#tw extinction

[escaped-cryptid]

I’m in a situation where only octonauts and wild kratts make me feel better

But my biggest trigger is climate change and they KEEP TALKING ABOUT IT

I watched the tazzy tiger episode AND I WAS IN SHAMBLES

THERE GONE FOREVER MY BIG MOUTH PUPPIES AND ITS ALL MY FAULT

MY POOR SON

[scrunkle]

angst thinking...imagine saiki has to sit alone after world ends and humanity is basically wiped out but he's the only one who could survive.

[withoutatrace-pkmn]

it seems I’m having one of those classic nights where whenever I shut my eyes to go to sleep I see the inevitable heat death of the universe

[creative-clawmarks]

Your destiny, once denied, stands now before you.

This is the only way it could have ended.

[crabussy]

by the way if you think an endangered species deserves to go extinct because it takes effort to save them/they can’t look after themselves, you need to reevaluate the way you look at the world because that is an extremely flawed, messed up, and sad worldview.

[v1x-holo]

TW: EPILEPSY/ILLUSION

"𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐲 𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐃𝐈𝐏𝐒𝐇𝐈𝐓!!!"

[kiame-sama]

Humans Are Extinct (Yandere!TWST x Fem!Reader) Monster AU

Warnings; Several yanderes, platonic yanderes, romantic yanderes, yandere behavior, monster au, fem reader, no one starts off knowing reader is fem so they/them pronouns used, deranged behavior, spiders, driders, centaurs, unicorns, Nemean lions, werewolves, selkies, minotaurs, genies, nagas, magic, threats, panic,

~~~~~~~~

Nothing made sense anymore.

None of what you saw could have possibly been real, and even if it was, where did that leave you? The area was not familiar and you had gone through one of those mirrors to get where you were. Hopefully those... things... wouldn't think to look for you where you decided to hide out until you got a plan together. This was all provided you could think of a plan despite everything going on around you.

When you had woken up inside a coffin, the panic had set in so quickly. Since the very second that coffin spilled you out on the marble floors to the odd creatures that greeted you with unhindered curiosity, you were afraid and lost. Even now as impossible things had taken place, a thought echoed in your head from what one of the creatures had said.

I thought Humans were extinct?

Certainly a few of those you saw around you looked human, but most were some kind of creature or abominable hybrid. None of it made sense because creatures like this couldn't possibly exist, right? If that was true, you were suffering some kind of psychotic break. But if it wasn't true, if you could actually trust your eyes to tell you the truth, then you had something completely new to deal with.

Exhaustion hit you hard enough that you couldn't help but cuddle close to your stone companion and shelter, seeking comfort in the cold statue.

~•§•~

Eyes slowly flickered open in the dark, searching with sleep-hazed confusion at the oddly cramped surroundings. Attempting to lift your hands only made more confusion race through your mind as some kind of lid stopped you from completing the motion. The fog of sleep that had hung so heavy in your mind was now replaced with sharp awareness and clarity, throwing you into a state of panic as you realized you were trapped.

The dark container you found yourself in had you thrashing and desperate for freedom from your newfound confines. Your kicking and thrashing- painful against the lid of your container- managed to actually knock the top loose and slightly ajar. That bit of light from outside was the only encouragement your knowledge deprived brain needed to know it was doing the right thing by struggling. What you didn't expect was the feeling of this human-sized container pitching forward to spill you out unceremoniously on the ground.

The cold surface beneath you felt even colder on your soft face, wondering just where you were and why all of your memories leading up to that moment were just a blur. You didn't have long to spend on your musings before an unusual voice reached your ears, closer to a baritone than a tenor but still a masculine sounding tone.

"Oh my, I thought we had all of the students accounted for. Could it be I miscounted?"

You pushed yourself up with your hands to try and face whoever was speaking, seeing an oddly feathered man with dark black hair walking towards you. He wore a mask- or perhaps he truly had a beak- that made him look like a rather large corvid walking towards you. Despite his humanoid features, something in the back of your mind told you that this man was not what he appeared at first glance. Even his bright yellow eyes that shined from beneath the black mask seemed inhuman as they studied you intently.

"You certainly don't seem like one of the sudents I selected. I'm fairly sure I would remember someone odd... like you..?"

