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moonbeamsung · 4 years

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CRΣΣKS

Love, a second glance, it is not something that we need.

member: jeno

au: guardian angel in disguise!jeno x gn!reader, guardian angel au

word count: 3.4k

genre: angst

warnings: character death/loss, profanity, no happy ending, mentions of religion, questioning/loss of faith

recommended song: 715 - CRΣΣKS by the nor’easters

author’s note: Please be very careful with volume when listening to the song (above) that inspired this story! But even without reading the lyrics/listening, the fic will still make sense, and happy reading :)

network tags: @kpopscape @neo-constellations @starryktown

The wind is whistling, weaving in and out of the tall river reeds like an invisible needle and thread, stitching itself into each and every crevice of the world’s gift called nature.

Another one of its many gifts is the young boy that’s resting beside a rushing brook, toes dipped into the cool water and face illuminated by the sun as it beats down onto the earth with celestial strength.

Well, a gift from the heavens, that is.

Sent from the endless skies above, Jeno is your guardian angel, assigned with posing as a humble peasant boy in the village, all to keep a watchful eye on you from afar. In his human form, he spends his days wandering the cobblestone roads and narrow alleyways between the quaint buildings, with no family to return home to at dusk. A sunny meadow on the outskirts of town becomes his home, and he takes refuge in the shelter that the overgrown grass provides.

Everything is going smoothly, and he’s doing his job just as he should be. It’s routine now, waking up and rising from his earthen mattress, curtains of copious plant leaves letting in the sun’s rays. He finds you, observes at a comfortable distance, and that’s that. At its core, being a guardian is really an easy job. A predictable one.

A monotonous one.

Until one day you approach him, youthful eagerness in your eyes piercing and nearly painful, even to his invulnerable body. He’s never seen you up close before, only on the near horizon as you’ve gone about your daily chores, tending to the housework just like any obedient child should.

“...Who are you?”

Now, Jeno is faced with a decision more challenging than any that us mortal beings have to make in our entire lives. Engaging with one’s assignment is an extremely dangerous path to take. Unimaginable punishments await, should the guardian make a wrong choice. But Jeno was careless, and he had allowed himself to be discovered by the only human on Earth that the divine forces permit him to be seen by.

He makes the fatal error of answering you, ultimately shattering a future he’ll never get to live out, one that he doesn’t even know he would’ve had. Like a sharp rock being thrown at a church’s stained glass window, the meticulously carved pieces of his worldly existence fall to the ground with a deafening crash, broken beyond repair.

“I’m Jeno,” the strikingly majestic cadence of his words is like that of angel trumpets, the sound ringing in your head and making you dizzy with both fascination and infatuation.

And just like that, in three short syllables, you’re both fated to fall before you can even spread your wings.

From the moment you hear his name tumble from those beautiful lips, you’re hooked, and he knows it. He sees it in the way you look at him, in the way you act, the way you talk. A child experiencing a first and a forbidden love all at once.

It breaks his heart, because he knows it can’t, and shouldn’t last. The churning rapids of the creek nearby weep for him, for they know that in a matter of just a few short years, their waters are destined to mix with the salty tears that will steadily cascade from your trembling chin.

Jeno remembers, although vaguely, the brief amount of time he spent living amongst the clouds, being prepared by the heavenly elders for this expedition of a lifetime, quite literally. He remembers the scriptures, the strictures, and all the times he’s been warned of the severe consequences that come with immorality.

But even the purest of young angels aren’t infallible, still susceptible to compulsions that lead them to sin and defy their creator.

Relishing in the fading daylight, you join him by the water’s edge, listening to his soothing tone as he answers your ceaseless inquiries with harmless little lies as white as heavenly robes and cherub wings.

Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor. The first sin.

It’s interesting, he thinks, that despite looking after you in the endeavors of your youth for quite a while now, he knows next to nothing about who you truly are. Actions may speak louder than words, but how can he know that if he’s never heard your voice to begin with?

As the quiet, languid conversation shifts from his purpose there to yours, Jeno learns that you’re very content with your life, taking pride in helping your family with daily tasks as well as assisting your neighbors in the close-knit village with theirs.

Just then, all the smears of dirt and scattered scratches adorning your face catch his attention, gained after hours of hard work. No amount of water is ever enough to scrub them off of your skin at the end of the day, no matter how hard you try. Sometimes, you feel tears prick your eyes as you try to fall asleep at night, frustrated with your lowly appearance and how it never seems to match your relatively optimistic outlook on life.

But Jeno doesn’t care. You’re breathtaking even in his eyes, the eyes that belong to an actual angel. If that fact alone isn’t enough to boost your confidence, he doesn’t know what else possibly could.

Like a fool, he lets himself drown in your sublimity for a moment, marveling at the ethereal glow of the sun on your smooth, ageless face. The faint noise of wisps of air blowing gently through the meadow and rustling the flora makes him drowsy, but the sight of a pure white heron landing gracefully on the opposite side of the riverbank brings him back to full consciousness in an instant.

The bird, an omen of sorts, had been sent down from Heaven, conjured up from a fleeting idea and into a physical reality, by the holy beings looking down upon the earth, indicating that they’re well aware of the threat he poses and just how close he is to making an irreversible mistake in regards to you, his assignment and assignment only.

The heron abruptly unfurls its delicately feathered wings, as if frightened, before taking off and floating away on the breeze, both of your gazes inexplicably drawn to it as it flies until it’s out of sight altogether.

It warns him of just what he’s messing with, exactly.

This is not a part of the creator’s plan for you, for him. Falling in love with the one an angel is supposed to guard is an appalling crime to commit in the eyes of the elders that inhabit the sky, in the eyes of God. Though it doesn’t explicitly go against a commandment or biblical law, it’s just an understood rule. It’s wrong.

Jeno tells himself this, and continues to do so over the many years that he looks after you, never acting on his emotions, only acknowledging them before sending the less-than-acceptable thoughts into the depths of his conscious mind. He only wishes he had a key to lock them up and forget he even felt them in the first place.

Even as an angel, he ages just like anyone else, the both of you going from kids to teenagers and then nearing the young-adult stage of life, with you remaining blissfully unaware of Jeno’s true identity all the while. It’s a miracle he’s managed to keep his secret for this long, honestly, but like grains of sand in an hourglass, your time together is running out, whether you like it or not.

Not even a year before your entire world, your entire reality comes undone before your very eyes, Jeno feels as if his has already done just that. Because you’ve found someone. And that someone isn’t him.

He hates the feeling of jealousy, despises it with every fiber of his heavenly being. But he can’t shake it, can’t bear the way it clings to him like an unwelcome visitor. An unrecognizable emotion, one so foreign that he can’t even put a name to it, is stirred up at the sight of you in their arms, so pure and so unworthy of this person. Boy, if he didn’t know any better, Jeno would swear that you were the angel.

With each day that passes, he begins to feel the final shreds of both his dignity and his self-control slipping away, lost to the familiar breeze that whips through the village, stronger than ever these days. He can no longer contain it within himself. He wants you.

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s goods. The second sin.

How ironic that a Sunday, of all days, is when everything falls apart.

The sun is hanging low in the sky, just barely grazing the horizon with its bright beams of warmth as it steadily rises, bathing the world in a soft yellow glow. You can also see the moon leftover from the night that ended not so long ago, fading fast but visible nonetheless. Two complete opposites, so close but prevented by the laws of nature for coexisting in the same space, at the same time.

Maybe, just maybe, if you knew just how much you had in common with the celestial objects above, you would have clutched the hand of Jeno a bit tighter yesterday, intertwined your fingers a little more closely with those of someone who had become the closest thing to a best friend that you had ever known. You admit that you wish he could be something more, but you know better than to push your limits.

You got tired of waiting to see if he felt the same way, choosing to fill the void with someone else that you liked, yes, but who just wasn’t the same as the boy who had always been there, waiting in the meadow every morning without fail. Still, your emotions are ever-alert and always searching for any sign of reciprocation within Jeno.

He’s nowhere to be found when you reach the water’s edge, the edge of the creek where you wasted away endless summer days and frosty winter nights, colorful spring afternoons and brisk autumn evenings.

This morning would seem no different than the rest if not for his absence. The knot in your heart loosens, but not by much, when you spot him at the forest’s edge, looking weary.

Jeno notices you and calls out your name with a smile, but something about it isn’t genuine. It’s pained, desperate, like he wants to hold onto this moment forever, unwilling to carry out the plan he’s already regretting. It’s too late now, he thinks to himself, but he’s wrong.

It’s been too late for years.

“Jeno?”

“This way!” He chokes out. It’s somewhere between a sob and a plea, but there’s no time to figure out which is the more appropriate term. He disappears between the trees and amidst their mossy branches, blending in with the shadows cast by the thick canopy of leaves, and you break into a sprint, afraid of losing him to the merciless wilderness and what lies within.

Thankfully, he’s not too far gone. A small clearing greets you less than a dozen strides in, and in the very center of it stands a glass gazebo, run-down and covered in so many twisting vines to the point where the small structure is almost fully consumed by the nature surrounding it.

The scene is beautiful, so much so that it makes you uneasy. What’s going on? Why did he bring you here? Why does he seem so sad? Jeno is never sad, maybe he could be described as brooding or solemn on the rarest of occasions, but never this melancholy, never so utterly hopeless in his expressions and his aura.

None of these questions are answered, even as he takes your hands in his own and leads you inside of the gazebo, its see-through panels catching the light with elegance and ease.

“I need to tell you something.” Just like it did the first time you heard it, his voice still shocks you like a bolt of electricity, your blood pressure and heart rate skyrocketing. All of this is heightened, though, by grim tone he’s speaking to you with.

“What is it, Jen?” There it is. The nickname you made up for him that, although simple, makes him feel like he’s on top of the world. Actually, scratch that: it makes him feel like he’s floating in the sky, up past the clouds and even further away from this cruel planet than the heavens are from Hell.

You’re only making this harder for him. He might as well just spit it out, because all this waiting is agonizing for the both of you.

“We... we can’t be together.”

The sentence that leaves his lips is two declarations wrapped up in one singular statement, the first being that he wants to be with you in the same way you want to be with him. It’s much too hopeful, misleading your emotions down a path of elation instead of dread. The second is unpleasant, a bitter taste lingering on his tongue once he says the words.

“...Yes, yes we can, Jen, because I don’t really love them and all this time it’s been you—”

“You don’t understand,” he tries to stop the confession spilling out from your heart before it overflows, drowns you. “I’m not who you think I am.”

Stunned to silence, he gives you a moment to drink in the implications of his words. “...I’ve known you for over half of my entire life, and you’re trying to tell me I have no idea who you really are? Not a chance,” you laugh softly, shaking your head and glancing down at the wooden gazebo floor, old white paint peeling under your feet.

“But haven’t you ever wondered why I’m always there by the creek every morning? How I turn up throughout your day at the perfect time? How I’m suddenly right by your side when you need me the most?”

You have wondered. Many times, in fact. But the possibility of him being anything other than human was not at the top of your very rational list.

“...Don’t you see? I’m your guardian angel.”

He sees you blink, realization dawning on your face like the sun and stretching your features. “There are laws—” He begins, but your reaction is not the one he anticipated you would have to that information.

Too overwhelmed, you can’t respond with anything other than physical actions, no matter how unreasonable, and you press your dry lips to his soft ones, sealing your fate. Standing there, with beams of golden light infiltrating the space and illuminating your unsteady figures, Jeno is petrified not by your kiss, but by the fact that he doesn’t push you away, and his hands hold onto yours even tighter than before. Nothing has ever felt so right in his entire life. Not when he was in Heaven, and not in all the years he’s spent on Earth, either.

You’re his Heaven, this moment is his eternity. Jeno has endured enough temptation, the undeniable thrill that a deliberate sin promises has become too much for him. If he pulls away now, everything would still be okay, you could both go back to normal and pretend this never happened. But alas, he was doomed to kiss you back from the beginning, and so he does, and you have no idea what the universe has in store when you feel his lips finally respond to yours in the most unholy way possible. For the first and last time, you indulge in each other’s touch and taste, and it does not please the ones watching from above.

The third and final sin, one sin too many for him to remain in this world without consequence.

Several things happen all at once. A clap of thunder sounds overhead, though there are no clouds in sight. Jeno is painfully ripped from your grasp and thrown out of the gazebo by some invisible force of nature, into the grass and dirt on the forest floor.

And inside of you, a piece of your soul is torn from your being, bile rising up in your throat as you comprehend the excruciating sensation that racks your body with pained whimpers.

Stumbling to his feet, Jeno heaves, hunched over and close to tears. Suppressing the agony you still feel, you hurry over to him only for the boy to charge away, heading back towards the open meadow. With a broken shout of his name, you follow.

You didn’t notice before, but now the blinding light reveals the condition he’s in. He looks almost normal, but the edges of his form are becoming fainter by the minute, blurring with the rest of the world around him. He’s fading away before your eyes, and it’s all your fault.

It’s a torturous experience, watching him slowly meld with the emptiness of the air. Making him disappear into thin air in an instant would have been an act of mercy, a mercy that’s apparently beyond the capabilities of the spectators in the sky.

Struggling to maintain your composure, you force a question out. “What’s happening?” You ask, though you know he doesn’t have an answer himself.

He’s obviously panicked, though he tries not to show it. “I... I don’t know, I knew that it was forbidden for us to fall in love but I didn’t think I’d be robbed of my existence like this...”

“What?! No, Jeno, please don’t go...” You beg the gods and angels above, if any exist. You don’t know anymore.

If there is a God, how can he be good if he’s taking Jeno away from you like this, depriving you of the one constant source of joy and comfort in your life?

It’s far too cruel to bestow such a kind and generous heart upon someone who isn’t allowed to love in the first place.

Even Jeno’s touch is faint, making you feel like he’s not there at all. You just barely detect the pads of his fingers smoothing over your cheeks, trying to stop the water spilling from your eyes. He smiles sadly, “Don’t cry for me. I’m not worth the tears.”

“You’re everything to me, Jeno. You’re worth every drop.”

“Remember me like this, okay? By the creek,” he gestures to the turbulent waters a short distance away. Walking slowly, he begins to take steps in its direction, but as he speeds up you’re no longer able to match his pace. “Jeno, turn around...”

Glancing back at you for the final time, he whispers a goodbye that the breeze carries away with it, the sound something only the two of you would hear, one that could never be replicated.

“Goddamnit, Jeno, don’t you dare leave me!” But you know you can’t hold on, you’re not strong enough. A greater force wants you two apart, unable to be overpowered by one human, a relatively insignificant being in the grand scheme of the universe. He vanishes completely.

You fall to your knees, the pain from the pebbles digging into your legs and feet underneath the surface of the creek numbed by your sorrow. The water drenches your clothes, splashing up onto your skin and becoming one with your relentless tears. You’re left all alone, with only the cattails to keep you company. You wish the waves would just swallow you whole so you don’t have to feel this suffocating isolation.

In an unnecessarily harsh trick of the light combined with the dancing shadows generated by the water, you swear that you see Jeno again for a second, sitting on the riverbank like always. You sob louder.

It takes forever for you to find the strength to stand up again, water running over your soaked shoes and threatening to topple you over. You wouldn’t mind if it succeeds.

Inconsolable even to your closest friends and family, you reluctantly return to the village, unwilling to leave behind what you’ve just been through and unable to explain just why you’re crying so hard. Maybe if you stay there forever, spending each day and night waiting among the reeds and the flowers and the grass, he’ll come back someday, but no. He’ll never return, but you simply can’t bring yourself to accept this fact.

You’re never quite the same after that. Part of the curse that haunts you for the rest of your life is this: no matter how hard you try to retain your memories, you’re destined to forget Jeno eventually, leaving vast gaps in your brain when it comes to the years of your youth.

