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dearlybeelovedreadingroom · 8 years ago

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Voided Reveries: Agents of Fate

The Ascended Golden Goddesses

It was time. Hylia had to put her plan into effect now. Her first task was to rewind the timeline, give them a clean slate to work on. As much as she would have liked to start all over again, she couldn’t go too far backwards. If Change was to be the Hero’s Mother, she couldn’t very well be the mother of the one she’d been in love with. So Hylia pulled the timeline as far back as she could, up until the very last possible moment—the defeat of Demise. She winced and apologized as she watched Autumn disappear from existence, and Change’s spirit dispossess the body it had been given. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

And…There. That was that. None of it had ever happened. Now to enact the rest of her plan. Though, for that, she’d need help.

She knew the call to summon divine souls; she was the only one who had done it, to awaken herself in Zelda. She gave the call again, summoning the other Angels from their corners of Hyrule, and when they’d arrived, she explained the plan.

They were to become gods.

Of course, this meant that someone had to carry the Triforce. After much debate, they came to a decision—everyone would. Since Chance and Change were going into resurrection cycles, she would, too. The Golden Goddesses would keep their Triforce pieces between resurrections, the way they had up until now. Hylia summoned it, and the Angels each stood in their third of it. Hylia took her place in the bottom left, with Nayru.

“The other two will be with us shortly,” she explained, “please break it apart to be distributed. Everyone gets a piece.”

She began the call to bring Chance and Change to the little meeting of the Goddesses. As they drifted in, she began the incantation. The light shining from Golden Angels’ souls became more human-like forms, with their fairy-shaped souls at the center. Chance and Change’s souls, on the other hand, were sitting on the breastbones of their forms as Hylia produced mortal bodies for them. Hylia pulled Change’s soul off her chest and split it in two. One, she sent off and away. She’d get to it later. The other, she put into the mortal body, which stood suspended in air above Farore’s Triforce piece as Hylia worked. She took Chance’s light green soul off her chest and put it into the Gerudo body that floated about Din’s part of the Triforce. Hylia gestured at herself, tying herself into the trio of reincarnated souls as the Golden Goddesses sang her order, then she ended her spell.

Chance and Change dropped to the ground with the Triforce pieces.

“Farore,” Hylia said, her voice low, “take her. Take Change to the woods with you. Keep her there, keep her safe until the Hero is born. It won’t be long now. Din, you take Chance. Nayru, stay with me.”

Satisfied with her work, Hylia sent them off with a wave of her hand. She watched their retreating ghostly forms carrying the mortal vessels, then she took off herself, headed for Hyrule Castle to be present at the birth of the princess. She had to be there to give away her soul, after all.

Change

It was clear that Change’s soul traveled best in thunderstorms. The night her son was born, it stormed so hard, her screams were barely heard above the driving rain.

Hylia was there as—Maea, people called her Maea—died, to welcome her soul, to welcome Change, home again.

As what had been Maea burst into a flurry of fairies that were quickly shepherded away to a fountain by the Great Fairy, Hylia led Change to her respite between bodies. It was a pair of islands, a place she knew well.

Skipper’s Retreat. Well, what was left of it, which wasn’t much. But she still recognized it.

Change spent a lot of time looking out over what should have been the Sand Sea, thinking about Sky, and what she could remember of Autumn, though now Autumn felt more like a dream that she’d forgotten when she woke up. Autumn had loved the Sand Sea… hadn’t she?

Sky was easier to remember; even then, Change couldn’t remember exactly. All that had been in a different timeline. Hylia assured her that even though everyone had forgotten nearly everything (except, of course, all six of the divine beings in on this plan), there was a little sliver of her still in Sky’s memory. A gentle woman with blonde hair and a kind smile. He liked blondes for a reason, Hylia said, smirking.

One of the images Change had seen in her pool so long ago, before she had become a human the first time, was Sky exploring Skipper’s Retreat—he had reached the top, Skipper’s home, and found it empty. Full of sand.

There were pictures scattered throughout the home of other Lanayru robots, and some notes, wishing that Skipper would come back soon.

Sky had quickly figured out what Change already knew… Skipper had lost his family in the years between the capture of his ship and getting Sky’s help to reclaim it.

Change had more in common with Skipper now than she had then.

That was the first time she had seen Sky cry. He had sunk to his knees in the center of Skipper’s house as tears slid down his cheeks. It was then that she had wanted to reach out to him, hold him. It was that moment, as the both of them shared in Skipper’s grief, that she had fallen in love with him.

She looked out into the distance again. But Sky was gone now, long dead, and never to be seen again. And Autumn was… a precious fiction. Ah, well. At least Change carried remnants of Sky’s spirit, which was also a little bit of Autumn, in every resurrection, as The Hero’s Spirit.

It was a small comfort in the face of a great loss.

With each lifetime, it got a little easier. Leaving Time at the base of the Great Deku Tree would have killed her from a broken heart if she hadn’t already been dying—a plague had come over Hyrule, and she had been one of the unfortunate last sufferers, and now she was dying in the woods amongst immortals, only strong enough to beg for help delivering her baby.

Saria had helped, had vowed to help Link the rest of his life. To be his best friend.

She had to trust this tiny Kokiri. Saria was Link’s only hope.

Change tried to avoid purposely going where Link would be. It would only hurt her, seeing him all grown up and her being incapable of doing anything. He always suffered. Always.

But if he showed up where she was regardless… at least she got to see her son.

Sorie was her name this time, but no one remembered it once she was gone.

The first time Change saw her son, she had been talking with Nais, the Great Fairy… the other half of her soul. Hylia had split Change’s soul into The Great Fairy and The Hero’s Mother so that both jobs that Change had done as a goddess would still get done.

Nais told Change that her love, the love from The Hero’s Mother, is what powered the fairies that healed the Hero. That, too, was a small comfort.

Obviously, Change found a kindred spirit in Nais, so they spent a lot of time talking at Mother and Child Isles (the Hylians had named it this when the Great Flood came, based on the larger island and the small one nearby, protected from the waves. Nais had moved in to her rightful home right away, sending her delegates to the other fountains the Goddesses built, and waited for Change’s arrival after the Hero’s birth).

They were having one of their regular talks the day The Hero showed up.

There he was, so young, The Waker of the Winds. At least, she thought that was what they called him.

Nais drifted away from Change’s side to talk to Link. He needed arrows. She gave them to him. She heard Change whispering to her, “he’s so cute. Tell him that.”

Nais’s comment to Link was a little less maternal than Change had wanted, but the point still stood.

Change wanted to hold him. He was tired. He was slightly seasick. He was bruised. He was only twelve. “Link, my darling,” she called. “Make me proud.”

He was already gone, using the wind to leave the islands through a tiny hole in the top. Change hoped he was going back to Outset. There, the Old Woman would make him soup.

Oh yes, that wasn’t his grandmother, and Aryll wasn’t his sister. Well, not by blood, anyway. Change knew the strength of familial bonds without blood. That had started his whole quest here, too.

In any case, on one of the smaller islands near a fairy fountain, she had put Link in a (sealed, waterproofed) basket and sent him towards the larger island of Outset. The Old Woman had found him and raised him with his “younger sister,” another orphan she’d taken in, as her grandchildren. And now they were the family he had.

Better than nothing. Better than being a ghost.

The image in front of her rippled as Hylia moved her to the alternate timeline of where she’d been.

There had been no flood. Now, Change was in another place familiar to her from her old life, watching the Zora go about their lives from the pair of rocks in the middle of their throne room (since that’s where Mother and Child Isles were this time).

And here, almost comfortingly, Change wasn’t the only ghostly mother watching her son. Nightly, she watched Rutela’s ghost talk to Ralis, and the next day, Ralis talk to Twilight.

Twilight—the only one of her dear, darling sons that she called a nickname in her mind, instead of “Link.” She had been his best friend once, she knew from one of the few memories of back then.

But she still couldn’t speak to him, not even in the way Rutela got to speak with Ralis. So instead Ralis and Twilight, the little orphan boys, spoke to each other under the specters of their mothers.

There were nights where Ralis stayed up and waited for Rutela, and her ghost did not, maybe could not, appear. On those nights, Change sang quiet hymns only the Zora knew (she had learned them in the old life, before Calder had come to the Domain), and when she sang, she reached out for Ralis herself. She pretended on those nights that Ralis was her son.

On those nights, as he wept for want of his mother and she ached to have two sons suffering so, Change realized—not for the first time—that Hyrule was a land built on a foundation of sorrow.

But it wasn’t all bad, necessarily.

Ralis grew up, and he married a beautiful Zora named Nyla. Change was happy and proud, and watched over their whole Zora Royal Family, as much as she could, for generations.

There were other surrogate sons for her, as well. Plenty of Zora princes who grew up big and strong and handsome, talking to Link, always inadvertently letting her lay eyes on her blood-and-birth son again.

Family was family. She could live like this.

Chance

In the desert, the comforts weren’t small or in the face of loss.

Isura was having the time of her mortal life amongst the Gerudo. Her son was a talented sorcerer, a beacon for his people. She was a sorceress herself, and she was his mother, and both those facts earned her respect. As it should be.

Her son left the desert, and that was fine. The handsome hero came to visit, and that was even better.

By the time Ganon had become what he was, using her son’s body that way, she was dead, anyway.

When the Flood came, it wiped out her people, but she went with them.

Her son survived, but he became embittered, not by the harshness of the desert he had once inhabited, but by how his whole family, his mother, his aunts, cousins, sisters—in fact, anyone he’d ever known or loved—had been washed away, and no one cared. They were erased from history, their mark on Hyrule gone forever.

When the Fairy Fountains rose from the depths of the ocean, his mother, Serini’s, body rose with them.

Serini was named that for the lost mother, the last mother of the last Male Gerudo. Well, now there was no one to recognize that history with her.

She was alone in her fortress in the desert. The wind whipped around, taking sand and her dark red hair with it. Her son had been taken away from her, indefinitely, for crimes against the Hylians. They were so full of themselves. And around her, bodies buried under the sand, but souls and spite swirling around her and in her mind and heart always, were her dead sisters.

Fairies were supposed to heal any wound, save anyone from the brink of death. But no fairies had come to the desert. And so, all her sisters were lost.

Serini was the last of the Gerudo now.

What had they done to deserve this? Nothing. The goddesses must have hated them, then, for the crimes of one of them. The supposed crimes.

Serini turned away, getting out of the harsh sun. She would join her sisters soon enough. No reason to hasten her journey and let the goddesses win.

Hylia

Hylia spread the strands of the timeline, looking into each one as though it were a window. She sighed. It was time to free the souls from their resurrection cycles. Chance and Change had learned nothing.

There was nothing to learn.

That is, the two of them had nothing to gain from the experience that they didn’t already know. In one timeline, Change looked out and watched her son pass her by, and silently, she thought about everything that had been taken from her. In exchange for what she’d lost, she’d had her soul ripped out and split to let her do twice the amount of emotional work.

Considering this, Hylia couldn’t decide if it would have been kinder if she’d erased all of Change’s memories, taken Autumn away from her completely, and Sky. There was so obviously a part of Change that knew what was missing and was trying to get it back, and Hylia had been dangling it in front of Change for hundreds of years.

And then there was Chance. Alone in the desert fortress, convinced that everyone had turned their backs on her.

The great sorceress Serini had cast a spell to keep The Hero’s Mother out of the desert, for what The Hero had done to her son.

Little did she know that that very spell was what had killed her people.

The spell was sophisticated—it blocked Change’s soul from entering the desert… but she, and the Great Fairy, and all fairies, had the same soul. To block Change was to block any healing power.

But, Hylia thought, wasn’t that Chance’s way? Her actions were ultimately destructive. The battle against Demise had almost killed Hylia, and had begun the resurrection cycles that Hylia had taken advantage of for this exercise, to teach them a lesson.

No matter. It was time to end it.

Well, not the cycle on the Triforce. She had no power over that. She couldn’t touch Demon magic.

But she could free Chance and Change. After all, they had always existed in opposition, to keep each other in check. There was no way to sow concord in what was a salted field. She was only torturing them now. It would be humane to just let them go free forever—not divine anymore, and no longer responsible.

She summoned the Golden Goddesses again. They had cast the spell with her, they had to be there for her to break it.

As the four of them entered the desert, Hylia saw what was on the other side of Chance’s barrier to the desert: one solitary fairy, straining to break through.

She shook her head and brought down the barrier. The fairy fluttered through and raced to the fortress—but it was too late. Serini had passed, dehydrated and overheated.

The Gerudo were gone.

The fairy dissolved, powerless, and in its place, one heart flower bloomed in the desert. The first in hundreds of years.

The Golden Goddesses held hands and released Chance from her bonds. The wind picked up as the quartet made their way to Mother and Child Isles.

Change wept. Bitterly. She didn’t want to go. She didn’t mind having no powers, or being stuck the way she was. She just wanted a family. If they took her out of the cycle, released her soul… what would she be, if not The Hero’s Mother?

Farore, her patron, was the first to speak up. “In my woods…The Skull Kid. He needs a friend, needs a mother.”

Hylia nodded. “And we need The Great Fairy still.”

Change nodded.

Hylia continued. “But I need you unbound. You can spend eternity in Farore’s woods, but you have to be released from the Triforce… you can be a ghost, but that’s all.”

Change was crying, looking at the Triforce. It was all she had left to tie her to him… Finally, she spoke. “I want to see Sky again. I want to see all of them. Just once.”

Hylia rubbed her temples, but swept up ghosts of all the heroes.

Wait, Change thought. …they were ghosts, too. She could touch them now. She hugged each, sobbing, though they were tears of joy more than anything, then nodded to Hylia.

The Golden Goddesses unbound her.

When it was over, Hylia held Change’s soul for the last time, saying her goodbyes. She passed her over to Farore, who carried her to the woods like a lit candle.

There, the eternal mother met her eternal child.

#voided reveries modded #i guess

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spnroundrobin · 7 years ago

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Masterpost: Round Three - Ship Round

Prompt: Newly human Cas has been staying at the bunker and helping the boys with research while they are away on hunts but has been feeling lonely being in the bunker by himself. During one of the lulls between hunts, he broaches the subject of getting a pet. Dean isn’t very excited about the idea. (established Destiel)

(Remember: This is the ship round so ship to your heart’s content. We’d like to keep this Teen rated so no sexual acts on screen. Innuendo is allowed. Sam is in the bunker so he can be included but side characters will have to be over the phone or on Skype.)

Schedule and Posting Instructions

(As submissions are made, they will be posted here by the mods.)

#1 @deadlykittenkay - Submission: 1

Cas was sitting at the table with books spread out before him and Dean’s laptop. He had decided to take a break from his research on how to get Mary back from the other universe. He always enjoyed watching videos online the featured little kitties and puppies playing. Sometimes Sam would try to find one that he hadn’t seen yet and send it to his phone while he and Dean were hunting.

Cas muted the current video of a cat pretending to be the famous Pokemon character when he thought he heard the bunker door open. After several beats of silence, Cas let out a heavy sigh. The bunker was such a lonely place without another living presence there, whether it be the Winchesters or Jody and Claire. Cas needed a companion, especially if Dean continued to be the over protective boyfriend, insisting that Cas stay behind on the bigger jobs.

#2 @zolaliz - Submission: 1

Of course, Dean would never agree to a pet.

“Who’ll feed it when we’re away, knee deep in some world-ending shitfest? No one. And then it’ll stink up the bunker.”

Cas scowled, recalling the conversation. As much as he hated to admit, Dean did have a point.

He mentally ruled out cats and dogs, glancing longingly at the muted laptop screen. Most mammals would need the same amount of care. Cas had learned over the past few weeks that humans were included in that category of high-maintenance, as he struggled with remembering to eat and sleep. This only added fuel to Dean’s runner-up argument against getting Cas a companion.

“You gotta start taking care of yourself before you go off trying to take care of something else, Cas,” Dean would say, in that highly hypocritical way of his (though Cas highly doubted that was intentional). But Cas reasoned he could work around that argument once he found a way to make Dean’s first one void.

He clicked open a new tab, and tapped “pets that don’t need to eat” into the search bar. Unsurprisingly, it heeded no helpful results.

“Maybe I’ll try to refine the search,” he mumbled, and bounced his fingers over the keys again.

#3 @ravenscat-tumbler - Submission: 1

Cas spent hours trying to find the perfect pet that would be low maintenance but that would still keep him company. He finally decides on a hamster. He knew that it would be easy to care for and not very costly. The little guy would also keep him company when Dean and Sam were away for cases.

The only thing now was to convince Dean to let him get one. He knew that Sam would be open to the idea and he also knew that Sam would help him convince Dean. So, he just had to bring up the idea with Sam first.

Perfect, now all he had to do was wait for the brothers to come home, hopefully safe and in one piece. He sits back and stretches on his chair. He does some more research and finds some useful things to help the brothers speed up their hunt. He picks up the phone and before he can dial he gets an incoming call from Dean.

He answers with a smile.“Hello, baby. I was just about to call you.” Cas answers.

#4 @blue-reveries - Submission: 1

“I just wanted to let you know that Sam and me are on our way back,” Dean said. Castiel could hear the rumble of the Impala in the background as Dean paused. “You sound like you’re in a good mood, any particular reason why?”

Cas scowled; was he really that transparent? He was going to have to seriously up his game if his plan to bring Dean around on the pet front but he knew it was going to have to be extra devious. His eyes widened and he smiled as an idea occurred to him.

“Nothing really but I was going to ask if you were going to be home tonight?” Cas replied smoothly, standing up to wander into the kitchen. He opened the fridge and started taking inventory.

