#desert godlings

[fisherrprince]

joining the put that boy on a horse initiative

[ghostbsuter]

John Constantine was in prison.

No, not a normal, mortal prison. Those wouldn't be able to hold him like this one does.

No, he's imprisoned in the Infinity Realm.

The warden of the establishment is Walker, someone whose blood sings Witch Hunter.

If that wasn't bad enough, with every second, it gets worse. Angels decided to interfere in a realm not in possession of their God.

Who's idea was it to go against the Infintiy Realm? Are they nuts?

"John Constantine," One of the messangers steps forward. There is no weapon in sight, yet.

"Under the scrutiny of Heaven, we were sent to retrieve you for a trial." Their voice clipped, blond hair shimmering a soft green and John is sweating buckets.

"Your deals with various demon folk and such shall be judged unter gods court and—"

A loud bang echoes through the hall, Walker's men are surrounding the beings of heaven and particular brave soul steps forward.

The lad is young, can't be older than Bat's Robin. He walks with an air of authority, white hair floating against gravity's rules and towering before the flock of messangers.

"How dare—"

The boy, the godling– growls.

He blocks their view of Constantine, staring them down.

Some of the angels fall back, wings arched and ready for a fight, weapons still not in sight however.

"I am Phantom, King of God's of the Infinity Realm." The child with a title too much for such small shoulders bear, introduces himself.

It sends the flock into mild panic. Constantine is just a bit satisfied at the change.

"Returns to your god and tell him this, every Constantine bearing the title Laughing Magician is under my protection."

For such a small stature, his voice is booming, the command thinly veiled as a threat and icicles forming around him.

"Tell him that if he ever dares to breach my territory once more, I will not hesitate to call war upon heaven."

The main angel of the flock, the one that had read out Constantines sentence, hesitated only for a moment before urging the others to leave.

Posture stiff and movements jerky.

They didn't expect to be told off like this, John muses.

He only slightly dreads when phantoms attention drifts to him finally, a light knock on the metal bars and the whole wall was gone.

"Follow me, John Constantine."

And John does.

He'll sweet talk himself out of this on the way to his doom. Like always.

—

("Unpopular belief, but I actually quite like you." Danny had stated once in the garden, sitting on a table and drinking tea. John hadn't touched his cup nor desert at all, cannot trust those of the infinite after all.)

(A rip into the green before them had created a portal, a gateway.

"Leave, Laughing Magician. Hold onto that necklace, it will ward off anyone with the intent to harm and deals as a warning to those working for the immortal."

And as John steps forward, his eyes meet toxic green.

"We will see one another again, sooner or later. Farewell, Jester."

The portal spat him out in his apartment in New York, if it wasn't for the protection charm, Constantine would have believed it to be a mere dream. A warning.)

[jellyfilledeyes]

Ooooh right you went to a cat cafe for the first time recently!!So Outcast Godlings + cat cafe related hcs👀?

oh i got you bbg/platonic

Nico- is EXTREMELY nervous not cause he's scared of cat but because he doesn't want to hurt the cats, at some point a cat will just randomly jump in his lap and he nearly cries (of happiness) he also took a nap with said cat, got a coffee cause he like the cute cat design hated the taste and got hot coco instead

Hazel- babygirl's so happy all the others think she might explode, she immediately went for the treats to feed them and then got jumped by 10 cats (its ok she's having the time of her life), all the black cats tried to leave with her they had to be pried way, begs percy to bring her back everyday, she went straight for the deserts she eats to much then gets a tummy ache :[

Percy- is a regular there knows all the staff and cats names, as soon as he walks in all the cats go after him cause they know he'll pet them all, may or may not sneak treats into the cafe and DIY lil accessories for his fav cats but the staff don't mind cuz they all love him , the staff make him custom blue drinks for free

Lex-so happy all the others think she might explode x 2 , their the cat whisperer even the most not friendly cats like them (they joke its because their catgender) is their so often people think they actually work their, they and hazel will make lil friendship bracelets for the cats, got the special desert shortcake cause it had strawberry cat ears

im gonna be so fr the cafes is still in business because of the 4 of them

bonus sol cuz i can- acts like a crazy cat lady, vibrating with so much happiness, no one knows how but they know exactly what all the cats want at any time, goes then every other weekend to point the cats get sad when they don't show up, just gets a cookie cause they just come here for cats

[amaiguri]

A Brief History of my Fantasy World

As you may have noticed, all my cultures tend to rely pretty heavily on myths and legends to explain their history. You probably want to know the ACTUAL history of the world, right?

Well, congrats -- I don't definitively have a whole world history! I know, shocker: The history nerd doesn't actually have a comprehensive list of all the major empires and developments through history?! Unbelieveable. However, here's a broad overview of developments and eras of history in the world:

Era of Gods (More than 4000 YA)

In the beginning, the Gods made the world or perhaps were made by the world. Asarlai and Damaer were the creators of humanity and did, in fact, give them a nice little home in the alpine tundras of the North, where they taught them to see runes in the Ysse to use as magic. This led to the invention of writing around the same time as cooking, who Damaer taught them.

Humans also invented or perhaps were taught pottery and started befriending animals at this time. Most notably, hunters on the south coast of the North befriended seals. When the Great Abyssal Trench -- the biggest Ysse Spring in the world -- opened up, the seal and human hunter fused in the waters and became the first selkies.

At some point, an ice age happened (maybe caused by this opening?) and some humans traveled south over the sea -- leading to humans being on the isle of Telethens and the Southern Continent. All these different isolated humans led to the start of vastly different cultures. Humans probably invented and improved metals through this time period, with the help of Danvyr, God of the Forge.

Sha Hir'za at this time are just vibing in the desert, not yet sapient.

The humans in the South reinvent agriculture when the ice age ends. It's much easier in the south too, and the population grows quickly and healthily.

The end of the Era of Gods is marked by the very first murder of one of the Gods -- namely, that the God of Endings tore apart the God of Beginnings and made Their corpse into the Demon race.

Era of Demons (~4000 to ~2000 YA)

The Demons, being designed by a God unconcerned with the balance of the world's ecosystems, were -- to be blunt -- a little OP. They quickly began taking over the world, headed by a Demon known as Kivihk. They built a small Empire in the south and started trying to domesticate the humans there -- since Demons require blood and gain magical power from drinking the blood of sapient creatures.

During this time, they domesticated the Sha Hir'za but they became Sapient faster from eating the Demonic dinner scraps. This led to the weaving the of the Fifteenth God, and they escaped back into the desert.

Notably, Demons also made it North during this period but never established an Empire -- instead, they just assimilated into the human cultures there.

Also, at some point, some of the Selkies leave to the elsewhere and starts new civilizations on other continents.

The Era of Demons ends when Yeulia, Seeress of the World, Godling of Dyeus, is born and begins to lead the humans. (Godlings are like... the humansonas of their Gods. Think like the Jesuses of the Gods XD) Yeulia leads the humans to rebel against Demons and invents Monotheism -- establishing the Ecclesia of Dyeus.

Era of Heroes (~2000 to recently)

The Era of Heroes is categorized by the human heroes who rose up to shape the modern cultures around Yssaia today, starting with Yeulia in the South.

The Svanihk cultures that flourished under her religious guidance eventually turned their eyes towards world conquest, starting with Kallipolis and the Isles of Telethens.

This lead to the creation of the first Philosopher King who started to lead a counter-conquest -- before falling in love and then going on a murderous rampage when he was rejected. He was disassembled but the Telethenians swore to make a better Philosopher King one day. And also, the beginning of the Aftokratoria around 400 years ago.

During this time, magic technology is improving significantly, mimicking (in small amounts) some technologies WE have, like fridges, guns, and early prototypes of airships. But we can't mass produce these things yet.

In the North, similarly, there were rising and falling Kingdoms -- passed from King to King (not-gendered) through a tradition called a Trialhall (basically a puzzle box/rpg dungeon designed to pick the next King). One of these Trialhalls was a simple sword in an avil -- if you could pull it out, you became King. Except, no one could -- no matter how strong -- until this 14 year old kid named Riavh Solais, son of Scathach and (allegedly) her Dragon mate, could see the sword's name and just asked it really nicely. He went on to unite the North with the help of the Yeulia of that era, only for him to become depressed and his son ended up tearing the Thuillean Empire apart in a civil war.

Due to his insane propaganda machine, there was a permanent schism in the North — between the Imperial Valley, where the capital became Nouveau Thuille, and the rest of the North, which became the Saegen folk. The divides between these people are blurry and arbitrary, even to this day, as their shared history leads them to have relatively similar cultures.

The Era of Heroes probably can be thought to have ended with the invention of the Assembly Line or the Radio or something. (Radios are just like morse code lights, not actual sound-waves yet.) Something something, industrialization.

Modern Era (Recently???)

Okay, so the War -- What happened?

First, the Aftokratoria successfully ate all of the South. They turn their eyes North and began to conquer the Selkie Isles about 10 years ago. The Selkies ask the Northerners for help, and so the North comes back down and kicks out the Aftokratoria.

The brings us to 3 years ago, when Senator Diacaius then took over as the General. He brought a swift end to the bitter war against the Northern Alliance through strategic island hopping north until finally, nuking Togen Oyer. Though some terrorists (like the protagonists) tried to disrupt the Peace Signings, Diacaius sieged Nouveau Thuille and managed to garner their surrender in a single afternoon.

AND THAT'S THE ENTIRE HISTORY OF THE WORLD, I GUESS!

[pnthra]

an excuse to throw plots at u // accepting !

