#next world engraved in the dirt | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

simplydannie · 1 month

Text

@jules0511 ❤️ My partner in crime! Enjoy!

Fame. Money. Adoration? It sounds to good to be true to a young teen surviving in the under city of Mount Rageous. But Velvet took the gig anyway.

Suddenly, chaos sparks around her…. What has she gotten her and her brother into?

Inspired by the Squid Games.

“Fame. Money. Loved and Adored By Many.” Those words eoched through Velvets mind….

BANG! BANG!

Velvet entered the white tiled room. Stacks and stacks of bunk beds were set up all along the side of the white tiled walls. Glancing around, she saw hundreds upon hundreds of Under Rageouns file into the room. How many constants were there? She looked down at her new attire: a dark green track suit sporting the number 235 on the back.

“Veneer.” It dawned to her that she had not seen her brother since being split apart when they entered. She twisted and turned her head looking desperately for him. “Veneer!” She called out.

“Vels!” She heard his voice. She saw his green swoop of hair make its way toward her, under his stupid little purple beanie. Veneer headed to her a little too happily. “Oh you’re number 235! Im 234! Look!” He spun around to show her the number engraved on his back.

“Really? They let you keep that stupid beanie? Of all things?”

“As long as I didn’t have anything hidden I’m good.” He smiled. Veneer was shoved to ground by a taller Under Rageoun. He snickered as Veneer plummeted to the floor. The Rageoun made a gun signal, pointing it at Veneer, and shot…He was his target. Velvet tore away the beanie from his head.

“Hey!”

“You’re an easy target Veneer! Start acting tough for crying out loud! This is a competition!”

Veneer tore his beanie out from her grasp to put it back on again. “I ain’t change for nothing Vels.” He said sternly.

More and more people continue to poor in. Velvet scoped out the competition, making a mental list of who to watch out for, who looked strong willed, strong physically, and a few whom they should avoid. A screen turned on above what they assumed were entry doors. The screen displayed the names of all the contestants… 456 “players”.

“Were supposed to go against 456 people…and win?” She declared. Next to their names were numbers, slowly those numbers went up on some: Velvet had 35 next her name, while her brother remained at 0.

“Hey! Why am i at zero? Vels, what kind of game is this?” He asked her crossing his arms.

“Fame. Money. Adoration. That’s what they said. So were going to suck this up and come out at the top.” She grasped her brother by the shoulders. “Do you understand? You do everything I say, exactly how I say it.” She stated firmly, eyes filled with determination.

“O-okay.” Veneer stuttered.

“Players, please make your ways to the doors in an orderly fasion. Again, please make your way to the doors in an orderly fasion.” A female voice boomed over the sound system above them. Excitement brewed all around…For Veneer, it was just nerves and anxiety, hoping that what they got themselves into would be okay. Veneer took his place behind his sister, following her through the doors.

In a single file, everyone one was lead through a maze of staircases. Veneer couldn’t help but reach for his sisters hand as the nerves continue to settle in. Velvet retreated her hand.

“No.” She whispered harshly, “No weakness.” Veneer nodded. The staircases were endless, twists and turns at every corner. Eventually everyone came to a stop in front of giant doors, all 456 players lined across. Velvet could hear Veneer’s shaky breath. She elbowed him, causing him to tense and straighten up. No weakness, he reassured himself.

Within moments the doors swung open…odd. The players walked into what was a field, something you would see at school, at the playground, a dirt lot. Straight across the dirt was something pecurliar..

“What in the world…” Velvet murmured.

A giant porcelain doll stood facing them. All the Rageouns took a stance behind the white line looking curiously at the doll. Veneer shook in his shoes, his eyes darting around taking in his surroundings. It looked like they were outside, but the whole enterior of the building was made just to look like it. Veneer know it wasn’t real, becuase he didn’t know what the sun was like, what it felt like. Whatever it was, they mimiced it well, even mimicing what a cool breeze would be like.

“Players please take your mark behind the white line.” The voice boomed again over the speakers. Veneer placed himself right next to Velvet.

“No. Stand more that way. If we’re going to win this, we need to make it seem like were not a team. Make it seem like were not in it together.” She whispered. To make it seem like an act, she shoved Veneer away harshly. There was a hurt look in his eyes, this was not the time her wanted to be away from his sister, but she knew best, he had to believe her.

“Players. Today’s game will be the simple game of red light-green light. When the doll says green-light, you are too proceed. When she says red-light, you are to stop. Players who do not stop will instantly be illimanted. You goal is to cross the other side of the marked field before time is up.” The voice said. As if on cue, the doll turned away, facing her back towards the players.

Everyone took their position behind the white line. Veneer stayed near enought to Velvet, keeping a close watch on her. Velvet’s focus was the finish line…she had to cross it…either her or Veneer…they needed to win this..they needed the money. She noticed cameras all around them. Was this being televised? Or were those cameras there to make sure everyone played by the rules? Silence fell upon the players as the timer appeared on the screen up ahead….a pin needle could be echoed through the quietness of the arena……

………..”Green-light.” The voice of the doll echoed. 456 Rageouns took off running, hoping to cover as much ground as they could before….

“Red-light!” Everyone froze. The dool whipped her head around…They were unsure if she could detect movement or not. Then, one Rageoun losted his balance, wiggling a little to catch it…..

BANG!

The Rageoun fell limp on the ground. Velvet’s eyes widened in horror. Was he? No he couldn’t be….That’s when she saw the pool of blood forming around his body.

“Oh…my…..”

A horrific scream echoed in the areana…

BANG!

Then another..

BANG! BANG!

The players soon began connecting what was going on. Most began to run…they ran towards the doors which they entered upon. Banging on the doors, screaming and pleading.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

One Rageoun ran into Velvet knocking her to the ground. Quickly she moved her hands to cover her ears. She waited for a bullet to strike her chest…but it never did.

BANG! BANG!

She could here the bodies fall to the ground one by one. Velvet’s body shook as the terror and realization of what was happening began to come to her. How? How did she get into this?…Her mind went black for a moment…

She was headed to The Pit to look for any jobs she could pick up, anything to bring food to the table for her and her brother. This particular night, a stranger came and approached Velvet as she was glancing at the bounties listed.

“I believe I’ve seen you around places.” The stranger asked her. Velvet turned towards the voice whom spoke to her: It was a tall male adult Rageoun. Pale skin just like all the Rageouns in the under city, stringy dark gray hair strung into dreadlocks that hung to his waist. He wore a red-mucle shirt with dark brown cargo pants. He gave her a sharped, tooth smile.

“Who hasnt? I’m down here practically all the time. Now excuse me.” She turned to continue to read the list of jobs.

“Not just here sweetheart…everywhere in Under Rageous. You’re a twin arent you?” He asked. She froze. How did he know? True, her and Veneer were the only twins she has ever seen in Under Rageous, kind of hard to miss…But this stranger had a particular interest in them. “Twins are rare here in Rageous. You’d attract the eyes whereever you go I’m sure.” He handed her a card.

“There’s a new competition that Mount Rageous is holding.”

Velvet was stunned in silence. Mount Rageous….only the wealthy, the somebodies dwelled in Mount Rageous. Why was this word getting to her? Why her and her brother?

“I am scout. Scouting talent and those who seem interesting enough to partake in this competition. Twins would definetly catch the eye…Winner of this competition will recieve a high comensation, fame, adoration. Think about it. Call this number.”

Velvet looked down at the card. It was a simply cardboad cut with a square, a triangle, and a cirlce printed in the front. Behind, the card was the number.

“Why? Why me and….” When Velvet looked up, the guy was gone. She was left alone at the center of the bustling pit. Velvet enveloped the card within her hand to hide it from anyone. He didn’t explain what kind of competition it was, only that it was to be held by those up in Mount Rageous. Velvet glanced up, up past the cloud line. She could see the lights of what was the upper atmosphere. This could be the chance her and her brother had been hoping for.

That night she went home, she hadn’t discussed what had happened to her brother. He lay asleep while she turned the card over and over again in her hand. Should she wake up? Should she tell him? Velvet picked out the window of the small apartment, looking up towards the lights of Mount Rageous. They been working so hard, tyring to save up so much to make it to the top…this could finally be their chance. Velvet swung the sheets off of her, tiptoeing to the phone so to not wake her brother…

….She hesitated at first….She dialed the number.

….. Velvets mind came back as she crouched in the arena, clutching her ears, eyes shut tight. Her mind was still ringing as the gunshots continued.

BANG. BANG.

“Fame. Money. Loved and adored by many.” The words echoed through Velvet’s mind…

BANG! BANG!

A few more sounded before they stopped….she heard groans, moans… cries of pain and agony.

“Please do not move when the doll says red-light or else you will be eliminated.”

Killed….. when they meant eliminated, they actually meant killed…. Crouching their in silence, her heart suddenly dropped at the realization….Her brother.

“Veneer….Veneer….” Velvet kept repeating his name to herself. She couldn’t look up. She couldn’t move. They were still on red light….. that’s when she saw a pool of blood getting near her feet…. She knew it wasn’t hers….. the blood began engulfing her shoes….She heard a small cry of pain…..

Oh please no….. please not her brother…. Not Veneer…..What had she gotten him into….

To be continued (?)….

35 notes · View notes

kitsuvil · 1 year

Text

— be quiet and drive. [kazuha x gn!reader]

warnings/notes; modern au, angst, NO HAPPY ENDING, breakup angst, lots of arguing, kazuha never actually recovered from his familyless trauma, cursing, im so sorry in advance, listen to glimpse of us by joji after this and imagine yn or zuha expericing it in a new relationship after their breakup

summary; kazuha was on thin ice and he broke it, oops. aka you guys got into an argument and broke up and you drove him home

words; 1k

“I don’t think I can love you anymore like this,” He mutters the words underneath his breath, but every part of my body picks up on it. I’m not even sure what I’m supposed to feel right now. Hurt? Forgiveness? Anger?

‘Do you really mean it?” I drop the car keys.

“No– I mean, I wish I didn’t? You know this, [name]. I love you so much. But neither of us can handle this.”

“Kaedehara Kazuha. No. Why did you think it was a good idea to pull this shit?”

“I never said it was a good idea.”

“So why did you do it?”

“I wasn’t thinking. I’m sorry.”

“Stay sorry, there’s no forgiving this. I can’t accept your apology.”

No matter what emotions course through me right now, I can’t make any logical decisions. No matter the feelings Kazuha’s face clearly carries. The widened eyes that have those all too well-known salty tears forming on them, his mouth that’s still left slightly ajar as he was ready to say his next words of regret. None of those words would mean anything, no matter how flowery he could make them.

“Don’t even think about sucking up to me. No flowers at my doorstep tomorrow morning as if nothing happened, alright?”

“Does this really have to be it?”

“You caused it, Kazuha. Who in their right mind would get drunk and rip every single of their lover’s childhood photos and proceed to cry about how alone and unloved they feel, despite the person right next to them and suddenly try to break up with them? I’ve always been there for you, cried with you for your forgotten family, even took you into my own family with so much trust and love, but you do this in response. You’re jealous, so disgustingly jealous.”

“I was drunk, I didn’t mean any of it.”

“YES YOU DID,” The burning sensation in my throat wells up until the hot tear drops fall down my cheeks. Never did I think I’d be yelling at the love of my life like this. It’s not even that deep, but the cracks in my heart from caring for him so much just to get this in response, just for him to pretend like I’ve never been there for him? Those cracks mean so much more to me than the shared memories we’ve created.

I gave him my own family so that he didn’t deal with the trauma of all of his relatives being passed. I gave him everything, out of compassion and sympathy. And he tossed it to the dirt and decided to rip up my memories. That’s not something I could deal with, not right now.

The look he shared with me when I came home from working for the two of us today is engraved in every part of my brain, no matter how much I wish I could pull it out. It was hopeless and cold, nothing like the Kazuha I started dating a year ago. Nothing like the Kazuha who looked cheerful and excited to explore the world with me. It scared me, the loneliness I didn’t know he was capable of, even if it was momentary. And I don’t know how long it’ll take for me to recover from it. Because if he can say that he doesn’t think he loves me anymore the way he did a year ago, there’s no way I can reciprocate the same feeling. There’s still a knot on my heart, one that he created, and one that I’d have to untie myself if he leaves.

“Take me to Heizou’s, I give up. You won’t hear me out.”

“I was already planning on it. Pack your shit, I’ll be in the car.”

I leave, wanting to be anywhere but near him. Just the sight of him makes me want to start crumbling into bits and pieces nonstop. I can’t leave him like this. But at the same time, it’s what I feel the need to do. I couldn’t pretend like nothing happened. Clearly he wants to break up with me and if he’s going to continue with actions like this, there’s no point in putting in anymore work.

But his hair. And his beautiful face. His hands that seem as if they’re chiseled by some divine being. His smile that I cherish so dearly. I’ll never get to wake up in the morning with his comfort again, I’ll never get to brush my fingers through the red and white colors of his hair. I’ll never get to hold onto those fingers, or kiss that face ever again. And oh man, it hurts.

“I’ll put my stuff in the back,” he opens the door and notifies me before throwing his things onto the seats behind me.

“I tried hard, I really did,” Kazuha whispers, almost as if he’s trying to convince himself more than me.

“Be quiet and let me fucking drive, Kazuha. I don’t care,” I start up the engine and drive away from my home, not bothering to turn on the radio. After a few sniffles and eye-rubbing from Kazuha, everything goes completely silent.

I peek over to the right to check on him, seeing him calm and asleep. If only I could look that calm right now. The sound of his slow breathing makes me more peaceful, but I realize quickly that I have to take a hand off the wheel to wipe a tear that ran down my face.

I see Heizou’s apartment building not very far away, nudging Kazuha for a second to wake him up as I pull into the parking lot.

“Wake up, Zuha. Please. We’re here.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, out you go.”

“Right… I guess I’ll be seeing you– Or not. My bad," Kazuha gets out and takes his things from the back seats and walks away into the building, disappearing into the distance.

“Guess I’ll be seeing you? What is that? Fuck. He’s rubbing salt into the wound. He knows I still love him,” I turn on the car again and head to the first place that comes into mind. The swings at the park by the cliff. The place where we met.

I don’t think there will be anyone who could fill the crater in my heart in the future. I wasn’t ready for this.

a/n; just writing this hurt so bad idk why i thought that was a good decision but i hope u guys like it... i will prob proof read it later

198 notes · View notes

coochiequeens · 7 months

Text

Anthropologist Zelia Nuttall transformed the way we think of ancient Mesoamerica

An illustration of the Aztec calendar stone surrounds a young portrait of anthropologist Zelia Nuttall. “Mrs. Nuttall’s investigations of the Mexican calendar appear to furnish for the first time a satisfactory key,” wrote one leading scholar.Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University

By Merilee Grindle

Author, In the Shadow of Quetzalcoatl: Zelia Nuttall and the Search for Mexico’s Ancient Civilizations

On a bright day early in 1885, Zelia Nuttall was strolling around the ancient ruins of Teotihuacán, the enormous ceremonial site north of Mexico City. Not yet 30, Zelia had a deep interest in the history of Mexico, and now, with her marriage in ruins and her future uncertain, she was on a trip with her mother, Magdalena; her brother George; and her 3-year-old daughter, Nadine, to distract her from her worries.

The site, which covered eight square miles, had once been home to the predecessors of the Aztecs. It included about 2,000 dwellings along with temples, plazas and pyramids where they charted the stars and made offerings to the sun and moon. As Zelia admired the impressive buildings, some shrouded in dirt and vegetation, she reached down and collected a few pieces of pottery from the dusty soil. They were plentiful and easy to find with a few brushes of her hand.

The moment she picked up those artifacts would prove to be pivotal in the life and long career of this trailblazing anthropologist. Over the next 50 years, Zelia’s careful study of artifacts would challenge the way people thought of Mesoamerican history. She was the first to decode the Aztec calendar and identify the purposes of ancient adornments and weapons. She untangled the organization of commercial networks and transcribed ancient songs. She found clues about the ancient Americas all over the world: Once, deep in the stacks of the British Museum, she found an Indigenous pictorial history that predated the Spanish conquest; skilled at interpreting Aztec drawings and symbols, and having taught herself Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs and their predecessors, she was the first to transcribe and translate this and other ancient manuscripts.

A 19th-century engraving of the pyramids of Teotihuacan. The Pyramid of the Sun was restored in 1910, on the centennial of the Mexican War of Independence. Bridgeman Images

She also served as a bridge between the United States and Mexico, living in both countries and working with leading national institutions in each. At a time when many scholars spun elaborate and unfounded theories based on 19th-century views of race, Zelia looked at the evidence and made concrete connections based on scientific observations. By the time she died, in 1933, she had published three books and more than 75 articles.

Yet during her lifetime, she was sometimes called an antiquarian, a folklorist or a “lady scientist.” When she died, scholarly journals and some newspapers ran notices and obituaries. After that, she largely passed from the public’s eye.

Today, anthropologists often have specialized expertise. But in the 19th century, anthropology was not yet a discipline with its own paradigms, methods and boundaries. Most of its practitioners were self-taught or served as apprentices to a handful of recognized experts. Many such “amateurs” made important contributions to the field. And many of them were women.

She was born in 1857 to a wealthy family in San Francisco, then a fast-growing city of about 50,000 people. Near the shore, ships mired in mud—many abandoned by crews eager to make their fortunes in the gold fields—served as hostels to a restless, sometimes violent and mostly male population. Other adventurers found uncertain homes in hastily built hotels and rooming houses. But the city was also an exciting international settlement. Ships arrived daily from across the Pacific, Panama and the east via Cape Horn.

Her well-appointed household stood apart from the city’s wilder quarters, but the people who lived there reflected San Francisco’s international character. Her mother, Magdalena Parrott Nuttall, herself the daughter of an American businessman and a Mexican woman, spoke Spanish, and her grandfather, who lived nearby, employed a French lady’s maid; a nursemaid from New York; a chambermaid, laundress, housekeeper, coachman and groom from Ireland; a steward from Switzerland; a cook and additional servants from France; and nine day laborers from China.

