyman of a force that was as spiteful as the devil himself and personally out to get him and all his family and friends. "No, Mother. I do not wish to cower in the dark corners of—" his lower mouth sneered around his pacifier, "civilized dimensions, nor flee from one to the next every time the authorities catch our trail. There is nowhere safer for us than the Nightmare Realm."

"We're just cowering outside civilized dimensions if we stay here," Pyronica said. Paci-Fire's red eyes flared brighter, and Pyronica playfully tugged his horn. "We can easily find a dimension as primitive as 46'\ without any organized interstellar law and order. And it'd be worth it just to live somewhere with consistent physics."

"I am contented with the inconsistent physics," Paci-Fire said sulkily.

"Paci, it took you fifty years longer than most kids to learn how to walk," Pyronica said. "You don't have to be afraid of the authorities in other dimensions—"

"Mother! I know no fear."

"Well," Pyronica said. "You don't have to be wary of them, then. I got by fine before joining Bill out here! Most of us did! And we can get by fine again! Zan," Pyronica kicked off the ground to float up level with the next floor, where several Henchmaniacs were playing a video game, "you still have worshippers in your home dimension, right? Aren't you still getting offerings?"

Zanthar shrugged noncommittally.

"They've still got legends of you, you can whip them back in shape in no time. Keyhole, you've got family—"

Without looking away from the screen, where he was losing hideously, Keyhole muttered, "I'm not moving back in with my mom."

"I'm not talking about your mom, stupid, what about your sisters?" 

Keyhole winced, though it was hard to tell whether it was from Pyronica's question or from getting killed in the game. "I don't know... Bill and I were talking about them once, and I realized they're as bad as Mom was. Bill said  probably the only reason they didn't treat me as bad is because they never got the opportunity—"

"Who cares what Bill said," Pyronica snapped. "Bill's dead! We don't have to listen to him anymore!"

"Hear hear," 8 Ball muttered; but he couldn't throw in anything else, lest Zanthar blow him up and win the match.

Pyronica said, "Face it: the only reason we didn't leave this place millennia ago is because Bill couldn't leave. None of us even like the stupid Quadrangle!"

Sliding around the bottom edge of a staircase to its top side, Amorphous Shape said, "Excuse us."

Pyronica rolled her eye and immediately amended herself, "Nobody except Bill's 2D groupies like the Quadrangle."

Miffed, Morph asked, "What's wrong with it?"

"What's—?!" She gestured wildly at the feat of geometry-breaking architecture, walls and columns and floors and stairs that connected in impossible ways. "Morph, the physics are wrong with it! You can't look at it without getting vertigo! Look at that staircase, it shouldn't be able to go there!"

"It's like that on purpose, it's a shortcut."

"That's not the point!"

"It doesn't give us vertigo," Morph said defensively. They slithered up the stairs to the video gamers and peeled off the floor to looked at Hectorgon. "Does it give you vertigo?"

"No, I'm fine."

"What about you, Kryptos?"

There was no reply.

"Krypt?" Morph slid down a column and unfolded questioningly around a corner.

Kryptos was in the rec room, lounging on Bill's stupid tacky optical illusion throne with the fabric of reality upholstery, staring out a window (or skylight, depending on your point of perspective).

Morph said, "Bill's gonna be furious you're using his throne."

"Whatever. Z's already spilled time punch on the armrest." Kryptos pointed at the patch of reality on the armrest that was out of chronological synch with the rest of the throne.

"He's not gonna be furious," Pyronica said. "He's not gonna be anything because he's dead. He died. D-E-A-D."

"He's not." And suddenly Morph were in Pyronica's face, a flurry of shapes and lines and piercing slitted eyes. "If Bill was dead, the whole dimension would be falling apart even faster, we're sure of it—"

"So let's bail while we can—"

"—but it's not speeding up," they said. "We've been taking regular readings for months, and if anything, its unraveling is slowing down. That would been impossible if he was dead, he's instrumental to holding the Nightmare Realm together—"

"Unless he lied about that, and he was actually making everything worse," Pyronica said. "I'm sick of your stupid 'readings,' it was your 'readings' that said 46'\ was perfect to take over! Was that stupid barrier part of your readings?!"

"That barrier was extremely localized, there's no way we could have detected—"

"The portal was right in the middle of it!"

8 Ball groaned as Zanthar whittled away the last of his HP and tossed his controller at the TV. The TV squealed in fear. He leaned through a window that opened into the rec room below and said, "If Bill is alive, that's just another reason to get out of the Nightmare Realm! Leave before he gets back! He can play king in this dump by himself."