@beldusaint : ⭐⭐⭐⭐ I am coming for you 🫵🏾 💋

o shit o god o fuck--

saint + aster: as aster is often tasked with hunts that span the globe, hunting down prey that is not restricted to any particular part of the world, i could MAYBE see him seeking out saint for aid. man is a godling, and i imagine that when he steps foot into his desert, he'll immediately need to be granted some sort of permission to be on his turf. he will, in fact, annoy the shit out of this being demanding to know every facet about them, as he is naturally curious towards the fellow divine and their function.

saint + aphie: random strange man who is on the cusp of death trips and falls into the desert and is discovered by the local populace. reigning deity discovers weird man is in fact not human and is a potential danger (or at least something to investigate). ??? profit.

saint + phorus: phorus, my nemesis in plotting... maybe they would interact on the premise of phorus wanting to expand his global influence, and in turn, have an easier time tracking and monitoring those deemed as criminals by his clan. his company, lunar security, that was founded by his father and born from centuries of serving as humanity's bodyguards is primarily a means of having eyes in all possible places and seeing threats to mankind in advance. expanding his sphere of influence to an entire kingdom via their adored prince would be ideal for the continued tracking of prey.

[roxasthatisastick]

here is your princess

here is the horizon

(based on tell you a tale, and @kicktwine's desert godlings AU)

[hvrricaneromeo]

location: the lake. open starter.

for now, all is quiet. the thunderstorm rolling between the bones of his ribs seems like nothing more than a faint hum; a lullaby that could sway him to sleep if he let it. the weeks have rolled by like clouds over head, sometimes clear and sometimes crackling with a warning, unleashing an onslaught to all caught beneath them.

so much has happened over the weeks since answering the song singing beneath his skin; his bloodstream now electrified, a conduit of chaos and destruction. giving in only causes pain, pushing it down only makes him lose control. trying to tame lightning is impossible, just as romeo valiente had always failed at truly taming his emotions. pushing them down and ignoring them, sure, but truly mastering them has always alluded him.

if his father could see him now, he'd be disappointed.

romeo sits crossed legged at the edge of the dock. green eyes stare ahead, seeing and unseeing, as he lets himself just exist. no pressure, no expectation, no quests. the urge to just be tugging at his heart like a hook through flesh. it's an ache that he can't fix, no matter how much he tries to drown it.

there's too much to process, to unpack and pick through. the ambrosia, the twins who stole shadow and lightning, the desert and the goddess he's now indebted to, the fight with the hydra, the expedition to the denali ranch. atticus.

atticus, atticus, atticus. perhaps the calm of the raging storm he finds himself in and he still doesn't have an explanation for that.

too much, too fast.

he closes his eyes. he names five things that he knows are true. his name is romeo valiente. he is the son of zeus. he was born in spain. he went to school to be a lawyer. he hated it.

he inhales, holds it, counts to ten, exhales, counts to ten once more.

above him, the clouds shift and churn, darkening like his mood. droplets of rain on a spring night begin to drop like tears that slowly roll down his face. they ripple the surface of the like, like a soul attempting to say hello.

he wipes his cheeks with the back of his hand. too much, too fast. the self doubt he'd been shoving down, down, down feels like claws scraping at his inside, tearing at his heart, his throat. lightning rumbles through the sky, silent lightning flickers; an illumination of gold and blue, of white and violet.

"it's too much." he says to himself, barely a whisper. thunder rumbles, cracks like a whip. "i can't be what i need to be." a leader; a prince; a king. "i won't be enough for them." the denali ranch plays in his mind, the violence that could've happened, the consequences they would've faced, the backlash he would've encountered if he'd done what had crossed his mind.

his worst fear coming to life as he sunders the sky and engulfs the godlings in lightning.

the creak of the wood causes romeo's head to swivel, his eyes flash brilliant and bright, and a bolt of lightning zig zags through the sky, striking the ground fifteen feet away. "what do you want?" he hisses, the hurt and rage in him written on his face, sticking to his words like poison. "it's not safe for you right now, go away." the rain starts pouring down harder now, the breeze picking up, causing the leaves in the trees to shake like a tambourine in time with the kick drum of the thunder.

[doctorslippery]

My next character needs to be a Cataphract deserter who left the service and ran when he realized that his horse was awakened and he didn't want his very unique friend to die in battle. The horse resents being forced to desert and longs for the "good old days" before he was aware and knew how much of a cesspool the world was.

The horse's personality is based on...

Neither one realizes that they are the playthings of a child godling, Neafight, God of The Way Horse Manes Wave in the Wind When They Are Running. He's hoping for a pantheon promotion when he gets older. But for now, he'll keep himself busy playing with his cataphract deserter hero and his depressed horse.

[fisherrprince]

hi! this might be a weird ask, but do you have the link to the little text based game you made for desert godlings au? i've been wanting to reread it but i'm having trouble finding it on your blog :(

Mmmmmm tumblr seems to be…. Weird about letting people find things I’ve clearly tagged lately… not a fan of that. Here

[lunarsands]

ALSMP Fanfic: Wherever These Flowers May Grow Ch 2

Characters: goddess!PearlescentMoon, actual!angel!Sausage, starborne!Scott; reintroducing: floran!Scott and introducing: floran!Sausage, with special guest Empires SMP S2 Joel and a cameo by Origins SMP CaptainSparklez

Relationships: MythicalSausage/Scott Smajor

Tags: Canon Divergent, scosage, fluff

Warnings: Character Death (temporary as usual with this series), a tiny bit of angst

(Sequel to Echoing Through To You, When The Skies Cry, Until The Blood Moon Descends, and Then We’ll Rewrite the Stars)

(Also available on Ao3!)

Summary: Pearl sends Sausage and Scott on a mission to help out on another mortal world different from their old one. Scott finds himself returned to an old set of powers; Sausage gets new ones which, as it turns out, he has some trouble controlling. It’s not exactly a honeymoon trip, but they do meet a nice new godling while there.

[ Chapter One ]

Chapter Two

 When morning arrived, Sausage was surprised by how refreshing it felt to have those first rays of sunlight reach him. It was like going straight from knock-out tired to wide awake. It was no wonder Scott had always been up at the crack of dawn when he had been a floran in the other world. “Mmm, that’s so nice and warm! I don’t even feel like I want breakfast or anything! Maybe a little water, though,” he added thoughtfully, as Scott made the vines lower them to the ground before disassembling the hammock and returning to normal placement.

“We’ll find some on the way,” Scott said, although he was now standing there gazing at him with a dreamy smile.

“What?”

“Umm, nothing. This way.” Scott took his hand, his expression soft, then they started off for the day’s trek. Sausage had a light-hearted smile of his own as he squeezed Scott’s hand, and for a while he stopped worrying about the overgrowth he left behind with each step.

.

A short while later they reached the edge of the mesa, with red sand as far as the eye could see and spires of terracotta rising all around. Sausage ran ahead to see if any greenery would spring up, and sighed loudly in relief when the sand stayed bare. “Hurray! Okay, good, I was worried I was going to cause some kind of floral apocalypse or something!” He laughed nervously.

Scott eyed the sprigs of jungle grass that had suddenly begun to creep out onto the sand toward Sausage. “Don’t count that possibility out just yet…”

Sausage groaned. “Aw, come on, now! I’m still trying my best to not make it happen!”

“We’ll go further away where you won’t get distracted by what is growing, and then I’ll help you figure it out.” Scott took his hand again to drag him away from the jungle’s border, although this time he did so mostly in order to feel out how much power Sausage was leaking into the ground.

It felt much like the light of his halo when Scott had been experiencing the side effects of winter. The man simply radiated rampant energy. He supposed that was all part of his personality, but he would still try to help him get it under control. Maybe it simply needed to be redirected…

“Hey, look, more ruins!” Sausage slipped his hand free as they came around one of the larger spires and ran over to begin investigating. It was the architect in him, Scott thought fondly with a smile. He did give pause, however, when he saw just how big the area of the ruins was once he took a better look around. It appeared as if dozens of colorful if not eroded towers had fallen, with one particularly large building looking like it had been split down the middle.

Scott hurried after him. “Sausage, be careful – this looks old, but the ground could still be unstable.”

“Yeah, I know – but the sand has been filling it in.” Sausage pointed to where the red sand had been blown by the desert winds to pile against the base of the structures and over most of the fallen onion domes as well. They still picked their way through carefully, until they reached a spot where the mesa ended and there was a dip toward gravel and stone.

Scott’s gaze followed the line of a crack going from the mesa out across the empty gray expanse until he saw some other buildings – more towers, which were tilted, white and topped by faded pink domes lined with prismarine. Sausage joined him a moment later; and then a moment after that, some greenery began to poke out of the stone, although it wilted soon after. Scott moved closer to investigate. “Sea grass… This used to be an ocean. If I had to guess, shifting tectonic plates caused it to drain, and affected those towers out there.” He pointed.

“I, ah, don’t think I want to try to go out there and check those ones out. These are enough to explore around in, you know? And this is exactly what we need so I can learn, right?”

“Yeah, it’ll do. And if we want to check your progress, we can come back here to see how much sea grass you accidentally summon.” He smiled teasingly while Sausage grumbled.

They returned to the ruins and chose a space away from any gaps in the ground. Scott clapped his hands together. “Okay, we’ll start with focusing on what you can already grow on yourself. Put out your hand and think about growing a fern frond on your palm.”

“That sounds weird.”

“…Imagine you’re holding a feather,” Scott suggested, realizing that floran logic might not immediately help.

Sausage held out a hand then pinched his fingers together. A small frond grew, winding its way up between his thumb and index finger. He grinned. “Hey, it worked!”

“Good. Think about it falling off – drop the feather.”

Sausage opened his fingers but the frond stayed. He pinched it again, giving himself the mental image of a feather, then tried turning his hand downward to ‘drop’ it. When it continued to remain attached, he shook his hand rapidly. “I mean… I’m not used to consciously dropping feathers when they’re attached to my wings. They molt on their own.”

Scott moved closer and clasped the fern-bearing hand. “I’m going to try something. Let me know if this hurts.” He grasped the middle of the fern and mentally asked it to let go, as if it was the same as one planted in dirt. The stem separated from Sausage’s hand. Scott held the frond up with an inquiring look.

“Nope, didn’t hurt. I barely felt that. What, uh, does that mean if I grow something else?”

“I think you’ll need to ask it to remove itself.”

“But… you didn’t say anything.”

“Not out loud. I think it, and the thought reaches the plant through floran energies.”

