#Umbra is younger than lunar

[notokbutthriving]

[ivyprism]

The Dream Sisters: Angst Lore

TW: Death mentioned lots of it, blood, pain...

Info for the ladies: https://ivyprism.tumblr.com/post/656588652312494080/dreamtale-skeleton-sisters-ocs https://ivyprism.tumblr.com/post/657119338458988544/the-others-inspired-by-the-bad-sanses-aus

Hehehe. Let's start!

Small Facts:

Lunar and Galactica were the group's closest sisters. They accomplished everything as a team. They trusted each other with their lives, but something happened to shatter that trust. They haven't even spoken on friendly terms since. They appear to despise one another.

Tide was falling down when the incident occurred, so Astra had to take her to the hospital. Astra has never been able to forgive herself.

Tide is torn apart by her older sisters' fights and is always sad when they do.

Galactica is always tense when Lunar tries to bring back her old self, and she despises Lunar for it.

Lunar despises Galactica's transformation and wishes for her to revert to her former self.

The Incident:

Galactica, Astra, Tide, and Lunar all worked together to protect a tree, as did Dusk, Bliss, Comet, and Umbra. Astra was a mother figure to her younger siblings. Lunar and Galactica admired her and enjoyed her stories. They had to rely on Galactica to teach them how to fight and summon their weapons.

Tide, of course, was a wonderful addition to their family. Tide was closer to Galactica than Lunar, who was closer to Astra. Galactica taught Tide a lot of her knowledge. Because of the villagers in the area where they lived, Lunar and Galactica began to drift apart. Lunar preferred to socialize and converse with the villagers over Galactica. Galactica spent the majority of her time with either Tide or Astra.

Tide climbed the tree and fell one day. This severely injured her and almost killed her. Galactica lost track of her and immediately felt guilty. Astra rushed to Tide's aid in order for her to be healed. Lunar and Galactica had a terrible fight, and Lunar abandoned Galactica. Villagers with a personal grudge against Galactica began to harass her.

A classic story in the vein of Dusk, Bliss, Comet, and Umbra... But what if I told you that after eating the apples, Galactica was killed by the villagers while Lunar was powerless to intervene?

Because that is exactly what occurred. Despite Galactica's growing power, the villagers ambushed her and slaughtered her in cold blood. Lunar stood helpless as Galactica whimpered her name before being murdered...

Galactica's story, however, was far from over. Her SOUL was drawn back together by the negativity, and she returned. She was enraged, saddened, and felt betrayed. In her rage, she slaughtered every villager who came too close to her. Her rage and sorrow had blinded her. She was about to kill Lunar when she decided to stop. She spared her sister because she felt a smidgeon of compassion for her.

When Astra returned, Galactica had gone missing, Lunar had frozen, and countless lives had been lost at her feet. Tide was sick but didn't notice the blood, and Astra couldn't believe she let this happen.

Galactica soon began to deteriorate, and she began to choke up negativity. It was a horrible and painful experience, and she needed to survive. In order to survive, she began to kill and spread negativity. After joining Cecilia, Lunar began to fight against her sister, and a growing hatred developed. Lunar despised Galactica for losing control, killing so many people, and for everything else. Galactica despised Lunar for leaving her to die and attempting to change her after what had happened.

Poison went in search of Galactica, and she and her companion Pike formed a bond with her. Galactica began looking for more members and met Sabre.

The rest is history.

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@kiokooo @underfell-crystal @avtfol @913cell @the1920sisntaphasemom

Original Dreamtale belongs to JokuBlog

[cntrspll]

this is a love letter to my own fic

hi hello hey, this is an essay about my own fic and the feelings i have about it. fic can be found here.

i am going to try so hard to keep this organized but i don’t know how well that will work soooo let’s go!

on the fic overall:

i just... like magnus. i think he is a fan fave for a reason, but i think there’s a lot of missing discussion of his post-canon situation and the development thereafter. when i finished listening to balance for the first time (in february-ish this year, i think?), i remember being super frustrated with where parts of the fandom had landed their focus. this isn’t an uncommon fandom thing, and i totally get where it comes from. some characters are just super relatable and a lot of fun to write about and have like absolute piles of stuff to unpack, so it’s totally fair that some characters get more focus than others, but where i felt that some of my faves got a lot of fandom focus, others... didn’t.

so this fic was in part an attempt to rectify that, because i wasn’t finding the unpacking of magnus and his emotional / mental state that i wanted. that being said, there are a couple fics that i did draw a little bit of inspiration from, the biggest probably being patterns of migration by goodnicepeople. the depiction of magnus as this big strong dude who also has these quiet vulnerabilities that he doesn’t like admitting to people is like, in part just really accurate to canon, but also something that i really wanted to see explored more, and i didn’t find a whole lot of other fics that fit that, so in part i just wanted to set out to put a little more into that.

also, like, i work in food service, and we are in a pandemic, and i moved in the middle of this year and i started hrt this year and have been dealing with the fallout of coming out and just kind of everything, and this fic was a really good way of just like, distracting myself from everything and sitting down for a little every day and thinking about something else and not so much about everything that was happening around me. so there is a good part of this fic that is just like, me coping with everything and trying to reorient myself a little. and it worked pretty well for that!