Dean hummed in the affirmative. “Yep, we’re only about an hour out now. I was going to ask if what you wanted for dinner, we’ll stop somewhere on our way in.”

Smiling, Cas pulled his chosen items from the fridge. “Actually, since you’re almost home, I was thinking I could make something,” he said, grinning to himself. “I need something to do anyway and you guys are probably sick of take out.”

“That sounds really freaking good,” Dean sighed happily. “We’ll see you in a bit, babe.” This was followed by a quieter, “love you.”

“Love you too,” Cas said, smiling and shaking his head. All this time and Dean was still shy about saying that when Sam was nearby. It didn’t bother him since he knew it was just a fear of brotherly teasing, not that Dean was ashamed of them. “See you soon.”

After Dean hung up, Cas sat his phone down and looked at the pile of ingredients in front of him before glancing at the clock. He calculated carefully and smiled as he started peeling potatoes.

An hour was plenty of time.

Almost exactly an hour later as Cas was putting the finishing touches on the food, a familiar metallic clang echoed through the bunker and signaled the boys return. He worked quickly to clean up and wash his hands, hurrying out to the main area to see Dean and Sam’ booted feet clomping down the staircase.

“Oh my god, what smells so good?” Dean groaned as he walked over to drop his bag on the map table. He smiled brightly and pulled Cas into a tight hug, giving him a quick peck on the lips at the same time.

Sam rolled his eyes affectionately. “Hey, Cas,” he said as he walked by to place his armful of books on the table. “I’m gonna go clean up before I eat. Don’t let Dean eat it all. He’s been whining for the last half hour about how hungry he is.”

Stepping back from Dean but not dropping his hand, he chuckled. “Don’t worry, Sam. I’ll make sure to save you some.”

“Speaking of food,” Dean interjected not so smoothly as Sam disappeared down the hall to his room. He draped himself over Cas’ back and wrapped his arms around his waist. “What are we having?”

“I may have made homemade bacon cheeseburgers and fresh cut french fries,” Cas said innocently; happy that Dean couldn’t see the smug smirk on his face.

Dean squeezed him into a quick hug and kissed him on the cheek. “Mmmm…my favorite…”

Exactly, Cas thought, internally preening as everything fell into place as he planned as he and Dean trooped to the kitchen. And just wait until you see the peanut butter pie.

#1 @Deadlykittykay Submission: 2

As expected, Dean showed his appreciation for the burgers with gusto. He would moan appreciatively with each bite, his cheeks filling like that of a chipmunk, or better yet, much like the hamsters videos Cas had seen on YouTube. Castiel couldn’t help but smile at Dean fondly every time he did this. Even Sam was enjoying his meal, despite his brother’s unseemly manners.

Cas had missed the brother’s terribly and watching them bicker and interact with each other, even throwing stray fries at one another, filled Cas’ chest with warmth. Between this, the feel of Dean’s knee knee against his own, and listening to Sam retell the story of the latest hunt, Cas nearly forgot about his mission behind tonight’s dinner.

“So,” Sam started, pushing his plate away and smiling at Cas. “What were you up to while we were gone?”

Cas just shrugged, glancing at Dean before redirecting his attention to Sam. “The usual. I’m still trying to find some lore about alternate universes. It’s a bit trickier than I had imagined.”

“Come on, Cas,” Dean nudged his knee with his own, giving him a found smile. “Don’t tell me you were a nerd the whole time.”

Cas rolled his eyes and reached for the brother’s empty plates. “No, Dean. I did more than research. I watched Netflix and YouTube videos. Pie?” he asked quickly, internally kicking himself when Dean groaned at the mention of the videos

#2 Submission: 2

Skipped

#3 @ravenscat-tumbler - Submission: 2

“Pie?” Dean’s face lights up at the mention of pie. “You made pie too? God, you’re perfect.” He says and then immediately blushes.

Sam snorts into his cup as he tires and fails miserably to hide his laugh. Dean glares at him and rubs the back of his head in embarrassment.

“I’ll go get that pie now.” Cas says.

Dean nods not meeting anyone’s eye.

“I’m gonna go put these plates in the kitchen.” Sam says, grabbing the dishes off the table and heading after Cas.

“Hello, Sam. Do you have a minute?” Cas asks as Sam walks into the kitchen.

“Yeah man, what’s up?” He asks, putting the dishes in the sink and leaning back against the counter. He looks at Cas and waits patiently.

Cas takes a breath, “I would like to get a hamster.” He says in one go.

“A hamster?” Sam tilts his head.

“A hamster.” Cas repeats again. “I need someone to keep me company when you two leave to go on long hunts.”

“Uhm, Ohhkay. So what’s the big issue?” Sam says, scratching the back of his head.

“And I need your help to convince Dean.”

Sam groans, “Dammit, that’s gonna be hard but alright, I’ll help you.”

Cas smiles warmly at Sam.

#4 @blue-reveries - Submission: 2

A quick and rough plan was quickly established and it all started with an extra large slice of peanut butter pie and Netflix.

“Wow, that was so freaking good,” Dean groaned, leaning back in his chair and patting his stomach before letting out a contented belch that had Sam scrunching his nose. Cas picked stood up and collected their plates. Dean tugged him down and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, a sure sign that he was in an extra happy mood. That would make the next stage of the plan easier.

Sam pushed back from the table and stood up. “I think I’m going to get into some sweats and watch some Netflix, you guys in?”

Dean replied in the affirmative and, while Cas quickly washed up the dishes, he and Sam went to change since Cas was already comfortably dressed. Fifteen minutes later, Cas and Dean were on the sofa in the room that had become the unofficial den after they’d picked up a couch at a second hand store. Sam was booting up Netflix from his armchair.

They settled on a light comedy show since Sam and Dean weren’t really interested in anything heavy after being out on a hunt. Cas curled up next to Dean and rested his head on his shoulder but he wasn’t really watching the show. He was waiting for his opportunity.

Three episodes in he enacted phase two.

Over the course of the next episode, Cas slowly and carefully situated himself so that his head was pillowed in Dean’s lap, one hand resting on his knees. According to plan, Dean began absentmindedly running his fingers through Cas’ hair while he continued to watch and Cas pretended to fall asleep.

“You know, I kinda feel bad for him,” Cas heard Sam say after about twenty minutes of ‘sleeping’. “Cas seems like he’s been sort of lonely while we’re gone.”

Dean grunted. “What makes you say that?”

“Oh, he just mentioned how nice it was to have people moving around in the bunker again,” Sam said, his voice appropriately casual. Dean continued to toy with Cas’ hair, a sign that he was still relaxed. “I have to admit, it does get boring here when you’re by yourself.”

“I mean, we could probably take him on a few extra hunts,” Dean said though he sounded extremely reluctant, “but it’s really been working out for us to have someone here at home base.”

Cas heard Sam shifting in his seat. “Oh, yeah, I agree,” Sam replied before letting the conversation pause for a little bit. Cas had to work really hard to keep his body relaxed. “I don’t think it would hurt to have a pet around here though.”

The hand in Cas’ hair froze.

Dean sighed heavily and Cas’ stomach twisted in anticipation. “Sam,” he said heavily, his hand starting to move again, “you know my stance on pets, man. Cats hate people and dogs are just too high maintenance for a bunch of dudes who routinely get stuck on the road for weeks at a time. It’s not like we can call up the neighbors and ask them to pet sit.”

Cas felt his stomach start to sink. Dean wasn’t going to go for it; having Sam talk to Dean first wasn’t going to help his case. He had just decided to ‘wake up’ and forget the whole thing when Sam spoke up.

“But what if it wasn’t a cat or a dog?”

#1 @deadlykittenkay - Submission: 3

“Then what, Sammy?” Dean asked his voice sounding much more tired than Cas had ever heard come from the hunter. “A fish? So that way we can come home to it bloated and floating upside down? Think of how he reacted when you accidentally killed the bee last year. How do you think he’s going to react to a fish dying. Not just any fish but his fish.”

Sam sighed and leaned forward, bracing his forearms onto his thighs. “Not a fish, Dean.”

“Well I’d rather go to Hell again than have a snake or glorified spider in the bunker.”

“What about a hamster?” Sam tried.

Dean wrinkled his nose in distaste. “I don’t know, Sammy. They’re rodents.”

Sam’s eyes connected with Cas’ from across the room. Cas opened his mouth to say something but closed it when he saw the flick of Sam’s hand, motioning for him not to say anything.

“Dean,” Sam said softly, a tone that Dean knew as the one Sam uses when he pulls his lawyer card on someone. “You love Cas, right?”

#2 @zolaliz - Submission: 3

Skip

#3 @ravenscat-tumbler - Submission: 3

“Of course I do!” Dean says a little too loudly. He bites his lip and looks down at Castiel, who stirs in protest.

Castiel keeps calm and tries not to open his eyes.

“Of course I do.” Dean says again, a little quieter this time.

“Then don’t you want him to be happy?” Sam asks.

“I do,” Dean says, looking down and carding his hand through Cas’ hair. “but I don’t see how a stupid hamster is going to do that.” He grumbles out.

“It will Dean, trust me. It will.” Sam says. “It gets pretty lonely here when you are alone.”

Dean sighs softly, “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

“I know.” Sam says smugly.

Castiel opens his eyes and looks in Sam’s.

Sam smirks down at him and Castiel mouths ‘Thank you’ at him.

#4 @blue-reveries - Submission: 3

When he’d “woken up” from his nap, Dean hadn’t said anything at first much to Cas’ disappointment. Maybe Dean had taken the time to think and decided that he’d changed his mind. It actually hadn’t been until they were getting ready for bed that Dean had haltingly admitted that he had been wrong and that it wouldn’t be a horrible idea for Cas to have a pet.

“So I guess, if you wanted, we could go to the pet store tomorrow and you know, look for some sort of critter…but only one.”

Cas tried extremely hard to receive Dean’s acquiescence towards getting a pet with grace and dignity and felt he succeeded…barely. Instead of jumping up and cheering at finally achieving his goal, he beamed and leaned in to kiss Dean silly before moving on to other ways to show his gratitude.

It would be well into the later part of the morning before they left their room for breakfast the next day.

After breakfast, which definitely seemed to take longer than normal to Cas, they left the bunker to head into town. Cas had the directions to the pet store pulled up on his phone; he’d spent days upon days while he’d been on his own researching the best places to find pets and had bookmarked marked them.

“Turn up here,” he said, pointing to the last turn that should take them to Pet-topia. Excitement had him practically vibrating in his seat as Dean pulled the Impala into the parking lot and maneuvered into one of the store’s parking spaces.

Dean looked vaguely grumpy as they got out of the car but Cas suspected that he was just trying to pretend to be upset that he’d caved to save face or other such nonsense. He trailed behind Cas as they entered the store.

There was a bored looking teenager standing at the register when they entered who sighed heavily and didn’t straighten from his slouched position over his phone when he asked in a flat voice, “welcome to Pet-topia, is there anything I can help you with today?”

“No, thank you,” Cas said, noting the teenager went happily back to his phone.

Keeping his and Dean’s discussion in mind, he forced himself to pass the rabbits and other larger animals despite the fact of how much he wished they were an option and walked on until they found themselves in front of the hamster display.

Looking down into the massive cage, he saw oodles of small balls of fluff; some of them scurrying around on the wood shaving covered cage floor or on the wheels while other’s nibbled at the food and water or laid sedately in their chosen spots. Cas looked down at the hamsters, his heart sinking ever so slightly.

How was he supposed to pick just one?

#1 @deadlyangelkay - Submission: 4

Dean could tell from the slightly panicked look in Castiel’s eyes and the frown etching it’s ways at the corner of his mouth, that he was over whelmed. Hell, Dean wasn’t even the one picking the damn rodent and he felt over whelmed.

Dean’s heart broke when he heard Cas mutter that he should just get a fish. He hated hearing the defeated tone in his love’s voice and was determined to make this easier.

Dean draped his arm around Castiel’s shoulder, pulling him closer and placing a kiss to his temple.

“How about this?” Dean suggested. “You spend some time with these little guys, see which one grabs your attention and I’ll go look at the cages and crap for his new home.”

Castiel gave Dean a small smile and nodded. “That is agreeable.”

“Awesome. Text me when you’ve found the one.” He gives Castiel another kiss, to the forehead this time and smiles at him before heading off to cages.

Dean had no idea that there were so many options for a hamster to call home. As if picking the perfect one was hard, Dean could only imagine how Castiel would feel about selecting a cage. Dean selected a colorful plastic monstrosity that had a Ferris wheel looking thing attached to it.

Of course, Dean turned down the wrong aisle and was accosted by the site of adorable balls of fluff. He would never admit it, but he had a soft spot for rabbits. The little balls of fluff with floppy ears and twitchy noses made Dean give pause every time. And this time was no different than any other time. Especially when one of the dwarf rabbits happened to be interested in his movements. Dean would be a bold face liar if he said that the damned ball of fluff hadn’t already set it’s hooks into him. And how could it not? It’s black fur contrasting with the bright blue eyes. Dean was so captivated by it that he hadn’t even noticed he had company.

“I thought you said no rabbits,” Castiel’s voice was soft and teasing.

#writer 2 drop

#3 @ravenscat-tumbler - Submission: 4

“I did not say that…” Dean starts, “And I’m not saying that now either.” He finishes. Castiel just smirks at him, eyes glinting.“Don’t give me that look.” He says, turning back to looks at the dwarf rabbit. “We can get the rabbit if you want to Dean.” Castiel says. He stands slightly behind Dean and places his hand on his lower back, looking at the rabbit with him. “He is a cute little fella, isn’t he?” Dean ask. “That he is.” “Alright, let’s get em.” Dean says, making up his mind. Castiel smiles warmly at Dean and then goes to talk to the person at the counter.The lady helps them pick out the necessary items they need to take the rabbit home. They leave the place with loads of bags and a lot less money than they came with. They come home and Sam is instantly taken to the little guy.“Hey, his features look like Cas’.” Sam says with the bunny on his lap. He scratches behind his ear and the rabbit wiggles his nose in content. Castiel smiles mischievously looking towards Dean, who had adverted his gaze and was pretending to read the bag of the food.“Is that why you wanted to get him, Dean?” “What?” Dean asks, looking up and pretending to hear them for the first time. “Did you want to get the rabbit because it had similar features to me?” “What? No! Don’t be ridiculous.” Dean says. “Anyways… what do we name the little guy?” He asks changing the topic.

#4 @blue-reveries - Submission: 4

The debate on what to name their, and Cas maintained that this pet belonged to all of them now after seeing Sam and Dean’s faces, rabbit raged on for the rest of the day until a decision was made just after dinner.

And so the rabbit was dubbed Bruce in honor of the Hulk and so that he had a “manly” name.

(Though Cas suspected Dean only agreed to the name so he could go around saying “Hello..my name is Bruce…” in an entirely inaccurate Australian accent despite his previous insistence that Finding Nemo had been boring.)

Originally when they’d been hammering out the details on where the hamster they’d been planning to get would reside, Dean had been adamant that “the critter” would be staying in the room next door to his and Cas’ room. He’d argued that he didn’t need a rodent in his living space. So Cas was surprised when Dean picked up the rabbit cage they’d purchased and carried it past the room they’d prepared only to enter their bedroom.

As much as Cas wanted to ask why their new pet was suddenly allowed to be in their room, he refrained. Today had been a big day for Dean what with agreeing to not only having a pet but changing that pet to a slightly bigger animal so he didn’t want to risk pushing his buttons too much. He cuddled Bruce to his chest as he watched Dean clear off a space on the one dresser for the rabbit cage; the little ball of fluff burrowing into the fabric of his t-shirt. Running his fingers through Bruce’s hair was extremely soothing and this pleased Cas.

Bruce wouldn’t be a substitute for actual human interaction but he’d definitely be a comfort and a fitting companion for when Sam and Dean needed to leave for extended hunts.

“There,” Dean said, stepping back to brush his hands off. He stood there, examining his handiwork for a bit before turning to face Cas. “Bruce’s place is all set.” Dean reached out and scooped Bruce out of his hands, cooing at him. “Here you are, big guy. A home just for you.”

It took every ounce of control that Cas had cultivated over millenias of existence to not burst out laughing at his self-proclaimed “macho” boyfriend turning into a puddle of goo in the presence of a small bunny.

#1 @deadlyangelkay - Submission: 5

A few weeks had passed since they had brought home both Bruce and Peanut. The brothers hadn’t found a case and it gave time for all three to bond with the animals. Cas’ favorite part was watching the rabbit and hamster interact and Dean’s reaction to it. At first Dean was hesitant, having his precious Bruce and the rodent near each other. But once Sam pointed out that essentially the two were brothers, Dean begrudgingly relented.

Now, it’s as if Dean looks forward to their play time. Castiel smiles fondly at Dean as he laughs at the way Bruce and Peanut play. More like the way that would climb over Bruce and Bruce would twitch his nose at the hamster. The best part about watching “their boys” – as Dean has started to call them – was the Dean would periodically lean against Cas. Happy, content, and peaceful.

Before Castiel knew it, it was time for the Winchesters to go off to another hunt. Dean gave Cas the familiar speech about how it was just a simple salt and burn and they would be back before he could miss them. And as always Cas would roll his eyes because after all this time, when has anything been easy for the Winchesters? A quick kiss goodbye and a promise to call when they got to the motel, Castiel was once again left in the large quiet bunker.

He scooped up Bruce into his arms, the little guy nuzzling into his shirt as he carried Bruce to the bedroom. “You know, there’s an excellent documentary on Netflix that you might like,” Castiel says softly, happy to no longer be alone.

