Lucid Dreamer (2/2)
part 1
Gepard stalls almost a week before he finally goes out to the safehouse, and it takes him a couple days to find it because Sampo didn't have the time left to be wasn't super specific about the location. But he does find it.
It's pretty bare bones, really. Gepard knows that was probably to be expected, but… It feels crushing, when he realizes there are so few personal things here. It's nothing specific to Sampo. Just some food, some medical supplies. A cot and a heater and a lot of mismatched blankets. Nothing to remember someone by.
But he does find the letters, in a metal box stashed away under the bed.
There are two for him. Three for Natasha, and two for Seele. One for Hook, one for Serval, one for Pela, one for Bronya.
Bronya's is mostly business. They knew each other from the whole Stellaron incident, but not much beyond that, and the incoming catastrophe is a more pressing matter. Seele's is actually two copies of the same letter, and Gepard realizes why when Seele is so angry she rips the first one up without reading it. He gives her the copy a couple days later, and she slinks off without a word.
Pela seems completely normal after hers is delivered, but Gepard knows better than to trust that. The next day, he finds her asleep in bed with Serval, bottles abandoned on the floor, both their eye makeup smeared and running and Pela's glasses horribly smudged and crooked on her face. Serval doesn't read hers in front of him, but she's clingy with Gepard, Pela, and Lynx for quite a while after. She throws herself into her work a lot. She insists the heater from the safehouse is busted and she needs to keep it. It's too dangerous for use by someone who's not an engineer. Might burn their house down or something. Gepard doesn't argue.
Hook's letter is short, with easy to read words. The rest of it is actually a treasure map, and she and the moles spend the next several days running through the Underground, finding hidden candy and toys. Hook asks them when Sampo is coming back, because one of the marbles she found from his map looks green, just like his eyes, and she wants to give it to him. Natasha shoos Gepard out of the clinic before he can even begin to think of an answer.
Natasha refuses to let him see what's in her letters, which ok, fine, he'll respect that. He hears from Bronya who heard from Seele who heard from Natasha herself though that one of the letters was a map and the other a catalogue, with all of Sampo's hidden "warehouses." Gepard promptly marches himself back out to the frontlines, where he can turn a blind eye. If a ton of stolen goods suddenly enters the black market, and if the orphanage and the clinic suddenly have new supplies, well, technically that's none of his business.
Gepard goes to bed, curls up under mismatched blankets and closes his eyes.
He doesn't dream.
One of Gepard's letters was also business, like Bronya's and Natasha's. He and Bronya follow everything meticulously, down to the letter, because there has to be some good to get out of all this, there has to be. Gepard can't let it all be for nothing, it would bury him.
And so the catastrophe passes. Not without casualties, and not without a lot of damage and destruction. But Belobog survives.
And after that, time just kind of…goes on. Gepard has been a part of the Silvermanes since he was old enough to enlist. The Fragmentum had gotten so much worse in the years before Welt sealed the Stellaron. He knows the statistics, it is literally his and Pela's jobs to keep track. He knows when he sees a face everyday in the camps and then it's suddenly gone. He's not unfamiliar with things like grief and loss.
He still catches himself checking the trashcans and the supply crates and soldiers' footprints sometimes, though.
But there comes a night where Gepard goes to bed, holding the mismatched blankets to his face, and he dreams. And it's strange, it's off, it sticks with him. Sampo doesn't look the same. He's thinner. His muscles have atrophied. He looks like how Gepard has seen soldiers after months in the hospital.
The most unsettling difference is there's a scar across the left side of his head, Gepard can see it over his ear, peeking out past his hairline, carving towards his cheek. Sampo is always careful about his face. Gepard once saw him dodge a Fragmentum monster and literally let it cut across his neck just to keep his face clear. He wouldn't let that happen for nothing.
Their actions in the dream itself aren't new. Sampo seems tired, run down and worn out, but he announces his presence with aplomb by lobbing a bunch of smoke bombs off the rooftops and sending his soldiers scrambling. Same shit, different day.
The new part is what he says when Gepard chases him out to the edges of the camp, tackles him into the snow. Gepard pins him to the frozen ground to detain him and Sampo doesn't even fight it, just looks up at him like he's seeing sunrise for the first time in months.
"I'll be home in one week."
