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Infinity War



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Sun Oct 21, 2018 11:37 pm
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Mageheart says...



Infinity War

A Saeverse Storybook

Invite Only


I'm sorry.


Once upon a time, there was a god named Kartiel.

You likely already know of him. He was the god of souls, and he was known for his experiments on unwilling mortals. With the help of Rendra, the goddess of lies, and Thymea, the goddess of forgotten memories, he was able to interfere in countless people's lives. His ability to move souls has let him create experiments where he takes a person's soul from one body and puts it into another, and has appeared under many false identities simply by putting his own soul into a new body.

For those who don't know of him as Kartiel, you know him by another name: Keith Quinn, a millionaire. You may have roleplayed with him. You may have read about him in the news. However you know of him, you know he exists, and that is enough. He has influenced your lives in more ways than you can possibly know – he brought you to Atlantis. He brought you to Aeyis. He informed you about your destiny to save the world. He was the one who was behind the experiments that led to you being reincarnated with soulmates.

But Kartiel isn't the Thanos of this Infinity War.

For thousands of years, Kartiel has served another god. His name is Sirun, and he is the god of realities. To those who work for him, they know him by another role – he is the god who enslaves others. Though they are immortal and have a vast array of powers, all gods share a common weakness. Each possess a true name, and, when this true name is given to another person, that person has the ability to manipulate the giver when in their presence. Sirun has collected the true names of three gods in particular: Rendra, Thymea and Kartiel. And while Rendra and Thymea have their own tales to tell, the chaotic event that is Infinity War can be blamed on Kartiel and Kartiel alone.

It starts with Keith Quinn.

(Who, as you remember, is Kartiel.)

Keith is attacked in his bedroom by assailants sent by Sirun himself. He attempts to leave his body and use one of the spare ones he has left across an array of realities, but Sirun was wise and made sure to leave them all in a state where he could no longer use them. The goal? He wished to force Kartiel back into his original body, which rests in Sirun's castle in Aeyis. Once he does so, he can have Kartiel under his control once more – or, rather, for the first time, because Kartiel has been acting like he has been corrupted by Sirun's commands for thousands of years.

Kartiel, luckily, has a spare body.

Unluckily, this body is only the body of a child, and no amount of magic could ever help a child defeat an army of highly-trained adults. So he switches bodies, uses some of the strongest magic he has ever cast, and does two things: he brings himself to the small pocket in reality that he has hidden from Sirun since he first gave him his true name, and he transports the people who might be able to help him complete the plan he has spent millennia planning with the use of a magical charm.

Due to be in such a frantic state of mind, Kartiel doesn't think when he reaches out to these people – his mind just goes to the people that have been involved in his schemes, in Rendra's schemes and in Thymea's.

And that's where our story begins.
mage

[ she/her, but in a boy kinda way ]

roleplaying is my platonic love language.

queer and here.





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Tue Dec 04, 2018 12:08 pm
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Mageheart says...



Kartiel
| God of Souls |


Never once had waking up as Keith Quinn felt natural; he could never get over how his limbs were too short and too stocky, how his face felt like a mask that didn't match, how his pajamas weren't even his style, and how his bedroom wasn't tailored to his interests. Though there was always the moment of panic when consciousness returned to him, he had grown used to the bizarre sensations and sights that accompanied waking up as another person.

But this morning was different.

He opened his eyes to darkness. There was movement nearby, and he could barely make out the time on his digital clock—it was only one thirty, so something else must have awakened him. His senses in a body like this was never quite as good as his natural one's, so he resigned himself to feigning sleep and trying to pick up on the individual details of the moment.

Just as he was beginning to count the number of figures shuffling about his room, he suddenly became aware of an excruciating pain coming from his stomach. His soul knew pain, but this particular version of Keith Quinn didn't, so he shot up with a start and frantically tried grabbing at the sword that had him pined down to the bed.

The figures began to converge back on the bed. Even before he noticed that their clothing didn't match Earth's common styles, he knew what had happened. Despite years of careful preparation and lying, Sirun had finally managed to put two and two together. But power had made his master lazy, and Sirun had sent a group of hired mercenaries from Aeyis to kill him instead of showing up in person. His real body, most likely, was waiting back in Sirun's chambers or throne room.

And if these mercenaries were worth half their salt, they would have already taken care of the spare bodies he had resting in tubes a couple of rooms away. Sirun was going to try cornering him. He had always expected that this would happen someday, but he had never guessed it would be so soon. He began the process of moving his soul from this body to another one—just as he had suspected, there wasn't any left nearby. He continued to feel out. Those bodies had been reported to Sirun, just as he was supposed to with all of his alternate ones. But what he didn't report was the one tucked away in his mansion, surrounded by every magical artifact he could think of that would help him escape a scenario like this.

He switched bodies.

The first few moments in the body were panic. It hadn't been prepared for him; it was still in its tube, and not out of the fluids used to maintain it. Tiny fists slammed across the glass as he desperately tried to break it. He held his breath, thought hard and finally remembered that he had a backup for moments like this: a keypad a short distance away. He reached out a hand, typed in the code and fell to the floor in a sopping wet mess.

He coughed, spitting out the little bit of fluid that he had accidentally swallowed. Then he got to work, little bare feet leaving wet footprints all around the room as he tried to find the artifact he had spent so much time working on. Just as he was about to grab onto it, he heard footsteps approaching down the hallway—Sirun must have just called in, demanding answers for why Kartiel hadn't returned to his body yet.

He grabbed onto it and uttered the words to the spell.

Warmth flooded the room as the doors began to began kicked down, and Kartiel was gone before they even had a chance to get a good look at him.

His heart was still pounding nervously in his tiny chest as he suddenly appeared in the pocket reality, and his hands felt cold and clammy—he hated how terrified he was of being discovered. He wasn't supposed to be afraid; he never was supposed to have been. Fear was a weakness that Sirun would have immediately picked up on, and he had done such a good job at concealing it that abhorring his terror had become second nature.

Then he he looked down, the terror finally made sense.

The body hadn't been fully developed.

He had known that, in the back of his mind. He had only just started working on this particular one. But seeing the body of a child in the place of his own—or even Keith Quinn's—made his eyes widened in horror. He stared down at hands too small to hold weapons, and at legs too small to easily outrun a foe. He was helpless. And without the benefit of the tube and a constant flow of magic, how long would it take for this body to actually develop? How long would he be stuck like this? And what if, fates forbid, Sirun managed to figure out his plan and find Ria before this body could grow up?

He needed help.

And he needed help now.

(He also needed clothes, but he was already heading towards the spare suit he had left there. It was far too big when he tried putting it on a child's body instead of an adult's, but it at least covered him.)

A spell came to his mind, and he began to speak it without even thinking of the consequences. It was a very specific spell; he needed to specify exactly who he wished to take, or else the vagueness of his thoughts would bring a handful of people who fit the variable. But he was too terrified to really think straight, and his mind switched from his own schemes/experiments to Rendra's and even to Thymea's, though he had heard that those tended to be accidental and not intentional like his and Rendra's.

There was a sudden burst of warmth—a welling of unfamiliar magic mixing with his own—and then the spell was complete. Kartiel, whose new body wasn't yet fit for doing such advanced spells one after the other, promptly sunk to the ground in his exhaustion.
mage

[ she/her, but in a boy kinda way ]

roleplaying is my platonic love language.

queer and here.





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Thu Dec 13, 2018 1:50 am
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TheSilverFox says...



Enide Hyusei

Queen of Foxes




Enide looked into the large mirror in front of her and adjusted her brooch ever so slightly. She sighed – no, it wouldn’t do. Reaching back and detaching it, she pulled out a drawer in her dresser and dropped it in.

“Have all the guests assembled yet?” she said as she went back to looking at the mirror, tugging some of the whiskers by her nose to straighten them out.

The woman in the red dress who had just slipped in through the door stopped. Enide glanced down to see the pads beneath the woman’s heels. A cute trick that would’ve been effective had Enide not smelled her first. In a room that was coated in perfume, not to mention the sticks of incense that had been burning on the rugs at the corners of the room, grime and sweat were easy to pick out. Not that Enide was supposed to be the target. “Soon, my lady,” the woman said, face unmoving.

“Soon?” Enide unbuttoning the folds of her dress at her wrists and allowing the fabric to spill over her hands.

“Those who have yet to arrive aren’t far away,” she said, crossing her arms. “They seem to want to take their sweet time, but they’ve all made it past the hills. As far as we can tell, any uninvited guests have not.”

Enide simply nodded. She unbuttoned the top of her dress and ruffled it.

The woman moved to the oversized bed that filled up half of the room. She pushed aside the thin silk curtain and sat on the flower-print covers. “My Queen?” she said, “What in Fayne are you doing?”

Hmm. It was rather imprudent for one of her low-ranking spies to ask a question like that, especially at a time like this, but she had so far proven to be reputable. And, if not, the spy wouldn’t last long enough to tattle. Enide reached for the scabbard hidden at her side as she said, “Dressing up, of course.”

The spy’s eyes fixed on the movement, but chose not to comment. “In those clothes?” she said, more hesitantly. “I don’t think the lords and ladies in attendance will be happy to see their Queen in sandals and a gown. They’ll tear you to pieces.”

“Not if their Queen had to stroll through the garden first,” Enide said. She straightened up and raised her chin. That would do.

“But I still-” the spy froze, realization striking her in the face. “A trap? You’re setting a trap.”

Enide moved her hand ever closer to her sword. “Now leave your Queen be,” she said calmly. “Your part is done, your superiors will be hard at work soon, and you have a gala to attend to. That necklace of rubies looks rather charming on you, I must say.”

The spy took a few steps back. She gingerly opened the door and walked out, but not before murmuring, “As if one of my superiors isn’t already in there.”

The smallest smile reached Enide’s lips when the spy left. “What a remarkable young woman,” she said, focusing on a spot beside one of the bedposts. “I do not yet trust her, but I should hope she will one day make a good addition to our little circle.”

No response. Something flashed from behind the bed, engulfing the curtains and the sheets. The wall of light surged forward, blinding Enide.

Enide whirled around, but only found darkness in front of her. For a second, she wondered if she’d been blindfolded, but quickly ruled that out. It didn’t explain the light, and she couldn’t feel anything in front of her face. Perhaps this was death? But it had happened so suddenly, and she’d always been faithful to her gods. Surely she would’ve received more of a welcome to the afterlife than this silent, dark, infinitely expanding realm.

Then again, perhaps not. She knew who she was.

However, she realized she could see one figure in the distance. Tempted to pull out her sword, she crushed that urge when she quickly pieced together who that figure was. Their height was one big clue, as was the smell of alcohol.

Enide walked forward, sandals pressing against a solid floor. At least, for all she knew, it was a floor, as opposed to her flying around. In any case, she only stopped when she came close to realize that she’d found the wrong otter.

It was Aegeas stumbling around. The color of his fur, the green band on his arm, and the scimitars at his sides said as much. Great; Kellach would’ve been much easier to deal with. Based on the way that he spotted her and glared, he felt the same way.

You,” he spat, pointing at Enide. “What didya do?”

Oh dear, he was extremely drunk. “How could I have brought you here?” she said, trying to sound as surprised as she could manage (which wasn’t hard). “You must have been some thousands of miles away. It is not as though I could bring you anywhere, much less this void, with a snap of my fingers.”

Aegeas hesitated and lowered the finger. The anger just as quickly flashed across his face again, though. “But yer a liar,” he said. “An’ I don’t see Kellach anywhere.”

“The amount of magical prowess it would take to relocate someone thousands of miles is well beyond my, or anyone else’s, capabilities,” Enide said. “And-”

“Then it’s gotta be one of those nightmare things,” Aegeas said. “Kartiel, that bastard!” He stumbled forward and tripped, falling onto his knees. Despite his poor coordination, he was still somehow able to prop himself up with his hands.

Enide gingerly walked over and reached out a hand. Grumbling, Aegeas took it anyway, allowing himself to be pulled up by the fox. He cursed under his breath and tried to let go, but Enide didn’t tighten her grip. The last thing she wanted to do was act like a threat.

“Aegeas,” she said slowly, “You are drunk.”

“So?” he said. “I can be as drunk as I want ‘ta.”

This wasn’t going anywhere. He was already stubborn enough without alcohol, and she was only lucky that he was so drunk he couldn’t walk ten feet. Fortunately, she could see yet another figure in the distance – a big, green one. Enide couldn’t possibly be wrong about their identity, so she started walking again. Aegeas resisted at first, trying to stand still, but after a moment where he almost toppled, he was soon hobbling alongside her. It helped that he appeared to have spotted and recognized the figure too, if the unblinking stare in their direction was anything to go by.

The figure started moving in their direction not long after. Sure enough, Lasan came into view in a minute. The lizard had thrown his coat over his shoulder, which reminded Enide that she hadn’t noticed any heat, cold, or humidity at all in this strange place. It didn’t invalidate her theory that she had died, but that theory certainly didn’t explain why two much more moral individuals, as far away from her as they could possibly be, had also ended up here.

Lasan grinned. “Enide! Aegeas!” he said, before tilting his head. “Aegeas?”

Aegeas waved, arm flopping.

“The man is awfully drunk,” Enide said, looking down at Aegeas.

“An’ that’s none of yer bus-” Aegeas began, but Lasan quickly grabbed the otter and slung him over his shoulder.

“How are you?” Lasan said to Enide, ignoring Aegeas’s weak punches to his snout. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you guys. I haven’t heard anything from you since the old King died.”

Enide smiled gracefully. “Shiruba and I keep busy. We have opened up negotiations with our neighbors, increased protections on our trade routes, won the favor of the old King’s friends, and I do believe it will not be long before we think about heirs.”

She and the lizard started to walk forward absent-mindedly. Lasan’s face brightened at the news, and also at Aegeas giving up trying to hit him. “Wow!” he said. “I’d like to be able to have kids – you know, adopt them – but my husband doesn’t like them a whole lot.”

“I cannot say that I do either,” Enide said. “It is more of a royal duty than a personal desire. But we do have tutors and attendants and an entire court at our behest. It should make the task more bearable. And I do confess that, as my husband and I are both orphans, I like the idea that we may raise a child who does not go through the same experience.”

Lasan nodded. “Being King and Queen has its perks,” he said. He frowned. “I dunno how you do it. Trying to start an independence movement is a little hard. Winning over leaders and making sure our people don’t freak out and run off is so tiring.”