Paci-Fire said, "Surely, you do not mean that. Were Bill still around..."

"No! No, I do mean it! The only reason we stayed here is because everyone's too starstruck or too scared to ditch him! Not anymore! If his flat-brained cultists wanna wait for him, fine! But why do we all gotta stay?"

"Hey!" Hectorgon rounded on 8 Ball. "Who're you calling flat, pinhead—?"

Kryptos tuned out the argument upstairs/next door as 8 Ball and Hectorgon started brawling. Who were they kidding? Nobody was leaving. Maybe 8 Ball, he'd tried to split four or five times before crawling back, but Kryptos didn't care about him anyway. Bill had always been right about him, he was too selfish to care about the rest of the gang but too stupid to make it on his own. They'd taken in losers like that before and it had never been a big loss when they left. But no one else would leave. Where would they go?

Where could they go?

Morph and Hect were desperate to hear from Bill. And truth be told, so was Kryptos: he was firmly in favor of staying in the Quadrangle just in case Bill casually floated back in one day, and he was willing to do anything they could think of to try to get him back. How could he not following even the thinnest thread of hope? But he didn't really believe Bill was out there. He'd been gone too long, and Kryptos couldn't imagine anything less catastrophic than Bill's destruction could have caused the complete collapse of the rift into 46'\ and the reversal of Weirdmageddon.

And yet Kryptos was still here, and still willing to look, because there was nothing else to do. What could they do if Bill was really gone? Bill was gonna get the shapes a new home. He was the only one who could do it. They'd held fast to that hope for a trillion years—who were they without it? Kryptos sure didn't know.

And then Kryptos got a call from Earth.

[rhosmeinir]

Fictober 2023 #8

Prompt #8 - "Give me that, before something happens"

Fanfiction: Good Omens

Rating: G

Warnings: None

Pairing: Pre-Ineffable Husbands/Aziracrow

Other Notes: Before the Fall, Crowley wants to show Aziraphale something. 633 words!

“Aziraphale!” A strident voice rang through the formless white halls of this particular corner of Heaven, attracting the attention of the industrious cherub, who was just putting the finishing touches on a drawing. “Aziraphale!”

“Over here!” he called in reply, leaning back to admire his work. A moment later, an angel with a curly mop of red hair appeared.

“Ah, there you are! D’you— oh,” he paused, taking in the drawing, “How are the people coming along, then?”

“Oh, quite splendidly,” Aziraphale replied, pleased that his friend had taken the time to notice, “I think we’ve just about perfected the design.”

“Lovely. Do you have a moment?” There was an urgency in the redheaded angel’s voice that took Aziraphale aback, and he turned fully to face him, blinking in surprise. 

“Yes, of course.”

“Good. Look, I’ve got this letter here from Luc—” Aziraphale snatched the scroll from the other angel’s hand before he could complete his brandishing gesture and thrust it inside his robes.

“Give me that, before anything happens! Come here.” He seized his friend’s hand and with a blur and a shimmer, they departed the offices of Heaven and rematerialized near the two star-incubating pillars of gas and dust where they often came to talk. The redheaded angel rolled his eyes.

“I really don’t think that was necessary. What do you think is going to happen?”

“You know what they’ve been saying about Lucifer, don’t you?” Aziraphale straightened his robes uncomfortably, “How they think he’s fomenting discord against the Almighty?”

“Fomenting discord? Really, Aziraphale. And who is they, anyway?”

“You know… they,” Aziraphale gestured broadly, “angels. The grapevine, everyone who gossips!” One scarlet brow arched in the cherub’s direction.

“Do you gossip?”

“No!” Aziraphale retorted, a little too quickly, “But I listen.” The redheaded angel scoffed.

“Just look at the letter!” Hesitantly, Aziraphale pulled the now-crumpled scroll from his robes. He unrolled it, and began to scan its contents. His eyes widened as he read, and he shook his head, curls shaking with affrontery. 

“This is.. this is… well, fomenting!” he cried hoarsely, “If anyone finds you with this—” In a moment of impulse, Aziraphale snapped his fingers on the scro and it went up in a puff of flame, the small haze of its ashes drifting off into space. “There,” he turned to his friend, forced smile betrayed by brows knitted in concern, “No trail now.”