on process:

ok first things first, this was never meant to be 133k long. when i first sat down to write this, it was going to be a handful of snapshots set across [undetermined amount of time here] of magnus dealing with isolation and insomnia, and it was only meant to be like, maybe a 20k oneshot? that obviously did not happen. i think my original estimate once i accepted that this was gonna be multichaptered was like 60-70k, but then the chapters started getting longer with each one i finished, and then i wanted to add in an interlude, and then i decided i needed an epilogue, and here we are.

i’ll talk about this in other sections too, but as i wrote, i just kept finding more and more things that i wanted to talk about. i was also in the process of relistening to balance i was writing, and i kept running into little things that happened over the course of the show that i was like... oh shit! and that would inspire another scene or an interaction i wanted to write or something i wanted to focus more on, and the whole thing just kept getting more and more and bigger and bigger.

i’ve said it like 50 thousand times now, but i have never written anything this long before. i tried really hard to be regimented about the way i did it, because from the beginning i knew this was going to be an emotional journey for me to write, but i knew that if i let it slide for a week or so then i would never finish it. so to get through it, i wrote almost every day for a minimum of an hour. the process that i’ve found works best for me when i’m writing is using word sprints, putting on some music, and then forcing myself to tune out of social media and everything else for 25 minutes. i try to do between 750-1k words in that time period, then the site gives you a five minute break, during which i usually check twitter or fact check if i need to, and then i go back in and do another sprint. this works really well for me because i wasn’t trying to hit a specific word goal in any given day, just like... trying to sit down and write. i also tried not to guilt myself too much if i missed a day, or if i only did one sprint instead of two, or anything like that, and that’s kind of what helped me get through the whole monster without instantly dropping it as soon as i had another idea.

on mental health and recovery:

so one of my big personal pet peeves in fiction is the idea that trauma recovery is like, a one time single event deal. like, someone has this big horrible thing happen to them or they have some pressing mental health issue and then someone else walks in and they have one conversation and bam, everything is fine. i was exposed to a lot of [fan]fiction when i was younger that kind of supported this kind of narrative, and i get that there is a certain sort of wish fulfillment thing to that, but it also sucks, being an adult and having Problems(TM) and knowing that it absolutely does not work like that.

so when i set out to write a fic about trauma and mental illness and recovery, i felt kind of a responsibility to not fall into that trap and write it like, okay and then magnus and taako talk about it and taako’s like hey dude you’re depressed but it’s okay and then magnus doesn’t have nightmares anymore. also, because this is taz and the canon of like, historical accuracy is complete bullshit, i can put therapists and psychiatry and psychiatric medications in my fic and no one can tell me i’m wrong and it doesn’t exist. elevators exist, so i can make ssris and anti anxiety pills exist.

but also, magnus as a character is not going to jump into that right away. it is canon fact that he doesn’t like accepting or asking for help with stuff like this, and yes there are a couple big moments where he does, but like i bring up a couple times in the fic, mental health struggles are a big jump from like, a physical fight using swords and axes and shit. and this i think is really accurate to a lot of people’s struggles with mental illness, just taking that first step and admitting that you don’t feel okay, and that you need someone’s help to deal with it. that’s super super scary even to admit to like, your closest friends.

so that’s why magnus kind of shies away a number of times from some of the conversations that people try to start with him about mental health. taako and carey and lucretia and pretty much everyone else approach him at some point about opening up about this stuff, but he pulls away because admitting that kind of vulnerability to someone else is super scary, even if you’ve maybe admitted it to yourself already.

i also wanted to make sure that at the end of the fic, he wasn’t magically better. this is something else that i think people kind of forget, like... trauma and the problems that it causes don’t go away just because of therapy and medication. those things help, they help you reform the ways you think about yourself and about the world, but they don’t change the struggles you’ve been through or the sometimes biological problems that are causing whatever issue you’re having. and i remember reading a lot of fic when i was a kid where someone would be depressed, and then they’d fall in love and get magic dick or something and then they’d never be sad again, which... isn’t great.

but at the same time, i didn’t want it to end on this note like, oh everything is still bad even though he worked so hard to open up and get help, because that sucks, too. so it was really important to me that the fic end on a hopeful note, like, magnus isn’t cured. he still has bad days and bad weeks and sometimes he is just as low as he was before, but he also has like, normal days, which is something that i think you kind of forget can even exist when you’re depressed, or when you’re dealing with any mental illness. but like, i really wanted it to be obvious that things did get better and even if he’s still coping with it and it’s not going away, he’s okay. he’s gonna be all right.

on an unreliable narrator:

this kind of plays into some of the mental health stuff, but one thing that i love about taz that i really wanted to play into with this fic is the idea of limited perspective. griffin does some really cool fucking things with this, specifically in relation to the ipre and the big reveal in the last lunar interlude, with the idea of like... a character can only know the things that they know. like, magnus knows that there is a picture of him depicted as a red robe, and barry knows that they’re all red robes, and taako knows that they found the umbra staff next to a red robed skeleton and that the umbrella spelled out lup at one point, but none of them necessarily know all the things that the other person knew, and none of them know all the things that lucretia knows or that fisher knows or junior knows, etc etc.