When Zelia was 8, her family left San Francisco for Europe. Along with her older brother, Juanito, and her younger siblings Carmelita and George, Zelia and her parents set off for Ireland, her father’s native land. Over the course of 11 years, the Nuttalls made their way to London, Paris, the South of France, Germany, Italy and Switzerland. Throughout that time, Zelia was educated largely by governesses and tutors, with some formal schooling in Dresden and London. But her time overseas shaped her interest in ancient history and expanded her language skills, as she added French, German and Italian to her fluent Spanish. All of this expansion thrilled her mind, but it also made her feel increasingly out of step with the expectations for young women of her age. “My ideas and opinions form themselves I don’t know how, and I sometimes am astonished at the determined ideas I have!” she wrote in a November 1875 letter.

She took refuge in singing and tried to be pleased with the few social events she attended. Photos from the time show Zelia as an attractive young woman with large, dark eyes, arched eyebrows and stylishly arranged hair. Nevertheless, she was unhappy. “I was infinitely disgusted with some of the idiotic specimens of mankind I danced with,” she wrote in an 1876 letter after a party.

The Nuttalls returned to San Francisco in 1876, when she was nearly 20. Two years later, she met a young French anthropologist, Alphonse Pinart, already celebrated in his mid-20s as an explorer and linguist. He had been to Alaska, Arizona, Canada, Maine, Russia and the South Sea Islands. Pinart may have led the family to understand that he was wealthy. In fact, he was almost penniless, having already spent his significant inheritance.

They were married at the Nuttall home on May 10, 1880. During the next year and a half, the couple traveled to Paris, Madrid, Barcelona, Puerto Rico, Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Mexico. Pinart introduced Zelia to a burgeoning academic literature in ethnology and archaeology, and she began to understand the theories of linguistics. She found 16th-century Spanish hardly a challenge as she consulted annotated codices—pictorial documents that traced pre-Columbian genealogies and conquests in Mesoamerica. While Pinart dashed from project to project and roamed widely among countries, tribes and languages, Zelia began to demonstrate an intellectual style that was more focused and precise.

Despite the excitement of discovery, something began to go wrong in the marriage. Hints of Zelia’s distress can be found in her effusive letters home. There was, for example, the shipboard admission that her husband was less attentive than she had anticipated. She noted that he was “so quiet and undemonstrative” that it was hard to imagine they were newly married. Some fellow passengers thought they were brother and sister—an odd assumption to make, even in Victorian times, about newlyweds.

By contrast, Zelia is nowhere to be found in Pinart’s surviving correspondence. On April 6, 1881, she gave birth to a daughter, Roberta, who lived only 11 days. To add to this melancholy time, her beloved father died in May, leaving her doubly devastated. A letter Pinart wrote to a friend just a few months later from Cuba appeared on stationery with a black border, signifying mourning, but he made no reference to his wife, her father or their child.

Zelia found solace in learning about her heritage when she and Pinart traveled to Mexico in 1881. She was eager to see her mother’s homeland and to hone her understanding of its pre-Columbian cultures. While Pinart carried out his own research, she began to learn Nahuatl, and she toured villages where dialects of the language were still spoken and ruins where the marks of the past could still be found.

The couple returned to San Francisco on December 6, 1881. By then, Zelia was pregnant again. In late January, Pinart set out to spend several months in Guatemala, Nicaragua and Panama, while Zelia awaited the birth of her second child, Nadine, at her mother’s house.

What finally drove Zelia to sue for divorce, on the grounds of cruelty and neglect, remains elusive. She may have felt that Pinart had married her for access to her family’s fortune. Many years later, she angrily informed Nadine that Pinart had spent the $9,000 she had inherited from her father as well as her marriage settlement. When the money was gone, and when her family was firm that he shouldn’t expect any more, he abandoned his wife and child. Once Zelia demanded a separation, he did not contest it, though obtaining the divorce was a long process that started soon after the couple’s return from their travels and didn’t conclude until 1888.

In later life, Nadine Nuttall Pinart would reflect on how much it had cost her to grow up without a father. “From the time before I can remember, he was taboo to me,” she wrote in a 1961 letter to Ross Parmenter, a New York Times editor who wrote numerous books about Mexico and developed a fascination with Zelia Nuttall. “I was frightened by the violent scoldings I got for mentioning his name. Later, I compromised with myself and when asked about him quietly said, ‘I never knew him!’ I realized that people thought he was dead and were sorry for me and said no more. In those days it was a disgrace to have a divorced mother.”

If the period between 1881 and 1888, when Zelia finalized her divorce, was fraught with tension and heartache, this was also when she set about redefining herself as a woman with a vocation. She spent five months in Mexico with her mother, her daughter and her brother between December 1884 and April 1885, visiting Cuernavaca, Mexico City and Toluca, and exploring archaeological ruins. It was during this time that Zelia made her fateful winter visit to Teotihuacan and acquired her first artifacts.

The pieces of pottery she picked up that day were small terra-cotta heads. They were abundant in the area among the pyramids. At the time, the site was still being used as farmland, and the artifacts came to the surface during ploughing. The heads themselves were an inch or two long, with flat backs and a neck attached. Scholars before Zelia—Americans, Europeans and Mexicans—had mused creatively about such relics, describing differences in their facial features and the variety of headdresses they had sported. Drawing on 19th-century fascination with the topic of race, the French archaeologist Désiré Charnay became convinced that he could see in them African, Chinese and Greek facial features. Charnay mused: Had their creators migrated from Africa, Asia or Europe? And if racial identity was a marker of human development, as many believed at the time, what might this curious mixture of features reveal about civilizations in the Americas?

This kind of thinking was typical. Mistaken ideas about Darwinism led many Western scholars to believe that civilizations evolved along a linear, hierarchical path, from primitive villages to ancient kingdoms to modern industrial and urban societies. Not surprisingly, they used this to legitimize beliefs about the superiority of the white race.

Zelia Nuttall divided her collection of terra-cotta heads into three classes. The first included rudimentary efforts to represent a human face (as seen above, far left). The second class (including the bald second head from the left above) had holes for attaching earrings and other ornaments. The third category included the rest of the heads pictured here, sporting what Zelia called “a confusing variety of peculiar and not ungraceful headdresses.” Public Domain

Zelia generally accepted her era’s assumptions about race and class, and she was comfortable with her elite status and its privileges. Yet in her research, she did not categorize civilizations as primitive, savage or barbaric, as other scholars did, nor did she indulge in racial theories of cultural development. Instead, she sought to sweep aside this kind of speculation and replace it with observation and reason.

The more Zelia examined her terra-cotta heads, the more she realized she needed guidance from someone who had more experience in the study of antiquity than she had. At the time, there were no departments of anthropology in colleges or universities, no degrees to be earned, no clear routes to building a career. To pursue her burgeoning interest in the ancient civilizations of Mexico, and to decipher the meaning of an assortment of terra-cotta heads, she contacted Frederic Ward Putnam, the curator of Harvard’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology and a leading expert on Mesoamerica. He agreed to meet her in the fall of 1885. The meeting was all she hoped for: Putnam warmed to her work and encouraged her to follow her intuitive grasp of how to observe and interpret evidence.

Putnam’s regard for women’s intellectual capacities was clear. He was one of a small number of Harvard researchers who gave lectures at “the Annex,” an institution established for women who had passed the college’s admissions test but were not allowed to attend classes or earn a degree. (The Harvard Annex eventually became Radcliffe College.) He hired a resourceful administrative staff of women and encouraged them to play a role in managing the museum. He also had a “correspondence school,” which he conducted through a widespread exchange of letters. As he once wrote, “Several of my best students are women, who have become widely known by their thorough and important works and publications; and this I consider as high an honor as could be accorded to me.”

Within months of their first encounter, in late 1885, Putnam asked Zelia to become a special assistant in Mexican archaeology for the Peabody. Less than a year later, in the annual report of the Peabody Museum, he wrote about her appointment in glowing terms: “Familiar with the Nahuatl language … and with an exceptional talent for linguistics and archaeology, as well as being thoroughly informed in all the early native and Spanish writings relating to Mexico and its people, Mrs. Nuttall enters the study with a preparation as remarkable as it is exceptional.”

With guidance from Putnam, Zelia wrote an investigation of the terra-cotta heads, her first published scientific report, which appeared in the spring 1886 issue of the American Journal of Archaeology. “At the first glance,” she wrote, “the multitude and variety of these heads are confusing; but after prolonged observation, they seem to naturally distribute themselves into three large and well-defined Classes.”

Each class, she theorized, had been created at a different time and represented a different stage in the culture. The first class contained “primary and crude attempts at the representation of a human face.” The second class included the first efforts at artistry. Her inspection revealed “holes, notches and lines,” suggesting ways in which tiny headdresses, feathers or beads could have been attached to the heads, and noted traces of several colors of paint and different kinds of clay.

The third class was the most important, Zelia argued, because of the quality of the molding and carving. This class had “modifications of feature sufficient to give every specimen an individuality of its own,” she wrote. “The faces are invariably in repose, in some the eyes are closed … faces young and smooth, others very elongated, some with sunken cheeks, others with wrinkles.”

By comparing these terra-cotta heads with ancient pictographs and writings, she showed that some of the heads represented children while others depicted young men, warriors or elders. Others showed the distinct hairstyles described in the writings of Bernardino de Sahagún, a 16th-century Franciscan friar who spent 50 years studying the Aztec culture, language and history. “The noblewomen used to wear their hair hanging to the waist, or to the shoulders only. Others wore it long over the temples and ears only,” Sahagún had written. “Others entwined their hair with black cotton-thread and wore these twists about the head, forming two little horns above the forehead. Others have longer hair and cut its ends equally, as an embellishment, so that, when it is twisted and tied up, it looked as though it were all of the same length; and other women have their whole heads shorn or clipped.”

These concrete observations allowed Zelia to challenge popular ideas about the supposed African, Asian, European or Egyptian origins of the “races” in the Americas. For example, by studying the ornamentation the heads displayed, she was able to identify the person or god each artifact represented and interpret its ritual or symbolic purpose. One clearly corresponded with Tlaloc, the pan-Mesoamerican god of rain, who had been shown in the pictographs with a curved band above the mouth and circles around the eyes. Another head, molded with a turban-like cap, corresponded with the goddess Centeotl; Zelia speculated that the clay turbans once had real feathers attached. She also noted the significance of various poses. “In the picture-writings, closed eyes invariably convey the idea of death,” she wrote.

The article revealed how Zelia intended to be seen as a scholar. First, she made it clear that she had read what others had written. Then she revealed that she would go beyond existing speculation to answer questions that had puzzled others; hers was to be original and important work.

In 1892, Zelia presented a paper in Spain about the Aztec calendar stone. Buried during the destruction of the Aztec Empire, the calendar stone had been unearthed in December 1790, when repairs were being made to the Zócalo, Mexico City’s central plaza. The sculpted stone, some 12 feet in diameter and weighing 25 tons, became a popular attraction exhibited in the Mexico City Cathedral, steps from where it had been found. Antonio de León y Gama, a Mexican astronomer, mathematician and archaeologist, had written about its discovery and praised the intelligence of the Aztecs who had created it. Alexander von Humboldt, who saw the stone when he visited Mexico in 1803-1804, included a drawing in his Views of the Cordilleras and Monuments of the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas, published in 1810, and encouraged Mexican intellectuals to study the meaning of its concentric circles and numerous glyphs. Many others took on its puzzles in the years that followed.

At the time of Zelia’s presentation, the Mexican upper classes were carefully crafting a new national image—a story that would allow Mexico to take its place among the modern nations of the world. The Aztecs, Maya, Olmecs, Toltecs, Zapotecs and other cultures had left their imprints throughout the country in magnificent temples, enigmatic statues, gold jewelry, jade figurines and painted murals. This history was reclaimed as a national heritage every bit as glorious as those of Greece and Rome. A statue of Cuauhtémoc, the Aztec king who resisted Cortés, took its place on Mexico City’s elegant Paseo de la Reforma in 1887. The calendar stone had been installed in a place of honor in the National Museum in 1885. But little was known about the actual customs and beliefs of those ancient people.

The Aztec calendar stone, a central focus of Zelia’s research, has been on display at Mexico City’s National Museum of Anthropology since 1885. Alamy

With her extraordinary knowledge of surviving codices, Zelia offered a novel “reading” of the giant calendar stone that had stumped others and provided new insights into the annual and seasonal cycles of daily life in ancient Mexico, illuminating the cosmology, agriculture and trade patterns of the Aztecs. She presented another version of the paper at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893.

Zelia returned to Mexico City in February 1902, and after a personal audience with Mexican President José de la Cruz Porfirio Díaz, arranged by the U.S. ambassador, she embarked on a spree of travel to archaeological sites she had long wanted to visit. In May, she and 20-year-old Nadine joined friends at the Oaxacan ruins at Mitla, a religious center, where the “place of the dead” harbored both Mixtec and Zapotec art and architecture. On this dry, high plain ringed by mountains, Zelia strolled across vast stone patios, inspected the elaborate geometric friezes that lined and decorated them, explored temples and imagined a sophisticated society of kings, priests, nobles, artisans and farmers.

When the Spaniards arrived in Mexico in the 16th century, the Aztec Empire dominated the area. This map of its largest city, Tenochtitlan (now the historic center of Mexico City), was printed in 1524 in Nuremberg, Germany, likely based on a drawing by one of Hernán Cortés’ men. It shows the city’s elaborate network of roads, bridges and canals, complete with aqueducts and bathhouses. The Spaniards executed the last Aztec ruler, Moctezuma II Xocoyotzin, and forced his people to convert to Catholicism. Alamy

Zelia was welcomed into the international community of anthropologists in Mexico. She and Nadine traveled in the Yucatán with the young American anthropologist Alfred Tozzer, where they were beset by frequent rain and terrible roads. Arriving tired and wet in a small town, Tozzer, who would one day chair Harvard’s department of anthropology, was impressed by the women’s resilience. “Imagine the picture,” he wrote to his family on April 8, 1902. “Mrs. Nuttall, never accustomed to roughing it, a woman entertained by the crowned heads of Europe, sitting at a bench with the top part of my pajamas on drinking chocolate and her daughter with a flannel shirt of mine on doing the same.”

After a few months, Zelia and her daughter returned to Mexico City and purchased a mansion they called Casa Alvarado, in the upscale suburb of Coyoacán. The grand house never failed to impress. Frederick Starr, an anthropologist from the University of Chicago, was one of many who found the palace beautiful and restful: “We rode out to Coyoacán where we found Mrs. Nuttall and her daughter really charmingly situated. The color decoration is simple and strong. Nasturtiums are handsomely used in the patio and balcony effects. … While Mrs. Nuttall dressed, Miss Nuttall showed us through the garden, where a real transformation has been effected.”

Living in Mexico energized Zelia. In addition to her affiliation with Harvard, she had funding to travel and collect artifacts for the Department of Anthropology at the University of California. “With me here, in touch with the government and people, I think that American institutions can but profit and that I can do some good in advancing Science in this country,” she confided to Putnam.

Impressed by her knowledge of the country’s past, public officials and foreign visitors came to see her and listened carefully as she led them around her home and garden, explaining the collection she was busy assembling. Her garden, patio and verandas were home to an increasingly large number of stone artifacts, a beautiful carving of the serpent god Quetzalcóatl, revered for his wisdom, among them. She took up “digging” near Casa Alvarado, an activity one guest later recalled fondly. “Every morning after breakfast Mrs. Nuttall would give me a trowel and a bucket. She herself was equipped with a sort of short-handled spade, and we would go out into the surrounding country and ‘dig.’ We mostly found broken pieces of pottery, but she seemed to think some of them were significant, if not valuable. … She was a very handsome woman and very charming. She lived in great style, with many Mexican servants.”

The Codex Borgia, an accordion-folded document of Aztec life, was brought to Europe during the Spanish colonial period. Made of animal skins and stretching 36 feet when unfolded, the codex catalogs different units of time and the deities associated with them. It also includes astrological predictions once used for arranging marriages. Zelia drew on the codex to help her decode the Aztec calendar. Courtesy Ziereis Facsimiles

A section from the Codex Borgia

Zelia continued to travel throughout the country. She found a 14-page codex painted on deerskin, with commentary in Nahuatl, that she believed so valuable that she bought it with her own money, selling some of her possessions to afford it. “Owing to my residence here I must keep it a profound secret that I possess and sent out of the country this Codex,” she wrote to Putnam.

While she was not above smuggling treasures out of Mexico, Zelia also worked in the National Museum, contributing to its displays and archives, and she became an honorary professor of the institution.

Zelia had never owned a home until she bought Casa Alvarado in 1902. In a letter, she described the property as “a beautiful old place with extensive gardens.” Smithsonian Archives

Her Sunday teas at Casa Alvarado were a study in salon orchestration. “She would have 30 or 40 people and she would change the groups she invited,” one visitor recalled. “Sometimes they were all people who knew each other. Or else she would bring people together she wanted to introduce to each other. They weren’t like old-style Mexican parties, with all the women on one side and men on the other. The men and women were mixed together.”

According to an oft-repeated legend, at one of her soirées, she advanced to welcome an eminent guest just as her voluminous Victorian drawers came loose and dropped to her ankles. She calmly stepped out of them and proceeded as if nothing had happened. Zelia was, above all, self-confident.

Zelia Nuttall left Mexico during the early months of 1910 and did not return to her beloved Casa Alvarado for seven years. Throughout that time, Mexico was in the midst of a violent revolution. As many as two million people lost their lives in the ten-year conflict, and the country’s infrastructure was reduced to tatters. Even after the end of the most extensive violence, turmoil erupted sporadically until the late 1920s.

By then, visitors to Casa Alvarado agreed that Zelia was rooted in a bygone era. She was a middle-aged woman with thick glasses who favored shawls, laces and jet beads. Her palace was still filled with stuff only a Victorian could accumulate, but Mexico was telling new stories about itself.

The writer D.H. Lawrence used Zelia as a model for a fictional character—“an elderly woman, rather like a Conquistador herself in her black silk dress and her little black shoulder-shawl.” Antropo Wiki

The elites of the previous generation had asserted that descendants of the Aztec, Maya and other civilizations deteriorated into poverty and abandon. Young artists and intellectuals now rejected this belief. In Diego Rivera’s vast public murals, he showed the people of Mexico being ground into poverty and submission by Spanish conquistadors, a rapacious church, foreign capitalism, the army and cruel politicians. Quetzalcóatl replaced Santa Claus at the National Stadium; Chapultepec Park hosted Mexico Night.