If it wasn’t for the fuzzy mass that nearly tackled her to the floor, Enide would’ve responded. But she knew a Taber hug when she felt one. The fox beamed and tried to ignore the pain in her ribs as she swiveled around to see Taber’s smiling face.

“Hi!” he said. “I didn’t think there’d be so many of you guys here!”

“Wherever here is,” said Eremia. The fox could spot her at Lasan’s right, blonde hair blown by a gentle breeze. Between that and Eremia’s scowl, it was obvious the girl was angry. Eremia was never quite great at hiding emotions, even disregarding Enide’s skill at spotting them. At least Enide could sympathize.


“I told ‘ya,” Aegeas said. “It’s one of Kartiel’s tricks.”

Taber set Enide down and shrugged. “Yeah, probably – he’s done stuff like that before.”

“Well?” Eremia said, crossing her arms. “Where can we find him?” Enide could easily imagine all of the words Eremia wanted to tack on to the end of that sentence, most of them concerning what she would do when she did find him.”

“He might’ve been that kid we passed back there?” Taber said, pointing a thumb behind him.

A strange sense of calm settled over Eremia – she straightened, pushing her hair back. “And you chose not to tell me about that kid?” Eremia said, staring right through Taber.

“I though you already-” Taber began. He slapped himself on the forehead. “Whoops.”

Silence fell over the group. While Taber bit his lip, Eremia sighed and tapped her foot. “I imagine this is like one of your dreams,” she said at last, staring up from the ground. “So, naturally, you would think that I would know.”

“Yeah?” Taber said, moving out from behind Enide. “Yeah.”

“And, fortunately,” she continued, “You know where he is.”

Taber nodded. “Yep!”

“Well, lead the way.”
S'io credesse che mia risposta fosse
a persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
Ma per ciò che giammai di questo fondo
non tornò vivo alcun, s'i' odo il vero,
senza tema d'infamia ti rispondo.

Inferno, Canto 27, l 61-66.





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Mon Jan 07, 2019 6:41 am
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soundofmind says...



Bo
Resident Dad-Friend


Bo scratched his beard as he stared into the mirror. His hand went up to his forehead, and he gingerly traced the scar that trailed down his face, stopping at the missing eye. Then he stuck out his tongue at himself and squished his cheeks, followed by him patting his cheek with a firm slap to wake himself up.

"Stay! Awake! Stay awake!" he chanted in a whisper to himself before his whole face fell into a tired look of misery. His insides ached with a burning fury. He slouched forward with his palms on the counter and he sighed.

"Yo, Bo, you okay in there?" Petrus asked as he knocked on the bathroom door. Bo's eyes flickered to the toilet. He'd gotten up and gone to sit back down several times in the passing minutes. He wasn't keeping count, but it was probably much longer than your average bathroom break. Whatever it was that was messing with his digestion had to be out of his system by now.

"You might wanna grab some febreeze, bro," Bo replied weakly.

"Oh dang. What in the world did you eat today?"

Bo stared back up into the mirror, debating on whether or not he needed to go again. As he stood slouching over the counter, waiting for the pain to pass or persist, he thought back on what he'd eaten that day with the hopeless confusion of a food lover with terrible long-term memory.

"Uh," he muttered as he stared down into the marble sink. "I'm not sure..."

"You can't remember anything?" Petrus asked in disbelief. "It had to have been something. Unless you're sick or something.

"I'm not sick," Bo replied firmly, though he was hit with another wave of discomfort. His hand went to his stomach, and he exhaled slowly. He'd eaten anything too wild, had he? It hadn't been anything too unusu-

"OH." His memory returned to him.

"What?"

-<>-

earlier that day...


Bo plopped himself down on the couch and bounced up and down on its firm leather cushion a few times before leaning back into it. He stretched his long legs out onto the classic patterned carpet, admiring it for its pretty pattern and calm blues and whites. The whole room felt like something out of a magazine catalogue with books arranged on the shelves in an artsy fashion, and clean smelling candles lit in the middle of the mahogany coffee table. In the recliner across from the couch, James sat down with grace, but sat in a way like he was ready to get up at any moment.

"So, how was making it?" Bo asked.

"It took a lot longer than I anticipated," James said as he glanced back into the kitchen. "I knew lasagna had layers but I think since it's my first time trying it, it just went slower."

"Ah, yes, yes," Bo nodded wisely with a grin. "That's how most things are when you start out." He paused, waiting for James to hum in agreement before continuing. "So the real question is: did you use your mom's recipe or mine?" He wiggled his eyebrows up and down in a teasing manner.

James scoffed. "My mother's. Obviously," he said.

Then the timer went off. The smirk disappeareda and so did James as he hurried into the kitchen to check the oven. Bo compulsively followed, hovering behind him as they peeked into the oven. James pushed Bo a few inches back in minor annoyance so he could actually open it.

"Stop looking at it like it's gonna turn out terrible," James chastised with arched brows as she put on oven mitts and started to pull out the tray. Bo blinked. He must have been wearing a worried expression, but he hadn't meant to. He was just... concerned. James was not always the most keen when it came to baking or cooking.

James rested the cheesy dish on the a pair of carefully arranged potholders on the counter. Bo's face lit up a little as he saw the browned edges, and witnessed the pleasant sigh of melted cheese bubbling and deflating slightly as it met cool air.

"Well, it looks good! You can't really go too wrong with pasta, meat, and cheese!" Bo congratulated him with a pat on the back. "Can I do the honor of being the first taste tester?"

James rolled his eyes and grinned. "As long as you don't do your Gordon Ramsay impression."

Bo laughed. "Fiiiiine."

-<>-


"...I think James deviated from the recipe again."

There was a solemn silence on the other side of the door, but as Bo awaited the eventual reply of his best friend, something peculiar happened. A warmth washed over his body, and for a moment, he was afraid he really did get sick. He couldn't have gotten food poisoning, could he?

No. He wasn't in the bathroom anymore. He was in a library.

He froze, apart from his head as he slowly looked around the room in wide-eyed shock. This... it was Kartiel again. It had to be Kartiel. The room was lit up by a fire crackling in a fireplace. Apart from the shelves of books lined behind him, there was a small kitchenette and a large refridgerator taking up a corner of space in the room. But his eyes didn't linger on the furniture for long. Lying in the middle of the carpet was a small child wearing a ridiculously large adult suit, strapped around his waist with a belt. He stared at the blond-haired boy for a few passing seconds before it registered. One: this was not a dream. Two: the kid on the floor was probably Kartiel. The outfit, if anything, was telling, and though there was a chance the kid was another victim of Kartiel's schemes, as Bo had apparently become one yet again, he had a gut feeling.

This felt different. Their stay at Atlantis felt more intentional. This... this was sudden, and he was literally torn out of a moment in a flash.

He knelt down beside the boy, and gently laid a hand on his shoulder.

"Kartiel? Is that you?" he asked more gently than he deserved. "Or are ya someone else?"
Pants are an illusion. And so is death.






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ChristenedPages says...



Sevy Dawner

Proclaimed Bird Kid


The hardest thing Sevy had to do since joining the Agency was going on vacation. Or, rather, convincing his girlfriend to go with him. Tamika didn't see the point in traipsing through the woods with their fellow agents, even if it was for a 'work trip'.

In truth, Sevy wasn't as enthusiastic about going camping himself as he was convinced that a work trip was just what Tamika needed. She had been serious about the agency ever since they had joined a couple years back, but lately, it seemed that work was all she lived for. She was constantly on edge and anxious, unless she was on call. The idea of leisurely camping definitely put her on edge.

Everyone else was unpacking the mini van and heading off to look for a good clearing for the tent. Tamika, meanwhile, flinched at every snapping twig and was too busy pretending she wasn’t being skittish to help.

Sevy let out a breath and set down the grill he had been helping Leo carry. He turned from where he had been peeking at Tamika to his friend.

“Leo- I’m gonna go talk to Tami. I’ll help you make a fire later, okay?”

Leo glanced over at her and nodded quickly.

“Yeah, you go do that. Let me know if you need anything.” He smiled gently, and Sevy gave a wave before walking over to his girlfriend.

“Tamika,” he started softly, leaning up next to her against the car. She jumped, and another worried wrinkle developed on his forehead.

“Oh, Sev. What’s up?” she cleared her throat and looked up at him, seeming sheepish.

Sevy sighed and gently reached out to grab her shoulders. Without comment, he tried his best to rub some of the tension there away.

“Hey,” he started, cautiously mild, “Are you holding up okay? I know you don’t see the point in taking off, but…” he smiled, attempting to be as reassuring as he could manage, “it will be fun. Relaxing. Okay? Don’t worry so much. Things will be just fine without us back home.”

Tamika nodded slowly, though he could tell that she had yet to fully reassure herself. She was trying, though, and once she had made her mind up on coming with him, she hadn’t complained openly or acknowledged her own unease. He knew that it took a lot for her to be trying so hard for his sake. His face softened a little.

“How about this- I saw a creek on the way up here. Do you want to go swimming?”

The impulsive thought had just occurred to him, as most of his thoughts had, and he had blurted it without any forethought. Almost immediately he regretted it. Tamika would probably be quick to shut him down, and even if she didn’t-

“Sure. That would be nice.” she smiled, and this time, it seemed genuine.

Sevy blinked in surprise, and quickly straightened, obviously not expecting this reception.

“Alright, sure, yeah, let’s- let’s do that. I’ll go see if anyone else wants to come.”

As expected with the rest of the group, Patrick was the only only one who opted to stay behind from the little excursion, instead starting the coals for dinner. He jokingly waved away Leo’s promises to catch a fish.

“Please, we aren’t exactly roughing it out here.” he laughed, placing sticks of various sizes carefully into the belly of the grill.. “There’s hamburger meat in the cooler.”

And, with that, they were traipsing through the woods, some more willingly than others. It didn’t long for the group to get mixed up, however, and soon it was clear that they had been walking around in circles.

“Sevy!” Kit called from the rear. “Where exactly did you say the creek was?”

“Ah- I didn’t?” He called back from where we had been absently leading. “I just saw it from the road.”

“Then why are you- augh, nevermind.” She threw up her hands in surrender. “Lead on. I‘m sure we’re bound to find it eventually.”

Sevy laughed good-naturedly and glanced over at Tamika. A little smirk played at her lips, and he knew that she was just barely holding back a snide comment. That, combined with how much she had relaxed, encouraged him and put a little bounce in his step.

“Now that I think about it,” he turned to her completely, walking with a backward gait. “What are we going to swim in?”

Tamika rolled her eyes and swatted out him. He quickly jumped out of the way. “Our clothes, I’d hope.”

“Well, I guess so.” he put on an act of looking disappointed. “But I have these great pair of boxers that-”

He didn’t have time to finish his sentence before the ground gave way beneath his feet, and he tumbled backwards into something shockingly cold. He didn’t even get the chance to cry out at first.

“W- What…” he spluttered, and glanced around himself.

Somehow, he had landed backside first into the same creek they had been looking for.

“Sevy!” Tamika called, the first to emerge from where low branches had partially concealed the bank.

Sevy was only slightly perturbed to see that she was trying hard to keep from laughing.

“Are you okay?” She chuckled, wading a bit into the water to give him a hand.

“Yeah, I’m just- fine!” in one swift movement, he had grabbed her hand and yanked her into the water next to him.

She shrieked loudly and pushed his arms away from her, though she was laughing openly now.

“There we go.” Kit called from the bank, “count on Sevy to land in the creek for us- Leo, don’t you dare.”