“Aziraphale,” the redheaded angel rolled his eyes, but also reached out to grasp the cherub’s shoulder, “it’s not fomenting, it’s just asking questions! We just want to know—”

“We? We? You and Lucifer?”

“Well yeah, Lucifer and the guys and me—” Aziraphale broke away and put a hand to his mouth, chewing on the end of his thumb. “Come on, cherub! All we want to do is ask God some questions, you know, maybe get Her to let us angels be a little more involved in things, help make some policy. It’s all for the people anyway, you should be on our side here.”

“Your side? What do you mean side?” With one mighty push of his wings, Aziraphale returned to his friend’s side, reaching out to clutch his arm with both hands. “There aren’t any sides here, unless it’s Heaven’s side! Aren’t we all working toward the same thing? Starmaker,” he entreated, “please, please don’t get involved with them. I just… I have a bad feeling about all this.” 

The redheaded angel, startled by this sudden outburst, looked into Aziraphale’s wide eyes, their pale blue glittering with the reflected glory of his nebulae, and he softened. Gently he peeled the cherub’s hands from his arm, and took them reassuringly in both of his own.

“It’ll be alright, Aziraphale. God is Love, remember? What could She possibly do but listen?”

[grailknightmonty]

strange dreams, the feeling of being unknown

(an in-character lore piece for the Mianite RPG)

Falling.

Falling.

Falling.

It's been a month since I've been like truly awake. Aurelia can't explain it, and neither can I. It’s like I’m not here at all, or that I’m not strong enough to exist on the same plane as everyone else. But it's not weakness, nor is it some kind of exhaustion.

It’s just a weight unlike anything I’ve felt before. Jumping in and out of reality mentally, but thank god, not physically.

I’ve returned somewhat to being a hermit, being away from everyone else as much as I can. I don’t really understand what’s keeping me away, but maybe I don’t want to know.

The other guardians can't know what’s been going on. If the legion finds out, I don’t imagine Dianite will be very forgiving with how I’ve become. I mean- I don’t know if they miss me. I don’t want my friends to worry, so I’ve told Aurelia to not tell anyone.

When she went to Nibiru, I just told her to say that I was getting some rest, working on things when I got the chance.

And I don’t think I want them to know.

The thing is, I haven’t dreamed like this in a long time.

But they always start the same.

I’m back home on Astrakhiens. A quiet hum develops through the reeds, lacugrove trees and lilypads, accompanied by a ripple that runs across the surface of the lake. I’m drawn to the reflection of the ender nebula on the water’s surface more than I remember being before, the acquiescent oranges and violet hues dancing across my field of vision, interrupted only by luminescent particles which shine with the same sparkle as the stars in the sky.

Sunflowers my mom had planted the last time she visited me prior to the final stages of the portal experiments still grow in that small patch. The only breed that can grow in End, she had told me, the only breed that could survive the cold of the Void without the sun which had gave it its name.

My old house stands as it always has, a certain surface-of-the-sea like glisten to the smaragdant roof tiles above walls of flavolite, vines from lost time crawling down the corners, tucked kindly away between tree bark. As I turn my head to peer through the lilac stained glass though, the figure inside isn’t me.

The person standing in my house, tinkering with my things isn’t me.

His hair resembles the void as if it were set ablaze, wisps of violet and orange flame flickering off his body with every movement. He’s draped in robes of cerulean, gold and white, engraved with a foreign runic language. The claws on his feet dig deep into the moss on the flooring I never made an attempt to repair. While I cannot see myself, or am sure if I’m even there, I can feel the glass heating up as he approaches the windows.

The closer I get, the less familiar I feel to myself, and I see a face, not my face, appear like a mirage in between gold plated framing.

I don’t remember enough to describe what looked back at me.

What’s more interesting is how the foliage behind me changes as well.

This time, I’m back in the overworld in a flattened limestone cove overlooking the sea on a set of smooth stone stairs. Behind me sits a lighthouse made of copper and maroon wood, at its base sitting a humble stone and spruce home with red windows. A soft sea breeze blows, a subtle clicking awakening the lights throughout the building. Something about this particular structure does not feel inviting. I occasionally can spot a fox and turtle wandering about the red carpet inside, but the doors are never unlocked, despite there being no indication of redstone that would keep it closed.

Most times instead, I am inclined to follow the pathway around the intentionally crafted coastline, adorned with glowing copper ore, which leads me into a winding river laden ravine, cliffsides climbing high into the sky. The farther down this ravine I walk, the more reminiscent of home it starts to feel.