Zelia did not like the revolution and she did not approve of what came after it. She did not celebrate the masses; she believed in hierarchy and a natural order of classes and races. Yet she was determined to be relevant to a new era in Mexico. Casa Alvarado became a meeting place for politicians, journalists, writers and social scientists from Mexico and abroad, many of whom came to witness the possibilities of change in the aftermath of a people’s revolution.

Nevertheless, the stubborn elegance of Casa Alvarado in the 1920s was clear testimony that Zelia was not willing to give up her lifestyle. When the French American painter Jean Charlot was a guest at one of Zelia’s teas, he was aghast at the Mexican servants in white gloves.

When Zelia Nuttall died in 1933, the U.S. consul in Mexico City wrote to Nadine—by then a 51-year-old widow living in Cambridge, England—assuring her that they’d given her mother a tasteful funeral. “Your Mother was very highly thought of here, as evidenced by the floral offerings and the number of her friends who came to the funeral service at the cemetery, it being estimated that about one hundred persons were present.”

By that time, the field of anthropology was dramatically changing, becoming more systematic and organized. Those who entered the field in the 1920s and 1930s built expertise in the classroom and under supervision in the field, passing a variety of tests and milestones determined by academic experts and acquiring a credential as proof of the right to pursue these inquiries. With these rigorous new standards, they asserted their superiority as scholars over those of Zelia’s generation.

Researchers thought this item at Vienna’s Museum of Ethnology was a “Moorish hat” before Zelia identified it as a Mesoamerican headdress. Alamy

Yet Alfred Tozzer, in his memorial in the journal American Anthropologist, reflected that Zelia “was a remarkable example of 19th-century versatility.” She was wrong in some of her overarching theories. For instance, she fallaciously argued that ancient Phoenician travelers had carried their culture to Mesoamerica. But she was right about many other things. Through her letters, articles and books, we can trace what she got right and what she got wrong as a scholar, and we can follow her as she moved from one research obsession to the next.

Her private life is harder to grasp. Among all the artifacts, there is little about the quips and gossip she exchanged with friends, the piano music she liked to play and sing. We cannot know what was in the boxes of papers in the cellar of Casa Alvarado that were burned in the housecleaning undertaken by its new tenants. We cannot retrieve personal and public documents lost in the San Francisco earthquake in 1906.

What we do know is that she had to make sacrifices, often very personal ones. We can feel her vulnerability, uncertainty, anger and embarrassment in the letters she wrote, as well as her self-assuredness. It required unusual self-discipline to learn so many languages and to gain a mastery of ancient pictographs. Her almost constant travels imperiled her health even while they advanced her vast network of friends, colleagues and patrons. But she continued to work, and that work helped establish the foundation on which many others now build.

A single mother pursuing a career while looking after a family in a man’s world: In some ways, Zelia Nuttall was a very modern woman.

Adapted from In the Shadow of Quetzalcoatl: Zelia Nuttall and the Search for Mexico’s Ancient Civilizations by Merilee Grindle, published by The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Copyright © 2023 by Merilee Grindle. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

#Women in history #Women in Anthropology #Zelia Nuttall #The Aztecs #Merilee Grindle #In the Shadow of Quetzalcoatl: Zelia Nuttall and the Search for Mexico's Ancient Civilizations #Books by women #Books about women #teotihuacan #mesoamerica #Nahuatl #Published women #Many of the first anthropologists were women #Alphonse Pinart was just another man who blew through his money #Women's careers flourishing after dumping a parasitic man #Frederic Ward Putnam #Men who encouraged women #The Annex #Lady scientist

40 notes · View notes

wonderinc-sonic · 10 months

Text

The Dirt in Which our Roots May Grow

Gen, Bittersweet, Supershort, Espio/Silver

Title from North by Sleeping at Last

ahA so I was thinking about this shit little doodle I did on the pad I keep next to my desk, just before I decided to write A Short Stay. This concept doesn't fit in that story anymore, but I decided to scribble it up in case anybody fancied it - as with all my fanfics, I own nothing, you're welcome to anything, I just wanted to see this concept. Crossposted, also under the cut!

The first two sprouting leaves of the Maple seeds had finally pronged through their sheltered sleeping tray. Espio assessed them carefully for size, strength and colour, as he gently dug them from their one shared pot to separate ones.

That spring, he returned to the garden alone, to tend the annuals and curate a harvest he hoped Silver would return in time to see. He'd found a garden plan in the shed when he came by to pull the weeds as he'd offered to do while Silver was away, and he tried to follow it as best he could, as well as borrowing one tray for his own project.

So, Espio was back at the garden every week, sometimes twice, to tend and prepare for the year ahead, and his Maple-saps crept up from baby leaves to young stalks, and finally by late spring he felt able to plant them. Metres apart - and from the garden, he placed each into the earth with care and a prayer that some of them would survive their first year.

With all the best will and supports in the world, not every hope outlasted the seasons, but with his careful attention, a few did. Silver admired their merry leaves in autumn, when he next stopped for long enough to spend time in the garden.

"It's a surprise." Espio smiled quietly, leading him back to the garden, where he was badgered and bothered for whole minutes until Silver was distracted by harvesting.

The Maplegrove grew over years, but Espio kept visiting. It was insanity to tend well established trees, but he needed them to do more than thrive: they had to outlive him twice over.

A lone maple remained in the field where Silver's garden was. He returned to the site excitedly after spending the autumn harvesting and seeing the sprouts, only to find one dead tree clinging onto the ground, the wind rattling through its wiry branches its last breaths.

"No..." He mumbled to himself, and his cyan glow spread to the tree so it stood still with him. He assessed it all over for damage he could remove, or signs of green within it's snapped twigs, but it was a skeleton of all their good intentions together.

Espio had done everything he could, had them protected and cherished by those around him. After his time, though, one tree perished in a record breaking storm, and another caught blight that spread to the rest. The ground was bumpy where they'd been, but otherwise the tides of earth and weathwr had washed away any other sign they were ever there at all.

Silver couldn't hold the last tree forever. He floated around it, inspecting their branches and runninf his fingers along the wood. Buried in a hollow, he found a heart engraved: "S, love E".

The tree groaned even with Silver's powers holding it up. Carefully, he used his mind to saw out the section with the heart, and as he walked away he let it go, and it collapsed.

Silver whittled and carved, dried and varnished the saved maplewood, finally hanging it in his home. It was a poor memorial to his garden, his grove, and his love, but at least the heart remained. When he next saw Espio, he assured him how beautiful they would be in their time, but suspected he wasn't a good enough liar. Their time lay somewhere inbetween both of their lives.

#silver the hedgehog #espio the chameleon #espilver #silvespio #wonderincs #writincs #sonic fanfic #<- just barely lol

30 notes · View notes

sinfulpunishment · 5 months

Text

✎ᝰ┆Hail Mary

─❏ Warnings: implied suicide

─❏ Characters: Fyodor Dostoevsky

─❏ Synopsis: Would mama be proud?

─❏ A/N: i support fyodor being a mama’s boy allegations

inspired by ventoavreo

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

Despite the sun shining brightly down upon this town, the world in my eyes had been completely drained of its color.

I knelt before the stone slab of which had your name engraved on it, my hands clasped together in prayer with white, wilting lilies woven between my small, frost bitten fingers. Never would I have known that being near you would feel so cold and harsh, for it had never felt that way before.

The church had refused to give you a proper service due to the nature of your untimely passing. Much to my disliking, I could not argue against God. I knew that if I had, you would have given me a frown to remind me of my faith.

And so, with my own hands, as well as the help of a few of your acquaintances, I laid you down to rest in the earth. I had gathered my own flowers and coins to lay in your bed alongside you, a bed you will never rise from—I hope it is comfortable and to your liking.

I did my best to dress nicely for the occasion, I even assisted in making sure that you looked just as beautiful as always, despite your fading complexion. I planted one final, gentle kiss upon your once warm cheek before they lowered you into the ground, covering their mistakes with dirt. I did not cry, I did not believe that you would have wanted me to.

She always had the warmest embrace. The way she would cradle me in her arms made it feel as if nothing else in the world mattered besides us. You were like an angel, or perhaps even a saint. Alas, your passing certainly proved to me your mortality far too soon.

I wish you would hold my face in your delicate hands once more, looking at me with the most gentle of eyes—eyes that, when gazed into, felt as if one had fallen into a pool of silk. I wish to hear your voice, reminding me that I am blessed by God, I am loved by God, but, most importantly, I am loved by you.

I wanted nothing more than to show you the world I would have created, a world without sin, just as God had intended. You would have loved it there because you would have been happy. No longer would you spend nights weeping and worrying over what you’re going to do to get through this next month, everything would be prepared for you beforehand. It would make you smile, and I believe that would make it all worthwhile.

You used to tell me that I was special, that I must be a gift from God. Though, you weren’t the only one to say that, it felt far more significant coming from you. You were different from anyone else, you weren’t tainted by humanity’s sin.

At least, you used to be clean…

Oh, my dearest mother, what did they do to you? Why did they push their grievances upon you? You had nothing to do with their affairs, you were but a bystander, and yet they hurt you.

What a terrible experience it is to feel the warmth flee from someone’s body along with their life, especially when that someone is your own mother. Discovered laying on the kitchen floor, mouth agape with that crimson ink spilling from it—there was blood pooling around the body on the floor. She was barely recognizable, not because of any disfigurement, but because she was a woman of strong faith.

What could have driven someone so dedicated to God to such an act?

You were once so pure, free of sin, I thought you were above it. Yet, they tainted you. They hurt my mother. You left this world—you left me in one of the most sinful ways possible. I wonder if they’re proud of what they did to you.

These sinful people, filled with nothing but greed and driven by desire, they soiled your good name. They disgust me beyond belief, and yet, I still pity them. If only there was someone who could save them from their sin…

God ensures everything happens for a reason, right mama?

I will show them the light of God. They will soon know the meaning of my name. May they repent and pray for God’s forgiveness at the pearly gates. I do not care if they are forgiven or not, part of me hopes they will be damned for the rest of their time away from the Earth.

I hate them.

I hate them all.

May God pity their souls, it’s the only hope they have left.

Even now, I feel you embracing me; so warm and comforting, it feels like home. I will take you with me to a new world.

I will make you proud, mama.

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Mother of God, Son of God.

#bsd #bungou stray dogs #bungo stray dogs #fyodor #bsd fyodor #fyodor dostoevsky #fyodor dostoyevsky #fyodor dostoyevsky bsd #sinfulpunishment #fyodor x reader

18 notes · View notes

sapphireshineauthor · 9 months

Text

Hamefura Poll Fic: Part 2

This should probably have a title... perhaps "A Long Way From Home"? (I shall also put this under "hamefura poll fic" in the tags, I'll be tagging it solely in that after part 4-5. Enjoy this one, and thanks for voting on the first one! Enjoy this continuation!

Previous | Next

Previous Vote: > | A strange tablet with angelic wing engravings | <

The ringing was coming from some kind of tablet. It was on a shelf near Alan and it began to glow a faint blue along the wing like carvings. They went to it and saw in more detail other odd carvings in the center, the wings merely framing them. What looked like alchemic circles danced across the stone in smooth and jagged patterns.

"Uh, is anyone hearing voices?" Alan asked as they focused on the tablet that began to blink and pulse with light.

"I think so, it's very faint though…" Mary said as she got closer to the object.

Data… Boundary…. Potential…

"What is that?" Mary wondered as the barely audible words sounded broken from the tablet.

Alan remained focused on it. "What even is this thing?"

Alan reached out to grab the tablet. Only when he did, the room suddenly became engulfed in light. Everyone barely had a chance to shout out each other's names before the world sounded with a deafening ringing sound before suddenly going dark.

*+*+*+*+*+*+

Geordo blinked open his eyes with a groan, ow… why did his body feel like it's been run over by a carriage?

The first thing he noticed was how dark it was. The second thing he noticed was the shadow of dense trees overhead and the loud chirping of crickets. The third thing he noticed was that he was lying on uneven grass and dirt, not old, wooden floorboards.

He sat up with a wince as he tried to look around. He was definitely in a forest, but it didn't look like one he recognized. He heard a slight groan beside him.

"Mary?"

Mary sat up as well, rubbing her head as well. "What happened? Where are we?"

"I don't know, Alan touched that tablet in the storage room and…" Geordo looked around, "Alan? Alan!"

Mary stood up following Geordo's shouts, but looking around, the silver haired prince was nowhere to be seen.

Geordo stopped for a moment as he tried to think. That tablet caused this, did they ended up teleported somewhere? But then…

"It was early afternoon when we started." Geordo said, "It's practically the middle of the night now."

Looking up above the dense treeline, the light coming from the moon and stars just managed to shine through.

He was about to call out again before he heard rustling leaves and saw Mary walk back to him.

"Alan isn't in this area," Mary said, "But there is a city a short distance from here. It… looks very strange."

"A city?"

"Yes, but it's not Sorcier, it's actually not a city I recognize at all." Mary said, she was getting more and more confused by the situation the longer they stood here. "It doesn't look like any of the ones we studied or seen. Come with me."

Geordo followed Mary through the small clearing to an opening in the treeline. His eyes widened.

There, standing just a mile or so ahead, was a "city". It wasn't flat like Sorcier, but with it's still wide grounds, it was stacked up like a tower. Lights shone from the different levels and some kind of structure stood at the top of it.

"Where are we?" Geordo breathed. None of this made sense, where was Alan? Where are they? What is this place? What did that tablet do? He didn't know what to make of any of it. He looked further to see the roads leading into the city and saw a small cart with a lantern not too far traveling along. It looked like it was taking a different path into it.

"Considering this, we don't know where we are, what shall we do?" Mary asked, she was at a loss for what to do. But hopefully some discussion will merit some fruit. Hopefully with an end result showing them where Alan is… wherever that may be.

#bakarina #hamefura #hamefura poll fic #my next life as a villainess #geordo stuart #mary hunt #hamefura fanfic

10 notes · View notes

judgementdaysunshine · 10 months

Text

Chapter 10

Life or death

You woke up and put the rest of the food and water in the house in your pack before putting clothes in another bag you found before reluctantly leaving after bandaging your feet having more energy and drive than you had in a long time. You slowly look through the rest of the houses and after eating you go back in the jungle with the hammer crowbar in your hand ready to swing and attack if needed as you walk through the jungle not knowing what would await you and happen within the next couple hours would be the most painful, terrifying, and unforgettable moments of your life that will change you in a way that you never knew could happen to anyone especially you with how cautious, more alert, and aware of the world and people you were ever since you were growing up with how close you were with your family and how they taught you to always be alert of the world, your surroundings, and people you have around you very closely, you feel homesick and emotional thinking of your family wanting to hug and hold each of them and never let go as you slowly think of memories you had with all and every single member from you parents, older siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins as you feel your heart shatter slowly at each memory until you hear a noise that stops you in your tracks. You look frantically and carefully as the sounds continue before slowly walking until the next thing you hear is a roar and you see a flash of dots before the mud and dirt on the ground as you swing the hammered crowbar and scream while feeling excruciating and burning pain through your body as you see the eyes and mouth of a jaguar until you hear footsteps and the next thing you knew was that the jaguar was yanked off of you as you moan and cry in pain grabbing and pulling yourself up running as fast as you could while hearing the jaguar growl and yelp along with what sounded like a stick or something heavy as you ran until it was completely quiet as you feel blood pour down your body and something stuck in your eye and your neck, you grab and pull a thing and long object from your neck which started moving making you cry in fear knowing it was a parasite that you had for god knows how long since you've been in the jungle as you realize your eyes was swelled shut as you throw up feeling your eye and gently pull what was in your eye looking and realizing it was one of the jaguar's teeth. You cough roughly and wheeze as you hear footsteps making you hide behind a tree as you hear a thud against the ground, looking to see a bloodied rock on the ground with a leaf stuck to it before seeing a torn and bloody shoe a few feet away before your eyes widen with tears in your eyes as you see the familiar engravement of your initials in the big boot realizing that the noises you heard while on the ground was yelling and who had found and helped you in your situation of need as you grip your fingernails in the tree.

#wwe x reader #into the jungle #damian priest #wwe #damian priest x reader

12 notes · View notes

adalz · 1 year

Text

Lacrymosa - part 6

pairing: Zeke x Reader ー Priest!Zeke x Angel!Reader ー Angel!Levi / Angel!Reader

chapter warnings: mention of violence and blood, mention of death and wounds, mention of war / sacrilege tw, yada yada

world count: 6.4k

a/n: Levi. That's it.

<< prev. part | series m.list | next part >>

Someone was calling your name.

Only no one upon these lands could have imitated its distinctive sound. Not in this way. There were only a few people who called you like that. Only one voice calling you with this intonation.

A familiar language that you had once dreamed of hearing on these lands. A voice that had resounded thousands of times on opaline surfaces and in too pristine halls. Now it echoed beyond the treetops, throughout the entire sky. It was calling you. That voice, so warm, so far away. Silver gleams already shining everywhere.

He was coming.

You could feel him, souls trembling from being so far apart.

He was coming, from the depths of the world.

And all you could feel was him, deep in your bones. It was pulling at your insides, like the ocean draining away the waves before a tsunami. Inexorably drawn in, subject to a force too violent, that would engulf everything. You could hear his voice, loud in your head.

He was coming, and as his wings struck the Surface sky, snow started to fall upon forgotten lands.

He was coming, and with him, eternal winter.

Everything he saw, you saw in turn through his eyes. It was as if you were guiding his steps, as if you were the only one who could show him the way, towards the fire, towards the blood-soaked lands, towards destruction. As if you were the only one who could call him to you.

You could see the scenery flash before his eyes. As familiar landscapes appeared before him, you recognized them - you knew them from a dream. You knew them, but not from so high up in the sky. Then, you saw a mountain, you saw a cliff, edged by pines. From above, you saw the path, the one going towards the house. You saw traces of steps, hundreds of them, as engraved in the ground.

Great wings beating hard, shattering the opaque air - everything was denser, darker that you knew. The world was bathed in an acrid smoke, which clung to the eyes and embedded itself inside the lungs. And when his eyes fell upon where the house was supposed to be, there was nothing but a raging fire. There was the shape of a house, there were memories of what it used to be.