“What.”

“Like you pulling a flaming sword out of thin air. Or, I assume that’s how that works. You ask it to appear.”

“That’s more like reaching into extra pocketspace.”

“Oh. Hmm…” Scott tried to think of what else to compare it to. “Well, like Pearl calling on you from the other side of the realm, and you do what she says because of that connection.”

“Huh. Okay. I guess I’ll try it out.”

.

They spent the day practicing, with Sausage serving as the only surface for plants to grow on, ranging from producing more of the same type of flowers he already had in his hair to summoning whole other ones. Scott was relieved that nothing grew out of control; he wouldn’t want Sausage to end up completely covered in blossoms or foliage.

When the afternoon began to wane, they moved to poke around the ruins a bit, looking for a stable piece of architecture to shelter under for the night. They chose one of the smaller onion domes that was laying on its side with only a minimal drift of sand blocking the opening. Scott was starting to miss the feeling of dirt under his feet, but it was necessary to remain there for a little longer. If it ended up bothering him too much, he figured they could always head back to the jungle.

“Meh. Sand in my fronds,” Sausage grumbled as he tried to get comfortable laying on his back. “Nope. Hammock was better.” He huffed in annoyance and rolled over onto his stomach, putting his face down on his arms. Then, muffled: “Nope. Sand in my mouth.”

Scott laughed quietly. He waved a hand over his arm repeatedly, growing a long strip of moss. He removed it then folded it up into the approximation of a square. “Here. Use a pillow. It will dry out by morning, but it’s better than planting your face in the ground.”

“That sounds like some kind of nature horror stuff that I don’t even want to think about, oh no.” Sausage pushed himself up to sit back on his knees, then accepted the improvised pillow. “Thanks. I guess I should try doing that?” he asked, watching Scott fold up another one.

“Mm, maybe after more practice. You might end up making a whole blanket. I don’t think I want to spend more than one night out here, anyway. Florans rest better with soil nearby.”

“Oh. Is that why I feel kinda itchy? And not from the sand in my fronds.” He twitched his shoulders as if to shake off the annoying grains.

“Ah, so you did notice. I was wondering if you would, since you aren’t used to everything florans experience.”

Sausage yawned. The sky outside was steadily darkening. “You’ll have to tell me in the morning…” He settled onto his side, snuggling his head against the moss pillow. “Oh, yeah, this is much better… Good night!”

~*~

Sunrise woke them, and although the warm light was streaming into the dome unfettered, something was making a rhythmic tink, tink noise off of it. Sausage wandered over to the opening and poked his head out, peering upward. “Uh, Scott? It’s raining.”

The other floran was rubbing the sleep from his eyes and didn’t quite catch on. “Huh? But it doesn’t rain in mesas…”

“There is exactly one cloud. Right above us. And... I think… someone is standing on it.”

That got Scott’s attention. He came over to look, squinting upward. “If we’re florans, then it makes sense for others with powers to be here. Might be a subtype of thunderborn.”

A voice called down to them, “Did someone say thunder?” The cloud grew darker and lightning crackled along the underside. A small boom of thunder followed. The two ducked back into the dome, just in case.

The cloud lowered into view, but the figure standing upon it was much taller than even the dome, so only the legs and bottom of a short chiton could be seen. Sandaled feet stepped off onto the sand, then the person leaned over to look inside. “How’s it goin’, fellas?” A face with brown eyes and a green stripe in dark hair grinned in at them. “Hello, I’m Joel, local thunder god. Thought I’d check in on things. Although, yuck, standing on the ground is weird. Also, this hurts my neck, so why don’t you come out here and we’ll have a chat.”

The two florans glanced at each other, then Sausage took Scott’s hand and led the way out. The godling sat down on the cloud as if to not tower over them too much. Scott smiled with some amusement as Sausage fell right back into his old habit of putting himself in front of potential danger first, despite Scott being the more experienced floran.

Joel looked at their clasped hands. “Well, isn’t that kind of cute. I heard you’re the new nature sprites in town.”

“Florans, actually,” Scott corrected. “We’re only here to help.”

Joel muttered under his breath, “Doesn’t look like you’re doing much to me.” Then, louder, he said, “So, what’s the plan for here? Were you going to turn this into some kind of oasis? I could probably help out, too. You need more water? It looks like you might need water. Since, to my knowledge, plants need that to grow.”

Sausage let go of Scott’s hand and rubbed the back of his neck, realizing they had possibly been wasting time while he struggled to get a handle on things. “Well, we really only came out here because I’m more powerful than we expected.”

Joel raised an eyebrow. “Wow, that’s very humble of you to say.”

Sausage bristled. “Hey, I can’t help it! I used to be a seraph before we got here! Very powerful angels, if you didn’t know!”

“Right, right… So, what are your names, so that I’m not calling you ‘Floran One’ and ‘Floran Two’?”

“I’m Sausage, this is Scott. He was a starborne. Y’know, also powerful, moving the stars themselves—”

“Yeah, I know about those. I remember getting complaints from them when we blocked up the sky at night while they were trying to help sailors navigate. As if they were above us, when we control the actual atmosphere.”

The florans traded looks again, mutually uncertain about the pronoun change. “A-Anyway,” Sausage stammered, “I needed some practice first, then we were going to get to work.”

Scott eyed the cloud. “Although, now that you’ve mentioned it, some extra rain wouldn’t hurt. We’re supposed to do some terraforming, too, and if we’re going to transform barren areas, that means rerouting rivers.”

Joel chuckled once. “Part of us thinks you aren’t meant to turn the entire planet into a lush paradise. That part would be me, with my own opinions. Deserts and mesas still have their purpose. I think this world’s overseer meant to fix the broken parts, or heal over the scars in the land – whatever way you want to phrase it – with your piteous floran powers. You’d never be as powerful as me, after all, but I can’t be bothered keeping track of how much rain each type of flower needs. But this particular place is only suffering from regular time and erosion. Like you say, a little extra water could change that. I can show you some really ugly spots.”

“Now who’s being humble,” Sausage muttered.

“Maybe just point us in the right direction,” Scott suggested. “Then we can fix up anything we happen to find on the way, and come back around if you decide to, say, dump a ton of rain over here.”

“I suppose I could do that. If you go back the way you came, on the other side of that jungle you were in, there are some uninhabitable plains to the west and then some mountains to the southeast of there. You’ll know them when you see them.”

Scott gave pause. “Wait, you’ve been watching us since the jungle?”

“Yeah, that’s where we first saw you walking around.”

Sausage blurted out, “Who is we?”

“Um. Rude.” Joel scoffed. “Never you mind.” He did, however, look uncomfortable for a second. “Anyway, I think it’s time to be getting to work. Don’t have all day to fix up a planet, and you’ve got some walking to do. I’m sure you plant-types aren’t interested in flying anywhere. I mean, you might fall through the cloud, and then what would I do?”

Sausage’s bottom lip wobbled, and Scott thought he might start some sobbing theatrics about his loss of wings, so he pushed his partner toward the far side of the dome. “Yeah, we’ll be on our way. Nice to meet you, I guess.”

Joel stood and waved as the cloud lifted up into the sky. He then zipped off, apparently not following through on the promise of rain.

“Weather gods. Right,” Sausage commented flatly.

“Don’t tell me that gave you flashbacks, too?”

“I couldn’t control rain, so not really.” Sausage flicked the fronds hanging close to his neck. “Let’s go. I’ll do some practicing on the way. I have a sudden urge to make myself useful.”

“You’re not going to let what he said get to you, are you? I honestly don’t think he was trying to rub it in. He barely knows anything about us. He’s probably used to lording over mortals. And we don’t really count as those, right?” Scott grinned and nudged him in the side with his elbow. “And now that you’ve got the hang of summoning whatever flowers you want, we can do what we love best – arranging a garden.”

Sausage smiled at him in response.

They casually made the journey back over the sands. When they neared the border Scott tilted his head a little, squinting with uncertainty. He jogged the rest of the way, then halted.

A lot more foliage had crept out onto the sand.

“Whoops…” Sausage put a hand to the back of his head. “Eh-heh. The plants really are going to keep coming to me.”

“Call this a field test, I guess.” Scott sighed, hoping all the practice had helped. He gestured for Sausage to walk ahead.

The other stepped over onto the actual dirt, a tentative look on his face. A small bit of the grass grew taller around his foot, but shrank back to normal height when he lifted it. He gave Scott a hopeful grin, then put a finger to his lips. “Shh, I need to think.”

Scott smiled with a brief chuckle and nodded. They set off again, with Sausage leaving minimal disruption in his wake this time. Scott decided the growth at the mesa’s edge must have happened overnight while Sausage was asleep and couldn’t consciously keep hold of the power he sent into the ground.

They should probably stick to spending nights in a tree for the time being.

.

By the next day they reached the other side of the jungle, emerging into the area that they had seen from the treetop and, presumably, was the one Joel had indicated. The soil was desiccated, most of the ground appearing gray, although it wasn’t all stone. The chasms littering the area were intimidating up close, but they cautiously investigated. With Sausage holding onto his arm for an extra anchor, Scott leaned over the side to get a look at what they were dealing with.

“Hey, so—remember how you said this looked like a lot of lava? That’s… not lava down there.”

“What else would it be?”

“I think it’s liquid redstone.”

“Okay… What do we do about that?”

Scott moved away from the edge and contemplated the distance between that particular chasm and where the jungle ended. “Well, you’ve learned to limit your power. Let’s see what happens when you cut loose. We can use roots to break through this tough ground and see if it will fill these in, burying all the redstone. We’ll probably end up with like a bunch of ditches in the process. But let’s start with one of them at time.”

He motioned for Sausage to follow him. He made sure they were within the boundary of the jungle before going to the closest tree. He waved his hand down the base of it and out over the grass. He kept his hand out as he turned to the ruined land. The ground started to buckle. He raised his hand slightly and the end of the root broke the surface so he could show Sausage what he was causing to happen. He then lowered his hand, and the root burrowed back into the soil.