The man stopped in his tracks, regarding you strangely as if he were actually looking at you now. He certainly wasn't recognizeable to you and you had no sense of familiarity upon seeing him. Something about you must have caught the man's attention as he cocked his head to the side, crouching next to you and observing you keenly. Something about the way he moved was so bird-like you wondered if he was pretending to be some character or if there were actually something inhuman about him.

"I don't often need to ask this question, and I am very curious now what your answer will be, but what are you?"

That was certainly an odd question. You thought the answer would have been obvious, but something about the whole situation made you feel like what you were going through wasn't normal.

"Human..? Isn't everyone?"

There was a long moment of silence and it was in this silence you decided to look around now that your poor face stopped hurting from your abrupt meeting with the ground. You were in the center of a large room where what seemed to be dozens of coffins with various sizes and shapes floated around you. The container you came from was also a coffin and you could see where you had actually damaged the smooth wood with your desperate attempt at freedom.

Beyond the floating coffins- as surreal as they were- you noticed that you were not the only two present. Many others were standing around you, all in the same black, purple, and gold robes. All looking at you with unguarded curiosity. It was as you looked at these unusually robed people that you began to realize none of them looked particularly human. The more you searched, the clearer it became that none of those standing around you seemed to be fully human.

One of those standing there was a heartbreakingly beautiful bird-man with smooth complexion and flawless makeup darkening his lovely purple eyes. His fair blond hair woven with long feathers. Behind him was a long train of peacock feathers in iridescent colors that seemed all the more colorful beneath the flicking candlelight. As he noticed you glance at him, he seemed to almost puff out his chest in pride and the feather train behind him ruffled ever so slightly.

There was what you could only describe as a some kind of horned horse-man standing not too far from the bird-man. He had fiery red hair that complimented his smokey blue eyes, a prominent golden horn sat in the middle of his forehead with two long strands of hair framing the protrusion. His horse-half had pure white fur, the tail of the horse sporting the same flaming hair the human-half had. The hooves on the horse half were that same sparkling golden that made the hybrid almost seem regal in a way.

Even beyond the two oddities you saw more and more inhuman features on the beings standing around you. There was a light murmur of conversation humming through the air and that was when you caught something unusual.

"I thought humans were extinct?"

You were brought back to attention by the man in front of you clapping his hands as he stood back to full height. He had an unsettling smile playing on his lips and he regarded you the same way one would regard a lost puppy sitting, shivering from fear and cold at their door.

"You actually are a human, aren't you? How amazing! To think, a human just appeared at my College after centuries of one not even being sighted! How thrilling. This certainly is an unusual situation, and it is my duty as Headmage to safeguard such an endangered creature. Worry not, little human, you are safe here. Aren't I just the kindest?"

You felt like you had been dropped in some wretched nightmare that made no sense despite how desperately you searched for it. There was no such thing as horned horse men, or crow men, or peacock men! None of this was possibly happening because these things just didn't exist where you were from. Maybe as a child you had believed such lies, but as an adult you couldn't comprehend these creatures possibly existing. It was just madness.

It was as you were pulling yourself too your feet that another voice spoke up, this one a touch deeper than that of the Crow man.

"Merveilleux~ to see such a mythical being up close like this... Their beauty is absolutely stunning in such a captivating and exotic way, très bien!"

You saw the man speaking and felt a little confused when he was taller than many of those standing around him. As others moved to look at him you saw just what it was that gave him such height above the rest. It looked as if someone had taken the top half of a man and attached it to the body of a spider about where the face would be. The spider body itself was compact with black markings along the abdomen and long, spindly legs that seemed more than double the length of the body. Two prominent fangs sat curled at the front of the man, slightly obscured by his robes hanging over them, but you could see the faint sheen of venom on the pointed surface of the far too-large mandibles.