And the fire was burning everything. The stone walls had exploded under the weight of the burning old frame, sending huge embers crashing down. There was no floor, there was no roof anymore. Fire devoured everything.

He knew.

He knew it was here that it all took place. He could feel it as well, the pain enfolding, the distress coming from deep within his soul. He stayed there, above the blaze, staring at the flames, before closing his eyes for a moment, trying to focus.

“This way…”

His eyes glanced towards the forest.

Silver wings started beating harder the air all around, making the treetops tremble and blowing the dust off the ground. There was no pain, all movements smooth and natural. Only stinging in his chest, sorrow, devouring and insidious. Only a voice, pulling from inside.

Carefully, he set a foot on the Surface’s grounds. He took a step - and you could feel the dirt under the sole of his feet as if it were you who had walked.

He was not frightened. He was not lost and confused as you once was; he moved forward, head high, wings wide open, invested with a purpose. And perhaps, in his walk, a certain habit emerged, that of treading the dust of the Surface. He started walking towards the forest, through the path of those woods you knew too well. And behind him, the blaze ran out of steam, the scorching flames suddenly feverish. The embers died slowly, devoid of heat. Frost already absorbing everything.

And with him, the world plunged in winter.

Everything was still. Everything was immobile. Yet, there was a thing luring him forward, hasty and restless. A silent cry guiding him towards a familiar soul, towards a missing piece of himself.

And as he walked, the world died quietly.

Through the trees, he passed by the mortals and their torches and their guns. Everything was still. The moment on hold. He passed by them, and their torches went out as he walked. He passed by them, and their bodies collapsed on the ground.

That was the cost for laying eyes on a child of Ymir. That was the cost, for considering spilling their blood. He kept on walking, and as he did, lifeless bodies fell onto the ground, skin cold and death freezing on their lips.

Finally, he stepped into a clearing.

And as he walked upon the Surface, he recognized it, just like you did when you first saw it. A Temple to Ymir. The colonnades were still there but enclosed by walls. It was washed from its vivid colors, stained-glass shattered into a million pieces.

He had always thought they all had been destroyed, all those centuries ago. That none of them still stood on their ground. But it was here, it was real. The last piece of the puzzle. - hidden away and forgotten.

His eyes eventually fell on the shape of a body, lying in the high grass.

It was dressed in black, elongated limbs squeezed into a movement, twisting a body too tall. And only as he got closer, he saw the opaline face framed by light hair.

At the sight of the face, something arose in him. Powerful, too raw for him to contain. It tasted like anger. Like a senseless hatred clouding his own judgment. A mirror to your emotions, mixed with his. It took him a moment to collect himself. To suppress it all.

As he stood there, he observed the mortal, the bloodstains on her untidy clothes. There had been a struggle, her collar had been tugged until it was torn. Her arm was stretched out, a broken wrist, reaching towards something. A little further away was a gun.

It was a cursed soul still throbbing in a broken body.

He closed his eyes. You felt the sigh on his lips as he turned away from her.

And snowflakes crashed against the bruises on her face. Her breath died in the cold.

“This is it,” he thought. This was the cost they had to pay. The sweet liberation of death.

And as he walked closer towards the Temple, the pulling at his chest became stronger, like a pulse, pounding harder with each step.

He abruptly stopped.

All around him, late autumn flowers were stained in red.

Another body laid there, at his feet.

A boy, he saw, his eyes closed, corners still wet from tears - they had marked his face in such a delicate way, wet trails, drawing sinuous paths on his dusty cheeks. Yet the fragility of the moment did not capture what was really on the young face. It was the pain engraved on the features. This was a boy, only a boy.

His white garment was pierced in a single place, right below his heart. From there, life had escaped, in a wake of blood, thick arabesques. A single shot, a fatal wound.

There was nothing there. A fragile life already gone. But there, against his clothes, were feathers.

And so, he knelt beside the boy. Carefully, he brought his hand to the cold face.

He didn’t know what compelled him to do so. He couldn’t fathom why there was such sorrow, why it made him sick to just look at him. Why it angered him so much. As his fingers skimmed over his frozen skin, he took away the grief and the pain from his soul. Freed him. When he finally stood up, his hands were shaking.

Time was ticking away dangerously. The seconds hanging in the hourglass, flowing dangerously to the bottom. His power was waning, quivering on his forgotten land - like a torn fabric, letting the grains of sand of an endless desert creep in. There was no time for grief, no time for mourning. It was here, so close. But there was no one else in the clearing. Yet he knew what he was looking for. He knew you were here.

In the grass, under his feet, stains of blood. Blood everywhere. He followed it, and with each step, the sole of his feet turned scarlet. He walked in the shattered glass, towards the Temple. It had to be there.

The facade was decrepit, the limestone ancient and stained by time. There were a few steps leading to a stoop, dug by the weight of the millions of feet having one day climbed the stairs. He stopped in front of a door that had been left ajar. It creaked as he pushed it open.

A few seconds passed, for his eyes to get used to the darkness. For his mind to capture what was inside. Pews, and dust floating around. An altar lit up by the sky. There was a gaping hole in the ceiling. The light coming from the sky was gray, the pale sun of the Surface hidden by dark clouds.

On the marble floor, footprints led behind the altar.

He took a few steps, his own heart pounding harder than ever.

There, there was a shadow, the shape of bodies tangled together on the floor. Step after step, he walked towards them.

He discerned a mortal man. His back to him, body bent - every bone in his spine showing through his bare skin. It was a vulnerable position, to the slightest blow. His head was low - resting against the body in his arms, and his forearms were covered in blood. His face couldn’t be seen, only the strands of flaxen hair falling on the side of his face. He was holding someone tight, covering their face with one hand, as if trying to stop the blood from running away.

It hurt. It was agony, just to look at the scene. The despair in which he was lost. The preciousness of the one within his arms. How willing he was to give everything away for a fragment of life.

And as he stepped closer, the attraction suddenly snapped within him.

In his arms, there was you.

Finally, you thought - and it echoed in Levi’s mind.

“Finally, I found you,” he said.

“Finally, you came,” you said.

And you watched as he knelt down in front of you.

You watched what he saw. You heard what he thought. That mortal, blood spilling and spreading over his fingers. That impudent man, daring to touch you. That insolent creature, doomed for eternity for having laid his eyes upon you.

But all you could see was a broken man, trying to make sense out of the chaos. A man, trying his best to survive. A little boy turned into a soldier, still believing that life was something to protect. A boy, trying to heal a wounded being. All you could see was Zeke. Zeke holding your dying body in his arms. All you saw was the distress on his face, the tears on his cheeks. Your Zeke, alone in the darkness. Losing everything all over again.

You would have liked to reach out to him, to his body, to his skin. You would have liked to hold him tight, there, against your heart. You would have liked to cry out, to mourn the justice of this world. But you were a mere spectator of the horror, a messenger of a destiny about to collapse, the witness of a last moment. And Levi's hands remained still at his side.

“He never should have touched you,” Levi said, and you couldn’t see his face as he spoke.

All you could see was Zeke.

And if it was not love that you saw, you were the most miserable being in this universe. Because it was in the way he was holding you, so dearly, when there was no hope. It was in that pain, a gaping hole that you could feel resonate everywhere.

When Levi eventually made a movement, his hands came to you. Abruptly, he tore you out of his arms, out of his embrace. Zeke's body remained there, kneeling and broken, as if petrified, while you were already moving away from the warmth of his arms.

He carried you towards the altar, where the light was coming from the sky. There, he could almost feel the wind on his face.

“That’s where I fell,” you murmured in his mind.

“I searched for you everywhere,” he whispered. “I searched in every sea, every ocean, in every bottomless abysses. On every battlefield I went, and among the bodies of dead soldiers, I was looking for you.”

“I waited for you to come. But you never did.”

Through his eyes, you watched as Levi looked at your face, as if for the first time. He looked at the wound. He may have winced. You understood the fire and the blood covered world. You understood that she had aimed at your face.

With the softest caress, he touched your forehead.

And then, like a song played in reverse, he watched as the wound healed by his touch, as the blood flowed in reverse and as your skin closed under his skin, like sand blown by the wind. He waited, for what seemed hundreds of years, until your mind would let go of his.

He felt it giving in. He felt your skin getting warmer under his fingers. He watched as you opened your eyes.

The prettiest eyes he had ever seen.

And when you opened your eyes - heavy, so heavy - Levi was here, before you.

It was him, truly him. His face so real - and the joy of finally remembering washed over you. All the memories came back, as if you had run after them after they had started to evaporate. It was like chasing the birds in the sky, like cupping the butterflies in your hands before they were to flutter too high.

You sighed with ease.

“But you’re here now,” you whispered.

And his eyes, that silver color that always made you feel safe, suddenly closed. Long and dark lashes, drawing shadows on his cheeks.

When he opened his eyes again, they were shining bright. His jet black hair, always carefully tucked behind his ears, were falling on his cheekbones, hiding the sight of him.

“I thought I had lost you.”

You didn't let go of him while he told you, you had to hold him, always, never letting him go. He stayed like that. He talked. He talked, talked to himself. You listened attentively to a somewhat incoherent monologue, without importance. As for you, you listened to his memory starting up, apprehending hollow forms that made sense only for him, if you considered the memories ones to the others - like a game with lost rules.

You had waited for this for so long. So long, to hear the sound of his voice, the sweet ricochet of your names on his tongue. He said it again, and again and again, to make sure that it was true. That it was real. That you were real.

It was real.

All of this was real. And it hit you, like a slap across the face. That it was all real, that outside, there was nothing but blood under the snow-covered world.

Your eyes suddenly snapped back towards Zeke. There, his body still in the darkness, frozen in time.

Before you could say a word, Levi mumbled against your shoulder, “Let’s go home.”

Home.

You had dreamt of those words. You had dreamt of it.

There had been so many sleepless nights. So many questions, so much anguish. What if no one ever comes? What if they all forgot about me too?

But then had come the truth. The sacred texts and the strange beliefs. Then came affection and warmth. And with that truth, came peace.

It was impossible. You could not leave everything there, not like that. Not yet.

“I can’t,” you said.

Levi’s head jerked up, to stare at your face.

“What?” His face was stoic, only the furrow of his forehead betrayed his thoughts.

“I can’t go back, after being here for so long.”

“Yes, you can.”

“No, Levi, I can’t.”

Suddenly, Levi stood straight. For a moment, you looked into each other's eyes.

“What do you mean?” he asked, and his eyes were fixed in yours, looking for a sign, for an explanation. The weight of the words hard to grasp. “Is it because of me? Is it because I couldn’t find you?”

And you wanted to tell him it was all right, that it was not his fault. But that would have been a lie. If he had come sooner, things would have been different, perhaps. If you had known the truth, all along, things wouldn’t have been the same. It was not his fault, neither was it yours. It was just the world you were born in.

Carefully stroking the side of his face, you said, “I can’t leave him there.”

And with these words, you slowly parted from his body. You walked around the altar, in this moment suspended between those two worlds. You knelt down in front of the man that had held you, the one that had kept you alive. The one that swore to protect you.

Zeke’s face was imbued with such great despair. His sweet face, stained with blood and loss. And you wanted nothing more than to hold him in your arms, for eternity. To make sure he was safe, and that life was treating him fairly. That those wounds he had suffered wouldn’t kill him. That nobody would hurt him more than he already was.

“I can’t leave him like that,” you whispered.

Selfishly, you would have thought that he would understand. Surely, he would understand. Surely there was hope. You looked up at Levi.

But his eyes were shining with something dark. All these emotions on his face, they were all new.

He had stood up from where he was. He took a step. And as he walked, his face lowered dangerously. Snowflakes slid slowly behind him, across the ceiling.

“What did he do to you?” And his words were nothing but a deep whisper. A warning.

You stayed there, knees against the cold stone, in this Temple forgotten by time.

Some part of you wanted to rush towards him, to grab his hands. Words formed on your lips, around your tongue, excuses, only excuses - trying in vain to find something to say. Something to make him understand, quickly, something to erase that look of pure disgust. Something to bring him back to you. Something to make sure he was the same, and you were the same, and nothing had to change. Anything.

Nothing but the truth came out of your mouth.

“He saved me. He saved me when no one else did.”

He was getting closer, eyes dark. Inside your chest, you felt your heart for the first time in forever, pounding too hard.

“I gave him everything I had because he was the sole reason I was alive. Because he was torn and fragile and he showed me love like no one else ever did-...”

One syllable, filled with rage. It echoed everywhere. A beast’s roar. He yelled, a single word. In denial.

At that very moment, you thought “So it’s all true.”

Not only Zeke had been right. Humanity was.

Because you saw something in his eyes. Something so violent, so sharp, you felt it piercing through your heart. You saw it all, glimpses of things you would have never imagined running upon his face. He was looking straight through you, and all you could see was it - the violence of his stare.

So you led in, caught Zeke’s body, brought him against your chest. Your hands tightened around his shoulders as you looked back at Levi.

But before you were nothing but these silver eyes. Gleaming back at you, casting a gloom over the world all around. In his back, glorious wings, stretched open, so wide, wider than you could even remember. Taking all the space between those walls. Hiding away the sunlight.

Those wings, taking him places you could never have imagined. Always, always shining so bright. But the truth was covered in blood.

Humanity had been right all along. Their stories might have been different from the ones you’d been taught, but they were right. All you knew was nothing but fabricated lies.

It was true, yet very violent to fathom. But as you stood there, kneeling in front of this man, you suddenly understood.

What they meant, all this time.

That Levi was the Angel of death.

It was a stranger standing before you. It was a threat; it was an enemy. All that you could see was death in his eyes. It was hatred and disgust. And you never really knew him.

You never really knew anyone. Because they kept on lying and lying and lying to you, about the Surface and the world and Mankind. You weren’t even sure that you could fly nor that the pristine halls of Paradis ever existed.

Seconds went by, and you were nothing but a mere child under his stare. You could have cried, pleaded, and begged, but did none of it. You felt sick in your stomach. On the verge of dying.

It was as if you had forgotten how to breathe. As if your own life was running through your fingers. As if he knew everything, every fragment of your soul and your deepest desires. And under his stare, there was nothing, nothing, you could do. Those eyes you remembered so full of affection were long gone. Standing before you, a man you’d never seen before. There was so much to ask, so much to confront, the contradictions and the lies. But you were quick to realize, at this moment, that the Goddess never made gentle children.

All of you were sinners, as your once humanity cursed you to be.

Savage brothers and sisters.

Five words echoed in the Temple. Through his gritted teeth, spitted out like venom, he pronounced five words, enough to ground you back into the world.

“I will slice his throat.”

And there was no such thing as pity in his eyes. His jaw was set, the joints of his fingers going white around the grip of a blade - a weapon you suddenly remembered him wielding. Long and sharp, beveled blade. Holy weapons, called to their bearer side by their will only, granted by the Goddess Herself to Her children.

It all came back to you. The day of the attack. What happened before the fall.

You remembered coming out of a stupor when the first blow sounded against the doors, echoing in the empty and quiet halls. Before you knew it, you were standing in front of them, so massive, your spear in your hands.

You remembered fighting with your own weapon. Sharper and deadlier than an arrow. Piercing the flesh, nailing the bodies to the ground. All of it, so vividly, the blows knocking them down. It was something you knew how to do. It was something engraved within you.

In your back, wings started fluttering painlessly. You raised your head to him, ignoring the blurred world all around you. And instead of the shaking words you thought you'd pronounce, there was a raging shout.

“Then I’ll kill you.”

His wings began to beat, blowing the dust and flakes into your face. But instead of keeping your head down in front of him, in front of his power and strength, you stood up, Zeke's body heavy in your arms. There, right up against you. Where nothing could ever take him away.

“I'll bleed you with my own hands on those cursed grounds if you take one more step.”

Levi was staring at you, his disgusted eyes everywhere on you, glaring at the man in your arms. He took another step.

You imagined it, his blade slicing Zeke’s throat. His life over forever, and being the one responsible for it. Not fighting for what you wanted, for what you deemed right, was out of question.

“I said stop!”

And it was more than a shout this time. It almost took you aback, the sheer force of it, the vibrant and unbreakable words.

An inexorable command to which every being would yield.

And Levi stopped dead in his tracks. The beating of his wings suddenly lagged, bringing to a halt the storm around you. Immobile in turn, in this in-between plan of the universe which seemed to be his alone.

Every muscle on his face was twitching, betraying an anger so great that his forced stillness couldn't contain. He was fighting it, trying to break free from you. Struggling to even speak. In his hand, the blade of his weapon was trembling imperceptibly under the pressure of his fingers.

But you were no match before him. He was pure strength and determination, and you knew that whatever prevented him from hurling himself at you, would soon break. At any moment, the imposed balance would shatter. At any moment, he would win the fight. Soon, he would be on you, deadly blade slicing loved fleshes.

And you, you had to remember how to fight. You had to remember how to use the weapon the Goddess once gave you. You just had to call it.

You looked down at Zeke in your arms, his face still, his sorrow engraved behind his closed eyelids. There was no surrender. There was no acceptable ending where you were to leave him. There was just no path where you didn’t live to love him. You weren't giving up on him.

Slowly, in your mind, you remembered the touch of it, the touch of your fingers against the wooden handle. That weapon of yours, light and piercing. A spear like no other. You remembered yourself, your childish hands turned towards the Goddess, in which She had placed a weapon too big, too heavy. Too deadly. You remembered the naturalness of its throw, the extension of your arm. You remembered the bodies collapsing under its whistle, the sharp, vivid rip in the air.

You could almost feel it in your hand. Its weight, its sensation. It was almost there, crawling under the skin of your hand.

You tried, you really tried. You thought you could do it.

But nothing came when you called.

Your eyes snapped open at Levi’s voice breaking the silence.

“You don’t know what you’ve done.”

At your side, your hand remained empty.

And there was no reasoning with him. You could read it all upon his face. He had already tipped over somewhere unreachable, abandoned to panic and disgust. Fighting to get the upper hand - trying to break whatever compelled him to remain immobile.

What you had done, no one could ever understand. Not even him. That love he once had for you - was not for the one standing before him, brave and desirous. It was for the child you used to be, lost and drowsy by eternity. What you had done could be drowned by excuses, but would never be enough for him to understand.