unfortunately, just because the pace of the story picks up so much in that last lunar interlude, there isn’t a whole lot of space to explore that like, disconnect between all these facts that they each have as individuals. and given the perspective of mental health and the way that plays into your perceptions of yourself and your perceptions of other people’s perceptions, i really wanted to delve into like… magnus’s misunderstandings.

this is not a strictly straightforward unreliable narrator situation, but i did bring in some elements of that. i really wanted to explore the disconnect between how magnus sees and how everyone else sees him and his issues. there are also a couple moments where he flat out completely misinterprets their intentions, which unfortunately i didn’t delve into as much as i wanted to so they ended up mostly being fun easter eggs for, uh… me? i guess?

one of those moments is the scene in ch 4 where barry and magnus are sitting in the kitchen and barry starts to ask magnus something. magnus assumes it’s going to be about his mental health, and that this is barry stepping up as representative for everyone else to talk to him about it, but it’s really meant to be a precursor to their conversation in ch 6 where they talk about barry and lup and marriage and proposals.

magnus gets a little perspective on this later, i think in ch 7(?) where he’s thinking about how maybe their lives don’t completely revolve around him and he’s missing some of their perspective. but like, they all have their own shit going on, and they all love him and they’re worried about him, but also, barry is thinking about lup. lup is thinking about taako. taako is thinking about lucretia. lucretia is thinking about davenport, and davenport is thinking about his own issues, and so on and so on and they’re not all just like… waiting to pounce on magnus the second he shows weakness.

a lot of that plays into the hypervigilance of ptsd, too. magnus is very aware of any perceived threat, and he sometimes treats the people around him as threats, when all they’re doing in reality is thinking like, man i wish he didn’t live out here by himself all the time.

on a more meta note, i also have a tendency to make every character i write just like, a super good judge of character. i don’t think magnus is that, and i really wanted to lean into that. magnus does not read intention super well, even when that intention is genuinely good.

on the ipre and their relationships:

so i… really don’t write gen fic a lot. even when i do, it is almost always tinged with a little bit of background shipping, and there is some of that in this, but whereas in most fandoms i end up being a multishipper, for some reason with taz i’ve ended up pretty much only caring about the canon ships (sorry…). that being said, the platonic relationships in taz (and especially in balance) are some of the most compelling and important fictional relationships that i’ve ever encountered. like, they are just really well fucking done.

this being the magnus love letter that it is, i really wanted to focus on magnus’s distinct relationships with every member of the ipre crew. i don’t know how obvious this is in the actual narrative, but with the exception of the interlude and the epilogue, the story is broken down into one chapter for each member of the starblaster crew (in order, magnus, taako, merle, davenport, barry, lucretia, lup). i did this specifically because it was really important to me that i dive into all of them and their particular issues. i didn’t quite get the deep dive with merle or davenport that i would’ve liked to, but hopefully in the future i’ll get more time to explore that.

anyway, in case it isn’t obvious, lup is probably my favorite fictional character literally ever in any media created by anyone in the history of time. i say this only because a lot of this fic was set up to build to the conversation between her and magnus in ch 8 out on the mountain where he finally opens up for the first time. there are some really incredible unexplored parallels and relationships in taz (unexplored mainly because like, where would it even fit in canon), and while some of them are super self indulgent (ie, lup and mags, barry and mags), i really really really wanted to dig into those a little more. things like the conversation where taako is talking about everyone brushing over his trauma to rush to forgive lucretia, or lucretia talking about trying to learn to love writing again and recognize happy moments, davenport almost admitting that he’s not completely sure about stepping back into the family in his former role… i could write an entire fic on any of these, really.

but ultimately, this being a magnus fic, i tried to filter those conversations through a perspective of two things: first, how does this affect magnus and his mental health journey, and second, what can magnus do to help this. those scenes where magnus is trying to help someone with something and they’re like, backhandedly helping him are some of my favorite interactions in the fic.

the other thing i really really really wanted to explore that i never see enough of in fic is magnus and carey’s relationship. carey is canonically magnus’s best friend, and yet in fic i feel like she gets pushed to the side a little in favor of the starblaster crew. which i get, they’ve got a hundred and ten years of shared trauma, but also, travis flat out states that carey is magnus’s best friend, so… i mean, there is also a little bit of self indulgence here, because i am also a man who is exclusively best friends with lesbians, but you know.

that being said, i really wanted to emphasize that relationship in particular, which is why carey doesn’t have her own dedicated chapter and instead kind of slides in and out of each one and slowly helps magnus along the way. her personality i also feel is like, the exact kind of thing that magnus needs to push him into accepting / asking for help and moving towards recovery.

on real life parallels:

ok, i swear to god i did not intend to make this a holiday fic posted during the holidays. i started writing this in june, and again, it was only meant to be like 20k and not necessarily entirely set during candlenights. that kind of happened, anyway? candlenights just seemed like the best vessel to get all these characters whose post-canon situations i wanted to explore into the same room, and i finished the first draft around mid october and i wanted to give myself plenty of time for editing, so it honestly just ended up coincidentally aligning with the holidays. go figure.