Scott moved to line his arm up with the nearest chasm. The line of buckling soil continued to move until it reached the edge of the chasm. Scott flicked his hand sharply, then whipped it back and forth. They could hear the cracking sounds as the root thrashed, breaking off pieces of stone that tumbled down into the chasm. The light from the river of redstone was peppered with shadows as the debris landed in it.

Scott paused, waiting to see if that would accidentally set off some kind of adverse reaction, but after a moment the light went back to a solid glow. He smiled over at Sausage.

The former seraph rubbed his hands together. “Alright, let’s see!” He put both arms out, palms pointed at two different trees, then he thrust his arms forward. Scott nearly lost his balance as the ground heaved. Multiple raised lines appeared, speeding out across the ruined land. With a rumble, the affected roots burst upward out of one side of the chasm and shot across to the other, destroying the top edge in one pass. Sausage yanked his arms backward, and in a messy array the roots turned around, punching down into the next level of stone then back across the chasm.

He repeated the motions several times, wearing away that section and causing neighboring spots to start crumbling.

Scott summoned up a different root, making it grow to lift him up higher so he could watch the progress, leaning over the boundary of the jungle. Within minutes the glow from the redstone river had dimmed.

Sausage crowed with laughter. “This is fun! It’s kind of like unleashing holy fire! I think I’m getting the hang of this power even better this way!” He twisted one hand through the air and two of the roots zigzagged across the far ends of the chasm, completing the collapse. It was still going to be a hazardous gap in the ground, but now they knew they had an effective way of filling it in.

They could work on leveling out the land after the rest of the chasms were dealt with. One by one, they directed roots to break up the soil and stone. Scott tried coaxing several at a time, but he couldn’t compete with the dozens Sausage could manipulate. That certainly made things go faster, so he wasn’t about to complain.

After a point they needed to stop and prepare a spot for the night. Scott had Sausage stay on the border of the ruined land and simply stand there while grass began to work its way into the tough soil toward him. The much smaller roots would break it up enough to allow water to permeate the ground later. Maybe Joel would happen to come by and help speed that up. Scott couldn’t tell if there would be regular rainfall here or if it was like the mesa.

He made some vines form another hammock. The thought did occur to him that spending the night out in the center of the ruined land could also speed things up, although maybe only after they were sure the ground was stable enough.

~*~

The next two days were spent wearing down the sides of the chasms until all of them were reduced to sloping furrows. They continued to work with the roots to loosen and rearrange the ground until the area more resembled rolling hills, sans greenery. By the third day Scott deemed it safe to sleep out in the middle of it. He crafted sleeping mats out of woven vines with moss pillows again while Sausage practiced making a shelter out of available large tree roots, eventually shaping a decent lean-to.

They awoke to the sound of rain, although the ground closest to them was only getting wet because of stray raindrops. Peeking out, they saw a very precise circle of clouds leaving them with a little island, since the tough soil wasn’t absorbing the water as quickly as regular dirt, even with their efforts to break it up.

Joel swooped down on a white cloud, stark against the dark storm clouds. “Nice work, fellas. You made some decent progress. I’ll leave this here for a while. Maybe you’ll get a new stream from it. See you later!”

Just like that he was off, cutting upward through the storm clouds. They closed up after him.

Sausage looked around at the growing puddles. “Should we go somewhere else and come back later?”

“I think we take the day off. Or at least take a passive role. Come on, sit back down.” Scott held a hand out toward him after returning to his mat. Sausage hesitated, eager to keep working, but when Scott beckoned, he came over and took his hand, kissing his knuckles before sitting down beside him. Scott put his arm around Sausage’s shoulders, gently hugging him against his side. “We might get a little sleepy from lack of sunlight so it’s okay to take it easy. Not that we couldn’t travel to some place where it isn’t raining, but, y’know, we did a lot of work the past few days.”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“You’re always so restless,” Scott said affectionately. “You can think about spreading the grass toward us. That will help, too.”

“Hm-m. Okay.” Sausage peered out at the rain, picturing the edge of the jungle in the distance, then closed his eyes before drawing in a breath. He spread his hands out flat, as if smoothing a blanket. “I’m thinking about a carpet of grass over this whole area.” He held the pose for several seconds, then opened one eye to take a look.

“It’s not going to happen that fast. You’re not that powerful.”

“I know,” Sausage said in a sulking tone. “I just thought I’d try.” He laid down with his head on Scott’s lap, twig halo pressing into his hair. “I kind of want to get this done fast so we can go home, but at the same time I kind of want that home to be Heaven’s Reach? Pearl’s realm is nice and all, and also like home, but I still miss our home. This world has to have a place that looks like that, so maybe it’s better to stay here longer until we find it, and we could do a little something special to make it look like Heaven’s Reach, and it would be our mark on this world. A personal mark, not just what we’ve done to fix things.”

“We could do that…” Scott smiled down at him and traced a fingertip over the swirl pattern now making up his scar.

Sausage smiled softly back at him. “That storm god mentioned some mountains. Maybe we’ll find a place there.”

~*~

The rain tapered off shortly before sunset, so the two florans only took a quick walk around to check progress. The former chasms were now small ponds, but it would still take a little more time for greenery to reach them. Sausage was happy to see that the grass had actually advanced over the past day and he repeated his blanket-spreading ritual before they settled down again for the night.

The next morning, they decided to let the plants do their thing without extra help and set out to find the mountains Joel had suggested to them. Given the direction he had said they were in, Sausage and Scott figured he didn’t mean the mountain range that was at the far side of the area they were currently in.

Along the way they patched up any rough spots, calling up new growth where it looked like the greenery was struggling, and they used tree roots again to burrow around in search of more accessible water tables. They sprinkled around biome-appropriate flowers and improved the flow of streams where mud and gravel had spilled across interrupting the water’s path.

They came upon a set of cliffs with some type of ruins having fallen to the bottom when the top ledge had given way. It wasn’t as massive as the mesa ruins, but they did find a pit full of amethyst crystal shards, already partially buried by a landslide. They decided to cover it up some more so that a future explorer might dig it up later and get a shiny surprise.

Continuing on their way, they found traces of colorful stone along what might have been a road at one time. There were signs of an earthquake that became more apparent the closer to the mountains they got, until they had to start climbing over large chunks of rock that had clearly fallen down the mountain slopes.

Even though the temperature was dropping, they pressed onward to find out why Joel had singled out this place when it honestly looked like simple, normal erosion had been in play again. Their first clue was streaks of a red substance on the ground that wasn’t like the liquid redstone. Inspection revealed it to be some type of soil, but nothing was growing on it despite it cutting through regular grassy areas. In fact, when Sausage tried coaxing some grass onto it, the grass shriveled and died.

Scott glanced up ahead past a rise in the path. “Whoa.” He tugged on Sausage’s arm and jogged over the rocky hump. Before them, laid across several peaks and shallow valleys, were whole swaths of the red soil, along with the blackened scars of cooled lava flows.

Sausage studied the landscape. “I think we’re going to have to get some trees up here first before we can even begin to tackle this one. Any ideas for the red stuff? Do you think if I stand on it long enough it will become normal dirt?”

“You could try. Just don’t get hurt by it. I’m really not sure what that is, but it’s obviously preventing the land from healing itself. From the looks of this basalt, it should have been long enough for the grass to spread. There doesn’t seem to be a caldera, so this came from fissures, and had to have happened decades ago. I’m going to look around some more.”

“Okay! I’ll be right over here. Standing.” Sausage walked onto a grassy area, purposely leaking power so the grass would grow around his footsteps to make sure it responded, then he chose a block of red to stand on. It was about half a minute before he got antsy and started walking along the whole line of strange soil instead.

Scott explored for a while, taking in the extent of the damage. There did seem to be a concentration of the substance in one particular area, and below it was evidence of a large lava flow that had gone all the way down that side of the mountains. He returned to the other area and crouched down, placing his hand against the ground to get a sense if any plant life might have a memory of the fissures. What he got instead was a flash of extremely powerful magic that had been released, leaving an impression like a shockwave. It wasn’t what had caused the eruption or the corrupted soil – as the plants now told him it was called – but that magic had put a stop to the spread.

There was then a… silence, as if all life in the area had been temporarily quelled, and the plants had only resumed their existence – unfrozen, as it were – when the world itself began to breathe again.

Scott contemplated what that meant as he headed back to where he left Sausage.

“Hey, Scott! Look! It’s woorrrkiiiiing!”

The red around where he had been walking seemed to leech away, replaced by blue-green soil instead, and even a bit of grass had begun to grow at the edges. “Maybe I should give that a try,” Scott mused. He stepped onto the next nearest line of corrupted soil and walked back and forth, thinking about it turning blue-green.

After a few minutes nothing changed, whereas more of the spots around Sausage had done so. The former seraph halted and shrugged. “I guess it’s a ‘me’ thing. You could maybe work on something different? There’s a valley over there that looks okay. You could get a flower field going.”

Scott debated on what he wanted to do. “I’ll see what I can do with the basalt patches. It might be easier for me to get roots to start breaking it up than to do what you’re doing. And we should go collect some pinecones from the trees further down. I think it would be fine to sleep on the ground here, but we’ll still need some shelter for the night.”

“I’ll go get them! You see what you can do, then we can make a plan of attack!”

By the time Sausage returned, Scott had covered most of the basalt lines with a thin layer of grass. He hadn’t touched the ones in the spot with the biggest concentration of corrupted soil, choosing to leave it for another day – or even for an overnight campsite after they got the trees set in place.

“Let’s start them in that valley and after they’ve produced more pinecones, we can spread them out.” Scott took a few from him. He tossed one up into the air and neatly caught it, smiling. “This part shouldn’t take long.”