“I lived,” you answered him, and it all came out like a river in spate, “I tried to live! And you are not allowed to blame me for it. I wanted all the things I thought I never needed, all the things of which I had been deprived. I only wanted my life back, that’s all I ever did. I denied it all for so long, but I had to fall, didn’t I? I guess I had to fall, to find my place among the ashes.”

His face twisted into a wince, his whole body shaking with rage. “You let this swine corrupt you,” he snapped back at you. “For what? For the fleeting feeling of being alive? You let him touch you, you let him-…"

"You don't know a hundredth of what we've done! You don't know anything!”

“Oh, but I know everything! I know what you have done, you idiot!”

“Why does it matter to you? You all thought I was dead! Would have it been better if I were dead?”

“Our fleshes are sacred! Ymir made us who we are so we could watch over this world, not to get our hands dirty with it!”

“And yet she let it rot!” you shouted, and as you spoke, you held Zeke’s body tighter. “She let her own children die and suffer in wars so old they forgot why they even fought in the first place. You think because she saved a handful of us, thousands of years ago, she is a fair ruler?”

“Look outside! Look at what they did to you! They are the ones to blame for all of this.”

“Are they really?”

Were they really to blame, while abandoned by the goddess for millennia, they had to rebuild a world gone up in smoke, growing up upon lands stained by blood. This hatred, like a heritage of a godless people, was not making any sense.

Yet everything had emanated from her.

Ymir, the Mother of all things, was the starting point of everything; the world’s creator, its protector and its only Goddess.

But she had chosen to destroy it, while Mankind, jealous of her eternity and power, had defiled the ground of Paradis. She was the one who had cursed them, who had turned the verdurous lands of her own world upside down and made the oceans spit fire. She was the one who had torn the sky from the surface, promising forever to watch her children kill each other on once fertile lands.

She was the one who taught you how to fear and how to hate. She was the one who showed you how to kill. She had been the one responsible for destroying everything, and eventually - for cursing them.

“Do you think the diluted hatred in their blood is truly theirs? Can’t you see that this,” and you waved at the world around you, at the ruins of this temple, at the corpses in the grass, at the smoke in the sky, “is not our legacy?

“This is the cost they have to pay.” The gravel of his voice. Everywhere. Embroidering under your skin.

“And I refuse to stand there as she keeps on murdering the children of her children. I refuse to remain silent in the face of her atrocity.”

A grimace of pain flashed on his face as he said, “She made you who you are. She gave Her own life to have you live.”

“And how many did she make you take?” you spitted. “How much did it cost you?”

His face fell. For the first time, he looked at you in disbelief.

Because he knew that you weren’t supposed to know. He knew those heavy secrets kept away from you. And that his mere purpose in this world was one of them.

“How-...”

“Would it be easier? Tell me, Angel of death, would it be easier to hide it?”

“Don’t call me that, you don’t know-...”

“What else must I know to understand? Don’t you dare tell me about this goddess of ours. Don’t you dare tell me she has been fair to you.”

“I accepted my duties. I didn’t do it to help Her. I did it to survive.”

“Or else what?” And you watched, you watched as he stood there, looking for an answer, looking for the words that would sound right.

You would never have known, never, all the power that truth contained, how it could turn the game around, until you held it in the palm of your hand.

“She would have gotten rid of you, Levi. Like she got rid of me.”

“No.”

“She would have made your wings wither and exiled you to the end of the world, where the bloodthirst of Mankind is as great as on the first day of the Holy Wars. She would have ripped away your memories and stifled your cries for help.”

“This is not what happened.”

You were here for a reason. Because she knew that no one would ever come here, as all of you had forgotten about this place. Because this was nothing but a punishment. The only one of her children who did not know how to fly, fallen from Paradis.

“What happened then? Has she not shaped this world with her own hands? What could have happened for a goddess to forget about her own child? So tell me, Levi. What was her purpose? How could the master of all things have failed in her duties without ever alarming us?”

You straighten yourself up, spreading your feet below your hips as you adjust Zeke’s weight in your arms. In your back, wings shrugged, waiting for an answer that never came.

“She’s tired of this world,” you said, slowly, “bored of her creation. There is no blood anymore, no prayers, no mourners pleading her name. Mankind has evolved. They kill themselves with weapons she could never have given them.

Can't you see that she is no longer amused? She doesn't need it anymore. She created mankind for her pleasure, for her own pure enjoyment. And while the gods never get bored, she got bored with the suffering of her playthings.

She’s trying to get rid of it. She enslaved her most powerful children, sending them to kill themselves in cruel and aimless labor - while the useless ones she abandons to the edge of the world. She turned the most powerful of them all into an obedient little soldier, while the rest of us went numb in hollowness. This is only the beginning - it takes time to erase and start again. The only purpose she has been pursuing was to get rid of this world. And whether you like it or not, we are part of it.”

And right as you spoke, the balance broke.

Except it was not because he fought back, because his power had broken the weight of the order. It was because he surrendered.

He flinched back.

Behind you, all around you, the deafening sound of something shattering sounded. It was coming from the sky, from deep within the earth. Your eyes snapped toward the gaping hole in the ceiling, and from there, you could see immense cracks tearing the gray sky.

“There is no time left,” Levi said, and your eyes snapped back at him. He sounded so flat, as if none of it was affecting him anymore.

It was about to break. This quiet word you were all plunged in. Soon, the winter was to be over.

“Just let me go,” you said in a whisper, voice suddenly quivering.

His eyes were turned towards the destroyed ceiling. He wasn't looking at you anymore, anger and disgust gone. On his face, only deception could be seen. And as he spoke, his eyes remained fixed towards the gray sky.

“I won’t leave you here.”

“You can leave us here, you can forget about me!”

But he was not listening anymore. He was not fighting back.

“Come home with me,” he said.

“It’s not home. It never was.,”

“Stop it. Please,” he said, and his eyes fell to the ground between the two of you. Something in his voice was urgent. And in his back, his silver wings resumed their flutter.

“I’m begging you, just leave me here,” you were shaking your head. You were pleading.

He took a step forward.

“I can’t.”

“Yes, you can!” you shouted. Zeke’s body was tight against your chest, the warm scent of his life against your skin, “Just leave me here, as if you had never found me!”

His wings flared out.

It was like witnessing the return of spring, the moist heat rising to your cheeks, the world suddenly overflowing, full of scents, too much heat. It was like watching the world regain its colors, after being plunged in the dark for so long.

Only it was terrifying. It was the last grain of sand in the hourglass, about to be swallowed down. It was not a rebirth of any kind. It was the return of something that meant the end. It was the bodies outside that would finally die, where the winter had taken everything. It was the end.

He didn’t answer, sweeping a cold stare across your face. So heavy of meaning, the disappointment palpable. Under it, you slightly flinched, its weight more meaningful than a thousand words.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

And suddenly everything around you was pitch black. All that was to be seen were his two silver eyes. Transfixed on you.

You felt it coming, dryness drawing on your eyes.

Everything was dark, and he was everywhere, silver eyes shining so intensely that you couldn't take your eyes off, a too brutal attraction. It was like being dragged against your will into lands too far away to ever imagine. A rapture that meant the end. You were not to blink or it was over.

Don’t close your eyes.

In your arms, Zeke made a movement. His body was coming back to life, warm and clammy.

You felt him regain consciousness. Then, you heard the sweet sound of his voice. A mumble, his weight adjusting, trying to straighten up. You felt his hand, sliding down your shoulder. He called for you, his voice exhausted. He whispered “love?" against your neck.

And yet you could not take your eyes off death.

When you leaned in, grabbing his face with one of your hands, your eyes couldn't avert the unyielding silver colored eyes. He was getting closer. It was too late.

"Listen to me, Zeke. Listen to me carefully."

Not yet. Don’t blink.

You tried to resist, but all of it, it was too strong, swallowing you whole, towards unescapable halls. There was nothing, nothing you could do.

“You have to swear,” you said, voice broken, echoing faintly, “Swear that you will keep your eyes closed.”

Or it’s all over.

Before you, only the blade of his eyes. There, so close, inevitable. Already engulfing everything. And it hurt, hurt so sharply, eyes burning from resisting, from standing up against him.

You would have liked so badly, one last time, to see the blue of his eyes, the tempestuous color of the ocean. To lose yourself in their vastness.

There was no ending of your story where you were to leave him.

“What you will see will only kill you.”

35 notes · View notes

scuffledig · 1 year

Text

among us crochet tutorial, among us light switch covers, among us baby shower, ankng us steamdeck mod, among us paper trail, among us arg explained, among us imposter location, among us getting fruitier, among us reuplhostery timelapse, among us cramp relief, among us phonecase, among us autism diagnosis, amlng us deluxe, among us morse code translation, among us numbers station wiki, among us bath bomb reveal, among us unmasking, among us scooby doo, among us free wifi, among us paying customer, among us fossil record, among us moodboard, among us cambrian explosion dlc, among us speedrun strategy, amongalocaris cambrian explosion tutorial, among us how to escape among us timeloop, among us puzzle, among us condiment adventure, among us condiment apology, among textile industry, among us harvest festival, among us farmers market, among us costume crafting, among us

speedrun leaderboard, among us all romance route completion guide, among us pain relief, among us tiktok official, among s next generations, among us bleach for kids among us cake recipe, among us deicide, among us pacifist route, among us battle strategy, among us shampoo recall, among us telegram, among us mushroom identification guide, among us party babyz for the nintendo wii, among us wood turning video, among us blackout, among us dark world, among us instant rehydration video tutorial, among us stickers, among us mac and chease, among us real space suit, among us kid cuisine, among us playable dog, among us nendoroid cheap, among us casket, among us balloons, among us catholic wedding, among us mobile addon,among us bible translation, among us neocities profile list, anong us condiment adventure, among us femur engraving, among us bookmark, amlng us mind palace, among us cranial fluid supplement, among us tupperware, among us tabletop, among us baby care instructions, among us enclosure dimension baby, among us imagination space port, among us curds, among us melody, among us number of eyes, among them live concert, among us accident, among us on ice, among us whisk, among us rotary dial, among us pumice stone, among us dog toy, among us forbidden fruit tutorial, among us packpack, anong us map open world, among us bad lip reading, among us souls for cheap, among is soup for the soul, among us binaural experiencd, among us audio therapy, amkng us hypnosis reversal, among us poptart, among us new pants dlc, amkng us meditation, among you, amongous, among us dirt, among us estrogen, among us bouncehouse, among us basement guide help, among us kitchenette, amlng us pop corn, amongus mongus, among us bathtowels, among us ultimate spell, among us true ending revealed

#tganks jenn elise and autumn for this #🐛

42 notes · View notes

avaritia-apotheosis · 10 months

Text

Phantom Children: Redux | I. In Lieu of Flowers

Starting off my crossposting journey with PC:R <3

There is no Clockwork there to rewind time after the Nasty Burger explosion. Danny Fenton, having witnessed his friends and family die a fiery death, struggles to cope with his loss and the looming future that awaits him. So when an unlikely source offers a hand to help, he takes it. Three years later, Batman is called upon to help solve a string of impossible murders in Gotham that end up entangling him to the mysteries of Amity Park. -- A Rewrite of Phantom Children ft. A shiny new plot, longer chapters, and stronger prose!

A DPxDC crossover // Read on [AO3} or [FFN.net]

MASTERPOST // Next Chapter →

Three Years Ago…

Danny Fenton was fourteen when his world ended for the third time.

And no, this wasn’t the product of teenage melodrama. Rather it’s the result of the universe’s spirited efforts in making Danny’s life a veritable punching bag for any deity to come over and fuck it up .

He certainly didn’t ask to half-die not once, but twice , and be responsible for this godforsaken town. That’s a thing heroes do. Or sidekicks that train under heroes. Not some dumb kid barely halfway through his first semester of high school and who was incapable of keeping his grades higher than a C .

But, well, this was what he got for playing hero, right? Dead parents, dead sister, and dead friends, all because he was too goddamn slow .

(The prerequisite to every hero: a tragic backstory. Guess it was finally his turn.)

The weather went from a light mist to a drizzle, raindrops falling in uneven staccato on the cluster of black umbrellas. He could barely hear the ceremony— not that he was able to pay much attention anyway. Danny tried to. He did. But his mind was a blue screen— had been for the past few weeks—and the preacher’s words were just going in one ear and out the other in loud static.

His fingers curled around the velvet pouch in his pocket, grounding himself. He’d dug it out from its lockbox in the depths of his closet for this exact reason.

In front of Danny was a single plot reserved for the Fenton family, the grass undisturbed except for the muddy dirt and drooping flowers around the erected marble obelisk that stood atop the plot. (Undisturbed because there wasn’t any need to dig up the ground for a coffin. You’d need bodies for that, and there were hardly any left after—) At the obelisk’s base was a bronze placard engraved with the names of three of the people who once comprised Danny's whole world, and an epitaph: Gone but Never Forgotten.

Vlad must have chosen it. The obelisk was his decision too; excessive and grand because he would provide nothing less for his greatest enemy, his greatest love, and their wonderful, genius, perfect daughter.

Danny looked away from the monument, his hair a damp curtain that shadowed his eyes. No mom left to brush it out of the way. No dad to ruffle it into something even messier. There’s a— a pressure at the back of his throat that nauseated him to the point of discomfort but not enough to actually vomit in the nearest shrubbery. He rubbed his scratchy throat with his free hand, letting it rest by his clavicle. Right above where his heart was being mercilessly squeezed by his own guilty conscience.

He should have been the one to plan his family’s funeral. The one to write their obituary. The one to choose the headstone. The flowers. The date. Everything. It was his responsibility. His duty to make all these decisions as the—

Danny bit the inside of his lip.

He should have been more responsible. Should have been— oh he didn't know— there when all the decisions were made instead of holing up in a corner of the Zone and letting Vlad take care of it all. God, what kind of son was he to have the audacity to get his family killed and foist off arranging the funeral to the guy who wanted to kill his dad .

But maybe that was better. Leaving the decision-making to someone else, that is. God knows that Danny makes all the wrong choices.

(If only he was faster he was stronger he saved his family before going after his evil future selfhe gave back the test answers sooner that boiler never overheated.)

The hand on his shoulder nearly made Danny jump out of his skin.

He shifted his umbrella to see his aunt Alicia looking down at him, concern and pity softening her usually stoic features. Vlad flew her in from Spittoon. When? Danny didn’t know, though somewhere in his foggy memories he might have recalled Vlad asking how to reach Danny’s relatives. It was only aunt Alicia who came in the end, though. His mom and aunt Alicia never liked to talk about their parents, and his dad was an only child who was far too estranged from his own.

“Ceremony’s over, kid. You okay?”

He’d scoff, but he didn’t want to tempt his nausea.

“I’ll live.” He winced, the words bitter on his tongue. “I’m fine, I mean.”

Aunt Alicia pressed her lips into a thin, flat line. “The rain’s getting a little worse. Do you want to head back home?”

Home? Where even was that anymore?

“I think I wanna stay out here for now.”

“Do you want me to stay with you?”

“No— I just…I want to be alone, I think.”

She sighed, giving a comforting squeeze to his shoulder before dropping her hand. “Alright. I’ll just be waiting for you in the car then.”

Danny nodded absentmindedly, gaze trained on the drooping white lilies by the placard. At the corner of his eye, he saw Vlad approach aunt Alicia, somber-faced but calculating as they headed to the car.

The future he tried to escape was already playing out. Pieces slotting into place like some jigsaw puzzle of doom.

In his quiet moments, holed up in the corner of his parents’ room, he’d ponder the what-ifs. The should-have, could-have, would-have-beens. He’d think of the future in all its terrible glory and wonder where else it could have all gone wrong. The trigger was—surprise, surprise— Vlad. Or, living with him, that is. If he wanted to put an ounce of trust in that sob story future-Vlad spun, then it was Danny’s own grief coupled with Vlad’s invention that sent the world spinning into its destruction.

(Future-Vlad might have helped him. Might have turned over a new leaf. But there was an entire decade that separated Future-Vlad from the present- Vlad. And Danny would rather cut off his own arm than trust present-Vlad with anything related to Danny’s well-being.)

Danny knew jack shit about the adoption process, but he was 80% sure most social workers would place Danny with his aunt as opposed to his parents’ old college buddy that they recently connected with. That Danny ended up living with Vlad meant that either Aunt Alicia didn’t pass whatever assessment the state required, or Vlad used his influence to tip the scales in his favor. Probably both.

So the law would never let him live with anyone but Vlad— the fruit loop would make sure of that. Danny’s only option left was to run away, then.

Hm. How long could one half-dead fourteen-year-old realistically outrun a half-dead crazy billionaire with enough connections in both the human world and the Ghost Zone?

Survey says—

Fuck .

“Our condolences, Daniel.”

Danny startled. Who the—

He tilted his head the other way, shifting his focus to the woman who just appeared next to him. Sure Danny found his own attention slipping into darker places more often than not these days, but he should have noticed if someone came near him.

No, wait. Aunt Alicia managed to sneak up on him earlier. Maybe Danny really was just out of it.

“The doctors Fenton did brilliant work, and your sister had such a bright future ahead of her. Their loss will be felt.”

“Thank you,” Danny answered. The words are still ash on his tongue but he didn’t stumble over them anymore. “I…appreciate your support.”

The woman was tall, with a wiry physique and cool tawny skin. She had an oval face, a straight nose, and sharp features, though much of it was slightly obscured by her hat, the black netting ending just past her nose. Her hands were tucked into the pockets of her long black coat.

The man—and Danny knew he’d seen him somewhere before, it was on the tip of his tongue—shared in the similar sharp characteristics, but his coloring was a lot lighter. He had long white hair that extended past his shoulders and a long horseshoe mustache that should have looked stupid, but somehow he managed to make it work. He held a single umbrella for both himself and the woman.

His mind clicked. Recognition alight on his face.

“Mr. Dusan?”

Dusan smiled. “I am pleased that you still remember me, Daniel.”

Mr. Dusan, if Danny remembered correctly, was his parents’ liaison with their benefactor. The CEO of some sort of big research company whose name Danny never really bothered to pay attention to. They had been funding his parents’ research since their university days, and it was because of them that the Fentons managed to get their hands on enough samples of ectoplasm to experiment and research on. Mr. Dusan would be sent every once in a while to observe his parents’ studies, much to the Fenton family’s stress and delight. His visits would be preceded with days of cleaning the house from top to bottom and Danny’s parents frantically getting their stuff organized. But a good visit from Mr. Dusan always ended with the family going out for a nice dinner the day after.

