I’m just gonna write a little thing! A little thought for Bloom, nothing too intense, just so I don’t forget it!
1000 words later? Whoops
Writing below the cut, major spoilers for the end of Heart of Thorns and implied End of Dragons spoilers but nothing explicit from EoD :]
Bloom
“Kill me, Commander.” Trahearne could hear his own voice tremble, as horror overtook his dear friend’s face. Around them all, their friends— Rytlock, Caithe, Canach, Marjory, Braham— were exhausted. Worn thin by the fight against the jungle dragon, both physical and within the Dream.
“What? No! Mordremoth is dead. We destroyed its mind from the inside.” The commander protested, their fingers curled around the hilt of Caladbolg.
“But I still hear its voice.” Trahearne looked down at his hands, twisted and blighted as they were. His body was not his— he was corrupted. It was only cruel fate that he had kept his mind this long. Or perhaps something more sinister.
“Mordremoth is alive. One last hateful vestige… a terrible seed, planted deep in my mind.”
Trahearne’s hands curled into fist, as he took a deep steadying breath.
“You must kill me, Commander, before that seed grows. Before… before Mordremoth reclaims what it has lost.”
He reached out now, hands on his friend’s shoulders. The tears streaming down their face broke his heart. He did not want this. He didn’t want to hurt them, to see them suffer so.
Trahearne wished there was another way.
“What is left of me can’t survive on its own, my friend.” He croaked, and felt the Commander tremble beneath his hands. Were they always so small?
“Strike now or—“
Against his will, a rage rose up. A sick bile that boiled in his stomach and burned through his chest as his mind lurched.
Through his mouth, Mordremoth spoke.
“I am the future! I am this world! You cannot destroy me!” The dragon roared, hands tightening around the commander.
“Run while you can!” It took everything he had left to force his fingers to uncurl, to release the commander even as the dragon wanted to tear them to shreds to be remade anew.
Caladbolg flashed in the corner of his eye.
“No!” The commander yelled. Strike true my friend! Trahearne wanted to yell. But he couldn’t, and his mind went dark.
There was no great explosion. There was no dying scream.
If you asked those present what happened, none of them gave any concrete answer.
Canach hesitated to answer, but would confirm that Mordremoth was no longer hounding his mind, or any of the sylvari.
All Rytlock would say was that the confrontation wasn’t pretty.
Caithe mourned Trahearne, in her quiet and melancholic manner, and asked not to push the matter further.
Braham would scowl, shake his head, and shove his way past, unwilling or perhaps unable to describe that final blow.
Marjory Delaqua, normally so elegant and clever with her words, who could see the twists of a plot before anyone else— when she was asked, she could only shake her head and reply ‘I don’t know’.
The Commander didn’t answer at all, because no one was able to find them to ask.
Eventually, researchers at the newly established lab of Rata Novus confirmed what the entire world held its breath to hear.
Mordremoth was dead. He had to be, to explain the slow steady trickle of magic escaping the jungle, supposedly as the dragon… decayed wasn’t the right word, but it conveyed the idea well enough. It was a slow death, they said, not quite the explosive reaction from Zhaitan, who had gorged itself on magic before its death, but a gradual decay. It changed things, about magic, about how the people of Tyria and the soon to be established Dragon’s Watch understood the flow of magic around and through the Elder Dragons. But it was dead.
It had to be.
He woke up. His body ached, as it always did, as he woke. A consequence of being too bigsmall. He stirred slowly, limbs stretching out and tail dragging behind. He had buried himself beneath massive vines this time, the weight of them both familiar and restricting. These conflicting sensations, the constant disagreement with himself… it was the only thing he could rely on. Even his name escaped his memory, although he could hear whispers of it on the edges of his mind.
Traherdremaneth.
It didn’t matter, really.
He moved slowly, not truly wanting to rise, but knowing he must.
He was something in between, and there was no stillness for him. No place of his own.
His one companion, if you could call it that, would be upon him soon. A dogged purserer, both a thorn in his side and a trusted ally, trailed behind him. For a time he thought they left him— and the feelings that had wrought left him stationary in a deep cave for nearly a week before they had reappeared.
He didn’t want them close, he knew that much, but they were one of the few things he had, a consistency. He couldn’t see them well, not with the distance between them, but he could always make out the broken blade at their hip. The one that made the scar across his chest ache.
He wondered what would happen if he let them get closer. Would they strike? Would they know him?
They were his enemyfriend. What would they make of him? Caution kept him at a distance from them.
The longer he was awake, the more memories he could half-remember.
The Orrian landscape stretches out before him and it reeks of his sibling, twisting beneath the dirt. The undead don’t notice him, not yet, and he can take a moment to look closer at the coral. It was neither alive nor dead. Not unlike himself and yet so different to him or anything he had ever encountered before.
He missed his siblings, their quiet talks among the then empty roots, among safe coils with their constant presence around him. They were too distant to feel or simply gone now and it unnerved him. This was wrong. Perhaps they could help him make it right.
There was one other thing, other than his sort-of companion and his unsteady roiling mind, that remained constant. And this was the true constant. A steady beacon, that he could not see or hear, but simply felt in a way that he could not describe. A magnetic sort of pull that had him orbiting closer and closer.
It drew him in, out of the depths and dark underbelly of the jungle and the cave systems, towards the strange golden stones, the elegant walls meant to keep out creatures that wished to destroy the beacon. He was not welcome there, not yet, even though he meant no harm. He just needed to be closer.
He didn’t know how he knew that. He just knew it.