#round three #masterpost #round three: ship round - masterpost #ship round #destiel

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officialfurrypositivity · 7 years ago

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Concepting characters, especially nonhuman ones, can get really strange.

This is the original concept for Reverie. Art done by mod Ford. x) I <3 you, pal.

The concept for Reverie came to me in a dream. It felt like something was following me. I was nervous, n i kept moving, but when I looked behind me I couldnt see anything but my own shadow. I eventually started running, and suddenly I was up on a rooftop. I turned back, n when I looked at the ground I saw nothing but my shadow. But... It was more like I was staring into the endless void. 2 eyes in opened within it, then a dozen more, all leering at me. It pulled itself out of my shadow and towered over me, dripping darkness that dripped off like melting fat. i went to run, and nearly fell off the roof, but then 2 arms sprung out from my shadow and grabbed me, holding me over the edge for a second before they pulled me back. It was terrifying, but then I knew it didnt want to hurt me. It was a friend, and it was me.

How did you get the inspiration for your character? Mundane, strange, silly, all types of stories are allowed.

#character concept #concepting #monster #furry #scalie #cryptid #eye horror tw //#bright colors cw //#babbling abyss #Sorry that Im posting this late at night. I was thinking about the dream again.#There was also this weird demon in the dream but Reverie was the main thing

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ricardosousalemos · 8 years ago

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The Pitchfork Guide to Upcoming Releases: Winter 2017

Welcome once again to the Pitchfork Guide to Upcoming Releases, our seasonal guide to new music. Four times a year, we round up a list of albums, singles, EPs, reissues, and more arriving in the coming months. This installment covers winter 2017, starting with this Friday, January 13. (Please note that release dates may change.) For more about the albums we're most excited for in 2017, including Arcade Fire, LCD Soundsystem, Drake, Lorde, Haim, and more, check out our recent feature.

January:

01-13

Bonobo: Migration [Ninja Tune]

Cavern of Anti-Matter: Blood Drums [Duophonic] [reissue]

Chavez: Cockfighters EP [Matador]

Code Orange: Forever [Roadrunner]

Dear Nora: Mountain Rock [Orindal] [reissue]

The Flaming Lips: Oczy Mlody [Warner Bros.]

Flo Morrissey / Matthew E. White: Gentlewoman, Ruby Man [Glassnote]

Half Japanese: Hear the Lions Roar [Fire]

Julie Byrne: Not Even Happiness [Ba Da Bing!]

Nackt: Night System [The Night Owl Diner]

Sepultura: Machine Messiah [Nuclear Blast]

Sohn: Rennen [4AD]

SUSTO: & I’m Fine Today [Missing Piece/Caroline]

The Stooges: Music From the Motion Picture “Gimme Danger” [Rhino]

Various Artists: Up Too Early [Friends of Friends] [compilation]

A Winged Victory for the Sullen: Iris OST [Erased Tapes]

The xx: I See You [Young Turks]

01-19

Shackleton & Vengeance Tenfold: Sferic Ghost Transmits [Honest Jon’s]

01-20

AFI: AFI (The Blood Album) [Concord]

Austra: Future Politics [Domino]

Bash & Pop: Anything Could Happen [Fat Possum]

Cherry Glazerr: Apocalipstick [Secretly Canadian]

Foxygen: Hang [Jagjaguwar]

The Grateful Dead: The Grateful Dead [Grateful Dead] [reissue]

Jean-Michel Jarre: Oxygene Trilogy [Sony Legacy] [reissue]

Joan of Arc: He's Got the Whole This Land Is Your Land in His Hands [Joyful Noise]

Kid Koala: Music to Draw to: Satellite [Arts & Crafts]

Michael Chapman: 50 [Paradise of Bachelors]

Mick Harvey: Intoxicated Women [Mute]

Pink Floyd: The Final Cut/A Momentary Lapse of Reason [Capitol] [reissue]

Shintaro Sakamoto: Love If Possible [Zelone]

Tim Cohen: Luck Man [Sinderlyn]

Uniform: Wake in Fright [Sacred Bones]

Vitalic: Voyager [Citizen]

William Basinski: A Shadow in Time [2062/Temporary Residence Limited]

01-25

Dr. Bronner: Sisters & Brothers [Dr. Bronner] [reissue/compilation]

01-27

Allison Crutchfield: Tourist in This Town [Merge]

Arcade Fire: The Reflektor Tapes / Live at Earl’s Court [Eagle Rock] [DVD/Blu-ray]

Ariel Pink & Weyes Blood: Myths 002 [Mexican Summer]

The Avalanches: Since I Left You [Astralwerks] [reissue]

Banana: Live [Leaving]

Cate Le Bon: Rock Pool EP [Drag City]

Cloud Nothings: Life Without Sound [Carpark/Wichita]

Delicate Steve: This Is Steve [Anti-]

Ennio Morricone: Un Uomo Da Rispettare [Superior Viaduct] [reissue]

Fred Thomas: Changer [Polyvinyl]

Gabriel Garzón-Montano: Jardín [Stones Throw]

Japandroids: Near to the Wild Heart of Life [Anti-]

Kehlani: SweetSexySavage [Artist Partner Group]

Kreator: Gods of Violence [Nuclear Blast]

Mark Eitzel: Hey Mr Ferryman [Merge]

Matthew Dear: DJ-Kicks [!K7]

Max Richter: Three Worlds: Music From Woolf Works [Deutsche Grammophon]

Migos: C U L T U R E [300/Quality Control]

P.O.S: Chill, dummy [Doomtree]

Priests: Nothing Feels Natural [Sister Polygon]

Richard Osborn: Endless [Tompkins Square]

Sleater-Kinney: Live in Paris [Sub Pop]

Ty Segall: Ty Segall [Drag City]

Various Artists: Antologia de Música Atípica Portuguesa [Discrepant] [compilation]

Various Artists: Dreamy Harbor [Tresor] [compilation]

February:

02-03

Andy Suzuki & The Method: The Glass Hour [self-released]

Big Sean: I Decided [Def Jam/GOOD]

Communions: Blue [Fat Possum]

Elbow: Little Fictions [Polydor]

Homeshake: Fresh Air [Sinderlyn]

Iron Reagan: Crossover Ministry! [Relapse]

Matteo Vallicelli: Primo [Captured Tracks]

Mega Bog: Happy Together [Nicey]

The Menzingers: After the Party [Epitaph]

Moon Duo: Occult Architecture Vol. 1 [Sacred Bones]

Rose Cousins: Natural Conclusion [Outside Music]

Sampha: Process [Young Turks]

Surfer Blood: Snowdonia [Joyful Noise]

Vangelis: Delectus [UMC/Polydor]

02-10

Hand Habits: Wildly Idle (Humble Before the Void) [Woodsist]

Jesca Hoop: Memories Are Now [Sub Pop]

Lupe Fiasco: DROGAS Light [TBA]

Meatbodies: Alice [In the Red]

The Necks: Unfold [Ideologic Organ]

The Sadies: Northern Passages [Yep Roc]

Thievery Corporation: The Temple of I & I [ESL]

Tinariwen: Emmaar [Anti-]

Trevor de Brauw: Uptown [The Flenser]

02-14

Marilyn Manson: SAY10 [TBA]

02-17

Bing & Ruth: No Home of the Mind [4AD]

The Courtneys: The Courtneys II [Flying Nun]

Grails: Chalice Hymnal [Temporary Residence Limited]

Jens Lekman: Life Will See You Now [Secretly Canadian]

Maggie Rogers: Now That the Light Is Fading [Capitol]

Mind Over Mirrors: Undying Color [Paradise of Bachelors]

Molly Burch: Please Be Mine [Captured Tracks]

Mozart’s Sister: Field of Love [Arbutus]

Nikki Lane: Highway Queen [New West]

Novella: Change of State [Sinderlyn]

The Orwells: Terrible Human Beings [Canvasback]

Ryan Adams: Prisoner [Pax Am/Blue Note]

Sam Patch: Yeah You, And I [Dep]

Six. by Seven: The Closer Your Get [Beggars Arkive] [reissue]

Son Volt: Notes of Blue [Transmit Sound]

Strand of Oaks: Hard Love [Dead Oceans]

Tim Darcy: Saturday Night [Jagjaguwar]

02-24

Alasdair Roberts: Pangs [Drag City]

Circus Devils: Laughs Last and Laughs Best (The Kids Eat It Up) [Rockathon]

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah: The Tourist [Undertow]

Crystal Fairy: Crystal Fairy [Ipecac]

Dams of the West: Youngish American [30th Century/Columbia]

Dude York: Sincerely [Hardly Art]

Emel Mathlouthi: Ensen [Partisan]

The Feelies: In Between [Bar/None]

Hippo Campus: Landmark [Grand Jury]

Immolation: Atonement [Nuclear Blast]

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard: Flying Microtonal Banana [ATO]

King Woman: Created in the Image of Suffering [Relapse]

Los Campesinos!: Sick Scenes [Wichita]

Oddisee: The Icebergs [Mello Music]

Old 97’s: Graveyard Whistling [ATO]

Peter Silberman: Impermanence [Anti-]

Pissed Jeans: Why Love Now [Sub Pop]

Power Trip: Nightmare Logic [Southern Lord]

Rhiannon Giddens: Freedom Highway [Nonesuch]

Six Organs of Admittance: Burning the Threshold [Drag City]

Xiu Xiu: Forget [Polyvinyl]

02-27

Sun Kil Moon: Common as Light and Love Are Red Valleys of Blood [Caldo Verde]

March:

03-03

Grandaddy: Last Place [30th Century]

The Magnetic Fields: 50 Song Memoir [Nonesuch]

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds: One More Time With Feeling [Bad Seed Ltd] [DVD/Blu-ray]

Sleaford Mods: English Tapas [Rough Trade]

Temples: Volcano [Heavenly]

Why?: Moh Lhean [Joyful Noise]

03-07

High Plains: Cinderland [Kranky]

03-10

Elliott Smith: Either/Or: Expanded Edition [Kill Rock Stars] [reissue]

Hurray for the Riff Raff: The Navigator [ATO]

Laura Marling: Semper Femina [More Alarming]

Planning for Burial: Below the House [The Flenser]

The Shins: Heartworms [Aural Apothecary/Columbia]

Sunny Sweeney: Trophy [Thirty Tigers]

Tennis: Yours Conditionally [Mutually Detrimental]

Valerie June: The Order of Time [Concord]

03-17

Paul Shaffer & The World’s Most Dangerous Band: Paul Shaffer & The World’s Most Dangerous Band [Rhino]

03-24

Craig Finn: We All Want the Same Things [Partisan]

The Jesus and Mary Chain: Damage and Joy [ADA/Warner Music]

Pallbearer: Heartless [Profound Lore]

Paul McCartney: Flowers in the Dirt [MPL/Capitol/UMe] [reissue]

03-31

British Sea Power: Let the Dancers Inherit the Party [Golden Chariot]

Chaz Bundick Meets the Mattson 2: Star Stuff [Company]

The Doors: The Doors [Rhino] [reissue]

Gold Connections: Gold Connections EP [Fat Possum]

Julia Holter: In the Same Room [Domino Documents]

Nelly Furtado: The Ride [Nelstar]

TBA:

Alice Glass: TBA [TBA]

Amber Coffman: City of No Reply [Columbia]

Arca: Reverie [TBA]

Arcade Fire: TBA [TBA]

At the Drive-In: TBA [Rise]

Beck: TBA [Capitol]

Chic: It’s About Time [TBA]

Chromatics: Dear Tommy [Italians Do It Better]

Chuck Berry: Chuck [Dualtone]

Dan Auerbach: TBA [TBA]

Depeche Mode: Spirit [Columbia]

Dirty Projectors: TBA [Domino]

Drake: More Life [Cash Money/Young Money Entertainment]

Earl Sweatshirt: TBA [TBA]

Fischerspooner: SIR [TBA]

Fleet Foxes: TBA [TBA]

G.O.O.D. Music: Cruel Winter [G.O.O.D. / Def Jam]

Girlpool: Powerplant [TBA]

Gorillaz: TBA [TBA]

Grizzly Bear: TBA [TBA]

Haim: TBA [Polydor]

Kelela: TBA [Warp]

King Krule: TBA [TBA]

LCD Soundsystem: TBA [Columbia]

Lil B: Black Ken [self-released]

LIV: TBA [Ingrid]

Lorde: TBA [TBA]

Mac DeMarco: TBA [Captured Tracks]

Mary J. Blige: Strength of a Woman [Capitol]

Mastodon: TBA [TBA]

Meek Mill: DC 4.5 [TBA]

Real Estate: TBA [Domino]

Rick Ross: Rather You Than Me [Epic]

Sky Ferreira: Masochism [TBA]

Spoon: TBA [Matador]

St. Vincent: TBA [TBA]

U2: Songs of Experience [TBA]

Vampire Weekend: TBA [TBA]

The War on Drugs: TBA [TBA]

Wavves: TBA [TBA]

Wolf Parade: TBA [TBA]

Zack de la Rocha: TBA [TBA]

#news

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thearachive · 1 year ago

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⌜ i don't wanna get numb to the feeling, will all of my sins be forgiven? ⌟

╌╌╌╌╌╌【 ꜱ ᴘ ᴏ ɴ ꜱ ᴏ ʀ ᴇ ᴅ 】╌╌╌╌╌╌

• ❛ SELENE ❜ eyes; lelutka, genus, catwa, bom & omega appliers.

available @REVERIE / PLANET29.

• ❛ OPAL ❜ eyeshadow; 10 colours, 2 opacity options.

available @REVERIE.

╌╌╌╌╌╌╌ 【 ᴄ ʀ ᴇ ᴅ ɪ ᴛ ꜱ 】 ╌╌╌╌╌╌╌

ʻ 𝘨 𝘦 𝘯 𝘦 𝘵 𝘪 𝘤 𝘴

head - ceylon 3.1 @lelutka.

lashes - ‘flutter’ @void.

body - ebody : reborn @ebody reborn store.

hair - ‘sora’ @pado / harajuku.

booba mod - ‘waifu boobs’ @the reborn event.

ʻ 𝘤 𝘰 𝘴 𝘮 𝘦 𝘵 𝘪 𝘤 𝘴

moles - ‘metronomy kit’ @veltica.

freckles - ‘simple freckle pack’ @okkbye.

ʻ 𝘢 𝘱 𝘱 𝘢 𝘳 𝘦 𝘭

top + sleeves - ‘jade’ @saccharine.

ʻ 𝘢 𝘤 𝘤 𝘦 𝘴 𝘴 𝘰 𝘳 𝘪 𝘦 𝘴

earrings - ‘hanging roses’ @insomnia angel.

horns + crystal - ‘blossom’ @vermilion.

nose chain - ‘nox’ @azaran.

butterflies - ‘magical butterflies’ @aii.

halo - ‘simple saint’ @bunk.

˙ᵕ˙

#―𝘣𝘶𝘯𝘯𝘺𝘣𝘭𝘰𝘨𝘴 #secondlife #secondlifeblog #secondlifeblogger #secondlifephotography #secondlifeedit #secondlifetumblr #secondlifefantasy #sl #slblog #slblogger #slphotography #slblogging #slfantasy #metaverse

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taocc-updates · 9 months ago

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The Taglist/Character List!