It was one of Danny’s favorite times, really.

“Just Danny, please.”

“Danny, then,” Dusan said. “May I introduce you to my sister, Talia al Ghul?”

Sister? Danny raised his hand for a handshake, deciding not to comment on the age difference. “It’s nice to meet you. I’m, uh, sorry it’s not during better circumstances.”

Talia shook his hand with a closed-lipped, but somber smile. “Our employer—your parents’ benefactor—actually sent us to give his condolences, and to extend a helping hand if you should ever need it.”

“What?”

“Your parents were pioneers, Danny. Their research changed the face of the world as we know it despite how much they were ridiculed for it. It would be remiss of their benefactor to simply leave their legacy, their only son, alone to the wolves.” Her voice was smooth and honey-sweet, and Danny felt compelled to listen. “If you need anything, anything at all, feel free to reach out to us.”

She handed him a business card. It was crisp, made from thick card stock. Blank except for a single number in the middle.

Danny turned it over in his hand. “Anything?”

“Anything.”

He tucked it into his pocket. “Thank you for your offer. I’ll keep it in mind.”

“We will be in town for the next few days,” Dusan said. “We hope to hear from you soon.”

◆◆◆

Later, aunt Alicia asked if Danny would rather stay with her at the hotel. She’d ask this every time they parted ways, and each time Danny would say no, thank you.

She didn’t push too much. Knew, probably, that it was only a matter of time that Danny would have to leave his house to live…wherever it was his social worker decided to stick him in.

Danny appreciated her concern— even if he would rather do without it.

He slipped off his black suit jacket, throwing it over the back of the couch as he walked past the living room. His mom would throw a fit at that. He scrambled down to the lab, taking the steps two at a time, hands wrenching the tie from around his neck—and god fuck why did his skin feel so hot. The tie ended up somewhere on the steps, the velvet bag safely stowed away in a drawer full of blueprints. He kicked off his stupid dress shoes. A safety hazard, his dad would say. The lab floor needed to be clear at all times to prevent an accident.

Too fucking late for that.

White rings passed through him with blinding fury as Danny burst through the portal between dimensions and into the silence of the Ghost Zone.

He floated. Aimless.

And breathed.

◆◆◆

Danny picked a direction. Eenie-meenie-minie-moe . It’s no use trying to logic out directions in the Ghost Zone. Not when the islands thought of physics as nothing more than a joke. He set off north-north-west of the portal and tried his luck there.

Tucker and Sam would call him stupid. There were probably a billion-and-one better ways to find Clockwork’s stupid tower than this.

Jazz would say he’s still stuck on the bargaining stage—

Jazz can’t say anything anymore.

None of them can.

◆◆◆

Jessica Andrews, his social worker, took him out to a quiet cafe to talk. She was a tall woman with a stocky frame, brown skin, and a soft rounded face. Her nails were painted a light green; it was to match her plants, she’d say. Once, she’d told him about how her husband would complain about all the plants she bought because he couldn’t figure out where the jungle stopped and the house began.

The cafe was far enough away from most schools and built below some bible store, its facade made from faded red brick with a charcoal gray awning. A few circular tables and chairs were laid out front, though they sat empty. The weather had been everything but gloomy for the past few days.

Jessica clasped her hands over the table, green nails tap-tap-tapping against her knuckles. “How have you been holding up, Danny?”

They’re seated by the giant window, though there wasn’t much to look at on the other side. Just the road and more old buildings on the other side.

“‘M fine.”

“That’s wonderful.” She could tell that he was lying; he’d bet on it. “How has your sleep been?”

Danny pointedly drank his coffee— brewed as dark as he could with as many espresso shots he could manage to order without the barista giving him a strange look. “Fine.”

She raised an eyebrow. “The black holes under your eyes beg to differ.”

“I’d rather skip all this small talk if that’s ok.”

“Alright, if that’s what you want.” She brushed a stray strand of hair away from her face. “I promised you early on that I’d keep you informed of how the courts are handling your case.”

He huffed, sinking into his chair. He already knew the outcome. “They decide where to stick me yet?”

“They’re still doing their due diligence and contacting as many of your adult relatives as possible in order to find a suitable guardian.”

“I’m sensing some sort of catch here.”

“The people looking over your case have considered your request to be placed with your aunt Alicia.”

“They said no.”

“They had some…concerns,” she said. “Your aunt’s residence is very isolated, which might prevent you from getting the proper help you need. There were also some concerns about how you would handle a sudden dramatic shift in lifestyles, what with being moved away from your school, your community, your peers, into someplace extremely unfamiliar.”

Danny leveled a look at her. “There’s something else, too, isn’t there.”

Jessica gave him a look of pity. “Your aunt also expressed some…hesitancy in taking you in when we talked with her.”

His breath caught. Teeth gnawed at the inside of his lip. Fuck. He rubbed the back of his neck, slowly inching it up to tug at the back of his hair, the other hand curling into a fist beneath the table. Fuck—

He knew he knew this would happen but he still—

—Can’t believe that he held onto that—

—What was he thinking?

“Danny?”

Fingernails dug crescents into the inside of his palm. He takes a deep breath. “Yeah, no, I’m fine. Don’t— I’m fine. It’s fine.”

He shivered.

Dan’s laughter echoed from the back of his skull, mocking him. It’s inevitable, Dan crowed. I am inevitable. You can’t stop the future any more than you could stop the sun from rising.

◆◆◆

Clockwork’s tower was nowhere to be found. Danny didn’t know why he kept on searching. Sheer stubbornness, maybe. Some foolish hope beyond all hope that if he begged hard enough, Clockwork would be willing to do him a favor and rewind time back to when everything made sense.

Sometimes Danny doesn’t even go to the Ghost Zone to find him.

Sometimes he’ll just find some patch of the Zone with enough floating rocks and scream. Scream until his voice is hoarse and he could no longer sustain his ghost form. Until the rocks are nothing but pebbles floating in the green void. Until all that’s left is the freezing cold inside of him.

The ghosts had been staying away from Amity Park.

Good.

He didn’t know what he would do if any of them showed up now.

Danny woke up with his skin freezing-on-fire-cold-too-cold-he-can’t-stop-sweating. He didn’t remember calling anyone, but he must have, considering that someone showed up in his room with a bowl of chicken soup and a glass of Gatorade.

He should’ve been more alarmed at this— there was a stranger in his house. But right now his head was begging to be smashed in with a hammer and he’s just glad that he was not alone.

“Do you think you could sit up and eat, Danny?” The figure sat down at the edge of his bed, one hand on top of the blanket cocoon he made for himself. A woman. An accent that was definitely not American. British, maybe? Either way, not aunt Alicia.

His stomach rumbled. At least this time it didn’t feel like throwing up everything. Danny pushed himself up with aching slowness, leaning back against the headboard. Bleariness blinked away from his eyes, he saw his caretaker’s features more clearly. It was—it started with a T. Tania? Tasnia? No, Talia was the name. Mr. Dusan’s sister.

“Ms. al Ghul? What are you doing here?”

“You don’t remember?” She sets the bowl down on his bedside table, in easy reach, and hands him the glass. “You called the number Dusan and I gave to you sounding delirious. We were worried but Dusan had some pressing business to attend to, so I came on my own.”

“Oh.” The drink was heaven to his parched throat. “How did you get inside?”

Her eyes—a unique shade of green—sparkled with mirth. “I have my ways.”

“Oh-kay .” He rubbed the back of his neck, sheepish. “Thank you. For coming all this way, I mean. You really shouldn’t have to come and take care of some kid you just met.”

“Nonsense, Danny. I could hardly leave you alone in such conditions, it would be against my instincts as a mother.”

“You have kids?”

“I have one,” she said, then paused as if contemplating something. “No, I had two.”

Danny bit the inside of his cheek, thumb wiping away the condensation on the surface of his now empty glass. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

Talia let out a sad sort of chuckle. “Thank you, though it’s not needed. He’s— my eldest son—isn’t dead. Certain circumstances forced me into the position to give him up for adoption. He’s alive and well, hopefully, though he probably doesn’t know that I exist.”

Oh. Danny didn’t know what to say to that.

“You didn’t try to get into contact with him?”

“What would be the point? He has his own parents now, a life free of complications. The best I could hope for was that he kept the memento I gave him.”

“A memento?”

“A necklace.”

Danny stilled.

It was stupid. Foolish even, to think about it. There are like over seven billion people in the world.

“What kind of necklace, if you don’t mind me asking, that is.”

Talia smiled, eyes glazed as if in memory. “It was a present from his father. A beautiful work of art, it was. It was a sapphire necklace— with two rows of sapphires, to be exact, cut in perfect circles and polished to a shine.”

The velvet bag Danny had tucked beneath his pillow burned at the back of Danny’s mind. It can’t be. That was too much of a coincidence.

“Each sapphire was surrounded by gold, though there were small diamonds that surrounded the larger sapphires.”

Oh god, oh god. What was his life?

“Though beautiful, my favorite part of it had to be what was within the middle sapphire. It was possible to open it, you see. And engraved inside were the words—”

“‘ For the greatest happiness you have given me.’”

Talia looked at him, green eyes wide. “How did you know?”

Danny found himself unable to look at her. Gingerly, he set his glass bedside table, next to his cooling bowl of chicken soup, and retrieved the velvet pouch beneath his pillow. He held the bag to her, almost reluctantly, but relinquished it once it was in her grip.

Talia opened the bag and drew out a necklace. Two rows of sapphires inlaid in gold, with the largest ones surrounded by tiny diamonds. It was beautiful, though perhaps it no longer shone as it once did.

She beheld it in silence, fingers tracing the exquisite craftsmanship as if, at first, in disbelief, then in reverence. She stopped at the large sapphire on the bottom row.

After a moment, she opened it.

“My parents told me I was adopted when I was six,” Danny said, unable to take the silence any longer. He tangled his fingers together, clasping and unclasping them. “They gave me that necklace— said it was from my birth mother. They never knew who she was, and the orphanage they got me from had no information either.”

Tucker and Sam once asked him if he ever wanted to know who his birth mother was. Danny wasn’t sure what he wanted, really. Sometimes he wondered about it, but he was content with not knowing for the most part. His parents were his parents, blood relation or no, and he looked similar enough to Jack Fenton in coloring that most people didn’t question why his skin wasn’t as light as theirs, or why his features were a lot sharper than theirs.

(Tucker and Sam never knew about the necklace. It was hard to explain why he never told them considering he’d tell them just about anything else— but it was different. It was…something just for him. A cold comfort in knowing that, at one point, he was someone’s ‘greatest happiness.’)

He coughed into his elbow, a shiver racking his spine.

Warm arms enveloped him into a hug.

“ It’s you, ” Talia whispered. “ It’s you.”

Something inside Danny seemed to click back into place. His core thrummed gently, humming a litany of feelings and words he couldn’t translate. Some are apprehensive. Others are confused. But most of all it felt…happy.

Warm.

◆◆◆

“You know that I’m adopted, right?” Danny said to Mrs. Andrews when they met up again. It was a park this time; she was really adamant about getting him out of his house.

“I am aware, yes.”

“When you mentioned that all my relatives would be identified and informed… does my biological mother count too?”

Mrs. Andrews exhaled between her teeth. “I know what you’re asking about, but I’m afraid it isn’t an option. In adoption cases like yours, the biological parents usually relinquish all parental rights over the child. Even if we did find your biological mother, the court would never let her have custody over you again.”

He shivered, pulling his jacket closer around him, and wondered why he still put so much faith in the legal system.

◆◆◆

It was only a matter of time before Vlad came to visit him once again.

“What do you want, Vlad .”

The black bags beneath Vlad’s eyes were the only thing unkempt about his otherwise neat appearance. Mourning or not, his smile still made Danny’s fist itch to punch it. “Why, little badger, can I not see how the son of my oldest friends is doing?”

“I’m not living with you, you fruit loop.”

Vlad rolled his eyes. “Really, Daniel, this disinclination of yours is getting tiring. Just accept it and the moving process will be much, much easier.”

Danny glared at him, green eyes livid. His teeth bared and gnashing. “I’d rather die than live with you.”

“Well, you’re already halfway there. Need help finishing the job?”

He swung his fist at him, but Vlad caught it with ease. “Get out of my house!”

“There’s no use in being difficult, now. You know as well as I do that the courts will inevitably choose me .”

( Inevitable, Dan had said. Inevitable inevitable inevitable.)

“Shut up.” Danny seethed. “Shut up, shut up, shut up!”

As he tore his hand away from Vlad’s grip, a spark of power burst in between them in a blinding white light and bitter cold. Vlad threw up a shield, but Danny was too caught off guard. He was blasted back, knees hitting the armrest on the couch and nearly making him stumble. When the light cleared, Danny could see swathes of crystalline ice and frost embedded in the middle of the living room.

Frost had crept up Vlad’s shield, coating it in a thin wall of ice which broke the second Vlad released the barrier. Vlad looked down at the ice, face flashing between surprise, confusion, awe, before settling into a patronizing smile.

“Do you see now?” Vlad said, gesturing to the ice. “This is why I’m the only one suitable to be your guardian. I am the only one that can understand you. That knows your needs as a young half-ghost. That can guide you and teach you.”

A bitter cold shook Danny’s body to the core, frost seeping into his bones and the bite of winter in his lungs. A thin layer of frost coated his palms and fingertips. His face is flushed. He feels hot but the shivers won’t stop.

Vlad approached, arms opened wide like he’s approaching some scared animal. Like a little badger.

Danny hissed at him, scrambling to his feet to place the couch between them.

“Come on, Daniel, just let me take care of you.”

“Go to hell, Vlad!”

“Tch.” Vlad dropped his hands, fingers dragging through his hair in exasperation. “Fine. You know what, fine. Have it your way. Perhaps some time experiencing the mania will help you understand my meaning.” He went to the door with a frustrating degree of calm. His suit cleanly pressed, not a strand misplaced in his hair, a total contrast to Danny who felt seconds away from collapsing on the floor.

“Do try to keep a hold of yourself, though,” Vlad said over his shoulder. “Your parents might be dead, but they are hardly the only ghost hunters around.”

He slammed the door shut.

Danny sank to his knees, arms wrapped around himself as he vigorously tried to rub his skin warm. What was wrong with him?

Was his sickness a few days ago related to this? He thought he just caught some sort of bug, or, or it was the stress of it all affecting his body, but the ice—

This wasn’t a normal sickness.

Vlad called it a mania. What did that mean?

He shook his head, arm reaching for the back of the couch and hauling himself up. Figuring out Vlad’s words wasn’t his biggest concern; right now, Danny needed a way to get rid of this ice. Talia and Mr. Dusan were coming over soon to go over his parents’ research, he needed to—

They can’t figure out that he’s—

Danny stumbled down to the lab, frantically looking for any of his parents’ inventions that could help get rid of the ice.

No. No. Not that. Not that either.

His arm suddenly went intangible, slipping through the lab bench. The sudden momentum made him lose balance and he hit his head on the side of the bench. He staggered upright, rubbing his pounding head. What was wrong with his powers? They hadn’t been this out of whack since he’d first gotten them in the accident.

A violent shiver ran through him, his breath coming out in a cold mist. Frost had begun to creep outwards from the soles of his shoes.

Danny stepped back. The frost followed.

His eyes darted around the room, mind racing for a solution. His frenzied gaze landed on the ghost portal, the entrance sealed shut by the heavy metal doors. Tucker once said that he noticed that Danny seemed to recover energy faster when he was in the Ghost Zone. They’d tested it at one point by letting the Box Ghost loose on the town and seeing how much energy Danny could recover if he rested in the material world versus the Ghost Zone.

It was still a working theory. Tucker and Sam wanted to test it out some more later.

They never got a chance.

It was a long shot but it was better than nothing.

He ran to the front of the portal where the genetic locking mechanism lay. But as Danny went to push the button, ice sparked from his fingers, freezing the lock solid.

“What? No!” He slammed his fist onto the ice but the ice wouldn’t break. “Nononono, this can’t be happening right now.”

He shivered, eyes holding a manic glint as he looked at the portal. “I’m going ghost!” Bright rings of light enveloped him, and suddenly it became impossibly colder.

Floating in the air, Danny curled in on himself, teeth chattering as he tried to regain his composure. He flew to the portal, willing himself intangible as he tried to go through the doors, but slammed into cold metal instead. Either whatever materials his parents made the door out of completely negated his intangibility or his powers were in really bad shape.

He got up, hands pressed against the portal doors. He willed himself intangible once more, but instead of his arms passing through the doors, a thick sheet of ice sprouted from his hands and started crawling up the portal. “No!”

Danny tore his hands away from the door but the ice kept growing and growing and growing. Stretched across the doors until it covered the entire entrance to the portal. Its jagged ends stopped past the octagonal metal frame and clung to the walls.

Oh god, This can’t get any worse.

“Danny?”

And then it did.

He took a deep breath. Like a deer in headlights, he turned around to see Talia and Mr. Dusan at the foot of the basement stairs. Talia was in front, a hand braced against the wall, one foot on the floor and one still on the step. Dusan, ever the statuesque figure, was right behind, hands still clasped behind his back. Their eyes were, mouth slightly agape at the sight of him.

It was then that Danny registered what Talia said.

The words tumbled out of him, “You recognized me?”

He clamped his mouth shut. Idiot.

Talia took her hand off the wall and stepped completely into the lab. “Of course, I would. You’re my son.”

The words sent a brief spark of warmth through his core. Not even his own parents recognized him when he was Phantom.

“I wasn’t aware that you were a meta, Danny.” She gracefully stepped around the patches of ice on the ground. “How long has this been going on?”

“Um, uh. A few months.” At this point, there really was no point in lying. “Since the start of the semester.”

“A lab accident, I presume.”

“Yeah….uh, how did you know?”

The corners of her mouth quirked up. “No one on my side of the family has the meta gene, and while your father is quite impressive, I’m very certain he does not have it either. An accident of some sort would be the only other option.”

He felt himself start to relax, muscles starting to relax at the sound of Talia’s calm voice. The shivers were still present, but somehow they were a little more bearable.

“Now why don’t you explain to us what happened?”