You’re left with only a feeling of inexplicable nostalgia at the sight of the meadow and the creek running through it, the waters still as violent as they were on the day you lost him.

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land-of-classpects-and-analysis · 4 years

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Mage of Void

There are plenty of people out there who fear the unknown. Whether it be what lurks in the shadows or the brush, what truly exists out in the vast, ever-expanding depths of space, or something as simple as not knowing the secrets that lurk within the basement of that sweet-looking antique shop that all of a sudden popped up in your town, run by a sweet little old lady who always seems to have a bit of cobweb in her gray hair. You don’t know if you want to ever find out where she came from nor what secrets she keeps stowed away in that basement, which she so often ventures into when she needs to “fetch something from the back”, but whenever you watch her open that door and shuffle herself down the stairs, your mind begins to whir awake with words that paint the blank canvases in your mind. Ranging from the mundane image of a dingy old basement, filled with old, rotten wooden shelves - which really should have broken years ago - with brown, cardboard boxes piling up and filled the space, to the more dark and morbid possibilities. A flickering light bulb that hangs from a string, with a chain of beads waiting to be tugged so that the light may breathe once again and illuminate the horrors beneath. A surgery table, the typical metallic ones, with drenched, yet dry, tools next to it, and a person laying conscious atop that cold slab that will surely soon become their deathbed. A creature, or two, that hates the sunlight and so resides in the depths of the basement - perhaps even the vents - though you aren’t sure how it could fit all of those heads and arms and legs into such a tight space. But it could, if it truly wanted to hunt and stalk its prey before telling its owner, who is such a sweet old lady, “that one”. You don’t know what is in the basement, and it would be smart to say you don’t want to. A reasonable person would say that, but if you are not part of that group who would say no, then you may find yourself to be drawn towards the title of Mage of Void.

Those bound to the Aspect of Void do not fear what has yet to be explored, discovered, or established. They only see a possibility for something grand, new, and beautiful to be created where emptiness asks to be filled. While they may not fear it, the Void-bound do have a great disdain for intellectual authority, and often throw countless doubts on what others believe to be official truths. Most importantly, though, especially in the case of the Mage of Void, is that they are the universe’s secret keepers. The Mage of Void, much like its passive counterpart, is another interesting case when it comes to the Class and Aspect clashing together. However, while the Seer of Void was one who many people passively entrusted with their secrets, the Mage of Void is one who could easily be described as a morally gray person from the get-go. They hunger over secrets, lusting to gain more knowledge over the unknown and the secrets of everyone and everything around them. For some, this may sound more befitting for a Mage of Light, but do not be fooled. The Mage of Void does not do these things to gain answers, because the Mage of Void does not have any questions. They simply enjoy the feeling of power that comes from knowing something no one else does - whether it be the dark, forbidden history of a building or organization, or the secrets of all the affairs their boss has had. If there is an inkling of a secret to be found, it’s only a matter of time before the Mage of Void springs into action and chases after it, much like a predator with their prey.

However, this is getting quite a bit ahead of ourselves. What about the beginning of the Mage of Void’s journey? Specifically, what sparked this deep, never ending hunger for secrets? Much like the Mage of Blood, this fascination most likely started when they were quite young. Children are naturally curious, after all, but sometimes are curious for the wrong things. The Mage of Void was most likely the one who always wanted to be places where they shouldn’t have been i.e. their parent’s room without explicit permission or observation, the Janitor’s closet at school, the storage rooms in a grocery store, and so on. If there was a sign telling the Mage of Void to not enter a room, then chances are that they would proudly proclaim that the sign can’t stop them, because they can’t read. This would be when they were a child, after all. Keeping in mind that a Mage often begins their journey with a punch to the face and gut, the Mage of Void would most likely be met with a secret that horrified, scarred, and perhaps even traumatized them, but it would also intrigue them. They don’t try to hold onto these secrets for any malicious and harmful reasoning like that of a Thief, but it is undeniable that the Mage of Void feels a sense of superiority to those who don’t know the real truth of the world they live in.

From that point onward, though, the Mage of Void would slowly become more and more aware of the secrets all around them. There are some that, at least in the beginning, the Mage of Void would not dare go near for one reason or another. Down the line of their journey, though, there will always be some secrets that simply will not leave the Mage of Void alone. Constantly calling their name; luring them closer to discovering another horrific piece of information that very few get to see. These secrets are typically ones that personally affect the Mage of Void, and as such, it is oftentimes a rather difficult challenge for them to face these harsh truths. These secrets are ones the Mage of Void tend to struggle with accepting the most, because to accept it would mean allowing their sense of reality to falter, change, and perhaps even have the foundations crack beneath them. At first, these sudden changes may be terrifying to the Mage of Void, especially if these changes are so near and dear to their heart. Finding out that the dark secrets of a close friend or family member can bring great stress onto most people, and while some have the choice to not acknowledge it, the Mage of Void is not one of those people. They must face the unknown head-on if they so wish to complete their journey.

However, as stated before, do not mistake this behavior for someone bound to the Aspect of Light. The Mage of Void only cares to learn about the unknown; what lurks in the shadows, goes bump in the night, and what hides beneath the bed. They find solace in their suffering for this knowledge, because, much like many other Void-bound, the Mage of Void believes their perception of reality to be the clearest one. When there is a crack in the sidewalk, it is not the light that slithers all the way down that rocky and concrete chasm, for the light can only go so far. When the light cannot reach any further, that is when some people simply shrug and say that everything this crack has to offer has been revealed. The Mage of Void knows, though, that past the point of light within that crack is a world that goes far, far deeper and darker, for it is not the ant colony that lives in the scorching sunlight, but rather in the dark and hidden tunnels beneath the Earth. When there is shadow cast by the piercing rays of Light, the Mage of Void will do whatever is in their power to discover and know what horrid things lurk within the inky darkness of that shadow - big and small - while ignoring everything so blatantly illuminated by the Light.

The Mage of Void is one who often walks a fine line of being that of a social genius - capable of seeing all the secrets and lies created by people, if they so want, as well as witnessing all the hidden injustice woven in the world around them - and succumbing to the endless, existential expanse of Void itself - their mind becoming nothing but an dark ocean of ink, their head heavy from wearing a crown that is more jewels than actual crown, with each jewel being a secret the Mage of Void has learned. After all, what’s the point of seeing what the world, what reality, is truly like if no one will bother to listen? They have all of these secrets, all of this forbidden knowledge that they perceive to be the truth of all that is, was and will be, but when no one wishes to revel in the same ecstasy that comes with this superiority, it becomes a burdernous weight that not many people can bear. The Mage of Void suffers because, outside of fellow Void-bound, no one will listen to them.

While some of the other Mages naturally attract people to them, the Mage of Void is one who very few people would take note of. After all, Void-bound are often those who are easily missed when looking through a crowd of people, whether it be by the Void-bound’s choice or not. In a way, it would be up to the Mage of Void to approach other people and try to win them over as a companion. Although, when considering how Mages can often be quite erratic in their behavior, this can be quite a difficult task. The Mage of Void would only ever want to surround themself with people they deem as “woke” as them, as they have no patience in educating other people on what they have already experienced and learned. Chances are that the Mage of Void is one who lives a rather lonely life - not that they will ever care to admit as to how deeply it affects them. After all, even one who chases after the greatest secrets is bound to have their own. If the Mage of Void is not careful, and if no one has shown up to their Tea Party in Wonderland, then they might allow themself to become more further enveloped by the shadows that come with the Void. If questioned about how this affects them, the Mage of Void may either passively shrug and say they do not mind, as being alone only means they have more time to themself and their discoveries, or they may react harshly, snapping and insisting that it’s fine, that they’re fine, that the loneliness they feel is no big deal at all. In some cases, though, it is indeed the own Mage’s fault that they are left alone and to their own devices.

Although this analysis has mostly been for the Mages of Void who search for knowledge of Void, there are, of course, those who wish to seek knowledge through Void. One may think that this branch of the Mage’s journey is similar to the former. After all, becoming more aware of the secrets around oneself can’t be too different to becoming more aware due to the secrets around oneself, right? That is only partially true, but let’s explore why that is partially wrong. For the Mages who so choose to seek out knowledge through Void are, of course, those who have the harder journey ahead of them. While the Mages who seek out knowledge of Void simply dash into the unknown and darkness, the Mages who seek out knowledge through Void must first allow themselves to become fully engrossed in their Aspect. They must allow the bitter cold to nip and claw at their mind. These Mages of Void are ones who have already become part of the infinite, pure black of the void. They have gazed into it and have felt not one, not two, but millions of eyes of old, forgotten things staring right back at them. Sizing them up, judging them based on their own secret sins, questioning if they are truly worthy to gain such knowledge and wisdom. The Mage does not chase after the Void, but the Void chases after them.

What the Mage does not realize in the beginning, though, is that they have already been caught and ensnared within the claws, teeth, beaks, tendrils of the Void. They have already been caught, and they allowed it to happen. The Void, as cold and distant and suffocating as it may be, is not here to bring about the end of the Mage’s life, though. With a price that only ever seems to go up, and up, and up, the Mage of Void may learn all the secrets the Void itself has to offer. It can not give all the answers, for it does not know many to begin with, but it can give a tool far more powerful to the little Mage: things long forgotten or hidden deep within the minds and hearts of those around them. For with these secrets the Void has given to the Mage, they may use them to twist the arms of whoever they want and bend the rules of wherever they go, but only so that they may get the true knowledge the Mage of Void so deeply hungers after. They are not as nasty or manipulative as a Witch of Void may be, but they most definitely are someone who knows how to get answers when they want them. After all, they may not want all the answers, but simply having the knowledge that they could make anyone fold and buckle with the threat of such secrets getting out is sometimes enough to satisfy the Mage of Void. At least to those who so choose to chase after knowledge through Void.

The Mage of Void walks a fine-line indeed, but it is a line, or rather a tight-rope, that they love oh so much. They think themself to be one of the bravest souls in the world to walk a line so taut, thin, and fine. Even if they fall, they know that they will fall like a true hero, for not many others are courageous enough to dare attempt such a challenge. However, once they reach the other side and have experienced the worst of what their Aspect has to offer, the Mage of Void is most certainly someone not meant to be trifled with. With one simple glance, an awakened and well-minded Mage of Void could know every last secret that someone so desperately wishes to hide, but only if they want to. Not only that, but they could so easily see all the loopholes and weak points of anything they so wished to target. Whether it be a single person, a group, organization, or perhaps even an entire system of government, all it would take is the will and mind of the Mage of Void to find the Achilles’s Heel of those who stand in their way. While they may not have many friends, on purpose or otherwise, those they do allow into their inner circle are those they trust the most out of the entire world. After all, it’s hard to trust many people when given the power to know everyone’s past mistakes, losses, and overall secrets. The Mage of Void may still feel that suffocating weight of the void atop of them, but when they have fully awakened and completed their journey, they are willing to bear that weight if it means not living in a false understanding of the world around them and instead becoming one of the most elusive and daunting people in their group. After all, the Mage of Void has nothing to fear - not even the unknown, or void itself.

#Mage #Mage of Void #Homestuck #Hiveswap #Mage of Void Analysis #Void Aspect #Oculus October #Void

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reinepadova · 4 years

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To Be Seen

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There are many paths up the mountain. But the view from the top is always the same.

Qingce Village. A plot of land once dwelt by an enormous, dreaded beast. A great threat, and source of terror for its inhabitants. Dark were the skies, and molten was the earth. Stones quaked and shifted from battles sown, and water turned fog from the heat of conflict.

Many a life perished or fled – those that are able, found refuge in the marshes or by the sea. Those that could not, stayed and endured.

But long has passed those years of misery, Morax reflected, eyes turned soft at the drifting dust under sunlight. Only Mt. Qingce remains, steadfast and true. A preserver of the old and the young, and of the croplands turned abundant. The landscape painted with colors of tranquility, with shades of the quiet.

To this, he could say, was one reason he fought. Why he dared raise great spears against those that oppose him, that question his strength. Why his ambitions for a seat with the Seven was so great.

Why he let his life's blood spill and his flesh torn asunder, all to be used for trade.

All he had sacrificed... so that all may prosper. So those deemed weak but with a passion for life, and a mind that craves understanding may learn, may improve. May become greater than what they thought to be. What they can be.

And flourish they did, Morax thought fondly, gazing out the window to watch three children play. A boar in the distance, charging away. Admirably so, like the trees and blooms that persisted amidst the cracked earth, or emerged from the muddy waters that once flowed red.

His eyes narrowed, then shut, musings turned grey.

He has danced and sung to the tune of combat, played his part well into the final act. His will, ironclad – unyielding and absolute, against the odds. Against all the other gods. All to reach the peace the entire land longed for after the audacious declaration from Celestia:

「Survive, and be crowned The Seven.」

「Gain the power of the divine.」

「Be one above all, in your chosen land.」

And to this, he succeeded, with glory placed upon his head, and the remnants of slaughter at his feet.

The Prime of the Adepti, said they. A riotous cheer. A whisper, filled with dread. Ha. Even among the Seven – the original, and the newly seated – he is the eldest, hence, the most respected. And therein lies his burden. To be charged as the standard, to be exemplary in the eyes of his people...

Still. This position is not without its advantages – he would not have fought for it if there were none. Truly, he could not ask for more, even if he tried. The enormity of his titles, to be granted the highest of honors among those that dwell in the newly named Teyvat – bearing in mind the heavens that granted his godhood of course.

His people are proud of him. His land reveres him.

And yet.

Why must this... dissatisfaction linger? The feelings of restlessness. Aimlessness. Like a shell drifting in endless sea.

What must be missing, when the fruits of his labor, the smiles of his people, and the generations therafter, are present and abundant? When the inhabitants accepted his protection, his standards, with delight, and worship. When they honor him by fulfilling contracts in accordance to how he fulfill his. When they sing songs and tell stories of his conquests, of his deeds as lessons to keep in mind, as morals to strive for and progress to.

Why then does this void exist? What is it he still lacks as a being?

Is... he still enough? Is he –

“... is Mei still doing good?”

A murmur, gentle and small, broke through his musings, eerily echoing his thoughts out loud. Morax turned inquisitive, amber eyes at the closed door, wonder outshining the memories, and bringing him back to the present.

The Miss Lala had been explicit about the necessity of his confinement, citing the resurgence of chaos upon his appearance. Seeing the tired yet resolute set to her shoulders, he could only acquiesced. He did not wish to tire the lady more with an argument. But truly, it was an odd request, at best. His people are familiar with this form, and would not run in fright, as she so fears. Why, they would likely crowd around him, vying for his blessing and attention and –

He rested one claw under his maw, pondering. Ah. That brand of chaos. I see. It seems she has better foresight than the average mortal. And most considerate as well. How kind.

His ears perked, hearing a faint, crackling call of farewell at the main entrance. He swiftly nudged open the door of the lady's chambers and floated out, seeing immediately the quiant scene at the kitchen.

“You're doing very good. You can stop when you smell it turning to powder. It's like... milk, but very very faint.”

“Oh! Can Mei put it on the lilies after? Please? Pretty please?”

Even from behind, the tilt of her head, the softness of her stance, indicates a fondness for the child. There is no doubt she is smiling down at her as well. She patted Young Mei in between her pigtail buns and replied, “Of course you can! You can sprinkle as much as you want. After we make the soil mix.” The little girl squealed, turning back to her task with renewed vigor.

He drifted closer, brows furrowing when the lady discreetly rub at her eyes while the little one is distracted.

It seems I may need to intervene.

-{-}-

Stella raised a brow, feeling long whiskers brush over her shoulder, before the slight weight of the guardian's muzzle rested on it. She smiled when gold orbs focused curiously on the crunching and banging Mei's been doing, relieved that he showed himself after the chief went out for her rounds.

