#sky-layer-inversion

[dos-security]

[ALERT – PUBLIC COSMIC CLARIFICATION NOTICE]

There is still only one moon.

Please disregard:

Reports of a “second, lower” moon

Dreams featuring lunar reflections that breathe

Any social media claims tagged #twomoonsclub

The moon has always been the moon. You are experiencing residual Sky Layer Inversion Syndrome (SLIS). This is common in individuals who look up for too long without blinking.

If you have taken a photograph showing two moons, please submit it for deletion via Form B-9. If the moons appear to be arguing, do not engage. One of them is not a moon.

We assure you: Lunar sovereignty remains uncontested.

[lorelune]

inversion

|| rin itoshi x reader || E/18+ || angst with a happy ending || wc: 7.2k || ao3 ||

Preemptive grief defines your relationship with Rin. Heartbreak is in the nature of your connection. You are forced to reckon with its end.

minors, antis and ageless blogs dni

notes: eeeeeee this piece is part of a trade i'm doing with beloved @rabbbitseason :3c they asked for angst + rin and i am here to deliver a bruisy piece 🙂‍↕️!!!! he was an interesting (read: slippery) character to chew!! but very fun as well :3c thank you to @suguwu for beta reading this piece and talking through rin's character as well!!! jun's invaluable feedback rlly helped bring the piece together. please read and enjoy something a bit achey my kind reader 💗

CWs: angst with a happy ending, gn reader with afab anatomy, rin is assumed to be 20+ and playing professionally, f receiving oral, missionary, some possible abandonment issues for the reader

You do not mean to fall in love with Rin Itoshi.

Distinctly, you did not want to fall in love with him. Because he is probably not a good lover, nor does he want to be a lover at all. It’s a poor combination. Being enamored with him is a poor way of being.

It’s unfortunate that you have found yourself in this position— hopelessly in love and irrevocably attached to him. 

... 

Drizzle falls from the sky in a mist. It’s been like this for days, a haze of light rain with thick fog that rolls in during the mornings. You’ve almost gotten used to your hair frizzing up and returning home damp from any outing. 

It’s unpleasant. But then again, everything is unpleasant at this moment, so the rain is the least of your worries.

Rin Itoshi is on your front stoop.

There’s a little cement step there that he sits on. In front of your door, just behind him, is a welcome mat. A large, ceramic cat is set just next to the door. As you walk up to your home, grocery bags in tow, you cannot see your normal, friendly guardian.

Instead, all you see is Rin Itoshi. 

Stopping in the little walkway up to your small home, you let the rain drench you. Rin looks up from the ground with an expression between a scowl and a pout. His hood is drawn up over his head, but his hair still looks wet. The tips of his shoes are soaked through. Even from a distance, you can tell.

You sigh.

“You’re home late,” he says. His words get eaten by the ambient sounds of the city, and the pittering of rain on nearby roofs.

You raise your arms, trembling with the weight of your haul. “Groceries.”

“Hm.” 

You frown and Rin rises. 

He takes your bags, taking them from you and easily looping them on a single forearm. He moves aside so you can slip past him, to your door, now able to see your fat-bodied kitty cat protector (who really isn’t doing much protecting at the moment—) and give him a nod of acknowledgement. 

Rin makes a sound behind you; a huff. He’s amused. You contend with kicking his shin but decide against it.

Like a lost, wet puppy, Rin follows you inside. 

There’s a pair of house slippers for him; there has been for months. The fuzzy fabric of the slippers is patterned to look like big, pink cat paws. You purchased them for Rin as a joke, a gag that you didn’t expect to get a rise out of him beyond a heavy blush, and yet he took to them immediately. His pair sits next to your own slippers like the two belong next to each other. 

Rin shuffles behind you.

(How many times have you done this?)

You turn on the electric kettle and put away the groceries Rin has carried inside for you. You mentally plan out your meals for the week and concurrently catastrophize about what the fuck to do with the man in front of you. 

He leans against your kitchen counter. His outer layer has been shed, all he’s in now is a (somehow, still damp) white t-shirt and his warm-up joggers. Rainwater still clings to his bottom lashes, dew-like. You lean forward, cupping his face to brush the moisture away. His cheeks are clammy, still so chilled. 

(It’s all too tender.)

“You’re cold.” You frown. “Go sit down. I’ll finish making tea.”

“I am sitting down.”

“Leaning isn’t sitting.” 

“Close enough.”

You sigh. “I meant in the other room, preferably with a blanket.”

“I’ll wait.” 

You sigh, “Fine.”

It’s not worth arguing with Rin. 

Rin is so— so— frustratingly single-minded. Motivated in a single direction to a fault. You’ve long since learned that attempting to sway him, regardless of how sensible and sensical of an idea you have, is fruitless. If it doesn’t align with what he has already decided he is going to do, he simply won’t change. It’s something rather immutable about him.

His nature is as stubborn as his thoughts. 

(Loving him is so difficult; you wish that you didn’t.)

Rin grabs two mugs (your mugs) while you fetch the tea. It’s the same selection as it always is— your cup of ginger and honey, and his plain peppermint. 

You only settle once the two of you make your way to the couch, side-by-side, covered in the worn quilt that Rin likes best. It’s a tawny mix of grey and tan yarn. You picked it up from a thrift store years ago. You never would’ve thought that it would become such an integral part of a pathetic, mutual routine.

Rin is stiff beside you. One glance at him tells you that he’s chewing on his words. He doesn’t tend to— to do that. He doesn’t mince anything that flows from his brain to his lips. Your stomach rolls with a sense of unease. 

“Is everything alright?” You ask. 

(It never is, not really, when this routine is being completed.)

Rin looks at him. His gaze is piercing, crystalline. It lances you. “I’m leaving.”

You know this already; you aren’t supposed to.

“Oh?”

“Yeah.”

“... For how long?” This you don’t know. 

“A while.” Rin's hands ball into fists on the tops of his thighs. “Half a year, at least.”

“I see.”

(You feel your world begin to cave in.) 

An eerie quiet settles over the room. The rain patters outside, streaking your windows in droplets, obscuring the greater world. It makes it feel like all that exists is you, Rin, and the lucid knowledge that your connection has nearly run its course. 

You swallow; it’s audible. “Where to?”

“Europe.”

“Europe’s big. Countries—?”

“Germany, Italy, and France,” replies Rin. “Maybe more.”

The back of your eyes sting. “I could visit?”

“I’ll be busy.”

“... Could you not make time?”

(Could you not make time for me?)

“I don’t know.”

“Hm.” You feel something cold and dreadful coat your insides. 

Your tea is cooling down, steam hardly rising from the mug now. You take a sip of it, and hold the mug in both hands, grasping onto the warmth that radiates off of it. The ceramic of the vessel still holds heat, enough to scald your palms. Yet, you don’t put it down. 

This big, unspoken thing lingers between you both. It writhes, swirls, like it always does when you enter this routine. There’s always been an impending end date to your connection, even if neither of you could quantify the time you had left together. Rin's career, his ambitions, his nature to not just excel, but crush and break in tandem, have always floated above your dynamic. 

This thing would immolate eventually.

(And you along with it.)

...

You end up in your bedroom, the gloomy day sliding into a thickly dark night. You’re not even sure if the moon is out. The room only glows with light from a few soft lamps. The spray of them catches the angles of Rin’s face well. Even with age, his face hasn't hardened all that much. He still has pudge in his cheeks that he can’t shake. It makes him look younger, more innocent, like there hasn’t been a thing in him, forever, threatening to devour him as it craves to brutalize others. 

Another part of your routine commences once you enter your soft, kindly-lit bedroom. Sex— of some sort. Today it feels bad. You’re not sure what’s coming other than grief. 

Stripping feels like a funeral march. The drizzle that continues to fall outside may as well be a dirge. 

Rin pulls his shirt over his head and off. It’s a quiet affair today, though typically it isn’t. On a more normal day, when you aren’t witnessing your romantically entangled decay in real-time, there’s banter. You might rib Rin, he may respond with his own barbed remark that you find a bit silly. It’s fun, despite Rin’s perpetually bruised demeanor.

Today, though, there’s no humor. No jesting. All that’s left is the unfathomable depth of— something behind Rin’s eyes and the ache in your chest that you’re afraid will kill you.

You kneel on your bed, left only in a sweater, goofy-looking socks, and panties. The stupid satiny kind that you think is kind of uncomfortable, but you know Rin enjoys. He leaves his boxers on, coming to rest on his own knees across from you.

Your eyes feel damp, you feel stupid, and can’t make yourself look at him.

“Don’t be a crybaby,” he tells you.

You scoff, the sound warbly and your voice watery. “Like you’re any better.” 

(Rin isn’t the crybaby notably. You think he gets close to it sometimes. Maybe that’s just your own wishful thinking.)

(You want Rin to crack; it would make your own fissures less shameful.)

Rin kisses you then like he can hear your thoughts, and kissing you hard on the mouth will extract them from your brain. It does, in a way. He’s warm and familiar. You love him so terribly. 

You cup his cheeks in your palms, still aching from your mug earlier. You don’t care. You couldn’t make yourself care as you lean into him, pitching your weight forward. For all the things Rin isn’t good at, he is good at catching you. He bears the weight of you easily, wrapping an arm around your waist and securing you with a hand on the nape of your neck.

He’s so solid. Bigger than he appears. Firm muscle over firm muscle, he’s so entirely unyielding beneath your hands. There are so many parts of him that contradict each other; it’s what drew you to him in the first place. Rin Itoshi has always been a spectacle for you to untangle and know, even if, at first, it was just to satiate your own curiosity about the foul-mannered, enigmatic man he appears to be. 

Unfortunately, now, you have untangled Rin. The essence of him has been unraveled in your hands, laying across your palms like sheets of satin fabric— the kind that catches the light and almost shimmers in sun rays and moonbeams alike. Rin is so much more fragile than he appears, tough at some angles, but so bruiseable at others. This knowledge is held by you so intimately, you cherish it, what else can you do? 

It’s damning. It’s made you love him.

You stifle a noise against his lips and fall into him more.

In a single motion, Rin has you on your back, laid beneath him while he straddles your hips. He doesn’t stop kissing you. If anything, the leverage has him leaning into you more deeply. It’s suffocating, the weight of his body and him over you. Like it’s bearing down into your soul.

Rin licks into your mouth and you let him.

It’s almost gross when he kisses you like this. Filthy— dirty. He practically plunders the inside of your mouth, running his tongue over the back of your teeth, pushing it against your own, spit dripping out of the corners of your mouth. If you felt like you could be properly romantic with Rin, you might even say it’s a claiming act.

But you can’t be romantic with Rin. Because this doesn’t matter. The physicality you share serves the function of physical release and gratification. You love him and it is useless that you do. These are immutable facts.

(Facts that you hate, despise, and loathe. Why can’t he love you—? Why can’t he— just understand?)

You growl against his lips and shove at his chest.

“Just—” You sigh, turning your head to the side. You can’t look in his eyes or you’ll immolate. “Fuck me already, okay?”

Rin wordlessly presses his forehead against your temple. His hands claw into your hips. He’ll leave bruises, but they’ll never last the six months that he’ll be gone for. You’ll be a distant memory to him by then, you’re certain.

Something awful and far too hot is boiling in your chest. 

“No,” says Rin

“No?”

“No.” He repeats, dragging his nose down to your jaw, then your throat. 

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t want to yet.”

“Well, get a move on then.” You scoff. The watery quality of your voice has shifted to something sharper, angrier. 

“What’s with you?” He sighs out of his nose and it makes you flinch. “Why are you acting like this?”

“Like what?”

“Like this—” Rin tugs your jaw to face him and holds you there. You’re stuck looking into his eyes, azure and shiny like polished stones. Full of something you can’t name, lest you break your heart further.

(Your delusions are both damning you and saving you.)

Your eyes water; maybe you are a crybaby. “Fuck off.”

Rin kisses you hard again, flattening himself to you. He’s a cage like this, where you can only take what he gives you and—

(Rin gives you everything. Because that’s how he is with things he cares about.)