“I don’t—” Danny swallowed a lump in his throat. “I don’t even know what’s going on, much less where to begin. All I know is that I’ve been feeling out of sorts for the past few weeks. I thought I was just sick but apparently, it’s way more than that, and I don’t know what to do, I barely even know what I am, much less what’s wrong with me and that fever must have done something because ever since then my powers have been on the fritz and there’s this stupid ice that won’t melt and I can’t keep it under control and if I can’t keep my powers under control how am I supposed to hide the fact that I’m a fucking ghost —”

“Slow down, slow down. You’re starting to panic. Now, I need you to take a few deep breaths for me,” she said, now a few feet away from Danny. “In for four…hold for seven…yes that’s it, you’re doing well…and out for eight.”

Calm began to seep back into Danny with each breath, his mind no longer racing a million miles an hour. “Thank you— thanks, I, um, I feel much better now.”

“That’s good. Now, what was that about ghosts?”

“Uh, that I am one? Sort of? It’s complicated.”

“I guess we can get the full story later. Does anyone else know about this?”

“No, no one.” He paused, then grimaced. “Well, there’s one other person. He’s sort of like me and, before you ask, I can’t tell you who he is. The only other people who knew about me are the other ghosts and…Sam and Tucker.”

“Not your parents?” Dusan, who had been a silent observer till now, stepped closer.

Danny shook his head. “No, I— I never got the chance to tell them. At first, I wanted to keep it a secret because I didn’t want them to know about the accident, but afterward, it just became harder and harder, what with their research and ghosts and the government and I just…” He sank back down to the floor, despondent. “I just didn’t want them to feel…guilty, I guess.”

He rubbed the back of his neck, letting out a self-deprecating laugh. “It doesn’t matter now, though. It’s too late to tell them either way.”

“Oh, Danny, habibi. My poor child.” Talia extended her arms out to embrace him, but Danny stepped back.

“I don’t— my powers they’re— I don’t want to hurt you.”

She smiled. “You won’t. Trust me.”

Danny…Danny found himself trusting her. He let the transformation fall, taking one step closer to Talia, his hand stretched out. Their hands touched, and Talia’s words rang true. The ice did not touch her, nor did the frost, and Danny breathed out a sigh of relief.

“Well, this would certainly complicate the matters of your guardianship,” Dusan said, now a few feet away from them. “If I am of the correct assumption that you have no wish for anyone to know of your status. What of the man you mentioned—the one who is like you—could he take you in?”

“No. Never. That man is not an option.”

Talia carded her fingers through Danny’s hair in a soothing motion. “It is a shame we could not make a strong enough case to take custody of you.” She paused, humming pensively. “Although…” Turning to Dusan, she continued. “Do you think father would…?”

Dusan considered it. “Well, he would certainly be delighted at the prospect of another grandchild, especially one like Danny. But you know how he is.”

Danny looked at them inquisitively. Talia turned her attention back to him. “Our father—your grandfather—is a very powerful man. But he is a very secretive man, and much of his influence is in secrets and shadows. Much of his machinations he prefers to keep in the dark. But if you were willing to prove yourself to him, then it is not beyond his power to craft you a new life.”

“You—you’re talking about a new identity.”

“Daniel Fenton could never be with us,” Dusan said. “But Danyal al Ghul on the other hand….”

“I…” Danny lowered his gaze to the floor. Well, he was prepared, on some level, to give up his name. He had plans to run away, and going by ‘Danny Fenton’ would just be putting a target on his back if Vlad decided to look for him.

“We could be a family, Danny,” Talia whispered. “Like we always should have been.”

Family. The words felt warm inside his chest. At the back of his mind, his core hummed eagerly at the prospect. Family-family-a-place-to-belong.

But to give up his name…to give up his life …would he really be willing to do that? But if he wasn’t, then being handed over to Vlad might as well be—

( Red eyes. A looming shadow. Screams unheard because of the explosion. A world in ruin. Inevitable. Inevitable.)

“ I’ll do it.” He steeled his resolve. There was no other choice. “I’ll go with you. What do I have to do?”

Talia grinned wide. Dusan’s eyes gleamed with approval.

“Simple,” he said. “We must kill Danny Fenton.”

#dpxdc #phantom children: redux #my writing

19 notes · View notes

mythrilpencil · 1 year

Text

Petrichor (for prompt “Overgrown”)

Once again, for perhaps the fifth time this quarter, Acenath finds herself lost. After following her nose along a lovely trail of rumors and urban legends…she’s stranded.

At least it’s a nice planet this time, if a bit humid. SAIL claimed it’s a warm planet in the star’s Goldilocks Zone, and that the part of the world Acenath decided to beam to is in its dry season, but the moisture in the air is still more than a desert native like herself is used to. Not that she’s complaining—thicker, moist air makes it easier to smell things. Just makes her fur feel a bit damp.

Perhaps it wasn’t the best idea after all to follow those admittedly shady Humans’ claim about a signal booster over the hill. But they had been incredibly eager to help her out after her warp got thrown off-course by some weird signals…if only after she handed over a compact of Pixels she was planning on using to barter for something later on. At gunpoint. Yeah…probably not the best idea. Acenath can practically hear the Grand Archivist nagging her over her lack of foresight again.

No matter, though. Acenath shakes her head, itches the premonition of the Grand Archivist’s voice out of her long ears, and takes a good look and sniff around. It’s nighttime currently, but the local star clusters above and glittering puddles of healing water below more than make up for the planet’s lack of natural satellites. So with her own flashlight and her natural low-light vision, navigation isn’t much of a chore.

The ecosystem she finds herself in as she crests the hill is lovely: rolling plains absolutely covered in flowers still displaying their vibrant colors, even in the starlight; spiraling vines reaching to the stars with their leaves; the odd tree here and there standing like shepherds over their flocks of thriving shrubbery. All the pollen and scents of grass almost makes her sneeze, while the aroma of the healing water reminds her of the oases of home and almost draws her into a nostalgic lull. But beneath the fragrances is the scent she’s been looking for: a musty whiff, the smell of old stone and petrichor from eons past. To most it might be an unpleasant smell, or perhaps just dusty and uninteresting. But to Acenath, it’s a perfume most alluring.

Her ears perk as she swells with excitement, but she adjusts her large glasses and focuses on the whiff before the thrill can make her lose composure too much. It’s incredibly faint from where she is, but…

There! She finds the direction the whiff is strongest: just upwind and beyond the next hill. Like a silken thread, Acenath follows it, taking extra care to not step on the fragile flowers nor disturb the sleeping hypnares in the process. It takes more time than she would like to crest this next hill, particularly as the overpowering scent of ripe sugarcane nearly throws her off her desired musty trail, but finally she crests it.

And just past the hill is a strange tower. It’s not entirely unusual to find towers or other buildings on planets like this: the climate is conducive to many dominant species’ survival in most places, so it’s not uncommon to find dirt, wood, or even stone dwellings erected by a dwindled endemic civilization or even the passing interstellar traveler.

But this tower is distinctively none of those. Acenath can tell that even from this far away. The stone that forms its walls, despite being a climbing surface for ages’ worth of local ivy and grasses, still absorbs and reflects the glow of the surrounding pond of healing water strangely. The tower’s structure is too square. Its angles are too perfect. And the blocks of stone are impeccably uniform save for the occasional engraving.

It’s not the biggest of towers. It doesn’t even reach higher than the hill. But it still has an imposing presence bigger than itself, especially when Acenath climbs down the hill and circles the tower’s base. Rubbles of a relatively newer structure—a mound of sorts supported by a few crumbling stone pillar; a ritualistic construction, or perhaps a burial site—flank the tower’s side. Normally the newer structures in an archaeological site are more preserved than the older ones. Here it’s the opposite. The tower stands as if untouched by time while rubble collects around it and nature grows atop it.

But despite its perfection, the building is not symmetrical: the south end of the building has a lower overhang like a balcony open to the air while the north end’s overhang is higher overhead and is enclosed. Two obelisks stand guard in front of either entrance, radiating a light from their peaks as warm as the noonday sun. It’s a small comfort, but it reminds Acenath of her home desert and that reminder isn’t one she finds often. She finds herself smiling a thank-you and bowing to the obelisks before moving past them to inspect the interior.

Inside the tower, strips of cold blue light, partially obscured by the overgrowth, run up the walls, paralleling the angular windows and framework in the corners. Acenath hovers her hand over the end of the light strip, but does not touch. Not that she needs to: the strips radiate a scent of ethereal ozone as much as they radiate a cracking, yet harmless atmosphere that makes her fur tingle and her breath catch in her throat. It’s an aura of mysterious arcane magics that not even the greatest Thaumaturges the Arcanians have to offer have been able to harness.

Plenty of civilizations favor blue-ish lights—her own people included—but this kind of blue light, powered by this energy, is one she’s only identified one other place: the Ark, framing those ancient stairs and tracing that ancient dais. That alone, not even including the mysterious yet iconic engravings or distinctive architecture, identifies the creators of this tower beyond question:

The Ancients.

The Grand Archivist and some of Acenath’s peers often questioned her nigh-exclusive fascination with the Ancients. These structures seemingly from beyond time—from beyond space perhaps, given the Ancients’ apparent mastery over dimensional manipulation—are so unknowable that even decades of study may never be enough to decipher their secrets. But Acenath’s an archaeologist: adding her years of curiosity and drive to her people’s gradual study of the Ancients is her dream. She’s already uncovered more secrets and identified more trends about the Ancients and their culture than any of her peers and predecessors have ever managed; imagine what discoveries can be built upon hers going forward!

And despite her misgivings, even the Grand Archivist would have to admit the value in what Acenath is discovering, surely. The slit in the roof northward, an air vent, perhaps? Even the Ancients needed good air to breathe. And the writing on the walls, although not any of the symbols Acenath has come to recognize, perhaps are claims to the Ancient’s history? Or marks left by the builders to identify themselves? It’s an incredibly common practice, she’s found, for the Ancients to leave uncountable engravings on their walls. Not the graffiti sort of mark, nor a tribal patterning like the Floran’s.

Acenath makes sure to scan the unique markings and save them to her ever-growing database before moving on.

And these pots, tucked away in the corners. Oh, if only Acenath could take them home to her museum for study! But she is afraid to even touch them for fear of damaging these precious artifacts; even cupping her hands around the smallest is enough to make her bite her lip and wish she could will her heart to stop racing so much—she’s almost shaking the tiny pot. Taking them with her isn’t an option here. But the fact that the Ancients even had such pots, in a number of intricate styles that Acenath has been able to map like anyone else would map out styles by period, shows they had a thriving culture. A history. Needs and wants. Art.

Things worth preserving and studying.

And that’s not even considering the raw power the Ancients had access to. Even the Grand Archivist has to admit that studying the Ancients and their mastery over what their people deemed the arcane is vastly important. Any discovery Acenath makes in that sphere can have massive implications. It already has. Connecting the Ancients’ essence to the Astral essence suffusing the Arcanians’ home worlds…

Acenath shivers from the thrill at the thought.

Or…perhaps from the chill in the air.

A few droplets of water peck her head and make her ear twitch while she’s studying the triangular windows, thoroughly derailing her train of thought and making her blink at the sky.

The sun is rising, its light tinted a deep scarlet by the gathering clouds. What few rays of dawn manage to pierce the clouds, however briefly, disperse into streaks in the rain.

Looks like Acenath is stuck here until the rain passes.

Sure, she’s in her field outfit, complete with a Havencrest-peach jumper and faux-leather boots specifically treated to be hydrophobic and easy to clean. And the rain gifts the lush environment around her with the delightful scent of life and water…

But Acenath really doesn’t favor getting soaked at the moment.

So instead she sits under the northern overhang, just past the threshold, near the obelisk shining outwards. She’s in no hurry to get home right now. The more she studies the Ancients, the more they feel like home, anyways.

…Although she still has to figure out how to warp back to her ship. Ah, she’ll get to that later.

#sbprompts23 #starbound #starbound fanfic #modded starbound #starbound fanart #digital art #one shot #acenath #yayyy tumblr’s working now!#thanks support #fanfic #I Was The Sun: Side Stories #my art #artists on tumblr

28 notes · View notes

rga531 · 8 months

Text

The Scar that Hurts

Summary, chapter 1/6: The Monster Princess, overlord of the Fallavin Empire, the terror of all the peoples of Tabula, was once just a girl. Not that anyone would believe that...

Word count: 1732.

Next chapter →

The calendar in Tabula starts at the Year Zero. Unlike Earth’s history, there was nothing before the Year Zero. It was a point that no human existed and, then, an entire civilization emerged, as if sprouting overnight.

Because it happened like that.

The humans of Tabula never understood why they were spirited away to that world. Other civilizational species had similar stories. But humans never truly coped with it. No matter how they discussed, they couldn’t blame anyone. It was a fatality. The memory of the World Before faded each millennium, no matter how well the Atlantean capital preserved its relics.

Ripped off from their home and beliefs, humans turned to mathematics to find comfort. In a world full of uncertainty, it was comforting to know that two plus two was four, that the hypothenuse of a triangle is the sum of the squares of the two other sides, that pi existed. Calculating odds was both a pastime, a science and a prayer to Chance themselves. Their natural philosophy would resemble more modern-day quantum physics because they realize they lived in a probabilistic universe – God does play dice, for they were his dices.

The Scar of the Year Zero rudely taught them that.

It was said that the chances of the Scar happening were the same as the king of Atlana phase through his throne. It was a number incomprehensibly small, but never zero.

Where once idols and shrines filled the walls of temples and home-spirits inhabited their houses, now there were engravings of mathematical formulas. To remind them that there were certain things in the world that were certain and to draw comfort from them. Even the poorest tried to learn how to read and do math, to feel themselves better. From the highest king to the lowest peasant, math acted as a soothing prayer. Instead of bent knees and clasped hands, men and women picked chalk and pens to write symbols and equations on whatever they could.

Therefore, Tojava was in a sense praying. Her mother tasked her with one request: find a way to solve the “problem of evil” – how to make people act good. It was a strange request, but her mother promised that she would be a wise heir to the throne of Fallave if she found a solution to it. The entire court approved it.

They all seemed a bit afraid when asking that. For all the time she had existed, they always had that sense of dread whenever she approached them.

It must’ve been her status. She was the princess, after all. Because she was taught from tender age to be a good person. Sage Sanxamas always made sure to her that she knew all there was to known in Tabula.

The princess of a beautiful kingdom, she was 12. She was much taller than the average kid. Many already counted her as an adult for her height only. Her blue hair was tied in a bun, but it was clear it’s been a couple of days since she last took care of it, with knots and chalk dirt on it. As she completed another row of equations, her fingers became callous; there was so much chalk in her clothes.

She gave a small, frustrated grunt when she saw the end of the wall nearby. Her red eyes squinted. Her scribbles became more and more furious, rushing to fit the equation in the remaining space.

The chalk stick in her hand broke.

She grunted again. She was almost in the end. Not wanting to waste time, black and white flames surrounded her hand and then the stick. It was restored to its original form; Tojava continued writing as if nothing happened.

Among the sages of Tabula, there was hope that someone would unveil a “social math”, that would give them instructions how to be a good person, how to find meaning in life. The poor would’ve known exactly how well they should work to live a good life. There would be no more waste and hunger. People would have kids according to each family’s necessity, so that there would be enough resources to sustain the population. They could control the uncontrollable.

They could even heal the Scar, or at least mitigate its effects.

This was Tojava’s mission: to solve the problem of evil. Then, after math taught how humans should they should live, she could convince them to act accordingly and solve this problem.

The prayer of symbols and equations will be answered.

And she was the perfect person to finish this prayer. Her math skills were unprecedent. Her knowledge in philosophy, ethics and natural sciences was astonishing for a person of her age. All her teachers had glowing reviews of her work. They even stopped peer-reviewing her calculations because they were simply too advanced for them.

It was her duty. She had no choice but to accept it. To control math was to control her powers. That’s what sage Sanxamas said. When she asked if he was sure, he replied with a sincere ‘no’. But it would help her clean her mind and becoming a good person.

It was too much work. But she could take it. Sometimes, she wished she could’ve played more. Again, friends were difficult for some reason. Thankfully Etrien managed to convince others to play with her. More kids came to play with her, but, no matter, what she always had the villain role. When she asked to be one of the good guys, the others refused, claiming it was unfair because she was too big.

It was fair, she guessed.

She thought of that when she finished her prayer. In the basement of one of the royal family’s summer residences, Tojava had all the walls under it with scribbles of equations. She already filled the first two stories above. Formulae that would look esoteric even to the greatest mathematicians of Earth – both because Tabulan humans developed a different system of symbols and because Tojava created new theorems and estimations almost each time she returned to the house – were simple drafts for her.

The residence itself was scarcely used and, when the princess requested for personal reasons, there was no point in denying her. Soon, it became known in the court as the “Math Palace”. At first, she just wanted a secluded place to think, bringing enough, expensive paper to fill a book. Then, when the paper ended and she refused to reuse it, she picked some chalk and started writing on the table. The paper and ink still came, but it always took too long, so she simply decided to just start writing on the walls. The only reason why she didn’t write in the floor was because her steps would blur the equations. In a few months, both stories had their walls filled with equations. Then, she went to the basement, where the foundations of the house were, with more walls, only needing a source of light.

She sat down on the floor, staring at the last solution of the equation.

“Zero, again…”

The symbol of the crossed dot was everywhere in the house, always the end of the long strings of equations.

She started to whimper. She could feel tears coming down from her eyes, while she stared hopelessly the zero in the wall.

“Toji, why are you still here?”

“Ah! Etrien!”

Snapping out, she looked behind and saw Etrien, holding a lantern.

“Why do you always do that?”

“What’s happening? Why are your eyes red? Don’t tell me you were crying, I…uh…don’t know what to do when women cry.”

Tojava remained silent.

“Toji, uh…why…why are you crying?”

He sounded so awkward that a small bit of her wanted to laugh. Etrien was never good at showing other emotions than being serious.

She cleared her throat. Maybe crying was a sign of weakness. Unbecoming of a future queen.

“Etrien, I have discovered a terrible thing. We are going to die.”

“Why is it a problem? We all will die.”

The Scar had hurt their perception of death as well. Since young age, humans from Tabula had to understand death, more than one could expect.

“You don’t understand, Etri. Do you remember when mother asked me to solve the problem of evil?”

“Yes, you mentioned that.”