“It's for the flowers,” she explained, reaching to caress a glowing petal nearby. “A bird's eggshell is rich in minerals. Its as effective as any other fertilizer... but with lot less smell.” Mei giggled in agreement, adding that her Gran-gran was ecstatic when she was taught other tricks in the garden from Lala – especially doing away with 'pork poopy' all together. “Also, also, Lala taught Mei how to water plants!”

Stella chuckled at the inquiring eyes of their floating guest, who managed to tilt its head at her from an odd angle – the perks of having a long neck, I guess? “She keeps drowning the Jueyun Chili plants back in the Harbor. At most, they just need a sip within a week. Ha! I know that look,” she crowed, seeing familiar incredulity on the guardian's face. “I don't know why no one thought to cultivate herbs in their own garden. Or to water them for that matter. They can't always depend on the rain. No one can control the weather.

Besides, if you can cultivate rare flowers, like the ones in Yujing Terrace, why not something as common as herbal plants?”

-{-}-

It is because of their plenitude that such notion is not considered. The oceanids have a knowing of the needs of the land – as such is my deal with them. They have been good to Liyue ever since. Why, when the croplands of Qingce are at their most vulnerable, Rhodeia answered their plea in an instant!

– Is what Morax would have said. But he only let out a small rumble and slow nod, turning back to the little girl covered in flecks of white powder, gaze softening at the sight of her bright smile.

As insightful as the siren has been since the start of their journey, it is not unwise to tread carefully. Knowledge is power. I have yet to know what she will do with it, once bestowed. If only the Fatui have not been such a conniving force as of late. I would have welcomed any foreigner within my stone walls.

Nevertheless, her care for a child not her own or of her people is admirable and exceptional, a far cry from how that organization operates. Her good sense too, would make for an engaging conversation.

Throughout the endless centuries he lived through – and will continue to, perhaps – he beared witness to a myriad of changes, great and small. No detail is insignificant enough for him to overlook. Or at all. He could not afford to. For one changed clause, nay, even one unclear word, could spell disaster for his land's defenses.

That said, he could assert he has very good memory. All printed and verbal contents of a contract is written like a tablet in his head, etched deep and fixed. The prosperity Liyue is blessed with is proof of his steadfast attention to detail; to consider all particulars, both the advantage and disadvantage, before he would, as they say, 'seal the deal'.

It is rare indeed for him to think 'what more does he not know?'

And yet, here he his, observing and listening. The lady elucidating their intention to gather an interesting mixture made out of smoked rice husk, charred wood, clay and soft sand. Another source of nutrients, she says, for the Lilies to be comfortable in during transport.

Eventually, he could focus no longer at her words, seeing her fighting to keep awake, feeling her sway dangerously on her feet. Her charge looked up in concern as she leaned on the counter, eyes closed shut in pain.

-{-}-

Stella gritted her teeth, about to reach for her temple when her world shifted again.

Although she never indulge in the various wines this world had to offer, she can imagine this was how the drunks at the dock feel: head, heavy as ores; body, light as a feather.

Or was it, float like a feather? It certainly feels like she's in the air. Literally. A sensation she never thought she'd experience again after –

An inkling of worry crept up her neck, minutely thinking of Mei, before she faceplanted on something soft. She reached out a hand, feeling cotton and smooth silk. Her...bed?

“Urgh... where – what?”

A low snort nearby answered her. She felt too tired to think of anything of it. The pillow under her seems exceptionally comfortable right now. Maybe she won't suffocate if she stayed this way?

So. Tired...

A chuff sounded next, lighter in tone, before something wrapped around her shoulders. She breathed deep as sunlight burned her eyes, a tugging at her feet made her crane her head down. She now lied flat on her back, with a large, blurry... something, weighing her down.

“... Mei? What are you doing?”

Her charge was quiet, wholly concentrated on making sure her boots were placed near the bed before coming up to her. The little girl tugged and dragged a blanket up and over her legs, intending to swaddle her with it. Stella feebly raised an arm, wanting to help, but a gleam of teeth made her pause. A muzzle cradled a handful of the cloth near Mei's arm, and lifted it easily up to Stella's chin.

“Lala? You rest, okay?” the little girl whispered, smoothing down the blanket while staring at her with wide, understanding eyes. “You work hard again for Mei. The Lilies? Mei tried to follow you last night, but Chief-dàmā told Mei to stay and wait. Mei tried, but Mei too tired. Mei wants you to sleep now.”

“But Mei. The Lilies – ”

“Gran-gran always scold bàba 'a person who does not know good rest, does not know how to do good work'. Leave the Lilies to Mei! Mei will ask for help. Promise! Lala should rest.”

“Are you sure – ”

“Lala. Rest.” the girl asserted, a stubborn tilt to her chin, but eyes still pleaded for her to agree.

Before Stella could make up her mind, the weight on her chest suddenly spread, encompassing her down to her legs, trapping her effectively. A huff of hot breath made her squint and look up. Larger, glowing orbs stared her down, making her stare back, mouth agape.

Mei giggled, seemingly satisfied she'll behave while Mr. Guardian was around, and quietly left. The skipping tone of her steps was still loud enough for Stella to hear behind the closed door.

She sighed, gaze turning wry. “Alright. You made your point. Get off.” Having a predator over her like this would normally be a terrifying experience. But when she remembered how kind it had been with her during their sprint back to the village, and how gently it gazed down at Mei, she knew she could trust it – to a certain degree. She's sure it has the strength to crush her with a quick squeeze, but she's oddly confident it won't.

Stella quickly reconsidered her good opinion though when the creature had the gall to chuff, as if amused, and placed its large head next to her, adjusting its body to lie comfortably on the bed – but with her still under it!

A sudden thought went through her like a lightning bolt.

“If you can grow this large, why didn't you do so last night and we could, you know, fly back here?”

Amused eyes turn blank, blinking back at her with a look that spelled of realization.

Stella groaned, grumbling about 'common sense is not common at all' under her breath.

-{-}-

“I apologize, good sir. But Zhongli-xiānsheng has not yet returned,” Ferrylady intoned quietly, bowing her head.

The gentleman in Fatui robes raised a blonde brow, growing pensive. “Still? How peculiar. We thought this special consultant is only busy during an adepti's Rite of Parting. It's been awhile since the last one, isn't it? We heard he's fond of strolling around the harbor. He's not one easily missed.”

“That is not inaccurate. But – ”

“But as we value his expertise in all matter of things, we believe he deserves some 'R and R' once in a while, don't you think~? I gave him leave to do so however long he likes~” said a laughing voice at the doorway.

“Hu Tao-zhǔrèn!”

“Oh. The Director?”

Hu Tao smiled wide, closed lipped, strolling into the office with a dancing step. Despite her upbeat demeanor, the gentleman still sweat dropped at the strange gleam in her eyes. “A consultant's work is just as demanding as any other job in Liyue, you see. Its why those of this realm, and of the next, leave very satisfied from our parlor~ No complaints at all!” she giggled sweetly, eyeing him more as she took a dainty step closer. “Buuut. Considering you have been on such a long wait, we will give you a great discount! Twenty percent, including the incense. You'll even get double the savings if you have a buddy with you~” she sang, fanning out two dark coupons from her sleeve and waving them invitingly.

The gentleman froze in place, quaking internally in terror. His time in the Fatui made him all too familiar with subtle threats, and this is a masterfully done one. Luckily, the Ferrylady spoke softly again, distracting him from his oncoming panic.

“Sir, may I take a message? Or would you rather we send for you when he arrives?”

“Ah, ahh...no need! The Director is... very clear, ehem – we don't mind the wait at all! An appointment with him is not that urgent anyway. Just mention the Fatui is interested to get acquainted with him, and his knowledge of the obscure. We’re confident your business will greatly benefit from a connection with us.”

“Hmm... I doubt it,” the Director hummed breezily, turning to a window to gaze out at the full moon.

The gentleman blinked, thinking he misheard. “Excuse me?”

Hu Tao giggled cutely, glancing back at him with smiling eyes. “We'll keep your words in mind, good sir! Buh-bye now~ I'm sure you're a busy man yourself. Our dear undertaker will tend to you when you need our services. At any time.”

The gentleman gulped, eyes widening. “Uhh, right. Yes! With gratitude!

Uhm, farewell, Director Hu. Thank you for gracing us with your presence, and your time. You too, Ferrylady,” he hurriedly added, not wanting to often the boss of the funeral parlor by being rude to the undertaker –

The... undertaker...

One who buries the bodies...!

When the gentleman hastily scurried away into the night, the Ferrylady turned to her young boss, face turning worried.

“Hu Tao-Zhǔrèn? I apologize if this might be spoken out of turn but – ”

“Why am I so direct with a potential customer?” Hu Tao smiled more lightly, doodling something on a parchment with careless brushstrokes.

“...”

Hu Tao chuckled, used to the Ferrylady's silence. The quiet suits the atmosphere perfectly.

“Hmm. Let’s just say for those that have incurred death's wrath, dark butterflies shall sure to follow. Poor things. To think they would have to do such a thing. Such a waste of delicate beauty.”

The Ferrylady gasped, hovering her hands over her mouth, eyeing the rough symbol of the Fatui next to large ink splatters. “Oh my! You mean – ”

“When Zhongli-xiānsheng is back, warn him of the visit. Business might pick up soon. Who knows~?” Hu Tao shrugged, humming thoughtlessly into the moonlit night.

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A/N: Sorry for the long introspection. I’ve been like this whenever I try to think link a 6,000+ y.o. Archon. Then again, no matter how much knowledge you have, there’s so many things you can still learn about.

Like common sense.

Quick translation of the honorifics I chose to use:

Chief-dàmā = Mei affectionately calling Granny Ruoxin ‘Chief Granny/Auntie’.

bàba = daddy/papa

xiānsheng = mister. In Japanese, its like ‘sensei’ (hence the Jap Dub xD)

zhǔrèn = director/manager

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Follower Tag: @meladollsims

#to be seen #zhongli #zhongli x female OC #zhongli x oc #fanfiction #companion mini exuvia #shapeshifting archon #hu tao #ferrylady #common sense is not common

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tawakkull · 3 years

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ISLAM 101: Spirituality in Islam: Part 93

God and the Truth of Divinity

The sacred term Allah (God), which is also referred to as the Word of Majesty or the All-Supreme Name in the sense that it is the Chief Divine Name comprising all other Names, is the proper Name of the All-Majestic, All-High Divine Being, Who introduces Himself to us with His All-Beautiful Names and draws a frame in our minds with all His Attributes of Glory so that we may have knowledge of Him; He is the All-Sacred One called by all His Names and the All-Glorified One described by all His Attributes of Perfection, and it is He Who is the sole, peerless Sovereign on the Thrones of Divinity and Lordship. As also stated by Sayyid Sharif al- Jurjani,[1] the all-blessed word of God is the proper Name of the Divine Essence as God, (from the viewpoint of His absolute Uniqueness and His total detachment from the created). According to the scholars of the basic principles of the Religion and the religious methodology, Allah (God) is a proper Name particular to the Divine Essence exclusively. Known also as the Name of Majesty and the All-Supreme or Greatest Name, this all-blessed Word is particularly mentioned as the Greatest or All-Supreme Name.

All the other Names belonging to the Divine Being are descriptive names or the names or titles that function like attributes, while the word Allah (God) is the Name of His Essence (Dhat), and comprises all the other Names directly or indirectly. That is to say, if a person declares their belief with the expressions such as “There is no deity but the All-Holy and All-Pure,” or “There is no deity but the All-Compassionate,” or “There is no deity but the All-Glorious with irresistible might,” and so on, they have not declared their belief properly, as none of these Names wholly designate the Divine Being, Who is known by all His Names and recognized by all His Attributes. One who declares their belief only with such expressions knowingly or unknowingly attempts to restrict the infinite sphere of Divinity and Lordship to the areas of the manifestations of the Names the All-Holy and All-Pure or the All-Compassionate or the All-Glorious with irresistible might, thus trying to make the infinite finite or the all-encompassing encompassed in one respect.

The All-Majestic, All-High Being Who is called by the all-sacred Name God[2] is the unique source of the truths of humanity, the universe, and things, and their ultimate, unique origin and ultimate, unique, primary cause. He is the Necessarily Existent Being Who exists by Himself. All our studies of the outer and our inner worlds demonstrate this fact. There is not a single thing in the universe that does not have multiple indications of the All-Sacred One Who is called by the Name of Glory, God. It can be said that the All-Sacred Name God exists inscribed both on the face of every thing and being and on the visage of the universe as a whole. However, this truth is more manifest and more clearly eligible in the physical and metaphysical face of humanity. As Imam ‘ Ali[3] said, a human being does not comprise a small, physical body; a human being is the miniature, the most precious copy of the whole universe; the human contains the entire contents of the universe and bears witness to the Divine Being as loudly as the entire universe. With all our states, we human beings demonstrate the All- Initiating; with all aspects of our lives we exclaim that we are dependent on Him. With the outer and inner dimensions of our existence, we proclaim Him.

It is utterly unreasonable, contrary to the perceptible reality, and an unfortunate deception in the name of a scientific approach not to attribute existence, including humanity and the universe, to the Divine Being. Any existence which is not attributed to the Divine Being is groundless, meaningless, and void; any knowledge or sciences that are not connected to Him are mere delusions and illusions, any studies or analyses that do not lead to knowledge of Him are fruitless and in vain, and discussions or conversations that do not generate love of and closeness to Him in the human consciousness are useless.

It is a fact that all existent things tell us about Him with countless tongues and that the human conscience always reminds of Him with profound sensations, perceptions, and inclinations particular to it. Whenever with our physical or spiritual sensations we turn to this world of exhibition—the outer world, this book of existence, and our inner depths, we always listen to melodies about Him and are aware that we subsist by Him. God is an All-Transcendent, Peerless Existent One Who expresses Himself with everything He creates and Who makes His existence felt through our consciousness with countless tongues, and thus reminds us that He is ever present everywhere, despite His absolute freedom from time and space. All visible and invisible realms of existence loudly proclaim His Divinity and Lordship, telling us that He is worshipped because of His Being. God has absolute right to be worshipped and is rightfully besought due to His being God. For this reason, worshipping Him with praise, thank, exaltation, adoration, glorification, and devotion is our duty and His right.

As for the false deities which humans manufacture and worship, they can never be God or be substituted for Him. Humans have deified the sun, the moon, stars, seas, rivers and so on, and worshipped many false, artificial, fabricated deities, adoring thousands of fleeting, death-bound and essentially impotent things or beings. By following these and offering worship to them, human beings have actually disrespected their own selves, their spirits and their essential nature. When they have rejected them all and turned to the Absolute, True Worshipped One, they have been saved from being debased beings and discovered their own selves through the values God has bestowed on them.

Since whatever human beings have worshipped other than God has no existence by itself and owes its own existence to God, it has emerged as the product of misguided thought and has in turn disappeared with sound logic and reasoning. Misguided thought and false belief, which have appeared one after the other, have also disappeared and been forgotten one after the other, and the final say has always remained with the All-Sacred Being, Who is absolutely free from any phenomenon that can be attributed to the created, such as coming and going or appearance and disappearance. Even though some false deities have temporarily dominated the minds of a great many people and polluted them over the course of history, the human innate recognition and admission of the Creator, the True Worshipped One, which is regarded as the inherent riches and depths of human conscience, has driven away all products of illusions and delusions; as a result human beings have turned to the All-Majestic, All-High Being, Who is the Owner of the All-Beautiful Names and All-Exalted Attributes. They have turned to Him once more after every epoch of misguidance because there is no other source of power or riches that can support or satisfy the human consciousness other than Him. Anything or any being which cannot meet this great, intrinsic need of humanity can never be deserving of worship and cannot be a deity. And there is no question that such a being is not deserving of worship, which is absolutely due to the All-Sacred One called by the All-Beautiful Names and described by the All-Sacred Attributes; indeed, they cannot even be intercessors between Him and humans.