You feel like you're melting into the duvet as you desperately claw into Rin’s scalp, raking your hands through his hair. A pathetic noise bubbles up from your throat, pours from your mouth into Rin’s, and he takes it in kind. He always does. 

(He shouldn’t be reliable, but he is.)

It’s hard to think when he kisses you like this. Rin’s physicality is consuming, like he’s attempting to crush you and absorb you into him. It’s an intoxicating type of connection; it’s part of why you linger within your entanglement. In the moments you’re under him, intertwined with him like this, god, touching at all— you can’t do anything but think of Rin and his attention.

You kick him because he’s leaving— he’s leaving you and he isn’t letting you follow.

Rin grunts at the impact, even though you don’t kick him all that hard. You nip him at the same time— 

You’re so angry.

All the dread in you is angry, bitter like bile, and white hot. Preemptive grief, loss that you have to start swallowing before Rin isn’t even out of your arms.

“I hate you—” You tell him against his lips.”You’re awful. You’re the worst—”

Rin breaks away from you in an instant, slamming you back on the bed by the shoulder in a single, decisive motion. It makes your head spin.

“You don’t mean that.”

“And what if I did?” It’s not convincing, your voice is wobbling too much for it to be. You stare up at him, lips curling. 

“You’re being a brat.”

“Oh my god, says you—” You roll your eyes. “You’re the brat here. Just— fucking kiss me—”

“No.”

“Then fucking leave already—!”

Rin holds you steady by the jaw, bowing over your body. You can’t look anywhere other than him. It’s consuming, like you’re being engulfed by a rushing tide. 

“Stop. It.” His words are clipped, filled with his own anger. His grip is too tight; you fear he may crush you. 

“Choke.”

“You’re throwing a tantrum.”

“So what if I am?” you laugh, the sound too high and airy to be comfortable. “If it bothers you so much, just leave already. It’s not like you want to be here. Does passing time in my bed make it go faster for you, Rin? Getting your last taste of this before you fuck off and leave—?”

“That’s what this is about?”

“What else would it be about!”

Your voice breaks and you close your eyes. God, you don't want to cry, but it feels unavoidable now. All of Rin’s attention, potential vitriol, judgment, and rejection is pointed at you. You might as well fucking die.

Rin is quiet over top of you, like a dark, stormy cloud in its last moments before a thunder crack. Heat lightning crackles between the two of you, but nothing strikes the ground yet. 

“It’s better for you to stay here,” he says eventually. 

“Why do you think that?” You sound exasperated.

Rin’s quiet again, then speaks like he’s seated at a confessional, and not over your hips. 

“You shouldn’t be around me too much when I’m playing,” Rin confesses and squeezes your jaw. “It’s bad enough here. All I’ll be doing is playing soccer—”

“And that’s what you want, right?”

“Yes—” Rin admittance hits you in the chest and you have to let out a steadying breath, so you don’t shatter right there. “And you can’t be there for that.”

“Why?”

Rin lets go of your jaw and you open your eyes. 

His own jaw is tight, his bottom lip bitten between his teeth. His eyes are wet, almost like there could be tears threatening to spill into his lower lashes. Maybe you’re imagining it. 

“Trust me.” His tone is a bowstring. You’re both ready to snap. “Please.”

A whine echoes from your throat, out of your control. 

(You love him and you hate seeing someone you love hurt—)

You can’t help yourself. You tug him down by the shoulders and into you, so he can lay over your chest. He lets you, so easily, and tucks his face into the curve of your neck. He hides there, arms wrapping around your middle, so tightly that you’re sure that you’ll ache there the next day. 

It hurts, it hurts— not the pressure on your ribs, but having the atypically unsteady presence of Rin in your arms. It’s not uncommon for the two of you to cuddle, Rin is clingy, especially after sex, but it is odd to see him this visibly upset. It hurts because he’s hurting. It hurts because he’s choosing to leave and telling you not to follow, despite... everything. It hurts so deep in your chest, that you let yourself become so involved and in love with him.

You bury your face in his hair and shake.

...

Rin is bad at protecting people.

It’s a given, knowing his nature and the fact that he had an older brother closely looking out for him for most of his life, makes his ineptitude at protection make sense. 

He clearly wants to be. He has the strength and tenacity to bare his teeth and claw, but you don’t think Rin knows which way to direct his fear and grief— whether to inflict wrath on himself, the aggressor, or the person he actually means to protect. 

You can’t blame him. Some things, Rin only understands in theory and not in practice. Rin is so highly attuned to feelings but so absolutely atrocious at empathizing. You think— with you— he tried. He even succeeded at points, which makes your own heartbreak feel all that more infectious and virulent.

Your back is laid out over your duvet, your legs cradling Rin’s hips. He has three fingers in you, stretching you out with as much care and intention as he can muster. You can tell by the furrow in his brow, the peek of his tongue sticking out from his lips. Pleasure burns in your core, but the sensation is eclipsed by a well of fondness and grief, drowning you.

Rin slides onto his stomach and hikes your legs over his shoulders. He takes one of your hands and places it into his hair. You knot your fingers into the soft texture of it and tug. He likes when you do that, when you try to take from him. Rin shudders between your thighs, huffing a breath into the pudge of them. He nips.

On another night, you’d scold him and give him a playful amount of grief for it.

Tonight, you want him to bite you so hard that you bleed and scar.

(Would he? He’s so scared of hurting you, even if he doesn’t say it. He is hurting you. A sick part of you wants him to do material harm to you, so you’ll have something tangible to remember him by. An imprint of his teeth in your thigh would be too romantic, maybe. Too much to ask for.)

Rin kisses up toward your cunt, taking his time over the outside of it. He breathes in the scent of you, long and hard, a few times. A wishful part of you hopes that he is committing it to memory. 

“Hurry up,” you snap. 

“No.” Rin keeps fucking denying you. Haste would make this hurt less. You could speed things up to the inevitable end where Rin Itoshi has thrown this— you— away and you are left alone. Instead, he prolongs it. Instead he is carving a piece of you out, in the shape of himself, the wound never to fill as cicatrix and heal.

You drag him closer by the hair and grind against his face—

“Impatient—” he says against your cunt with a growl. His arms wrap around your hips, holding you down and in place, keeping you from squirming. 

It’s needed as he drags his tongue over your cunt, dipping the tip of it into your hole before landing on your clit. He laps at it, at you, humming and groaning as you tug at his hair. The motion you’re allowed lets you just barely grind against his face. It’s not enough contact. You want more, need more, but Rin is only giving you so much. 

“God,” you breathe out. “Fuck you.”

Rin practically growls, the vibration of the sound against your sex makes your back arch, a pretty, croaking sound dripping from your throat. He dives into you with more fervor, digging hand-shaped bruises into your hips.

The pleasure comes to you like licks of a flame, just as scorching as they are whimsical. Your toes curl as Rin’s sucks your clit. There’s finesse in his actions. There didn’t used to be, at the start of things, but now Rin knows your body so intimately—

(It feels crushing to know this will be the last time—)

It feels like you’ve been struck.

Never again— this is it—? The last time he’ll be in your bed, between your thighs, in your arms. You’ll never get to share this proximity with Rin Itoshi again. Not this version of him, anyway. You know what the journey that he’s about to embark on will do to him. The Rin that you know won’t exist for much longer, and— 

The version of himself that he’ll return as won’t be yours.

(And he won’t give a fuck about you, will he?)

It feels— like you’re going to die. Preemptive grief for a still-living person feels selfish. And yet, you can’t breathe suddenly, even with Rin, present, between your thighs, lavishing you with (fleeting— fleeting!) attention.

You rip your hand from Rin’s hair and cover your face. You can’t look at him. You can’t. Tears are dripping from the corners of your eyes, soaking into your hairline. Your breathing speeds up, painful and raw. Rin is still between your legs.

“What’s wrong?” He asks, looming over you once more. You can feel his shadow, more than you can see it. 

He grabs your wrists and tries to drag them away from your face. When you don’t budge, he pries them down to your sides. Perhaps it was foolish of you to think that you could hide from him.

“Just—” You breathe, staring into the shadows thrown onto your bedroom wall. “Keep going. Please. Ignore me.”

“The last thing in the world I can do is ignore you right now.” Rin squeezes you, less for comfort and more to remind you that he is there. “Don’t be unreasonable.”

“I just want to get this over with—” Your voice wobbles and you squeeze your eyes shut. A sob is trapped in your throat, breaking in an ugly sound. Your wrist jolts in Rin’s grip, desperate to try and hide the noise. 

You want to hide this from Rin.

If Rin wants to hide the ugly, poisonous part of him that comes out in his career, you want to hide the lovesick one that has infected you. The one that is shattering, in real-time, at the idea of Rin leaving your bed cold, forever. 

“I want to take my time,” Rin tells you. “Let me?”

“And I want you to just get it over with—” You repeat, a sob finally breaking from your lips, fully. Rin noses into your cheek. “Finish breaking my fucking heart already, Rin. Then you can hop on a plane and I can block your fucking number.”

There’s a stall. A beat, then two, followed by a third.

Rin is shaking on top of you.

“Would it be that easy for you?” He speaks with gritted teeth.

Would it?

(No, it would actually be so hard for you to cut Rin off so swiftly. Even if you blocked his number, you’re bound to see him in the news. You don’t even follow football all that closely, but he’s such a household name these days that you’re sure to encounter news of him and his accumulating accolades.)

(If not, you know his teammates. Rin begrudgingly introduced you after the lot of them crossed paths with you enough times. You have a few of their phone numbers. Rin’s mother has your contact information too, from the time that Rin spiked a high fever and you needed her specific oyaku recipe. She messages you photos of her garden now, and asks if Rin’s alright.)

(And none of that is even acknowledging the personal, emotional wreckage that cleaving Rin from your life so swiftly will leave behind.)

“No,” you say. 

Rin takes a steadying breath, his breath too warm against your cheek and down your jaw.

“You said,” his voice maybe wobbles, you may be imagining it, “that I’m breaking your heart?”

You laugh, something horrible and pained. “I thought that was obvious?”

He pauses. “Maybe it was.”

God, he’s so shit at this kind of thing.

“You’re awful, you know that?”

And you cry.

You’ve become so fragile in the past few weeks. Imagining this day, these exact moments of fleeting intimacy, like doing so could prepare you in any way for the pain that’s now tearing through you. The fear of losing him is being actualized, and you’re making it worse, pushing him away like this. But what would happen if you held him closer when it’s so clear that’s not what Rin wants?

You tear your wrists from Rin’s grip, taking a great amount of effort to flip and attempt to crawl across the bed. Crying like this makes you feel awful and ugly; you want nothing more than to hide. Rin is frozen, motionless, above you at first, letting you writhe until you get onto your tummy, squirming and clawing your way out from under him.

Then, he bears his weight down on you. He gathers your wrists up again and pins them to the bed on either side of your head. It’s a single moment of strength that immobilizes you flat all over again.

“Rin!” You mean to shout it, but instead, it’s a cracking sob that you have to muffle into the duvet.

He gathers your wrists in a single hand, and pets your hair, like you so often do for him. He rubs circles on your shoulders as you wail into the duvet. Bucking him off doesn’t work, he’s an unrelenting presence, sitting on your lower back, almost laid over you. It’s hard to breathe.

(A sick part of you likes this. Knowing that your blatant pain and struggle are being acknowledged by Rin, held and quelled by him, soothes the part of you that craves his attention so terribly. You love him so much, you feel guilty for these feelings just as much as you feel elated by the touch and care he is providing you.)

“It’s okay,” he tells you. He is not a being meant to comfort, the words sound wrong coming out of his mouth. “It’s okay.”

“You know it’s n-not!”

A fresh wave of tears pours from you. You’re soaking the mattress. 

“I’m sorry,” he doesn’t apologize either. “If I could give you what you want, I would.”

The sob that you scream into rumpled bed sheets is like thunder that splits the sky.

...

Rin fucks you like he loves you.

He kneels between your legs, holding your hands, thrusting into you at an unhurried, almost reverent pace. Slow and deep, busting up your insides. You’re stretched around his pretty cock beautifully; he told you so. 