that being said, isolation ended up featuring pretty heavily in this fic. that i think is to be expected to a certain degree given the nature of mental health and recovery and blah blah blah, but i probably unintentionally ended up leaning into it a little more because like… this year. and the holidays tend to be a time that a lot of us feel really isolated, and this year especially, but one of the big things for me this year is that like, all of my friends live out of state. the closest one to me is still a good 2-3 hour plane ride, which i am absolutely not risking. i had like a hundred plans to go see people and do things this year, and those obviously got cancelled.

probably the biggest one of those things was seeing a friend who i have kind of started a new years tradition of seeing, but we ended up calling that off out of safety considerations, of course. and it sucks! it’s not fun! i also moved out this year and i have my own place and in june i was really hoping that things would be okay by now and i could have all my friends come in from out of town for new years and that didn’t happen. and i wasn’t intending for this fic to be a kind of wish fulfillment of like, here’s my new place post-[saving the universe / coming out and becoming a real person], let me show my found family around my hometown and let’s make new holiday traditions together now that we’re no longer [fighting the apocalypse / literal children] and everything will be fun and happy and good, but that is kind of what happened anyway. [insert joke here that goes like “do you project your real world problems and mental health issues onto fictional characters or are you normal?”]

but yeah, magnus’s mental health struggles did kind of accidentally become a little bit of a pandemic / quarantine life parallel. i did not mean for that to happen, but it did help me tease out a little bit of what it is that i feel like i’m missing and what i want in the future when things are better, and i hope it helped some other people figure that stuff out too, maybe?

and in conclusion:

i said this a little bit in the final notes in the fic, but i am so so so grateful and emotional over the comments i’ve gotten from some of you. i’ve said it already, but this was such an emotional rollercoaster for me to write. i put a decent amount of my own mental health issues into the stuff i wrote into magnus, and it was genuinely therapeutic and like… super helpful and important. it was also a big struggle, and there were some scenes i came out of feeling incredibly drained and like i needed to not write for a week.

so that being said, those of you who have commented things about how this fic helped you deal with your own emotional turmoil or helped put something in perspective for you, i am genuinely so happy to hear that i’ve impacted you in that way like, at all. that is so incredible to me, and not necessarily what i set out to do, but it means so much to hear someone say that and also to know that someone felt comfortable sharing that with a stranger on the internet. thank you so so so much.

again, this fic means so much to me. the fact that it’s impacted even a handful of people in that way is absolutely amazing. some of the things you guys have said have had me seriously choked up. i am so glad that anyone even took the time to read all 133k of this, let alone that it affected people like that.

i don’t know if i’ll be writing more about magnus in this universe. i would love to! but i’m also super happy with where i’ve left his story. i have plans to explore the calen thing in the future, but only kind of tangentially in a side mention and not fully, so who knows? there is more though, a lot with taako and kravitz and lup and barry and hopefully one day i will find the motivation somewhere in me to flesh out everyone else’s situations a little more, too. who knows!

anyway, i just want to say thanks again to everyone for reading, and even more so if you are reading this dumb essay. you’re super cool.

[narrators-journal]

Ace exploration

So, my world has taken a turn or two since my last original post. One of the biggest being me turning Luna into a male just because I could and I wanted to try it to see how I felt about it so I felt less stifled. This exploration is a part of that. Though, I’ve already posted some art of Ace on my other tumblr.

    Finally, the day had ended, leaving dark shadows and mystery in the wake of the sun's golden rays. Ace always preferred these darker, calmer hours. The days were always too hectic, so full of life and energy, the pressure to do something. The night was relaxed, the town was quiet and sleepy, Ace could do whatever he wanted without people to judge, no crowds to try and push through, no one awake to judge him for waking up so late, it was perfect.       He could never explain why he had such an attraction to the night, but he'd always struggled to wake up in the day time. He was always more productive at night too, so when he got to be an adult he gave up on trying to keep his sleep schedule normal and let it drift naturally into nocturnal mode since his work was rarely dictated by the day.         So here he sat, on the windowsill to his room, looking out at the grounds of the casino he lived in. sat on the sill between his legs was a cup of water, which he tried to get to move with his hand. Normally, this was an easy task, Ace was supposed to be the god of the moon after all, but that ease only came when he had drank blood, but he had recently promised his younger twin, Nico, that he'd stop that. He hated it.         No matter what Umbra, the shadow-born bipedal rabbit assured him, it was a slap to the face to lose all of the control he had of his powers. It was humiliating to be unable to do something so supposedly easy as moving a cup of water in time with his hand. So, it wasn't a surprise when he threw the cup down to the ground and covered his icy blue eyes while listening to the sound of it shattering interrupting the cricket song and melody of the distant stray dogs, cats, and muddled, nonsensical thoughts of sleeping masses murmuring comfortably. Wait, thoughts?             Ace's eyes opened again and he looked around at the empty casino grounds. The massive, extravagant building was at the very edge of town, no one was within at least a mile and half of this place, so there was no way the white haired man could've heard people below him muttering, but if no one was around, than what the hell was that murmur of nonsense? Was it really the thoughts of the distant population?           "UMBRA!" Ace yelled, swinging his legs back into his room as the bipedal rabbit creature formed out of the rooms many shadows, "what the fuck is wrong with my abilities?! You said I was too new to this to be able to do shit like read minds, but if so, why can I apparently read the whole fucking town?!" he asked, the rabbit unfazed by his demanding and panicked tone.            "I didn't say you were too new I said you were too angry to try. Doing something like reading minds requires you to be calm and open to it, not angry and stuck in your own bitterness." he explained in a calm, collected manner, which ate at Ace more,            "That's bullshit, because you're bitter and angry, yet you can read minds!" he accused,            "I can put aside my wrath for a time to read someone's mind, can you?" Umbra asked, and Ace was going to argue, but the stern look the Champion gave kept him from trying. "Listen Ace, I can't always help you figure out your powers. It's up to you to figure them out, I can only give you the basics for how to not do something like blow up everyone's brains, or break the sewer system." he continued,              Ace just huffed, knowing well that he was right. Umbra had told the angry man all about how he himself didn't fully understand the ins and outs of the powers of the lunar deity, he was simply a champion, not an expert. So, with a heavy sigh he scrubbed his eyes, trying not to get frustrated,             "Well than, teach me the basics of reading minds." he told the rabbit, who seemed to roll his permanently shut eyes,             "Fine,"