Neither Divinity nor Lordship ever admits a partner. The One Who has the absolute right to be worshipped is One and Unique. The different events, states, and circumstances that we observe are results of the different manifestations of God’s different Names and Attributes. The truth of the absolutely True One or the Ultimate Truth is free from whatever is related to quality or quantity. Moreover, He is neither a substance nor something accidental, but is absolutely free from all features and defects that are particular to corporeality. In the following poem in which he portrayed the creeds of Islam, the respected Ibrahim Haqqi of Erzurum expresses this point very beautifully:

There is no opposite, nor peer, of my Lord in the universe; He is the All-Transcendent and exempt from having a form. He has no partners and He is free from begetting and being begotten; He is Unique, having no equals— these He mentions in Suratu’l-Ikhlas. He is neither a body nor a substance, nor is He an accident,[4] nor of matter. He does not eat and drink, nor is He contained by time. He is absolutely free from change, alteration, and transformation, and from colors and having a shape as well— These are His Attributes in the negative. He is neither in the heavens nor on the earth; Neither on the right nor on the left; neither before nor after; He is absolutely free from any direction. So He is never contained in space. As the respected Ibrahim Haqqi says, God is neither a body nor a substance; nor is He a compound or a composite, a divisible being, or a part, nor does He have a form or shape or any other feature that is attributed to the created. He is the First, the Last, the All-Outward and the All-Inward—He is the All-Inward, more inward than anything inward in His manifestations, and the All-Outward, more outward than anything outward in His being hidden. As He has no physical contact with anything in His Acts, He is also exempt from having or using any instruments in pronouncing His will or decrees.

We know Him by His hundreds of Names, such as the All-Merciful, the All-Compassionate, the All-Unique of Absolute Oneness, the Eternally Besought One, the All-Independent Single One, The All-Living, the Self-Subsisting (by Whom all subsist), the Eternally Existing One with no beginning, the All-Powerful, the All-Knowing, the All-Hearing, the All-Seeing, the All-Glorious with irresistible might, the All-Compelling, the All-Gracious and All-Beautiful, the All-Majestic, the All-Great, the All-Generous, the All-Pitying, the One Who has exclusive right to all greatness, the Divine Being, the Master, the Sovereign, the Lord, the All-Wise, the All-Speaking, the Creator, the All-Providing, and so on; we know Him by his dozens of Attributes, such as Life, Knowledge, Hearing, Seeing, Will, Power, Glory, Wisdom, Grandeur, Compelling, Being Eternally Existent with no beginning, Speech and so on. However, we can never claim that We know or that we are able to know Him perfectly; rather we must sigh with the admission: “We have not been able to know You as knowing You requires, O the All-Known,” and seek refuge with the consideration: “(The admission of one’s) incapacity to perceive Him is perception itself.” God cannot be perceived or comprehended for He is the All-Encompassing One impossible to be comprehended. Therefore, claiming that He can be comprehended means claiming that the One Who is the All-Encompassing can be encompassed at the same time, which is clearly a contradiction. Furthermore, all the Names that are derived from certain verbs which express His Acts are not sufficient, individually or collectively, for us to be able to perceive His Essence. Logic and reason can attain knowledge of the Maker of Glory in the shade of the All-Beautiful Names only to the extent that He wills and allows this. This is all of the knowledge we can acquire concerning Him. How well the famous German poet said:

Whatever we say about Him, perception of the Essence of the All-Holy Creator is absolutely impossible. Human beings can only have some ambiguous feelings and conjectural ideas about the Divine Essence. We continuously feel and experience the existence of God both in our spirits and in nature. Therefore, what does it signify whether we know His Essence or Essential Nature or not? Even though we mention God with hundreds of Names and unique Attributes, our descriptions will fall far short of expressing the truth. Seeing that the Supreme Existence, Which we call Divinity, expresses Itself in multifarious manifestations —not only in human beings but also in all major and minor events and states in the universe and the rich, restricted bosom of nature—then to what extent can human description of such a Being be sufficient?

We must be utterly respectful of Him and self-possessed on our account. This must be the reason why both the greatest of theologians and many Sufis have preferred mentioning God with the pronoun “He.” For there is limitless profundity and comprehensiveness when one avoids describing Him with any Attribute or Name. The pronoun “He,” free from the restriction of any specific Attribute or Name, is a mysterious word which comprises all of His Majestic and Gracious manifestations, His All-Beautiful Names, and His Attributes of Glory. It must be because of this comprehensiveness that, provided we refer to Him by the word “He”, there are those who regard “He” as being God’s All-Supreme Name. I think it is more proper to regard it as the All-Supreme Name in expressing His Unity in the fullest terms possible.

When we consider the Divine Being from the viewpoint of His Uniqueness or absolute Oneness (ahadiya), we mean or refer to the Pure Essence without taking His Names or Attributes into consideration. When He is approached from the perspective of His Unity (wahidiya), He is considered together with His All-Beautiful Names and Attributes of Glory. At this point, human consciousness considers God along with all His works, Acts, Names, and Attributes; this means sensing the sphere of His Lordship.

Calling the rank of the truths of True Existence the sphere of Divinity is because this expression refers to the Necessarily Existent One as the All-Holy, Pure Essence. The All-Supreme Name Allah (God) is the proper title for this rank. Divinity in this sense is the title of a transcending truth that is observed on account of Its works and which is known but cannot be encompassed with Its decrees, judgments and principles. Our knowledge and perceptions concerning Divinity consist only of some of Its characteristics. This knowledge is never sufficient to attain complete knowledge of this sphere, for there are so many other exalted Attributes about Which we cannot have knowledge; complete knowledge and comprehension of Divinity requires knowing all of these Attributes and this is not possible for human beings to achieve.

From another point of view, on account of the vastness of Its manifestations, Divinity also encompasses the decrees, judgments and principles of the areas of manifestations that belong to the spheres of Divine Uniqueness or Oneness and Unity, in the sense that every thing or being is given its due. Just as all universal or particular bounties and favors pour forth from that sphere, so too are all thanks given and all acts of worship done in return for those bounties and favors directed to it.

Furthermore, Divine Uniqueness and Unity have another aspect which is related to the All-Holy, Purely Divine Essence. On account of Its mirror in which It is reflected, Divine Uniqueness or absolute Oneness has been expressed as: “God was and there was nothing else besides Him,”[5] while Divine Unity has been interpreted in the sense of Everything is perishable (and so perishing) except His “Face.” His alone is judgment and authority, and to Him you are being brought back (28:88). While the former refers to God as eternal having no beginning, the latter refers to Him as eternal having no end. According to this approach, since the rank of Uniqueness relates to the Pure Essence, this Uniqueness has been accepted as having precedence over the rank of Unity, Which is considered together with the Names and Attributes. As for Divinity, It has precedence over both Uniqueness or Oneness and Unity, for It has the transcending characteristic of giving everything its due and restoring every right in the vastness of all realms of contingency, and the rank of All-Mercifulness (ar-Rahmaniyya), which is regarded as the horizon of the initial manifestation of all Divine Names and Attributes, has been considered as Its area of unfolding. The proper title of this rank is the All-Sacred Name the All-Merciful (ar-Rahman), to Which are referred the Names of the Divine Essence such as the All-Unique of Absolute Oneness, the One of Unity, the Eternally Besought One, the All-Holy, and the All-Supreme, as well as such Attributes of His like Life, Knowledge, Hearing, Seeing, Power, and Will.

The rank which encompasses God Almighty’s Names, Attributes of Glory, and wise Acts has been called the sphere of Divinity on account that He is—and is accepted as—the Divine Being Who is Absolutely Deserving of Worship, while the rank which relates to the Name the Lord and draws attention to His being— and being accepted and obeyed as—the Lord has been designated as the sphere of Lordship. The statements of the Qur’an concerning both of these spheres are explicit and decisive. The Qur’an tells us to believe in God as both the One of Divinity and the One of Lordship. For example, on account of describing God Almighty with His Attributes of Perfection that are inherent in His Essence and declaring Him to be absolutely free from any attributes of defect, Suratu’l-Ikhlas (Sura 112) emphasizes the Unity of Divinity or God’s being the Unique One of Divinity. While Suratu’l-Kafirun (Sura109) pronounces that worship and adoration are particular to God exclusively, Who has no partners, rivals, or equals, and therefore emphasizes the Unity of God as the All-Worshipped One. Suratu’l-Fatiha (Sura 1) teaches and stresses both the Unity of Divinity and the Unity of God’s being the All-Worshipped One and the Unity of Lordship.

If the Qur’an is studied from these aspects, it can be seen that in almost all of its chapters it teaches and emphasizes these kinds of Unity. The verses which tell us about the Names, Attributes, and Acts of God Almighty point to the “ Unity of the Source of revealed knowledge” or the “ Unity of Divinity,” while the verses that are concerned with worshipping God Who has no partners, rivals, or equals refers to the “ Unity Which demands worship and relates to will-power” or the “ Unity of Lordship.” The Unity of Divinity has also been interpreted as the confirmation and conviction that whatever our Prophet taught and conveyed to us is true, while the Unity of Lordship means the fulfilling of all Divine commands with the utmost sensitivity and refraining from whatever has been forbidden.

That which we have been trying to explain from the beginning consists of only some pieces of information and is in no way sufficient to express God or to be a translator of the truth of the Ultimate Truth. To date, thousands, perhaps, millions of people have tried to relate about the Essence of the Ultimate Truth and to describe Him based on their inspirations—May God reward them for their efforts! The excitement of the heart, the tears and the ink of the pen have cooperated numerous times to describe Him, but every time everything has been entrusted to the realms beyond and those further beyond, and self-possession has been preferred. What is most proper to do in this respect must be to remain content with His Own particular descriptions and instructions, saying:

How can it be possible to describe the All-Protecting Owner! What is proper is not to attempt to describe Him. If the goal and result of all these attempts to know God and to make Him known is our servanthood to Him, our love of Him, and our pleasing Him, then we should pursue these with our outer and inner senses and our faculties to try to reach our goal. He has never disappointed those who have turned to Him with love and attachment and He has never abandoned those who come to His door, or left them unrewarded.

The meaning of servanthood is explicit, and there are two aspects of “love of God.” The first is loving Him, while the other is being loved by Him. Mentioning these two aspects, the Qur’an says: God loves them, and they love Him (5:54). That is to say, God Himself and His servants both love and are loved. This love is certainly different from the love we feel for other people. God’s love of His servants is being pleased with them and favoring them with a happy end, while the believers’ love of and yearning for Him is on account of His being the sole Source of all beauty, perfection, favor, as well as all gifts, bounties, and bestowals.

Loving Him and feeling attachment to Him is something from among His gifts and favors. For this reason, being a translator for others who resembled him, a saintly friend of God is reported to have said: “I thought that I knew, loved, and was seeking Him; I thought I was pursuing His good pleasure. But later I came to realize that I had been following Him in His mentioning, loving, and seeking me.” That is, we know, love, mention and seek Him because He makes us know, love, mention and seek Him.

The respected Junayd al-Baghdadi expresses the same reality as follows: “I have known God by God Himself; also by God Himself or through the messages of His Messenger have I come to know the true nature of all other than Him.” No matter with what Attributes He has described Himself through His inspirations and Revelations on different wavelengths, He is the All-Transcending One describable only with those Attributes, and no matter with what Names He refers to Himself, He is the All-Sacred One Who is called by those Names. Neither does His Essence or Essential Being resemble other beings, nor are His Attributes like the attributes of others. He is the First and there is none preceding Him and there is no time preceding Him; He is the Last and He makes our consciousnesses aware of eternity and His being eternal.

Saintly friends of God have advanced toward the mysteries that belong to Him through the manifestations of His Acts in the outer and inner worlds, and then through the manifestations of His Names, and then through the manifestations of His Attributes, and then through the manifestation of His Essence. They have crowned their immaterial, invisible journey with certain kinds and degrees of visions of Him that they have attained by means of the favors and regards with which they have been honored. They have made great efforts to be able to experience manifestations of His Essence with great yearning, sometimes sighing and weeping for their pitiable states during their journey, and at others rejoicing with the breezes of nearness to and familiarity with meeting Him. They have criticized and supervised themselves in great shame before Him, paying at His door their most humble respects, and continuing their journey half-dead and half-alive. How beautiful is the following description of these experiences:

I was ashamed of myself in the realm of love; turning to my body, soul, and heart, I reprimanded myself. I leveled to the ground the building of self on the path of love; O Nigari,[6] I destroyed my physical existence for the treasure of His love. In a poem in his Diwan-i Kabir, the respected Mawlana Jalalud- Din ar- Rumi speaks about love for God as follows:

It is incumbent upon lovers to search for the Friend. Like a wild flood, rubbing their faces against the ground and striking their heads against rocks, they should run until they reach the Friend’s river. Actually, it is He Who both wills and chooses. We sometimes go toward the Friend’s river babbling like a running water, and sometimes remain kept in His pitcher like standing water. And other times come when we boil like an earthenware pot on fire.

What those who know Him should do is to advance, babbling like water and weeping day and night. If those who do so are also able to read accurately whatever there is around them, they will one day be rewarded abundantly with knowledge and love of Him and be able to realize the true purpose of their existence.

O God! I ask You for resignation after calamity or any of Your decrees or judgments concerning me, the coolness of life after death, the pleasure of observing Your Face, and the zeal to meet You without suffering the harm of anything harmful, or any misleading intrigue and mischief. And bestow, O Lord, blessings and peace on the Inaugurator and Seal of Prophethood, on his Family and Companions, may God be pleased with them all.

[1] Sayyid Sharif al-Jurjani (d. 1413): One of the leading theologians of the 15th century. He visited Istanbul in 1374, and upon his return, in 1377, he was given a teaching appointment in Shiraz. Sharhu’l-Mawaqif is his most famous work. [2] In this translation God is always used to mean Allah. [3] Imam ‘ Ali is ‘ Ali ibn Abi Talib (606–661): One of the first four to embrace Islam and one of the greatest Companions of the Prophet Muhammad, upon him be peace and blessings, and his cousin and son-in-law, as well as the last of the four rightly-guided Caliphs. He was renowned for his profound knowledge, deep spirituality, and great courage, for his sacrifices for God’s cause, and for his eloquence. [4] Accident in philosophy means something which is added to a substance or into which a substance grows or develops over time. It is therefore not a substance. [5] Related from the Prophet, upon him be peace and blessings, in Ibn Hajari’l- Asqalani, Fathu’l-Bari, 6:289; al-Alusi, Ruhu’l-Ma‘ani, 9:106. [6] Seyyid Mir Hamza Nigari was a Sufi poet from Azerbaijan. He wrote lyrical poems to express God’s love.

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arcticdementor · 3 years

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By now, the spectacle that is South Africa’s insurrection has been dominating the attentions of just about every political junkie on twitter, drawing the best minds from every corner of the world to bear witness to the fall of the rainbow nation into a predictable quagmire of irresolvable chaos. At home, the pessimism comes in many flavours, and the denialism in many, many more.

The brute facts are now well-known. After dodging prosecution for extreme corruption for over a decade, the former president Jacob Zuma was finally arrested for the relatively minor charge of contempt of court, for not appearing when summoned. While he held out for several days as his supporters (who comprise about half the ruling party including several senior cabinet ministers) picketed outside his palatial compound (bought with the UK foreign aid budget of 2017) and blocked police from entering, he eventually handed himself in. So concluded a long factional battle between Ramaphosa and Zuma that claimed hundreds of lives in burned freight trucks, assassinated councillors, and billions of Rands in legal fees, patronage and PR. Or so it appeared.

On the 8th of July, the president disbanded the Umkhonto weSizwe Veterans Association, essentially the continuation of the old military wing of the ANC, and fiercely loyal to Jacob Zuma. The next day, together with assistance from elements within state intel and security, they deployed to major transport routes, food depots, retail outlets, police stations, power stations, water treatment plants, and ports, to shut down and burn what they could, crippling the Johannesburg-Durban trade artery that carries 65% of our trade volume and half our economic capacity.