“No matter the scenarios, the different probabilities, the most optimistic evaluations, it always ends with evil triumphing and humanity getting extinct.”

“What? This is ridiculous.”

“Yes…but if we have to consider that to destroy is easier than to create and that we have to destroy to create. If I assign values to creation and to destruction, I can put them into an equation.”

She stopped to sigh.

“I tried everything, from giving humanity infinite resources, to removing all our enemies, but it just…it’s like there is something that makes humanity march forward to extinction.”

“Toji, this is too much for me. This is something you should discuss with my brother. He likes you, you know?”

“But, Etrien, you don’t understand! There is something in humans’ desires that makes them fall. Even if they choose to be good, they cannot make this choice consistent and constant to guarantee the triumph of good in the end. What if kindness isn’t enough? Love, hope, trust. The equations say…”

“Toji, I don’t think you’re making sense. Remember what big brother said: life is short, be glad and enjoy with your close ones and yourself.”

Tojava remained silent.

“Well, of course I don’t know how to say this. We’re kids, Toji. My brother can understand you, but I…” He stopped and looked down. Tojava raised an eyebrow, Etrien seemed regretful of something. He turned up and said, with determination that seemed out of place in relation to its content, “We are royalty, we can enjoy life to its fullest.” That sounded awkward, but he continued nonetheless. "Come on, the summer banquet is about to start. They made honey cakes, my favorite!”

Tojava looked down. Maybe she needed to cool down her head after that day’s exercises. She really stretched herself because she wanted to finish before the banquet; it was her most complex model, with ten walls of equations. She was proud of it and couldn’t wait to show it the adults.

Thus, she nodded and followed Etrien to their carriage. She could think of a better model later, one that could give other solution than zero.

#original work #genre: fantasy #i'm also writing original stuff #this is a short story #explaining the origin of the antagonist of my novel #i had written last year #but i figured out i can share it

5 notes · View notes

caracuuw · 2 years

Text

What Makes a Home

Ao3 link :D

Jimmy had never known the world to be kind to him. Maybe it was fate. Maybe he was cursed. Maybe the universe was playing some elaborate prank on him. Maybe he was just so terrible at the game of life that he was just kidding himself, hoping for anything more than the cards he’d been dealt. Whatever it was, it didn’t actually matter. He was dead first. Again. Nothing he could do now would ever change that.

One moment, he was being clawed to death by a furious enderman, its talons digging deep gashes into his heart. Wishing he could be home, more than anything. Wondering where Tango was, desperately needing to tell him that he was sorry, he was so, so very sorry. The next moment, he was frantically gasping for the thick, damp, pale air around him. The cold dirt beneath his back also held onto the surrounding moisture, making it soft and heavy.

No, no, no, no, nonononono-

As Jimmy sat up slowly, his joints feeling stiff, he squinted through the dense, white fog nearly engulfing him. It wasn’t much use; he could barely see ten feet in front of him, if that.

He got to his feet, grunting as he did so, and brushed off his pants. He seemed to be standing on a grave, of sorts. His grave, he realized vaguely. Deep inside of him, he knew this wasn’t the first time he’d ever seen it, and judging by his track record, this wouldn’t be the last.

He shook his head. He couldn’t tell if he was frustrated or disappointed or sad— maybe it was all at once. Whatever it was, he still couldn’t do it. He still died first. Why should he have ever hoped for anything different? And this time, he’d had somebody to let down with it.

He glanced around, still seeing nothing else near him. He sighed, crouching down next to the headstone. On the headstone were a couple of engravings; a faded ‘Here lies Jimmy, Beloved Husband’, and ‘Should of watched TopGun Tim’ scrawled in the bottom corner. There was a small pile of things that had begun to accumulate by its base made up of a long dried up bouquet of poppies and tulips, a cracked and rusted spyglass, and, the most recent addition, a gently placed down goat horn.

Jimmy brushed his fingers over the goat horn, admiring the dull, roughly polished shine it had-

He was being clawed to death by a furious enderman, its talons digging-

He yanked his hand away from the horn as if he’d just been shocked by it. He blinked at it, then looked at his fingertips. He couldn’t seem to find anything remotely wrong with them, but in his inspection, he noticed the faintly glowing lines streaking across his chest and torso. He furrowed his eyebrows and glanced over the other items laid out on his grave. Cautiously, he pulled out one of the wilted poppies.

He was crouched low in a half buried bunker as war was waged outside right in front of him. Next to him, Scar peeked excitedly out at the chaos unfolding before them, shooting his arrows out to add to the crossfire. Jimmy did his best to aim at the Red Army through the small crack opened just a few inches above the sand that stretched out around the bunker. Grian had just been shot by Martyn, whose attention had turned to them. He went to go descend into the lower floor of the bunker, readying to-

He barely had time to register the arrow piercing through his skull before he was crumpling to the ground like a ragdoll, lifeless.

Jimmy dropped the flower, taking a deep breath and closing his eyes. He could almost see the light emanating from the long gone puncture wound on his forehead through his eyelids. He let out a long, heavy sigh. He opened his eyes back up, and for just a few fleeting moments, he swore the flower had been bright and lush and alive again, before it shriveled once again.

“What?” He said under his breath. His voice echoed through

He reached down, and placed his fingers atop the flower.

He was crouched low in a half buried bunker as war was waged outside-

He lifted his fingers, and the bunker dissolved, leaving him back at his grave. Just for a second, the flower was, in fact, a vibrant red, once again.

He was crouched low in-

He brought the poppy up to his face and breathed in its sweet scent.

The bunker swirled around him, like a thick mist would when a hand was dragged quickly through it. As the scene reformed, he was no longer in the desert bunker, but instead on a hilltop, sitting atop another grave, similar, but not the same as his other one. It had ‘Here lies Jimmy, Beloved Husband’ freshly carved into the top. Around him were a variety of multicolored tulips, a scarlet one planted directly in front of him. A few feet away stood Scott, his expression somber. A warm breeze blew gently through his cyan hair, though he didn’t seem to pay it any notice.

After a long silence, Scott finally spoke. “Jimmy, you will never be forgotten,” he said. “Your memory and… and the adventures we shared togeth-” He turned his head suddenly, looking at something outside of Jimmy’s view, exclaiming; “Woah- excuse you, ma’am, where did you come from?! I was just-” He had fully turned around at that point and was pulling out his bow. “You can’t just show up to the funeral!” He shouted, running off and causing the world to twist and swirl off once again.

Jimmy blinked, and he was back at his other grave, the poppy at his feet and shriveling to its prior state. He frowned thoughtfully at the other two items laying on his grave. He repositioned himself to be sitting cross-legged beside them, then reached over and took the old spyglass in his hands.

He was at Mumbo’s home built into the wall of the Southlands where they had set a trap planned for Grian and Martyn. Their facade had been seen through immediately, and in an attempt to get Grian inside, he gave him a hard shove. He was being chased, because he had just hurt a yellow life, he was trying to kill a yellow life, and he was a red life. He briefly wondered why the life of a yellow life mattered more than his own as he scrambled on top of the building. Grian had a life to spare, and he— he felt a sword slash across his back. His feet fumbled, and he tripped. He was falling, falling, falling for much longer than what seemed reasonable for the building, and then, finally, his head hit the ground with a sickening crack-

Jimmy lifted the spyglass to his eye. The building shifted, and he was watching Grian breathing heavily, standing over a pile of stuff— Mumbo’s stuff, he realized.

“I can’t believe that’s just happened,” Martyn said, cautiously running down the hill to where Grian was.

“They should- back me up here, Martyn, they went for me.” Grian insisted.

“They did, they did,” Martyn agreed. “I mean, Mumbo literally crystalled-” He began slowly picking through Mumbo’s stuff. His voice lowered as he felt the immediate threat threatening Grian and himself was gone and he distracted himself with Mumbo’s things. “Using a crystal, that’s some real dedication to- to the cause,”

“Well, what’ve we got?” Grian said, kicking aside a couple of items. “Did he have any more crystals on him?”

“Err…” Martyn searched through the pile. “He had a ghast tear on him, but… no, no crystals…” Martyn picked up something small and circular, and he frowned, furrowing his eyebrows. Jimmy couldn’t tell what exactly it was from where he stood, but it seemed to be metallic, and it glimmered in the light slightly as he inspected it. “Uh, but there are some diamonds here, though,” he said, nodding off to his side but still clearly distracted. There was a look in his eyes Jimmy wasn’t quite sure he couldn’t place. It was almost cold, yet it had a fire hiding deep behind it, indicative of no particular emotion but still holding a deep grief that could be seen in the corner of his eyes. It was an emotion Jimmy had personally never been given the chance to experience. He pulled something similar off of his own finger and tucked both objects into his pocket. He stood up to follow Grian, who had begun walking away, and the world blurred.

When it came back into focus, they were back over at Mumbo’s house. Thunder rumbled in a loud, menacing roar overhead.

“Oh, boogie’s about to be chosen,” Martyn noticed, walking over to where Grian stood over Jimmy’s own things. “Look me in the eyes, look me in the eyes,”

“Hold on,” Grian said. “I’m still looting Timmy’s corpse here,”

“That’s on you, boogie-slayer.” Martyn said, then he shook his head. “Why’d I say boogie-slayer- red-slayer.”

“What’ve we got-” Grian mumbled, crouched over his scattered items. “Oh- hold on- three, two,”

“You are…” He and Martyn said in unison anticipating the boogieman curse potentially taking hold of either of them.

“Not the boogieman!” Grian chimed. “I haven’t been the boogieman the entire time,” he continued, but Martyn didn’t seem to be listening. His eyes had a glazed look to them that Grian didn’t seem to notice. They still held that same buried anger and grief as before, as well as a sudden, hidden bloodlust, but they also held something that looked almost like terror. He shook his head.

“Jeez,” Martyn said, trying to brush off whatever had just happened. “Who’s left that could be it, then?”

“There’s plenty of green and yellow names around,” Grian said.

Martyn quietly pulled something out of his inventory. “Dude, this isn’t good.” He bent down and looked through Jimmy’s things too. He pocketed a spyglass he found. “Oh, wait,” he said. “We still need to deactivate this thing as well, hold up” He said, moving away from the door. As he did, the scene began to twist away from Jimmy again. “Um, let me try the bow from a distance.” His voice grew faint.

“No,” Jimmy started. “No, wait, I had wanted to see that!”

It was no use. By that point, it was already gone. He nearly dropped the spyglass, frustrated and disappointed he hadn’t been allowed to watch for just a minute longer, but stopped when he heard a distant shouting.

“Wait- Timmy?!”

“Martyn?” He called back, confused.

“Timmy?!”

He was back in the Southlands. It was quiet, apart from Martyn, who looked tired and stressed, but he was there, and he was looking right at Jimmy.

“It’s Jimm-” He started. “Oh, it doesn’t matter- You can- can you see me?”

“I thought you were dead!” Martyn exclaimed. “How are y-”

“I- I am, Martyn, I died in Double Life to an enderman- I- why are we here? How are you here?”

“I- I just thought that, after last week, you know-”

“Last week… what are you talking about? I just died, it hasn’t been that long, has it?”

“Wait, what?” Martyn said, looking away from him. Jimmy opened his mouth to speak, but was cut off by Martyn giggling. “Oh, oh, yeah, of course!” He laughed.

“What? Martyn, that’s not- this isn’t funny, why-”

“Oh, yeah, absolutely, yeah, yeah,” he said, holding his spyglass up to… the part of the wall that lead to Mumbo’s house.

“What are you…”

“Right, you ready for it?” Martyn grinned over at him, lowering his spyglass for a moment.

“I don’t-”

“Alright, let’s do it!” Martyn cleared his throat. “Welcome back! It’s Last Life, week eight,” he began, using a higher voice he put on when he was… imitating Mumbo… but Mumbo wasn’t there, so…

“What?” Jimmy muttered in a soft voice.

“And you know what? Turn that symbol sideways, and you get a nice little infinity. There’s almost something quite nice about that, isn’t there? I’ve- wha-” Martyn glanced over at him, still smiling. “Shut up- I-” He laughed. “I’ve woken up with a bit of a sore neck this morning, and uh, I might need the other boys to c-aha-rry the load.”

“You can’t see me…” Jimmy realized. “I’m not- I’m not actually here, am I? This is another one of those… weird… memory- scene things.”

“Oh, he’s coming, he’s coming, he’s coming-” He laughed again. “We got him!”

“But what…”

“Yes, we did! We totally got you! What are you talking about? Hook, line, and sinker, spyglass in hand, in your own little world,” he chuckled. “Oh, man. Ah, dude, it’s so funny,” he grinned over at Jimmy again. “So-” Martyn froze. He blinked and his expression dropped. “Wait, Timmy?”

“What is going on?” Jimmy muttered under his breath.

Martyn stumbled backwards a few steps, frantically looking around. “Mumbo?” His face grew pale and his voice distant as the fog began to return. “Anyone?!” The last thing Jimmy heard before the swirling mist fully enveloped him was Martyn’s final, panicked; “Hello?!”

There as a crack, and Jimmy blinked down at the spyglass rolling off of the base of his headstone where it fell. Green rust quickly frosted over its metal. It stopped as it hit the goat horn, the final item on his grave.

His mind was still racing with countless questions about what he had just witnessed there with Martyn, but he… he wasn’t certain the universe would be kind enough to give him the answers.

He sighed and looked down at the goat horn. He supposed he had nothing better to do. He picked up the horn.

He was being clawed to death by a furious enderman-

He brought the horn up to his lips.

Grian and Scar stood in the ranch, by the headstones Grian had just put up for Jimmy and Tango, one on each side of the grave for Ranchers’ Revenge. Scar had just etched ‘should of watched TopGun Tim’ on the corner and was grinning at Grian before going to see what was going on on the bridge.

“Um, there’s an amass of- of enemies on the bridge.”

“Wait, wait, woah, woah, woah, this is a funeral.” Grian said, joining Scar where he looked out across the lake. “Woah- do you see the pile of TNT?”

“No? Oh, what- dude, dude, okay, okay,” Scar started excitedly. “Please, can I go steal it?” He grinned at Grian.

“Ah, well, uh… okay, I’m just- we’re gonna have a funeral over here.”

“Alright, hold on, I’ll be back for the funeral, I just wanna-” Scar called his voice fading out as he ran off.

Jimmy took a deep breath, and he blew the horn.

Once again, the scene disappeared into fog, but this time, the fog didn’t morph into a new one. This time, he was left back on his grave, in the fog, still holding the horn. He stood up, confused, and looked around. He blew the horn again, its distinctive call ringing through the mist.

“You’re still here?” Jimmy turned around. A few feet away in the fog, where he wouldn’t have been able to see just moments before, stood a grave, nearly identical to his own.

Tango sat on top of his headstone. He had glowing lines marking his death across his chest, exactly like the ones Jimmy bore himself. He looked exhausted and resigned, but he didn’t look angry, contrary to what Jimmy would have expected.

“Tango,” he breathed.

“It’s over,” he shook his head. “Go home.”

“Tango, I-”

“Go.”

He paused, staring at Tango for a while. Tango stared back. “Where?” He said simply.

“I don’t know, Jimmy. Home. Don’t you have somewhere better to go when it’s all over, rather than waiting here forever?” Tango sighed. “It’s not a nice time, Jimmy; being here. Alone.”

“I know.” Jimmy said. “I don’t think I have anywhere else to go. All the places I’ve lived; the flower field, the Southlands, the Ranch; they were just houses, and they’re all gone now anyways.” He set the horn back down next to the spyglass and the bouquet. “Do you have anywhere that you go?”

Tango was silent for a bit. “No,” he eventually said. “No, I always just end up back here.”

“Yeah,” Jimmy said. “Same here.” He paused. “Though, there’s never been anyone else here before. It’s always been just me.”

“Maybe it has something to do with us being soulbound.” Tango suggested.

“Yeah, maybe…” Jimmy trailed off. “Tango,” he started. “When I said that all those places were just houses, well, they were also my homes, but they weren’t home because of what they were. Don’t get me wrong, I loved the Ranch.” He stepped forward to stand right in front of Tango. “I really, really loved it. But on its own, the Ranch could never have been a home. Every single place I have ever called home has been a place where someone cared about me. The reason the Ranch was so special was because you were there.” He took Tango’s hands in his own. “If you really want to be alone, I’ll leave, or I’ll do my best to, at least. But I don’t know if I can keep going on like this; leaving the people I care about alone in the world. So, please, if you will… let me take this chance before it’s taken away from me.”

Tango let out a heavy sigh, letting his head fall forward and resting the top against Jimmy's chest. “I’m so tired of this, Jimmy. I’m tired of being alone. I’m tired of dying pointlessly.”

Jimmy let go of Tango’s hands. “Oh, Tango, I didn’t- Tango, I am so, so sorry. I- I should’ve been more careful. I-”

“I don’t blame you, Jimmy, I’m just tired.” Tango pulled Jimmy’s hands back towards him. “Plus, I’m pretty sure I’m cursed, at this point.”

Jimmy couldn’t help but laugh slightly. “Well, that makes two of us.”

Tango smiled softly. “We were just doomed from the beginning then, huh?”

“I guess so. It wasn’t all bad, though. For what it’s worth, I couldn’t’ve had a better soulmate than you.” Jimmy let out a light breath. “It’s been make very clear that the universe won’t let us keep a home, but if you wanted to, we could go figure out how to make one for ourselves.” He stepped back, but kept hold of Tango’s hands.

Tango pulled himself up with Jimmy's hands and into an embrace. “Yeah, I’d like that.”

Jimmy wrapped his arms around Tango, holding him tight. Maybe it was fate, and maybe he was cursed, and maybe the universe played cruel tricks on him and dealt him cards no person, no matter how good at the game they were, could be expected to win with, but dammit, in spite of all of that, Jimmy was loved. Nothing the universe had thrown at him had ever been able to stop that, and maybe it never would. And maybe that was enough.

#solidaritygaming #dlsmp #dlsmp fanfic #trafficshipping #flower husbands #solidaritek #<it’s a bit ambiguous and you can interpret it however you’d like #I wrote it as vaguely /r but if you wanna see it as platonic I’m not gonna stop you #there’s also some super minor Martyn ‘n Mumbo but only if you squint so I don’t want to clog the tag #ren.writes

50 notes · View notes