Something about seeing the handsome face and shining green eyes of the blond man paired with the monstrous spider-body that he was attached to made the world seem to spin and pitch beneath you. Though you had just managed to get to your feet you certainly didn't feel steady on them, but as the crow man reached out to steady you, you did the only thing you could think of and bolted. Your sudden flight from the situation made several others startle, and in the confusion you darted for what looked like an exit or portal out.

It had not been what you hoped it to be as you found yourself standing before a dark castle that seemed all the more intimidating compared to the monster filled room you just fled. Still, you could try to find somewhere in the castle to lay low, maybe even out on one of the balconies next to the many Gargoyles that overlooked the dour building. There had to be somewhere out of place enough for you to hide- or so you hoped- from the hybrid monsters that so happily decided to keep you despite not knowing a thing about you.

The slow wandering of halls with no opposition put you on edge, wondering if you just got lucky or if you hadn't seen anyone for a reason. Even as your footsteps quietly echoed in the dark halls, you remained vigilant in your quest to find somewhere out of the way.

Eventually that quest for somewhere safe led you to one of the many rooftops of the building. Your salvation came in the form of a recessed alcove that went further back than it appeared, facing away from the front of the castle. It wasn't much, but it was enough to keep you sheltered from the rather cold wind and make you feel concealed even among the rooftop.

With Gargoyles as your company and adrenaline quickly fading, you found yourself exhausted and in need of a rest. Despite how fast you seemed to have stumbled upon your hiding place, you could see it had actually been quite a distance you must have run. The portal far away on the other side of the enormous drawbridge that let you into the castle. Your energy was sapped and you were more than confused, but you couldn't fight the insistent pull of sleep on your frazzled mind forever.

~•§•~

The old crow Fae was still reeling from the absolute shock he had just gone through, but most would likely be feeling the same were they in his shoes. It simply was next to impossible, but an actual human was roaming the halls of Night Raven College. He himself had last seen a human more than half a millennia ago and they had since been declared extinct for several centuries. Seeing such a mythical being in the Hall of Mirrors was certainly unexpected and curious.

At first he believed they were a Selkie who had lost their fur, but the absolute lack of magic from them told him all he needed to know. Humans were the only non-magic species that had reached sentience in Twisted Wonderland, but this left them at a disadvantage as all other sentient species had magic and quickly out competed them. Some of the Naga and other beastman tribes even took to eating humans as a delicacy before they were declared extinct. Now Crowley had what was very possibly the first recorded human in centuries somewhere lost in his college.

The grants he could get to care for the human alone justified finding them and keeping them at Night Raven despite the fact they were not actually a student or member of the college. Even beyond just the money to keep such a rare specimen safe, he was going to get to see their magicless qualities first hand. It was always assumed that humans had some kind of innate abilities to make up for the fact that they didn't have magic. Their affable nature made them great at keeping the peace between strong personalities and powerful magic users. Though humans were technically at the bottom of the food chain as far as sentient species were concerned, Crowley could keep this one creature safe at Night Raven College.

All he needed to do now was find the wayward human and get them to settle down. Of course, there was still the question for where the human could possibly stay that would ensure their safety.

~•§•~

The dark haired prince walked through the somber halls of Diasomnia. Emerald eyes taking note of the ever familiar surroundings that made up his temporary home. The dour prince was looking to visit his beloved Gargoyles and figured now was as good a time as any. He had not been invited to the ceremony after all and he was not so rude as to show up without invitation and no good reason. Besides, it had been a while since he last visited his beloved statues.

As he made his usual rounds based on the age of the statue, the horned royal paused when greeted with an unfamiliar sight. Beneath one of the Gargoyles was someone soft and delicate looking. They were clearly not made of the same stone as the statues, but by all appearances the Gargoyles had borne a child of flesh and not stone. Perhaps Lilia would know where this odd little creature came from.