After encouraging looting targeting white-owned businesses or “white monopoly capital”, the MK vets could watch as riots burst out to take advantage of the chaos and everything was stripped to the bone by opportunistic looters. In the shadows, organised and disorganised elements blurred together, as even the wealthiest elements of black society got in on the fun of looting, packing luxury sportscars with groceries and appliances before watching the flames tear down the shops and factories.

The police and the military did nothing, and the president was silent, paralysed. Soon the violence spread to the suburbs, and residents cobbled together militia to guard their homes. Proof of address was required to buy groceries. This received wails of agony from the press class and black social media. Slogans calling for the slaughter of Indians (who form a large minority in Durban) and whites became common, and soon the newspapers were joining in on the scapegoating, accusing the citizens’ militia of racism.

…

Everyone here saw this coming, but for decades now, it has been an unacceptable thing to do, to remark upon the inevitable future we find ourselves in. Why it came to all this, and why it matters to Americans and Europeans, is the point of this essay. It will be uneasy to stomach, but it must be swallowed. We live on the brink of barbarism, and the West is following us every step of the way.

A nation may have a lot of ruin in it, but a poor nation has less ruin in it than a wealthy one. When a state collapses or undergoes revolution in the distant reaches of Africa or Asia, there is a certain social distance which prevents Westerners directly apprehending the significance of the social dynamics, the closeness of the dangers, the universality of the lessons, the pain and the tragedy of the loss.

But South Africa is different. South Africa is at once Western and alien to Westerners. Our constitution is Western. Our revolutionaries and our reactionaries and our racial cosmology is Western. Our highest aspiration is that of the West at large – a universal state which recognises no difference of class, race, or creed. And that is why when we observe South Africa, we stare into the abyss of Western civilisation and its global future. Each Westerner sees himself reflected in that void, from the national-socialist, to the anarcho-communist, to the black-nationalist and the bleeding-heart liberal.

And they are right to.

…

Watching any graph of any indicator in South Africa sees every resource drying up, every indicator of health taking a nosedive, and the population booming beyond control, kept in check only by the enormous and perennial pandemic of AIDS and tuberculosis that take many times the number of victims supposedly taken by the SARS-CoV2 virus, every year. We are the rape capital of the world, have seen over half a million homicides since 1994, and the state has not replaced any of the infrastructure built by the Afrikaner nationalist government. The graphs just spell doom in their trend lines, and have for years now, as the Centre for Risk Analysis’s I-told-you-so’s often repeat.

When they came to power, the ruling party was a coalition of communists, black nationalists, organised criminals and common thugs. However, their patrons in the Soviet Union were disbanded, and the Western state apparatus was still composed of law-abiding institutions and competent civil servants. So they purged the minorities, and placed party members at all key posts throughout, to ensure ideological and partisan loyalty – this was called cadre deployment. This crippled the institutions. When the last of the old guard experts were ushered into the wilderness in 1998, they made several systematic departmental reports, which declared the need for replacing infrastructure immediately, to cope with the increased dependent population. This was ignored, largely because the experts were white.

…

While many see the doom as setting in after 1994, it in fact began much sooner. The means by which the ANC gained power was not through civil disobedience, but through a long and sustained campaign of totalitarian violence called the Peoples War, which raged from 1979 until 1993. Black wage increases increased faster than white until this period (51.3% vs 3.8% since 1970), economic growth was over 5%, inequality was falling and blacks enjoyed the highest standard of living of any black population on the continent.

The addiction to cheap black labour meant that industry was irritated with state policies, and in the end, it was the local plutocrats like Harry Oppenheimer and the old secret societies like the Afrikaner Broederbond who opened secret negotiation to end apartheid. And while SA may have had a robust economy once, nothing survived the People’s War. It aimed to “make the country ungovernable”, and largely succeeded. Controlling migration from the black homelands became impossible, and maintaining law and order as the bodies piled up became harder and harder.

…

But the liberal establishment could not bring themselves to believe there were systemic reasons for this state of affairs beyond “corruption” or “inequality”, and the struggle to blame the status quo on the previous regime became ever harder. So they blamed Zuma. The lost decade, they called it. So when Cyril Ramaphosa, a man largely blamed for the Marikana massacre, finally took the party leadership in 2017, after a long, expensive battle of assassination, bribery and skulduggery, he billed himself as a liberal reformer and anti-corruption campaigner, and the international community fell for it hook line and sinker, and local liberals worshipped him like the coming of a new Mandela. He promised the 4th Industrial Revolution. He promised the reigning in of BEE. The Economist endorsed him over the liberal DA.

But he was lying.

…

There are only three sources for non-socialist print media coverage of politics in South Africa. Politicsweb, where all the old senior analysts go when they become persona non grata, the Institute of Race Relations (a venerable old classic-liberal institute with a daily paper, the Daily Friend, and a consulting business, Centre for Risk Analysis), and Maroela Media, an Afrikaans-language publication run by Afriforum, the civil rights activist organisation which sprung from the Afrikaner-national Solidariteit movement.

Aside from this, every other publication leans further to the left than a man with his left leg blown off, and due to a hangover of apartheid-era Cold War politics, “left and right”, terms only applicable among the educated classes, roughly align with a black-vs-white friend-enemy distinction. The Mail & Guardian, for instance (indirectly owned by the Open Society Foundation), has refused to cover any rural homicide committed against a white victim in nearly a decade, despite a global magnifying glass being placed on the barbaric torture and murder spree that has slowly been smouldering across our rural hinterlands. When a white person commits a crime, it is milked dry every day until the journalists get carpal tunnel. But against the ocean of violent depravity committed by the racial majority, which has taken half a million lives since the fall of apartheid, we receive virtual silence. Swaziland, seeing the same kind of violent uprising as KwaZulu Natal is, is treated as a democratic revolution against a tyrannical absolute monarch, despite the opposition being mainly violent communists receiving support from South African parties like the EFF.

…

I was a communist when I was at university. I was delivered a faithful belief in progressivism, nonracialism, revolution and universal democracy, through the national curriculum in South Africa. I was introduced to Marx and Mill as an A Level student in the UK, and when I returned to my native country, I was exposed once more to the poverty and desperation and racial tensions. I assumed all the positions one would expect. More democracy, more repudiation of Christianity and white people, more redistribution, more socialism. But the political waters were calm in those days, and this was mere posturing. Then in 2015 my friends began a campaign to topple the statue of Cecil Rhodes overlooking Cape Town from the university his will founded.

#RhodesMustFall mushroomed rapidly, and became the romantic darling of not only us horny little revolutionaries, but leftists worldwide, who exported the new iconoclasm to Oxford and South Carolina. It is now remembered as #FeesMustFall, a campaign to make tertiary education free (for blacks). But I watched it grow from the inside, and partook in the occupation of admin buildings, touring other college protests in the Cape out of solidarity. But it became clear that it was first and foremost about racial hatred and the purging of Western influence, under their holy trinity of Steve Biko, Franz Fanon and Kimberlé Crenshaw – segregation, national-socialism and a metaphysical racial hierarchy, in new nation called Azania, synonymous with the basketcase fictional nation of Evelyn Waugh’s novel Black Mischief.

This movement, while it began as nonracialist, soon became openly genocidal. Student leaders who called for genocide went unpunished, even praised by the VC of the University of Cape Town. This movement spread to every single university in the country, and despite prominent student leaders praising Adolf Hitler and calling for whites to be swept into the sea, singing genocidal songs at every protest, white students still offered themselves as human shields before police. Dining halls were segregated, classes were violently shut down, nonparticipants in some universities were beaten in their dormitories, staff were chased with buckwhips, buses were burned, paintings were burned, even security guards were burned, and more recently, so was the continent’s largest library. But no big newspaper offered moral criticism, just worries about whether the tactics were effective.

These young people defined a new era, and a new consensus – all struggles are one, and all are about black vs white, and whites must hand over everything and beg for their lives. The only lecturer in the entire country who stood up in public against this cultural revolution was the antinatalist philosopher David Benatar. All others kept their heads down, dithered, or joined the fray, calling for the heads of their less enthusiastic colleagues. Now the Fallists’ ideology is the official pedagogy of the entire university system. But this agitation had been the nature of political life at the poorer “bush colleges” for years now, just without the presence of minority students to trigger resentment or the ideas to build ideology: shut down every exam season to extract more lenient standards and increases in student grants.

And much like the explosion of violence seen at the national level today, South Africa’s poorer areas have been an unremitting hell for all those living in it below a certain class divide. 15% of all women are prostitutes, and the homicide rate is among the highest in the world, and some areas experience permanent civil war level violence. The old apartheid era town planning meant that black areas and minority areas were clearly separated, and this has meant a geographical buffer, where violent protest, which is again among the highest in the world, has largely left the middle classes out of it, even while it occasionally diverts traffic. Protests flare up constantly, as rival factions of the ANC, hamstrung by a corrupt internal promotions process and forbidden from dragging out dirty laundry in public, instead mobilise violent protests to contest wards and civil service posts, often burning down public infrastructure while the mob on the ground chants for “service delivery”.

…

Whatever else Nick Land writes, the lasting impact he had on me was in the very first essay at the opening of Fanged Noumena. He wrote it in 1989, when nobody beneath the highest reaches and darkest recesses of the Atlantic power structure had any awareness that South Africa was about to change forever.

Apartheid still seemed undefeatable to outsiders. The NP had recently smashed the heart of the ANC’s military campaign, creating a bloody hurting stalemate that observers at the time had no expectation would result in any pleasant outcome. Tens of thousands had already been massacred in the Peoples War to give the ANC a monopoly over the black liberation movements, but they seemed to be running out of steam. And so did Pretoria – influx from the Bantustans was unstaunchable, dependence on black labour was firm, and confidence in local cultural hegemony collapsed in 1976.

Nick Land, watching this, noticed something peculiar.

For the purposes of understanding the complex network of race, gender, and class oppressions that constitute our global modernity it is very rewarding to attend to the evolution of the apartheid policies of the South African regime, since apartheid is directed towards the construction of a microcosm of the neo-colonial order; a recapitulation of the world in miniature. The most basic aspiration of the Boer state is the dissociation of politics from economic relations, so that by means of 'Bantustans' or 'homelands' the black African population can be suspended in a condition of simultaneous political distance and economic proximity vis-a-vis the white metropolis. […] My contention in this paper is that the Third World as a whole is the product of a successful - although piecemeal and largely unconscious - 'Bantustan' policy on the part of the global Kapital metropolis.

…

When the British seized the Boer republics in 1900, they drew up the limits of control of the native African tribes where they already lived, and displaced a few thousand of them to tidy up the borders. These eventually became the Bantustans. Immediately, a long slow trickle of immigration was encouraged, not just from the Bantustans, but from British possessions in Asia. The migrant labour created a dense network of diffident ethnicities who demanded fences between them and their neighbours, while attempting to pursue economic exchange.

Black men, who could achieve far greater material wealth from working in the white economy than raising cattle and sorghum in the homelands, flowed steadily into white farmland areas and mining towns. In 1922, the South African Communist Party launched a general strike to demand the enforcement of a colour bar – “CPSA for a white South Africa!”. They were put down in a hail of gunfire by Jan Smuts, the architect of the unitary constitution, which allowed no devolved powers for regional self-governance.

Smuts was a member of Cecil Rhodes’s Round Table club, and shared Rhodes’s ambition to create a grand state where all literate English-speaking men and women south of the Zambezi would have the vote regardless of colour, and all the resources would belong to one grand cartel controlled by a British-American elite of enlightened natural aristocrats. Rhodes used money from his diamond empire and loans from Nathan Rothschild to fund the Jameson Raid and other means to instigate war with the Boer republics, which eventually resulted in the second Boer War and the creation of the Union of South Africa.

…

Smuts, architect of the Union of South Africa, also had a grand philosophy not unlike Nick Land’s – Land treats all matter and life as being ontologically the same, driven by “machinic desires” – all tendencies to motion and behaviour, whether in living or non-living material being fundamentally the same. All matter seeks more complex and integrated forms over time as a result of the force of entropy. Smuts’s grand philosophy, of which he wrote at length in Holism and Evolution, envisaged a means of looking at the world in which all of nature and society could be apprehended and governed as a single holistic system – all organisms, all cultures, all individuals, were destined to evolve into a greater whole, in which each part had its natural place, and that the common teleology of all matter and spirit was the global state, embodied in the League of Nations, the constitution of which he penned himself. Together with his extensive biological knowledge, Smuts and his London interlocutor Arthur Tansley gave birth to the modern systems theory of ecology, and hoped to see a central global technocracy overseeing a holistic ecological management system.

The aims of the United States since the Second World War have some remarkable similarities in approach. The post-war order saw the US employing a philosophy of “defence in depth,” controlling a defensive frontier from the China Sea in the East to the very edge of the Warsaw Pact countries, to ensure freedom of trade throughout this entire region. But this extended beyond military control. The use of embedded CIA operatives meant that those democratic representatives who resisted the grand plans of Atlanticism were swiftly dealt with under insidious operations like Gladio.

…

As these ideas bled into the old left, who were increasingly disillusioned from the failures of the Soviet Union. They turned, as Laclou and Mouffe did, to the notion of using sectional grievances to deconstruct the nation state, leading to the birth of intersectionalism under Kimberlé Crenshaw. The very foundations of nationhood and capitalist Christian civilisation could be toppled if only we united our struggles by leveraging our historical grievances, creating acrimonious divisions in the body politic on the basis of sex, sexuality, race and religion. Thus, the universal loyalties of the nation state that supposedly upheld capitalism would fall, and revolution would arise. This fell right into the plans of the American ruling class.

However, when the social morality of the postwar American colonial project in Europe met the plans of the military and the Malthusian tendencies of the RAND corporation, everything took on a far more ambitious character, with the help of a concept called “environmental security”. The first reference to ES in the sense of protecting the natural environment comes from the US EPA Technical Committee in 1971, as part of an ambitious attempt to quantitatively measure total social wellbeing. This EPA committee was the first to make environmental regulation part of a comprehensive plan for social wellbeing, driven by Holism and cybernetic ecology. They were exceeded in scope by the UN’s 1972 Stockholm Conference, where the idea of “comprehensive” (today, “human”) security emerged, and further, the Palme, Brundtland and Brandt Reports.

…

Under these new umbrella concepts came “human security” and environmental security, the Social Sciences Department of UNESCO and the SSRC found the unifying principles and programs they had sought since the 1950s, and pushed a proselytising program grounded in cross-discipline application of avant-garde ideas to seek “new ways of knowing”, promoting not scientific objectivity, but a synthesis of diverse perspectives. A wholesale transformation of the rules and discipline of social sciences followed, in service of global governance (see the works of Perrin Selcer).

UNESCO even deliberately set about creating a new world religion, in the words of its founder Julian Huxley, and formed the United Religions Initiative, to mould the world’s spiritual beliefs in line with international Anglo progressivism. Feminism and sexual libertinism formed a crowbar against the community cohesion that couldn’t be attacked by means of anti-nationalism, and into this soup of value inversions (erosion of disciplinary distinction, inter-subjectivity [i.e., truth-by-consensus over objectivity], and utopian welfare ideals like “freedom from fear”; “freedom from want”), dropped three wonder pills: Poststructuralism, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and Global Warming. Now the great power-narratives of the Atlantic empire were consolidated – Malthus-by-proxy, anti-traditionalism, international diversity-and-inclusion, and the free-trade, open-borders paradigm of the 90’s.