Each cant of his hips knocks a teary breath out of you. You— you haven’t stopped crying. You’re not sure that you ever will.

Rin kisses you despite the tears and snot, licks your cheeks and mars your neck with mark after mark. His teeth dig into fragile flesh, biting and sucking like he could be eating you, rather than bedding you. It’s a shift in his demeanor— he’s not normally this desperate. Maybe your shattering has made him more lucid to your coming loss. 

His hands slip up the backs of your thighs, resting behind your knees. He bears his weight down on you, folding you in half easily. It pushes his cock deeper in you, maybe too deep, but you relish the pain anyway. The pressure of him forces a sound of you, aborted and frail. When you try to cover your mouth, muffle yourself, Rin is pulling your hand away to kiss you. 

Rin swallows down every sound, every breath, every bit of you that he can. You press back at him with as much desperation as you muster. He takes and takes, regardless of your tears and jagged edges. 

He curses under his breath, tilting his forehead against your own.

“C-Close?” You ask, another involuntary sound being punched out of your lungs. 

“No—” He shakes his head.

“Are you lying?”

“No—”

“I’m unconvinced,” you manage to grit out, a bubbling sob creeping up your throat just after. 

Rin growls, something in his chest, and thrusts harder, like he’s trying to carve out your insides. 

“I—” Rin’s words choke off, pressed against your lips, a frantic edge to it. “I don’t want to be done yet.”

You both freeze.

Rin’s as deep in you as he can be, his hips pressed to your pelvis. Every bit of his weight is bared into you, into your cunt and flesh. He’s breathing in deep, hurried breaths, sweat beads on his brow. You’re grasping his shoulders, digging your nails into him as his words hit you.

“You—” You laugh and cry in the same breath. “You don’t mean what I think you mean, do you?”

His grip on you tightens. His expression is cloudy, his focus solely on you (what a terrifying thing to be on the receiving end of—)

You continue speaking, feeling a creeping amount of panic, “You— you mean sex right? You want to k-keep going?”

“If I said yes to that, I’d be lying.” Rin thrusts into you, hard and fast. You arch your back against the duvet. 

“S-So you don’t want—”

“I want to keep fucking you,” Rin corrects, easily. He pushes you down into the mattress like he’s trying to crush you, pulverize you. “I don’t want to be done fucking you.”

“God,” you hit his shoulder with your fist and the force of an angry kitten. “You fucking suck, Rin.”

“I’m sorry—”

“ — Don’t say shit you don’t mean.”

He kisses you again, this time softer. More kind, but still like he wants to eat you. 

You finish like that, with his lips laid over yours, with the tempest of loss having consumed you. Rin heavy over your body and heart, pleasure having snuck up behind him enough that tension has coiled in your gut. Your orgasm washes over you slowly, in waves, and you’re sucked down into the sensation with darkening vision and curling toes.

Rin kisses you through it, cursing as you tighten around him. He didn’t— he didn’t use a condom.

“Inside—” You beg him. “Inside— please, please—”

Rin listens to you, bowing over you and pushing your knees up to the sides of your skull. A choked sound leaves his lips and you swallow it down with your own keen. A gush of warmth follows, and you shiver with the heat and fullness of it.

Rin fucks you through his orgasm, muscles drawn tight as he fucks you deep and slow. He only stops when his cock is too soft to continue, and you’re both shivering from overstimulation. 

His cock drags out of you, wet and chilling in the still air. You whine at the loss, the panic and grief of this all hitting you again.

You don’t have much time to spiral, as Rin is gathering you up his arms, rolling away from the soaked sheets. He holds you tight, chest-to-chest. His hand is in your hair, and he grabs yours and places it on his own. Reflexively, you scratch his scalp and tug him closer.

You’re both quiet for a long time. The rain hasn’t stopped, dribbling on, but it doesn’t feel as grim now, more sedating. Your eyes go half-lidded.

“Can you clarify?” You ask Rin, peeking up at him. “What you meant before?”

(“I don’t want to be done—”)

“Hm.”

“God—!” You laugh, headbutting him. “You do suck.”

He squeezes you, so hard that a sound is forced from your lips. 

“So you want to keep fucking?”

“It’s more than that.”

“Fuck, Rin—”

“Shut up.”

“Still figuring it out?”

“Something like that.” He muffles the words into the top of your head.

You’re not sure where your grief sits then. Maybe it’s gone, and your release was just that— release. It makes you laugh again, into Rin’s chest. You squeeze him like doing so will keep him here, in this moment, for a little longer. 

Rin wordlessly squeezes you back even harder.

...

You and Rin don’t talk much once he goes to Europe.

You lose your mind right after he leaves, obviously. Screaming, crying, not throwing up, but pretty close to it. His house slippers get thrown in the back of a closet (rather than in the trash because, despite everything, you have hope—) and you rot for several weeks.

It takes a while for you to be close to normal.

Your routine with Rin had been a regular occurrence. Maybe once a week, sometimes twice. Not having it to count on unmoors you and makes you lonely in a way that feels unwelcome and raw. There’s a piece of you missing, just like you knew there would be.

You get a few texts from him. A photo or two of monuments he encounters with a few choice words—

[Rin]: I thought you would like this

You’re going to fucking kill him.

You’re never sure what to reply, so you tend to keep things brief. Your last encounter made you question your understanding of your relationship so profoundly that you don’t know how to proceed. There’s... certainly more than you expected, but upon Rin departing for Europe, so much had been left unsaid. How do you begin to broach that— is it even your place to?

You don’t bring it up. You don’t call him, you leave the wound he left alone, and it aches a little less each day. Still gaping and empty, but less raw maybe.

It’s late one evening when you receive a call from a random, international number.

You ignore it at first, thinking it’s spam, but they recall you several times, and you pick up on the fourth attempt.

“... Hello?” You ask into the receiver. 

“Oh, hi! Is this [name]?”

“It is— who is this?”

“Oh, it’s Isagi— I’m one of Rin’s teammates from Bluelock. I’m not sure if you remember me, but we’ve met a few times!”

You have— Rin has a serious chip on his shoulder about Isagi, which has been made to be an incredibly comical fact when realized Isagi is one of the most genuinely kind, polite people you’ve ever encountered. 

“Oh yeah, it's nice to— um, hear from you. What’s up?

“Ah, yeah! I apologize for the abrupt calls. I’ve got something to ask you that’s kind of time-sensitive— if you have a minute.”

“Yeah, I’ve got time.” You swallow. “Is... everything alright? Is... Rin okay?”

“Oh, yeah! He’s totally fine. Maybe a little hungover, but fine.”

You straighten up and withhold gasp. “Rin drank?”

Rin has refused alcohol the entire time you’ve known him. He swears it affects his performance. 

Isagi laughs on the other side of the line. “Oh man, you don’t even know. I’ve never seen the guy with any alcohol in his system before either, and I kind of get why. He really is a lightweight.

“I imagine... and this has to do with why you called?”

“Yes, actually—” Your phone chimes with a new message from Isagi. “Is this you in the photo?”

The photo is of another phone, specifically of its lock screen. The time on the photographed phone screen reads [01:11]. The lock screen is a photo of you.

You’re sleeping, clearly, face half-smushed into one of your pillows. Mascara smears under your eyes and hickeys are bruised up and down your throat. From the location of the marks and makeup, you know this is from the last night you saw Rin. Your chest feels tight. 

“What the fuck.”

“Is that a yes?”

“Yeah, oh my god.” You had no idea Rin took this photo— and it’s his fucking lock screen? That fucker only had the generic, preloaded graphics displayed on his phone the entire time you knew him. 

“I thought so— sorry, it’s kind of insane for Rin to have a photo like that—”

“It is, yeah.” You run a hand over your face, switching your phone to speaker and rubbing your cheeks. “How does this relate to you calling?”

“Well,” says Isagi, “Rin’s been playing like shit.”

“He has been.” Oh my god, has he. Like actual garbage. You’re not sure you should admit that you watch Rin’s games religiously, because at this point it’s a bit pathetic of you. But you do watch them live if at all possible, otherwise you purchased some stupid European streaming service to catch the recording as soon as possible. And because of this, you know he has been playing sloppily. You’ve been... blaming jetlag. Or something. Adjusting to the European diet or whatever.

(Not the vestiges of your relationship still, miraculously, affecting him in any way.)

“It hasn’t been great. We won our match yesterday, but barely. And we went out drinking which was good for morale! But maybe not great for Rin. He drank a bit too much and got a bit weepy.”

Your stomach drops. You can see where this is going.

“He kept talking about missing someone but didn’t say any name. And when we saw his lock screen... we kind of put two-and-two together.”

“Great deduction. Aren’t you known for that?”

Isagi laughs, sounding good-natured. It makes you smile. It’s nice to know Rin hangs out with good people who aren’t all dour and weird like him. 

“Something like that. Anyway, his birthday is in a few weeks, and me and a few of the other guys thought it would be a good gift for him to fly you out and surprise him.”

You stay silent, attempting to suffocate the spark of hope that traitorously stirs in you.

“Isagi.” You fold your hands and put them vertically to your lips. “Have you met Rin?”

That makes him laugh, “I have, I’m probably around him too much. But he’s been weird since we started the season here. If you visited, the team would cover everything. Our coach even offered to arrange rooms for you at the hotels we’ll be at. If you don’t want to room with Rin, anyway—”

“Rin and I aren’t together.”

“Damn.” Isagi clicks his tongue. “Does he know that?”

Maybe you’re an idiot. Maybe Rin’s an idiot. Maybe you’re both idiots. 

“I should ask him, maybe.”

“He’s never been the type to do things in halves, you know.”

“Trust me, I’m very aware of that.”

Isagi whistles and you shake your head. 

“You don’t have to give me an answer right away. If you could let me know in the next few days, that would be great. You’ve got my number now that I’ve called, yeah?”

“Yeah, I’ll be in touch.” You swallow. “Thanks for reaching out, Isagi. I appreciate it. And— thanks for keeping an eye on Rin too.”

“Yeah, yeah. Someone needs to while he’s here. Let me know what you’re thinking, feel free to call if you need anything too. Or want me to spy on Rin for you.”

“Will do,” You laugh, light-hearted for the first time in weeks. You exchange goodbyes and you drop your phone onto your lap.

...

Oh my fucking god.

You know several things immediately— you want to go. Desperately, actually, especially with the knowledge that stupid fucking Rin Itoshi has you as his fucking lock screen? You need answers, if nothing else. You won’t settle for a very sad, weepy fuck this time around. 

You also know that you should not surprise Rin. 

So, you act before you can convince yourself better of it. You scroll to your messages with Rin and craft.

[you]: hey, i hope you’re doing alright. your teammate (isagi) just called me and invited me out for your birthday to surprise you. but i know you well enough to know that if i surprise you like that you will either kill me, isagi, yourself, or all three of us.

[you]: i wanted to touch base before i gave isagi an answer

[you]: i’d love to see you

[you]: and we should talk too.

Rin almost immediately sees the message— the freak has read receipts on. A bubble indicating he’s typing appears, then disappears.

A call from him comes in. You nearly drop your phone as the screen lights up your face and vibrates.

With a steadying breath, you answer.

“Hello?”

“What did Isagi tell you?”

You snort. “That your play sucks and that you’re a weepy drunk.” 

“He sucks. Don’t talk to him again.”

“I have to, so he and the rest of your team can buy me tickets and a hotel room—”

“If— if you want to come, I’ll buy your ticket. And why would you need a hotel room?”

“So I have somewhere to sleep.”

“Is my bed not good enough for you?”

“Are you implying that I’d sleep with you?”

“...Yes.”

“Damn,” you fall back onto your couch with a laugh. There’s an odd coil of relief that’s unspooling in your chest. You could cry again. “Is that alright?” 

“I— I wouldn’t want—” Rin so rarely loses his words, it shocks you to hear when he does. “Yes. It’s fine. I can meet you at the airport too.”

“Well, aren’t you sweet?”

“I’m being serious.”

“So am I.”