Without turning, she had addressed Leo, who had his arms extended out behind her, and a mischievous smirk twisting his face.

~~~


It wasn’t until Sevy stood peering into the water from ten feet above that he felt something was off. He was perched on a rock, wings outspread, and preparing to jump to where his friends were waiting below when he felt the start of a tingling in his stomach.

Unwisely assuming that it was merely nerves, he took the leap anyway…

...and found himself plummeting through nothingness. This awareness only lasted a split second, and then he had landed face-first on something textured.

With a groan, he pulled his head up enough to take in a patterned carpet. By this point, surprise was only a minor reaction, and mere curiosity overtook him.

Rising slowly to his knees, he looked around in interest. Firstly, he registered that he had landed in a library or study of some sort. He didn’t have much time to comprehend this, because other matters quickly claimed his focus.

Namely, the other people in the room. He could tell by first glance that none of his friends had traveled with him, but he did recognize a couple of different faces.

There was a strange boy nearest to him, wearing a suit way too big for him and a look of slight annoyance to match. And beside the boy was a large, bearded man with a face that he foggily recalled.

“Bo? Is that you?” He sat up and rubbed at his nose. Fortunately (or perhaps unfortunately), he hadn’t remembered the state that his dripping clothes were in. “What’s up, man?”
"what dose the raccoon look like?"





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TinkerTwaggy says...



Nico Ringo
Truth like Tempest



“So… How do I look?”

She stepped out of the dressing room with a grace she was unaware of, as if offering shards of her passing beauty with each of her awkward steps. Then, she finally appeared in full view, dressed in a navy blue martial arts gi, wearing a simple, barely visible gray shirt below the outfit. She moved her bare foot forward, trying to find her stability as the lower side of the outfit moved along, tightly attached around her jacket to form a robe around her legs. She lifted her head and let a polite smile appear on her lips, waiting for a reply as she gently pushed aside the single curly string of brown hair (save for the tip of the string, dipped in purple) that decorated the right side of her face.

Nico Ringo turned away, ashamed of staring. “Perfect.” she finally said. “It suits you perfectly, Bubbly Puck.”

Keira’s smile disappeared, replaced by a worried frown. “You’re upset.”

“...Yeah.”

“Is it because I’m here?”

“No, I… I called you here. I’m glad you even bothered replying.”

“Then, what’s wrong?”

Nico Ringo let out a sigh. “I don’t think I can explain it. You’re the one who’s good with words, Bubbly Puck.”

Keira took a step closer, then froze. A new smile, more joyful, made its way on her face. “Okay! Well, let’s hope the demonstration will get it off your mind.” Keira’s eyes glittered with excitement. “It’s been a while since I’ve been your secretary, right? Maybe that’ll help!”

“...Yeah.” Nico Ringo nodded several more times as if to convince herself of the veracity of such words. “Maybe that’ll help.”

“...Hey.”

“Mm?”

Keira lifted her index finger and twiddled it around Nico Ringo’s own curl until it was trapped. “I’m glad you kept the curl, too,” she whispered.

Eyes locked in those of her beloved, Nico Ringo delicately grabbed her hand and removed it from its spot, caressing it as she did. “...After I’m done, I think I’ll tell you everything. Sounds good?”

Keira nodded. “I can’t wait.”

On that note, Nico Ringo turned back and emptied her mind as she reached for the stage beyond the small back room. When the first claps resounded in the air, she was focused again.


***



The demonstration went well.

Nico Ringo had become the apprentice of a master of Iaido, the Japanese martial art of Quick-drawing. The man, named Taka Yabushi (whom Nico Ringo loved to refer to as Mr.Eagle, as his first name apparently meant just that), had been impressed by Nico Ringo’s ability with a Japanese Katana sword, and had proposed that she’d help him renovate an abandoned theater and convert it into a first Dojo from which to demonstrate her talent. It would serve as an opportunity to properly introduce Iaido to a Western audience, then eventually teach it to those that were interested.

So, there she was, slowly approaching a variety of objects with the gait of a hunting predator before putting herself in position and, with a swift movement, drawing her katana with bewildering speed and cutting down her targets with precision. Bamboos, wooden toys, and even thrown fruits – nothing would escape her aim, to the public’s delight. During deliberate pauses, Keira would come to prepare the next target to be cut down, while Nico Ringo would use that time to explain the secrets of her skill, the importance of her training and how exactly it allowed her to never miss her mark. The climax came when Taka Yabushi himself appeared on stage with a ball launcher, to the audience’s surprise.

“Now, I don’t pretend for a single moment that my skill would rival that of Isao Machii, Iaido master quite famous in Japan,” Taka Yabushi said in a half-jesting, half-serious tone, “and for a good reason. That man can cut BB pellets launched at him at five hundred kilometers per second, which… is as insane as it sounds.” he shook his head. “Truly, Mr.Isao Machii was born in the wrong era. But despite this, I am willing to bet that the girl I took under my wing could at least match him up to the knee. Which is why she’s going to cut down one of these soccer balls.”

“That was Mr. Eagle’s idea of a compliment, I might add.” Nico Ringo added, sarcasm dripping from her voice. Then, she shrugged. “I suppose his Japanese side is showing.”

The audience let out a laugh, until Taka Yabushi continued: “It moves at sixty kilometers per second, by the way. Three of them will be shot at regular intervals. Nico Ringo, get ready.”

Nico Ringo did just that, bending her knees as she let one of her hands hover above the handle of her favorite blade. She was only fifteen meters away from the ball launcher. This would be quick.

Bip!

The very second Taka Yabushi pressed a button on the machine, a noise resounded in the air. Half a second later, a ball was released with enough speed to become a blur. Yet, in that same moment, two flat disks crashed against the wall behind Nico Ringo – who had already sheathed her sword.

Bip!

As the ball came flying, a resounding whoosh was heard, followed by an impact. Then, as two halves of a ball once again fell on the ground, Nico Ringo sheathed her blade, readying herself for the final projectile.

Bip!

Nico Ringo’s entire body came forward as she performed her final cut, cutting the ball down with meticulous precision. Then finally, the audience gasped and gave her an ovation for her effort, to which she replied with a graceful bow, katana in hand. Though the audience couldn’t see it, the smallest of smiles had appeared on her face as her eyes stared at the ground of the recently renovated theater.
She could get used to such thrill.

At any rate, the demonstration finally came to an end, and after Taka Yabushi’s final thoughts and comments, the audience gradually left their seats. Turning towards his pupil, the Japanese master smiled and nodded silently, signifying his satisfaction at her performance. “I’m truly grateful that you decided to take on my offer.” he said.

“You’re welcome. It’s a lot more fun than I thought it would be. I still don’t know if I’ll make a good teacher, though.”

“No, not yet. You’re not ready for that yet. But let’s not skip the steps: your technique still needs sharpening. I can tell you’re a natural, however, so that won’t be an issue for very long.”

Nico Ringo bowed. “Thank you, Mr. Eagle.”

The man’s smile grew amused. “I’ll get used to that, eventually.”

“Well, you got used to calling me by my full name all the time, didn’t you?” Nico Ringo replied in her dry tone – a sign that she was feeling humorous. “Just add it to my quirks, and you’ll do just fine.”

“I’ll follow that advice, then. Oh, and you can go back to your… quarters, I suppose we could call them. I’ll call someone to clean up the place.”

“...Oh. Isn’t doing it myself better for discipline?”

“It is, but your friend is here, isn’t she? I’d be a terrible human being to not let you spend time with a loved one.”

Keira chose this moment to slip her hand into Nico Ringo’s, as if she had always been standing next to her. “I hope I’m not bothering you,” she said, smiling to Taka Yabushi.

“Not at all, I assure you. Take care of my pupil, please.” and with that, the man left the stage, leaving the two women alone in soothing silence.

“He doesn’t mind?” Keira couldn’t help but ask.

“Nah. He’s traditional, but in all the good ways.” Nico Ringo assured, sharing her lover’s train of thought. “I think he’s been in America for long enough that it’s normal for him, anyway. And… he said that my breathing needed its breeze back.”

Keira giggled. “Okay, that is stereotypical levels of poetic.”

“Well, clichés have to come from somewhere.” Nico Ringo caressed Keira’s hand with her thumb. “So… Where do I begin?”

Keira gave Nico Ringo a brief kiss on the cheek. “You don’t.” she declared. “You take me to your room, I bring your breathing its breeze back, and then you talk.”

Nico Ringo’s heart skipped a beat. “...Since when did you become so confident, Bubbly Puck?”

“Since the moment you told me you were my blade, Sin Sonrisa.”

Nico Ringo couldn’t help it – she chuckled. “See?” she said, as the duo directed themselves back towards the backroom, and a set of stairs. “You’re the one who’s good with words.”


***



Delicately, Nico Ringo moved her thumb along Bubbly Puck’s reddening skin, sweeping the intruding grass and bits of mud away from her face.

“Now what, you’re giving me war paint?” Bubbly Puck whispered, attempting a joke.

“Hey. Don’t bring this back to your field.” Nico Ringo whispered back. “That’s not what this moment is for.”

A smile. “Right.”

A timeless second passed by, and their lips connected, closing a door and opening another. Bubbly Puck slid her arms past Nico Ringo’s waist and grabbed her back, bringing her closer to her. “I am your blade, or I am nothing.” Nico Ringo whispered, eyes closed.

“Of course you are. You know me better than anyone.”

Nico Ringo’s eyes shot open as an inescapable feeling of dread took hold of her body. Inches away from her face, Keira’s features turned rocky, her eyes emitted a powerful blue glow, and her smile had become eerie. Her grip around Nico Ringo’s waist tightened immensely. “Do not worry, young one.” Emet, for it was him and no one else, continued. “You are not nothing. You will never be nothing. And you are everything to me.” with that, Emet pulled Nico Ringo into another kiss. Cold, hard, yet horrifyingly delicate. Nico Ringo’s eyes widened. She was unable to escape.

“NICO! GET AWAY FROM HIM!”

Nico Ringo was pushed aside as Emet whispered an inaudible “get back”, staring towards a rushing Keira. She had her sword – Titania – in hand and was ready to cut down Emet with it. But before she could do anything, the Golem took on his full-powered form, turning into a hulking behemoth resembling a giant-sized suit of armor colored in brown and blue. His right arm was replaced with an ancient sword and, with inhuman speed, Emet stabbed Keira with it through the stomach. Then, Emet lifted the body he had just pierced as the runes carved on the sword lit up, summoning a lightning bolt that impacted straight on Keira’s bleeding body.

Nico Ringo let out an agonizing shriek.



***



Nico Ringo let out an agonizing shriek.

“Sin?!” Keira immediately called, sitting on their shared bed. “What’s wrong?!”

But it was too late: Nico Ringo had already rushed out of bed, grabbing the katana she had left against the wall next to the room’s door in the process. She had a clear plan in her mind: to swing her sword until her arms somehow fell off her body. Nico Ringo ran through a corridor and arrived at the training grounds of the theater and bent her knees. Then, as the images of her memories jumbled in her mind, as the tears rolled on her cheeks and fell on the ground, she began her quick-drawing practice.

Nico Ringo had performed fifty-seven swings when a pair of feet approached her.

“Your swings are erratic.” were Keira’s first words. “I’m not and will never be as good as you, but I can tell from the sound of your slashes that you’re unfocused.”

A new whoosh from Nico Ringo’s blade was the only response.

“...Nico.”

“My name is Nico Ringo.” Nico Ringo automatically replied in a monotonous tone. “Please refer to me with the full name at all times or get your butt kicked.”

“Then kick my butt, please. But put some clothes on before that, okay? It’s cold, and you’re naked.”

“I won’t stay cold for long, and you’re naked too.”

“If you actually looked at me, you’d see that I not only put my clothes back, but also took my time to bring yours. Now, stop playing around and tell me what’s wrong, before I hug you into submission.”

“Leave me alone. Please, just leave me alone.” Nico Ringo swung her blade once more, but this time, Keira’s bare hand stopped the katana before it could finish its movement.

“...This should make you bleed.” Nico Ringo whispered.

“You know it won’t. And you know why.” Keira’s eyes widened. “Oh my god, this is what this is about, isn’t it?”

Nico Ringo fell on her knees and let her tears roam free once more. She dropped her blade on the ground and let Keira wrap her arms around her head as she knelt to accompany her sorrow.

“...I didn’t keep myself isolated just because of the dojo.” Nico Ringo began. “After… our adventure, I needed a change of pace. That’s why Mr. Eagle’s proposal seemed a lot more tempting. I just needed to get my mind off this thing.”

“...Emet.” Keira guessed.

“Emet.” Nico Ringo confirmed. “It was horrible, Bubbly Puck. It was horrible to watch you die. To watch a part of myself die along with you. When the lightning struck… When… When he chucked your body away...” instinctively, she activated her Rei. Within Nico Ringo’s right hand appeared a serrated katana blade – her personal weapon, Fangriletto. “I just… I lost it. I lost it, Bubbly Puck. I truly, truly lost it. I fought this stupid Golem by myself. Nothing else mattered but him, and how I’d beat him. I was so frustrated, so desperate, so enraged.”

“They supplied you with their Rei, you know,” Keira said. “They didn’t see your battle, but the entire group was there. They were healing me, but also giving you every bit of Rei they could.”

Nico Ringo sniffed, considering the information. “I never noticed.” she confessed. “I was too busy trying to kill this thing. When you came back and finished it off, it felt… liberating. It’s like you came back from the dead like some kind of guardian angel. But I betrayed you, Bubbly Puck. I betrayed what we are, and that’s why I needed some time by myself.”

“What do you mean?” Keira asked softly.

“...I wasn’t just fighting him.” Nico Ringo continued in a terrified tone. “I was him. I could see Emet for everything he was. I could understand his movements, I could understand why he moved, when he moved, I was… It’s the same thing I do when I analyze you when we spar. And after… after that, he was always, always in my mind. I could draw him, write about him, talk like him or even move like him. But you were gone. If I tried to recall anything related to you, I couldn’t. But for Emet?” New tears appeared in Nico Ringo’s eyes. “Five hundred and twenty-six drawings. One hundred and eighty-seven writings. I don’t remember if they were poems or novel chapters, but at some points, I know I also made comic strips.”

Several seconds of silence followed as Keira caressed her beloved’s black hair, lost in thought. “Well, as far as I can tell, that’s just a coping mechanism.” she finally declared. “Memories of me? Painful. Memories of him? One thing to focus on to avoid thinking back on my defeat. Nothing much to be ashamed of, Sin. I guarantee it.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because I can’t even begin to imagine what it was like to be in your place,” Keira replied in an unusually sharp tone. “It wasn’t great being impaled, sure...”

“That’s a big euphemism.”

“...and sometimes — you know how I talk — I’m afraid of eating because I feel like the food is just going to bring back the pain, somehow. It’s silly, but it is what it is, so I can live with it. But I don’t know how I’d be if you had been impaled instead. I don’t know... if I could handle that. So, I’m not gonna judge.” she let out a short giggle. “And hey, if you’re into rocks now, I am a half golem, you are my master, and Emet is dead. Wouldn’t that make me irresistible?”

Nico Ringo lifted her head, appeased by the sight of her Bubbly Puck’s controlled demeanor. Fangriletto promptly disappeared as she placed her hand on her cheek, caressing it with care. “Hey.” she whispered. “Don’t bring this back to your field. That’s not what this moment is for.”

Keira’s eyes widened, glittering with the joyful spark of those who suddenly recalled a lost moment of happiness. “Right.” she simply replied, as she knew she was supposed to.