In the same moment as de Klerk gave up on apartheid, the West gave up on the nation state, and handed control to the internationalists, under hegemony of the Atlantic community. A new empire was being consolidated from the territories captured by the Allies in WWII. Thirty years later it is becoming transparent – the new centralised global tax regime has cemented it. Just as the ANC funds the influx of black voters into urban minority areas to build shacks on squatted land, the West welcomes mass migration from the third world, total open-borders, to transform the electoral system against the interests of the native population who might have their own desires, against the grain of global empire. Every corporation and state in the Western world discriminated against whites in hiring. The CIA peddles Critical Race Theory and actively recruits sexual minorities. Colour revolutions can be spotted whenever the rainbow flag or black fist makes an appearance.

Today, the Democratic Party in the US openly looks to South Africa for inspiration in dealing with what Yarvin called the “outer party” – all conservatives are being purged from every institution, in a vast cadre deployment program to ensure the core of the establishment becomes forever untouchable. On the streets they have even begun to use the same tactics for control – deploying huge mobs to destabilise cities when election season is approaching.

Minimum wage rises funnel employment into companies in public-private partnerships with the state, like Amazon, who is part of the Enduring Security Framework partnership of the CIA (which includes Facebook and Google). The analogies between their experimental management strategies and collectivised central-planning are no accident – any company that aims for a total retail monopoly through state-subsidised negative-profit growth is merely another route to total control.

And as the nation and the state are decoupled, the liberal-democratic institutions are being geared toward the concentration of power and wealth, and a strategy of divide-and-rule, to create a cannibal economy. Only a few, like Denmark, have realised what they have gotten themselves into.

…

Much as Aristotle said, a democracy can only function beneficially when steered by the middle class, as it was in Rhodesia and the old Cape, which restricted the vote to property-owners of all races. The middle class’s needs are the core of the productive community, and as Marx observed, they are loyal to the requirements of productive industry and local trade. With the combination of the proliferation of the welfare state and globalisation, the middle class has been whittled away in the West, just as it has here in southern Africa.

Reliance on the state for services means they can’t be sacrificed – in the UK, the NHS has become essentially a religious cult, feeding the civil service, medical contractors, immigrants and the poor alike, in a financially unsustainable way, for decreasing returns. As Philip Bagus observed, the democratic pressures to maintain institutional support via this sort of patronage forces modern western states to take on ever more debt and expand taxation to the limits. This then must be offset by QE, which must be guaranteed by the central state at a rate that benefits the most fragile provinces of any empire so that the whole system does not collapse.

…

What Robert Mugabe did was pursue the universal extension of a first-world welfare state to every peasant in the hinterland, praised by the global left. This required taking on an enormous amount of national debt. Once the IMF tried to impose austerity, Mugabe found this politically unsustainable – his support depended on the handouts, corrupt and legitimate, that he was delivering. So he had to switch to printing money to pay the debts. When inflation became too much to handle, they replaced the core of the economy with dollars, and only elites could survive, much like Venezuela today. As the national treasury ran dry, the military and the civil service became restless. To placate them, they were fed the farms and businesses of the remaining white minority, as well as many areas formerly occupied by black peasants. The state had to cannibalise itself to sustain the predatory ruling class.

During this time, Mugabe attempted to control every aspect of the environment and economy through price and capital controls, suffocating every aspect of social life with red tape. It only accelerated the process. While the vast global network of UN subsidiaries extract compliance from the US client states

In South Africa today, the state coffers are empty. Even the ruling party is feeling it, as their headquarters Luthuli House was attached by the court to pay for a crooked PR contract they refused to deliver on. We have since taken out an IMF bailout, which is being poured into infrastructure, mostly Durban’s port, which is now choked by smoke and looting. Our president’s advisors are pushing for land reform, and remarkably, one of them, Ruth Hall, was advising Robert Mugabe how to liquidate his pale kulaks back in 2002. Other advisors, like Thembeka Ngcukaitobi, call for the fulfilment of the genocidal prophecy of Makhanda, and have whites deprived of all land and all moveable and liquid assets. This is deliberate Zimbabwefication.

The same economic dynamics are present in the world at large – the share of GDP spent on welfare keep increasing, as does the debt-GDP ratio. Capital formation has been falling for decades, and chronic inflation is treated as a static phenomenon, which nobody dares reign in, because the entire system is dependent on low interest rates to keep the constant corrosive consolidation of the global market going full steam ahead. This arrangement results in the inflation of property prices as along term hedge against inflation which, when the plebs followed suit resulted in the 2008 bubble, when they tried to play the elites’ asset accumulation game with borrowed money.

…

What has America been doing these past 18 months? It has been printing money so fast that it has kept pace with the plummenting Rand, and allowed Cyril Ramaphosa to tell investors that his economy is relatively strong – the Rand has “stabilised”. Error of parallax. Nor is it even just America printing money. While they certainly can afford to, as the holders of the world’s reserve currency, China is attempting to do the same, only they are directly funnelling the cash into commodities, rather than spreading it around a financial elite over which they have minimal control.

And yet their leverage is far worse than America’s – Kyle Bass, who has been shorting the Chinese market for years now, insists that the historically unprecedented levels of leverage in the Chinese economy are unsustainable, and that they cannot, even under miracle conditions, correct their shrinking population trends sufficiently to turn this ship around. But what many forsee in dreams of revolution and revolt, the breakups of massive crumbling empires, is not going to happen as they hope.

Instead, the state will protect the stability of the ruling class and its control over the levers of power at the core, bleeding everyone dry and terrorising them into submission. What happened to Zimbabwe is a warning, but it only happened the way it did because half the population could leave and send home remittances. The iron fist of a “democratic” government capable of rigging its elections and gagging the press and the courts is only as tyrannical as the cost of a bus ticket to the next country. After 900-member Zoom calls and election “fortification”, I shouldn’t need to gild the lily any more.

As many observers of China remark, an economic collapse of a country of its nature will not result in a breakup or a massive reform, but in the shrink-wrap tyranny of North Korea, an eternal sclerotic stagnation, fed by government dependency, held in place by state security. The West is losing control of its ability to provide the kind of total state security required for this however, and has been reaching for a far more sinister method of control – the financial system.

And this is where all analogies break down, because what is about to happen here is unprecedented. The international Bank of Settlements has recently announced that they intend to use Central Bank Digital Currency to control the spending of all global citizens, and have the tech and the power to control each and every expenditure, and to shut anybody out of the ability to feed themselves if they so choose. But this movement to kick away the ladder and consolidate total control follows the same logic as Zimbabwe’s – the poor can only be fed for so long, but the ruling elite must be fed forever, or else the whole house comes down.

…

The twin systems of China and Atlantis are both attempting to consolidate total control over their economic and social environment. And in order to achieve the kind of reforms that he wishes to, Ramaphosa has reached for the help of both power blocs. China has colonised our northernmost province, and receives special treatment from law enforcement that must learn Mandarin. Chinese are registered as black, to benefit from the racial privileges blacks enjoy under Black Economic Empowerment. While the government’s reports usually look like a dog’s breakfast, their reports on the UN sustainable development goals are always crisp, professional, and detailed. SDG 10 justifies the expropriation of property, according to their logic.

…

The erosion of the middle class, the working class, the institutions of law and order and even the substance of the informal economy was dry tinder to the Zuma-faction’s firebrands. To fulfil his mandate to end corruption, Ramaphosa had begun prosecutions proceedings into the Zuma faction – tentatively of course, since any too-wide-ranging investigation would unearth the corruption of all. But lawfare isn’t enough. They were cut out of party patronage systems as big figures like Ace Magashule were expelled from the party. Judges ruled that the state would not cover their defence costs anymore.

When the Umkhonto we Sizwe veterans association was disbanded and cut off from “pension” money, they finally put into action something that they would have had up their sleeve for months. Police armaments caches had been going missing for months. Firearms training for youths had been going on at the local branches for years. Every storage depot and major highway was targeted, petrol stations, power stations, water treatment plants were hit. They needed to make the country ungovernable, and they did. But this time they didn’t have the support of the Swedish, the Russians or anybody else.

Complicit elements are even inside the SSA, our central intelligence agency. What it will take for Ramaphosa to clear the state and party of seditious elements will give him the power of a modern dictator, cheered on my the press and everybody else, who despises Zuma and his people for what they’ve wreaked upon us. But with three months left of military deployment, all of the military capacity in one province, and the president fearing wielding lethal force on black mobs for fear of his Marikana ghosts coming back to haunt him, the rebels have three months to decide whether to act.

That leaves three months to see whether we become a black-nationalist disctatorship, or a new Yugoslavia. The Zulu, who form the backbone of the rebellion, have cheered for Zulu independence before, though their forces are split – the Zulu nationalist/traditionalist party the IFP have stood firmly against this chaos. Zuma’s people are still pushing black identity over tribal. Zuma may have been a traditionalist, a defender of the Swazi royal house when in crisis, an expander of chieftains’ rights, but his time in head of the ANC death squads in Zululand in the 1990s makes Zulu solidarity impossible.

So chaos it is.

#robert duigan #substack #read the whole thing #south africa

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macmazatlan · 3 years

Text

Venator Star Destroyer 114 call sign “Colossus” Ship Log 354

[The following is a recording taken by commander Mason during a discussion with Era, Kenai, Titus and Pride]

Era began, “We are here to pass judgment on what both of you have done. Both former commanders Pride and Titus have been charged with conspiracy and treason against the legion. How do each of you plead?”

Titus was the first to reply, “I plead guilty.”

Soon after Pride also replied in favor of accepting guilt for their actions. Era continued the herring stating that Kenai was there to observe and pass the judgment whereas Era and Mason were to present evidence. The hearing lasted for five hours, evidence being presented through secret logs and testimonies from the various units within the legion. Evidence was also presented from the sentients of Primus Dawn when Omen and Sovereign presented findings as well. Following this Kenai decided to speak alone to commanders Pride and Titus before passing his judgment.

Kenai began, “The evidence presented against you both is undeniable. You both accept this yet only commander Titus seeks atonement… I only ask for one fact from each of you, why? Considering the situation even myself, a neutral individual would have come to the same conclusion as commander Era.”

Pride responded angrily, “You’re a second generation commander, both you and commander Era were among the first of our people to wage war against the sentients. You BOTH HAVE FOUGHT FOR YEARS AGAINST THEM! YET YOU SEEK TO UNDERSTAND THEM? ALLY WITH THEM? YOU DISGRACE US ALL AND THE WARBORN WHO DIED IN THIS WAR!”

Kenai responded by punching Pride, knocking him down hard since he was still in retrains. Commander Titus stepped back in surprise as Kenai collected himself and replied, “You are too emotional Pride. I suppose that is merely the flaw within your development. It is true that both Era and I are from the first and second generations of developed warborn… I will share some facts with you both regarding the truth of our development. Did you know that has each generation of warborn developed observable flaws?”

Titus shook his head while Pride now kneeling on the ground began to shake in anger staring at Kenai. Kenai continued his lesson staring down Pride, “Those of the first generation such as commander Era tended to be logical, cold, and devoid of emotion or empathy except in rare cases. Era himself being one of the few first generation warborn to develop a sense of empathy for those around him, but unlike yourself he can control his emotions. Those of the second generation like myself tend to balance the trait of logic with empathy. The third generation were excessively warlike but lacked the capability to be flexible and think critically in complex situations. The fourth generation were rebellious and cruel in their methods to each other and the populaces we were meant to protect. The fourth generation was a good reason why so many worlds rebelled against us in the first Sentient counter offensive. You Pride, are a part of the fifth generation and unlike those of the second, your generation is overly tainted by emotion over logic. A flaw that saw the loss of so many legions due to the rashness you show being controlled by your emotions. Yet your generation Pride, similar to the base species template that gave birth to the warborn. Titus, you and Mason were among the few born of the sixth generation, one capable of adapting and overcoming obstacles. Your generation was meant to turn the tides of the war in one way or another but you’re lack of extensive training and adequate experience nullified your contributions as you’re generation was the smallest developed during this war and quite possibly the last.”

Kenai ended his lesson and remained silent, allowing the information to soak in until Titus responded with his answer to Kenai’s question, “I did it because of Apocalypse. He directly threatened our legion and I wasn’t sure of how sentient consensus works. I worked to develop the bomb as a safeguard to protect what is left of my own legion and those of my fellow commanders. If I am seen as an enemy because of my actions then so be it, but I acted with the best intentions for the legion… I don’t deny that I failed to see the potential consequences of my actions. If I need to fall to ensure the safety of our men now then I will not hesitate in accepting any sentence bestowed upon me, as it was a choice of my own making.”

Kenai satisfied with his response then looked back to Pride, who was now standing with tense body language until finally he fell down to his knees. Pride began to shake and sobbing could be heard from under his helmet as he spoke quietly, “I… I just… I did it because I sought right the wrongs done to all of us warborn. These… machines have taken so many of us in this pointless war that it seems that our suffering will never end. When my legion was dispatched from the homeworld, I knew every trooper under my command. I knew their hopes and regrets… some wanted to live lives as civilians, others wished to be things that they were not nor could ever realistically be… What every one of my men seemed to wish for as a whole was the protection of our fellow warborn. A dream tarnished into nightmare as my legion felt the reality of war…” He looked up to Kenai and continued now with certainty, “You asked why? It’s because I feel that if I could end this threat to the last of the warborn on this world, then I can fulfill the remnant wishes of those long gone to protect the warborn who are left within this legion, put together by the legacy of the many. I stand by my actions, but if my punishment requires a severe sentence… then I will not hesitate in facing my fate, as that will be my atonement for my actions.”

Kenai remained silent, then moved near Pride and kneeled down and put a hand on his shoulder, “I know you meant well. What you didn’t realize was that the war is over now, we have peace with the sentients. It may not be in the way that any of us intended, but it is peace never the less. The fallen can rest easy, you can rest easy in knowing that you will continue to fulfill the wishes of those fallen in the present by being here with the legion and your men, not trapped bearing the burdens of the past. Let go Pride, for if you continue to shoulder the regrets of the lost, then ultimately you will become lost as well.”

Pride regaining his composure stood proud. Titus moved to his side and both looked towards Kenai and nodded their heads indicating readiness. Kenai while he inputted a command code into his gauntlet. Once the command code was entered then commanders Era and Mason entered the room. Captains Frey, Reed, Aurelius and Ferrus also entered to bear witness. The guardians Harbinger, Omen and Sovereign also wired into the hearing while Commander Kenai began, “I have made my to pass judgment. I have reviewed the objective and subjective evidence within this case. I’ve heard the testimonies of condemned. My sentence is as follows, both Titus and Pride will be placed under probationary command. Their service will be meant to give back tenfold to those they wronged whether it be through labor or sacrifice, they will atone for their actions. They will be subject to all, regardless of rank, or state of being. Through Continued service to the warborn, the sentient and other allies, they will redeem themselves tenfold for their actions. Death will not be accepted as due atonement as there is not redemption in the void, nor will there be with continued detainment. We were alone, but now we’re linked by something never thought possible between the warborn and the sentients… Peace, a unity that is needed more than ever as to end a conflict that lasted decades. My decision is final given the criteria and evidence placed before me. For disgraced commanders Titus and Pride to overcome their current status, then they will need the unanimous approval of myself, Era, Mason and the four guardians of Primus Dawn.”

With the last statement made, the restraints were taken from both commanders Pride and Titus. They were then dismissed from the room along with the witnesses until only Era, Mason and Kenai remained with the guardians on the line.

Mason stated, “Thank you Kenai. You and Era always had a way with words.”

Kenai and Era remained neutral while Omen responded over the com link, “I approve of this outcome, however there is still one last topic to discuss that wasn’t mentioned in the trial.”

Harbinger finished Omen’s statement, “That would be the Ion bomb. Warborn commander Kenai, what is you verdict for the device?”

Kenai responded, “Your concern is valid Omen and Harbinger. I’ve discussed it with my peers and we’ve come to an agreement to give it over to you.”