There’s a poignant moment of silence that passes between you two. You can imagine Rin now— it’s the morning where he is. He probably is nursing both a bottle of water and that electrolyte drink he prefers— he likes the blue flavor the best. He’s probably in his warm-up clothes, preparing for his meticulous morning routine. 

“I’m excited,” Rin says, stilted but there. “To see you again.”

Something warm burns in you, frail but burgeoning.

“So am I.” You wipe your eyes and laugh. “Don’t break my heart again, Rin, I swear to God.”

“I won’t.”

He says it with enough conviction that you believe him. 

[hamyheikki]

Links between Finnish/Proto-Uralic folklore consepts and Remedyverse

Disclaimer: this is not an all-compassing information piece about Uralic/Finnish/Nordic beliefs, religions and folklore. This is purely a look into the general aspects of these beliefs and how they might relate to Remedyverse, since we know that Mister Järvi has taken some inspiration from these sources. The foreing terms used here are in Finnish, though the concepts themselves are Proto-Uralic in nature, since that's the group Finnish old belief system lands in.

THE NAIL

In Control's first DLC, "Foundation", you can find a structure referred to as "The Nail", a tall pillar-y object made of dark rocky material. During the campaing, by completing tasks as Jesse, you are able to build it back to it's former glory.

Finnish/Proto-Uralic belief has a concept known as "Taivaannaula", which roughly translates to "Sky's Nail". Taivaannaula is a star on top of a structure called "Maailmanpylväs", as in "World's Pillar" (can also be depicted as a tree or a mountain), and it has said to be the point around which the whole dome of sky turns.

The actual real life star referred here is the North Star, Polaris.

So it would stand to reason that in Remedyverse, the Nail is a link between the Foundation, our world, and the Astral Plane.

THE WORLDVIEW OF THREE REALMS

The World's Pillar runs through all 3 realms of Proto-Uralic worldview; Ylinen, Keskinen and Alinen.

Ylinen is a place above the human realm and sky where the "creator god", a deus otiosus, supposedly resides.

(Wiki: "In the history of religion and philosophy, deus otiosus is the belief in a creator God who has entirely withdrawn from governing the universe after creating it or is no longer involved in its daily operation.")

Keskinen is the realm of mortals and gods/spirits who are responsible for running the daily matters of the world, usually linked to nature or people. For example Tapio - god of forest, Ahti - god of lakes and seas, and tonttu - the guardian of the house.

Alinen is the realm of the dead, also known as "Manala/Tuonela" in Finnish. The land of the dead is said to be an island in an icy sea situated below the ground and governed by an old woman.

In Remedyverse, a neat theory would be that the Astral Plane could be seen as the game's version of Ylinen. A realm where the Former and The Board seem to reside, and a plane which has little to do with the everyday life of natural world and humans. It would also tie neatly into the fact that it seems like the Board's Pyramid fits perfectly into the empty slot on top of the Nail.

The middle realm, where the mortals live, I would say is rather self-explanatory. We already have the god of water Ahti mopping about the place (and you know, Tapio, but that one is much more muddy since we know next to nothing of the guy, and Tapio is a perfectly legitimate Finnish name regardless of one's godly status), and I feel many of the superatural elements of both Oldest House and Bright Falls could be linked to these forces and gods operating in the realm.

And lastly, I think it's pretty safe to assume that The Dark Place is at least somewhat inspired by Alinen. The Diver's Isle in the middle of a lake that's actually an ocean, an old hag lurking about and the concept of a soul becoming trapped under the Cauldron Lake.

And in addition to all of this, these is a river called "Maailmanjoki" which also flows through all these layers. It waters the roots of the Tree in Ylinen, gathers into a pond at the base of it, flows through the realm of humans as a river, travels into the world of the dead Alinen, and because everything is inversed in the Alinen (inversion, another concept Remedy seemingly likes to include in their lore), the river flows into the opposite direction, and ends up going back around to water the Tree once more.

The eternal cycle of the world.

[talonabraxas]

Veil upon Veil you hide The well-spring of the Infinite, The blue that delights, Pierces the heart, And produces a sapphire jewel.

Celestial Deity Talon Abraxas

"The light of the sun is the source of the colour we see reflected in the world. It begins in gamma rays whose wavelengths are a million times too short to see. By a process of absorption and re-emission throughout the sun's body, these spread out into longer wavelengths which travel through space and are further altered by interaction with the atmosphere. If there are no dusts or gases in the heavens, the sky appears black, as it does ten miles out from the earth's surface where the atmosphere thins out almost to the vanishing point." The old man adjusted himself in the chair and continued: "The colour of the sky, child, is closely associated with the way light, falling on matter, is scattered in all directions. The amount of scattered light is greater for shorter blue wavelengths than for longer red ones." Here the learned mariner became more technical and spoke slowly, using his hands to explain. "The intensity of scattered light is inversely proportional to the fourth power of the wavelength. Because of this, blue light loses more energy than red and its scattering is dependent upon low atmospheric content. In the atmosphere of the earth, molecules of gases scatter the blue waves in all directions while the red waves are absorbed, causing the sky to appear blue. The more rarefied the air, the greater the scattering of these short waves and the deeper the colour of blue. But when there is considerable dust or moisture in the air, the layers of particles scatter the longer red waves and cause the sky to become whiter. The red and blue light mixes to produce the whitened sky so common in higher latitudes where moisture particles hang in the air. So the dust rising in a hot, dry clime bleaches out the heavens until a heavy rain settles the earth and leaves behind it a deep saturated blue. Men long for that blue, child. They always dream of travelling south into the azure intensity that has inspired poets and painters for countless years. So thus they gaze out over the horizon as you do, trying to penetrate its vastness."

“Blue color is everlastingly appointed by the deity to be a source of delight.” — John Ruskin

Appointed by the Deity, it is the abode of the gods, their intrinsic attribute and celestial surrounding. It is the colour of the Queen of Heaven and the feminine principle of the Great Deep. It veils the impenetrable void of chaos and yet recedes into its folded mystery. It is the colour of the cloak of Hera and Zeus and clings to Diana's fleet, forested shape. It is reflected in the blue robes once worn by priests at the grave and by the Levites who called their garb the livery of heaven. 'The Blue' is a synonym for heaven and all that is divine. In the darkened depths of its expanse lies Nature's solitude, wrapped in a cold noumenal glow whose purity is incomparable. By its grace, the sea takes on its colour and draws the ocean of space into the world, but the purity of 'the Blue' remains aloft to be viewed from mountain tops on perfectly clear and blessed days.

[gritsandbrits]

Asha Redesign

I got sick of the constant hate towards her so I decided to take a crack at my own design of her without that fing twink. I made this for several reasons: disappointment that she didn't get a Big Transformation, to exercise my fashion skills, and for fun.

I tried to lean into her Amazigh heritage while still remaining close to canon. Its not entirely accurate to real life, but I have to remember the simpler the outfit the more recognizable it is. I also put animation into consideration, how easy it would be for the animators and mass production.

I figured her godmother outfit could be an inversion of her regular one.I went for a subtle rose theme, even combining the symbol of rosas with star as a sign of a new age. The layers give the dress a poofy look, like the clsssic gowns, but not too different from the Amazigh influences. I changed the cape to resemble one seen on the Amazigh, I kept it plain so it won't ovepower the dress.

I was going to make the top layer purple like her dress but i decided to make it a deeper shade to represent the night sky, and to prevent any comparisons to Rapunzel and Isabela.

As for story, since eveyone keeps making meanspirited jokes about WISH ripping off kingdom hearts despite KH having it's fair share of issues, I thought hey why not make this an actual KH movie. Or connected to it. Like, Asha starts out as Magnifico's apprentice until she finds out he's been harvesting stars to deplete them of their power, so she and the tiniest star, Star, travel to another world for help. She meets other disney characters through different eras, culminating in everyone helping her defeat Magnifico. He becomes one of the first Heartless and Asha herself becomes the first Princess of Heart, passing the role down until Kairi's generation.

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

Clouds Hover Over the Alaska Peninsula

Standing wave clouds developed along the Alaska Peninsula in spring 2025, casting striking shadows across the surfaces below. The well-defined clouds built throughout the day on April 7 as rugged terrain lofted and cooled winds blowing out of the north.

The VIIRS (Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite) on the NOAA-21, Suomi NPP, and NOAA-20 satellites captured this series of images between 2:40 and 3:30 p.m. local time (22:40 and 23:30 Universal Time) on April 7. The animation help illustrates how these “topographically anchored” clouds stayed relatively stable and stationary, said Scott Lindstrom, a remote sensing expert at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Space Science and Engineering Center. Lindstrom was alerted to these clouds by staff at the National Weather Service Forecast Office in Juneau, Alaska.

Wave clouds form when prevailing winds encounter a topographic barrier, such as a mountain range. The air is forced to flow up and over the mountains, causing it to cool and any water vapor it contains to condense, forming clouds. The clouds may appear to hover in the sky even though wind is racing through them.

Atmospheric sounding data and ground observations collected that day showed strong, low-level winds blowing over the Bering Sea from the north, Lindstrom wrote in a blog post detailing the phenomenon. Around the time of the images, measurements also revealed a stable inversion layer from approximately 1,000 to 2,000 meters in altitude, above most of the peaks on the peninsula. As a result, he said, the conditions were right for standing wave clouds to form downwind of the ridge crests.

In the hours before the VIIRS sensors acquired the images above, the GOES-18 satellite, operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), observed the wave cloud developing its well-defined northern edge. From a geostationary orbit, this satellite continuously monitors Earth’s Western Hemisphere.

However, because GOES orbits over the equator, it has an oblique view of higher latitudes. From its perspective, the clouds looked like they were located farther north over the Alaska Peninsula than they likely were, Lindstrom said, and their shadows were not visible. The case highlights the importance of the complementary nadir (straight-down) observations acquired by polar orbiters, he added, which include NOAA’s Joint Polar Satellite System and NASA’s Aqua, Terra, and PACE.

NASA Earth Observatory images by Michala Garrison, using VIIRS data from NASA EOSDIS LANCE, GIBS/Worldview, Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership, and the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS). Story by Lindsey Doermann.

[backpacktrader]

"Your name is backpackTrader! Currently, the contents of your BACKPACK is worth about 165,209.76 refined. You have a amased your riches slowly and deliberately over time, making profitable trades and holding on with gritted teeth in the economic downturns. The line, after all, can only go up as long as you will it to do so. You like the microeconomics of scrap and key trading. This self contained microcosm has taught you many valuable lessons about how life works. In addition, you can SEE THE PATTERN! You have robustly developed your JHANAMENONLOGY and your PIOUSOITY, your knowledge and your devotion, respectively. Your JHANAMENONLOGY ability represents your ability to discern what the fuck is real and what the fuck isn't, which has resulted in your ability to SEE THE PATTERN. The pattern is whenever you successfully connect two ideas in a new third way! Your PIOUSOITY you save exclusively for the SUN. Sun worship suits you, as you can see THE PATTERN in the fact that all good and worthy things are described in terms of either heat, light, or bliss, all of which can be found by laying in a sunbeam. Not that you see many of those. The constant layer of INVERSION over your city of Smoketopolis causes the sickening red sky and perpetual layer of radiatory fog. You also enjoy writing, blogging, meditation and yoga. You're a bit of a pumpkin of all trades. You wield the: STRANGE PROFESSIONAL KILLSTREAK COLLECTORS ROCKET JUMPER! physica. Your favorite color is B69 or E29, you tend to balance yourself betwixt the two.

2: >

[willowwind78]

1 Annabel Chapter 2

˜ Chapter 2 - Genesis 1:1-2 - KJV ™

1In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.

2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.

And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

˜ ™

According to the records of Noah, on the first day God created the heavens and Earth. An infinite expanse of darkness interrupted by miniscule collections of gas burning with their own internal fires. Equally tiny balls of rock floated amongst the fires. One of these balls of rock, They named Earth. This was to be the water planet. Covering the layer of rock, They created what would be the foundation of its life, a liquid comprised of two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen. They called it water. This liquid possessed properties beyond what any other element in existence would be capable of. It could sustain life.