A timeless second passed by, and their lips connected, closing the door to doubt and opening one for peace. Moments later, Nico Ringo moved her head back to end the contact, then looked down towards Keira’s stomach. She used her free hand to lift a portion of Keira’s shirt: below the clothing, an elaborately engraved scar could be seen, reading the word “EMET”. The conjured word meaning “truth”, and one of the only reasons why Keira was still alive. Nico Ringo looked back into her eyes, suddenly unable to grasp how it was possible for her to still be so sane, so happy, so… at ease.

“I love you, you know that?” Nico Ringo declared.

Keira’s smile grew tender. “I’d like to think so, because I love you too.” she grabbed the clothing she had placed next to her and once again held them in front of her. “And that’s why I’ll make sure that you don’t catch a cold. Come on, it’s almost morning.”

Nico Ringo nodded in silence and obliged, finally putting on the clothes that Keira gave her. A slight frown appeared on her face when she realized that it wasn’t the martial arts gi she and Keira had been wearing yesterday, but her casual attire: a black shirt with a dark blue military camo jacket, black boots and equally black combat gloves. It contrasted quite heavily with Keira’s gi, but Nico Ringo decided not to say anything. Keira knew very well that she felt more at ease with her boyish clothing, after all. Besides, Keira herself was still wearing the gi, and Nico Ringo would certainly not complain about such a lovely sight.

“By the way?” Keira inquired after waiting for her to get properly dressed. “Your katana. Not Fangriletto, the one your master gave you. Does it have a name?”

Nico Ringo grabbed the blade in question, thoughtful. “Not yet. Why?”

“Well, you’re the one who usually names her weapons.”

“Only the important ones.”

“You went for this one first. Before your own magic weapon that can be summoned out of thin air.”

“...Good point. Well… I’ll think about it.” Nico Ringo put a hand over her eyes. Emet was, of course, the only name that came to mind for the blade. She really had to get this out of her system. “I’ll… I’ll go take a shower, I think. Maybe I should’ve stayed naked after a—”

Nico Ringo didn’t finish her sentence. She had opened her eyes again, and what she saw was a polished, marble-like brown ground from which she could see a blurry version of her reflection. She looked up, gazing at an equally shocked Keira. Immediately, a cyan glow covered Keira’s eyes as a European long sword appeared in her hand — Titania, her personal weapon. She slowly advanced towards Nico Ringo, all surprise and doubt banished from her face.

“...We’ve been transported to another location.” Keira announced gravely. “I don’t sense any immediate threat.”

Nico Ring swiftly passed the katana at her belt as she activated her Rei – Fangriletto once again appeared in her hand. “Ground structure?” she inquired.

“Definitely Earth-like. Marble.”

“Then let’s explore the place itself.”

“Let’s.” the glow in Keira’s eyes disappeared as she flashed a confident smile. “Can I… Can I like, stop this for a second and enjoy how awesome we’re being for reacting so casually to this? It’s been a while.”

“You can, but that breaks one of the rules of ‘badassitude’, which suggests that you’re supposed to react casually to everything without breaking a sweat. Mentioning how cool you are for doing so is kinda like breaking the fourth wall, we’ve been over this.”

“I know, I know, but… Ack, what the heck, I’ll be a badass later. Let’s explore! Then I can comment on the scenery and pretend like we’re not in potentially mortal danger, and you can pretend like this is perfectly normal and ‘smilessly’ tag along.”

Nico Ringo offered a bright smile to her Bubbly Puck as they began their advance in their new environment. “Just like old times.”
"Is there a limit to how much living I can live with my life? How will I know if I've gone too far?
And why did I spend my life savings on sunglasses for a whale?
I shall find the answers... to these questions."





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ChristenedPages says...



Damascus

Redemption Archetype



Damascus had always loved the voices of storytellers. There was something about them that was enchanting, that broke through the barriers of language as surely as art or music did. He found himself lost in the familiar swell some Saturdays, when the volunteer readers for Children’s storytime at the local library were particularly good.

In cases like those, he would find it especially hard to concentrate on following along with the text- on wrapping his mind around the symbols that captured sounds and not wandering through the pretty articulations themselves.

That Saturday was like any other in that instance alone. He sat behind one of the Juvenile Fiction shelves, perched on a stool with the book of the day spread open on his lap. Though it would have been more enjoyable to sit with the children and watch the reader’s face (which was no doubt as expressive as her voice), he was aware that his presence made some parents uncomfortable.

It was just as well- the reader’s face would only further remove his focus from his task: practicing reading in English.

He checked the cover of the book again, tracing the words that stood out against a red background. Ferdinand. He enjoyed the story itself- it was entertaining, and did bring an endearing message. The reading level was also lower than usual, which helped, as did the pictures.

“Excuse me.” he stopped for a moment to look up, his finger holding his spot in the book, and called softly to a girl sitting cross-legged in the isle reading.

She lifted her head after a moment, realizing that she was the one being addressed.

"Sorry for interrupting.” he smiled in apology and held the book out, pointing. “How do you say this word, here?”

The girl seemed to be young enough not to turn to judgement, but old enough to know that fully-grown adults didn’t usually need a child’s help to read. She blinked, and stared openly at Damascus’ face for a moment before looking at the word.

“Fiercest.” she replied, after a pause.

He smiled again and nodded, looking at the sentence once again.

“Yes, that does make more sense- thank you.”

The girl nodded, but didn’t return to reading her book. Now that she had stared at his face, her gaze remained there, bright and curious.

“Why are your eyes that color?” she asked frankly. “Did you hurt them?”

He paused a moment, and looked back over at her. An amused little quirk played at his lips, but otherwise he was serious in his search for an explanation.

“No, they aren’t hurt.” He said gently. “I was born like this. I’m just a bit different than everyone else, is all.”

Of course, this truth would never have been an acceptable answer if given to an adult. He didn’t expect it to be. Children, however, he tried not to lie to when at all possible. They saw and accepted truths far easier than their older counter parts.

“Oh. Okay.” the girl nodded, her dark eyes wide and solemn before she broke into a reassuring smile. “I like them. They’re such a pretty red.”

“Well, thank you.” he returned her smile, encouraged.

Almost immediately, the girl returned to reading her novel, and Damascus took that as a cue to turn his attention back to the book. The reader was nearly finished now, and he followed along intently with the last few sentences.

A sense of pride filled him when he finished, although there were still several larger words he hadn’t recognized himself. He had been improving, however, and that in itself gave him a healthy burst of confidence.

As he checked out the book to take home, he glanced at his watch off-handedly. It was just about time for him to run his next errand: picking up his company’s dry-cleaning.

The day was warm, the air sweet. Damascus hardly watched where he was walking, as his gaze was fixed on the puffy clouds above him. The walk from the library to the dry cleaners was a bit extreme, by normal standards, but Damascus liked the extra time for taking in all the stimuli: from the vendors, to the parks, and- most of all- the people.

Damascus never grew tired of faces, though his reception of them varied by the day. While it was always reassuring that no two faces were the same- and, by extension, no two people were the same- there was always a little ache that accompanied the thought.

So many individuals existed on the Earth at any given time, and one was expected to encounter thousands, millions, over the course of a lifetime. Over several lifetimes, they were uncountable. And, to Damascus, they seemed to disappear so fast.

He longed to know each one- to be able to play a significant role in their lives. Really, he wasn’t sure if this came from some hidden wish to be human or not. Mostly, what he was aware of was that to be immortal- to be non-human, for that matter- was to be destined for the life of an eternal outsider on Earth.

Though these thoughts always saddened him a bit, and robbed some of the joy from his daily tasks, there was another fact that he held onto, and that made his integration less lonely.

For as many people that he would never know, he had a handful of faces out there that he held dear to his heart. Those who, at least somewhat, cared about him as well.

None of them were from the same world or time as him. Even the ones who were close he hardly ever saw. There was some sort of miracle out there that existed, however, and it seemed to pay a mind to bring him back to his loved ones, across realities, again and again.

And then there was Boris, of course, who, for a time, had been included in this small mass. Damascus had never intended to let himself live for a sole person- it was an extremely foolish notion.

However, his heart had never been very good at listening to his head. Before he’d known what had happened- and long after he had tried to turn a blind eye to it- his oath brother (who he now refused to think of as “brother”) had swept up his easily swayed heart and had refused to let go.

Damascus let the slow, sad smile pull at him as these thoughts, and others, consumed him. He was so preoccupied that it took him nearly three times longer than usual to notice the steady footsteps behind him.

Not initially paranoid, he kept on his merry way, only turning inconspicuously to look over his shoulder.

It wasn’t what he saw that disturbed him- rather, it was what he didn’t see.

The gentleman behind him was dressed in a forgettable way- if not a bit dark and out-dated. This, but especially his face, worried Damascus. It glimmered and faded in ways that were difficult to catch, but that was purposeful. It was designed to make the viewer look past it.

There was no doubt about it- whoever was following him was being cloaked with an enchantment.

Damascus didn’t hesitate- he strode normally for half a block and turned a back corner, intending to confront his follower. Sure enough, the man remained close on his heels, stepping into the alley after Damascus.

He decided that he should start this whole affair off on a good foot. There was a chance that this man’s business had nothing to do with what he was assuming. He could always hope, anyway.

“Can I help you?” he asked politely. This came notably sans-smile; the situation by no means called for one.

The man’s elusive expression twisted up, sending the fog of the enchantment swirling. He tilted his head and stepped forward- by all appearances curious.

“Does the name Aagares mean anything to you?” he asked bluntly.

His voice- a smooth, almost ethereal timbre- gave Damascus more hint of an identity than any aspect of his appearance did. Something nagged at him, and not just the mention of his long-buried identity.

He let out a brief sigh- it seemed that this encounter was setting up to be exactly what he thought it might.

“Perhaps.” he answered after a moment. “Who’s asking?”

It was then that the man’s- if he could even be called as such- enchantment dropped, revealing what could only be assumed to be his true form. Aside from the wings and tail, his appearance was very much human. Putting aside the unnatural beauty of his face and body, that is- and his eyes. The eyes were always telling.

It was the faux humanness of Damascus’ follower that completely clued him in on what he was. He was an incubus; one that looked familiar in all the ways that discomfited him.

“I’m sorry, should I- do I know you?” Damascus asked, his composure regained.

The incubus seemed to search Damascus’ face, and after a long moment, he came to a consensus, stepping closer.

“F*** me, it is you.” he said incredulously. “And you’re so… soft.”

The incubus wrinkled his nose in disgust, not bothering to conceal it. Damascus stared a moment before recognition set it.

“Igaryd?” he got out, now actively displaying the discomfort he felt.

It had been a pleasantly long time since Damascus had encountered another demon, and even longer since he had come across one that he knew personally.

Igaryd acknowledged him with a wave of his hand, and took another step forward. He placed his hands on Damascus’ chest, almost as a forethought, and continued to survey him.

“Really, what happened to you? There are rumors and such, of course, that you’ve gone full sympathizer now, but I always assumed that you were still the same old Aagares- you know, causing havoc, throwing parties, creating harems and what not.”

Damascus let a little breath of exasperation escape him and did his best to hold Igaryd out at arm’s length. He was genuinely surprised at this reception, or that Igaryd was taking the time to hold a conversation at all.

“I take it that you’ve been watching me longer than just today?” Damascus asked, a little note of concern creeping into his voice.

Igaryd let slip a musical chuckle.

“It took me long enough to make sure it was actually you- and even then I had my doubts. I had to draw attention to myself to get you to notice me."

Damascus winced. Had he really been that distracted and unguarded lately? He was lucky that he hadn’t been found by someone who posed more of a threat.

“You still haven’t answered me. What’s wrong? Have you gotten yourself bound by some god? Been tamed by force?”

Igaryd examined him further, and Damascus laughed helplessly at his indifferent concern.

“No, no, please. Nothing like that. I’ve just- I’ve changed. There’s nothing more to it." He took a breath, and shrugged. "I’m not sure you’d understand. I know I didn’t, at first. Something about Earth- it breeds change. That’s all.”

“What do you mean, ‘That’s all’? What kind of explanation is that?” Igaryd’s lovely, arresting eyes clouded with confusion. Damascus only smiled and shook his head in response.

“You’re right- I don’t understand. You’d have to be either miserable or mad to live like you’ve been living. Maybe both.”

There was a moment where Igaryd paused. Damascus didn’t bother justifying himself- he knew any explanation he offered would be insufficient. Finally, the incubus broke the silence.

“Must be mad, then. Even your eyes- they’re different now. I can’t put my finger on it.”

Damascus blinked in surprise, taken aback. For as long as he’d used a human form, his telling eyes had been a stain. They were not only a reminder of what he truly was, but who he had once been.

Aside from everything else, they were the one thing he couldn’t change; his form manipulation didn’t extend in that means.

Now a ghost from his past was telling him that they had been changed all along, like the rest of him.

A little smile curled at the corners of his mouth- he couldn’t help it- and soon grew to envelop his face.

“Thank you.” he said quietly, dipping his head. Igaryd only scoffed.

Something occurred to him to ask then, and he internally cursed himself again for being so dense.

“Igaryd. Forgive me, but- why exactly have you been following me? You don’t happen to be bounty seeking like everyone else, do you?”

The reward that had been placed on Damascus’ head had attracted many to the prospect of locating and capturing him over the years. The number of threats he faced at one time depended on either how his price or sheer rumors fluctuated.

About a century before, Damascus had been scouted by an entire pack of powerful bounty-hunters, and had only been able to escape and fly under the radar again by adopting the form of a cat.

Since that time- the century he had spent stuck as a feline and the years after he was able to shift back- he hadn’t been bothered or threatened once.

“Yes and no.” Igaryd said simply. “Satisfying my curiosity is more appealing than the reward. I do intend to capture you, of course.”

A heaviness came over Damascus, and he looked down for a beat, contemplating.

“I don’t suppose I could convince you to leave me be?” he asked weakly.

Igaryd laughed again, the lilting sound contrasting with his obvious lack of compassion. It wasn’t quite a cruelty- it was not intentional or personal. Damascus knew this. It was only a way of existence. He’d been the same, once.

“You must really be far gone, then.” his head tilted. “Or just pathetic, really. There is nothing you could give me worth more than your capture. And I’m not talking about the reward.”

Damascus dipped his head in acknowledgement. He knew first handedly that Igaryd’s driving purpose was pure entertainment- probably the most he’d had in awhile. There was no arguing with motives like that.

“As you’ve said, I’m mad.” he started with a small smile. “I hope you don’t expect me to go willingly.”

Igaryd grinned, apparently enthralled.

“Oh, no, of course not. Brawling with you will be half the fun.”

Damascus gave a resigned nod, and centered himself. A knot of guilt was already tying itself in the pit of his stomach.

Resorting to violence always saddened him- he tried to avoid it as much as he could. That was the reason he ran so often, rather than removing threats as they appeared. This time, however, he saw that defending himself was the only exchange he could make in order to keep his freedom.