           Before long, Ace was sitting with his legs crossed in the beam of moonlight pouring in from the open window, Umbra sat in front of him in the same way,              "Alright, now close your eyes and relax. Let your thoughts come and go without trying to think of anything." the rabbit hummed, his sleepy sounding voice helping Ace to relax. "don't fall asleep, but open yourself up to the sounds of your surroundings and let everything just be." he continued, and Ace did his best to follow his instructions.           He let the soft sounds of the insects outside and the owls catch his attention, but he didn't linger on it. He just listened to the sounds of outside mingling with the dull thrumb of the casino's wires, the small sounds of the building settling, his own breathing, he listened to it all and just let it come and go from his thoughts. After a moment, he heard it again, the mumbles of unfocused thoughts, Now that you're open to the thoughts, calmly try to focus in on one particular line of thinking. Don't intervene, just observe the thoughts. Umbra said, his voice still low and whispered, but much clearer, like when you try to make your inner voice whisper.             He decided against questioning that at the moment and just drifted through the different trains of thought, until he heard a vaguely familiar voice in the mass and turned to that one. He found that this particular string of nonsense belonged to Nico. He curiously sat there and let his twins thoughts fill his head too relaxed to be surprised when the nonsense formed pictures in his minds eye, memories of the past. Images of two small boys with black hair playing at the park, Nico at gymnastics class, both of them being awake and running around outside at some ungodly hour of the night. The images of memories brought up Ace's own memories of his younger years. Playing outside with his brother, those nights their parents took them to McDonald for days in a row, the day him and Nico were loaded into a lady's car and taken to cps, that time Ace woke up in the early morning to his dad setting him down at an orphanages steps, Nico asleep at his side. When he returned his tentative focus to Nico's dreams he found they reflected his own memories. His brothers dreams had gone from happy memories, to the day Ace left the small, run down apartment they'd scrounged by to rent at seventeen, waking up confused and scared, messaging with no reply, and finally, crying.               Finally, Ace tore himself from the thoughts, returning to his own head and back to the fancy bar lounge room he called a bedroom. He opened his eyes, feeling his own hot tears staining his cheeks,              "Are you okay Ace?" Umbra asked as the man scrubbed his eyes and tried not to sniffle,              "I'm fine. I'm done for the night." he told the rabbit through guilt-clenched teeth, getting up from the floor,              "You know it's normal for you to influence the thoughts of someone else the first time you try. It takes practice to st-"               "FUCK OFF UMBRA." Ace snapped, snarling at the black-furred rabbit until the creature melted back into the shadows. After that, the white haired boy stayed inside and just shoved away the memories he'd dug up by mistake.

[lamalefix]

Pulvis et umbra natura renovantur integra — ch.1

read this work on ao3

There is an ancient legend that circulates in the Shadow World.

Nothing more than a fairy tale in black hues, like the ones told at the campground by the fire.

Something extremely ancient, which lurks in the darkest depths of the Spiral Labyrinth. A story written in this vulgar and somewhat battered Latin, in an illuminated codex among the forgotten books of the Silent City. One of those traditions that the people of the Kingdom under the hill, hide behind the ivy leaves. Events that would make even the most bloodthirsty vampire, the most ferocious werewolf, shiver.

During the night of a lunar eclipse, when Mars paints with blood the sky, anyone who is stained by killing more than a hundred demons becomes one of Lilith’s Children. Without having demon blood. Users of demonic magic, without having the magic in their blood. It’s just a legend. A legend handed down by other legendary creatures.

Legends, however, are true. 