The prince was gentle removing the soft (s/c) being from beneath the statue, taking care to not wake the warm creature. His obsidian wings flared with contentment as he managed to extract the oddly delicate humanoid. Outwardly appearing, they almost seemed to be a selkie without fur, but their scent said otherwise. They were much softer than a siren or banshee which often had very taut skin. With renewed purpose, the thorn prince carried his new discovery to his own room, tucking the little being into his blankets. He would find somewhere else for the odd creature to stay after he conversed with Lilia. For now, he could leave the fragile being in the safety of his nest until he figured out what they were.

Perhaps he would crash the ceremony after all. Even if he wasn't invited, this was a good reason.

[lilybug-02]

so in your hollow knight au, what would interactions between wyrms and humans be like? how did the Pale Wyrm come to be?

i'm sorry i'm a huge lore buff and i love hollow knight aaaaa

This is a size comparison and fun Pale King Concept.

I like combining a bit of reality with fantasy, so if Hollow Knight did exist within the Human realm, I think it would be interesting if the Pale King was a magical offshoot of the Arthropleura, a giant extinct millipede which lived 300 million years ago.

Aren't they beautiful. (don't worry they were Herbivores🥦yummy plant roots)

I'd imagine the Pale King's linage is a powerful magical race of Arthropleura surviving in the deep cave systems below. He would easily be able to take down an adult human. Thankfully the two sides never clashed.

[one-with-the-tree]

The taxidermy remains of the last quagga. She lived at the Artis Zoo in Amsterdam until she died on 12 August 1883. Her mount is very damaged but they did their best to fix her.

Some photos were taken of her while she was alive.

She is currently on display at the Allard Pierson museum in Amsterdam.

[massiveladycat]

[cuubism]

it's been a while since i've written something that could be described as "literally just hurt/comfort" but well. here it is. i guess XD

--

It amused Hob endlessly that Dream never seemed to sit on his throne. Perhaps he did when welcoming official delegations of visitors, or conducting official business, but Hob had never witnessed it. Every time he had been to Dream’s throne room, Dream had been sprawled on the stairs instead, long limbs all askew, coat flared out dramatically below him, like some kind of panther reclining on its tree branch. Moody, petulant, dramatic thing. Hob loved him so.

He pet up and down Dream’s side as he sat beside him, and Dream, panther-like indeed, purred, pressing his nose into Hob’s throat. He had been about to show Hob something, take him to some new corner of the Dreaming he had created, but as usual they had gotten distracted, necking on the steps like insatiable teenagers. And now they were just talking quietly, one of Hob’s legs slung over Dream’s, Dream’s arm around his waist as Hob kept stroking up and down his rib cage under his cloak.

“I did intend to show you the new gardens,” Dream murmured, but made no move to leave Hob’s side. “You will enjoy them.”

“I’m sure I will,” Hob said, pressing another kiss to his hair. “Enjoying this too, though.”

“Would you like to enjoy more?” Dream asked, suggestion in it now, and Hob laughed.

“If you’re feeling committed enough to get up and lead us to your quarters. I don’t think Lucienne deserves to get an eyeful.”

“I could close off the throne room and have you upon these here steps,” rumbled Dream, grip tightening on Hob’s hip.

“And I could have you over your throne, if we’re doing that,” Hob countered, and a shudder ran up Dream’s spine.

He managed to disentangle himself from Hob and stood, offering a hand. “Come. We will retreat— this time.”

Hob chuckled, letting Dream pull him up. “Not in an exhibitionist mood today?”

“I’d like you to myself.” So saying, he strode down the steps, already summoning a swirl of sand to take them away— back to the waking world, maybe—

when something struck him.

Only there was nothing there. But Dream lurched backward the way the soldiers of Hob’s youth would fall back when lanced through with an arrow on the battlefield—he stumbled on suddenly weak legs, clutching at his chest, and with a cry of pain just—

—dropped

just fell in the middle of his throne room, the very seat of his power. Landed on shaking arms that were already giving out, shoulders curved and head hanging.

It was fucking terrifying.

Hob rushed over to him, fell to his knees by his side. Hands hovering for a moment as he tried to decide if it was safe to touch him. Safe for Dream, that was. Hob hardly cared about what might happen to him. “Dream,” he said, but Dream didn’t respond. He seemed barely able to hold himself up. As Hob watched, blood trickled from his nose and dripped onto the marble floor.