The sentients took more time than expected to respond, of which Sovereign replied, “An unexpected outcome… Extensive resources was put into the project yet you each are willing to relinquish the device?”

This time Era stated, “Yes. We gain nothing from cooperating within an aura of distrust, trust must be equal equally between all beings within an alliance such as this. Thus we are giving up the device as to assure the sentients that we do not intend ill upon you.”

More time passed before Harbinger replied, “We’ve reached a consensus, you will keep the device.”

The news shocked the warborn commanders as even Era was unsettled by the news, Mason responded urgently with confusion, “but… why?”

Omen took the time to respond length, “Because, throughout our recent encounters we’ve done much to impose on you warborn. You’ve sacrificed extensively to make this alliance work, obviously putting yourselves at risk by allowing us to shelter within the ship.”

Then Soveriegn added, “It is no secret that our troops set you men at unease at times with some exceptions within the warborn engineering unit.”

Harbingered continued, “Hence, this was an unexpected branch of trust you extended to us that we as a unity never thought would come to pass. We intend to do the same, you will keep the device.”

With that last statement the guardians logged out from the com link, leaving the awed commanders in the CIC. Plans were quickly made to secure the device only where the present commanders would know, in tandem measures were taken to ensure it’s security. Thus passed the judgment and redemption of Pride and Titus, the atoning warborn of the 1st Legacy Legion.

Venator Star Destroyer 114 call sign “Colossus” Ship Log 354

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justaddgame · 3 years

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Cooldown: The Other Monster in Monster Hunter

I don’t remember which monster it was, but just mere moments after its introduction there was this sudden “Aha!” moment as this nagging feeling I’d been having during my early hours with Monster Hunter Rise finally clicked. My Hunter was staring out into the depths of Shrine Ruins as he shouted to his cohorts “Let’s do this!” and this mystery feeling I had been wrestling with before finally had a shape to it. While the nature of Capcom’s popular Monster Hunter franchise appears cruel to some, I think there’s something worth considering that could help add a layer of depth for those wary to give a try.

We are the other monster in Monster Hunter.

The Other Monster in Monster Hunter Rise

Allow me to explain. The launch of Monster Hunter Rise on Nintendo’s Switch this year was met with critical acclaim from both critics and fans alike in a landmark entry—recently shipping 7 million units worldwide—in the long-running Capcom franchise that was born decades ago on Sony’s PlayStation 2 in 2004. Soon after its release in late March, however, I noticed a familiar conversation had developed among a few online outlets over concerns of the game’s main hook. Calling itself Monster Hunter leaves no surprises, and for some it evokes an uncomfortable feeling of relentless slaughtering. I think it’s worth considering the persistent theme existing throughout the series that depicts the monsters as something to be respected as much as they are feared. Because of this, nothing is wasted upon a kill, whether it’s in the use of new gear or vital materials to improve the lives of the community.

Still though, this discourse that surrounds the nature of the game seems to have persisted. Honestly, I get the feeling. I don’t think it’s unnatural at all to feel sorrow for the slain as you stand over them triumphantly. In Capcom’s defense, the monsters are endless—even the flagship monsters that adorn each game’s cover art—and the context behind the quests is often in the aid of the community under threat somehow.

Whatever your feelings may be on the subject, however, I don’t think it’s unreasonable for some to be put off by the context of these games. But my hope is for just one like this to find comfort in visualizing the Hunter in a different light. During my time with Rise so far, I like to think of the Hunter sharing a deeper connection to Monster Hunter’s world than as just a brutal killing machine.

My opinion? Hunters are no different than the rest of the monsters.

The Brain Thinks, The Limbs Fight, The Heart Races

I keep saying that, but what does it mean? So far it sounds like I’m only confirming those fears, right? But I don’t mean a monster in the tyrannical nature, but instead something like anything else you’d come across in Rise’s numerous quests.

In Monster Hunter Rise, players take the role of a Hunter within the village of Kamura, which has been bearing the brunt of monster attacks, all while a greater threat looms from the shadows. Like previous entries, you don’t have to take the task on alone. Palicos, the anthropomorphic felines of the Monster Hunter world, can be called upon to assist you in these hunts and provide numerous advantages in your quests. New to Rise is the Palamute, canine companions that are not only combat trained, but provide extra maneuverability to hunters allowing them to ride away from danger and climb to great heights much faster than on their own. The Hunter remains as the lead of the party, but this partnership is more ingenious than it appears on the surface.

In fact, I think it helps to illustrate the bigger picture: Hunters are not just mindless antagonists to the wildlife. On the contrary, one of Monster Hunter Rise’s fiercest monsters is the trio of Hunter, Palico, and Palamute and also one of many within the greater ecosystem. Each member provides a functional part and adds up to a greater sum to create something that as fearsome as any other monster.

First, take the Hunter, who provides advanced weapon handling skills as well as the vast knowledge of Rise’s bestiary necessary to topple each one efficiently. The Palico, meanwhile, provides crucial support when up against overwhelming odds. For example, think of some of the real-life animals and insects out there that have a defense mechanism—poison, quills, webbing, stingers. That’s the Palico. It’s the Hunter’s mechanism by way of laying traps and afflicting statuses to slow their target. Finally, the Palamute provides transportation and operates like a hidden hand to the Hunter, often distracting the monster so the other limbs can move in.

Working together as one, they create a unique and powerful team that’s awesome to observe and more so to be a part of it. One bout with the wily Bishaten and you’ll begin to appreciate the similarities these three share with the other monsters. When it comes down to it, they all rely on tails, claws, and whatever other tools are in their arsenal. The difference in appearance is merely for show.

Thriving in What Feels Like Home

This characterization only gets stronger as you take your first steps outside Kamura’s walls and into the Shrine Ruins, Rise’s initial area of exploration. It’s difficult to get a sense of these characteristics while spending time in the village, but this changes once out in the wild.

This is especially true for both Rise and its predecessor, Monster Hunter World, which first adopted open environments for players to freely explore, as opposed to individual zones from previous entries that loaded on demand. Quests are generally limited to a generous 50 minutes, and though you’re not likely to spend it all on one quest, especially given Rise’s ramped-up gameplay, it can be time well-spent gathering materials, studying the land, and engaging the wildlife.

But I think it’s in these two games where this extra time can be truly appreciated.

Like every other monster, Rise gives the player the opportunity to live on the terrain, if only briefly, and tap into the monstrous side of their crew. It’s the natural environment for a Hunter, where any restrictions fall away, and they can do what they do best. These moments are best illustrated by Rise’s soundtrack—lying still in the background while environmental ambience fills the void during gathering expeditions—before crashing in at the moment you’re spotted by something larger than yourself. After spending enough time out in the wild, Kamura begins to feel like a sanctuary from the dangers of reality. But that’s the most likely message, isn’t it? Any other monster has a place of security to retreat to, and Kamura certainly fits the bill for the Hunter.

The Titular Monster, Magnamalo, Stares Back at You

While the Monster Hunter series doesn’t necessarily dig down deep for a backstory to the player’s actions, it has been played around with here and there, while relying mostly on player actions. Rise is a more significant step this time around, with Capcom leaning on the tools provided by its in-house RE Engine to construct fun, if only a few, cutscenes to weave together enough engaging narrative in the single player component. Residents of Kamura have names as well as roles, and there’s a shared urgency to everyone’s efforts. Another one of those narrative elements is Rise’s flagship monster, Magnamalo, serving as something of a rival to the Hunter. You eventually tangle with it after a series of events foreshadowing the showdown, and the outcome serves as the game’s soft ending that leads into further adventures online with friends and strangers.

***Spoilers for Magnamalo’s fight***

I thought Magnamalo was a fascinating fight for several reasons, most of all because I saw things in this particular monster that wasn’t shared by others. For example, Magnamalo has a few characteristics that share an interesting similarity to the Hunter. First, we learn that it takes advantage of The Rampage, an event Kamura’s leader, Master Fuegen, alludes to as one of the greatest threats to Kamura’s survival. During these moments, several monsters siege the outer gates protecting the village in a coordinated attack. Magnamalo is apparently cognizant of this and is said to appear during these Rampages to feast on monsters, and we witness this ourselves as the story progresses.

Like Magnamalo, the Hunter participates in Rampages to acquire resources.

Upon coming face-to-face with Magnamalo for the first time, you may notice it fights with patience unmistakably like Hunters. Series veterans will be the first to tell you that best practice is to pay attention to what the monster is doing at all times in order to learn how to react. Magnamalo almost does something similar, choosing at times to fight at a distance, taking pot shots of energy released from its tail. It never seemed to be in a hurry until there was a sure opening.

In some ways, Magnamalo was like catching my reflection in the mirror. Our goals weren’t so unlike, and our methods were carefully crafted and considered. If Magnamalo, a monster, was like myself, how could I not be the same?

Don’t be Afraid to be the Other Monster

None of this is to say you can’t be uncomfortable with Monster Hunter.

I can understand people drawing real-world connections to the gameplay of Rise, I just wouldn’t take it that far myself. I can only take the context of the game and view it in my own perspective, and rather than concluding Hunters as sadistic, I choose to see them through the same lens as a creature like Magnamalo and the many others like it.

There may be other ways to help contextualize these games, I would welcome it. I think a counterpoint could be made from hunts never being depicted as sport, but, Arena Quests, admittedly, are hard to overlook considering these take monsters out of their natural environment. I can chalk that up to it being a video game—of course there’s challenges to do the thing as quickly as possible—and there’s numerous other things Monster Hunter does to gamify the experience all things considered.

I would like to see people try to crack that one. In the meantime, I’ll continue to believe, as I did in that moment on the Shrine Ruins cliffs, that we’re simply the other monster in Monster Hunter. Not a blight on nature, not an unfeeling killer, but a rival in a competitive environment for survival.

#writing #long post #video games #monster hunter #capcom #opinion #Cooldown

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lucrloux · 4 years

Photo

— meet LUC RIOUX !

hello ! my name is ani and i am so excited to be here ! below the cut you can find some information on my son, luc ! if you are interested in plotting please feel free to like this post or simply shoot me a message !

— the OVERVIEW !

( WOLFGANG NOVOGRATZ, CIS MALE, HE/HIM — oh gosh, sorry LUC RIOUX ! i didn’t see you there ! y'know, i can’t believe you’re already 26 years old; seems like just yesterday you were tripping over yourself, or was that yesterday ? just kidding, just kidding ! anyway, i hear that you’ve been here since 1955, or so you think; congratulations ! at least that shining EXTROVERTED personality of yours hasn’t changed a bit, especially that OBSERVANT + CHARMING, but IMPULSIVE + FRAUDULENT way about you. look, i gotta get back to the group, but i’ll see you around !

tw: ww2, alcohol, smoking.

— the BASICS !

full name / luc rioux.

nickname / lu, lucky.

age / twenty-six (26).

year of disappearance / 1955.

date of birth / 7th april.

star sign / aries.

hometown / paris, france.

current location / raven house.

nationality / french.

gender / cis male.

pronouns / he/him.

sexual orientation / bisexual/biromantic.

occupation / art forger.

language(s) spoken / french & english.

faceclaim / wolfgang novogratz.

— the STORY !

there is meaning in all things… but are you paying attention?

tiny fingers curled around mother’s hand, green eyes glossed over in an attempt to take in the world but it is too much– there is too much for you to see. you hear whispers of difficult times, hushed tones floating through otherwise empty halls. mother and father try to hide their worry from you. they try their best to keep the world beyond arched windows hidden, though even a simple glance outside gives way to their delicately spun tales. you see figures rushing past, always in a hurry– never stopping to look at the beauty in this world. as the months grow colder, their features fall– worry encompasses all the shadows you have yet to know.

would you look at it?

the world as you know it crumbled, nothing is as it was. nothing will ever be as it was before, times are changing and so are you. your heart yearns for simpler days spent chasing your sister up and down flights of stairs, dancing in the rain and watching father unfold the morning paper without scowling at the newest headlines. this world is not for you– this world is rough, it is cold, it is void of what makes us human. you are yet too young to understand the gravity of it all, but you see the pain. you see the exhaustion in people’s faces, the darkness beneath growing with each moment that passes. you watch it reach out from the corners, you watch it divide those you know and care for. you don’t understand, but you are filled with sorrow for them. you roll up your sleeves, and help where you can.

you watch father leave for war, his head held high wearing his pride visibly on his chest. for a moment you fear you might never see him again, but mother is there to hold you, to carry your burden. you fear he might never return. and then a letter arrives, you only catch a glimpse of it before mother tears it from your grasp. you see her tears fall, and though you cannot know for sure– you know it must be about father. you pray for his safe return, but in his stead soldiers enter your home. they speak a foreign tongue, and though you do not understand– you are told to fear them. and most importantly, to keep your sister safe.

your life has changed so drastically. you now serve the soldiers who have taken over your home, you bring them their morning coffee and scramble away as fast as you can. every part of you is filled with rage, you wish for nothing more than things to return to what they were before. you yearn to see your mother’s smile, but these days even the light in her eyes seems to have vanished. and though you are young, you must grow up fast. you must protect your family at all costs, but even so you cannot bear to bite your tongue and hold in your obvious distaste for these men. your sister tries to keep you in check, but you cannot help spitting in their cup, you cannot help calling them names, you cannot help making them feel unwanted in your home. and whilst you feel good in the moment, the punishment is always severe. though, in your eyes your little acts of rebellion are worth every moment of them. even if you tried, you could not sit quietly by.

the tides are changing…

the times are changing yet again, the men who occupy your home are no longer composed. you can see the terror in their eyes, and it brings you joy. they become crueler, and that fills your heart with hope– for even they know that their time would come to an end soon. there are whispers of forces liberating your country– and you hope it to be true.

c’est la vie…

you watch as horrid flags are taken down, and your own are raised once more. the city you call home is far from glory, it is in shutt and ashes. the very foundations collapsed under the turmoil of the war. and yet, everywhere you turn you see life return to empty shells. and with such a return, so does your father. but he is a changed man. he is not the sweet and tender man you remember him to be. his gaze has hardened, blue eyes turned cold as steel. you cannot find your way home to him, for his heart is shut with the despair of what he has lived.

you try so hard, but you are always met with disappointment.

you have a pale memory of that time, but why?

you are old enough to sit at the table, you are old enough for your voice to be heard. and yet, in your father’s eyes you are but a child. he pushes you aside, in his eyes you are worth nothing. and you have to wonder why is it that you are so wrong for this world? but you never learn the answer beyond never being good enough in his eyes. and so, you stop trying. instead, you follow your heart.

though the war is over, its remnants loom over your shoulders. you cannot unsee the things that have come to pass. the graveyards filled with bodies– old and young alike. the city is a ghost town, lights flickering as you walk past. when you wake in the middle of the night, covered in a layer of sweat, all you can think of is those horrid soldiers leaning back on your living room chairs, their dirty boots placed on the table. all you can remember is your mother running through the house fulfilling their every demand and you are angry. you are angry at the world for being so disappointing.

setting fire to our insides for fun, to distract our hearts from ever missing them…

*tw alcohol*

for a while, you think, it would be best to feel numb. you want to forget– you want to bury the terrors you have witnessed. but you cannot seem to forget. and so you turn to the bottle, you hope that maybe the answer lies at the bottom of your glass. but there is none to be found, instead, you watch the world go blurry. and you decide, you have seen enough– as well as far too little. you want to enjoy your life. you want to dream. you want to escape into different worlds all together.