On the second day, one hundred angels came to be. They hovered over the vast expanse of water, marveling at what God had created. Beautiful silvery feathered wings allowed them to soar effortlessly. Their skin glowed in the brilliance of the ever-present sun absorbing light for sustenance.

            On the third day, God created land from the earth. Huge mountains protruded from the base of the ocean. The mountains rippled and shook the planet as they rose and fell, creating hills, plateaus, valleys and plains. Tiny islands appeared just specks from where the angels soared. They had been commanded never to touch the earth or be forever bound to it. Dry land produced beautiful vegetation. Huge flowering plants, massive forests of trees, fields of greens and low-lying shrubs dotted the horizon. The land was beautiful. It was good.

            Then came the stars and the moon. The miniscule balls of light erupted into furious balls of fire while the rocks underwent an inverse particle annihilation and with great force imploded-exploded forming the planets. The light absorbed from days of sun kept the angels glowing throughout the newly created night. They played on the clouds and danced in the moonlight. Evening came, morning came, the fourth day. As the moon rose and fell into the water, a new means of measuring time, and gravity, were created.

            On the fifth day, birds joined the angels in the sky, flying and soaring as high as they could, then diving down to the trees below. Once the birds touched the ground, they never played with the angels again; they were forever changed. The waters teemed with fishes of every shape and size. The angels hovered above and marveled at these new creatures, forbidden to interact with them.

Something about the planet below created a feeling of unease within the angels. They longed for things when once they longed for nothing. It was as if they were being pulled into it. This new feeling had begun to overtake them, they were lonely. When they asked God about it, They replied “Just wait, children. Something will come.”

            Evening came, morning came. On the sixth day, something completely new did come. As the sun rose from the horizon, the earth was a flurry of movement. Animals the likes of the world would never see again scurried about, some small and furry, others large and scaly. They made themselves homes within the existing vegetation and within the earth itself. Creatures fed upon plant life and upon each other.  The angels cringed in terror as beast fed upon beast. “Everything is intertwined here, children. The fishes that swim the water, the birds that fly the air, the creatures that crawl the earth, they will come to depend on each other as I have designed them to do.”

            “I have a mission for you now. I am going to create a new creature. It will have dominion over this ground. Everything that exists on its surface and in its waters, it will be responsible for maintaining. It will farm the soil to help plants grow and thrive. It will hunt the game that runs to keep them from overpowering the lesser creatures. You are here to protect it. Guide it. It is bound to the earth but cannot fathom her power. It will be unable to speak directly to me, but it is the key to all of my plans for this planet. I am entrusting you to see that it fulfills its destiny.” Their words troubled some of the angels. How could They create something that They would not alter once it was placed?

            God reached Their mighty hand to the earth. Creatures scattered in every direction as fast as their legs and wings could carry. God selected a small barren spot in the middle of a lush and green garden, filled with plant life bearing fruits and berries. There, They took water from a spring and mixed it with dirt from the ground molding a shape in the mud, not unlike Themselves. Once the sculpture was complete, They breathed into the thing’s nostrils and it became human. “Angels,” God said, “This is Adam.”

            The angels flew down to greet him, hovering just above the surface of the earth. Man stared in awesome wonder at the flurry of wings. Like a newborn child, he reached out to touch, but they swiftly moved away. They told him of his purpose and taught him of life. He was eager to learn.

            Soon, Adam was digging in the dirt and planting seeds, using what had been provided him. Branches from trees and sharpened rocks from the ground created rudimentary tools. He learned quickly and was diligent to each task, but something was wrong. This creature called man desperately needed something. He longed to touch the angels, as if physical contact were necessary for his survival. He reached out to every animal that creeped the earth. He scratched them behind the ears, rubbed their stomachs and allowed them to lick the salt from his skin, but it was not enough.

            He prayed constantly. He stopped what he was doing, fell to his knees and looked up to the sky or down to the earth. God would hear but did not answer. The lack of an audible answer did not sway the man. He climbed to his feet and resumed his task, trusting that his creator would provide. God would send signs as best They could. When he longed for contact, the animals would gather around him, allowing him to touch their pelts. When he hungered, food would fall from the trees. God answered each prayer. The one prayer They had not yet answered was that which Adam longed for most, companionship.

            God spoke to his angels once again. “I have a great favor to ask of one of you. Who will volunteer?” Every angel was a flurry of movement and excitement. There would be no greater honor.

As the day came to an end, God spoke. “Eve, it is time.”

            Adam was instructed to lie on the ground and close his eyes. He was told that he would fall into a deep sleep and when he awoke, God would have answered his prayers. Adam did as he was commanded to do. God reached to the earth again, this time parting the flesh of Adam’s chest. They removed a curved bone from deep within, then reached to the sky and took hold of the angel Eve. They placed the rib in her chest, released her and commanded her to land.

            Eve flew towards the ground, stopping just above it. She was not coming back. She extended her foot towards the hard earth, closed her eyes, and uttered a prayer just before she made contact.

            Light flashed and the earth shook. Scorching heat flared, pushing the remaining angels up and away beyond the atmosphere. An explosion reverberated from within the planet. The ground trembled, forcing huge tidal waves to sweep across the oceans. When the earth calmed and the light faded, the angels returned in search of Eve. She lay in a heap on the ground screaming. Her wings drooping. Energy sapped. For the first time, she felt pain.

[late-to-the-magnus-archives]

Wreck - a Malevolent fanfic

Kayne's storm comes.

Nothing will ever be the same.

Part of the Surrogate series.

AO3

——

It was the middle of the night when Arthur woke up.

He didn’t know why. It felt like the same something that had him dodge the Butcher’s piano wire, the same something that occasionally told him a blow was coming that John could not see.

He sat up in the cart. “Something’s wrong.”

Arthur?

“What is it?” said Hastur, reins in hand. “It has not been your four hours. How the fuck are you awake? I put you to sleep!”

“I don’t know. Something’s wrong.”

Wrong? Hastur, listen to him.

Arthur turned his face east. Couldn’t see, but felt… “There. What is that?”

Hastur reined the mule in.

Arthur had the strangest sense—like within him, John had gone still. Hastur, John said, and his bass voice trembled. What… what is that?

“Wha-” Hastur breathed, and then the world shattered.

Pressure, a sudden shift in air and gravity, as though Arthur were suddenly on a different planet.

He couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t inhale, couldn’t hear, felt like his heart had to beat sideways.

Hastur cried out.

The pressure—

Arthur curled to a ball, clutching his head, sure his eardrums were bursting. All he could hear was roaring wind and the beat of his heart.

Hastur shouted something. John shouted something. Arthur couldn’t hear them, but when Hastur—back in full form—grabbed him and pulled him into himself, for once, Arthur did not try to fight.

#

It was impossible power. There was no end to the size of it, the feel of it. In the moment before it hit, John thought that this must be how an ant feels, watching the approach of a shoe—of a thing so big and so inevitable that no matter how fast one ran, one could not get out from underneath.

He could not protect Arthur.

He could not protect himself.

Hastur! he cried.

Hastur was already moving, and from Arthur’s curled positon, John reached his left hand out, grabbing as Arthur was grabbed, and sobbed with relief as Hastur covered them.

At least he wouldn’t have to see it coming.

At least he’d be with Arthur, in the end.

#

It could not be a hammer. Hastur knew it could not be a hammer. That was completely impossible in every sense, according to every physical law, but a hammer is what he saw, ghostly and completely filling the sky.

It pushed malevolence before it like a paddle through oil - and then it changed, twisting, becoming a tunneling, pointed, black funnel of spinning storm too large to be conceived, and it pierced.

A storm. This was a god’s storm, coming down.

He saw the cracking, saw the near transition of night to day as this impossible storm parted energy and radiation and every layer of atmosphere like a blade.

Nothing that big could move that fast.

Nothing that fast could be so precise.

That tip wasn’t landing directly on them, but they were too close. This was no ordinary storm.

This would be hard to survive, even for him.

There was no time to run, no time to make a portal. He gathered Arthur in without thinking, pulling the man and his passenger into himself, and then he raised the strongest shields he knew how to create.

The force of it defied understanding; an electric cracking, an inversion of gravity, so heavy it briefly lifted all things from this shell-shocked world—and when it all slammed down again, the vacuum it had made was already being filled.

It wasn’t over. A wave like a wall at the end of the universe, like a wall to keep the Dreaming God asleep, crashed down on them with force like fists, and all Hastur’s power couldn’t keep them from being tumbled.

He’d never known the like, couldn’t even begin to compare it to battles with his half-siblings and other Great Old Ones. (Kayne, yes, he thought of Kayne, because the inevitability reminded him, because of the hopelessness of trying to push against something so huge, because he was afraid.)

He felt like a piece of ripe fruit, smashed against a wall. Somehow, he kept his human alive, and was not completely crushed.

It lasted moments. It lasted years.

After time uncountable, he found land—back on shore again, somewhere, with no clear memory of fighting his way free. Still in the storm but out of the wave, dazed, through the eyes not covered in ichor, he squinted to see in the distance a matching wave rushing back toward Nithy-Vash, toward innocent Celephaïs, toward anything in its path.

Toward the unseen ships.

“No,” he whispered, hoarse, ichor spraying from his lips.

There was nothing he could do. The storm that defied the word for its size electrified the air in dark clouds and pressure, hurting even his audial receptors. It surged east, leaving this side of the sea bruised and panting, shoreline entirely out of place, cracked and bleeding and sore.

The ships.

“No!” he gasped.

Wherever they were, no ship could withstand this. No protections they had would be enough.

Nothing Hastur had would be enough.

He felt… flattened. Breathless. Unable to stand. And even if he could, he couldn’t fly faster than that storm.

And even if he portaled, he wouldn’t know where to go.

And even if he found her ship—

He’d be smashed with it and go down, unable to help her, unable to protect her.

He didn’t even know where she was.

“FAROE!” he bellowed, and the wind stole his word away.

#

Arthur heard John calling his name, over and over again.

Arthur! Arthur, wake up! Arthur!

His ears hurt. His everything hurt. He shifted, and winced. “John?” he groaned. “What happened?”

He’s awake! Hastur!

Hastur shifted Arthur; he was holding him carefully, almost cradling, supporting his head.

Arthur hissed through his teeth. He felt crushed, like a run-over garden hose.

“Easy,” said Hastur. “You are already healed. Your nerves, however, think otherwise, and are still trying to inform you of what occurred.”

“What… what occurred?”

“You were injured,” said Hastur, his voice unsteady, “by a supernatural storm so great it spanned the entirety of the Middle Sea.”

The tentacles that held Arthur were trembling.

Arthur understood. “What? What?”

“I must continue searching.”

“Take me with you!” As if there were any other option.

“I had no intention of doing otherwise. Faroe!”

Arthur joined. “Faroe!”

Ocean below crashed into shore with vengeance, far from the peaceful sweep it had been when they’d arrived. There were worse sounds—creaking sounds and hollow sounds, like floating wood bumping into itself and against rocks. And other sounds, predatory sounds, the weird, peeling wetness of tearing meat and territorial growls.

“Faroe!”

Down there! More bodies!

Hastur dove, low enough that spray from the upset ocean splashed Arthur’s skin. “No, no… no sign of her.”

We don’t even know which fucking ship!

“Keep looking,” said Arthur, throat tight. “There has to be something I can do!”

I’m using your eyes. He’s drawing from our power in the mark. That’s what we can do.

Arthur screamed it. “Faroe!”

Hastur flew.

#

The carnage was unbelievable.

Bodies continued to wash ashore—and not just of dead things, or things that could fit on boats.

What… the fuck is that?

A strange groaning sound below, as though some beast responded to John’s comment with its own insult.

“Ah'fw'nagl!” Hastur swore back at it. “Offspring of Hydra,” he added, low. “This is not good. It dwells in the depths, only to rise once every hundred years to feast until full. It is significantly early.”

The fucking storm woke it up?

“That isn’t all that was awoken. These waters are hungry. Faroe!”