The Lore Masterpost

The TAOCC Art Reference Tumblr - @taocc-refs

The AU Masterpost Masterpost (yes really)

The TAOCC Character Wheel

The TAOCC Music Tumblr - @taocc-music

⋆˖⁺‧₊☾₊‧⁺˖⋆

Elsewhere

Bio: She/her, most characters so far lol, @the-moth-from-elsewhere

Mod blog: @the-mod-from-elsewhere

Tag: #The Moth Speaks

Characters:

Dusk (#The Quiet Light) (@the-quiet-light)

Easton, Northa, Lonn, and Lattia (#People With Direction) (@people-with-direction)

Lemonade (#Lemon Sugar) (@lemonade-sugar)

Aokigahara (#Mercy’s Rain) (

Chip (#Chip the Avis) (@chip-the-birb)

Alpenglow (#Alpenflame) (@alpenglow-the-candle)

Yelena (#Seas and Sonnets) (@of-sea-and-light)

Arthur Pendragon (#The Conductor King) (@the-conductor-paladin)

Verie Pendragon (#The White Queen) (@lady-of-the-digital-lake)

Juliet and Mercutio (#The Assassin and the Bard) (@mercutio-the-broken and @assassin-anon)

Chance/Formerly Nightmare (#Hope Anon) (@she-had-many-names)

Guidance Anon/Lady Reverie (#The Paths of Guidance) (@the-path-of-guidance)

Lady Damsel (#Justice Get Your Gun) (@damsel-get-your-gun)

Ace (#Aces in Spades) (@ace-zeppelin)

Switchboard (#Analog Enigma) (@switches-on-boards)

Yume (#The Minstrel) (@a-broken-dream)

Ciana and Apollo (#Candles and Candy) (@lanterns-and-candy)

Katrina Bookend/Kitsune (#Kitsune’s Hope) (@katrina-the-magical-girl)

Kyubey (#The Incubator) (@kyubey-the-incubator)

Plague Doctor Anon/Charles (#Plagues and Peril) (@plague-doctor-anon)

Elysia (Venus, PlanetQuest) (#The Seafoam) (@elysia-of-the-shore)

Artem (#artem the radio guy) (@artem-the-radio-guy)

Myau, Mynou, and Nya (#freudian catgirls) (@freudian-catgirls)

Calla Lily (#forget me where the lilies are) (@forget-me-where-the-lilies-sleep)

”Ocean Lady”/“Tiffany”/“Neptune” (#water girl one with the water) (@water-girl-one-with-the-water)

Lovebug (#Luvluvbug) (@sp4ce-inv4der)

The Bees TM (#The freaking bees) (@branch-five-bee-edition)

⋆˖⁺‧₊☾₊‧⁺˖⋆

James

Bio: he/they, @possibly-astraeus

Tag: #James is speaking(might change this later sorry)

Characters:

Sigil (#sigils)

Insanity (#insanity)

Dusty (#dusty posts)

⍟ ⍟ ⍟

feiar

bio: any; just your average adhd dumbass @feiar

characters:

(uncolored means they have a custom color I didn't want to put in and/or they have multiple characters )

nymn @nymn-taoc

jessy @the-rising-dawn

clara @taocc-clara

lance and raina @spinning-faces @jesters-shadows

kade @kades-arcade

pirates @pirate-of-the-void

conny @conny-in-the-box

flare @the-little-flame

latte and mocha @porcelain-chefs

aklatan @the-paper-librarian

alexander @tailor-with-drawers

Nathan @inky-scribes

Ramona @kingdom-mechanics

Levi @fishy-fisherman

abstraction anon @abstraction-an0n

ari (neptune) @ocean-of-neptune

Joy @avis-of-dawn

Quin @wind-up-clockwise

Oceansbay @oceans-at-dawn

Cardlan @casolitaire

Vanilla @icey-sweets-and-sours

Gideon @artifacts-and-magics

Donnie @tiny-portraits

Azul and Belle @two-bugs-in-a-pod

Railroads @the-rusty-digital-railroads

Fae anon @fae-anon

Siva and Kenta @two-headed-naga

Alois @a-2d-tragedy

Joofie

Bio: miau

pronouns: she/he

characters:

Miette - @miettetaocc

Cap'n Noodles - @noodlestaocc

APP - @apptaocc

Mortis Mansion - @mortismansion

Merrell Mortis, Tanya Toffeeoff, Vincent, Moriane, Dell, John Mannequin, June - @mortismansion

@joofie404 @modjoof

.　 . • ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆

Star

Pronouns: She/Her- Age: Adult- How am I not dead? I HAVE NO IDEA!!! - @star-on-a-beach / @the-writing-starchive

Icia: iciatheguardess ( @iciatheguardess )

Starro: springleggedstarro ( @springleggedstarro )

Dunite: goldendunite ( @goldendunite)

Citrina: citrinagems ( @candleton-jewels)

Callista: talofacalli ( @shells-of-callista)

Astrion & Gaia: apothinn ( @galactic-blooms)

Manna: mannatee ( @the-little-melkie)

Chase: cuttothechase ( @chasing-bandages)

Explorgi: explorgi ( @explorgi)

Zii/Ziori: patientziiori ( @cyber-patient-z)

DIGITAL KINGDOM MEMBERS BELOWWW

Kingdom shit: digitalkingdom

Hexe: thewitchbitch (DING DONG THE WITCH IS DEAD)

Slyn: knockoffvoldemort ( @the-snake-and-the-statue)

Odette: odetotragedy ( @ode-to-tragedy)

Samuel/The Dragons: himbosammy/dragonquest ( @the-himbo-dragonmaster)

The Twins (Vaga and Nova): theswantwins ( @vaga-and-nova)

Mirobelle: mirrorbelle ( @mirror-maid)

Achilles: achillescomedown ( @....)

...ANYWAYS we also have the IRL AU ( @viv-and-tonio) and the co-stars ( @shore-of-co-stars); co stars aren't significant enough to get their own tags, at least not for now. But among the co-stars currently are Cosmia, ???????, and ????!

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Mod Gryphon/Vian

Bio: Neutral/Male pronouns preferred - Always open for RP just send an ask, DM or @! - I am in my late-20s, if you'd rather not RP with me knowing that, let me know so I can avoid interacting with you!

Personal is @vianthegryphon - Modblog is @modgryphonrambles

Tag: #mod gryphon

Characters:

Curious - (#the curious one) - @a-curious-anon

Grif - (#the plush gryphon) - @gryphonanon

Swap Grif - (#the gryphon scientist) - @tests-and-talons

Trudy - (#the junk dragon) - @trudystreasuretrove - (UP FOR ADOPTION)

𖤓 𖤓 𖤓

Basil

She/They/He - Basil, Octavia, Shatter, Xeya, Void, Isaac - @sh4tt3rg1rl - (Usually, mod text will be formatted like this or put under a tag like #mod note or #mod post.)

She has OSDD and will go by different pronouns and names depending on who's fronting.

#Mod Basil

Sun - (#Goddess of the Sun) - @theoneandonlysun

Mix - (#Bugboy Mix) - @mixology-expert

Pen and Paper (#Pen FTW + #Paper FTW)

Pharaoh - (#The Pharaoh) - @pharaoh-friend

Taika - (#Tiger Taika) - @taika-the-troublemaker

Vamp - (#Camara the Vampire) - @bloodforvampanon

Umbra - (#Umbra and her Umbrella) - @taocc-bakery

Blaze - (#Planet Blaze) - @a-barren-blaze

Dialtone - (#The Endless Dialtone) - @voice-from-the-dialtone

Sisu - (#Sisu Sudoku) - @taocc-petstore

Vendetta - (#little vendetta) - @my-little-vendetta

Scarecrow - (#lifeless scarecrow) - @protector-of-the-fields

Amalgam - (#the amalgamate) - @amalgamateanimal

Sol - (#the seventeenth solstice) - @seventeen-summer-solstices

Wade - (#beachball boy) - @pool-toy-playpark

Elliot - (#he was warned) - @breaking-and-recreating

𖤓 𖤓 𖤓

Lily

she/her, lily obviously, and uhhhhh @fields-of-lilies-are-pretty is my mod blog, you can find all of my character blogs there, PLEASE for the LOVE OF GOD send me character asks there and not my main

#mod lily

sign (#steven's signs)

octavia (#octavia's origami)

simon (#simon's sweaters)

milo (#the angel baby)

sophronius (#the honse of reason)

acacius (#the shapeshifter)

billy (#the bap that bites back)

kat and/or lyubov (#tiny kats)

Autumn

she/he/they/it - call me Autumn - mod blog: @mod-autumn

#Mod Autumn

Pyxel (@pyxelthesilly)

Neb (@the-liminal-alien)

Strange Anon/Stranger (@a-stranger-in-the-circus)

Pamela (@circus-diner)

Caspian (@the-amazing-digital-aquarium)

Radio (@radioactive-circus)

Lilith (@your-local-bloodsucker)

Llewellyn (@roulette-wings)

_______________________________________

Tailsbot

Pronouns: No preference

@tailsbot98761

@Tailsbot

Aroace

#Tailsbot

_______________________________________

Characters

@fox-anon-27 (#Carla)

@teleporting-anon (#Felix)

@thyme-to-sleep (#Thyme)

@ferris-wheel-opperator-anon (#Feris)

@dues-ex-manonchina (#Dues ex manonchina)

@chaos-enjoyer-anon (#Chaos Enjoyer Anon)

@maid-dress-anon (#May)

@mistletoe-anon (#Mist)

@cupcake-anon-27 (#Cupcake anon)

@void-anon-27 (#Void anon)

@theif-anon (#Theif Anon)

@villain-anon (#Villain Anon)

@angst-an0n (#angst anon)

@electricity-anon (#Voltie)

@the-simp-anon (#Simp anon) (#Lucy)

@comaximum-justice (#Comax)

@mail-deliverer-anon (#Mail deliverer anon)

@thepicklestealer (#The pickle stealer)

@dropkick-anon (#Dropkick anon)

@magnervous-performer (#Magnetta)

@dancing-with-the-breeze (#Aella)

_______________________________________

+×+×+×+×+×+×+×+×+×+×+×+×+×+×+×+×+×+

CINDY!

She/Her, Cindy/Francesca/Molly, @modcindyisuppose.

#With love -- Cindy

@seeranon (#sarah anonimyss)

@chr-eve-wip-create-0 (#eve.mdl)

@piercingarrows (#arrows anne)

@conspiranon (#connor rasi)

@anonthropod (#tony the centipede)

@ask-nobody

@tracytraineeofficial (#tracy trainee)

@this-tireless-tireless-story (#the thespian)

@gabriels-big-break (#gabriel heathers)

@celestajournalismofficial (#the moonshine times)

+×+×+×+×+×+×+×+×+×+×+×+×+×+×+×+×+×+

>♤<>♡<>◇<>♧<>♤<>♡<>◇<>♧<

Jester!!!

They/it - Jester/Fool/CourtJester @courtjesterrr - @theultimatemodjester

Mod tag: #The Fool

Lantern @lightthepathwithalantern - #Eternal Flame

Darkis @/lightthepathwithalantern - #Shadow Deer

Unknown @/lightthepathwithalantern - #Unknown Shadow

Ember @/lightthepathwithalantern - #The Lantern Guide

Eternal Eclipse @/lightthepathwithalantern - #Looming Eclipse

Lantern-@lightthewayfortheflame - #Eternal Flame

Entity-@/entityinthedark @lightthewayfortheflame - #Shadow Smiles

Sunshine @sunshiningdayyy - #Sunnyside (Up for adoption)

Rocket Launcher Anon @a-wap-bap-boom - #Rockets Galore (Up for adoption)

Mimic Anon @mimic-your-actions - #False Anon (Up for adoption)

LannBot @artificialflame - #Robo Lantern

Rodger @rodger-rodger-101 - #IS the spotlight

Baitle @hope-of-a-rose - #Buggish Beetle

Any au that I make in general, will have respective tags- #Jester's silly AUs

>♤<>♡<>◇<>♧<>♤<>♡<>◇<>♧<

SOUP!!!!!!

She/Her, if you want to know my main then just ask (i dont. have a mod blog), feel free to message me on any of my anon blogs/my main

Mod Tag: #mod soup

Simon (or Silo) -> @silhouette-anon -> #suffering shadow

Zombie -> @zombie-an0n -> #undead deputy

Clown -> @clown-an0n -> #colorful horrors

Felicia -> #underpaid worker

Caleb -> #the vessel

Clownette -> #colorful happies

Abayomi -> @medjay-anon -> #pharaoh's guard

Mercury -> @ethereal-messenger -> #anxious planet

Beezle and Wade -> @fireworks-and-beachballs -> #the entertaining parks

Shadow -> @the-m4gician -> #the magician

Dime -> @gumball-m4chine -> #the gumball machine

Mari -> @mari-onnette -> #the marionnette

Gangle and Kaufmo -> @goodnight-algae -> #paint and ribbons

Jacob -> @h0me-sweet-h0me -> #the house

Dell -> @installation-wiz -> #silly installation wizard

Hope :3

He/them/whatever you want. I’m mostly male presenting, but I really don’t care.

Mod tag: #mod hope

Carbine -> @master-dealmaker: #tommy gun

Nikolai -> #best big brother

Colorbine -> @colorful-catastrophe: #painted bullets

Eden -> @lady-of-the-hive: #honeybee

Remnant -> @say-their-name: #shadow demon

Sami -> #innocent bystander

Calamity -> @agent-of-calamity: #lady of chaos

Kepler -> @rotary-phone-man: #retcon labs

Artemis -> #silly little guy

Cyrus -> @the-amazing-digital-gameshow: #eyes on a prize

The Terminal -> #beast behind the screen

I am not adding Zeebo because I am planning on deleting the account. Zeebo is no longer canon

_______________________________

Other Mods

(they might not be members of this blog, but they're still part of TAOCC!)

◇~Fluffy~◇

(Or nugget, both is fine!)

I go by he/him.

@idostuffforfun (my mod blog!) - #idostuffforfun

@brokenbutfound - P.A.S.T.E.L

@objectsinthecircus - the characters of askobjects, i don't own them, they are own by JACKNJELLIFY ITSELF :O

bfdi is really good, and bfdia!

>>//Gold\\<<

Gold, I like going by Gold. Shiny is also acceptable. >> #modgold (I saw others use a tag.)

File >> @create-new-fil3 >> #newfileadded

You can contact me on @theonetheycallgold, it's not my main, as I wish not to show it.

I don't really care about pronouns, call me whatever fits your fancy. I use correct grammar when typing, and I am aware that my tone will not come off well. Just know I am never trying to be rude. I also might not be online much, not much of a constant Tumblr user.

Tomb

hi, basil here, hes also not on this blog but i decided to do him a favor and compile some of his blogs on here >wo

Bob - @bob-the-cemetery-ghost

Drunkie - @drunk-an0n

Hammer - @theoneandonlyhammeranon

im tired its 1:33 am thats all i can rember please forgive me

Toast

[Grif here, thought I might as well add Toast too. If you need me to change/add anything, Toast, just let me know!]

Mod Blog - @jesterhatman

Kumo - @kumo-taoc

Belle - @belle-taocc

Alex - @alex-taocc

Stitch - @stitch-taocc

Metal - @metallic-madness-taocc

Various Anons - @assortment-of-anons

27 notes · View notes

dearlybeelovedreadingroom · 8 years ago

Text

Voided Reveries: Book Three, The Epilogues

V. Fortune’s Wheel

It had only been a couple months, but the pair had adjusted to life on Skyloft, and permanently outside the Void, fairly well. Autumn’s mother had taken to preparing pumpkin and selling it at the market (the only thing she couldn’t perfect was soup) using the pumpkins, and a few other squashes and vegetables, they grew in part of Pipit and Karane’s garden. They also took frequent flights to the other smaller islands in the sky, sometimes to make deliveries, other times to visit friends or pretend they were tourists from the mainland. Occasionally, people on the mainland sent orders up as well, and Autumn would take those down. But one time, Autumn and her mother decided to bring some pastries to a certain house on the mainland as a surprise.

“You know…” Autumn turned around at the sound of her mother’s voice to look at her. “No, no, keep your eyes on what’s in front of you, I’ll talk louder.” Autumn faced forward again. “There we go. You know, your father always promised that he would take me flying on Red—well, I called him Red—at some point, but of course I was pregnant, and then you were a baby, and then there was Olive, and then he was teaching you how to fly…”

“And?” Autumn wasn’t trying to be rude; she just wasn’t sure what her mother was getting at.

“Well, I appreciate you taking me with you, is all. I wanted to ride a Loftwing.” …Wanted to see the world from up above, but still be a part of it, a voice in the back of her mind finished. She looked down at the grass below them, a near-endless expanse of green. In the distance, she could see rivers and the sands of the desert, but where they were—and where they were headed— it was green and lush.

She continued staring down at the massive field passing by below, and now Autumn joined her, preparing to land. They had arrived at the house.

Autumn slid off Teal, then helped her mother down after setting the basket her mother had been carrying down at her feet, so she could reach up with both hands. As their feet touched the ground, they had both brushed themselves off, as though Teal had set enough dust flying to warrant that reaction. Autumn’s mother picked up the basket and headed to the door, knocking quietly. Autumn watched her shift from foot to foot on the doorstep, kicking her feet into it and looking in any direction but at the door as she waited for it to open.

Finally, it did. Sky looked utterly shocked to find her outside his door, holding a basket and smiling. “Birdie?”

She dropped the basket and flung herself into his side under the arm that was outstretched and holding the door, wrapping both of her own tightly around him. “Shh,” she admonished. “I don’t want the others to hear you.”

He immediately switched to a whisper. “What are you doing here?”

She let go of him, gestured at the field behind her and Skyloft above it, and smiled even wider. “I moved back.”

“No. Why are you here?”

“Oh! I wanted to deliver these.” She handed him the basket. “You can share them and say Karane made them.” He lifted the soft cloth covering the basket’s contents and breathed in the scent of the pastries within.

“They smell lovely. I’m sure everyone will love them.”

She smiled. “And… I wanted to apologize.”

He cocked his head. “For what?”

“For not apologizing earlier.”

He laughed. “Oh. Okay. Well, thank you. It’s okay.” He pulled her closer and really embraced her. “Do you want me to go get the others? Well… it’s just Time and Twilight now, since Olive moved out…”

She shook her head against him. “No, I’ll tell them some other time. For now, just let me stay here and hug you. I’ve missed you.”

“I’ve… missed you too, Birdie.”

“I love you, Sky.”

“I know.”

Apart from them, and astride Teal, Autumn broke into a wide grin.

The pair never saw each other in person again, save one other time, but kept up a lively correspondence and every Sunday morning, a fresh batch of pumpkin pastries arrived on the doorstep, hand-delivered by Autumn. One spring morning a couple years into the routine, instead of dropping them off and flying away, Autumn stayed on the porch and knocked, hoping her father would answer.

When he did, she greeted him with a quiet “Hi, Dad.”

He invited her in. When they settled into chairs, he said to her, “I told you it was just ‘until next time.’”

She grinned. “You did.”

“What can I do for you, pumpkin?”

“I wanted to invite you to my wedding.”

His eyes widened, and he put down the pastry he had started to eat, licking some of its filling off his lips to buy some time to think. “You’re getting married!?”

Autumn grinned again and nodded. “Yup!”

“To whom? Not a fish person, right?”

At that, Autumn threw back her head and laughed. “No, Dad! At least two of my best friends are fish girls, though. To Cormorant.”

“Ah.” Sky visibly relaxed. “Will your mother be there?”

“Naturally.”

He smiled, leaning back into his chair again. “I’ll have to dress up.”

“She said the same thing.” Autumn said, giggling.

Sky laughed, too. “What about your uncles?”

“Aren’t they busy with Olive’s wedding? It’s soon, isn’t it?”

“It is. She just got done with what Zel was calling ‘finishing school’. How did you know about it? I didn’t think she’d invited you.”

Autumn sighed heavily, then brightened again. “…She didn’t. People have been talking about it.”