  Before the outbreak of the Mortal War, and now it seems like a lifetime ago, Alec hadn’t killed a single demon. He preferred to be the guardian angel of his siblings, more reckless and scapegrace than him. He tended to protect them to the point of scraping up all kinds of wounds. Even when they were younger, the parabatai rune still fresh on his side, he had always had another role in battle: watching over them. His jumping from one side of the battlefield to the other, the constant protection of the people he loved most in the world, his siblings, his family, had always been a source of pride. Although he wasn’t the best killer of the Clave, the best warrior, he certainly had an overview and integrity to be proud of. And even the marks left by those wounds on his body, were nothing but a source of pride. And he learned to endure pain, to proceed with a clear and cold mind. He never liked to kill, but it’s a necessity, especially if you have a demon that is aiming at your throat. He never liked to kill because his role was always another one.

And now his life has changed, his role has changed. And even if the war is over, sometimes the dangers they face are nevertheless immense.

And maybe he should just stop now, just let himself fall and give in to that pain that is not just physical that radiates throughout his whole body. The blood that runs from his face, from the big gash that crosses his torso from his left shoulder to his right side, and from a multitude of other wounds that he can’t even locate.

But he is so angry. He is so out of his mind. The lucidity seems only a distant memory. And it’s true that he is using this cold anger, he is enslaving it to the Nephilim cause, but in reality if he found his parabatai he would plant his stele in his brother’s neck, with all the strength he has. But for now, he has other priorities to attend.

Animated by his icy rage, Alec crosses the entire surface of the battlefield. The adamas of his daggers sparkling in the dark. Taking a leap, hovering in the night, air he plants the blade in the skull of this other demon, and another, and another. He lost count of how many he killed.

A strange energy blinks between his fingers. It’s sparkling and burning, like thick and fiery smoke, like a thundercloud, it looks like magic and seems to be lighting up in the palm of his hands. Impossible. The blood itself burns in his veins and maybe it’s just the demon venom that throbs inside him, or maybe it’s something else.

After a distance of fifty yards, without difficulties, he gains the position in front of another nest that is still being created. The rift is still open, and Alec will close it with his bare hands if necessary.

Taking up the bow and charging five arrows, Alec doesn’t take long to send yet another demon nest to ashes. The creatures give a strangled cry as the Adamas burns and reduces them to dust.

Now, more hordes of demons rise from that portal that pierces the ground. Winged demons, enormous, gigantic, which come from the depths of Hell realms, skeletal horrors that clumsily climb and slide on the damp asphalt of that little deck, serpent-like creatures that dart like eels.

Alec nocks more arrows and doesn’t blink when the ichor shoots across his face, while this demonic dragon explodes into pieces. He holds a dagger and hurls it at this cloud of giant demonic bees, making one explode is enough to trigger a chain reaction and the others become dust in the blink of an eye.

Perhaps, if it was only yesterday, he would be satisfied with this hunting night, how he accomplished this impossible feat almost entirely alone, a fact that would certainly have filled him with pride.

Today, however, today he can’t feel any satisfaction. Perhaps there is nothing left beyond his anger. Beyond his anger there is only more rage, more annihilating and colder.

The eclipse is still giving the sky this red glow that looks like blood. The same blood that Alec has on his hands, and drips from his fingertips, the same blood that clouds his vision now that it slips into his eyes and returns bitter in his mouth.

Drenched with sweat, blood and ichor, with his locks of hair sticking to his forehead, Alec then runs towards the rift.

The sound of his footsteps combined with the swirling screech of the barking of those demons that are climbing up the rocky wall seem to explode and reverberate in the night.

Through the veil of pain that tarnishes his eyes, not only physical, especially emotional, Alec sees that the only conceivable way to block that portal lies in his hands. It’s an absurd reasoning, but he feels it, he feels that something that vibrates between his fingers under the skin, it’s like the incessant flow of magic, which resounds in the outer layer of his skin, and then permeates in his tendons, drums in his muscles, skids in his bones.

Are his hands the key to closing the portal? That’s it. He can burn his whole body in that attempt, now for all he cares.

His life is over.

He doesn’t care anymore. His siblings will take care of themselves. And he wants nothing more that to go back to Magnus, wherever he is.

The drops of blood and of ichor that glide along the signs of the calluses and of the small scars on his fingertips trained to battle and haunt, seem to become spikes, impregnated with an energy that he can’t have. Is it magic? Maybe not. Maybe he’s just gone insane.

Perhaps, but he doesn’t remember it clearly, he activated the Alliance rune before arriving there. Maybe he’s stealing some of Magnus’ energy.

Magnus.

Magnus.

Magnus.

No, he shouldn’t have to think about it. About him.

Not yet. When he’ll close his eyes he will reach him. When he’ll let himself go, he will join him.

Alec summons that strength, which now vibrates under his skin and lights up like a bolt of bluish smoke between his fingers, and then turns for an instant and lights up like a gold and orange flame.

It looks like his magic. Magnus’ magic.

His arms, his body, move without a specific purpose and when the palms of his hands impact each other the rift is closed and the last demons that have come out are encircling him.