 [ Chapter Three ]

[wargod]

A DEITY & THEIR YAK : REBUILD ARC. Dawa, after the successful color collection and lulling of The Motherland people, they were alone with only animal life and even then they were sparse, slowly drifting off to a permanent sleep. The new godling, a deity with unknown powers and an agenda bestowed by divine afflatus was now tasked with watching over the decay and dismantlement of their world. The dismantlement process was a grand ordeal as mountains and large masses of land began to shift and crumble, floating into the air and dispersing. The fields exhaled plumes of smoke, breathing through geysers. Forested areas warped into different shapes, geometric and impossible and flowers would bloom just about anywhere. Deserts held the remains of prayer flags for miles and the beaches caught falling stars. Their mythical world that existed somewhere within a realm of deep religion and spirits finally resumed it’s cycle by ushering in a new God, Dawa. The Motherland, like a broken machine, was stuck in one place as a cog became rusted. They did not move on with life, the people of the motherland putting too much faith and responsibility in their deities who were only sent to watch over and protect against the unknown. Now that the deities are gone and every living and dead soul alike were collected by Dawa, the cycle of death and rebirth, innovation and advancement can begin.

Dawa, during the period of simply watching their world die and regenerate, became lonely very fast. In solitude with their emotions and mixed feelings on their pending status of a certain divinity, they feared for their own health and wished to have a companion on this like and strenuous journey. Thus the yak Jinpa was found. A young yak who was found in a heard of sleeping giants, the beast was large but not overly rotund. Still a youth but resilient against the cycle’s ways of culling the herd, Dawa offered to the yak to be friends. Which the yak agreed after some persistent convincing. The two of them did not get along too well at first, Jinpa the yak being stubborn but ultimately generous at heart. The yak would be fitted with a fabric saddle, ceremonial bobbles and embellishment as well as enchanted accessories that would help them in different areas of the world where the terrain and atmosphere may be difficult to traverse. So the two of them set off on their journey, seeking enlightenment and self forgiveness and love.

During their travels Dawa and Jinpa found the remnants of the perished Myraid Gods in forms of gargantuan, towering pieces of themselves. From heads to hands, snake fangs and wolf skulls, their beings crumbling like broken stone and marble. Some turned to dust while others turned to gold and other valuable resources. The Heathens were also found in faint appearances throughout the world. The Heathens being entities long before the creation of modern deities, prototypes of sorts and many of them resenting the gods who made them. A needed representation that no matter their divinity or belief in their own greatness, there will be those who oppose you, those who loathe you, and it is just something a God will have to deal with. The Heathens are a fairly constant yet abstract feature of the Motherland. They can take the form of most anything and some of them even willingly helped the end times. They can be considered demons, ghosts, malevolent spirits, anything and all evil back when the Motherland was still alive. Dawa met several of the Heathens on their journey, met with mixed reactions by both Dawa and them.

Overall this arc has a lot to do with thinking and reflection. Reflection on one’s actions, their regrets and remorse, their anger and despair, small glimpses of hopefulness and forgiveness, and looking forward to the future. It also holds a place of peace and occasionally boredom. It’s days after days, years after years of nothing to do but sit and relax. It would be a much needed break if Dawa were not such a busy-body. 

[maybebovinity]

When a Crime Lord becomes a Baker [Aatrox/Pantheon] CHAPTER 6

Read on Ao3

TRIPLE THREAT BAKLAVA

The desert heat suffocates what little breath remains in his lungs. Sweat drips steadily into his eyes and burns like venom, but he cannot lose focus; the streets might have been empty, but empty streets only meant an imminent ambush. He was alone and he couldn’t remember where his team went. He listened for the cry of a lost child, but the streets remained silent.

He continued along the cobblestone streets as torn carpets hung out for drying weakly flapped in the quiet wind. All the doors and windows were open, but not a soul in sight. As he wandered through the streets a cold realisation washed over him: he was nearing the Darkin executions. It was an empty plaza with a mosaic of the Shuriman Sun Disc, stained with the blood of those unlucky enough to be caught by the Darkin.

He knew the plaza was around the corner, just like the time he went to confront the Darkin for the first time. But that time never came. And today he will not avoid it, he will finish his mission.

The plaza was empty of victims and an audience, but in the middle stood a gigantic creature facing him: its body mimicked that of a man but was red and emitted a pulsating glow, and what wasn’t red was covered in protective black metal. The creature’s visage was that of a man, but demonic metal horns and hellfire eyes removed any shred of humanity it might have once possessed. 

 The creature did not speak, but drew a sword as long as it from its back and spread open wings that went unnoticed. It stepped forward, the cobblestones shaking beneath its feet, and grew larger the closer it came.

At once Atreus knew what to do: no longer was a Targonian soldier equipped with modern machines and a standard uniform, he was a warrior clad in golden armour equipped with a deadly spear and immortal shield.

“The godling has come to finish me.” The creature spoke, its voice echoing across the universe.

Atreus steadied his spear, but he was no longer Atreus. He could feel it, another name, another soul. He was something greater; something like the creature before him.

“Finish what you have started godling.”

The spear left his hand before he could think, and he watched as it pierced the creature’s chest. But it did not scream nor wail nor fall: it stood tall and laughed cruelly as black blood leaked from its absent heart and restained the Sun Disc.

“Thank you godling.”

✦ ✧ ✦ ✧ ✦ ✧

He woke to a hand gently shaking at his naked shoulder. Disorientated, Atreus turned to see Soraka standing above him: what was she doing here? He voiced his confusion.

“I just came by to make sure you’re gonna wake up~ You don’t want to disappoint Ms. Georgiou do you?”

Still recovering from his strange dream, Atreus groggily sat up and hissed at the cold sting against his naked skin. Regardless if he enjoyed the cold, it always hurt when snuggled up in warm blankets for an entire evening. He twisted to turn towards Soraka who was already dressed for the day. He glanced at the window (curtains never closed) and saw the sky was still abyssal.

“Did you sleep here?” He asked as he slowly got out from underneath the covers and tried to locate his clothes still lying somewhere on the floor. Covering himself around her hardly mattered as neither had any remote interest in each other: Atreus saw little pleasure in women, and Soraka has yet to show interest in anyone. She kicked over a shoe in his direction, which he failed to catch and it bounced uselessly off his shin.

Locating his jeans, he made work of pulling up the cold material and listened to Soraka’s prattling:

“Next time movie night interferes with drama club I’m gonna drag you all with us instead. You should’ve seen the little ones! They had to perform Freljordian folktales and this one group made their own dresses as the three sisters-” Atreus drowned her out as she told the story of the previous evening. He knew she was familiar with the school and its children, but he hardly cared much for them himself.

He was never good with children, and hardly remembered what he was like as a child. He vaguely recalls open fields and a familiar laugh growing old until dying away too young. The memory gave him a sour taste in his mouth and he hesitated as he briefly forgot how to tie the laces of his boot.

“Atreus?”

“Hmm?”

“Forget your bunny ears?” her voice was light and obviously amused by his incompetency. He rolled his eyes, remembered how to tie his laces, and repeated the procedure with the other boot before standing up and taking the shirt Soraka already found and held out for him.

“Aatrox awake yet?” He asked.

“No idea, came straight over here. Mrs. and Mrs. Queen of Sleeping In is, as you guessed it, still sleeping in. Aphelios opened up for me, he came to fetch his sketchbook.”

Atreus reached for the key on the nightstand and carefully closed it in his palm. All he had to do was unlock the door, he didn’t need to go in and wake the man up. His thoughts flickered to his dream, but it meant nothing to him. Dreaming about Shurima was not uncommon. But dreaming of gods were.

Overcoming his irrational fear, Atreus, now fully dressed, followed Soraka out of the room into the hallway. She went directly to the kitchen where he could already hear glasses clinking against each other, and he found himself stood outside of Aatrox’s door. He tried to listen to any evidence of the man being awake, but it was eerily quiet.

The key felt slippery in his hands, and he was brave enough to ask himself: why was he so terrified? But that was not the right question to ask, because he wasn’t terrified. Not of Aatrox. Not of his dream. Not of Shurima.

He felt the same terror he once saw in Leona’s eyes before she disappeared in the middle of the war, only to return once Diana was back.

The fear he felt when Pylas died in his arms.

But Atreus refused to be dictated by fear, so he slotted the key into the polished doorknob and unlocked the door. Carefully, he pushed the door open and peered inside: Aatrox was already dressed and was carefully sitting on his bed. The room was pristine, and the bed was made up so neatly it almost appeared as if it was never slept in. Atreus tried to see if he could spot any sort of luggage, but there was nothing. He realised that in the time Aatrox has been here he has only ever worn the same clothes: jeans, with a plain t-shirt or a hoodie. 

But Atreus could hardly judge with his own poor judgement in fashion. Soraka and Taric often tried to adorn him with some sort of fashionable clothing, but habit always brought him back to the comfort of practical clothing.

Aatrox looked up when the door opened and a grimace crossed his face. Atreus, being the adult he so clearly is, made the decision to ignore the other’s behaviour in favour of being civil. But he never considered that Aatrox might not be the one to forget something so… clearly not trivial. 

“Good morning.” Atreus greeted autonomously.

“The sun has not yet risen.” Aatrox replied. His window’s curtains were drawn and the only light illuminating his figure was the glow of a distant street light. He reminded Atreus of the demon in his dream. 

“The perfect time to get ready then.” Uncomfortable, Atreus pocketed the key and turned away. He could hear Soraka was trying to make breakfast and he wanted to stop her.

“Atreus.” It was the first time Aatrox has said his name. 

Atreus stopped and turned around as he heard the bed creaking from being freed of a heavy weight. Aatrox walked over to him and leaned against the doorframe, having to crane his neck down to properly look at the baker.

“Yeah?” Atreus asked after a pause. His chest felt tight with fear.

“It is tiresome to apologise for my behaviour, and I refuse to do so. Nothing I do is without reason, and I have faith in my reasoning.”

Atreus did not react, but the words slowly filtered through his mind. Aatrox has said before about all of his actions having reason. 

“No one can read your mind, so forgive me when I find it… unsettling when you decide to kill yourself in my shop and speak about-” Atreus cut himself off, because he did not want to bring up the one thing that was still plaguing him: Aatrox’s behaviour the previous evening was beyond unacceptable. Atreus already had to deal with the stress of almost losing his business and having one of the most dangerous men in Runeterra around him, he cannot handle the man’s vague intentions as well.