Sky leaned forward again, knitting his brow. “What people?”

“Oh, you know, Zellie talks, and since she’s in charge of Skyloft and has to talk to Zel…”

“Yes, I can see how the information would get around Skyloft that way…” he laughed nervously.

“So you’ll be there?” Autumn asked, wide-eyed.

“Of course I will,” he replied, “I would hate to miss it.”

The wedding took place in the middle of that summer, close to Autumn’s 20th birthday, in Skyloft’s plaza, and everyone on the island was invited to attend.

The day of, Autumn received a large stack of letters, postmarked from all sorts of places. One from the Slicks read, among a few other things (mostly tips and advice for married life,) “Congratulations! I know Cormorant must be lovely, and lucky, if he attracted someone like you. I wish you just as much luck in your life together. Love always! Mrs. Paint-Slick” and, “good for you, kiddo. try to have fun. don’t be a nag. –Spades.” Another, from Vella, expressed her regrets that she couldn’t be at the wedding, but she was prone to altitude sickness from the low pressure, and Olive needed her for something about the (other, Autumn noted) wedding. Autumn decided she would read that one later. Others were from her mom’s friends, sending their congratulations and occasional gifts; one was from Aunt Ti, whose bar she worked at and whose lilies she tended; her Aunt Tori, also sending marriage advice, especially for when the going got rough, and had a few recipes enclosed (including quiche); and her favorite of them all, from the other fish girl: Dy sent a multi-page letter about how much she missed Autumn, and wished she could have been at the wedding. Apparently, she would have had just the suit for the occasion. Autumn’s eyes teared up while she read, but when her parents came to get her from where the older women of Skyloft were keeping her and dolling her up, she wiped her eyes and settled herself.

It was sunset—the best time for a wedding in Hyrule, if you were non-royalty. So the time had once again come for Autumn. It was a special day.

There wasn’t a great deal of pomp or circumstance to the ceremony, just a blushing bride and an equally blushing groom (Autumn thought it was so cute). Autumn’s parents, as was the custom, presented her to Cormorant, Karane, and Pipit, and they presented Cormorant to Autumn and her parents. Once the marriage was “agreed upon,” the parents sat down and let rest of the ceremony go on. The gold cloth used to tie Autumn’s wrist to Cormorant’s, and teal cloth for the reverse, complemented each other almost perfectly, which was rather rare for couples on Skyloft, leading to comments that it meant that Autumn and Cormorant must be soul mates.

Once that was over, and the knots in the cloth had been tested to show that nothing could break Autumn and Cormorant up, the pair kissed, and then the dancing and partying began.

Weddings in Hyrule, especially in Skyloft, were all-night affairs. So people quickly ran back to their homes or shops to grab the copious amounts of food and drink they had made, or the presents they had made for the couple. Often, wedding gifts were tools for the job the couple did (though, since Cormorant and Autumn farmed and bred Loftwings, there was little to give them), or things that would be needed for the future children. Autumn and Cormorant accepted those gifts gratefully, but with nervous smiles.

While Sky danced with Autumn, Cormorant approached his new mother-in-law. “Mrs. Skychild, I don’t think most people here knew that Sky is Autumn’s dad.”

She shrugged. “So she’s the local celebrity’s love child with a mostly-unknown citizen. I don’t think anyone minds having just found out now.” She smiled at him. “Or is the problem that now you’re under a lot of pressure, because everyone knows who your father-in-law is?” Cormorant chuckled nervously in reply. “Well, there’s no need to feel that way. Sky likes you. And after all, Autumn had no problem dating and marrying the son of the most trusted man on Skyloft.”

“I guess that’s true.” Cormorant mumbled.

“Yes. Now go dance with your mother while Autumn dances with Sky. Unless you’d rather dance with me, and then dance with your mother while Autumn dances with your dad?” Cormorant extended his hand to her. She smiled as she took it. “Alright then.”

Later on into the night, Autumn’s parents were sitting off to the side, tucked against each other and watching their friends celebrate and dance—even when some of the musicians had already gone home to bed—when Sky sighed and mumbled something about love.

“What was that?”

“Nothing.” He said abruptly. “Don’t worry about it. Let’s dance?” Sky extended a hand to her, which she took eagerly, and they twirled a little. When Autumn and Cormorant saw the pair dancing, they both smiled. Autumn’s parents smiled back, then went back to looking at each other.

When the song was over, Sky said, clearer than he had before, “you know, you said it a while ago, and I said ‘I know,’ but I love you too, Birdie.”

“Oh, you do?” she giggled.

He looked away. “You know what I mean.”

“Of course I do.” She tightened her grip on his hand and pulled him closer. “So why don’t you keep dancing with me? We are here to celebrate our daughter’s wedding, after all. And you look so nice tonight. We can celebrate together, just like you wanted to. As parents supporting her.”

He grinned. “I’d like that a lot.” So he held onto her tightly; a woman he loved as a dear friend, a friend who’d raised his child without him, and who was willing to forgive him for how he’d treated her before she’d done that. He felt he owed her for it, and hoped this one night would make up for a little of it, at least the fact that he had barely touched her for five years before she left.

When she flew him back down to Hyrule, he helped her down for a moment, so he could kiss her forehead. “This was… really nice, Birdie. I’ll expect your letter soon?”

“It’ll come with the pastries on Sunday.” She rolled onto her toes and kissed his cheek. He helped her back onto the Loftwing, and she took off.

It was barely a year after that that Autumn was antsy for her mother to see Change’s Shrine. Autumn would make it an excursion, an experience. “Mama, Chance told me about this place. A… a shrine.” Her mother looked confused. “Well, she didn’t tell me so much as I found it a couple years ago, but she told me why it matters.”

“Alright?” she replied, slightly confused. Did it have to matter?

“You might like it. It’s beautiful. I want you to see it, Mama.”

“Okay. Take me there.” As she got older, and she didn’t have to worry about Autumn as much, she wanted to explore more of Hyrule. She’d seen some beautiful places, but it was a huge land. She was sure there was even more out there to see—the fabled deserts, any number of forests, lakes, castles, tiny villages hidden away. This place Autumn was telling her about seemed like as good a place to start as any. So, soon after the idea had been proposed, the pair saddled up and took off towards Lake Floria.

“I did always love Lake Floria,” her mother mused.

“Me, too,” Autumn agreed, “but that’s not where we’re going.”

“Oh.” Her mother said quietly. They touched down in front of Skyview Temple and slid off their mount.

“We should be safe going through here. Everything that was in there is dead, from age at this point, or I did it.”

They headed through the temple in a straight shot, and Autumn waded into the spring at the end and unlocked the gate with her mother’s lullaby again, then came back to the entrance for her mother. When the two entered the small room, Autumn breathed a sigh of relief, feeling good to be back in the place. Her mother looked around in awe.

“This place is… gorgeous,” She breathed. “You were right. It’s like it was made for me. You found it like this?” She stared at the tidal pattern along the wall, and the elaborate tile on the floor. Everything still shone from Autumn’s last visit, with maybe a little more moss in some places.

Autumn smiled. “Yeah. Come here, I think you’ll like this even more.” She said, guiding her mother over to the statue. Her mother sank to her knees in front of the pedestal, looking up into the peridot eyes of the statue, and fondling the rich brown gown draped on it. As she laid her hands on the pedestal, her eyes widened.

Any mortal vessel of a goddess’s soul needed a mortal guide when she went to the goddess’s spring to retrieve her memories. It’s almost certain that she would faint, trying to take it all in at once. So it was good that Autumn had brought her mother to the spring in the ground, and was able to catch her when she collapsed. While she lay cradled in Autumn’s arms, her eyes fluttered back open. After a moment to let her mother collect herself, Autumn spoke. “What do you remember, Mama?”

“Too much to even start telling. Mostly, sitting in a crystal pool and seeing people needing protection. All I wanted to do was help them. I remember watching your dad’s quest and wishing I could reach out to him, hold him, keep him safe…”

Autumn’s eyes widened, then she looked away. “So…now what? Do you have powers again? Are you immortal?”

“As far as I can tell—based on what happened to Hylia—not that much has changed, really. I don’t have any powers, just her memories. I’m just a vessel.”

“What do you mean, ‘her memories’? You are her, aren’t you?”

“I suppose so. I’m still just your mother, Autumn. I carried you, fed you, smoothed your hair and sang you to sleep. I remember everything I’ve done for the last twenty years. It doesn’t feel like I did any of those things in my new memories. At least, not yet.”

Autumn nodded.

“But you know what?”

Autumn looked at her mother, raising her eyebrows. “What, Mama?”

Her mother grinned. “This means I have even more stories to tell you now.”

The Wheel Turns Onward

The day of Sky’s funeral, some thirty years after Autumn’s wedding, was a rough one for her and her mother. They had received the news by letter, and flown down to the surface that day in moods as black as their clothes. Because they lived on Skyloft, they would be responsible for making sure Sky was buried there, but the funeral was held on the surface because he’d spent his entire adult life in the large house in its center.

But they hadn’t been expected at the actual ceremony. So when they touched down, Time and Twilight were slightly shocked, but mutedly greeted them. Twilight hugged Autumn more tightly than she had anticipated, once he’d gotten over the shock of seeing her as not only an adult, but one nearly in middle age.

Olive and her entourage came along not too long after, and Olive expected to be introduced to this woman at her uncle’s funeral. It was only when Olive saw Autumn’s mother’s earrings that she realized who she was looking at. And then she burst into tears and clung to Autumn.

While they tried to catch up with some quiet dignity, Time approached her mother. “So what brought you here now?”

Twilight shushed him. “She’s family! She’s his widow; she’s allowed to be here.”

She smiled. “I can’t be the widow of someone I never married. But yes, Time, because I loved him. And I love you two, so I wanted to come share this moment with you and make it a little easier to bear. Plus, he’s Autumn’s father.”

Time nodded and they returned to the others to begin the ceremony.

Autumn cried fairly openly. Her mother just let silent tears slip down her face. Afterward, the men present helped the two women get Sky’s body onto a carriage, to be drawn by his Loftwing, Teal, and a younger third. Neither Autumn nor her mother had ever driven a carriage, and only Autumn knew how to fly a Loftwing very well, but they were his family, and they lived where he wanted to be forevermore, so they tried their best. The pair cried the whole way home. They had remembered Sky as a lover and as a father, but now he was neither. He was a memory.

But Autumn was closer to 70 when her mother passed. “Finally” wasn’t a good word for it, but her mother lived much longer than Autumn could have ever hoped, considering the hard life they’d had for all of Autumn’s childhood. It was an easy departure for her, peaceful and comfortable. She had spent the last few years going out less, until finally she left home for the last time, to sit amongst the pumpkins and gather her family.

At least, who she could of it. Some people would never get to be there. But Autumn, Cormorant, their children Tanager and Vireo, and their families were all there in the patch with her. She sat there supported by Autumn, and she said a few prayers to Chance or Change, thanking whichever for the years she had been given. Autumn insisted on hoping it was Change, regardless of the odd circumstances that situation would create.

She didn’t want to be sage, or have remarkably significant last words, so she decided to go the way she had always gone in her life. She looked up at Autumn holding her and just said “You’re in charge now, Hero of the Broken World. You’ve done well, and made me very proud. I love you. Tell the others I love them too.”

“…And Mr. A?”

She laughed shakily. “Yes, tell him, too.” Her mother coughed and picked at her clothes. Autumn took her hand, which was cool. The skin was mottled white with blue. This was it. She nodded.

“Alright, Mama. I will.”

“Thank you.” After that, Autumn’s mother was silent in the last moments of her life.

They buried her in Skyloft’s cemetery, next to Sky. They each had memorial stones, ones which had no mention of the other, but Autumn insisted that her parents be together in death, since they weren’t in life.

The day after the burial, Autumn flew one of the younger Loftwings down to the Surface and went to the island where Mr. A lived.

She hadn’t been there since the day she had picked her mother up and sealed the Void, and had only seen him in pictures since then, so she was very surprised when he opened the door. He hadn’t aged much, just enough to look about Autumn’s age.

“Hi, Mr. A.”

“Good morning, Autumn.”

“I’ve come with some unfortunate news.”

“Your mom?” Autumn nodded wearily. “Come in and have a drink with me. Then we can talk about it.” Autumn followed him into the house, looking around again. 50 years had done so much to her, and so little to anyone in the house—they all looked the same as they had half a century before. Well, other than Eri. He had grown up and gotten older too, and now looked about the same as Mr. A, other than the pair of glasses that rested between his fingers, and the jewelry on those fingers. She nodded to him as Mr. A. gestured for her to sit and poured her a drink. She lifted the glass to her lips and took a tiny sip. He finished his in two swallows and poured another, half as large, and drank it slowly as Autumn spoke.

“So tell me about it.”

“She asked me if she could lie in the pumpkin patch, where she could see the Loftwing pen and stare up at the sky and smell the dirt.”

“And she got to?”

“We all sat around her as she prayed, then she talked to me while they all looked on.”

“She prayed?”

“Yes, to a goddess called Change. She’s a companion to Chance, who was the one that sent me on my quest. I saw one of Change’s shrines a long time ago.”

“And she said some stuff to you? Can you give me an example?”

“I made her proud, I’m what’s left at the head of the bloodline, stuff like that.” He nodded, taking a sip of his drink. “Oh, and she wanted me to tell you that she loved you.”

“I figured as much.”

“That I was supposed to tell you that?”

“No, that she loved me.”

“Oh. I mean, she really did. She loved my dad, too—”

“Yeah, I get that.”

“—but she really loved you.” He was silent, his head resting on his hand. Autumn couldn’t tell how he was feeling. “And I have a question.”

He took another sip of his drink, then said “Shoot.”

“Well… do you want to be buried with her? We buried her with my dad, but there’s this lovely place by the river on Skyloft, and it’s by where she is. It’d be symbolic—” He held up a hand to silence her.

“I’ll live too long. Your dad died like thirty years ago, right?”

“Twenty,” Autumn corrected, “but he…”

“Regardless. Your mom just passed. You have grandkids. I’ll still be around by the time they they’re your age.”

“How?”

“It’s just my race’s existence, aging like that.”

“…oh.”

He was quiet while he finished his drink. But then he piped up, leaning in towards Autumn. “But there is something you could do.”

“Of course.” Autumn responded.

When she returned to Skyloft, she had the stone at her mother’s grave modified to read “Dollie, The Lady of the Lake” under everything else it said. She took the vial off her necklace and pushed it into the still-loose dirt. Perfect. A little piece of Mr. A. was still with her mother.

The Lady of the Lake’s Journal

Autumn thought she had seen it all, had finally known everything about her mother, once they’d gone to Change’s shrine together, thought that she would never find anything new, once she’d heard all of those stories, Change’s memories, straight from the mouth of Change… sort of. But she had never seen her mother’s journal, never known her mother had kept a journal, until she was gathering her mother’s things. But here it was.

She picked up the worn journal. It was leather-bound, and the leather was softer than Autumn had expected. As she ran her fingers over the front, she noticed—although it was faded—the seahorse with wings that her mother had used as their last name carved into the front of the book. Autumn tried to flip through the pages, to see how much of the book had been filled, but it fell open, split in half. Autumn looked at what that page said.

The first things she saw were the failed starts of letters to Mr. A.

Calder,

Skyloft is as beautiful as it ever was, but I find myself missing you.

Calder,

I keep trying to write, but

Calder,

I’m home and settled in here again. I sell eggs, pumpkins, pies, and cider. If I thought they would keep in the mail, I’d send you some of each. I’m enclosing some pictographs of Skyloft, so you can see it, maybe make believe you’re here. Frame the one of the view from outside my window and put it next to the pod you sleep in, and you can pretend you’re still waking up next to me.

It would have been nice to grow old with you. I know you think that I already did, because to you, red blood means an early death, but let me tell you—I was a ruler once myself. I abdicated to have Autumn, actually.

Every morning, I swim in the river that fuels all but one of the rivers and lakes in Hyrule, and every night, I dip my feet in the same one and look up at the moon, thinking of you. Maybe you could do the same in the ocean?

But maybe

Autumn grabbed a large chunk of pages and turned them backwards, going for the front of the journal. Her eyes were immediately drawn to a paragraph, so she turned a page back to get more context, and began reading: But Sky is right, and I have to tell it like it is– I met Calder one day while the girls were swimming with Vella.

I was immediately shocked, because he wasn’t a Zora. I used to see tons of Zora every day. But I hadn’t seen his kind for a long time. I think I’d started to believe that they didn’t exist anymore, that they were extinct.

He was living under Zora protection, but he wished he was more like me than them. And I guess I found him fascinating because of that. And everyone could tell—I thrilled at the idea of taking the girls swimming, even more than I had before. Autumn kept asking if I was excited to see my new friend.

Oh, if only we were just friends. Friends like me and Sky. No, we’re so much more than that. Both locked in a world that was certainly not their own, it made us kindred spirits.

I started slipping to the lake alone, and dreaming of tasting the kelp-y water off his lips, even while I lay sleeping next to someone else, knowing that this was getting more and more wrong every time I did it. I guess I wanted to be with both at once, but I couldn’t, and I knew I couldn’t. So it was no surprise that when Chance found out, I was almost separated from both of them.

But Calder gave me something that I wasn’t getting from Sky. Sky looked at me the same way he looks at the ground when he rides Red; he’s fine being on the ground, but not forever, and he doesn’t want to land too quickly. At the time, Calder looked at me like some sailors look at land– something they want more than anything, but know they can’t stay with, even if it’s home. I couldn’t torture both of them by staying with Sky. He was trying to get away from me, anyway; he didn’t kiss me for five years because he couldn’t stand doing it. Granted, he said goodbye with the sweetest kiss he’d ever given me, but it… It broke my heart to watch him have to try.