Hob abandoned caution and took him into his arms. Dream wiped at the blood streaming faster from his nose with a limp hand, but only succeeded in smearing it everywhere. “Dream,” Hob said. “What’s happening, love?”

Dream just closed his eyes. “Something…” he murmured, the word slurred and nearly unintelligible, “terrible. Silence. And. Death.”

A tremor rushing through him like an electric shock, and the Dreaming… separated.

Hob felt the schism go through it, felt his own body separating from itself like an earthquake right through the center of existence, the very air trembling. He looked at his hands and saw them in double, looked at the throne room and saw its colors refracting outward in layered planes, and then Dream, in the center of it all, dense as a neutron star.

Then it all slammed back together.

The force of the impact flung Hob across the room, away from Dream. He hit the floor hard, struggling to catch his breath as he scrambled upright, dizzy. Everything seemed to have congealed back into one layer again, but the hall was shaking, and on the other side of the room Dream was trying to push himself up, and failing as his limbs kept giving out on him, blood puddling on the floor from his nose and mouth.

What could possibly make Dream bleed? In his own realm?

Hob raced back over to him, skidding to a stop and crouching by his side so fast he almost fell over. Dream was on his knees, eyes screwed shut, hands pressed to his temples. Hob laid his hands over Dream’s. “Hey. Can you hear me? Can you look at me?”

Dream just let out a pained whine. And then Hob was very glad he was holding onto him because the whole room spun.

Suddenly they were upside down, gravity reversed so down was up, up was down, and Hob was on the ceiling looking down at the endless void of space. They didn’t fall, though, and he wrenched his gaze back to Dream before the vertigo made him puke. And then the room swung upright again, but this time it took gravity with it— Hob grabbed a hold of Dream’s hand and just barely stayed in place but heard things crashing against the palace windows, trees and houses and god knew what else that had been uprooted in the spinning equilibrium.

“Dream,” he said, holding Dream’s face between his hands. “Can you focus? Come back to me, love.”

Dream finally looked at him. His eyes had lost their human veneer and gone starry, but one was utterly black edge-to-edge, like it was dilating wrong in its view of the universe. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but what came out instead was another gush of blood.

“Shit.” Hob hauled him upright, kept him in his arms as he choked and spasmed, blood coming up with each cough, streaming from his nose. The sky had shifted to a glaring red, the stars angry eyes against it, and screaming rose higher and higher from the distant woods outside the palace, a thousand animal voices rising in chorus. “Shit. Alright, it’s okay.” He pet Dream’s hair, kept his voice pitched low and soothing, though his heart was hammering under Dream’s ear pressed against his chest. It most definitely was not alright, but Hob didn’t know what else he could do, other than try to bring Dream back from wherever he was. There was no injury, there was nothing he could fix. “It’s alright, my darling. Come on.”

Dream whimpered in pain and jerked as a lightning bolt of energy raced through him, zapping each of his limbs. Blood had started streaming out of his ears now, too, and past the sleeves of his robe Hob could see bruising around his wrists and trailing up his arms. He yanked up the hem of Dream’s shirt, and found more on his torso, patternless marks of bleeding, and his stomach lurched.

“Alright, alright, let’s get you down,” he said, keeping his voice gentle despite the panic racing through his nervous system. He laid Dream down on the floor, taking off his own jacket and folding it as a makeshift pillow to put under his head. Dream immediately turned and curled up on his side, hands over his ears.

Hob leaned down to try to meet his gaze. “Dream. Hey.” He caressed Dream’s cheek. “Dream. Please. Anything you can tell me that will help. Come on, darling. Talk to me.”

After several long, painful seconds, Dream managed, each word a dragging, pained whisper, “It will pass. I prom—” this was cut off by a horrible scream, animalistic but all wrong, off-pitch, like he was being eviscerated by an electroshock probe.

Matthew careened into the throne room and landed at Hob’s side. “Holy shit, there you are. I thought he was dying in a ditch somewhere, the Dreaming’s going fucking haywire.” He prodded at Dream’s hair with his beak, hopping in distress. “Boss. Boss!”

Dream seemed totally lost to them now, clutching at his head and making an awful whining sound. Hob finally gave up on trying to get him to talk and just pulled him close, laying Dream’s head in his lap.

Matthew perched delicately on Dream’s hip. “Do you know what happened?”