Aatrox was frowning and released a deep sigh, “I would ask for us to resume our indifference towards each other.” The words were said almost irritably, and Atreus did not have time to ponder on them as the criminal pushed past him and walked into the kitchen where Soraka excitedly greeted him.

Sett emerged from his room and found Atreus still standing outside of Aatrox’s room. “What’d he do now?” the bodyguard asked in amusement. Atreus only shook his head and mimicked Aatrox. 

Soraka made breakfast for the four of them (Leona and Diana will not be waking up for the next few hours). They ate in silence and left the inn together, heading towards the bakery for a day filled with baking and eager old ladies waiting for their goodies.

✦ ✧ ✦ ✧ ✦ ✧

Their small routine allowed them to quickly open the shop and get everything ready. Atreus never minded taking a bit longer to open with just him and Soraka, but he couldn’t deny that having the extra hands helped. He considered asking Diana if Aphelios would be interested in making some extra money, but the thought only reminded him that Aatrox (and Sett) would be leaving at the end of the month. 

Two weeks.

Two weeks of being infuriated by the Shuriman’s strange behaviour.

Atreus had Soraka in the front (she needed the practice now more than ever) and spent the morning in silence as he desperately tried to concentrate on completing his orders, and not on the brooding Shuriman sending him death glares whenever they accidentally made eye-contact.

Aatrox was as far away as possible from Atreus and was busy absent-mindedly taking down folded boxes, checking them, and putting them back on the pile. Some he unfolded completely and began anew. Atreus ignored his fidgeting, and was more worried about Sett being in the front with Soraka. He must have decided that Aatrox was not a threat this day, but it hardly meant much when Atreus was not in the mood to be anywhere near the man.

He took out a small notebook from his apron and flipped through the pages until he came to the most recent scribbled mess: Two boxes of baklava. A simple enough request from one of his customers the other day, and due for tomorrow. 

He went to fetch the necessary ingredients, and when he returned he found Aatrox standing by his little corner he was trying to hide in. The man was leaning against the counter and glaring daggers at the slowly approaching baker.

“Got tired of the boxes?” Atreus asked as he tried to figure out how to move around Aatrox.

“Your silence insults me.”

“You asked us to continue our ‘indifference’” Irritated, Atreus elbowed the man out of the way and set down his ingredients. Aatrox moved from the shove, but his face lost all fight and he opened his mouth as if to protest but nothing came out.

Not wanting the man to interfere with his order, Atreus began sorting out his arsenal of soon to be boxes of delicious baklava. His movements were autonomous which unfortunately allowed him to spare enough attention to glance at Aatrox and see the man still standing there just staring at him. 

“Are you always like this?” Atreus began, drawing his attention back to his work. “Say whatever you want and expect others to just know what you’re talking about?”

“Fuck you.” The words were practically hissed. Aatrox was beside him again, but he was using his gigantic advantage to crowd around Atreus and trap him between the Shuriman and his table. Atreus meant to turn around and bravely shove the man off, but when he turned and lifted his arms he found himself more trapped than he thought: Aatrox jerked forward and blocked Atreus off by firmly placing his hands on either side of the unexpecting baker. His muscles pulled tautly as he used all his strength to keep Atreus at bay. 

Atreus refused to strain his neck, and settled for glaring at his chin instead. With his arms having nowhere to go, he crossed them and tried to create more distance by leaning backwards (the table digging into his backside), but it only invited Aatrox to move closer to him. 

Afraid. Uncomfortable. Expecting. Atreus didn’t bother to place a word on his emotions, because this was worse than the previous night. This was possibly either life-threatening or Aatrox being as socially inept as usual. 

“Can I help you?” Atreus asked carefully, briefly reminded of being in a similar situation in Shurima: coming toe-to-toe with a much younger, smaller and inexperienced youth recently recruited by the Darkin. The only difference is that Atreus was able to fight off the child, but he won’t be able to defend himself against Aatrox. Not like this.

“All I want to fucking do is break your neck.” Aatrox whispered harshly. His arms flexed and the threat was clear. “I want to personally force you onto your knees and cut off your head.”

“Why don’t you kill me then?” Atreus challenged. This only angered Aatrox further: with practised movement, he grabbed Atreus by the hem of his shirt, pulled him away from the table and pushed him into the nearest wall. Aatrox leaned down and forced Atreus to look up with a harsh tug of his shirt. Atreus tried not to slip as Aatrox almost pulled him from the floor. 

“How the fuck can I kill you if you won’t fight back ?” Aatrox’s words blew his hot breath across Atreus’ face. A strange calm overcame Atreus as he observed Aatrox’s enraged face: his tattoos and snarl reminded him of the demon from his dreams.

“How do you know I won’t fight back?”

“I can see it. You want to die don’t you?”

Atreus didn’t answer, because he couldn’t trust himself to answer truthfully. Shurima changed him. It changed a lot of people. It was no different than the war Leona and Diana had to face, but it was different to him: if Atreus never went, would Aatrox be standing right here in front of him?

“What about you?” Atreus deflected. “Is that why you signed up? Are you scared of death?”

The question caught Aatrox off-guard. He relaxed his hold and created much needed distance between them. Atreus’ shirt was released, but Aatrox still stood close. Still trapped him against the wall.

“Do you believe death to be my fitting fate?” Aatrox asked, slowly, accent thick. A demon afraid of death, the opposite of the demonic Darkin Lord, propagated across Runeterra as the Shuriman Civil War raged on until everything suddenly stopped. Until the immortal Darkin Lord was captured and locked away only to be heard from again when Atreus’ desperation reached its limit. The same man Atreus was tasked to kill came to save him.

The same man who killed hundreds was afraid of being killed.

“I think you deserve better than Shurima.” Atreus said, projecting his desires onto the man. They never crossed paths during those years, but they must have been aware of each other’s presence: Aatrox hiding himself away as the Targonian soldiers proudly announced themselves wherever they went. 

Aatrox has lost all the fight in him. He sighed deeply and backed away a few steps, “Why do you masquerade as a civilian?” 

“Because I am one.” Atreus said with a tone he hoped would read as stop asking about Shurima. And it must have worked, because Aatrox nodded and slowly returned to his corner by the boxes where he sat down and stared at his hands with a frown. Atreus paid him no mind and returned to his previous task.

The kitchen was silent once again and the air should have been heavy, but it wasn’t: a calmness hung over their heads as Atreus methodologically made his baklava and Aatrox began to fiddle with the folded boxes again. 

“What did you see in Shurima?” Aatrox asked after Atreus finally loaded the ovens. He was still perched on his chair and wore his hoodie once again he materialised out of nowhere. 

“I told you, I don’t remember.”

“Lies.” If Aatrox actually thought Atreus was lying or not was beyond him, and Atreus refused to fall for the bait. Only Leona and Diana knew what happened, what he saw and what he had to do. Just like he knew what they went through to find each other. He was well aware that Aatrox’s crimes were far superior than his own, but he still struggled to grapple with some smaller details, orders given to him which he had no choice but to follow.

“I’m sure Shurimans love speaking about the foreigners who fucked everything up while they’re there, why’re you asking me?”

“The group we captured and slaughtered, their deaths were celebrated for a week. My people have suffered from the hands of the Emperor for years, and I have yet to hear them sing when I behead a Shuriman Soldier. What did you see?”

Atreus was unaware of this fact. When he returned to Targon he was forbidden from interacting with what went on, with only Leona filling him in on important details. His squad’s death barely came as a surprise to him when the news broke, but it did surprise him when Diana cried in relief at the news. Or perhaps…

The baker regarded the Shuriman who was calm, much calmer than before. Atreus was well aware the man thought nothing evil of him, but he has yet to learn what the man’s general opinion was regarding Targonians: with all the wars it was easy to forget their ancient history. 

“They were criminals. We were criminals, according to Targonian standards. The Demacians would send their dishonoured soldiers to us to die, and Targon sent their dishonoured soldiers to Shurima. I might have killed my best friend, but they have done worse.”

“Worse than the Darkin?” Aatrox’s question was innocent enough, but it held heavy meanings. Atreus checked again on the baklava, deemed it was safe and propped himself against the wall he was previously pushed against. 

“What makes the Darkin so bad?” He asked. 

“Are the public executions not worthy enough?” Aatrox’s lip twitched in amusement and the question made Atreus uncomfortable. They were entering dangerous territory; but what did Atreus have to hide from the Darkin Lord himself?

“I had to torture an old man for information about shelter.” Atreus said without thought. Aatrox did not react to the information and only appeared confused.

“Your turn.” Atreus prompted. Aatrox’s eyes lit up in understanding.

“I hung a family for not feeding those loyal to me.”

“I killed a man for bread.”

“I bled out a man for days by castrating him. 

“I walked away when they had their way with a woman.”

“It must have been the same man.” Aatrox said with some humour, possibly in an attempt to turn the conversation. But Atreus felt compelled to share the one thing he needed for Aatrox to understand: why Atreus could only ever sit back and have those brats do to him whatever they wanted. 

“I executed a child.” Atreus finally said. Once he was sick at remembering the child’s face as he was forced to pull the trigger, but as time passed he soothed himself with the thought that it was a better fate than the other children. The Shuriman children slaughtered by Targonians for simply being born, just like the Moon Festival all those years ago. 

“You saved a child from the Emperor’s command.” Aatrox’s voice wavered as he spoke, as if it was difficult to push the words out. The man took a deep breath and tapped at the tattoos on his head: “This is not the mark of a Darkin, this is the mark of a falsely freed child.” 

“Is that why you became a Darkin? To free children?” The cause sounded almost noble. 

“Became a Darkin? You misunderstand, I created them. Without me Shurima would still be under the rule of a cruel leader who kidnaps children for his glorious army.” 

“And then you try to kill Targonians?”