Damascus refused to make the first advance, though he’d been cornered against a back wall. Igaryd struck first, sweeping at Damascus’ legs in order to send him to the ground.

Though the incubus was much smaller in stature, he was accurate and ruthless. With a bit of difficulty, Damascus was able to regain his composure and take the opening Igaryd had created to get out from against the wall.

He blocked a right hook with his forearm and turned out of the way of a kick, holding his own without throwing a punch for as long as he could.

“What- are you doing.” Igaryd growled between hits, ferocity burning in his eyes.

Damascus didn’t answer, simply continuing to block punches.

Some moments later, he came to terms with something he’d willfully ignored before. Igaryd could last forever sending attacks, and so could Damascus dispelling them. Remaining on the defence wasn’t helping him escape at all.

His heart gave a little squeeze, and then he ignored it, surrendering to the flow of tension between he and the incubus.

He drove a shoulder into Igaryd’s stomach, wrenching him away and sending him stumbling in surprise. Igaryd snarled again, in an almost victorious way, and lunged up at Damascus with new rigor.

He met the attack head-on now, locked in a tight grapple with the smaller demon before breaking it with a clean punch to his jaw.

This was the turning point of the struggle, where claws came out and it became a savage competition of size and strength. Damascus lost himself in the fierce tumble, floating away from the fight as he performed accordingly.

At one point, Igaryd had snagged a talon into Damascus’ shoulder, and before he could pull free, he found the incubus’ teeth at his neck.

Damascus let out a brief yell, mostly out of surprise, before he fully overpowered him, twisting him effortlessly to the ground. His own talons seemed to have sunk into every inch of vulnerable, human-like flesh they could find.

Damascus panted, kneeling as Igaryd lay still and unresponsive. He pulled his hands back to himself, shifted them back again, and rose gingerly to his feet.

He spared a moment, forcing himself to look at the body in the alley. Whether Igaryd was dead or simply unconscious was hard to tell; incubi immortality worked differently than it did with other demons.

“Please forgive me.” he said quietly, pressing a hand to his heart. He paused for another breath, and then turned and ran.

The backways and shortcuts flew around him, and he focused as much as he could on avoiding obstacles. His head spun, and his stomach churned with equal parts guilt and foreboding.

He had done what was necessary, he reminded himself again.

Of all his thoughts, the feeling of the blood on his hands and clothes gained most of his attention. Eventually, he stopped behind a dumpster in order to think clearly.

He could shadow-travel. As a matter of fact, that was the most logical course of action. He needed to get far away; there was no telling who else could be after him. It would have been foolish to assume that Igaryd had come alone.

However, shadow-travel itself would pose another set of dangers. Depending on who Igaryd had notified, Damascus could easily escape to the shadows just to be ambushed.

Just as he was leaning toward a third option- travelling through more mundane ways- Damascus felt the most peculiar sensation wash over him. It was familiar, to a degree, but also alien. He stood quickly, his first mistake, and watched as the dumpster in front of him faded away, along with everything around it.

It was only a split second where he seemed to be falling into himself, and then he was somewhere else. A shiver grew and travelled up his spine, and he blinked, bewildered. Had he shadow-traveled after all, by mistake?

There was no time to sit and question. He appeared to be standing in a spacious room. A library, he noted, eyeing the shelves of books.

A short burst of murmured voices nearby startled him. He jumped, turned, and peered over at the other people in the room.

Sitting up in the middle of the rug was a child who was swamped in a large suit. Kneeling next to him was a large, burly fellow who looked vaguely familiar. He seemed to be immersed in a mostly one-sided conversation with the child. Another boy- a young man, rather- sat on the other end of the rug, a small puddle spreading around him as he listened to the other two.

Damascus did a little double-take. The second boy, he looked familiar. He hardly dared to hope, but even with the boy's face turned away from him, he uncannily resembled-

"Sevy!" He exclaimed brightly as his young friend turned toward him.

He stepped across the room, a wide grin on his face. Sevy blinked up at the demon, registering, and then a smile of his own grew.

"Damascus, buddy! It's been awhile." He chirped, standing and meeting him halfway.

Damascus pulled him into a hug, and Sevy enthusiastically patted his back.

"It's so good to see you. You look well." Damascus pulled away to appraise him, barely noting the fact that he was shirtless and dripping onto the carpet.

"Whatever summoning spell that was caught me at a bad time." Sevy explained, a bit too self-amused.

Damascus paused, eyebrows raised.

"Summoning spell? But who-"

Sevy inclined his head to the child on the rug, and Damascus' frown deepened further.

"Apparently, the kid over there- Kartiel, he said he was- isn't actually a kid. I'm still a bit confused on-"

It was then that Sevy got a good look at Damascus' appearance. His eyes widened, and he quickly looked up into his friend's face.

"What's happened to you?" He gasped. "Damascus, you are aware that you're bleeding, right? Or that there's blood all over you?" His voice strained out.

"Oh. Oh, right, yes." He mumbled, finally looking down at himself long enough to assess the aftermath of the fight.

The sleeves of his white button down were splattered with crimson, and the shirt itself was nearly beyond recognition with staining and tears. He looked frightful.

A hopeless little sigh left him, accompanied with guilt. He quickly raised his hands in an attempt to reassure his friend.

"Please don't worry. It's- it's not mine. Most of it, at least." He winced, realizing how awful that sounded even as he said it. "I ran into some danger is all."

Sevy nodded slowly, his brow still furrowed, and Damascus mourned the awe-fearing expression he found on his face.

"No, it's fine, I completely get it." Sevy mumbled, if not a bit awkwardly, and Damascus smiled tightly in reply.

After a moment, Sevy seemed to remember himself and bounced back again, turning to look behind him.

"Oh, right! Damascus, you remember Bo? From underground?" He waved a hand over to the man, who quickly hopped up.

"Oh yes, of course!" He smiled, now fully remembering where they had met. "How are you, Bo? It's wonderful to see you again."

Pleasantries were exchanged, and Damascus slowly relaxed, becoming more at ease than he had been even earlier that day.

He was finally somewhere where he belonged the most- with people he knew, and who were dear to him. Whatever miracle that frequented him, it had favored him again.

Though something serious pressed in the air- evoked by the presence of Kartiel, if anything else- Damascus remained untroubled.

He was ready to face anything at the side of his friends, rather than his own trials.
"what dose the raccoon look like?"





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Omni says...



C̭̣̱̱̘͙͔͝o̷̵̹͎͓̯̞͈͎͍͖̼̹͚̪̬̘̰̩̰͔͠r̨̰̹̺̜̯̞͖̜̤̝̱̼̦̲̰͙̺̕ͅd҉̧͉̟̺͔͔̮̺̺̜͕͠e̷̛̙̣̰̟̬͖̩͙̥̲͙̰͕͉̻n̶̴̨̻̹͔͔̫͍͕̦̰̺̗̞̖̭͕͝͝ ͈̹͕̳̗͉͇͉͓͓̘̭̱͕̠̥̗̻͜͠Ģ̴̛͈̳̫͚̻̝̬́͜r̵̯̞͓̗̳̝͕͈̠̬͙͕͞͝ͅa̸̶͉̖̮͔̫͉͖͇̙̹̞͍̙͈̝͈̟͜n͏͔͙̹̫͖͎̪̳͙̯̮͔̜͞d͏̜̞̯̝̫̯̺̯̖ͅͅ





"Once upon a time, there was a god named Kartiel." A suave, yet rumbling voice bellowed out from the darkness. "You will know him, because you are him. Or," the voice continued, and the darkness shifted, "what he should have been." The darkness swirled, and colors appeared, exploding and imploding within themselves, creating new colors within the process. From out of the darkness came an eruption of color and chaos and new. It wasn't good, or evil. It was just, creation. Darkness was creation, and he could see that now.

And all of a sudden, he was a he. He... had a presence. He wasn't quite sure what that meant yet, but he was sure he existed, in this symphony of color and chaos and new.

"Yes, you do exist. You exist because I will it. I cannot give you everything. Not yet. Some things, you have to... T͏͜à̸̛ḱ̸͘͢ę̸҉̷." And in front of him, everything stilled. A morphing white mass appeared in front of him, swirling with blackness. He reached out, and he could see a hand emerge from in front of him. It was his hand, he realized. He stepped forward, and the mass shifted, growing oblong and tall, almost reaching his field of vision. He took another step forward, and the shape contracted in places, almost becoming humanoid. As he moved closer, the form took more of a shape, and he could tell it was him. He reached out, and the white form of him reached out to him.

"What is this?" He found himself asking. His voice was deep and gravely.

"Interesting." The formless voice said. "It is a soul. Your soul, now."

He touched the white mass, and for a split second, he was looking at himself, and the world behind him opened up, revealing an endless amount of possibilities, and above all of that, a crooked smile and endless eyes. And then, he was back into his own body. And he was Corden, Corden Grand. The soul had information about him, and he knew so much, all in a moment. Things that should have taken a normal person years or decades to learn, and some never actually do, it took him a single touch. It was... interesting.

He looked down and felt a necklace on his shirt. On the necklace chain was a tiny vial, with the same swirling white and black substance of his own soul. He held it in between his index finger and thumb, and more knowledge flooded into his brain. This was a vial of souls, and with it he held a fraction of a portion of the same powers that created him. And with the vial, he had a name and a goal.

Sirun, the God of Reality looked down upon him as he melted out of his dimension. It was time to see how his playthings dealt with when he smashed them together. The room materialized again, and Sirun went back to reading. He had more important things to do, of course. He'd check on his playground sooner or later.

Corden Grand


In a small pocket dimension in an area that Kartiel was sure Sirun didn't know about, at least for now, a large group of people were summoned from their respective worlds and dimensions. And, in the commotion, no one had noticed that, in a dark and discreet corner, magic was happening. Perhaps if they had been more careful in unknown surroundings, they would later ask themselves, or perhaps if Kartiel had not been so weak, he would later reprimand himself. No matter, they did not have control of time. They could not have changed what happened.

Because, in a dark and discreet corner, Corden Grand had shifted into the dimension. The wall distorted for a few moments, bending as he stepped into this dimension. It took some considerable power, but it was nothing the Soul-Vial dangling behind his shirt couldn't deal with. The world carved around him as he adapted to his new area, and then it stopped, and all traces of him entering the dimension vanished. He didn't move a muscle as his eyes scanned the large library. There were several unfamiliar faces that were huddling around in somewhat of the same area.

It was odd that he didn't know these faces, not because of course he didn't know anyone, he was just created, but because his creator, Sirun, didn't recognize any of these faces. If he had, Corden was sure Sirun would have given him this information in his soul.

No matter. Corden would just have to figure this one out on his own. This was the first test of many, Corden was sure. He crouched down and fished the vial out, gripping it as he looked upon the bystanders once again. With the Soul-Vial, he was able to make them out more clearly, and could even hear some of their conversations. He didn't care for the trivial things they were talking about, of course. If it didn't aid him in his current mission, it didn't matter at the moment. Of course, he stored the conversations in his memory if he needed them, but right now he was only trying to find a susceptible target, one who would more easily fall under the influence of his magic.

And he found his target.

A large man guffawed at a poorly timed joke and slapped the back of a smaller person, almost knocking them over. He then held onto them to re-steady them from his mistake. From his physical stature alone, one would assume about him that he was intimidating. But, this seemed like a man who was very trusting of people, more so than of himself.

Corden stood, put his necklace back underneath his shirt, and donned a steady smile. This person was, thankfully, easy to get to without him attracting the attention of others. He tapped the man on the shoulder, and backed up to give him the room he needed to turn. "Hey!" Corden said encouragingly.

The man looked stunned for a second, then confused. Corden couldn't give him the opportunity of doubt. "You remember me, right? You're the only one here I recognize."

"I'm-- I'm not sure, friend! Where did you say you were from again?"

"I didn't, I actually don't remember what realm we met in. Probably another one of Kartiel's tricks. Speaking of, what has that man done this time?" Before the other man could answer, Corden added, "I didn't get your name, I'm bad with names, always have been."

The man smiled widely. "My friend, ya can call me Bo."

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SirenCymbaline says...



Boris Dietrich

Duplicitous, debonair, diva, disaster

1886


Had he ever looked like this? Like those bloodshot, shambling vagrants?
Like the man before him, around, but far from present, senseless, yet hardly relieved?
Had he been yet more reckless, in times more recent than he would care to admit, he may have become so. The thought of it curled his nostrils.

Nowadays, the gentleman Boris Dietrich would never be caught near this pitiful district, home only to honey dens, addicts, and spirifers on the prowl for souls.
Even back in the days before he'd given up the habit, he had never liked that place.
No, he was there on a mission.
It was for that cause that he found himself in the company of a honey-mazed madman, long gone, eyelids shaking with the ire of dead or imaginary wars, with nothing better to do than mistake people on the street for foes of old. After what felt like hours of patiently explaining that he was wholly unaffiliated with various conspiracies, each one more exotic than the last (a few of them real), Boris was beginning to find it mildly difficult to hold in his revulsion.

He stepped forward cautiously, smiled even more cautiously, and spoke gently.

“Now, I really have no interest in hurting you. In fact, if you would be so kind, I wish to ask for your help, in finding a Miss Crestwood. I believe she is a regular, around these dens. If you could point me towa-”

The madman lunged. Boris stepped aside, and sharply thrust an elbow into his back, sending the vagabond into the pavement. He overbalanced, so heavily and so suddenly that he had to grab hold of an adjacent lamppost to keep from falling.
Thank God, nobody sane had seen that. His chances of leaving that street intact and in possession of his purse would have dropped from plausible to miraculous.

He steadied himself, and resumed his question to the crumpled, cursing form.

“-If you could point me towards her, I would be very grateful.”

The addict’s head shot back up, and he scrambled to his feet, as an afterthought. His eyes narrowed accusingly.

“Her? The eyeless, rotting maids- one of ‘em, one of ‘em, she helped you, didn’t she, helped you start the fire? The screamin’, burnin’ letters you drew in the carpet, you remember. You remember, the lies they told, the welts they left on your hands! The Merry Gentleman still follows ya, don’t he, with the tall, tall hat, and his welcomin’ hand. Ye've seen ‘im lurkin' around, haven’t ye?”

Boris took a measured step back, and waited for the madman to finish his piece, unfazed by the claims of familiarity, and the fanciful accusations, until the mention of a Merry Gentleman. His features and tone remained unsullied, and patient as ever, but something in his eyes had gone cold, resentful.

“I do not know the gentleman you speak of. Come now, tell me, have you or have you not seen Miss Crestwood? I believe she is somewhere nearby, and I do hate to keep a lady waiting. If you have not seen her, I apologise for troubling you, but if you have, I really need to-”

“I won’t be collected!” hissed the madman.

He was not to be swayed from his conclusions. He raised his hackles, like a threatened beast, and let out one final, frenzied shout.

“I recognise ye, I do, and he follows you. Get out of here! OUT!”

Boris abandoned his pretenses, and backed away.

Had it…? No, it had not ended there. But he made it out. It was not graceful. It was not swift. It was not clean. But he had been victorious, perhaps only because his opponent was further gone than he was, but alive was alive.

He looked up, and cursed, for he heard the voices of more figures ahead, shambling into the gaslight. Were they friend, or were they enemy? He did not wait to find out. He slunk away into the shadows, and took his leave.