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📦 PACKIDGE TIME 📦
Okay, everyone gather round and look what the tides have brought to my doorstep. If you recall, a few months ago I started to make those silly Banana Peeled Vessel fanarts. Well, my beautiful friend @sleep-token brought Banana Vessel to life, and crocheted a Peeled Boy 🍌🥺
Because Dani is just a gem of a person, Banana Vessel sent on a long adventure, along with some other soft friends 🥺
After a LONG, STRESSFUL journey of 7751 km / 4816 miles, I am finally able to get my hands on our potassium son and his friends 🥺💙 🍌🐸🦫
Meet Pipi, the cutest shimmery blue froggy ever, and Bucky, a Texan CELEBRITY??? HELLO??? 🦫🤠 ALSO, very important to note that Pipi and Banana Vessel smell very nice?? Like love, sunshine, and rainbows 🥺💖🌞🌈
Banana Vessel and Pipi - look at the detailsss!!! Bucky has the cutest tail ever 🥺
Pipi came with photos from his visit to the aquarium with his froggy mint friend (DANI NAME YOUR FROG 😭🥺).
And yes they have all been hugged and kissed 🥺 Banana Boy had a little maternity shoot when he arrived 😌
Once again, thank you so much so much for these - I am cherishing them forever and ever 💙🥺💙 Pipi and Banana were sleeping right next to me, and Pipi's cute scented butt lulled me right away to honk shoo land 😪😴
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Annabeth Determined The Outcome of the Prophecy in the Last Olympian
I'll insert the prophecy real quick so I can talk about it,
"A Halfblood Of the eldest gods
shall reach sixteen against all odds,
and see the world in endless sleep.
The hero's soul cursed blade shall reap.
a single choice shall end his days,
Olympus to preserve or raze"
ok, now that we're caught up on that let's talk;
the first two lines are pretty simple and straight forwards in a way, it doesn't mention who the halfblood is as it takes account that it would depend on who survives and so on (the only thing consistent with the timeline that Rick did was make sure Jason and Hazel were both younger than Percy in HOO)
The third line also goes with Percy so far, so no need to talk more about it.
the fourth to sixth line though are different stories,
it mentions that a hero will die but never mentions who right? i wanna talk about it , in the second book we know Percy claims the prophecy for himself, and that's what's usually talked about, but i wanna focus on Annabeth.
In that same book Chiron makes Annabeth swear on the river Styx to protect Percy, we know that anything related to the Styx is also directly related to the fates.
trust the process please cause I promise this is kinda going somewhere.
in the battle of the labyrinth Pan tells Annabeth that she has an important role, just not in the way she thinks.
then in the fifth book Percy dips into the Styx, gets the Achilles heel, imagining Annabeth, which is romantic but also correlates with Annabeth swearing on that same river to protect him as if a subconscious part of her was also protecting him so he can survive the river, like the river was just using her promise to protect him.
the fates were really pulling all the romantic strings to save Olympus
kinda ironic cause they gave out this prophecy in the first place
In the Last Olympian, two cursed blades attack Luke and Percy, the Scythe for Percy and the Dagger Luke gave Annabeth which is cursed with a broken promise and all that angsty poetic stuff.
Guess who makes the decision tho?
Annabeth, she decided who the hero is
she took that knife for Percy, because she felt like he was in danger, we talk about that being because she's his mortal tether, but i also think it has to do with her swearing on the river to protect him.
River Styx was their main shipper and I will die on that hill.
Annabeth saved Percy due to her promise, and let Luke die with his broken one (somewhat of a deep quote right?), Annabeth's role has been to decide who the hero is and I can't get over that.
The single choice she made to save Percy or not was the deciding factor in this war.
Either Luke or Percy was going to die by a cursed blade, you can also say that in a way Chiron also had a hand in it, making her swear on the river.
but it just blew my mind, Percy's existence brought the world to its near end while hers saved it
ofcourse that is not 100% accurate but for the sake of it sounding tumblr level poetic it is
idk if you all already made this conclusion a while ago and i'm just slow, but even if i just think that this series was just so beautifully tied together, and Annabeth is so valid for this, emotional, nerdy, literal puppy (not all puppies are overly enthusiastic creatures ) with so much live to give, saved the world with the power of love ( and a childhood crush)
She literally deserves so much, i also wanna talk about Aphrodite in a future post
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