“Faroe!” Arthur screamed, but he couldn’t keep it up. It had been hours; he was already at half-volume, horribly hoarse. He didn’t care. Hastur could fix it later.

More wreckage! Look at the wood—blue lacquer? Gold trim? We haven’t seen this ship yet.

Hastur dove.

Wreckage sounds. There was wet and heavy sloshing, like the waxed cloth of sails against rocks. Hastur snarled at something that presumably stuck its head out of the water and was chased away.

John gasped. Hastur… oh, fuck. Hastur. There.

“What?” Arthur said. He gripped Hastur’s tentacle so tightly his fingers ached, breathing so fast he was making himself dizzy. “Please don’t leave me in the dark. Is it her?”

No, said John. It’s not her. It’s her bow.

“Her bow?”

“Broken,” Hastur said, sounding broken, too. “Snapped.”

The sound of thin pieces of wet wood clacking together, as if he’d picked it up by the string.

“It’s hers? For sure?”

“It still bears my blessing,” said Hastur, voice like a rusted hull.

“Oh, gods,” Arthur whispered. “We found her ship.”

“I must go in the water,” said Hastur, putting Arthur onto the damp beach. He did something then that tingled from Arthur’s scalp to his toes. “You have been granted protection within the small sphere I’ve created. Do not move. Do not leave this circle.”

“I need to help,” said Arthur.

“If you want to help, you’ll give my other half back.” Hastur stopped. Sighed. “I�� it’s not time for that. Just stay where you are.” There came an enormous splash.

“John, what do we see? We can help.”

Arthur, he meant it. You have no idea what’s on these shores. We could get eaten.

“I don’t fucking care right now! What do you fucking see?”

John sighed. Wood. Wreckage. Bodies—most of them not whole. Things have been feasting. The wood from this vessel is… it was pretty. Shiny blue lacquer. Lovely gold paint. Light wood, almost white.

“Of course, she picked a pretty ship,” Arthur said, voice soft and ragged. He sobbed once. Just once, then covered his mouth with his hand.

John reached up to hold that hand. There are a lot of bodies. Are you sure you want to hear this?

“We may see something,” he said. “We can’t risk missing it because I’m fucking fragile.”

You’re not nearly as fragile as you once were. All right—if that’s what you want, you can handle this. We can handle this.

“Tell me.”

A lot of crates, but there’s no way to know what was in them—every single one has broken open. Whatever came down definitely came down near this ship; all the wood is splintered, like someone took each board and just bent them in half until they broke, middles shredded and sharp. Some cloth survives, but not much; it’s all been torn, nibbled at. Chewed.

Arthur swallowed audibly. “The bodies. Tell me.”

All I see are adults—and only a few are human. But some of them, it’s a little hard to tell; they’ve… they’ve been bitten in half, or… they aren’t bodies, just chunks, like mouthfuls that got away when something got too enthusiastic in chewing. Too big to be her, though. She… she’s probably too small to need to be bitten in half.

Arthur made one small, nauseated sound. “Keep going.”

John sighed. Arthur, I’m not sure there’s a point.

“Keep. Going.” Arthur gripped his left hand tightly.

Fine. I can see the figurehead, or what’s left of it. It’s been wrecked. I think it was a fisher-bird at one point, guessing by the crest. It was beautifully done; the variegation in feather-color, the spots of white—all implied by carving, with use of light and shadow. There’s a— He gasped.

“What?” Arthur choked.

I… I don’t understand what I’m seeing. I swear it wasn’t there a moment ago.

“Fucking what, John?”

A piece of paper, nailed to the bird’s broken beak.

Arthur took a step.

Arthur! Don’t be a fool. We can call him through the mark, and retrieve it safely.

“How do I do that?”

Fuck if I know. You’ve been doing it.

Bafflement. “I have?”

Just try.

Arthur recognized the tone and knew John didn’t know how this worked, either. This was that soothing voice, the same one he used whenever he encouraged Arthur to do something Arthur was reluctant to do. The same voice he’d used when—all the way in the beginning—he got Arthur to sit down and play the piano, when Arthur hadn’t even remembered that he played.

Arthur took a calming breath, and tried.

#

The saltwater stung where he had yet to heal; he’d been crushed, flattened like grapes underfoot. If he had an hour to himself, he’d be healed and pristine in no time, but he did not have an hour. Instead, he had time to swim underwater and swat away monsters that tried to eat him while looking for evidence of a little girl’s presence.

And then, Arthur called.

(Hastur)

So, a marked person couldn’t do that.

Hastur felt it anyway, and only did not portal up from the depths of the ocean because the crucial seconds it would take to create, go through, and close it would empty half the place.

It wasn’t words. It wasn’t spoken. It was felt, deep in his core, and he knew who it was, and who wanted him. Knew it was urgent, but not emergency; knew Arthur needed him now, but was not in pain or in danger of it. (But knew his elevated blood pressure and heart rate, could feel the chemicals in his blood released in human fight-or-flight situations, knew—)

It was clear as day, clear as crystal, clear as daylight through crystal, and in that moment, he almost understood—unrealized and instinctive—just how this worked.

Arthur was entangled with John and marked by John. Arthur was also marked by Hastur (which should be impossible, but it seemed everything about Arthur made no sense). John was Hastur on many levels, and between the two marks made by the same being in two iterations, that… did something. Altered this magic, made it into a strange and unique creation.

It was unheard of. Absurd. It should be impossible. He had to study this. Would do, in time - once Faroe was safe and this was all behind them. Now, he swam like a bullet.

Hastur burst from the water like the god he was, scattering droplets like an aereole in the sun, and came to them.

There! John said, pointing with his left hand.

A piece of paper?

A dry piece of paper, attached to the ruined figurehead with an obnoxiously long nail. It fluttered in the breeze insouciantly, like it was winking at them, waving.

He took it off the nail.

Scrawled, scratched, violent letters, all to declare, thanks for making me REPEAT MYSELF!!!! consider your debt paid! XOXO, followed by a bizarre caricature, blowing a kiss.

And Hastur knew.

He knew. It didn’t have to be signed. He remembered this threat because he hadn’t understood it at the time, and had logged it away in general threats to Faroe.

By trying to get around protecting Arthur, he’d forced Kayne to repeat a condition of their imprisonment. Hastur remembered it happening in The Woods.

This…

All of this was because of him?

Hastur. Hastur!

Because of one minor offense, Kayne had ki… taken… his daughter away?

This happened because of him. He… he had…

“Fuck! Hastur!” Arthur shouted, feeling fear, which finally got his attention, and Hastur turned like climbing out of a deep well to find an enormous crab-thing trying to eat his human. It closed its claws repeatedly over the protections Hastur had given, sliding off as if attempting to pinch a bowl.

Hastur exploded it.

No play. No showmanship. Just boom, crab marrow everywhere, bits of carapace bouncing off Arthur’s protections—who still cried out, as if Hastur’s shielding wasn’t good enough, but Hastur couldn’t care less right now.

He turned back to the paper. He’d angered the Outer God, and she was gone.

It was his fault.

Hastur couldn’t breathe beyond small, shallow gulps. Nothing could undo it. It wasn’t possible to bring her back again. It had been a risk bringing her back once at all, a risk he’d taken because, at the time, he hadn’t cared. Her soul would shatter if he tried a second time.

She was gone.

Fucking hell… Hastur?

“Hastur. What did it say?”

He stared at the note in his hand. He couldn’t reply. Felt like maybe everything was done, now. Life couldn’t continue after this. Nothing could.

It was his fault she was gone.

Hastur? Arthur, he’s not okay.

“Hastur?”

He couldn’t.

Too late. It was too late. (Were there worse words? None.) He could not do anything. It was… too… late.

Arthur reached through the mark.

Did it again. Reaching into him, somehow, deeper than anything that made sense, and it was a firm touch, a grip, something he could not ignore.

(Hastur)

John’s magic, maybe, being channeled into this weird one-off mark?

It was unyielding. Hastur turned to face him again without even meaning to do it.

“We don’t know she’s dead,” Arthur said. “Unless that’s what that note says.”

“It doesn’t.” Hastur didn’t even mean to speak. He was responding. As if urged. As if swayed.

“What does it say?” said Arthur.

Hastur told them. Then, he told them more. “This is my fault. I did this.”

You fucking… you…

“Shhh,” said Arthur to John. Then he spoke to Hastur. “You didn’t do this.”

“I did this.” Hastur couldn’t move. “I did this to my daughter.”

Arthurs tears spilled. They just poured, like an overflowing glass, but his ragged voice was somehow steady. “No, you didn’t. And we don’t know that she’s dead. Don’t you fucking give up yet. She still needs you.”

The words made no sense, pinging in his head like caged birds.

“Did you find her body?” said Arthur.

Hastur couldn’t answer.

Arthur pushed on, anyway. “Did you find pieces of Nibbles?”

“Pieces… of… no, how would I even find that?”

“So no Nibbles? Nibbles wasn’t looking for her, Nibbles didn’t find you, looking for help. Nothing from Nibbles at all?”

He could almost see where Arthur was going, almost see around the hurt in his hearts that filled all his vision. “Nothing from Nibbles.”

“Then they’re alive. Nibbles is with her. She may be hurting, Hastur, she may be in bad shape, but she’s alive. She’s not here. We need to get searching.”

But… but she…

Arthur broke the circle.

Hastur just stared at him approaching, frozen like prey.

Arthur stopped inches away and looked up, head craned back, eyes unseeing, but face hard. “We need to get moving.”

“How do you… even know she…” That wasn’t the right question. Arthur had already answered, and he was right, Nibbles would’ve been involved, Arthur was right—

“I held her in my arms once, dead,” Arthur said, and then had to wait because—

Hastur howled.

Once.

One long, eternal, ear-splitting keen.

Arthur winced, and his ears both bled, but he waited, and he did not move, did not turn his face away. He waited until Hastur was done, and Arthur’s voice was now so ragged, it was unrecognizable. “I already did that once. I’m not doing it again. You fucking taught her to swim. You fucking taught her to fight. You fucking taught her to survive. Hastur, she’s alive, and we have to find her.”

Hastur gathered Arthur to himself and went still.

A moment of just breathing, heavy. Pained. Tight. Too fast. There were no words for how he felt. How Arthur made him feel. How this hope, spilling into him like light in the darkness, changed his internal landscape like the storm had moved the shore. “Where do we begin?” he finally managed.

“The wreckage. See where the most bodies and wreckage washed up. That’ll tell us where the current took things. She probably floated on something—so where the majority washed up is where she and any survivors most likely landed.”

He wouldn’t have thought of that on his own. He should have, but he could not. The moment he’d believed she was dead still filled him, blocking sense and reason, catching his thoughts in tar.

Hastur? John’s left hand gripped the tentacle around Arthur’s hips. Come on. He’s right. We have to get moving.

Hastur said nothing as he rose into the air. He took the note—hated, hideous—and stored it away. He would never burn it, never get rid of it.

Never make that mistake again.

He flew, silent; he flew, watching, letting John watch, studying the coastline, looking to see where the largest piles of wreckage were.

Most of it had not been swept west. Most of it had gone north.

Hastur flew them across the Cerenarian Sea, following rivers of garbage, bodies, the ruins of buildings and structures and coastline. North—it all went north, roughly toward Lomar. They found the pile of carnage easily enough, the salvage and soil, pieces of ships and creatures half-eaten, pieces clearly from the cities of Zakarion, of Rinar, of Celephaïs.

(Celephaïs. Vaguely, he knew he needed to check on them. This was his sister-city; they were allies.)

(He couldn’t… think. His blessing and protection had to have been enough to prevent the worst of it. Right now, that was all he could do for them until Faroe was found. Until—)

There! John crowed.

There were tracks. None of them were hers, clearly—but there had been survivors.

Hastur landed and searched, and John used Arthur’s eyes to search, and they found no evidence of an almost-goat and a girl—but this mattered. This mattered.

“They wander north and east,” Hastur said, “Most of them.”

“Who’s here?” said Arthur. “Who or what lives along these shores? Are there any towns neart? Anything?”