And so I created the new seal for myself, for trying to write letters to the both of them: a seahorse, with the wide wingspan of avian mounts, which would be recognizable as singly mine to the both of them.

And I taught it to Autumn as our last name, because I was all she had in the world, anyway. She wasn’t Calder’s, and she wasn’t Sky’s… anymore.

Autumn shuddered and kept reading.

And then, of course, between leaving Sky and deciding to be with Calder, there was Problem. “Call me Problem and I’ll solve all of yours,” he said. Not as a come-on or anything. He’s a friend of the Slicks, had heard about Autumn, and had run into me by chance in a bar in the City of Night. By Chance. Haha. He kissed me once in the entire time we spent together, and it never went further than that, but it was nice to have a crush that paid attention to me, especially considering how big a crush it was. He gave me the ring that I wore around my neck with the stones from Sky, so I got to keep him with me, kind of. Autumn looked at her mother’s fish necklace in her hand, suddenly noticing the black stone in the fish’s eyes, mumbling an “Oh.” She shrugged and kept reading. He was a good friend, him and his partners, Tony and Phil. Ah, those three. Problem S. Marlowe, Anthony Dante Holmes, and Phillip Ignatius Dupin. Not the best detectives in the City of Night, but the hardest working (and playing, but I suppose they would be, being friends with the Slicks).

Autumn laughed at her mother’s sharp memory and turned to the end of that entry, still learning about her mother and the things Change had done for love—for Autumn, and for her lovers, and the world she’d had a hand in creating.

She brought the journal to the shrine and left it there, atop the pedestal. There. All of Change’s memories put together in one place.

#Voided Reveries modded

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dearlybeelovedreadingroom · 8 years ago

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Voided Reveries: Book Two, part six

When they landed on Skyloft and Autumn had helped her mother off of Teal, Teal hopped off towards Cormorant’s ranch, and Autumn led her mother toward the edge of the island, where she would be able to see the Blade’s pedestal, once the Void cleared away from it. In their positions, Autumn could watch the lands below sew together from the island she was about to head to, and so could her mother from Skyloft.

She gestured for her mother to take a seat, and then readied herself. She jumped off the edge of Skyloft, and as she flew to the small, shrouded island where the blade’s pedestal waited, took the time to say a quick prayer. She wasn’t sure who she was praying to, but she thought of the golden-haired statue that had given her sword the final light blessing as she said thanks for her survival, for her mother, and for the life she was—both of them were—about to have.

This is it, she thought as her boots made contact with the dirt of the island, the moment she had worked so hard for. She lifted the sword, like she was sure her father had done at the end of his quest, lined it up, and—

There was darkness, swirling like it always did. She was in the center of the Void. No, she saw it now, the pattern in the swirling. The “true” center of the Void, the eye of the storm, was orbiting around her and about to swallow her up. Well, she would hold her breath and let it. There was no better way to take apart the Void than from inside it.

It was just as dark in the center as it had been before, but now she was having visions again—her childhood, done again, lived out on Skyloft, or in Hyrule with both her parents and her uncles and Olive. Over and over, each little change breaking off and creating a new vision, and they kept coming and multiplying faster and faster until she was on the ground, screaming in pain.

There was a laugh. “Headache? I thought so.”

Autumn started to look up, but before she’d looked very far, her gaze landed on the hem of a leaf-green skirt. “Of course.”

“Of course!” Chance shrieked with laughter. “Obviously, I’m everywhere; I’m always watching. While we’re on the subject of ‘of course,’ I knew you weren’t ready to do her job.”

Autumn stood up, wiping her eyes. She stayed silent.

“I mean Change, of course. That was all she had to do, sit in her pool and watch the timelines. Then, she became a human and just had to keep you on the right track, keep you clean. Keep you safe. That was all she had to do, but human bodies can’t handle it. So she’s failed me. And she’s failed you.”

Autumn sniffled. “I just came to finish my job.”

“That’s what we’re doing!” She paused. Autumn was still silent. “I suppose you thought it was going to be easy, that I would let you just get the keys and come up here and end it silently.”

“I thought you wanted me to remove the Void.”

“No, I told you people were dying because of it, and I told you how to stop that. You made it your goal to save the world, Little Heroine. Did it feel good, being the hero of a broken world that didn’t thank you for fixing it? Did it feel good to play goddess for a little while?” Autumn was silent again, lips pursed and nose crinkled. So her desire to help, to make a difference, was used against her. “That’s what I thought. It’s hard. No one thinks it is, and then no one wants to do it, but you did because you were pressed. Because you’re good and humans are good.” Autumn’s face relaxed, then contorted again. She was confused. Chance continued. “Well, since you’re such a great representative of a human, you have to represent humanity for me now. So before you can finish your job, you have to answer a few questions. Consider it your final trial.”

Autumn winced at the word, and flexed the fingers on her right hand, making the Triforce on it ripple. “Fine. Ask me.”

“Firstly, what makes you think you’re so special? You’re just a human. Or is it because you’re a Hylian? Well, half of one, anyway.” Chance shrugged. “They did always think themselves to be chosen ones for no good reason. Change and Hylia’s blessings made them way too full of themselves, even worse than other humans.”

“I thought the point was that I wasn’t special, at least at first. I’d just seen things no one else had, and that gave me an obligation.”

Chance yawned. “Stop acting like your father. Next question.” Chance displayed events from before Autumn’s birth—her parents meeting, Autumn’s conception, the things that endangered Autumn’s unborn life. “You were unplanned. You were the result of a decision made in emotional upset,” Autumn’s father kissed her mother— “and your mother acted with little concern for your wellbeing before you were in her life.” Autumn’s mother screamed to be let out of a cell, traveled, tinkered with an enchanted bracelet—and all the while, her belly swelled. “More than that,” Chance continued as Autumn’s mother was trudging through the desert, the Slicks’ home and Autumn far behind her, “she left you to strangers in the desert.” The images faded. “Are you aware you’ve always been unwanted, Autumn?”

Autumn had tears running down her cheeks, but made no noise. She could hear her mother’s voice saying, “Chance never takes away gifts already bestowed…your dad knew how badly I wanted you,” and “Even when your dad and I had different ideas about what having a kid would mean for us, I wanted you.” She could almost feel her mother’s touch, smoothing her hair or pulling her close, and Autumn could see, in her mind’s eye, Cormorant looking at her with love and keen interest, always excited to see her. She remembered Karane feeding her soup, Dy holding her and offering to fight whatever gave Autumn nightmares, Olive crying when Autumn left, the Slicks taking good care of her, her “aunt” Ti cleaning her up when she fell asleep on the bar, Tori cooking her breakfast, her dad hugging her and saying he’d always loved her.

“No.” she replied. “I’ve never been made to believe that.”

For one moment, Chance nearly looked defeated, but she regrouped quickly. “Then why did your mother never tell you that she’s the goddess that failed to protect you?”

“Because she didn’t fail me.” Autumn was a little shocked at the discovery, but much more strongly than that, she was angry with Chance. “I wasn’t a lost coin flip, I wasn’t an arbiter’s mistake, and I’m not a broken girl with a broken family.” The simmering upset she’d felt since she had begun this task finally came to the surface, and tearing up and snarling, she reached for the Blade of Bonddag. “She took care of me, or made sure I was with people who could. She left romantic love behind every time I asked her if she would come with me. I did all your tasks designed to make me watch everyone I love become miserable if I didn’t fix it, and then I fixed it and now I’m getting rid of it forever!” She drove the Blade into the ground, through the center of the Void swirling around them still. Autumn had completed her mission. She whispered out another prayer as the Void dissolved, leaving the world as it had been before Autumn had ever existed. “Change, helper of those far from home and who protects people from Chance… Mama… thank you.” As Chance began to disappear—she had no use to stay there anymore—Autumn furiously wiped the hot, stinging tears from her eyes and whimpered, “I’m alive. I’m safe… I’m free.”

With a flash of light, it was over. All her work had paid off; the lands were fissured together and she could only see Hyrule below her, into the distance where the sky met the land, the only border being a thin and permeable layer of clouds below, separating Skyloft from Mainland Hyrule.

As she flew back to Skyloft, she thought about who she was now. With the end of her quest, she was able to say that she no longer was a child of the Void (because she wasn’t a child, and there was no Void), or a branch in her father’s bloodline of obligatory heroism. She was still his daughter, and her mother’s daughter; she was half god and half hero, the Hero of the Broken Worlds. But most of all, she was Autumn. Just Autumn.

She landed and looked over to her mother, who was crying and scribbling out a letter.

“I wanted to tell him what it looked like from up here. I watched the whole time. I’m so proud of you. You wonderful, brave, wise girl. My daughter, who saved us all. It must have been so… so hard, alone.”

“You… saw all that?”

“Yes, you drove the sword into the ground and the Void just fell away.”

Autumn sighed, relieved that her mother hadn’t seen that interrogation, and hugged her.

Cormorant, and a bunch of other citizens of Skyloft, had come running to look over the edge. Some pointed into the distance and some looked at the ground, but no one knew what had changed, or what had been done to make it so.

Mr. A. looked out the window and across the sea to see nothing on the other side. Where once before, he had been able to see a slight gleam where Autumn and her mother had left, he now saw… a dullness. Dollie was gone, forever. But he was proud, really. He turned to whoever was behind him and would listen to say, all choked up, “I w-would have called her my stepdaughter.” Eri nodded solemnly.

Even Sky had to look outside when the ground shook. When he saw the landscape in the distance looked solid and faded into a solid light green instead of a shimmering mass of dark colors, he nodded.

“Look at her representing the bloodline.”

Twilight looked out the window, trying to see what Sky did, then snorted. “I don’t know that you can say it’s because of the bloodline just because she’s your daughter, Sky.”

“I’m not. I’m not saying it was her being my daughter that made her able. I’m just glad it was my daughter that did it. I’m proud of her.”

Autumn sighed. It felt good to be done. Now she would stay put in Skyloft. She had to, since she had decided. Skyloft, with Cormorant, Teal, and her mother? That was home. After all, who else had been with her the whole time? All the time, she would write letters to everyone else, because they had all tirelessly helped her get here, but she had to stay where they had gotten her to. But before she could do that, she had to ask something of her mother.

“Mama? Can I ask you a favor?”

“Sure, Autumn. What do you need?”

“Well… I was wondering if you needed the vial you wear around your neck.”

“Why?”

“I kind of wanted to wear it.”

Her mother hesitated. “What for?”

“Well, since Mr. A. took care of you and loved you like—” she cleared her throat— “a lot of people didn’t… I know that I can’t go see him again, but I think it’s only fair that I… well, I have Dad’s blood in my veins, I sort of want to have some of Mr. A’s with me all the time, too? I mean, he meant something to me, too. He made a difference. I knew you were safe if you were there, like when you left me with the Slicks.”

Her mother took the vial off her necklace and handed it to Autumn. “Luckily for you, no, I don’t need it anymore. Mr. A’s father gave me an amethyst from all of them to put on my necklace. So you can have the blood.”

Autumn threaded it onto the cord that she wore Faron’s scale on, and put a hand over her heart, where the cord had settled on her chest.

She smiled. Now she had her whole family together. Until she started her own, that is.

#voided Reveries modded

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dearlybeelovedreadingroom · 8 years ago

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Voided Reveries: Book Two, part five

Autumn sank into the water of the spring, having practically thrown herself into it after leaving the temple’s dark- and dampness. She could see the gate at the end of the pool, but sat where she was, hoping the water would restore her strength a little bit. As far as she could remember, it had worked for her dad. Or maybe it was her uncle? She wasn’t sure, and her head hurt too, so it was useless to think too hard about it right now. She would just stay still until it went away and she could think clearly. The gate wasn’t going anywhere.

If nothing else, the water would clean her up. She shut her eyes and sat as still as possible, still stinking of sweat and wondering if the large gashes on her arm that she had gotten some time ago, before even getting into the temple, would become scars or fade away before she even made it home to Skyloft. It was likely they would, if they didn’t scar, since it seemed like months passed there for every day she spent in these other timelines, with the gate being the only way out of where she was and back to her timeline. When she got back there, just like with the last two Hyrules, the timeline would show the effects of her getting the power of the light into her sword, and the timelines for the Hyrule she had just come from would stop being swallowed, sewn together and waiting to be permanently fused. The light’s effects on her sword would also stretch and warp the flow of the timelines, so that their events matched up with each other’s until whatever event made the timelines split. But that wasn’t her main concern right now.

She looked at the cuts again. Honestly, she wasn’t sure how she got most of the wounds she’d sustained in any of the three Hyrules. She could guess why, but wasn’t always confident in her guesses when she took an inventory of her body at the end of the day. The bruises from running into things while running for her life made sense, small scratches were understandable, even the bite wounds on both arms and one leg and the horrible headache she currently had she could explain, but the three large gashes were from a long time ago—maybe they were from Uncle Time’s Hyrule? She had seen a pack of wolves on the horizon when she was trying to fall asleep. Maybe she was losing her memory, and her head injury was worse than she thought. She had smacked the wall pretty hard when she got thrown back by a Staldra. She lifted a hand to her head, gently feeling around. When she brought her hand back down, some blood mixed into the water. Oh. That wasn’t good.

A few minutes passed and she was starting to feel a little better, though, and her headache had eased up considerably, so she swam over to one of the waterfalls and sat below it, letting its gentle flow wash the sweat and blood out of her matted hair.

Feeling significantly cleaner and less likely to die if she moved, she swam toward the gate, which was showing itself as an ivy-draped, glittering door in the back wall of the spring’s pool, and got the lyre ready; she strummed out a few notes to make sure her fingers could handle the finer movements required to play. They could. She wasn’t sure what she was supposed to play to open the gate, though; her dad had found answers to his questions in the signs littered around the temple, but none of the signs she’d seen were for her problems, or even mentioned this gate. It made sense, kind of. Her dad hadn’t needed to open this gate. That was her task.

She hadn’t learned any songs on the lyre specifically, and she didn’t want to go back into the temple to see if she’d missed something; it was bad enough already. On the other hand, she’d killed anything that approached her after she’d given it a wide berth. It could be safe. She still didn’t want to go back. She began strumming random notes that sounded good, until it started to sound like a lullaby her mother used to sing to her—her dad would tell her stories that became their shared memories, but every song Autumn knew came from her mother, even if Sky would have had to have taught it to her first. Autumn could probably play the songs of the goddesses by ear on this lyre, if she were to try… when she felt better, maybe she would; her mother could provide the vocals.

She had been playing the lullaby just to pass the time and stay calm while she thought of what it could be that would unlock the gate she needed to pass through, but when she’d finished her little improvisation on the lyre, there was a faint glow from the gate. Apparently, that had been the key. She swam towards the entrance and entered through the glowing gate.

She entered the room on her hands and knees because she had been doing an awkward stroke through the water when the door dissolved in front of her. She stood up shakily, and once she was steadily upright, brushed off her knees, then her hands, and looked around.

The room was massive. The walls were probably golden, based on the way they were still shining in the darkness, but it could have just been more of the dampness that was leaking from the ceiling in small drips towards the center of the room—was she below the spring? No, that couldn’t be. She had moved forward to get in here, so the spring was behind her…Right? It was hard to tell and it didn’t matter, so she dismissed the thought. She approached the small statue at the other side of the circular room. The statue depicted a young woman, with hair reaching to her hips and a gown that reached the base of the statue. In front of the statue’s base was a wide pedestal, with a light, presumably from a crack in the domed ceiling, shining on it. Autumn drew the Blade of Bonddag and placed it on the pedestal, centering it within the light.

It was as though the sun had risen in the room, because once the sword was on the pedestal, the room was brightly lit. Autumn could see the gleaming golden walls (she was right), which seemed slightly damp, but not as wet as she had thought they would have been. The ceiling had stopped dripping. She turned around and looked at the rest of the room in the new light. On the floor was a mosaic showing a clock’s face, the phases of the moon, and a tree in the four seasons—winter and the new moon at noon, and summer and the full moon at six— and at the base of the walls, a map of the tide going in and out. Seeing all this, she thought to herself that this seemed like the kind of place that Change would have built, at least according to how Chance described her, and that her mother would love. She turned back to the statue, finally seeing it in the light.

The long hair of the statue was covered in the same gold as the walls, and the statue wore a brown gown that looked warm and very soft and comfortable from the effects of the light. She wanted to wrap herself up in it. The eyes of the statue were large and made of peridot, with no pupils, leaving them unfocused. But they were as beautiful as the rest of the statue’s face, which had a soft, maternal kindness in its blank expression. Its—her—hands were angled down as though she was gesturing at the pedestal. Autumn followed them down and saw the Blade of Bonddag glowing, completed in the final light’s power.

She could seal the Void now, as soon as she got out of this room. She could end the suffering and swallowing of timelines, and see people happy and healthy again. She could go home.

Immediately, she began searching for the way out of the room. She found it when she approached the wall behind the statue, which opened to exit into a field as soon as she had gotten close, her sword glowing.

Autumn left the tiny shrine, tripping over her feet to get to Teal and up to Skyloft as quickly as she could. She sailed around rocks and constantly tilted upward to drop down into a dive, wanting to push Teal to go faster, but knew that Teal wouldn’t recover in time to fly through the Void to collect Autumn’s mother if she had to fly that fast. So Autumn just used the wind to carry them through the air, until they were over Skyloft. She angled Teal’s nose down again, then jumped.

Luckily for her, Cormorant had heard the flapping, looked outside to see the shadow pass across the path to the market, and looked at the teal streak just as its rider had jumped off, and now here he was to catch her, and see Teal begin to panic, having lost her rider.