The Boris of only a few months prior could have easily taken care of them all, without fuss, but the one of today was not quite the same. He was no weaker than before, strictly speaking, but that was of little consolation to him when his breath was shallow, his heart was slow, and his muscles sometimes failed to respond quite as fast as they were meant to.

Thank God, no-one had seen that.

In the end he did find Miss Crestwood, in a preferable, but hardly desirable state. Though happy and harmless, she was no company. Distant and giddy, her eyes glazed over. Ugh. He had almost certainly looked like that.

The partially compromised gentleman escorted the fully compromised lady back to the University, his back straight, his eyes level, for he knew all too well what could become of her if his bluff was called.


When the academic recovered, she was civil, kindly, embarrassed at having been found in such a state, but grateful. She was especially grateful to Boris when he paid off some of her debts, as repayment for helping him with his investigation.
Most all he’d earned from blackmailing the opera singer went to those debts of hers.
If he hadn’t also struck up similar deals with the governess, and the clergyman…

“So, you’re hunting this fellow Scathewick, and he’s run off to the Iron Republic. My advice to you is to give up. What could be worth braving that awful place?”

Boris gently set down the teacup, and met her eyes out of more than courtesy. His manner was soft, kindly, almost sad, but it was not to be appeased, or negotiated.

“Peace of mind, or a cousin to it. I’ve considered the possibility that such a thing may not exist. But you can believe me when I say that what I seek in the Iron Republic, I value more than life itself. Well. Life is a cheap thing, nowadays. Let’s say ‘soul.’

Thank you, for your warning. I understand that you wish to spare me this, and it pains me to disregard your kind advice.

But in the simplest of terms, I have someone waiting for me. And...”

He’d said something more to her, after that. What was it?
Then, what had she said? She said...

“Well. I see you are not to be dissuaded easily. I have an idea. I will show you the Iron Republic in a dream. That will make you see sense. And if it doesn’t, at least you’ll have had a taste of the… peculiarities of the place. I’ll come to your lodgings tomorrow night, and I’ll bring some of this marvellous honey you’ve provided. And then we shall see if your appetite for revenge can be blunted. The Iron Republic is wrong."

Boris smiled. He shook her hand, and thanked her for her time.

It was fine. This was workable. This was a good lead, one of the most straightforward leads he had had in some time, and one that did not involve fighting off hordes of furious bees.
All she had asked him to do now, was follow her into a dream. There could be no easier task.

But it was the ease of it that frightened Boris, more than anything else.

Dreams, of any kind, were not safe.
He had seen the gentleman in the tall top hat, in the streets.
He looked into the mirror, and it was a mistake. He saw, he had seen, he had been seen.
He could see the wallpaper of the Royal Bethlehem Hotel in bookbindings and patterns of fabric and the cracks in the pavement. It was comfortable, friendly. It was waiting to claim him again.
It was always waiting.

Waiting.

’I’ve kept him waiting long enough.’

That was what he’d said to Crestwood.


Boris put aside his troubles, and followed Crestwood into her dream of the Iron Republic, the hell-colony where his mark had fled. The place was dead, dead, the air was poison, and the contrast between the devils, aloof and shining in their greatcoats, with the piteous, coughing humans of the city was as stark as could be. But even as he breathed in the rust, and the sulphur, and surveyed the bodies in the gutter, the human children playing nearby, Boris’ disgust was drowned out by a quiet, overpowering sense of relief.

He had sworn, all those years ago, that he would follow Scathewick into Hell itself, if need be. He was prepared to settle for less.


Boris brewed a pot of coffee, and celebrated these new advancements. He had a clear destination, and Crestwood had given him instruction in finding passage. Now all he needed to acquire it was to do what he did best; make useful connections, and put them in his debt.
What he asked for was a rare, and unconventional thing, something few would have, and none would part with easily. But this was enough, for the time being. He'd come far, and justified his continued existence for another few months, at the very least. Now was the time to slow down, congratulate himself on the progress that he had made, and disinfect the bite that the madman had left in his left wrist.

That done, he put the quest out of his mind, and thought sweet thoughts of Damascus. It was only a few hours until morning, and Boris was very tired, so naturally he had gone straight to soak his stained coat sleeves in vinegar, do some ironing, feed his raven Camille, and search his house for any cleaning that had been neglected. When he ran out of things to clean, he resorted to rearranging.

Dreams, of any kind, were not safe. They had not been safe for almost a year now.
Even the thought of sleep brought the cold, envious fingers of the drowned around his throat, calling him to their morose ranks. It brought the eyes of something elusive, something knowing, something that had known him from before his birth. It brought back the must and the myrrh of the bandaged dead, brought him back to the Tomb-Colonies, dry, quiet, almost pleasant in its peacefulness, but he remembered, oh, he remembered the fate worse than death that was promised to him, should he ever return there. He always remembered.

Boris did what he could to soldier on. As he ran out of ideas, he returned to chores that he had already performed, and went out of his way to find small flaws in his work, so that he would have an excuse to do them again. He continued to buy time thus, until he ran himself dry.

It took the remainder of his strength to make it to the bedroom, retrieve the laudanum from the drawer in the nightstand, and sit on the bed. He stared hard at the label on the bottle.

Damascus had warned him of the dangers of opium.

Boris may not have believed that it was quite as serious as he claimed, but he promised that he would heed his warning.

It would have killed him to ever admit it to Damascus, but in his absence he had broken this promise a hundred times over, and now, despite his efforts, he was about to break it again.

In one final attempt to convince himself against doing so, he reminisced about the time he had scared Damascus by nearly plummeting to his demise, so soon after he first returned his love. He'd held him in his arms so gratefully, so tightly.

‘Oh, Boris, don't ever do that to me again.’ he had said.

Boris’ voice came out in a brittle whisper.

“I've tempted fate, Dami.

I went somewhere, that should not even be dreamed of. Something will notice I was there. Something...”

‘I couldn't bear it if anything were to happen to you.’

Boris lifted a hand to his face, and crumpled, exhausted.

“I have to come back to you. I need to…I need to be in one piece for you.”



In the end, there was nothing for it, but to pour a spoonful. The usual measured drops would not be enough for the terrors he had courted. Not tonight.

A second teaspoon, just to be sure. He had to combat his growing tolerance, and he could not afford to take any risks.

He watched his hands calmly pour out a third spoonful, and lift it to his lips. From the bottle, to his mouth, and even as salvation slid down his throat, he told himself: ‘You know you can stop now, don't you?’

And, in his final moment of despaired cohesion, he said ‘I know.’


His breath, once sharp and ragged, calmed to a still. With each inhale and exhale, it became softer, more peaceful, until he had forgotten what it was he had been so afraid of. He tried to grasp it, for a spell, before he let it slip through his fingers, and gave it no second thought.

Boris smiled lightly, at the movements of his chest, slower and slower they grew, until he barely seemed to move at all. Gladly he drifted, weightless, and light, released from the restless curse of urgency and ambition. Everything would sort itself out. He had done what he could, and that was enough. For now, he could rest. It would all work itself out, in the end.

Damascus was waiting behind every door, around every corner, and there was no-one else. There had never been anything else.

Camille screamed at him from the rafters. Boris squinted at her, confused. What was that bird so upset about? Everything was wonderful.

Boris barely felt his body slip off the bed, and tumble to the floor. Camille’s frantic screeching grew softer and softer, until it was gone.

All he knew was the sweet voice of Damascus, bright and clear as spring days of old.

"It's alright, now. You're safe. I've got you."

Boris smiled, and whispered softly.

“Don’t worry, my love, I’ll be…I’ll be careful. You keep waiting for me, now.”


And that was the last that he could remember, before… before what?

Oh. He remembered now.

This all happened yesterday, when he had died.


Death in the Neath was a strange thing, particularly in that it rarely seemed permanent, these days. Most people simply lived, and died, and died, until they were used up, so to speak. Boris had sometimes wondered what was ‘between the stations,’ though he had never intended to find out so soon.

He had wondered, would he wake a buried man, as a few sometimes did? Would the undertaker misidentify his state? Alternatively, would he be charged for the service? After all, so many people slipped through the fingers of death’s fist, these days, how else was the morgue to make ends meet? Boris chided himself, for not having asked this question at an earlier date.

But in the end, it was of no consequence. The more Boris remembered of dying, the less interested he was in recalling what had followed. It had been so simple to escape, that he felt no pride in having done it. It did not live up to his expectations at all, and he did not recommend the experience.

Nothing was living up to his expectations, not himself, nor anything else. He had expected that he would not die, he expected that in the completely unforeseeable event that he did, it would be a more thrilling adventure.
He had expected to be half-heartedly welcomed to the land of the living by a long suffering, inconvenienced mortician.

But when his senses returned to him, along with his breath, he was not in the morgue. He was not in a casket.

He was still at home, on his bedroom floor, and nobody had noticed that he ever died.

But Camille was there, sat atop Boris’ chest. She had been guarding his body, and now that he had recovered, she bobbed her head up and down, and tugged at his shirt inquisitively.

“Good morning, you stupid harlot.” she croaked.

Boris smiled, and stretched out an arm to pet her. “Thank you, Camille.” he moaned gratefully.


Already half asleep, he retired to his bedroom, attempted to tip the laudanum out the window, and ended up dropping the entire bottle. He squinted blearily at the broken glass on the cobblestones, and went back to bed.


__

Boris awoke curled up on somebody else's carpet, underneath a cosy sunlit window.
He sat up, stared blankly, and backed away in terror.

Death in the Neath was a strange thing, in that it mainly went overlooked, unless the would-be departed dared ever return to the surface world. The second that the sunlight touched his skin, then Death would recognise its missing quarry, and take what it was owed.

It was too late for him. He was already gone. But still he stumbled blindly from the light, useless, and confused.

And still he remained, in an airy, homely library, spacious and warm, hosting similarly confused (albeit much calmer) people, all sitting and talking around a hearthrug. Some of whom were familiar. One of whom- was Damascus. Boris took one look at him, and melted.

He was not dead. He had died. But Death had not found him. He breathed in the sight of his love, and he knew that this was not his afterlife, for there was no way in Heaven or Hell that his soul had earned such a blessed reunion.

“Damascus,” he exhaled gratefully, even now disbelieving the name that came from his mouth.

In a single motion, Boris leapt to his feet and darted over, threw his arms over his broad shoulders, buried his haggard face in his neck.

"Dami, darling," he cried, "How I've missed you."

Damascus stiffened beneath him, surprised. However, only a moment passed before he softened completely and returned the embrace. His shoulders shook, in what turned into gleeful laughter.

“Boris,” he fervently exclaimed, pulling back to drink him in. His hands flitted from Boris’ face, to his shoulders, and back again. “I hardly dared to hope that- that you and I would- here, of all places-”

A little breathless sigh escaped Damascus’ lips, and he brought him to his chest once more.

Finally, Damascus seemed to decide what to do with his hands, and gripped Boris’ waist, swinging him into the air in one swift motion and twirling him around.

“I missed you- I missed you so.” he gasped, his eyes shining as he stared up at his lover.

Boris smiled back down, and laughed helplessly in joyful surrender, the past three years spent alone already forgotten. In these strong arms he was safe, no Death, no spectre, no sorrow could reach him. There was nothing else. Never anyone else.

Damascus brought him down gently, and let his toes hover over the ground, his eyes soft. Then his hand brushed through Boris’ hair, coming to rest at the nape of his neck.

Damascus kissed him slowly, heartachingly, as if renewing another promise.

In answer, Boris pulled him in, deeper, closer, longer. He gave as readily as he took- freely, greedily. However long Damascus had gone without, he would make up for it twice over.
What time had stolen from them, they would steal back, with interest.

Damascus held the kiss, and their desperate constitution, long enough for them both to get helplessly lost in each other.
Finally, he pulled back enough to bring his lips gently to Boris' cheek, his brow, his lids. He pressed his forehead to Boris', and simply breathed.

Boris smiled. Then he remembered something, and frowned. He pulled back, and held Damascus at arms' length, to fretfully examine the splatterings and smears of blood that generously coated his upper half.
He knew Damascus, gentle, kind, the thought of violence rattled him to his core. He never would have resorted to such measures if his life, his freedom, was not in the balance. And he was covered in it.

“My darling, what is this? Is this- are you supposed to- do you normally bleed? And this!” Boris carefully pulled aside Damascus’ collar, and peered anxiously at the holes in his neck. “Who did this to you?”

Damascus frowned, taken aback, palmed at his neck, and pulled away his palm to examine it, looking more abashed than anything else.
His eyes found Boris', and he appeared to be searching for something to say.

"No, no, I'm- I'm completely fine, I swear. Most of this is… it's not mine. Besides the neck, of course." He nibbled his lip a moment before rushing on,

"Please- please, don't worry about me. I just got into a bit of a fix, but it's all well and solved now! ...as a matter of fact, I should start healing soon; the only reason it's so slow now is because, well, the nature of the fellow who- he's- he's one of my kind."

It worried Boris terribly enough to see Damascus in this state to begin with, but to learn that it had been inflicted by one of his own- if that someone possessed the same abilities he had-

“Can he travel the way you do? Is he following you?” Boris pressed him, urgently.

"No worries. I took care of him, for the time being at least." Damascus responded softly. "No one can track me while I'm here, since I didn't travel myself."

Boris, for lack of a better word, calmed down a little.
So Damascus would not be found, while they were together. At least, not in this library. But, the moment that they parted, or perhaps, sooner yet, he could well be. Someone equally powerful, if not more. Someone that Boris could never hope to protect him from.

He knew too personally how damnably hard it was to face these hardships, and look his lover in the eyes. He was shaken, wounded, and still, still he hardly dared to ask him why. It was only natural that he should fear for Damascus, and ache to know what it was that pursued him. So why did it feel so selfish?

"But somebody is after you." Boris said dolefully. A statement, rather than a question. For now, all he could demand was acknowledgement.

Damascus opened his mouth, his eyes troubled, and seemed on the verge of saying something difficult.

And suddenly, something in his gaze seemed to shift. A knot formed between his brows, and he pulled back further, his eyes wide in concern.

"Boris, love- you look dreadful." he said breathlessly, cupping his face to gently turn it back and forth. "Jiminey. What's happened to you? Are you alright?"

Oh. He did look dreadful, didn’t he? Boris had honestly forgotten. -When was the last time he’d looked in a mirror? Yesterday morning, before he ventured out to meet Crestwood. He’d taken one look at the deep purple bags under his clouded eyes, and the gauntness of his cheeks, and immediately regretted the mistake of having looked.
Suddenly, he remembered the scratches and burns that dotted his fingers, the bite mark that still blighted his left wrist threatening to poke out from under the cuff of his sleeve, and could only pray the damn thing would stay out of sight.