“Those are not children. Those are demons in disguise.” Again, Aatrox attempted to divert the conversation with humour. It was interesting to witness, and Atreus allowed the distraction lest he close up early again and retreat home where he would like to stay for the next few days. Aatrox was becoming especially tiring to deal with.

“Atreus!” Soraka called from the front. A small bark followed. Spirits slightly lifted, he beckoned for the Shuriman to follow him as they exited the kitchen and came into contact with Zoe with an elderly yet feisty dachshund protectively clutched in her arms. As soon as the mutt saw Atreus, he began growling fiercely and Zoe tried soothing him.

“There, there Sol, it’s just your uncle Atreus~”

“I am not that thing’s uncle. It is practically older than most people in this town.” Atreus joked as the dog wiggled in Zoe’s arms in an attempt to be free. She settled Sol down and the little dog immediately rushed at Atreus and began tugging aggressively at his shoelaces, but being the ancient creature that it was, it was too weak to do anything other than slightly undo them. 

Soraka and Zoe crowded together and cooed at the mischievous dog as Sett enthusiastically took pictures and Aatrox witnessed the display with irritation.

“ Dogs. ” He sneered. Atreus turned to him (a strange weight lifted from him at the sight of Aatrox) and tried to gently kick off the dog. 

“Not a dog person.”

“Animals in general. I barely tolerate humans.”

Atreus, losing the battle, bent down and gently picked up the elder dog and firmly held onto him as Sol tried to nip at his face in its eternal battle. Ever since Zoe adopted the creature it had a great hatred for Atreus, something no one could explain but entertained as Sol has yet to draw blood.

Zoe bounced over to Atreus and reached for her pet which he gratefully handed over. Once in Zoe’s arms, Sol calmed down slightly but still growled and barked and yipped as Atreus moved away to join Soraka at the register.

“What brings you over?” He asked Zoe. She used to come over daily, but as the Ceremony draws closer the evenings become busier as she is needed almost twenty-four-seven to babysit the local brats. Making a reasonable living from babysitting alone sounds impossible, but throw in neglectful parents and it pays better than most full-time jobs.

“I wanted to meet Aatrox!” She turned to the man in question and held out Sol as a greeting. “He says nice to meet you.” She took hold of Sol’s paw and waved it for him. Aatrox gave an unsure nod and reached a hand to pat the dachshund firmly once on the head. 

“Greetings creature.” 

“ Arf! ”

“I think he likes you!” Zoe said as she tried to force Aatrox to hold the ancient creature. He tried desperately to decline and almost failed if Sett didn’t step up and carefully pry the animal away from Zoe’s arms. 

“I think a dachshund counts as a legal weapon.” Sett said as he showered the little thing with love. Sol’s tail gave away his pleasure at the attention as the grumpy dog nipped at the hands trying to pet him.

“You’re a big guy!” Zoe said again, standing bravely before the gigantic man. She herself was shorter than average, and often mistaken for a child, but she rarely allowed her vertical disadvantage to get to her: especially in the face of dangerous criminals apparently.

“Really, what do they feed the guys out there? Atreus is our biggest guy yet, and here comes all the other guys. Tell me your secret. ” 

Aatrox shifted uncomfortably and took a step back in an attempt to retreat to the kitchen. Atreus took pity on him and instructed Soraka to take Aatrox and finish the baklava. The two vanished with Sett in tow.

“Thanks for the posters.” Atreus said, once alone, as he remembered that Zoe paid Aphelios for them. She dismissed his gratitude with a wave of the hand and bent down to put Sol on a leash unless he tried to attack Atreus’ shoes again. 

“Anything for a friend. Who else is going to custom bake dog treats for me?”

“Yeah, friends. Zoe?”

“Yup?”

“Can I ask a favour?”

✦ ✧ ✦ ✧ ✦ ✧

After Zoe left Atreus oversaw the careful packaging of the baklava and made sure that it was separated by fillings: peanuts, chocolate, and dried fruits. He monitored Soraka as she cut the pastry in neat little squares and complemented Aatrox when he decided to try his hand at crafting a decorative bow for the boxes. 

The man was embarrassed and revealed that the Bastion sometimes had sewing lessons for the well-behaved, and he once had the privilege of attending one. But those classes ended pretty soon when a fellow inmate lost their temper and murdered the seamstress.

With the boxes packed and ready for the following day Atreus began locking up the shop when Soraka’s phone dinged.

“Diana says she wants to go to the bar tonight.”

As much as Atreus wanted to decline and go home for an early night, he was reminded again of the short time he had left with Aatrox. It wasn’t supposed to matter, but today… Today Atreus realised something terrifying and he wasn’t ready to confront it. Not until Zoe came back to him. 

“You ready for another night at the bar?” Atreus asked Aatrox and Sett. Sett eagerly agreed and Aatrox sighed but gave a reluctant nod. His hands were cuffed inside of his hoodie again as they walked down the street. Sett and Soraka took the lead as Atreus and Aatrox followed behind them. They did not push each other or try to engage in awkward conversation, instead they walked silently (content) until they reached Starfall and went inside where Leona and Diana were already waiting for them. 

“Another day, another drink.” Diana remarked as she gulped down her drink. Targonian beer was weak, so weak there were hardly any legal drinking ages unless the local law enforcement were getting bored of stopping vandalising. 

The group settled around the table and Soraka launched into conversation about the school play. Sett became invested as soon as it was revealed that Aphelios would be helping with the set design, but Atreus and Aatrox distanced themselves from the conversation. Seated next to each other once again, Atreus allowed himself to ignore the world around him as he thought back on the day.

It wasn’t every day the most dangerous man in Runeterra had you against a wall with the intent of murder. He knew Aatrox was dangerous, it was not like the man tried to hide it, but Atreus failed to see how Aatrox was the renowned Darkin Lord. He heard the stories, he saw the bodies, he witnessed the man almost killing himself, but he has yet to see him be the Shuriman Demon everyone claims to have heard.

He was just another Shuriman. Just another soldier.

“ Breaking news…” The group’s attention turned to the TV where Janna Zephyr returned once again with an image of the Immortal Bastion behind her. “ The Immortal Bastion’s Rehabilitation Programme appears to be a success as two of the three Darkin members have successfully integrated themselves within society. Members Varus and Rhaast have formally denounced the Darkin Syndicate and pledged to become model citizens. Varus is returning to Noxus in the upcoming week to receive a new hearing for a plea to be pardoned of his sentence as he claims to have never taken part in the Darkin’s activities. Rhaast will remain in Ionia for the entire duration, but has made an impressive impact on his community. They are eager to see his return. The third member refuses any contact, but we have yet to receive reports about casualties…”

The TV showed mugshots of two men Atreus could only assume were the Darkin members in question: a pale man with a long angular face and hollow eyes, and a darker man with a strong jaw and face covered in intricate black tattoos similar to Aatrox’s. 

Atreus turned to his employee to question him about the other’s lack of tattoos, but he held the question to himself as he saw the blossoming anger on Aatrox’s face. The Shuriman turned to Sett, “May I go outside?” He asked through clenched teeth. Sett didn’t have time to answer as Aatrox lifted himself and speedily walked out. Atreus stood up to follow him with Sett in tow. 

Outside Aatrox was seated on the sidewalk with his legs carelessly kicked out in the street. He was glaring at the dark and barely acknowledged the pair when they carefully came up behind him.

“Hey big man, what’s up?” Sett asked. Aatrox didn’t answer, but Sett continued. “Miss your buddies? You’ll see them soon you know? Rhaast is coming back-”

“Yes of course. Rhaast is coming back, what joy befalls me on this day to know that the men who have failed me returns from their fucking wonderful lives. ” Aatrox hung his head low and released a shuddering breath.

Worried, Sett turned to Atreus: “I think I should take him back. Can you get the keys?” Atreus didn’t argue and went inside to get the Inn’s keys from Diana.

“Why?” She asked as the little key was dropped into his calm.

“He’s angry? No idea, but Sett wants him back.” Atreus didn’t have time to stick around as he left them and went outside to hand over the keys. Once outside he was first confused because Aatrox and Sett were missing, but a loud crash alerted him to their presence. He quickly followed the sound and found them just around the corner with Aatrox on the floor on his back and Sett sitting on his chest heaving. 

Aatrox’s eyes were closed and a dark patch surrounded his mouth. Atreus carefully came forward and saw that his lip was split and Sett’s fist was suspiciously bruised.

“What… happened?” he asked. Sett sighed and shook his head as if disappointed.

“Big man’s not happy about his friends.” Sett heaved himself off Aatrox and hunkered down to drag him up. With a struggle and much huffing, he managed to drag the man to the closet wall and prop him against it. He took out his phone and punched in a number, possibly a lift.

“What do you mean?” Atreus asked as he regarded the unconscious Shuriman. Even when asleep he looked angry. Sett gave a sad smile and tucked away his phone.

“They weren’t supposed to get all comfy. They were all supposed to leave together. Basically, they threw him away. Aatrox has officially nothing left.”

[gffa]

I have both Yae Miko and Childe already, as well as I have guaranteed pity, so by all rights I should be skipping this banner, but Layla!  I need another shieldbot character!  I like Diona, but it’s hard to get used to her when I’m used to Zhongli’s god-tier shields and so I want to experiment with Layla’s shield and see if it feels better to me. So, I have C0 Layla now, but wondering if I should keep pulling on the banner (I also am missing Heizou, who eluded me last time he was on a banner and he’s the last 4* character that I’m missing) but not sure I want to lose guaranteed pity when Scaramouche is probably just around the corner.  But I’d like to get C1 Layla at least.... Also oh my god I forgot how hard it is to level multiple characters at once!  I know you can’t level every character in the game, there’s just not enough resources for it, but I still haven’t really gotten Kokomi to a good place, I’m still trying to fully ascend Cyno never mind artifacts for him, I’m still trying to get good artifacts for Nahida and I haven’t gotten to the world boss fight that she needs for her talents, and now I’m trying to ascend Layla. I’m enjoying it, it’s fun to feel like I have so much to do that I can barely keep up, that I could play for hours and still have tons left to explore (I’ve barely touched the desert area or even finished the first archon quest, RL really sucked up a lot of my time/energy lately), but first I gotta finish the event quests so I get the primos, ahhhhh I’M GONNA LEVEL NAHIDA UP AS SOON AS I CAN, JUST WAIT CUTE BABY GODLING I’M GONNA CROWN YOU THE MINUTE I CAN. Has anyone else gotten Layla and how is she for you?  I’m planning on going for pure shieldbot character but christ I have fully leveled HP% artifacts on her and she’s still only like 21k HP.  orz  I don’t know how I’m going to get her much higher than this!