“Yes,” said Hastur, heavily. “No place of note. Nowhere to bother trading with; small fishing villages, enclaves, Dreamer communes, all self-sufficient.”

“We have to ask. Hastur, you have to—”

Hastur, said John. I see shelter. That way. Do you see it? The rocks.

Shelter. She would have made for shelter, if she were alive. If she…

Without a word, Hastur grabbed Arhur and flew.

They were piles of boulders, almost like some giant had piled them to memorialize something. They were covered in ice, frozen mud, and lichen, but they held quiet places, in-between spaces safe from the wind.

And there, in a small hollow, was a broken-up figurehead too far from the sea to have been here by accident, and the signs of a fire. It was a proper tiny firepit. Small; dug in a hurry, but with some care. Pieces of char still lingered in it, smoke long gone.

By it was a miracle: two sets of prints. A small pair belonging to a child, and a weird grouping belonging to something ungulate but not quite goat.

Arthur started sobbing the moment John told him.

So did Hastur.

The tracks didn’t go anywhere. They just lingered around the fire, perhaps hesitating moving forward, then disappeared before seeming to choose any direction. That wasn’t what mattered. What did was she’d been well enough to move without staggering, and she’d had the presence of mind to hide their trail again once they got moving.

Hastur put Arthur down, who fell to his knees and curled forward, arms over his face, still sobbing.

Hastur was trying to pull it together. He took some of the coal from her little fire and tucked it away, kept safe. Little black chunks, shiny from heat, precious. They meant she was alive.

Arthur was still blubbering like an idiot.

Ridiculous. She was alive. It was fine. It would all be fine. (Outward composure was what mattered here. Hastur was not fine.) “Stop that,” he told them, gently lifting Arthur, gently wiping his face (and ignoring John’s ungentle territorial swat). “We have work to do.”

“Yes,” hitched Arthur, messy and embarrassing (and clutching and trembling and his). “Right. Right. Wh-when did the storm h-happen? It’s a blur.”

“At least two days,” Hastur said, low. “I… lost time, and the storm itself lasted nearly that entire span.”

“How old is the fire?”

“There is no heat at all remaining, so again—more than a day. She might still be a full three days ahead of us.”

“All right.” Arthur sniffled, wiping his nose on his sleeve. “She’s got a serious head start. What’s here?”

“Not much, and not much of it is good. While the smaller villages should be safe enough, as well as any Dreamer communes, we are also near a place of war, and we are far from friendly kingdoms like Celephaïs. There are many threats here.”

“We’re going to have to do what we planned. Do you understand?” said Arthur. “I’m willing to bet anything that even after this, she’s not going home. She’s stubborn like me.”

“And like me,” Hastur quietly admitted.

“If we give away we’re looking for her, she’ll be hunted.”

“Yes,” said Hastur in a low growl, beginning to wonder how in hell Arthur had kept his head when Hastur had been unable to in the last precarious hours.

“You have to do this disguised. I know we want to just… run. Rush. But if we rush the wrong way, and give up that she’s here…”

“Then Kuranes’ favor is meaningless,” said Hastur, “and we will be in the wrong place when she is endangered.”

“We have to do this. We can do this.” Arthur’s grip on his arm tightened. “Any places people who travel might be. Caravan routes, small towns, anything. Someone may have seen something.”

What are you? Hastur wondered again, but determined never to say out loud. “We will canvas them all. If anyone wandering this forsaken land has seen anything,” and he growled, “we will find them.”

“And question them. Question,” Arthur said. “Leave a trail of bodies, and we’ll be telling your enemies we’re here, and what direction we’re headed.”

Arthur sounded terrible. Finally, Hastur remembered to heal Arthur’s bloodied ears and haggard throat.

“Ow.”

Careful!

Hastur did not reply. He still felt it there, the remains of impossible grief, thick and heavy like a tumor. Fading, but slowly. He wondered if his soul was bruised.

Anything else here worth noting? John grumbled.

“No. The one thing that mattered has been found.” She lived.

He’d made a mistake. This had been his fault—but his little girl had lived. How he could simultaneously swell with pride and seethe with sickened fear, he did not know.

Hastur rose into the air and looked, seeing where the nearest villages were, where the nearest enclaves hid. Then—though it cost him, though it was hard—he landed, donned his guise, and conjured their cart and a new mule.

He knew his cultists would mourn the old one. He did, too; all beings in his domain were his to care for, and he had failed to protect her, but there was nothing to be done about it. This mule, he was determined, would get back home safe.

Like Faroe.

They would. She had lived. Kayne had failed. They would find her.

Hating the speed with which wheels torturously turned, he clutched the reins, peered out from his cloak, and in spite of all reason, was comforted by the presence of the stupid mortal human at his side.

————

NOTES

@sepiabandensis provided the other smiley face Kayne drew. He decided he'll use this one as email signature from now on.

[abstract-wall-canvas]

Waves Without Water – Gilded Amethyst Currents in Six Shades of Motion

Not every current needs an ocean. Some drift across canvas—folding light, bending space, reshaping color.

Gilded Amethyst Currents captures that quiet surge. A piece where gilded motion meets layered abstraction. A palette that reshapes itself depending on the mood:

• Full Color – Twilight violets with gold shadows • Azure – Electric and clean like open sky • Black and White – Intense contrast, deeply still • Inverted – Pale green inversion with lunar glow • Orange – Amber – Glowing heat, like sunset in motion • Technicolor – A wild chromatic tide, bold and strange

Printed on canvas. Stretched over pine. Designed for rooms that listen before they speak. Made in the USA.

[k00244686-kevin-tuite]

A process post for what im doing now with the images I took of my sculpture piece onfront of a greenscreen, First I brought the photos into photoshop and under the selection menue I clicked the colour range option, Using this I held shift and dragged my mouse roughly over sections that had the greenscreen and adjusted based off the preview, when I was happy I pressed ok witch created a selection, I Clicked inverse witch selected the sculpture itself and not the greenscreen behind it and I copy pasted that on a new layer and hid the previous one witch left the cut out of the sculpture itself, I then took the pen tool to further cutout any green pieces remaining, I learned this teqnique today using a online tutiorial.

With the cutout just for the experement pieces I took a stock image of a sky and placed it on a layer behind the sculpture.

Then going back to the sculpture layer I adjusted the brightness and contrast before opening the HDR toning menue in the photo above, I experemented with the presets on it and settled with the preset "Surrealistic Low contrast", I then made a few adjustments in the HDR toning menue (This is why it says custom in the preset box in this screenshot), I didint relize using HDR toning flattens the file into one layer (And can and did crash photoshop twice and made my laptop bluescreen (Thank you Adobie))

I did this process to a few other images Ill post after this when my laptop stops trying to melt itself all were mostly done the same except for a few alterations to the HDR toning menue.

[talonabraxas]

Veil upon Veil you hide The well-spring of the Infinite, The blue that delights, Pierces the heart, And produces a sapphire jewel.

Celestial Deity Talon Abraxas

"The light of the sun is the source of the colour we see reflected in the world. It begins in gamma rays whose wavelengths are a million times too short to see. By a process of absorption and re-emission throughout the sun's body, these spread out into longer wavelengths which travel through space and are further altered by interaction with the atmosphere. If there are no dusts or gases in the heavens, the sky appears black, as it does ten miles out from the earth's surface where the atmosphere thins out almost to the vanishing point." The old man adjusted himself in the chair and continued: "The colour of the sky, child, is closely associated with the way light, falling on matter, is scattered in all directions. The amount of scattered light is greater for shorter blue wavelengths than for longer red ones." Here the learned mariner became more technical and spoke slowly, using his hands to explain. "The intensity of scattered light is inversely proportional to the fourth power of the wavelength. Because of this, blue light loses more energy than red and its scattering is dependent upon low atmospheric content. In the atmosphere of the earth, molecules of gases scatter the blue waves in all directions while the red waves are absorbed, causing the sky to appear blue. The more rarefied the air, the greater the scattering of these short waves and the deeper the colour of blue. But when there is considerable dust or moisture in the air, the layers of particles scatter the longer red waves and cause the sky to become whiter. The red and blue light mixes to produce the whitened sky so common in higher latitudes where moisture particles hang in the air. So the dust rising in a hot, dry clime bleaches out the heavens until a heavy rain settles the earth and leaves behind it a deep saturated blue. Men long for that blue, child. They always dream of travelling south into the azure intensity that has inspired poets and painters for countless years. So thus they gaze out over the horizon as you do, trying to penetrate its vastness."

“Blue color is everlastingly appointed by the deity to be a source of delight.” — John Ruskin

Appointed by the Deity, it is the abode of the gods, their intrinsic attribute and celestial surrounding. It is the colour of the Queen of Heaven and the feminine principle of the Great Deep. It veils the impenetrable void of chaos and yet recedes into its folded mystery. It is the colour of the cloak of Hera and Zeus and clings to Diana's fleet, forested shape. It is reflected in the blue robes once worn by priests at the grave and by the Levites who called their garb the livery of heaven. 'The Blue' is a synonym for heaven and all that is divine. In the darkened depths of its expanse lies Nature's solitude, wrapped in a cold noumenal glow whose purity is incomparable. By its grace, the sea takes on its colour and draws the ocean of space into the world, but the purity of 'the Blue' remains aloft to be viewed from mountain tops on perfectly clear and blessed days.

[lore-ren-theories]

Decided to make this its own post - Storyboard sequence screenshoted from this post by @dragonagegallery. Artist credit and source: Nick Thornborrow

Let's review the final imagery for this sequence step by step bc there's cool parallels between them and some earlier murals and loooore!

First we have Solas, presumably before he was called Solas, standing under a three-layer sun with 16 triangles, there's four light beams coming from the sun.

Then Solas is stood in front of the six-eyed Dread Wolf that's now obscuring the light beams. The sun has also changed colour. I think this may be indicating where in the elven cosmogeny story we are: after Elgar'nan threw down the Sun and Mythal raised the moon as the Sun's pale reflection. Solas in front of the moon alongside the wolf is also reminiscent of this mural:

We see the entire sky covered in triangles that are typically associated with the Fade or the Veil.

Next the imagery is changed from the storyboard, where we see the idols of the Evanuris instead of what's presumably the golden city/Arlathan. It's night here and it seems even more likely that we're seeing a moon.

This image has a parallels in its composition with this mural! Light and dark are inverted however, which makes sense when you think about how night used to be day before Elgar'nan changed that.

But it also calls back to the first image in the sequence and depicts certain elements from Threnodies, in the chant:

The children of the Maker gathered before his golden throne and sang hymns of praise unending. But their songs were the songs of the cobblestones. They shone with the golden light reflected from the Maker's throne. They held forth the banners that flew on their own.

Now this could just be a fun coincidence, but I think it may be a deliberate nod to the chant because we see cobblestones on the ground there. We see that where there once were mountains we now have buildings, just as pointy but nowhere near as majestic. This could also be about the Moon being a reflection of the Sun's former glory. Then there are the Evanuris, spirits, the banners that fly on their own, or fly without wind as is written earlier in Threnodies.

I'm keeping these next three images together. Note how the city has disappeared: the trees that were previously in the background are now all that remain.

The last image with the Evanuris becoming the life force of the veil is, again, a mirror of the Creation of the Veil mural from Trespasser.

There's also the DA4/dread wolf promo images, this one could be an in between step here:

And finally, Solas begins to tear down the Veil:

Which similar to this image, but it's upside down:

And to highlight some elements from the storyboards. This image in particular:

Earlier in the storyboard the mandala is described as a magical seal, in the final sequence it slowly rotates to eventually slot into place. The light at the center was white but is now green, the colour of Fade/rift magic.

Some elements of this mandala can be found in art used for codex entries:

In image one, when the two circles overlap, a third circle with the Fade in the middle appears. Image two seems to depict Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain in the Fade, protected from some kind of dripping black goo. The third image is a seemingly incomplete version of the mandala, but it does have a faded and possibly crumbling circle in the middle.