"Please. Tell me, what's the matter." Damascus insisted.

“Oh.” said Boris, caught off guard. “I’ve been… I’ve been ill. That’s all. But I’m getting better. I’m sure once I’ve had a good night’s sleep, I’ll be just dandy.”

Damascus hardly seemed convinced. Only saddened. A moment passed before he nodded carefully, and stroked a single finger to Boris' cheek.

"Several good night's." he said decisively. "As long as I'm with you, I'll make sure of it."

Boris nodded, his lips pressed together. It was a moment before he dared to meet Damascus’ eyes again. “Thank you.” he said, genuinely touched.

"Of course, darling." Damascus answered softly, leaning in close enough to kiss again. "Thank you for letting me take care of you,"

There came another pause from the demon; one in which his eyes widened before narrowing suspiciously. He came in closer to Boris, as if testing something, and then pulled back all at once.

"Boris, why on Earth do you smell like opium?" he murmured, something hard gathering in his voice.

“‘s fer all the pain I’m gonna put ya through,” came an all-too familiar voice from behind.
Boris turned around to see a poorly-dressed otter stagger towards him, followed by a lizard and a fox in a dress. If he hadn’t met that otter before, he would’ve assumed he’d stumbled into the illustration of some children’s fairytale.

“Why’re ya showing yer face ‘ere?” Aegeas said, lifting up an arm to poke Boris in the chest. The fox and lizard stood on either side of him, looking like they were about ready to pick him up and carry him away if he did anything rash (which he surely would). “Traitor.

Boris involuntarily fell back, enough that he stood just slightly behind Damascus. At least, he hoped the movement was involuntary. That might have made it slightly less pathetic.
Even still, he stared at the little drunken Aegeas like a spooked goldfish.

He really, really wasn’t at his best. Neither of them were.

But to meet him again, just as he had been re-united with Damascus… maybe the whole living business had been a mistake, after all.

“Aegeas,” he stated feebly. “Have you been, well?”
Bad souls have born better sons, better souls born worse ones -St Vincent





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TheSilverFox says...



Aegeas Weywot


Well? Was he well? Well, maybe he’d been well a couple hours ago. He’d made his way to the bar, met Kellach there. They’d talked with the neighbors, downed a few shots, goaded each other to give the crowd a show. Even drunk enough that he could barely pull his head up from the bar, Kellach had still mesmerized the crowd with his pipes. Aegeas’s singing voice all but fell apart when he was drunk, but he’d been able to keep up with the shanties and the drinking songs that had been tossed around the bar. It’d been going wonderfully - Kellach had earned himself a drink on the house with his last song, had set down his pipes and had started teasing Aegeas over his bad voice, had waved Aegeas over for a kiss.

And then Aegeas had woken up here.

He couldn’t stand this place; it wasn’t where he belonged. The books were too fancy, the carpet too colorful, the company too sober. Sure, he was surrounded by people he knew, but he couldn’t exactly talk to them. Everything he said was slurred, strained, embarrassing. How could anyone stand him like this? But they’d get even more worried if he hid in the corner of the room. Running away just wasn’t something that Aegeas did. He wanted someone as drunk as he was, but someone who could actually socialize, so he could hang out around them and feel like he had a reason to be there. Where was Kellach when Aegeas needed him?

So no, he wasn’t well. Seeing the man who had betrayed him didn’t make him feel any better.

Aegeas wrinkled his face, like he’d just eaten a lemon (Kellach had dared him to once). “No thanks ta ya,” the otter said, waving in Damascus’s general direction. “Ya know what ya did. No point in hidin’ behind yer tall, uh, really tall and, uh, he’s covered in blood?” Aegeas stared up at Damascus. “He’s tall and covered in blood and, yer friend? Boyfriend? Partner? Somethin’?”

Now Enide focused on Boris. She didn’t have the hateful expression that Aegeas knew he was giving Boris, but the way that she tried to look through Boris told anyone looking that, if she were to make any threats or have any reason to despise the traitor, she would do a much better job acting on it. It was what she’d been raised to do, after all. “Aegeas is extremely inebriated,” she said slowly. “Do you have any idea what he might be talking about?”

“And is he alright?” the lizard said, glancing at Damascus.

Damascus blinked, apparently recovering from the aggressiveness of the otter (not that Aegeas felt sorry about that). He opened his mouth a few times before finally answering the lizard.

"He's- yes, he'll be alright. Thank you. Only - only ill, is all." Damascus placed a hand on Boris' shoulder and slid him a very obvious 'we'll talk about this later' look.

"But, no. I haven't the slightest idea what he's done," Damascus went on, in that tone that suggested he wouldn’t mind being told what Boris had done. And, sure enough, he murmured "Boris, sweetheart, what is Aegeas referring to?" in an affected tone.

Boris’ gaze flitted up at Damascus, then back to Aegeas’ entourage. Aegeas found himself not hating Damascus as much as he thought he would - the fear in Boris’s eyes, combined with Damascus’s closeness and not being afraid to figure out both Boris’s backstory and why Boris looked so awful, told Aegeas that Damascus had to be Boris’s boyfriend. And not an obedient one, either.

“You… may remember I was acquainted with Kartiel, prior to the masked ball? Aegeas and I, we… we met him at around the same time. And I’m afraid I made a decision that I… am not proud of.”

And then the traitor petered out, and stood defeated, looking as though he regretted that Aegeas had friends who were smart enough to disarm him.

Not proud of?” Aegeas spat, wishing that the way his eyes were drilling into Boris killed the traitor. “Ya almost killed me time after time after time with those ants and those wasps and all the things in that crappy world. Maybe it’s more ‘bout shame than pride.”

No luck - Boris was still alive. Disappointing, particularly given how only Lasan shrunk back and nervously glanced between Boris and Damascus. “I was, talking about you, since you’re covered in blood, but that, uh, makes sense,” the lizard said, nodding towards Damascus.

And the fox just nodded. No change in her expression, no sign that she had any opinion at all. It would’ve been more unnerving if not for Aegeas being, well, profoundly drunk.

“It is. It’s shame. Does that satisfy you?” said Boris, voice choppy enough that Aegeas could almost believe it.

“I was wrong. I never should have done what I did. And I am sorry. That’s not enough. I know it isn’t. I’d welcome you to take your bloody vengeance, but I’m afraid I have someone to grieve for me, now. So all I can offer you is…” He swallowed, in a hard cringe. “...My word. I suppose. Unless anything else comes to your mind.”

The drills faded from a deafening roar to a dull rumble. “Bloody vengeance?” Aegeas said, shaking his head. “I’m, I’m a bit surprised yer takin’ me seriously. I ain’t my normal self, and, when I ain’t normal, a lot people kinda treat me like a kid. An’ yeah, I’m angry at ya, and I can’t take yer word and I can’t trust ya, but it’s still better than anythin’ else ya ever told me.”

It was about then that a faint, high-pitched noise tapped on the edge of Aegeas’s hearing. The otter winced, only realizing a few seconds later that it was someone quietly screaming. Just in time to watch Taber throw his arms around Damascus and spin him in a circle.

“Damascus!” Taber shouted, throwing his head back to look at Boris. “And Boris! Did I just see you guys kissing?”

Damascus spluttered as he was spun, the worried furrow of his brow scattering momentarily as he took in the new arrival.

"Taber! It's wonderful to see you again," he cheered, pulling the wolf in for a short embrace. He smiled, with an impressive absence of the aforementioned tension. "And - and, yes. You did." A little glow of pride snuck its way into his expression, though he did steal a few distracted glances toward Boris here and there. "We're, um. We're together now."

Boris glanced back at Damascus, at Taber, back to Aegeas, and back to Taber again. He looked like a man who had been expecting a punishment, but wasn’t quite sure when he was going to get it. It didn’t take long before he smiled at Taber gingerly, putting on the figurative mask again. “Very happy. Thank you.”

Taber beamed at Boris. “Congrats!” he said. “I don’t want it to look like I didn’t like your friendship, or that your friendship wasn’t right - friendships are great! - but I always thought you guys would make a cute couple. And I was right about that!”

Blinking, Aegeas walked over to Taber. “Ya, ya know one of these guys has done horrible things, right?” the otter said slowly. He didn’t quite know to talk to the wolf; he’d gotten all angry and wrapped himself up in vengeance and justice, and here was Taber trampling all over that.

To Aegeas’s surprise, the wolf nodded. “You told me!” Taber said, turning his head to look at Aegeas. “But yeah, I feel like these guys can get better, especially now that they’re together - Damascus and Boris are super sweet and nice and respectful around each other.”

Small spots of color rose to Damascus' cheeks, and he patted Taber's shoulder, looking touched.

"Thank you, Taber." He said gently, "that means a lot."

Taber swung his head up to look at Damascus, taking care not to poke Damascus in the eye with his snout. “How’d it happen?” he said, tail starting to wag. “How long have you two been together? Is it kinda of a long-distance relationship, because of the other worlds they keep talking about and stuff? Are you planning on staying together for a while?”

Damascus nodded, and smiled somewhat shyly.

"Oh, yes, well, um. It happened a year or so after we met again at the masquerade? I'm not sure how long it was for everyone else, things like that get tricky. Boris confessed to me then, see, and made me realize that I had been deluding myself, and shared the same feelings for him. Of course, you mention long distance - that was a major reason why I didn't want to give him an answer then. But, that time between when I saw him again, I was able to think everything over." He paused and shared a little glance with Boris, "and I decided that I - well, that I loved Boris too much to let him go. So here we are."

Damascus thought for a moment, and then turned back to the wolf. "It is hard, to miss each other so much, but, ah - but yes. I have no intention of making our relationship short-lived. And maybe, one day…" he looked down, seeming embarrassed by his own wishes. "Maybe one day we won't have to live so far apart." He finished quietly.

“I believe in you!” Taber said. “I’m so happy you figured out your feelings for each other. If you love so much that even only meeting each other in dreams won’t stop you, I know you two can find a way to be together!”

“‘s not like Boris deserves it,” Aegeas mumbled, turning away, crossing his arms, and scowling at the ground. Apology or not, sincere or not, Damascus and Boris had already thrown the conversation aside, no thanks to Taber bounding in with his smiles and compliments. Now their relationship was the star of the show, and Aegeas had no place in it.
S'io credesse che mia risposta fosse
a persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
Ma per ciò che giammai di questo fondo
non tornò vivo alcun, s'i' odo il vero,
senza tema d'infamia ti rispondo.

Inferno, Canto 27, l 61-66.





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SirenCymbaline says...



There were as many Boris Dietrichs as he needed there to be. There was the affable, honest man, the gentleman that worked at the post office, aided the constables, donated to the church. There was the cold and hollow man that eavesdropped on confession booths, blackmailed witnesses, drowned his enemies (only once or twice), bought and sold the secrets he had learned from the first one. He changed between the two as easily as he changed his coat. But there was one more Boris, the true, genuine one, the vulnerable one, and that was the one that he gave to Damascus.

Now this myth had been shattered for the both of them. There had only ever been one. The man that had laughed and drank and fought with Aegeas was the same man that had led him into the carnivorous plant lion’s den. The man that swept Damascus off his feet, who loved him with all his heart, and the man who murdered the keykeeper in the palace gardens only days before they met at Wilson’s bar, they were one and the same. They had always been the same. And as Damascus could no longer pretend, neither could Boris.

But he could do it. He could change. He could be good. Of course he could. Why not?
Love conquers all, as Taber continued to enthusiastically rant at Damascus and Aegeas.

A wonderfully useful friend, Taber was. Keeping everyone inspired, and distracted.

Boris disappeared.

Sadly, that important conversation would have to be postponed, for he had chanced upon a prime opportunity for impulsive goodness- a young boy sitting off in the eaves on his own, anxiously studying the floor cracks. He seemed to be unaccustomed to lapses in dimension. He looked lost. But unlike Boris, he had no makeshift brothers to keep him company.

Boris approached him slowly, and sat down next to him.

“Are you feeling alright?” he asked gently.

The boy stiffened when he heard Boris speak. A brief, terrified glint flickered in his eyes for a few seconds, only to disappear when he muttered an, “I’m okay.”

He clearly was not. But Boris nodded. “Is this your first time, waking up somewhere strange?”

The boy stared at him for a few moments before nodding back.

“I was eight, you know, the first time it happened to me. I’d wandered off in the woods, as I often did, but I became lost, and ended up in a different forest entirely.
I met other children there, from all sorts of strange places. From the Underworld, to Reaper Space, to Nye… even America. It was a little frightening, in that it was dark, we kept losing each other, and our shapeshifting friends wouldn’t stop turning into tentacled horrors and… bears… I was fine, of course…” And before he knew it, Boris became happily carried away telling the boy all about the adventure.

“Odds are, if it’s happened once, it’ll happen to you again. But that needn’t be so foreboding a thought. If you learn to think of it as a holiday, it can actually be a pleasant experience.” He ended the story with a wistful little glance at Damascus. (Still occupied with Taber. Thank God.)

The boy - still silent - gave another nod. He seemed to be both intrigued and worried by the story; he narrowed his eyes a little, gave a slight tilt of his head and continued to stare at Boris with something shy of a frown.

He remained in that pose for almost a minute before he quietly asked, “...How do you usually end up in a situation like this?”

“Some of the time, there’s no reason to it whatsoever. And in other cases, it is godlike beings of very powerful but woefully specific abilities, who kidnap apparently random people from apparently random places, to participate in bizarre activities of poorly defined purpose. For all the smoke and mirrors, they rarely seem to hurt anyone.
Frankly, this peaceful library doesn’t at all suit the style of either of the gods I am familiar with. This must be a fluke.”

The boy shifted uncomfortably.

“Maybe they like taking breaks and reading,” he guessed, straightening a little. “I would want to take a break here.”

In his defense of gods who were foreign to him, the boy seemed strangely indignant. It struck Boris as a little odd. But he had a point, it was a lovely library.

“That makes sense.” said Boris. “But I hardly think they’d find our company relaxing. Mine especially. I was…” he broke off and looked away, unable to end the sentence truthfully. He thought it over, and replied with a vague and regretful, “I’m afraid I treated one of them rather badly, last time I saw him.”

The boy fell silent again, and squinted at Boris for a second, studying him- it faded as quickly as it had appeared, but it was clear that he did not trust this stranger who told wild stories and insinuated a history of violence.

“What did you do?” asked the boy.

Boris was taken aback. He didn’t fancy confessing a petty crime of senseless aggression to a child that he had just met. A child he was attempting to comfort, no less.

“Well, it… it was not an act of self defense. The first time that I fought him it was, but that time… that was an act of bad taste.” said Boris. He made no attempt to hide the disgust in his voice. If he could not be honest in what exactly he had done, he would be honest in how he felt about it. It was his responsibility to discourage the boy from a life like that.

It was a moment before Boris spoke again, but when he did, he took the liberty of making Kartiel the subject.

“You needn't worry, if we meet him again. He would never harm a child. Threaten? Terrify? Inconvenience? Absolutely. But I know the kinds of villains that truly have no scruples in them. And he doesn’t feel like one of those to me.

I pray we never meet again, and there’s little else I would trust him with, but that much I can say in his favour.”

The boy nodded.