At some point, I reach a house buried deep into the side of the mountain, adorned by peculiar stone walls, and green bamboo tile roofs. It appears desolate, as if no one has lived in it for years. The animal pen to just to the right is inhabited by only two chickens, who for reasons I can’t explain seem spry as ever, as if they were just born.

I have no idea who this home belonged to, but I am always inclined to step inside, only to be met by an open floor, full of dusty chests and half crafted tools, enchantments and redstone scattered about the ground left unfinished- as if their owner had left in a hurry, and without finding a resolution that i think they maybe have had desired. Laments of a time long gone are inscribed into the walls broken by what appears to be unsystematic explosions, creating craters without specific intent.

Within moments of exploring the interiors, dusting off surfaces, the walls of the house seem to close in on me, slowly gaining in rapidity and I am forced to burst through stained and mossy oak doors which had once been rusted copper only moments before.

Stumbling into the woods with empty hands.

I am met by what appears to be overgrown farmland. Unlike the place before, there is not a single animal to be found. What might have been a pool before with a diving board hundreds of meters into the sky is the only thing that looks even remotely normal- the water clear as it can be, a small assortment of tropical fish making its home amongst the rough edged coral and cobblestone at its floor. Above me, runs a network of haphazardly placed dirt and stone bridges connecting three main buildings I think; all together forming the shape of a lightning bolt if someone looked at it from the sky.

The first few times I had this dream, I used to think the thick overgrowth that I find myself sinking into, as if gravity suddenly took a stronger hold of me was comprised of grass, flowers, the kind of thing that grows if you leave your lawn unkempt for long enough.

But it was this past night that I realized it was sunflowers. Stems, leaves, shoots and flowers both fully blossomed and dead petals littering the ground beneath my feet.

Nothing but sunflowers.

It’s then when I look up towards the sky, expecting storm clouds stretching towards the horizon to be the cause of a sudden onset darkness that had blocked the sky, the only light now coming from a lava feature across from the main house, netherrack spilling out of the crackled obsidian portal that sat at its center adorned by just the slightest bit of nether foliage.

Instead I am met by the soft glow of stars, the gentle hum of the void and the enigmatic glow of a forming ender nebula coming over the edge of the world.

The ground beneath me shifts into something like a cerulean ocean set on fire, glowing with abstract patterns of aqua and cyan, my footsteps leaving ripples across it. The water itself is shallow, I don’t sink, I don’t swim, I just simply stand on its surface.

I feel inclined to keep going, as I walk across a barren nothing for what feels like hours. Eventually, a face appears in the sky- A pair of pearlescent eyes, surrounded by a multicolor iridescent nebula, ever shifting. A symbol not unlike to the one on that appeared on the back of my shirt manifests above her head between curls, and one by one purple eyes appear across their cheeks.

Never once has the face spoken to me, but always waits till I get close, offers his hand-

And I wake up again.

[xxl1zardb3ansxx]

TADC AU time!

Since everyone's doing it thought I might make a TADC AU!!!

It's about Mire, (Not me the character) Faltor, Filorin, Falia, and Sninlia! The original characters are included too though!

Mire: Their head is an animated scribble that you can ever so slightly see the shape of an eye something. They wears a light-ish pink hoodie and black jeans, with one purple and one blue sneaker. However, when they are depressed, they wear a black and red striped over-sized sweater, with black runner sweatpants, and simple black and red sneakers with skull designs on them. They have the ability to basically transform their arms into tentacles to reach stuff. However, their entire body is actually made of one really long line thus they can only stretch so far. They can also store things in their stomach like it's a void of holding. Because of this, Jax likes to randomly shove stuff into Mire. They play the guitar and have anger issues. (Hint VERY gay)

Faltor: His head is a 2nd grader's impression of the sun. A yellow circle with yellow spikes. Yep. He has one eye placed vertically in the center of the sun shape. His iris is blue, but his pupil only shows when he's mad. Also when he is mad, all his visible outlines get fuzzy and static like. He wears the same demeanor of clothes as Caine just with different colors. Black button-down shirt with a white suit vest over it. The vest has a blue lining and little light blue clouds on it. He wears a blue ribbon around his neck, tied in a loose bow. (Although I should note that the sun shape floats a few inches above the neck.) He has white pants, and black fancy click-clack shoes. (Idk what they're called XD) He eats and drinks by just dumping the said food/drink in his neck. Jax likes to run his hand in between Faltor's neck and head, bc he's thinks it funny bc he's dumb. (Fight me)