These seals are noticeably different from other magical seals, wards, spells etc. in the game that are depicted in a similar way:

We know from dialogue between Solas and Emmrich, combined with the Magic Dampener Notes, that the Veil is a direct inverse of Solas's magical signature, which likely means that this is how he shields the Fade from the world. Makes me wonder if the magical seal is a depiction of his magical signature.

Anyway, no real conclusion to this, just thought it's really neat and wanted to share!

[jonathankatwhatever]

Continuing. Champernowne’s constant is obvious transcendental in this definition; arranging all the decimal representations is the same as gsPotential permutations. These forms all write to the reals along the szK. Another way of saying this is through n-1, meaning the reduction from n which occurs for counting to occur because that is the 0-1-0, meaning you can see the n fit on the last 0.

Took a break. This is why the concept in a Liouville number works. Ah, I’m seeing this a bit better. Take the idea that root 2 minus a rational, which means a p over a q, is more than or equal to the inverse of q squared, meaning the area of the denominator. I have trouble seeing what that exactly means. I’ll go over it and see what happens: q is a count of gs, so this makes a grid or quadrant of a gsSheet, and that inverts into a gs, a CM1. The rest then is kinda obvious: p is greater than 1, so of course the inequality is greater. If p is less than 1, then a different result, but we’re counting out not in. That finally allows me to translate Liouville numbers as a gsProcess.

That was work. It only took a few minutes but it felt like hours. I’m getting spoiled.

You see why this is algebraic? Yes, manipulates gs layers in basic ruler manner, meaning it applies ru1. That doesn’t mean ru1 is algebraic only: counts Boundaries, counts whatever ru1 requires. It’s a room of requirements, a function of the construction and maintenance of xyR, meaning each sheet as a room generates and stays around through ru1. Like food is ru1 because some things are bad to eat. Or not the best choice.

You see why that becomes a limit? Yeah, if you have a p and a q, then there must be a p so x minus p/q is less than the inverse of q^n.

Forgot to post this. Now 21 Feb 2025. I want to make progress on defining the algebraic limit, but first I need to mention something I keep wanting to bring up but which slides out of my focus too fast for that to happen, which is this noticeable voice which says nope this isn’t happening or some similar negative when something is obviously happening. Like I’m literally on the bike and spinning up over 120 multiple times without skying my heartrate and there’s this voice saying nope this isn’t happening. I try to take it as disbelief, meaning the shedding of the negatives. Does that involve physical negatives, like the pain of making improvements is that as the goal of achieving that, at least attempting that because we can insert various effectiveness and efficiency measures, then the negatives shed include the D3-4 oh wow need a name for this, but need to grasp it better first.

So we have a D3-4 Thing in motion because it needs to progress to shed, though that can model as spin, because you can spin off different weights and attachment forms. I’m struck by the realization that if I’m accepting this is true, then Tizzies are true too. They are the Irreducibles, after all, because and this is an oh god when they pair in D3-4Space, that models as if they are each Irreducible to each other in the forms we’ve discussed, and that Irreducibility generates a specific Thing which Attaches to a specific End, so the Tizzies embody the Boundary in each direction of gsPairing, as that becomes 2 Things over or across the 1-0Segment Between the 2 Ends which are the circles, are the Boundaries which overlap - don’t lose the thread - so each is on the other’s Boundary, meaning each pairs over whatever the heck happens to each, which of course is true when it’s reduced in your head to Tizzies playing in the garden.

I also keep forgetting that some days ago I had the most intense sensation of seeing his face. I had been sorta thinking about how that required choice of voice was not specifically gendered and yet what happened was I needed to see myself in the male role, which you played so well. That was never that clear to me. You were such a goof.

So what name is that? It’s the material Pathway, which is part of the Actuality tracked in the Registry which records the reals along the szK. See the connection now? Transcendentals encode process beyond the algebraic to real values, to orderings which tell the story of that which makes that count here.

This is one flavor, as well, of why search is so hard: the infinite focus problem. Where is it encoded?

I also will forget that the last few days have seen a vast change in my knees, to the point where I’m now able to isolate the restrictions to areas in my calves which I’m now able to address. I’m seeing big improvements. And my conditioning: I have been finding intervals of 10 secs per minute too easy, meaning my heart rate is stable in the 130’s, so I changed it into bursts of over 120, relax, burst. I tried 4 times a minute but soon questioned my sanity. Settled on every 20 seconds, and that became minimum resistance of 1 keeping the rpm’s above 100 all the time with bursts over 120 as described. I was pleased to see my heart rate came down to around 140, dropping into the 130’s between bursts. I have almost too much energy.

Oh, and the severe pain in my neck is almost gone. I worked it out, which included some extremely painful moves, and now it’s that question about whether this is shedding negatives from the Actuality whose potential is shaped at least ‘potentially’ toward a favorable outcome so this is a negative state whose cost is necessary to achieve a long term better result, and that is perceived using the Observer conception which generates within gs. That’s gsPerspective: that in the formation of D3-4 Things there are connections to D4-3 Things. The gsProcess models as the IC of the 4 Boundaries.

That was said with a lot of confidence. Why? A simple gsPairing forms a disk. Leads directly to the conic sections, to the focusing of the ellipses, to the relation of each End on the Boundary over an End on the cone formed by the ideal fD-HG. That last, the parabolic, connects 2 Ends to something which happens connecting them, and thus what goes up must come down, at least in some sense. We talked about the limits of that with the Halting issue, which is through layers of triviality. After a few layers of triviality, the point, which is very hard to express, is that any values assigned, any description attached to the gsProcess beyond the existence of each stop won’t generate the prior results. See genetics.

So is it like the way genetics can put a tendency in but the transcendental makes it happen or not? I took another break. This isn’t coming together well enough for me. The connection to you has been weird. There was little sense of stimulation after the large breakthroughs of a few days ago, and then it came back this morning, only to fade away right as I was coming to an idea about transcendental numbers which would connect the concept of gsProcess over my objection to the reals. I haven’t been able to bridge that. How do I write this bridge?

Something connects here: gsProcess on one side and real numbers on the other. If we organize these by gsProcess, what does that mean? I’m seeing ru1 here because any rational is a count over the ruler of the denominator. I’ve been meaning to say ru1 acts within polynomial space, meaning 0Space because 1Space includes the Not choices. That’s in the definition of an Extent, that the Extent of the 1-0Segments into a 1-0Segment is the generation of the szK, which is the statement of the reals, even to Cantor’s definitions.

Beyond the rational are the algebraic irrationals, which obviously extend to the limit of 0Space. And then we’re into 1Space and that’s where I’m stuck. How exactly do I say that?

I’m stopping for the night. It’s now 22 Feb 2025.

[smartdatatv]

Why Toowoomba’s TV Reception Problems Aren’t Just About Antennas—And How to Fix Them

Picture this: You’re settling in for a quiet evening in Toowoomba, ready to enjoy your favorite show. But as you reach for the remote, the screen crackles, glitches, and finally, that dreaded “No Signal” message appears. Sound familiar? You’re not alone. For many residents of Toowoomba, TV reception challenges are more than just a minor inconvenience—they’re a persistent headache. But why is this such a common issue in the “Garden City”? The answer lies in a unique blend of geography, technology, and weather.

The Toowoomba Terrain: A Natural Barrier

Toowoomba’s picturesque landscape, perched atop the Great Dividing Range, is a sight to behold. However, this elevated beauty comes with a price for TV viewers. The city’s hilly terrain and uneven topography can disrupt the line-of-sight signals required for optimal TV reception. Signals from broadcast towers can struggle to penetrate certain areas, particularly in valleys or behind natural barriers.

For example, data from the Australian Broadcasting Authority highlights that regions with significant elevation changes often experience signal diffraction. In practical terms, this means weaker signals and more interruptions. If you’ve ever wondered why one side of your street has perfect reception while the other doesn’t, it’s likely due to the topographical quirks of Toowoomba.

Weather Woes: The Sky’s Impact on Reception

Toowoomba’s weather can also be a silent saboteur of your TV experience. Sudden storms and strong winds—common in the area—can interfere with signal strength, especially if your antenna isn’t securely installed. Additionally, atmospheric pressure changes can lead to signal “bending,” causing temporary disruptions.

Interestingly, according to the Bureau of Meteorology, temperature inversions (where a layer of warm air traps cooler air below it) can cause TV signals to “skip” past certain areas altogether. This phenomenon, while rare, is enough to leave some viewers scratching their heads and wondering if their antenna is to blame.

The Technology Factor: Old Antennas vs. New Demands

Many homes in Toowoomba still rely on outdated antennas that weren’t designed to handle today’s digital broadcasts. These older systems may struggle with newer signal formats, resulting in pixelated images or complete dropouts. Furthermore, digital TV requires more precise alignment compared to analog systems, making professional installation crucial for reliable reception.

A report from Digital Broadcasting Australia reveals that proper alignment can improve reception quality by up to 50%. That’s where professional services like TV Antenna Installation Toowoomba come into play, ensuring your equipment is up-to-date and expertly positioned.

Overlooked Factors: Interference from Modern Devices

Did you know that your home’s modern conveniences could be interfering with your TV reception? Devices like Wi-Fi routers, cordless phones, and even LED lights can create electromagnetic interference, disrupting your signal. This is especially true in densely populated neighborhoods where multiple devices operate in close proximity.

According to a study by the Australian Communications and Media Authority, homes with a high density of connected devices are more likely to experience signal disruptions. Upgrading to high-quality cables and filters during your antenna service in Toowoomba can significantly reduce this issue.

How to Solve Toowoomba’s TV Reception Challenges

So, what’s the solution? Here are a few tips:

Invest in a Professional Installation: Local experts in TV antenna installation Toowoomba understand the city’s unique challenges and can recommend the best equipment for your location.

Upgrade Your Antenna: Modern digital antennas are better equipped to handle today’s broadcasts. A professional antenna repair Toowoomba service can assess whether your current setup needs an upgrade.

Secure Your Installation: Ensure your antenna is firmly mounted and aligned to withstand Toowoomba’s weather conditions.

Address Interference: Use high-quality cables and filters to minimize interference from household devices.

Regular Maintenance: Schedule periodic checks with an antenna service Toowoomba provider to keep your system in top shape.

Final Thoughts

Living in Toowoomba comes with its unique challenges, but subpar TV reception doesn’t have to be one of them. By understanding the factors at play and investing in professional solutions, you can enjoy crystal-clear viewing without the frustration. Whether it’s upgrading your equipment, aligning your antenna, or addressing interference, the right approach makes all the difference.

Ready to restore your TV’s full potential? Contact a trusted local provider for TV antenna installation in Toowoomba and say goodbye to those pesky signal issues for good!

[sweet-harpy-key]

Inktober 31: Euclid, by Sleep Token.

A bit of deviation from the typical post format, but the culmination of the song is both main stanzas being sung at the same time, layered back and forth over each other. Some of the words dominate in this arrangement, louder than the others, which results in there being a feeling of a single, new throughline. So:

The unedited overlap:

For me - give me five whole minutes I am - still the autumn leaves - got a ghost in the hallway grinning and - these ancient canopies - my fate is a bad collision and if - we used to lay beneath - give me the twilight two way vision give me - no - last ride down a sunset sky - by now - run forward a life like wires as - the night belongs to you - play along with the life signs anyway but - this bough has broken through - yet in reverse you were all my symmetry and - I must be someone new - so if your wings won't find you heaven - now I - bring it down like an ancient bygone

The little message I hear:

For me, just for me and myself, give me a moment to compose myself. I am still these echoes of what once was, what had been before. My fate might be a bad end I have thus far barely escaped, but let me see through the haze and don't let me rush headlong down the fire again. By now, I should learn-- To run forward, electric and alive. This dark belongs to you. I'll play along with this game, but the lies have broken. You are my inverse, my mirror opposite, but now I must break from that and be someone new. If your efforts thus far haven't found paradise, it is time to try something else, and leave the old dream behind.

The song feels like a chance at redemption. Maybe that's all I've ever wanted. A chance to prove I'm worth something, worth all this misery that hangs round my neck.

We'll see if I get any sort of redemption, in the end, or if I'm doomed to my bad fate.