Not so luckily, Cormorant wasn’t actually prepared to catch Autumn, with all her gear and cobbled-together armor, especially with the speed she’d picked up in her free-fall. So all he did was slow her fall slightly and hit the ground before she did, leaving her sitting in his lap.

Still, grateful for that, she kissed his cheek. “Hi, Como.”

He rubbed his cheek where she’d kissed it and grumbled “People who haven’t visited for two weeks don’t get to call me Como.” Then Autumn sprang off him.

“But look! Lookit! Look at this!” She pulled the Blade of Bonddag from its sheath and showed him how it glowed, all of the segments emitting a bright light. “It’s ready.” She whispered.

“Wow.” He stood up, brushing himself off. “So that’s what you’ve been doing?”

“Yeah, and kind of exploring what life could have been like.”

“That must have been interesting.” He said, whistling for Teal and heading toward the Loftwing pen, Autumn trailing behind him.

“Interesting, yes. Enjoyable… well, it’s very complex. I’ll tell you all about it.”

They were sitting against the rails of the Loftwing pen again, and Autumn had just explained everything that happened since she had dropped her mother off at Mr. A’s boat-house, but especially what she had seen on the other Skyloft. Cormorant had received the tale well, and wholeheartedly believed her, to Autumn’s surprise. Now she was waiting to see what he had to say about it. Finally, he spoke, a little smile curling the edges of his lips: “That must be fun—seeing your dad, him not seeing you, him with someone that isn’t your mom, and excited to be having some child that isn’t you… your friends don’t exist…”

“I’m sure you would have existed regardless, Como. But I am a couple months older than you, so if this kid was well on its way, you were probably no bigger than a Deku seed.”

“I guess.”

“You know what I noticed, though?” She asked, turning to him.

“No, what?”

She grinned. “My dad really likes blondes. He always talked about Zellie- blonde, and Peatrice- blonde, and of course, my mom is a blonde.”

“Yeah, that is kind of weird. I like blondes, too, though.” He grinned at her.

Autumn giggled. “Lucky me.”

Autumn fell asleep and woke up the next morning in the pumpkin field near Cormorant’s house, to find the sun had long since risen and Skyloft was already bustling. But she could forgive herself for sleeping in—it was a special day. This was the special day. She saddled up and flew Teal close to the ground once she left Hyrule, since the worlds were all tightly sewn together, too tightly for her to fly too high or erratically.

She landed Teal just outside the border at the edge of the ocean, dropped her pouch and the lit-up Blade of Bonddag, and dove into the sea between her and what she had come for. She swam in a beeline towards the sandbar of an island in the middle, barely able to contain her excitement. She surfaced and squeezed the water from her hair and clothes, then strode over to the door and rapped on it.

The bitter-looking boy opened it again, and called for her mother to come to the door; it was time. She came out on the arm of Mr. A., looking much better than she had the last time Autumn had seen her. In fact, she looked radiant. She looked the way Autumn remembered her from when she was very little. But she was still dressed in clothes borrowed from—oh right, he was called Eri—and covered in the jewelry she had received from the family. It was an odd combination. As long as she looked both alive and merry, that was all that mattered.

“Autumn.” She threw her arms around her daughter and squeezed until Autumn let out a little whimper. Then she held her out at arm’s length. “How great it is to see you again.” She dropped her hands down to hold Autumn’s. “I’ve missed you. You look so much… older.”

Autumn let out a puff of air at her bangs, since she couldn’t touch them. “It’s been a rough year.”

“It’s just been a year for you.” She winked. “But I can tell. The preparations have been made?”

“Everything is ready; I just have to seal this all up. So please, say your goodbyes so we can get on with it.” Her mother nodded.

“I understand.” She sighed heavily, looking at Mr. A., Eri, and the unnamed man—who had appeared in the background while Autumn had been talking to her mother, and who didn’t scare Autumn anymore. She had seen much worse, honestly. Plus, he was sort of family, as much as she hated to admit it. She had started to see Mr. A. in a much better light ever since she had seen that he loved her mother in a way that her dad hadn’t been ready or able to, a way that her mother seemed to flourish under as well as just enjoying it. That, and he still wanted to hear from her even if she had to go. So maybe he really wasn’t as bad she first thought. And he seemed to be plenty fond of Autumn. So she couldn’t hate him too much.

Her mother hugged Eri, trying to keep herself together. Autumn had seen the expression many times. She felt sort of bad, taking her away from a family she’d found and been able to knit herself into. Eri hugged her back somewhat listlessly, but seemed a little upset himself. When her mother let him go, Autumn smiled at him and raised her hand to wave a little bit. He waved at her and headed back into the ship. Autumn watched him retreat and silently wished she had gotten to know him better, but he didn’t seem very social. She looked back at her mother, who had her hand in the unnamed man’s while he whispered in her ear.

“Yes, sir, I will. Thank you very much, sir. I’ll treasure it.” So he must have been handing her something. Her mother’s eyes widened. “Oh sir, are you sure? I would appreciate it. Yes, please.” He nodded and set off around the ship.

“He’s gone to get us a ride back to the land near the Void.”

“Oh!” Autumn laid a hand over her heart. “That’s sweet.”

“He can be.” Her mother said, laughing a little. “Well, just one more goodbye, I suppose…”

Mr. A. looked at her, running a finger along her jaw and tapping below her chin to tilt it up, then leaned in to kiss her. Autumn looked away, across the sea to Teal on the shore, nosing the Blade of Bonddag. Then, her eyes widened when the unnamed man her mother kept calling ‘sir’ passed by her leading a large whitish seahorse wearing reins.

Her mother pulled away when she heard Autumn’s quiet gasp.

“I guess that’s my sign to leave…” She pecked Mr. A. on the lips one last time and came over to where Autumn was standing by the seahorse. “He flies like a Loftwing, but he can go into the water to stay even lower, if we need to.”

“I don’t think that’ll be necessary. But I sure would love to ride him.”

Her mother gestured for Autumn to come closer, and Autumn leaned towards her mother’s mouth, where she whispered their mount’s name. They clambered atop him and he streaked off over the water, leaving them laughing and screaming, with tears coming from their eyes. Then the seahorse spilled them onto the land and the pair climbed atop Teal, and Autumn flew them over the shipwreck island to wave goodbye one more time. Her mother blew a kiss to the three men standing on the island, and then Autumn steered them around and through the Void for the last time.

#voided Reveries modded

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dearlybeelovedreadingroom · 8 years ago

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Voided Reveries: Book Two, part four

parts of this are based on “Song of Myself”, CW: a couple characters “die”.

Autumn had gone through two other worlds the same way now—knowing that she was risking death and that nothing would look the same. Bit by bit, she had worked her way through it twice: find the key. Stop. Get the key. Stop. Find the gate. Stop. Open it and go through. Take a long break, a week or more, because she’d earned it. She could manage it this one last time.

But it was scary. It had been sad, too, watching her uncles doing something entirely different– to see the ginger-haired child that replaced Olive in Time’s life (maybe an ancestor of Olive’s three farm boy friends?), to see Twilight lugging hay back and forth and loading and unloading things from Epona, sighing into the sunset, completely alone because he’d never met Time, and never quite felt anything like that for anyone around him. It was sad to see Zel walking out and about Castle Town with her son– a bratty, privileged little prince, not the real Delvin at all– nothing the way it had been, the way it was supposed to be.

Granted, when she’d exited the temples at the end, the worlds seemed to feel more natural to her—she was still invisible, but the environment felt more solid around her (and the Delvin she’d seen was more like the one she’d met, at least)—but still, to have seen that there could have been a life so different from what she’d known, however momentarily, felt wrong.

But even that eerie sense of wrongness did little, if anything, to prepare her for the world she was about to face when she went to Skyloft, to find and retrieve the key to the gate that was somewhere in her dad’s Hyrule. She was anxious to find the place where she could light up the Courage segment of the Blade of Bonddag (the fact that it was her Triforce piece did little to calm her), and she didn’t even know for sure what was waiting for her.

So she took a deep breath before she stepped out of the Void and into the Hyrule of her father’s time, Teal behind her and bent protectively. When she found a good launch spot, she saddled up and took off for the tiny sky island. She touched down quietly, even though by now she knew that no one could see her, and no one would care even if they did.

Generally, she could sort of sense where to look for the keys, and they were normally somewhere that mattered to the keeper, somewhere that she would notice its significance– the mirror shard she had found in Twilight’s Hyrule was at the bottom of the fountain in Castle Town, making her look into the water and see herself, dirty and alone, and as she thought up a way to reach into the fountain and retrieve it, Zel and Delvin had passed by.

The same was happening now. Other than the constant feeling of the Void in her, like chatter in the back of her head, she could feel her father’s memories telling her what was what like always, though it was likely that the man who was inadvertently advising her here and now wasn’t her father at all.

She followed the feeling all the way to a tiny house that exuded warmth and a sweet scent, even in the pleasance of the Skyloft air. She glanced at the window to see a couple moving around a table.

They were dancing.

She went to the door and opened it silently, then made her way in, stopping in the open doorway to take in the scene. The couple consisted of her father… and Zellie. They appeared to be in their late twenties, and Zellie was clearly very pregnant. It would seem that they had waited quite a while longer to have children than her parents had, and were having them in wedlock, if the ring on Zellie’s finger was any indication. “‘Not much for marriage,’ he’d said,” Autumn mumbled.

Sky looked very happy to be holding onto her now that they’d stopped dancing; his hands were on the lower half of her stomach and he was beaming down at her… Autumn had never seen that look on her father’s face when he looked at her mother. Maybe it had been there once, long before Autumn would have seen. But that didn’t matter now. In this place, there was just Link, not Sky who was Autumn’s dad. There was no Autumn.

She shook her head to try and ignore the scene before her. She had to find the key. They couldn’t see her, so she was safe, but she needed to keep going. She felt pulled to the bedroom, so she headed there, trying to block out the image of the sweet smile her dad was giving someone else, not her and not her mother. It wasn’t going away. She grunted and winced as she reached the doorway of the bedroom and found the same blankets that she had spent the first three years of her life sleeping on in the same ruffled position as they would have been, no matter who shared her father’s bed. But never mind that, she thought, there on the wall was the key—Zellie’s harp.

Well, technically it was a lyre, according to her mother. But still, there it was, glowing in all its gold glory. She snatched it and ran from the house, sniffling.

She decided to nap in the Temple of Hylia, since she had cried herself basically to sleep while she had sat there, and when she woke up, she found Teal curled up outside the door. She left Teal at the edge of the Void and headed somewhere she knew she would be able to sleep through the night in peace… probably. She supposed that wasn’t certain any more since Chance had come to her there before. But she would rather be there than stay in not-her-dad’s Hyrule anymore. It made her uneasy; it was like she was watching things happen that she should never have seen.

She settled into the shadows inside the ruined buildings when she arrived. Either she would leave undetected when she woke up, or the woman she called Aunt Tori, whom she gardened for, would find her there and bring her further indoors. She liked sleeping just inside though, since the architecture reminded her of the temples her father had gone through. But the halls bore an even stronger resemblance to the ones the Slicks had told her about from the moon of, oh, what was the place called? She couldn’t remember, but it had sounded dark and beautiful, with violet buildings as far as the eye could see. She leaned back against the wall and slid down it, ready to settle for the night.

She slept fitfully, tossing and turning amongst the slightly damp rock, still clinging to the golden lyre she had brought with her. She probably should have left it with Teal inside Hyrule, but instead she had kept it, and now it was leaving marks on her cheeks when she rolled onto it.

She was woken up by piano music from further down the hall, so she sleepily made her way towards it, rubbing her eyes.

“Aunt Tori, why are you up so late?”

The woman jumped at the sudden voice, but settled down, a hand still over her heart, when she saw who it was. “Autumn, what are you doing here? What’s that?”

“I came here to sleep in peace because I can’t sleep in alternate Hyrules, but it wasn’t working. This,” she held up the lyre, “is a timeline thing. I stole it from my dad’s alternate timeline wife.”

Tori looked at her, squinting. “And how do you feel about that?”

“I might go have a drink at Aunt Ti’s to stop thinking about it, when the sun’s up.”

“You know you can’t tell sunrise down here.”

“Right. So I don’t have to go yet.” Autumn sat down next to Tori at the piano and began playing it, a little too forcefully.

Tori winced. “I hope you’re better at the lyre.”

Autumn laughed. “Maybe after I get some sleep, I will be.”

Tori took Autumn to what was more or less “her” room now, since Tori had the space, and Autumn had needed it more than once. Autumn flopped onto the bed in a way similar to how her father had at her age, at least according to her mother, and fell asleep almost instantly.

When she woke up, she found next to the lyre a plate of pastries and a piece of quiche, with a note attached to the lyre that read:

“You forgot this by the piano. I figured that you would need it, or at least would want it. It’s very pretty—did your alternate-timeline stepmother make it herself? Re: breakfast, I tried to branch out with baked goods, but there’s only so much I can do with fire, and I still think pie cooks better. So I made a quiche. Good luck! –Tori”

Autumn smiled and ate the pastries, absentmindedly strumming the lyre until almost all the food was gone. She still couldn’t bring herself to finish the quiche. Then she left the room to head back towards the Void.

She had work to do.

In one of the smaller bedrooms in the house made of a boat beached on the sand bar, just off the living room where a teenaged heroine slept on the couch, a couple lay sleeping, twined together like a young vine and a trellis.

She shook (like her daughter did), even while clinging to her partner, her protection. She was no longer safe from the dreams, or from the goddess, that were plaguing her daughter.

“Oh, humans. They say they know so much, but they really don’t. They soar on borrowed wings, and everything they say about Heaven makes it clear how little they know. And I can see you’re still choosing to camp among them, not for a night, but for a lifetime. Is it worth it? Aren’t you satisfied yet? Go on, tell me you aren’t, and maybe I’ll start to see those piercings as more than bribery to keep you from where you belong.”

She was silent. She couldn’t find words before the amber-eyed goddess. At least, not yet. The goddess continued.

“I set you down here, like you asked. You found a man, tasted of the wild fruit he had to offer you, took what he would give you at any price you had to pay…” She shut her eyes and shook her head. “You took it all and cultivated it, and I would imagine you took him too, at least for a while. I trusted that you would eventually withdraw when I asked, and let him finish what you two had started. Autumn would have been fine without you.”

It was at this that the words finally came to her. She was speaking without thinking, without controlling the words coming from her mouth, as though she were reading a script. The voice was hers, the umbrage behind it was hers, but she didn’t know why.

“Don’t you think it’s silly to speak so highly of our Heaven when you’re only doing so by speaking badly of what lies below your feet, when we’re the ones that created it? It’s a big mistake to think you know what those wild fruits taste like, just because you watched someone else eat them. I wanted to come down to see what I could learn from it, taste those fruits for myself. I didn’t want to live separate in an eternal existence. That’s not life.”

“Yes, because they’re better than that—they’re gods.” The amber eyes rolled in their sockets. “Look at them living in fear—Sky let you leave home for somewhere uncertain because he was scared. He lives tied to the fame he made for himself. Each generation forgets and deserts the goals and struggles that were passed down to them, and only the bad things they do really live after them. And what have you ever gained from them? What have you gotten for your pains?”

“My labor paid off.”

Chance laughed. “And was it worth it?”

Her opponent looked defiant. “It still is rewarding. And I gained knowledge, and experiences I desired to have, ones I could not have in Heaven.”

There came a snort. “Like what?”

“To read. To stand for a while where two eternities meet—”

“You can’t take a break from eternity.”

“I know I’m deathless. Before I lived here, I was eternal. After I die, I will return.”

“You’ll return to your pool?”

“Yes, but until then! —” She took a sharp breath. “I can be intoxicated by just one glass of wine.” Her eyes lit up. “That kind of pleasure is what I desired, and what I’ve gotten with my humanity.”

“It’s only a matter of time until you see straight, then. Time is a shallow river to fish in; if I were to stoop to drink from it like you have, all I would see is how shallow it is.

“Well, I don’t want to drink any deeper right now!” She screamed. “You can fish in the sky, if you have to fish.” She shrank and quieted. “There are so many stars there.” Her eyes were still lit up, as she recalled the skies everywhere she went, full of the same stars under different names, but there was little chance of her winning this argument. Chance wasn’t going to listen to her.

“I can wait. And why do you think you can convince me? You’re just a human, Change.”

She looked down at the earth-brown gown pooled around her feet, but realizing she had finally been addressed as Chance’s equal, maybe for the last time, she looked back up. “And do you think we’re better off just setting ourselves on top of glass so we can watch them all but be unreachable in a place all our own, never touching what we once shaped with our own hands?”

“Why not? They don’t love you because you’re a goddess. They don’t know that, and they wouldn’t love you if they did. They would fear you, maybe, but they wouldn’t love you. They don’t love us. If you’d let any of them see what you really are—well, were— they would have turned you out immediately. You know what they do love? They love the land; they love the dirt that will make their graves. Not the divinities that keep them from entering those graves early.”

“You keep saying that they’re different. Why? What are they? And what am I then, with a mind like yours in a body like theirs?”

“You’re pitiful, is what you are, constantly trying to be like them and with them.”

“Seventeen years I’ve been here now, all of them lonely.” She mused, avoiding Chance’s pointed gaze.

“Constantly adorning yourself for the next man who will have you.” Chance spat.

“Not asking the sky to come down, worlds to tear, just because I want something. I’m powerless.” Change volleyed back. “I don’t need to apologize or explain myself for this anymore than I had to explain why I made the grass first grow.” She crossed her arms. “I’m something at all its stages, like the moon and seasons, so I might as well live them all, rough as they come.”