Hob brushed Dream’s hair from his sweaty, feverish forehead. “Not a clue. He said it would pass?”

Matthew tittered nervously. “A whole wing of the library is burning.”

“What?”

“Yeah. Loosh can’t get the fire under control. And a whole mountain range fell into the sea. Is this the apocalypse?”

Hob let out a shaky breath. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. But it this doesn’t get better soon I’m calling his sister for help myself.”

Dream sucked in a huge breath as if summoned back to life by Hob’s words and said, each word a heavy scrape, “She will be far too busy for that.”

Around them, the Dreaming seemed to stabilize, shivering back into place. Everything went quiet again. Hob’s exhale of relief shook his whole body. “Hey. Hey.” He took Dream’s face between his hands and tilted his head up to look at him. “Hey, love. Are you back with us?”

Dream nodded. He looked utterly exhausted, glassy-eyed and with tremors running up and down his frame, but no longer like he was being actively tortured. “That was. The worst of it.”

“The worst of what? Did somebody hurt you?”

“No.” He looked to Hob for help, and Hob didn’t like it but he hauled him upright and helped him sit, wrapping an arm around his shoulders and letting Dream lean against him. “I am,” his voice was hoarse, each word a struggle, “the sum. Of all living minds in this universe. And when so many of those lives are ended at once. I. Feel it. That part of myself. Dying.”

Hob looked around before remembering that he couldn’t exactly see anything from here. “Something happened back home?”

“Your planet is not the only one with life,” Dream said. Hob shook himself before his brain could latch onto that—it was too much to be confronted with in the middle of a crisis. “I do not know exactly what transpired. I will have to ask Death. Only, it was significant.”

“What, like thousands of people? Er, beings?” Matthew said.

Dream’s gaze slanted over to him. He looked horribly sad, underneath the exhaustion. “Trillions. Not only intelligent species dream. Smaller creatures. Insects. Some plants. All eradicated.”

“That’s why that happened to the library,” Hob realized. All the books of all those lives.

Dream’s eyes snapped to him. “What happened to the library?”

“Apparently it was on fire—”

Dream tore himself from Hob’s grasp and staggered to his feet, rushed through a door that hadn’t been there a moment before. He was listing violently to one side, stumbling off balance, but didn’t stop, and Hob and Matthew chased after him.

They tumbled through the door into an inferno, the towering library stacks crackling and popping in the incredible heat. A surprisingly modern sounding alarm was blaring overhead, lights flashing. Lucienne had found a fire extinguisher and was valiantly attempting to put out the blaze, but she could do nothing against the sheer scale of it.

Dream careened into a table, caught himself just before falling, then thrust out his hands. The room plummeted to freezing in an instant, and Hob’s breath caught as all of the oxygen—to whatever extent that even existed in the Dreaming��whooshed out of the room. His chest went tight, and he was pretty sure it was only the nature of the Dreaming that kept them all from suffocating.

Dream held them in stasis like that until all of the fires had sputtered out, starved of air. Then his arms fell heavily to his sides and he dropped sideways into a chair, panting. Air swung back into the room, and Hob sucked in a deep breath.

“Lucienne,” said Dream, breathing heavily, “what— what is— the damage?”

Lucienne sat down beside him. She looked rather more concerned about the state of Dream himself than the books—his skin was still absolutely covered in blood, his face gaunt and hollow, limbs shaking—but she said, “We’ve lost most of this wing, my lord. What happened?”

Dream squeezed his eyes shut in dismay. “Too many lives felled at once.”

Lucienne laid her hand over his, gave it a squeeze. Hob knelt beside him, laying a hand on his knee.

“My fault,” Dream murmured. “I should have conceived of some protection against this. Or recovered myself. Quicker.”

“No,” said Lucienne, even before Hob could. “I don’t think you could have stopped this, my lord.”

"You can't prevent people from dying," said Hob.

"I can certainly prevent their books from being wiped from the library," insisted Dream, and then slumped, leaning his face on his hand, brow pinched in pain. "Too much strain on the Dreaming at once," he murmured, mostly to himself. "This should not have happened."

Hob squeezed Dream’s knee. “I’m sorry, love. I’m really sorry.”

Dream’s frown didn’t soften, if anything, his shoulders slumped further.

“I’ll see what I can salvage,” Lucienne said, standing upright again. “You should rest.”

Dream didn’t seem to have the strength to oppose this. “Matthew, will you find out if any residents were injured in the destruction?”

“Yup, on it, boss.” He landed on Dream’s shoulder for a moment, preened his hair, then winged away again, out of the library.