He moves his hand, and with the stele activates the precision rune, whispers to his seraph blade its name, and with a sharp blow, like a skilled butcher, he kills three or four demons on the spot. Then, with the same delicacy with which a woodcutter plants his axe in the side of a tree, he hurls his daggers at the remaining demons.

Dozens and dozens.

When the threats in his immediate proximity have disappeared, in a flame of ash and wind, with his legs that no longer support him, Alec decides to go back to where he was before, at least if he must die, if he must die, he wants to stay close to him, to Magnus.

There is the possibility that his sister will fight to have them put together, to have them end up underground together, even if he won’t be in Idris, he doesn’t care. If their life is over today, it’s right that they remain together at least afterwards.

 One step, and then another. His eyes, clouded by tears, fatigue, get lost in the dark. Perhaps he should reactivate the vision rune. His legs are shaking, and his steps become heavier. The shock, the breath of adrenaline that has run through his skin, that anger that filled his heart and erased his judgment so far, is fading.

Other demons are preparing to reach him, to attack him, and his daggers seem to move by their own accord.

It’s like watching the whole scene from the outside. As if everything was recorded and he was seeing it sitting on the couch at home, a cup of honey tea in his hands, while Magnus plays with his hair and whispers sweet words, the magic that flows from his fingers on his skin like calming steam.

Between Alec’s fingers it flashes again, the blue sparkle that for a second acquires the fiery colour of the sun and if with a dagger he is slicing demons of any nature into halves, with the other he throws small waves of energy. His other arm seems driven by something, as if it were Magnus driving it.

The palms of his hands burn as if the magic, the magic that usually approaches him with kindness and that now escapes from his very hands, from his skin, is burning him.

His knees tremble as Jace approaches him. And he almost doesn’t recognize him. Or maybe he recognized him and that’s why he has the dagger leveled in front of him, right up to Jace’s throat.

Jace says something, or at least it feels like he’s talking to Alec. Jace too is the mirror of this terrible battle, his golden hair stuck to his forehead, his clothes are drenched with ichor and blood, the gear all scratched. His seraph blade seems to be soaked in something mud-like and dense, it’s the blood of all those demons, poison and ichor that drips slowly from the tip.

He speaks to him, therefore, Alec hears his voice rolling in the night, in the reddish darkness of this lunar eclipse, but honestly isn’t paying any attention to him.

He rubs his wrist under his chin to dry the sweat and blood that keep slipping on his face, but still holds the dagger levelled against Jace’s throat.

He’s tired, he’s so tired. And now the pain radiates throughout his body. Probably the wound that crosses his torso from the right side to the left shoulder is just one of the multitude of gashes that are pulling away his last energy.

Magnus.

He must go back to Magnus.

But before his feet move, anger takes over again. Jace is closer and now the dagger seems to glow with a fiery red light.

Jace backs away, drops his sword to the ground and raises his hands, his eyes seem to warn him, or maybe that warning it’s just in Alec’s head. Other demons lurk behind his parabatai and Alec, throwing the dagger away, takes his bow again. His body moved of his own will, his head perhaps telling him to ignore them, those demons and let them feast on his brother’s flesh.

It’s his fault, after all.

His life is over today and it’s only Jace’s fault.

Five or six demons become a pile of ash. And Jace seems relieved to still have his head attached to his neck. Perhaps he thanks him, and Alec decides that it’s okay for now. So, when he’ll reach Magnus, when he too goes away, Jace who is so reckless, will end up in a stupid, horrible death.

He moves then, swallows noisily, his ears ring insistently. He moves away from Jace, who’s trying to hold him up.

This whole mess is his fault.

Magnus.

Magnus didn’t have to be there.

Alec .

Alec didn’t have to be there.

Nobody.

Nobody had to be there.

Alec swallows again, the bitter ferrous flavour of blood, the dense acid of the ichor that sticks on the roof of his palate. The whistle in his ears seems to grow faint, seems to fade. And maybe he is a little thirsty.

Jace tries again to support him, tries again to help him walk, he has the stele in his hand and maybe he wants to activate some rune.

No. No thanks. Alec thinks and withdraws. Willing or unwilling, it’s his body that acts before his mind. An impossible anger rises in his throat. He takes a step back and hears a deep growl that troop off from his chest. The blue smoke of magic flashes through his fingers again.

The sensible part of him knows, he certainly knows that attacking Jace, attacking him for the choices he made, sending them there to die, in this little deck on the edge of Long Island, is a bad bad idea. They needed to protect mundanes, to protect all New York citizens.

But there is something primordial, something feral that burns the air in his nostrils. And that blue lightning that is becoming crimson is proof of this. He is so angry again, that even the pain, physical and emotional, that blurs his vision, seems to annihilate him again.

“I’ll take you to Magnus, okay?”.

Magnus.

His anger disappears abruptly, in one shot. That blue smoke that ran through his fingers disappears along with his impossible anger. Magnus. Yes, now he will see Magnus. Now he’ll go back to him. And they will go away together.

He takes a step, slowly, and decides to lower his weapons, which seem to rustle like the wind now that he is trying to put them behind his back. Jace reaches out to take his face. Clear eyes, dilated pupils. He talks to him again, but Alec is not really interested.