“I could take you back right now, rough as I come, leave that body of yours dead in bed next to that beast you call your lover, have him find you when he wakes up. Whether you come back now or in fifty years, you can’t live as a human forever. “

“Alright. I just wanted to have a life; I spent so long giving life I wanted a little for myself.”

“Oh, so it was selfish.”

“Isn’t that what you’ve been saying all along? Isn’t that why I’ve had to live like this, why you’re trying to kill Autumn? I was your equal, and I refuse to have that ignored.” Chance was silent, staring at Change stonily. Change sighed. “I suppose it’s time to answer you, then. I am satisfied. This life is worth it. I told you how badly I wanted to kiss, to laugh, to dance, to feel a pool of water that was cold because it was fresh from the melted snow. I have a lover, I had another; I have friends. I feel connected to the world I once made, and even though I am powerless against Chance herself, just a human, I don’t have to suffer this.” She sighed again, hopeful. “Maybe if you had known these people better, you would love them. But you are their master. I am their friend, if they let me be. I don’t want to give that up yet. When you come for me, come for the grass below your feet.”

Chance pursed her lips. “It’s a real shame that I still seem to be on your side, Change. It turns out you’re just in the best of the timelines I haven’t gotten to swallow yet. You could have—I think you should have been in these ones.”

Chance presented the other timelines to her, and they were terrible to watch. What few family ties she and Autumn had made had been taken from them—there were no older, grandparent figures for Autumn, no one to protect her as a young child, because Spades had been beheaded and Ms. Paint had gone into hiding, out of pain and fear. She watched as the red-clad executioner left the field, and the body was disposed of with no respect. In fact, she only assumed, hoped, prayed that Ms. Paint was in hiding, because Chance wasn’t showing her. Maybe she had been executed, too. Chance showed her the death of Mr. A. It was practically death by vaporization, leaving nothing but a pool of violet blood. There was a part of her that would have wanted to sop up the blood, but there was none, just an ache in her chest.

The world of the damp purple buildings was still falling apart, but there was no corpse of Autumn’s Aunt Tori to mourn over—she had already turned to dust.

Autumn’s friends there were all an army now, refusing to trust anyone who looked human. Autumn wouldn’t have been safe anywhere—kidnapped in the City of Night, dead in the vast desert, or murdered by her once-friends.

The images faded. Chance continued.

“But I know what you’re thinking. Who cares? You probably could have lived without them! But you don’t adapt well to loneliness, Change. People leave, it’s an inevitability of your power, but now you can’t handle being alone.” Chance showed her more, a continuation of the same timeline where all those people who were her family were dead. “Autumn hates seeing you with Mr. A, imagine how much she’d hate seeing you like this?”

Another image appeared before her. She was in a bed, a dirty one. Was she in the violet ruins? No, there were golden buildings outside, illuminated in the bright-lit night. The vision’s her squirmed a little, stretching her legs, trying not to disturb the person who was asleep on her chest. She knew where the head now resting gently cradled on her chest had just been moments before.

Part of her liked the idea. That sickened her a little.

“…stop. Chance, please.” She whispered. The image of the couple faded.

“That would be cruel of you, wouldn’t it? Making it so your daughter couldn’t find you, and wouldn’t want to, if she could? And running around on Sky twice?” Chance laughed. “Ha! As if it weren’t bad enough that every time I choose one of these men to be special, you show up and ruin their lives. And I could make it worse for them; really ruin their lives worse than you have. And on top of that, I could take you away from them—you and anything else I choose—by taking your humanity away from you just as easily as I gave it to you.”

Chance was at her throat, fingers already digging into the sides, cutting off her blood flow rather than choking her. “I can kill you when you’re human like this, after all. And then who would keep Autumn safe?” Change was clawing at Chance’s hand, but the lack of blood flow was already making her movements clumsy and weak. She could feel her body buckling below her, her vision blacking out, then Chance let go.

She sat bolt upright, throwing Mr. A. off her chest, which was heaving with every breath that echoed through the room. She couldn’t remember anything but the dust, a pool of violet blood, an army advancing on Autumn, and a disturbing smile in wobbly vision.

She mopped the sweat off her brow and took a deep breath. She felt the bed shift as Mr. A sat up as well. Even in the dark, she caught his eyes searching for hers. He ran a finger down her cheek, tracing the track of a sweat drop. Or maybe it was a tear track. She couldn’t tell.

“What was that about, doll?”

“I just had the worst dream of my life.”

He lay back down and pulled her close. “It’s okay. You’re okay. I’m here.”

She sighed, leaning against him. “Yeah, you are.”

#voided Reveries modded

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dearlybeelovedreadingroom · 8 years ago

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Voided Reveries: Book Two, part three

Autumn woke up more tired than she had been when she went to sleep. After the goddess had left her alone, she’d had a dream about her mother… or maybe it was a memory. She would have been too young to remember it entirely on her own, though; it was from when she was a baby.

She couldn’t remember it clearly anymore now that she was awake, but the feelings and vague images she could recall involved her parents talking to each other, with her father using words like “perfect” and “beautiful,” and Autumn’s mother picking her up and holding her, singing a lullaby, one that her mother had sung to her for as long as she could remember. But that was it.

And that settled it. As dangerous as it was, she had to put her quest on hold for a day. She was visiting her mother.

Autumn dove into the Lake, remembering her mother’s claim that this wasn’t their water, and they ought to not swim in it. But if her mother was living there now…

When she got close to the place her mother was living in, it dawned on her that if she couldn’t swim here without one of Faron’s scales (and goddesses, had that been hard to get, especially due to ordeals with Faron that both she and her dad had had), then how did her mother?

She surfaced and took a puff of air from a bottle she kept in her pouch, then kept swimming. She got to a sand bar and crawled out of the water. Nearby was a medium-sized island with a ruined ship balanced atop it. She made her way to the ship’s island, trying to ignore every instinct telling her not to swim in the rain and finally made it, banging on the door and hoping she could seem fairly intimidating to whoever answered.

A bitter-looking young man about her age opened the door, and she tried to look tough. “I’m here to see my mother.”

“Oh, you’re the human’s kid. Come on.”

He led her through the house, and she looked at the portraits on the wall—the boy leading her around looking sullen, Mr. A positioned as jauntily as possible, and a man she didn’t recognize looming over them and looking a lot scarier than either of the other men. They all had the same questing look in their eyes—all the same violet color that her mother’s vial pendant was—and had on matching family rings.

Her mother’s presence splashed and screamed against theirs, though she sat with her legs tucked up underneath her and her body pressed against Mr. A’s, as if she belonged there and always had. He had an arm around her and a finger from the other hand holding her chin to keep their eyes locked, and they were engaged in conversation. The frightening man sat silently in an overstuffed armchair next to them, reading a newspaper and seemingly trying to ignore them.

While the bitter boy slumped into the chair he must have left and picked up a book, Autumn took a moment to take in her mother’s new look.

Her mother still had in her mismatched earrings—one crimson and one teal to match the Loftwings of the most important people in her life—and she still had on the necklace with the Zora sapphire, the dark-stoned ring, and the vial of violet liquid, but she also had gold earrings trailing up both ears, and a variety of necklaces draped on and dangling from her neck. Autumn kept looking, trying to drag her gaze away from the glint of metal to see that her mother’s lips were rosy, but cracked and dry. Her skin didn’t look much better, flushed in places but over-dried. She didn’t look particularly healthy. But Autumn had to admit that she looked happy regardless. The boy hadn’t announced her presence, and no one had looked up at her, so she cleared her throat. The couple flicked their eyes to her, and Mr. A uttered a quiet “hm.”

He continued, still looking at her. “…Autumn. Right?”

“yes.” She replied, looking down at her boots.

“Autumn!” her mother cried finally, quickly standing up and nearly tripping over her obnoxiously long skirt. “Oh goddesses, I’m such a mess. I didn’t expect you! Why didn’t you send word?” she turned to the boy reading in the chair nearby. “Eri, why didn’t you say she was here?”

He shrugged. “You were busy.”

“Oh, well.” She took Autumn’s face in her hands and stood on tiptoe to kiss her forehead. “Oh, Autumn, how have you been? I’ve missed you so much!”

“Oh, yeah?” she asked. The touch of her mother’s lips wasn’t as rough as she expected, but it still scared her that her mother looked so pale.

“Of course I have! I’ve been so worried about you, and I’m so glad to finally have a visitor, too. I love these three, but it can get so boring here at the edge of the world with nothing but the thunder. I miss the pounding of hooves and the beating of wings.”

And hearts, I bet, Autumn thought. She held her mother close for a second, then let her go. “I’ll be right back, Mama.” She said, stepping back. “Mr. A., can I talk to you?” She glanced at the window, seeing the clouds still hovering, dark and ominous. More lightning. It couldn’t be helped. “Outside?”

He nodded and led her back through the “house” to the space outside.

“You said you would protect her!” she shrieked as soon as they were a little further from the house. Lightning crackled, as if to illustrate her point. “She looks dead!”

“She’s not in any danger. Can’t do anything to her. I don’t plan to, either.”

“I’m not accusing you of hurting her. I’m saying that you aren’t taking good care of her. My. Mother. Looks. Like. She’s. Dying.” Autumn was taking heaving breaths, trying to keep herself from hurtling towards Mr. A and telling him to give her mother back with her hands rather than her words.

“She looks much better than she did the first time I met her,” He replied. “And she looked fine then, if you ask me.”

“Why is she dressed like that? She looks like a zombie concubine!” In all honesty, the only zombies she knew of were the ones her father and uncles had told her about, and they were all much uglier than her mother would ever be, but still, the way the dress hung on her…

“The dress is from Eri, he had a bunch from a lady friend of his—but I figured they’d look good on her. Don’t they?”

Autumn had finally gotten her breathing under control. She folded her arms and stared at him. “Yeah, but… Why the piercings?”

“She asked for them. Probably didn’t ask for a long time. But she couldn’t take care of them before. Here, she could. So she did it. We had the gold, it looks nice. I figured it couldn’t hurt. I mean… It hurt her to get them, but not in a global sense.”

Autumn cocked a hip, wrinkling her nose. “You know the world is on the path to destruction, right?”

“All the more reason to spend the rest of my time around a beautiful lady like your mom.” Autumn made a face. She still wasn’t sure how she felt about this guy as a stepdad, if that was even what her mother had in her plan. “Plus, she talks about you all the time. Says you’ll rescue us all, just in time. She has total faith in you to stop us on our path to destruction. So I do, too.”

Autumn gasped, her mouth falling open. “She does?”

“Of course she does! Absolutely. And she misses you, too. I don’t think she’s been as happy as she is at the moment since the last day before you left her here.”

Autumn cast her eyes to the sand, trying to convince herself that it was the salty air and not the fresh-pricking tears that was stinging her eyes. “Oh. I’m sorry, Mr. A. I really, really am.”

“For this?”

“No.” She looked up to see him with his arms open, as if to embrace her. She moved closer, then lurched forward and crumpled into his arms. “I’m sorry because I kind of hated you.”

“Oh. That. I kind of figured you did.” She sniffled against his chest. “I don’t blame you and it’s okay, kid.”

“Can I take my mom back?”

“If she’ll go, yeah, I suppose so.”

“…you’re not going to argue?”

“She’s your mom. But… I’m gonna miss her, so if—and on the occasion that—she goes… can she send letters?”

“Yeah.”

He nodded, satisfied. “Alright then.”

He led her back into the house.

Autumn made her proposition to her mother, who refused at first. Late into the night, and without accepting help deciding from any of the men in the house, they argued about whether or not Autumn even had the right to ask that of her mother.

And then finally, a conclusion was reached—

“If I agree to come with you, Autumn, but not right away while the Void is still moving in, how long can I stay here?”

“You can stay until the moment I have to insert the sword into its pedestal.”

“Then come get me before you do that. I want to see my little girl save the world.” Autumn beamed, but groaned.

“Maaaaaaaaama, please.”

“Oh. One more thing. If I do come with you… where will I live?”

“I’ll have a home for you in Skyloft by then.”

“Then I accept your offer. I’ll stay here until you come for me, and then I’ll…?”

“…have to stay in Skyloft, or at least the Hyrules, for the rest of your life, but you can send letters to Mr. A., and if you absolutely insist, I can ship your bones here for your burial. But then I can never visit you.”

“Whoa there, sweet pea. We’ll decide what happens when I die later. I’m still very young for my race.”

Autumn laughed. “Okay, Mama. By the way…” She looked around. “Can I stay here for the night? I don’t want to try to swim back to the Void at night…”

“You can sleep on the couch. I would give you my bed, but it isn’t just mine, if you know what I mean.”

Autumn looked disgusted. “Ugh. Yes. Probably too vividly.”

Her mother laughed. “Alright, sorry. Goodnight, Autumn. I love you.”

“I love you too, Mama.” Autumn headed towards the couch, and her mother kissed her cheek and padded towards her room, gathering her skirts in her hands. Autumn didn’t want to think what could be happening once her mother shut the door.

It didn’t matter. It could keep happening for now, and for as long as it took for Autumn to finish this quest and sew these worlds together, to put their walls back up where they belonged. And then her mother would come home.

It was the best of both worlds. It was the best for all worlds. The thought rocked Autumn to sleep.

While she had been lulled to sleep by thoughts of a peaceful, happy life for everyone she’d ever met, but especially herself and her mother, it seemed that Autumn’s taskmaster had a different plan for how she would spend her night. As she lay curled on the couch, breathing in the sea breeze from an open window, Autumn shivered as Chance spoke to her again.

“So you’re about two-thirds done… do the worlds feel different once you know that you’ve reached your hand in and meddled with them?”

Autumn was quiet for a moment. She didn’t appreciate the way the voice spoke to her, always sounding as though it knew something she didn’t. Of course the voice—her name was Chance—did. But there was no reason to be so rude about it. She had vague memories of her mother saying that Sky had gone through the same thing on his quest. But then, Autumn though of how the areas around the temples came to life—or at least, they were more like she remembered them—once she opened the gates. She tried to be diplomatic and polite. “I don’t know that I’ve been meddling, really. I don’t touch anything I’m not supposed to. I just have a mission from you to fulfill.”

There was a scoff. “I see. And has anything been… missing from your life since you took up this quest, little heroine?”

“Well,” she debated being honest, giving Chance any information that could be used against her. “I’ve missed my cousin.”

“Ah, Olive. She just stopped coming to play one day.”

Autumn took a deep breath. “Yeah.”

Chance tutted. “Well, they say that one’s mind is wiped of most of its childhood memories once they begin adolescence. And you were coming around less often, and then you changed the timeline… oh, what a pity. I’m sure it’s clear what happened. Lost. Forgotten by your own family. I guess absence doesn’t make the heart grow fonder after all.”

Autumn blinked back her tears. She was angry and heartbroken, but she wasn’t going to let Chance see that. “Can you at least… show me that she’s okay? I want her to be okay without me.”

Chance laughed. “Oh, she’s more than fine! She’s doing great!” Autumn saw images fading in and out of her vision, bits of Olive’s life without her: time with her fathers and Sky, riding horses with Delvin, exploring the castle with him, wandering the Hyrule market on her own and making crowns of flowers… “She’s doing splendidly for herself,” Chance whispered. “Even at 15, she’s already being prepared to marry the prince. They’ve been friends since childhood, after all. They used to play together in the fields, along with a little boy from Skyloft. But one day, he stopped coming to see them, like you did.” Chance showed Autumn Olive and Delvin’s wedding as well, saying it was “on the horizon.” Olive looked beautiful, a small silver tiara holding back her hair before it cascaded onto the sleeves of a flowing white gown. Autumn choked back tears and looked away from the images in front of her, which now included Olive’s coronation as Princess, and Olive’s arrival at the coronation of Vella, tightening an alliance of the Hylians and the Zora.

Autumn tried to keep her voice steady. “I’m glad she’s happy.”

“Yes, I’d dare say that she got a good deal, the way the coin fell.”

Autumn cocked her head, grappling with what Chance could have meant by that. “The… what?”

“Oh, that can’t have been unclear, can it? There are two of you that are daughters of heroes, there’s you and there’s Olive. I chose Olive to be my charge. I’ve been protecting her and propelling her.”

“And that’s why you can’t protect me on my journey?” Autumn was incredulous.

“I made my decision long ago, and I picked Olive. Change picked you. It’s a shame she’s a human now, isn’t it?” Autumn frowned. She wasn’t sure if she was mad at Change or not. Autumn didn’t think that they’d ever spoken, honestly. But maybe Change was someone who had been taking care of her all along! …Or someone on Skyloft who was keeping an eye on her, with Cormorant’s help. Chance spoke again. “But she’s done a good job protecting you, I must say. She’s fulfilled her duties. She loves you, takes care of you…she’s stuck to her choice like I’ve stuck to mine.”

Chance must have decided to finally materialize in front of Autumn, because the vague outline of her body in the darkness, which Autumn had seen every time they had spoken, became focused until Autumn could see her clearly. She wore a green gown, the color of a newly grown leaf. Her amber eyes—a few shades darker than her skin, but lighter than her long, dark brown hair—were just as Autumn remembered.

“She hasn’t watched Olive like I’ve watched you, either. But I suppose I can’t blame you for that. Now. You have work to do, little Heroine. You can’t stay here forever.” Chance turned away from Autumn, who woke up with a gasp, sweaty and shivering in the breeze from the open window. She snuck through the house in the early light of the morning and quietly waded through the ocean until she found where the sand dropped off, then swam to the shore and entered the Void. She’d be back for her mother soon.

#Voided Reveries modded

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