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so like, aw man, this is not what you asked for but AVSNAVDJSVDA so you mentioned a theoretical timeline in which wars does have to go back to his era and has to live on his own in an era that hates him, and I still think abt that sometimes because I’m a sucker for angst. but because I’m an even BIGGER sucker for hurt/comfort, I still hold on in my heart that somehow, SOMEWAY, in that theoretical timeline, legend would not take no for an answer, and— being as stubborn as he is— somehow through magic and the spite and willpower of demanding a happy ending, manage to find wars down the line anyway.
If anyone could do it, it would probably be legend, honestly. Drag chboy back into comfort and safety and the arms of someone who loves him no matter what other people say or do. And honestly, Legend’s earned it. They both have. I know ranch au exists but the idea of both theoretical ends being soft because they just love each other That Much is one that warms me heart.
while it makes me sad that they're not All together, i personally love this idea to bits and i think legend would absolutely be the one to flip off fate and tell it to go fuck itself. the narrative of that is so heartwarming ??
he's done nothing but save the world since he was nine at the request of beings he'll never be able to truly comprehend. he's been beaten and bloodied out of necessity and he's been starved bc nine year olds that come from orchards r not taught how to hunt. the world forced him—a little kid—to destroy himself for it, and he never had any say in the matter. and eventually, he gave up trying to find a hole in the agreement or a promise of freedom between the lines. it's for the safety and security of the kingdom, after all
he never valued himself enough to try harder to escape it. but warriors? he loves wars more than anything. he'd Do anything for the guy. and when legend realizes that wars is prolly gonna get sucked back into his own shitty era, filled with shitty people who routinely bite the hands that feed them, legend felt So much dread at that thought.
warriors deserves better. warriors deserves So much better than that. and thanks to wars, legend now believes that he himself deserves better than this—ripped away from his partner as thanks for keeping humanity alive. he's in a better spot mentally, and now that he truly has smth to fight for that's not just an assigned task by a goddess, he's pretty much unstoppable
it could go two ways—either legend goes to wars' era and lives w him, or he takes wars backs to his own. since wars is in genuine danger of people attacking him in his era, once they have their tearful reunion, they prolly go back to legend's time If they were able. legend might have enough power to make two warps (wow! convenient!)
i rly love the idea of them leaving legend's current house to ravio, and they move to find a bigger space to settle down. they 100% buy a nice home on a more peaceful side of the kingdom and they live in the same space and breathe the same air and they have Never been happier. legend starts a garden and teaches wars how to care for plants n shit. wars becomes an author like he always wanted. they already have enough money to retire cuz bein a hero is a very lucrative business, so their house is Nice and they never go hungry and also they get a dog . i said so.
the end. they live like an old married couple . i Said so
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Strike-Commander Morrison
Since B.lizz hasn't given us further info on O.verwatch's timeline that I know of, I'll go over what's canon for the blog.
Jack was hesitant to accept the promotion, because in his eyes, Ana and Gabriel were both better picks. In the end, he decided to accept after some talking with core O.verwatch members, especially Gabe, Ana, and Gabrielle.
Aside from trying to manage the trauma from the Crisis, Jack spent a lot of the initial months trying to adjust to the position, leading to high stress and some blatantly wrong decisions on the political side. He was still a soldier, and that meant that he needed to take care of his people. Their lives and livelihoods were in his hands, and he took that seriously. Most of his early failures followed themes of unpreparedness, rash decision-making, lack of decorum, or just making the wrong choices regarding certain aspects of leadership. The public was slow to trust O.verwatch in the beginning due to this, but Jack continued to adapt and work through issues, throwing his entire life into O.verwatch.
Jack, for all his faults, was an unflinchingly kind man who spent most of his time campaigning for O.verwatch to help in the most affected areas of the world, often going head to head with some higher-ups over that. In addition, Jack was often embroiled in arguments with people who wanted to gear O.verwatch towards a more militaristic institution, as Jack found they would be better served with doctors and scientists. He still went on missions at this time, O.verwatch acting as ancillary or emergency help in other countries at first.
That continued as time went on, and Jack most often tried to keep this version of Overwatch at the forefront. He joined missions less and less because of the workload, leading to a bit of his own crisis as he asked whether or not he was still a soldier (whether he still wanted to be treated as a solider as he got farther from the battlefield). Ultimately, he still defined himself as a soldier more than a politician, though he tried to balance to two when the situation called for it. He pushed on trying to hire the best of the best when it came to doctors, climate scientists, and leaders both on and off the field. In many aspects, his most trusted people were Ana, Vivian, and Gabe, though the last relationship would sour as time went on and they fought more and more.
Despite his desire to focus on O.verwatch's medical and scientific teams, he couldn't ignore Talon. While Jack was kind in as much as he could, Talon was where most of his disdain went. He was glad to make an enemy of them, publicly denouncing them too many times to count and working against them at every turn. Though they were evenly matched in many ways, Talon tended to take the upper hand at times, given their lack of moral constraints. Jack dedicated as much time and effort to fighting Talon on all fronts as he could, though he still found time to argue for O.verwatch's cause in the meantime.
He was not infallible, and this includes many decisions regarding B.lackwatch and his refusal to either earnestly question Gabe or put a stop to certain activities/missions. And on more than a few occasions, Jack was happy to look the other way as B.lackwatch struck against Talon in some capacity. As much as Antonio's death wasn't one he shed a tear over, it was something of a wakeup call to what he was enabling. While he and Gabe had been at odds for a year or two by then, it only intensified when B.lackwatch was shut down. In addition to other stresses, Jack struggled to maintain things while Overwatch began to crumble.
However, he truly believed that he could reunite the warring parts of Overwatch at the conference in the Swiss headquarters, but that was demolished when the building was destroyed with them in it.
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