The blood that stains his hands, which looks like mud mixed with the ichor. It’s not just his or demons’ blood. Alec remembers this and the shiver that runs through his back tears his breath away.

He held his hand on Magnus’ chest for an impossible time. A gesture that he usually likes to do, because he feels the beating of his heart. A warlock’s heart beats differently from the heart of any other mortal. It’s a reassuring, undying, and stable sound, the magic that runs through every cell of Magnus’ body seems to gather all over his chest when Alec holds his hand there. And it’s so reassuring. He could be listening to Magnus’ heart all his life. This is what Alec thinks every time. This would be enough for him to be happy.

But he held his hand on Magnus’s chest a little while ago for other reasons. Nothing pleasant. Nothing pleasant at all.

The blood on his hands, the blood is not just demonic, it’s not just his own. That blood is also from Magnus.

And his heart was beating differently, in a way that wasn’t stable at all, the magic seemed to run away from every corner of that huge wound that ran through his chest from side to side. The tattered shirt, the torn flesh.

Alec held his hand on that wound, he listened to the beating of that heart until Magnus had his eyes open.

Alec asked him not to go, to fight, to resist. He asked him to take his strength, his whole energy, he asked him to stay. He told him that he loves him and that he can’t , he just can’t live without him.

But then he closed his eyes and something shook his body. A deeper breath with parted lips.

And then his heart didn’t make any more noise.

Alec’s, instead, broke. In hundreds of pieces. And with a little bit of luck, as soon as he sees him again, his heart will stop. And they will be together. In the end. No dangers. No pain.

He never wanted to think about what would happen next, at the end of his own life. Because he knew he would leave Magnus alone, that Magnus would continue to exist, and a very small part of him liked to think he could walk around the house and watch over him from time to time, hear him laugh every now and then while Magnus thought of him, finally moving on when Magnus would have found new happiness. But now he imagines himself having another chance in the afterlife, being able to be with him forever, in a non-place of the mind.

But even before he can reach Magnus, a dull breath comes out of his mouth and scrapes his throat. And even though Jace is trying to keep him upright, his knees no longer support him. And he falls forward.

The street floor painfully wards off him, but he immediately tries to raise his hands and press on the asphalt, to drag himself there, near Magnus. His life is running out, and he wants to see him at least one last time.

And again, a cold and impossible anger comes over his heart. It takes his breath away. Again and again the blue smoke flashes between his fingers, and a deep growl escapes his teeth.

Everything in front of his eyes becomes confused, everything in front of his eyes looks like thick and dense fog.

It didn’t have to end like this.

After a first moment of darkness, he feels something burn his skin. They are the familiar contours of the healing runes, iratze and sangliers , and the pain disappears for a moment. He opens his eyes and sees Jace, in the corner of his field of vision there is also Isabelle, in the near distance. He sits up, though his parabatai keep saying something, words in the wind.

Finally, he sees him. The unruly mass of Magnus’ hair, the impossible pallor of his face, the dark circles look like bruises under his eyes in that absolute greyness of his face.

And Alec swallows a painful sob, his eyes bleary with tears.

Isabelle is there, motionless, both hands pushing a jacket or whatever it is on the huge wound that crosses Magnus’ chest. The blood reaches her elbows. And perhaps he imagines it, that she shakes her head, he imagines that sense of despair that comes from her too. Or maybe it’s his desperation that is invading everything around them, like a thick and dense fog.

He stretches out a hand, smeared with blood and ichor and cups Magnus’ cheek. He rubs his thumb just below his cheekbone. And perhaps even this is in his head, but he hears his own words, in this broken and trembling voice that he will soon reach him. "I won’t leave you alone, wait for me," he adds, swallowing a handful of tears.

The electricity that passes through his fingertips seems to come to Magnus, though. As if, yes, he was giving him back the magic he stole from him a little while ago. And Alec again has a great chaos that hovers in his head, his eyes clouded even by a darkness he can’t understand, besides those puffy and salty tears.

The only thing he can do, before closing his eyes again and letting go is kissing a corner of his mouth in a silent goodbye.

Again, a jolt of that electricity passes through his body, and reaches his lips like a lightning. And it burns a little, it hurts. But soon it will end.

He lets himself go on him, his hand just above those of Isabelle who are uselessly trying to help Magnus, and maybe someone tries to hold him up, but it’s late.

Maybe they will be lucky enough to meet again later, somewhere in another life, somewhere in another dimension, under other circumstances, with other premises.

Maybe they are lucky enough to reincarnate in something of the same duration. And maybe they will have the same luck they have now and go away together.

Perhaps Alec could have done something more. In all senses, both for their life together, and for his siblings, for the sake of his family.

A little rage grows in his heart, once again, while he feels something vibrate under his head. A very light and confused beat that echoes in his ears. And the sound is so familiar, it looks like something he’s already heard. And it reassures him a little.

The darkness then thickens before his eyes, the last thing he can focus on is his sister, and maybe she is also telling him something, but it’s late.

It’s late.

[click here for chapter 2]