[atherix]

I am on the edge of my seat. I am voicing my panic out loud in a series of stressed noises. There is live commentary to my sister about the fight and Mumbo barely missing the first attack and Tubbo showing up and the idiot finally acknowledging Godling and Mumbo drinking his blood and them not calling Scar and AAAAHHH you are such an incredible author!!!

I’ve said how much I love this story, but I have to say it again. It is so so amazing. It always makes my day even if it is angsty. Thank you so much for sharing your stories <3

Scar is definitely going to be upset with them but also so relieved they all made it out safe (for now?) How will they get Blondie out of the house? Why did Tubbo decide to show up?(These are rhetorical, I’m sure we will find out). Oh and the lil messenger crow! I hope it made it out safe even though it’s mission got derailed.

Also Cleo and needing to formally register their coven is both exciting and stressful. I am curious what kind of annoying regulations they will be subjected to. But then Grian calling Mumbo ‘my Lord’ and them wanting Scar to move in so they can get more cuddles and be safe. As much as I adored Midnights Past, I have been so ready some more fluffy moments with Grian and Mumbo as well and you sure delivered <3

This was a lot of rambles but this chapter left my brain scrambled in the best way and I will continue to ponder it all evening.

You are chirping like Grian when Mumbo lay dying in his arms hmhmm- HKJFSKLFSJK THE LIVE COMMENTARY I love it kjfsdkfgdkn THANK YOU SO MUCH I AM 🥺SO GLAD YOU THINK SO hjkfdsjklfgsdjk <3 <3 <3

Thank you so much I am so glad you enjoy it so much, writing it has been an absolute joy I love the world I've made so much <3 I am so so so happy to share <3 ThaNK YOUU <3

Hmhmhmmmmm knowing what I know about what happens I cannot say one way or another how Scar or anyone will react hahaha <3 (Oh yes, you will learn. Both of them >:3 Especially Tubbo. Tubbo bby where did you come from hm hmmmm the dooRS WERE LOCKED jjmhmhmmm) I can confirm the messenger crow is safe it gtfo'd as soon as trouble began <3

I am glad everyone has picked up that anything involving the Council will be Irritating and Stressful and Not Fun (for the characters) hahaha <3 I'm actually looking forward to diving into the Council and Coven System stuff, tho I don't intend to lean tooo too heavily into it bc who cares about politics when there's a (fantasy) war on <3 Them wanting to bring all members of the Coven into the manor and just <3 They want Cuddles and to know he is Safe and Happy and Never Far Away just like a Lord's Mate rightfully should be, safe and protected and pampered hfsdfkjds

Midnights Past was super nice with all the fluff and light angst and was necessary for some certain setups later down the road but I too am glad to be back on the main plot, I am so excited to bring y'all Grian Lore and even a little more Mumbo Lore. After all, we still don't know anything about that ten years between being Turned and killing his Sire... :) Let me tell you this fic needing to be the next one written was a blow to me because I am in DESPERATE need of some Redscape, there is so little of it and I am like a hiker lost in a DESERT and I could only REFERENCE Redscape in this one because Scar isn'T HERE and I am HUNGRY someone FEED ME- Ahem anyway off topic, I am delighted to be back to being able to write the Grian and Mumbo fluff too <3 I missed my boys I want to write them being so in love and protective of each other and fskdjfjk <3 I am so happy you enjoyed <3

I LOVE the rambles and I love rambling in return thank you for it <3 My ask box is always open for a good ramble <3

[gay-little-treat-wizard]

Elrya: The New World By T. A. Onkọwe (Me)

6 - Illuka

Water is for those who take it and I do and will. - An excerpt from a transcript of the late Empress Tinai's coronation speech.

Illuka walked through the Unukapi[1] camp, wading through the chaos of training rebel soldiers and opportunistic hawkers selling goods and water replacements. Illuka ignored them all and approached the command tent. The two "people'' guarding the entrance let him in with little fanfare. Illuka didn't look at them, didn't meet their dead gazes or see the pulsing dark veins that criss crossed their grey skin.

The command tent was heavy with the scent of exotic spices and cactus wine. Maps and intel decorated the tent walls, and in the centre sat Menlor. He was a rotund lump of flesh, a former war hero reduced to a despot sat at the end of the table. The table was almost bent and broken by the weight of the feast laid out on it. More food than anyone else in the camp had seen in a year.

"The little godling deigns to grace us with his presence," Menlor spoke between nasty bites of soggy mutton. "What do you have to report?"

"The empress' Oracle has detected the presence of other demigods from the unknown lands beyond the North Sea."

Menlor paused, bird leg in hand. For just a moment, Illuka saw the shrewdness that impressed many to come to his side.

"I assume I don't need to tell you to keep an eye on the situation."

"Of course."

Menlor snapped his fingers, and a grey-skinned attendant shambled forward, balancing a bound scroll on a trey. Illuka tried his best to ignore Menlor's enslaved drones, but he recognized this drone.

Maris stumbled up to him, face blank as he picked up the scroll. She shuffled backwards, standing slumped over at the back of the tent.

"This is evidence of the Empress's water reclamation project in the Westland. She's hiding it for some reason. Find out why."

Illuka left the camp behind and climbed on his steed: a feathery Griffin-Chimera mutt. She was adorable in a hideous way: She was two-headed, with a goat head and eagle, and had a headless neck stump. Her skin was feathery, scaly and furry with several bald patches, and her four eyes bugged out of her skull like a frog's. She was also blind in one of her eyes, though Illuka isn't sure which one it was again.

"Hey, Betti," Illuka muttered, giving her several under-ear scratches. "It's time to go back. Are you ready?"

The beast snorted, exhaling an eye-watering toxic gas. Illuka laughed and hopped onto her back, strapping himself into the saddle. He tugged her reins gently, and Betti looked up to the sky and began to bound forward. She spread her tattered, massive wings out once she gained momentum and flung herself ungracefully into the air.

The ground below was a dusty, sunburnt orange, pockmarked with dried out wells and lakes. The desert stretched out for miles, randomly interrupted by spatterings of barely living and heavily guarded green.

Soon, the city of Karenth came into view, a brilliant stark black against the bright desert. Betti swooped down over the city's concentric ringed moats and speckled amphibolite spires. The city's archers ignored him; they were used to his method of entry by now. They began to descend as Betti approached the ostentatious castle that lay in the city's centre. She landed in front of the castle gates, and Illuka unstrapped and disembarked, then tied Betti to a post outside, leaving her with a pat on one of her heads.

He was searched by suspicious guards and ushered into the Empress's throne room, followed by two guards. The Empress sat, fully submerged in a pool of crystal clear water as her raven hair and black spider silk gown floated to the top of the pool.

"Welcome back, godling," The empress purred, swimming towards the pool's edge. "What's your report?"

"Menlor is planning to approach from the southwest with Chimera riders. He plans to take the Serash outpost," Illuka explained. "He's coming through the Weri dead plains."

"We'll fortify the outpost and intercept his army," The empress swam back and climbed onto her amphibolite throne. "I assume you want the same payment as last time?"

Illuka nodded, and the Empress gestured towards one of her guards. "Have some of your men share 100 rubies worth of water in the outlands," She turned her attention back to Illuka. 

"Now, little altruist, I want you to make yourself acquainted with the soon to arrive demigods."

Illuka bowed and left the room, winding his way through the castle. He stopped at his room and changed out of his Unukapi rebel gear and into the light linen customary to the court. Leaving his room, he walked out of the castle to find Betti again.

"Hey sweetheart," He combed his hand through her grey-green feathers as a mildly disgusted soldier untied her.

Illuka ignored them and climbed on her back. He tugged her reins and took to the air, flying towards the eastern outer wall of Karneth. He landed on a parapet and fed Betti some sugar cane treats. He watched the desert sun set. From his vantage point, he could see the dense, swirling sandstorms that had been raging for days on the horizon. He could also see some of the empress guards following her orders and sharing barrels of water out to waiting desert dwellers. The sandstorms were getting worse, stronger, and more frequent. The sun was getting hotter and hotter, and the land beyond the walls was getting dryer.

How long till it was impossible for them to eke out a living in the barren plains? Till the people beyond the walls began to die out?

How long till he needed to make a choice? Betray Menlor or the Empress? Aid Menlor’s dubiously altruistic desire to conquer Karenth and force the city to share its abundance? Help such a glutinous, power-hungry despot and a slaver for the chance of helping the desert dwellers? The empress was hardly a better choice. She was an equally brutal leader; she and her dynasty were the reason the unnamed land was dying out, but she promised change, a way for desert dwellers to earn their way into Karenth. They both held something over his head: The Empress knowledge and Menlor family.

Maris, you would know what to do.

[1] Ash water in Pitjantjatjara

A.N- @sewi-li-suwi, @sinharder, @reiki-tsubetai@concoctionboy and @hummbirb if you're interested. Let me know if you don't want to be @'ed.

[harpyreborn]

Phen has her own personal island. Its a small island off the main island, given to her by the gods as a gift for being a godling (child of the gods and demi goddess herself) shes built a multi story home for her non native mothers family to come and visit her on. Since outsiders arent allowed on the mainland, but this is PHENS PERSONAL LAND. She can do as she wishes with it! And she wants a place where her family/friends can visit her!

The main island isn’t visible from her island due to the barrier around it. Phens island has a barrier too but she drops it when family comes for a visit. So it really looks like phens island is a tiny tropical deserted paradise in the middle of the ocean.