Then it was just Dream and Hob.

“Hey,” Hob said quietly. Now that they were alone, Dream had gone nearly as limp as a doll. Hob took both of his hands. “Let’s go rest, yeah? You must be knackered.”

That barely scratched the surface, but bringing up Dream’s moments of weakness—as he would see it—was rarely helpful.

“I am not tired so much as…” he plucked each specific word individually from the ether— “Stripped. To the bone. Like carrion.”

Hob’s heart hurt, doubly so for Dream having actually admitted it. “Let’s go rest then, yeah?”

Dream shook his head. “I do not wish to simply return to my quarters. I do not wish to simply return to my quarters. That is not what the Dreaming deserves after this failure.”

“Somewhere else? You can’t just go and try to fix it all now, Dream. Please.”

“Somewhere else,” Dream agreed, at length. "For a time." He interlocked his fingers with Hob’s. Then the library was swirling out of view, and they reemerged in a familiar grassy dell, sitting in the long, soft grass. Fiddler’s Green, Hob thought. Of course.

Gilbert—for since learning that Fiddler’s Green was a he, Hob couldn’t help but call him the more human name he’d chosen—seemed unharmed by the damage that had plowed through the Dreaming. Dream sat cross-legged on the soft ground and brushed his fingertips through the grass, a self-soothing motion. A warm breeze tumbled through his hair, as if Gilbert was trying to comfort him.

Hob gathered Dream into his arms, and as he did a tree sprung up from the ground behind him, growing from a sapling to a massive oak in moments. Hob leaned back against it, holding Dream close. “You’re a gem, Gilbert.”

The leaves rustled in response.

“Has something like this happened before?” Hob asked quietly, lips brushing Dream’s hair, and Dream nodded.

“Yes. Hence why I should have been more prepared.”

“Not what I meant. I wanted to know how to help.”

“There is… little to be done,” Dream said. “In time, the Dreaming will integrate the loss. Any acute damage, I will fix. It simply requires some… patience.”

“And what about you?” Hob said.

This time, Dream didn’t say something about how the Dreaming was him. He just didn’t respond at all.

Hob held out a hand. “Do you want to help me out here, then, Dreaming?”

A soft, wet towel appeared in his hand. “Cheers.”

“Hob,” said Dream uncertainly, as Hob budged him up.

“Let me see your face.” He took Dream’s chin in one hand, and began scrubbing away the blood with the other, wiping clean his lips, and the corners of his eyes, his chin, his throat.

Dream watched him silently. Hob was still wiping clean the sharp hinge of his jaw when the first tear slipped from his eye. “So many dreamers,” he murmured.

Hob pulled him close and pressed Dream’s head to his shoulder. He still didn’t know exactly what had happened, in some far off corner of the universe. But Dream’s pain was plain enough. “I know, love. I’m sorry.”

“I am used,” Dream said, “to the normal cycle of life and death. I have never considered it a tragedy; it is the way of Time. Death herself is kind, but not all ends are, it is the way of things. But such sudden, and widespread destruction. This feels. Like a tragedy. Not only lives were lost. But whole species. Cultures. A history, too. And its remembrance.”

“And normally you’re the one that remembers it,” said Hob, and Dream nodded.

“Now… I can only remember fragments about those civilizations. Whatever survived in the library, or on the fringes of my realm. I can feel the loss in the fabric of dreaming—but I cannot see what was once there.”

Hob kissed the top of his head. “You care so much,” he said, as Dream’s tears wet his shoulder. “Oh, darling. I’m sorry.”

There was really nothing more to say; he couldn’t make it any better. He could only hold Dream while he processed and regained his strength. And so he did just that, leaning back against the tree in the warm, calming breeze of Fiddler’s Green, and kept Dream close to him. And when it came time for Dream to fix the damage done to the Dreaming, Hob would stick by him then, too.

[sierraveree-art]

inktober prompt "chains" | featuring the last thylacine | lyrics from deuteronomy 2:10 by the mountain goats | india ink on watercolor paper

[drinkinggblood]

death by greed and gluttony; generations pass and none will know of my name, my face, my call. An echo of what I once was.

[unidentifiedlyingobject]

some tma fears fanart :D

tumblr destroys the image quality until you click on the picture :P

below the cut are the individual images!

these are very tiny and cute :D

[batshikns]

gosh it's been too long since i posted art but here we are! I saw some of my mutuals reblogging tma stuff and i was like "i know that thing" and in true batshikn fashion, make a bsd au.

edit: dont mind the quote at the bottom of the second page please

the hunted....

[v1x-holo]

*STARTS FANGIRLING* as if it ever ends