Run down your list. You are currently on your way to intercept the King, before he gets to the house. Whenever he gets there, it’s a bloodbath; metaphorically and physically. How many more times do you have to see everyone get frozen? See the King smash those who stand before him? You can’t see it again, you can’t you can’t you can’t, so you sneak out to face him instead. If he can’t get to the House, no one has to die, right? Simple as that. The endless night of his approach hangs right over Dormont, so you have to catch him, NOW.
You make a pit-stop at the Favor Tree anyway. It’s tradition at this point.
You did… something, here. Before you started looping. The hypothesis is that whatever you did at the Favor Tree caused the time loop you’re trapped in. You know you wished, a ton— at least ten times, or maybe twenty? All in as many different ways you could think of. Stretching outside the realm of how you know to wish. The desperation drove you to doing random things in hopes it would save you, and— well, it kinda has? You’ve doomed yourself for everyone else’s sakes.
That’s all well and fine enough, you rationalize. One person for many. Who knows what’ll happen if he actually takes the House; you don’t want to find that answer out.
The Favor Tree is huge. It’s a nice tree, lots of leaves, lots of shade. You could probably climb into its branches and never leave, get trapped in a web of tree bark and leaves like a cage, birds and squirrels and other such animals as your jailers. Maybe that wouldn’t be too bad. You could try that, next loop, if you failed here. You know you’ll fail, because nothing has worked so far. Your mind flashes with images of blood-stained floors, of screams both by and for many, many people. Hands reaching to you, hands reaching out.
Breathe. The memory fades away. Your hands curl into fists.
You depart, to fight the King. To stop the King.
———————
The King is very tall. A couple stories high, you’d reckon. He towers over you, the trees and everything else. The clearing you’ve stopped him in is very close to the House. Too close for comfort. Shouldn’t have stopped at the tree. Everything is swamped with the scent of burnt sugar.
He looks down at you— do you look like an ant to him? One singular ant? Wouldn’t that be interesting. A single blockade to the anthill, standing its ground. One mistake and he’ll turn you into a dark stain, or an icy statue. One mistake is all it’ll take for him to rip through the House like paper.
The Craft Bomb is heavy in your pocket. The backup potions, seven or eight of them, all in little tossable vials, toxic and burning and acidic, weigh down the other pocket of your lab coat. You remember drinking at least three of them. They all killed you. Painfully. Curse your desk for not being clean before you started looping. If you’d just taken a few minutes before you wished, so many deaths would’ve been avoided…
But that’s not important now. The fire in your throat, as imagined as it is now, still hurts. Your voice has taken an odd rasp to it now, the consequences of toxicity and blind reaching for water forever etched into your very being.
“How have you done it?” The King asks. You can’t see his eyes, past his endless, wild mane of hair and his gauntlets covering his face, but he sounds both confused and enraged.
You don’t answer, instead brandishing the bomb you worked so hard on. You made it in record pace, this loop. It too reeks of caramel.
The King simply moves a hand. You know what’s coming, and you move before he does. The curse of being so, so tall, is that you’re faster. The bomb goes flying, and you toss the potions all in one go for good measure before skittering out of the way. The King lunges for you as the bomb explodes, sending waves of fire and craft energy everywhere. Blinding, deafening. Its force knocks you to the ground.
He still moves, though. Not enough. Damn. Maybe you need two bombs… do you have the materials for a second one? You hope, as he swings his giant gauntlet down onto you to mash you like a bug, that he sees the weird shade your eyes have taken lately. A pair of blaring, dangerous warning signs.
You’re not scared anymore. This has happened many times.
You still scream.
His attack hits, and through the veil of absolute agony, there’s a tug on your stomach. Back to the drawing board.
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i was thinking about that ask i received the other day and how uncharacteristically upset the topic had made me when i usually just think "mh. gross!" and move on, and after mulling it over a while i realized it wasn't about the topic at all, it was the ask itself that freaked me out. i've mentioned sporadically before (for obvious reasons lol) that i used to be involved in fandom discourse when i was younger and that!! fucked me up quite a lot. between exacerbating my ocd and straight up getting cyber stalked (i almost feel guilty using that word, like i don't deserve it but. yeah that is 100% what happened to me), the topic is something I have very complex and personal opinions on but that i hate talking about in public because it still sets off my fight or flight response.
i know some people in the fandom are like "let me know if i ever rb someone who wrote/drew gross stuff" and that's entirely their choice and i respect it. but for the record, i am not one of these people. please, for the love of god, i am asking this genuinely do NOT come into my DMs about this, I don't want to know. assume I'm either living in blissful ignorance or my blacklist already covers me quite nicely & i wanna keep it that way. i vastly prefer the discomfort of stumbling into something unprepared and deciding what to do about it on my own, to the utter pit of dread i get whenever i open a message that starts with "hey just so you know-". i have blocked multiple people in the past over it. i WILL block more. be warned.
[note. this doesn't apply to people who have either hurt or behaved inappropriately with other members of the fandom, or spread bigotry and discrimination like racists and transphobes. please do let me know in those cases]
does this make sense? idk I'm kinda feverish you guys figure it out. I'm going to sleep.
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