"...Thank you," he quietly said. He glanced over in the direction of the nearby shelves, his face worryingly blank. "I think I'm going to try reading his books."

He started to head for the nearest aisle.

Boris stood up, and remained standing there, nowhere to go. That hadn’t panned out too well. Perhaps admitting at all what he’d done, even so vaguely as he did, was a mistake. But the child had been present to witness his reunion with Aegeas, so his reputation had been against him from the beginning. Approaching the child smelling of opium and looking like a corpse hadn’t helped, either. The only thing that had gone over well was the stories about shapeshifting escapades.

That was when Boris remembered that Kartiel was a shapeshifter. He cursed his stupidity, and followed after him.

“Kartiel,” he said.

The boy froze. "...Who's Kartiel?" he asked, still facing the shelf.

Oh. Good god. It really was him.

“Kartiel, Atlantis doesn't matter to me anymore.” said Boris. “None of it does.

The worst of what happened, it was my fault. As for what you did… It was years ago. Too much has happened since then. And whatever has troubled you so, it causes me to think that maybe… maybe we’re in the same boat, this time.”

Kartiel didn’t look back at him. He continued to stare off into the bookshelves.

“...Boris,” Kartiel said finally, with maturity that belied his childlike face, “I’m the one who brought you here. You shouldn’t be trying to forgive me just yet.”

Boris shook his head.

“No, I… I needed this. I needed to see him again. How much, I cannot begin to- if anything, I am indebted to you. Please. Let’s call us even.”

Boris smiled, more than grateful, he was baffled by the blessed reunion that Kartiel had made possible. He stretched out his hand, and waited.

Kartiel faltered for a second. He looked back to Boris again, a look of momentary confusion swept across his face. Then he was hit by an understanding. He hung his brow in resignation. “...I owe Rendra twenty dollars,” he muttered to himself.

Then he paused again. He raised his head; there was an elusive expression on his face.

“I never intended for that to happen,” Kartiel admitted. “You’d be stupid to say that you’re in my debt - you know the things I do-”

He paused, hesitated and suddenly fell silent.

Boris spoke up, with conviction. “I don’t care if it was a mistake. It saved my life. If I’m a fool, I’m a fool.

Crooks like us, we’ve only got each other, and crooks who want a shot at even a sliver of redemption, that’s even less. So take my hand.”

Kartiel stared at him - and, more specifically, stared at the outstretched hand.

His gaze dropped down to his own, much smaller hand, an uncharacteristically hesitant look flickering across his face.

And then he smiled - not a wicked one, an actual, genuine smile - and took hold of his hand, an almost childish joy replacing the expression he had only moments before. “I don’t like being compared to you,” he said, “but redemption does sound nice right now.”

Boris grinned back. Who would be flattered by that comparison? He was about to laugh it off, but the humour quickly drained from his face when he realised that Boris the traitor had shaken hands with Kartiel the villain, in the optical vicinity of those he had sold out. That would lend to some unfortunate misconceptions.

But making peace with his former enemy was of prime importance, if he wanted to move forward. For Damascus. Yes, he had done the right thing.

Boris recomposed himself, and asked Kartiel, “What did happen to you?”
Then he ruined this rare episode of sincerity by chuckling, and saying “The situation must be grave indeed if you called upon me, and Aege-”

His face turned a whiter shade of dead. Oh, fuck. Kartiel had seen that reunion, too.
Bad souls have born better sons, better souls born worse ones -St Vincent





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Mageheart says...



Kartiel
| God of Souls |


If Kartiel had been in a better mood, he might have smiled at the expression dancing across his makeshift ally's face. He had seen some of the reunion that Boris was talking about, but the majority of it had been lost to him. He had been too busy trying to hide among the shelves of what was supposed to be his private oasis – too busy trying to figure out how he was going to get through this situation.

He had needed the help. If he hadn't been so consumed by worry and fear when he had cast that spell, he might have seen the potential flaws in his plan for getting it. Kartiel knew a thing or two about addressing crowds of people. He hadn't before Sirun; Sirun, at least, could be given credit for that. But Kartiel was struck by the sudden realization that he didn't know how to address the people he had (accidentally) gathered when he needed to stand before them as himself.

He couldn't send them back home. The body he was stuck with didn't have the strength needed to repeatedly cast such a high-powered spell. To everyone but Boris – everyone who had likely figured out he was Kartiel, and who weren't so into the idea of redemption – this just seemed like another one of his schemes.

He took a long, slow breath.

It had been a good minute since Boris had asked his question, but Boris was likely too preoccupied with being mortified to notice that Kartiel hadn't responded. Standing in the middle of the pocket dimension's reality, Kartiel was painfully aware of how small and frail he was compared to everyone else in the room. He wasn't even sure how far a boy's voice could carry in a room of this size.

But he had to try.

He wasn't going to let the scheme he had been working on for millennia go to waste. Sirun had always underestimated him. If he wanted to finally achieve what he had worked for all along, he couldn't give into the childish burst of fear coursing through his veins right now.

He cleared his throat.

Not even Boris looked.

He cleared his throat again.

Focus appeared in Boris's eyes, but he was the only one who looked at Kartiel. Kartiel went to clear his throat for the third time, only to quickly change his mind when he saw Boris opening his mouth. After the experience with Atlantis, the unknown planet and the wraith ship, he really didn't trust Boris when it came to important moments like this.

“Hello,” Kartiel called out, with the loudest voice his little vocal chords could muster. A heavy silence fell upon the room as conversations came to abrupt conclusions. His voice lacked all the bravado and suaveness it had in every other encounter he had with the group of people before him. Right now, all it had was a hesitant kind of confidence – a confidence that was entirely his own, yet something he hadn't ever really tested before.

“Are ya goin' to tell us why we're here?” Aegeas said. He must have been drinking before Kartiel's spell brought him here – it wasn't a comforting thought. Aegeas hated him without being under the influence of alcohol. How would he feel about him now?

“I will,” Kartiel promised. “It's...not what you think it is.”

He scanned the group of people from anything that would make him feel less afraid, trying to tell himself that the fear was just because he was physically a child and not because he honestly was afraid of what they'd do to him once they found out the truth.

And it was when he was scanning the room that he found his source of comfort: Bo, giving him an encouraging but hesitant smile.

Kartiel took another deep breath.

“Things aren't what they seem,” he said. “Some of you might remember going to a masquerade that I helped host, and might remember the other host – Rendra – being unable to say who she worked for. If you couldn't guess it then, Rendra and I are in a similar situation. We both serve a god more powerful than I will ever be. I can't pretend that I know her story, but I've served him for longer than any of you could ever comprehend.”

The words were starting to become natural now; he didn't have to put as much thought into speaking as he had assumed he would.

“His name is Sirun,” Kartiel revealed. “Gods are immortal and have magic, but we all have a shared weakness: our true names. I gave mine up to Sirun when I was a little older than I look right now. Everything I've done since I've met any of you has been to trick him into thinking he had changed me after ordering me around with my true name. I was the one who came up with all of the schemes, but my intention has never been to seriously harm any of you.”

His gaze fell to the floor.

Memories flickered through his head – of a Dungeons & Dragons group from long ago, of a group of chosen heroes, and of the vicious fight that had taken place in the jungle of a foreign world. He tried to push them aside, but they refused to go away. Even this body wanted him to remember the pain he had caused.

“Sirun figured out it was an act,” he admitted. He clenched his hands into tiny fists and held them at his side. “He killed my last body to get me to go into my actual one, but I had this underdeveloped one hidden away. I used magic to get me here, and then used magic to call for help. But I wasn't in a good state of mind, and I foolishly called all of you here.”

He raised his head.

“You're under no obligation to help me now,” he said. “I'll do everything in my power to send you back to your homes once I have a change to restore my magic. But because this body isn't anywhere as powerful as my last one is, I'm unable to send you back right now.”

He took one last deep breath and one last look at the group as a whole before awaiting their inevitably furious reactions.
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soundofmind says...



Bo
Resident Dad-Friend


There was a lot swirling in his head. There was a heightened elation at seeing so many familiar faces again, but all of that mixed with a dread that pooled in his gut, bubbling and brooding inescapably. He heard Kartiel's words - watched the boy get up, explain himself, shake hands with Boris and begin addressing them all.

It wasn't that he was having trouble believing it was Kartiel speaking. He'd already seen Kartiel in a human body and a wraith body and both were very much him. A child was only disturbing because of the perceived innocence - that was, until Kartiel began speaking, and sounded very much like an adult who'd been living far longer than most of them in the room. An insecure one, sure, but still, a god.

And apparently Kartiel wasn't the only god out there. Bo shouldn't have been surprised, but the idea that there were others with just as much if not more power made something deep within him tremble. He didn't like the idea of anyone having that much power, especially if they were using it to control other powerful gods for... for what? Some kind of game? For fun? Why else would someone that powerful do that kind of stuff anyway when they could probably have anything they wanted?

Bo stood across the rug from the child-Kartiel and Boris, trying to figure out what exactly it was Kartiel was asking them to do.

Well, technically, he wasn't asking them to do anything, because he gave them the option to go home - a courtesy he had never offered before, but now, seemed like one that was being offered out of guilt, not because he didn't need their help. Because that was the thing - Kartiel looked the weakest that Bo had ever seen him, and that wasn't just because he was a child. If everything Kartiel was saying was true, then this god Sirun probably wasn't done with him yet.

What would happen to Kartiel if and when he eventually got caught? Would he even be able to escape without their help?

There was a brief pause, and Bo could see Aegeas's mouth working at a reply that probably was just going to be "take me home as soon as possible", so Bo swooped in with his own.

"How long do you think you can hide from Sirun before he finds you again?" he asked.

Kartiel didn't say anything for a moment - he didn't even meet Bo's gaze.

"Probably not long," Kartiel admitted. "There's not many places I could hide from him, so he can probably guess that I made a pocket reality. But it should be long enough to get you all back to your worlds."

"And on the off-chance he finds us before we all get back?"

Kartiel shook his head. "This place is hidden well. He won't find it right away, and it won't take too long for me to get enough magic to send you back."

That didn't answer his question. Bo understood that Kartiel probably wanted to assure everyone that there was some kind of safety net, but that wasn't really what Bo was getting at. He decided to be more direct. He walked over to Kartiel, stopping a short distance in front of him. It was weird looking so far down at him in a child form, especially knowing Kartiel was - well, what did he know - eons older? Something ridiculous.

"What will happen when he finds you, though? Will you go back to being under his control or does he plan on killing you? Do you have a plan?"

Kartiel went still.

His gaze fell down to the floor.

It took another moment for Kartiel to finally offer answers. "I'll probably die," he said. "Not permanently. You can't kill a god. But he'll probably make me feel like I died, or at least kill this body. My real body is more useful to him."

He turned his back to Bo and the others, still staring down at the ground.

"The plan was to come up with a better plan." His voice was bitter. "I was supposed to have more time before he figured out what I was going to do. I need to break his hold over me. I don't have an idea how to right now, but I can figure that out after I send you all back."

Bo couldn't deny that hearing the hopelessness of Kartiel's situation was distressing. He'd pulled all of them into it, though this time, without meaning to, and seemed earnest about returning them home. He didn't really leave it open for negotiation, really. He just said that he would, which was something the former Kartiel he knew never would've done.

He thought for a second about Sirun and Kartiel. If everything Kartiel was saying was true about him being manipulated into running whatever sick games Sirun wanted to play, then it was very possible that his gut feeling had been right all along.

Kartiel didn't really want to hurt anybody. He was being used, and doing what he had to do to survive. And Bo knew from the brief moments he saw of Kartiel letting his guard down that Kartiel felt deep, deep regret for the moments he'd been likely obeying Sirun's orders and things had gone wrong (or maybe right) and lives were lost and lives were ruined.

It was impressive that Kartiel was holding up at all, honestly. With the impending threat of death (or worse) breathing down his neck, he was putting the safety of everyone else first by insisting that as the first priority. And while Bo agreed that that was good and right, and a large part of him really did want to go home and escape this, this was different.

This wasn't a god throwing them into a dangerous playground and watching people narrowly avoid death while getting traumatized. This was a god's desperate last resort. A call for help.

Bo didn't think he was qualified in the slightest for a challenge of this magnitude, but he couldn't imagine the weight of having to face down a powerful god of reality, who was your abuser no less, alone.

He walked to Kartiel's side, got down on his knees, and put a hand on Kartiel's shoulder. He had think very hard. His heart was sending him mixed messages: forgive him, hate him, he saved you, he hurt you, it's your fault, it's his fault. Filtering through them took a great amount of deliberate focus, because he knew there was still pain in there, maybe not fully processed. He didn't know. That wasn't really the point, anyway. There were always going to be a lot of reasons and excuses not to say what he was going to say, but he decided in his heart he was going to anyway.

"Kartiel. I know I'm just a human, and I don't have powers, or special abilities. But I don't want to leave you in this alone."

He didn't really wait for Kartiel to fight him on that or not. He decided to skip niceties, and he pulled the little child-bodied Kartiel in for a hug. A tight one.

"And I forgive you," he whispered, barely audible, once Kartiel's ear was close enough for it to be just for him to hear.

Kartiel stiffened.

"But I...I..." He faltered. "I don't deserve forgiveness. Especially not from you."

"Doesn't matter if you think you deserve it or not," Bo said quietly, still hugging him close. He could feel what had to be tears on the front of his shirt. "I still do."

Kartiel didn't immediately reply, but he did relax his tense muscles and almost melted into Bo's embrace.

"...Thank you, then," he awkwardly said. "But it's not safe - you could get hurt again. He could blind you. He knows how Atlantis went. He knows everyone's weaknesses."

Kartiel slipped out of Bo's grip, and he pulled away, letting him go and standing back up.

"Well, he might be a god, but he's not god, so he can't know everything."

Kartiel turned back to Bo, giving Bo a strained smile. "You're underestimating how detailed my reports are. I was..." He blushed and glanced at a nearby bookshelf. "It doesn't matter. Sirun isn't going to have a sudden change of heart. He'll use the information I gave him to force you into a corner-"

Kartiel went still again.

Bo's eyebrows twitched up and together.

"What is it?"

"...I think I know how to stop Sirun," Kartiel said. A grin suddenly appeared on his face. "I just need to find my sister."

Bo blinked.

"Wait... you have a sister?"
Pants are an illusion. And so is death.









Poetry is the art of creating imaginary gardens with real toads.
— Marianne Moore