Filorin: His head is a flame, glowing brighter or dimmer depending on his mood. He wears a simple back wool button-up shawl, covering his torso. He wears dark navy blue pants and simple buckle leather boots. He also has a little brown leather satchel. His eyes are little white circles that float a centimeter or two in front of his head. The circles are usually semi-circles as he is tired most of the time. He is very shy, and hates talking to people. (Unless it's Faltor) Yes, the fire that is his head will hurt and burn other people/items. Jax likes to toss random flammable objects into Filorin's head, to see if he can land a shot and watch it burn. Even though he hates talking, some people still try to be friends with him.

Falia: She is viewed as gorgeous by the other circus members, (Except for Faltor and Filorin and including Caine) Her head appears to be made of ink in a smooth sphere. She has a silver crescent moon shape on the front of her face, and a large purple eye filling most of the empty space left. She appears to be wearing 4-point star earrings (Despite having no ears) She wears an elegant black spaghetti noodle dress, that flows down, were there is almost a cape like section of the skirt that drags behind her. It seems to flow into stars and nebula's, looking like a piece of space was placed upon her dress. She has a cool, collected and royal manor. She speaks in a calm almost dead voice, the same every time. And no she doesn't get mad, or sad, or anything! That would be silly... (Heh heh, trauma related) Faltor is her brother, and she views his fondly. Jax will occasionally just...take scoops of Falia's ink to throw at Filorin. She acts like she doesn't care.

Sninlia: Sninlia's head is a snow flake. It has a very intricate and complicated, yet graceful design. (Which is why it makes it so difficult to get the shape back every time Jax melts her head) She wears a royal looking robe, (very similar to kinger's) except it's icy blue, and has icicles coming out the bottom. A light snow also drifts from the bottom of her robe, so you can always tell where she's been. She is rather quiet, but when she does speak she is very serious. Jax makes fun of her a lot for this. Jax also finds it fun to use Filorin's head to melt Sninlia's snowflake, forcing her to go place it in a mold like thing and freeze it again. Sninlia and Falia are dating (Although neither of them will admit it) and they are very close. Despite how Sninlia seems, she loves dancing to classical music or just dancing. She favors music quite a bit and will sometimes even listen to Mire play guitar, even though it's most definitely not her style of music. Sninlia is also Filorin's sister, and she wishes he would socialize more.

Jax: He is much more annoying with these new peeps around. Although, Caine and Bubble have noticed him blushing a little when he's around Mire. (Don't worry guys this isn't a cannon ship!)

Caine: He has a really big crush on Falia and has no idea she's already dating someone.

Ragatha: Yes, ButtonBlossom is cannon, but she likes hanging out with Filorin and Falia. Sometimes Mire, but only if she sees their lonely.

Pomni: She loves her girlfriend very much, and likes hanging out with Filorin. Although not that often, because she gets a bit weirded out by him.

Kinger: He didn't really like any of them but if he had to choose one to hang out with, it'd be Faltor. So they could autism together.

Gangle: Prefers to just hide from Jax, but occasionally try to talk to Filorin. *Ahem,* emphasis on the try

Zooble: Hangs out with Mire a lot and doesn't like any of the rest of them.

I post more about it if y'all send me some asks.

[fridathedahlia]

The Fall

she had fallen.

the brightness and warmth of heaven wasn't there anymore instead it was replaced with darkness and coldness of hell.

She didn't understand what was happening; all she knew was that she was scared; she tried to comfort herself the best she could, thinking about Alpha Centauri, a star system she helped build and oh how proud she was of it.

but then remembered the situation she was in; falling into a boiling sulfur.

She couldn't feel her throat anymore, she couldn't hear her screams, she couldn't feel her wings. Oh how she adored them with she made her stars, and nebulas and the universe for the heavens-

no she shouldn't say that.

She pulled her knees to her chest and cried, then she tried opening them because she realized she was crying kerosene and it hurt so much

when she used to cry, it would be the holiest of water but now it burned.

everything was ignited in flames.

her wings, her robes, her body, everything except one thing.

Her hair.

It was still very pretty.

Maybe god didn't hate her that much...

She really hoped god didn't hate her because she adored her hair.

She remembers when an angel taught her to braid her hair, she can't quite remember them but she knew the memory was there....

Maybe one day she'll wear her hair like that again....

But for now, she was stuck still suffering, and it hurt so much.