*tw end*

art attracts us only by what it reveals of our most secret self…

your sister urges you to follow your dreams. she urges you to showcase your talents. and for a moment you believe her. you believe in yourself. regardless of what your father might think, you enroll in art school. you study the grand artists of your time, but you will never measure up to them. and once more you are met with the word you despise the most: disappointment. though you see your professor’s lips moving, you hear your father’s voice. and once more you run– you run from responsibility. but you are not willing to give up the life you love. and so, you turn elsewhere for guidance.

people leave pieces of their soul in their art…

you look to the masters for guidance, you know their work– and you can paint fairly well. you may not know yourself, but you search for pieces of yourself in their art. brush on paper, you begin to duplicate their works. after the turmoil of the war, art is lost and scattered and you abuse this. you sell your work for theirs, forgeries none the less– but good ones.

suddenly you have more money than you know what to do with. and you spend it foolishly. you spoil your mother, your sister and most importantly yourself. finally you have the means to do as you please, and so you do. you treat life as though it were a game, an illusion. you aren’t sure what is real and what is not– for you haven fallen under a spell, intoxication. but one thing remains certain: you are in for a wild ride.

— the THE FACTS !

luc was born and raised in paris, france.

his family was well off, but like many others they still struggled with the economic demise prior to ww2.

during the war, his father participated in the battle of france, but never returned home. like many others he was taken as a prisoner of war. leaving his mother to take care of luc and his little sister.

during the war, their home was occupied by german soldiers and they were forced to serve them. he hated this more than anything in the world, and acted out despite severe punishments. he was never one to sit by quietly.

during this time, his mother helped smuggle people out of the country and while luc was but a child, he aided her as best he could.

after france was liberated and his father returned home nothing would ever return to as it was in the time before. his father was a changed man from his time spent as a prisoner of war. he was cold, and distant. luc did not know how to deal with him, nor did his father know how to deal with luc.

he went on to study art and art history at university. but, there too he was met with disappointment. his professors did not agree with his style of work and eventually luc gave up and dropped out. his father, ever the more disappointed in him threatened to cut him off.

luc is a very proud young man, and so he essentially dared his father to cut him off. which the man then did. forcing luc to try and make ends meet himself.

luc was used to luxuries in his home, and he was not willing to give up such a life. so he turned to the other side of the law. he began forging famous paintings that had gone missing during the war. selling his own work as those of renowned painters. with the money he lived a lavish lifestyle.

he worked hard in this illicit career, but he partied even harder.

the young man had been dabbling in matters on the opposite side of the law, fraudulent behaviour on the verge of being uncovered. his sister had been so kind to pass him a note at breakfast, it hadn’t been signed by name though the message was threatening: ‘ we know what you are doing, it’s only a matter of time until we can link you to the crime. ‘ alas, he sought out a space, in which he could go about his work undisturbed.

checking in under a false name, jacques de villiers, the young man patted himself on the shoulder in the belief that this would solve all his problems. he would be able to use his hotel room to forge artwork, all evidence placed in the hands of the hotel, whereas at his home there would be none to be found when the police came knocking.

— the RAVEN HOUSE !

the year was 1955.

the young man decided to check into a hotel, tucked away in the heart of paris. it was far from modest, but truth be told he wouldn’t settle for less. luc had always been drawn to the luxurious aspects of life: a glass of champagne in the morning, silken sheets hugging his body, and leaning out the window to smoke his first cigarette of the day with a perfect view of champ de mars.

perhaps he had indulged in too many pleasures the night before, for when he pushed the door to his room open he was greeted by an entirely different interior. it was beautiful nonetheless, crystal chandeliers and ornate decorations. and yet, something was off. he caught glances of people passing by, each dressed in a manner he could not recognize to belong to his time. with a smile plastered on his lips, the young man left to discover the place he found himself in only to become aware of the fact that he now resided in the raven house.

— the PERSONALITY !

his unpredictability made him a menace to society, or better said the social circles his family operated in. he was everything but poised and calm, he had a certain spark in his eyes: the desire to live life to its fullest. luc was charming at his root, equipped with honey lips and a serpent’s tongue. though he didn’t necessarily say the right thing at the right time, he had a way of getting away with it. perhaps it was his sociability, or the way he would make the person he was speaking with feel as though they were the only one in the world. that was until his attention drifted elsewhere, which it always did. ever with a drink or cigarette in hand, he was the life of the party, one debacle after the other– a sight to behold, but never to own. he came and went as he pleased, making himself at home in any environment that he deemed acceptable. in his core, he is an extrovert– though a rather chaotic one.

— the HEADCANONS !

001. his most treasured item: it was a gift from father to son, the one object he owns that symbolizes his father’s acceptance. gifted to him upon his birthday, it came with the words, “now you are a man.” it was the only moment his father seemed to stand eye to eye with luc, as though they were equals. but this is not why the object means so much to him, no– he couldn’t care less about that man. he holds it dear for the words so delicately scratched onto the bottom by his sister, “l’artiste est semblable au prince des nuées “ (the artist is alike the prince of the clouds). the object is none other than a silver lighter with his initials engraved onto the center of it, always found in the comfort of his pocket.

002. when luc first entered the raven house he was content simply enjoying every day that passed without responsibility. however, when it dawned on him that he would never be able to see his family or friends again he became obsessed with remembering their likeness. he tried his best to draw images of those close to his heart, but with each day that passed he came to realize that those memories were lost. there are a vast amount of ripped up images, or unfinished pictures scattered around his room that he furiously scribbled over in frustration. for he was only ever able to draw one person from his past life: his father. the look of disappointment ingrained in his mind for all of time to come. though, the worst part of it all was that he couldn’t manage to create a single image of his sister, who he was really close to. he felt so guilty that he could not remember the details of her features beyond the green eyes they shared– and even then he was unsure if he remembered her eyes or if he was simply drawing his own.

003. after his mysterious disappearance, the note was discovered by his family. his story quickly became a rather large investigation, but as no trace of him was found his family grew impatient with the investigation and offered up a rather large reward for any news on their lost son. the case found the tabloids, the newspapers, and general gossip quite quickly. his story influenced the character « charles bonnet » in the movie “how to steal a million” years later.

004. when luc first entered the raven house he was only able to speak french, but one of the other guests was so kind as to teach him english. he still struggles with the pronunciation of words to this day, but he tries his best. it doesn’t exactly bother him either that his mothertongue often slips through when speaking in this foreign tongue, for he never cared much to perfect this skill-- he only wanted to be able to communicate. (this could be a possible plot ??? one of the other guests that teaches him english !!! )

#rhintro

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ampleappleamble · 4 years

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reminder: yall on ao3 real nice, also i love you thank you so much

also i’m gonna go ahead and post chapter 5 here in its entirety too (under a cut, natch) just in case. meanwhile, i’m chopping and screwing screenshots into big huge frankenstein images so i can obsess over canon conversations and lore on the go! some of these screenshots are just pure comedy though. post ‘em later! anyway, here it is in case you missed it:

Chapter 5: Home and Hearth

---

Edér wondered sometimes just how long it would take his hometown to finally die.

It reminded him of this dog he used to know when he was a kid, a sweet old hound dog called Tibbeth. She was the Rask's dog, but the whole town knew her, cared for her, fed her scraps. Everyone loved that dog. By the time Edér was old enough to make lasting memories, she was reaching the end of her breeding years, and she only mellowed out further with each year that passed. He remembered her fondly from his childhood: Tibby making him late for dawn church service because she sat on his feet and wouldn't stop giving him Sad Eyes till he rubbed her tummy. Tibby wandering between two arguing friends and licking herself so ostentatiously that the argument was completely forgotten, ending in peals of laughter instead of fisticuffs.

But as he grew into an adolescent, Tibby grew elderly and decrepit. Her teeth and fur fell out. She limped. Her scat was watery and thin, and she tended to let it fall wherever she stood. Her belly distended, and she started getting mean and lashing out at those who tried to touch her, tried to help her.

He had known there was something growing inside of her that was hurting her, and what was worse, he had known that there was nothing anyone could do to help her. But to Edér, the worst thought of all was that she was still in there under it all. Under all the pain and fear, sweet old Tibby was still in there wanting nothing but belly rubs and bits of ham from your plate. It was the sickness made her snap at you, made her shit all over herself and struggle and scream while you tried to clean her up. Made her scared.

And it was this sickness that made his hometown like this, now. And just like with Tibby, there was nothing he could do to help. No way to excise the tumor. His gaze wandered to the corpse-strewn monster of a tree nearby. Nothing left to do but end it mercifully.

But he hadn't even had it in him to watch as Tibby was put down all those years ago. She had scratched and bitten the Gyrning's baby girl, and even though she was old and half toothless, she did enough damage to scar the child for life. He had run away back then, hiding the tears he had been getting too old to shed so freely anymore.

He sighed heavily, barely squinting against the feeble morning sunlight as he gazed out over the only home he had ever known.

"We're both gettin' too old for this, ain't we?" Edér murmured.

Gilded Vale did not answer him.

The hairs on the back of his neck suddenly stood on end, and he turned slowly, carefully, to look at the tree again. He wasn't alone.

---

The rest of the morning hadn't gone so badly.

She'd suffered a nightmare, she'd explained, and the strange hallucinations she'd told him about before had decided to manifest at the worst possible time: exactly when she had woken up. Hence the... episode she'd had. Understandable, given the circumstances.

Unfortunately, she did still want to go back to that tree. "For closure," she'd pleaded. "It'll only take a moment, I promise you."

They had dressed and packed their meager belongings in awkward silence, making it all the way downstairs to a table with their bowls of tepid porridge in hand before she had spoken up again.

"I'm sorry," she'd stated, stirring the beige mess in her bowl with all the enthusiasm of a prisoner fastening her own noose. "That was probably a... distinctly unpleasant experience for you. And this little detour probably will be, too. ...Please know that I truly appreciate your agreeing to accompany me nonetheless."

She sounded as though she'd been planning this apology all morning, phrasing and rephrasing it in her head until she could strike a palatable balance between being honest with him and maintaining etiquette. Aloth had accepted without hesitation, of course. He had almost apologized to her himself in return, for perhaps having seen... more than she may have wanted a near-stranger to see, but he had thought better of it and remained silent instead. He hadn't wanted to embarrass her by bringing up her strange behavior again. She seemed to appreciate it.

And now he was standing a few paces behind her in the center of town as she stared at a dead woman in a tree.

They had been standing there for fifteen minutes.

"She's aff 'er heed, lad."

"Nobody asked you," he sighed through gritted teeth.

---

Axa regarded the new, dark world in which she found herself with fear and wonder. She had expected to see the dead woman, feel a little foolish, and then set off on the road. She had not been expecting this at all.

Caldara de Berranzi's soul looked back at her, smiling a gentle, motherly smile.

"What is this?" She said it, but she didn't, just like in her dream. "What's happened to me?"

And the animancer responded in the same fashion. "Poor thing! You must be so confused. The world is a baffling place, and the world beyond the Shroud even more so. But that world is yours now, too, to bear witness to."

"I don't understand," Axa whimpered. She really, really didn't. She didn't even know if this was really happening.

The dwarven woman's soul smiled sadly at the little orlan, tsked in sympathy. "I know you don't, dear. It's a lot to take in. Here, let me put it this way: Whatever happened to you, it freed your soul from your body, but not all the way. You were pulled into this world--" The dwarf gestured at the swirling morass of essence and void around them-- "the In-Between of Life and Death. But! You must have only been here for an instant. Any longer, and you'd have ended up staying here, like me." Caldara gestured at herself, a bloated corpse dangling from a tree, with a sweet little chuckle.

"Your soul remembers, though. Remembers even after it returns to your body. Remembers how it sees in this world. Souls, their histories, their memories, their paths through the In-Between. All are yours to observe." The animancer nodded sagely.

"You are a Watcher, now," she chirped, "and a Watcher you will stay."

Axa blinked. Watcher. The word from her dream.

"I... I don't know what that means at all."

Caladara sighed softly. "Oh dear, oh dear. Make yourself comfortable, aimoranet. We have a lot more talking to do."

---

Aloth was starting to feel uneasy.

It had been just over 20 minutes now, and Axa still stood in the same spot, mesmerized by the dead animancer. They were drawing curious stares from townsfolk as they passed by, and he was getting nervous about what might happen-- what might come out of his mouth-- should one of them try to start something.

He glanced around furtively, his open grimoire like a leaden weight in his hands, searching for anything to focus on besides the fact that he'd apparently elected to travel with this woman. A blond man with a pipe, leaning casually against a collapsed wall some distance away, cocked an eyebrow at him. The message was completely unspoken, but easily understood. "Uh, your friend okay there?"

He shot back a look that he hoped said both "Mind your own business, please" and "I have absolutely no idea why she's doing this," somehow.

The man with the pipe shrugged, glanced up at the dead dwarf, then turned away. Aloth took the opportunity to study him a bit further, recognizing him vaguely from his time in town. He'd seen this man around, although not as much in recent weeks. He was vaguely aware of the Vale's day-to-day goings-on, and he seemed to recall seeing less of this particular face around the same time the local lord strung up his latest hapless victim in this gruesome abomination of a tree. Aloth tried to remember exactly who that victim had been...

...before noticing, with a start, that Axa had moved. She'd snapped out of whatever strange fugue state had taken hold of her and she stood before him now, looking for all the world like a child woken prematurely from a nap: confused, angry, morose.

He proceeded extremely cautiously. "Axa? Are you alright?" He leaned a bit closer for privacy's sake. "You seemed... a bit lost, there." For almost half an hour.

Either she didn't notice his attempt at discretion or she didn't care. "According to that dead woman," she blurted, "I'm a Watcher."

He felt his eyebrows leap up to his hairline. "Oh. Well. That... explains a lot, actually."

---

Edér had watched the elf and the orlan the entire time they stood before the tree.

The elf he'd seen around town here and there recently, but he'd never interacted with the man. Of course, he'd heard others talking about him, saying all kinds of things: a haughty foreigner who thinks he can bring his high-falutin' Aedyran ass here and piss on our hospitality. But given the usual kind of horseshit his fellow townsfolk usually spewed these days, he didn't put much merit in what they had to say. At least he tended to mind his own business.

The orlan had just arrived the previous day, and when he saw Raedric's henchman approach her, he'd actually tensed up, preparing for a fight. With everything he'd heard about orlans, he was half expecting her to pull a knife, or maybe even whisper some sort of cipher magic. But instead she'd just shouted at Urgeat, mad as Hel and rightfully so. Edér had been unable to stop himself smiling at the look on the magistrate's pinched-up little asshole of a face.

Then the bell had tolled, and suddenly everyone in town had bigger issues to deal with. She'd looked positively miserable as she'd trudged past him on the way to the Black Hound Inn.

Look at that, he'd thought, watching her plod slowly forward. Practically one of us already.

She'd met his eye for a moment, and he'd raised his pipe to her in a commiserative gesture. "Welcome to our lovely town," he'd quipped. And she had smiled at him in response, even after all that abuse she'd just had to take from Urgeat.

Maybe that was why he'd decided to say something when she passed him again. She didn't look to be in any higher spirits than she had when he'd said something before, but she had smiled at him back then, so what was the worst that could happen this time?

"Seventeen-and-a-half," he called out to her, and grinned. She's a little kith, maybe she'll like this one.

She and the elf turned to him, both of them wearing facial expressions similar to ones they might have had he catcalled them in an especially vulgar manner.

...Off to a great start, Edér thought. Nothing to do but press on.

"Eighteen dependin' on if you count the dwarf woman as a full person or not. ...I think you oughtta."

She approached him then, slowly, scrutinizing him with her eerie slitted pupils, while the elven man followed behind her. "You're saying there are eighteen people hanging in that tree?"

"Last I counted. You mean to tell me you were standin' there that whole time and you wasn't even counting 'em?"

Her cheeks brightened, and she turned to the elf. "Aloth? How long was I-- were we standing there like that?"

The elf, Aloth apparently, winced apologetically at the little woman. "Oh, only about... about twenty minutes. Ish."

The orlan huffed out something between a laugh and a cough. "Only twenty minutes!" She shook her head, grinning, hands on her hips. "Excellent. I was worried I looked like a weird asshole for a minute there."

Edér laughed aloud at last, and held out his hand in greeting. "Edér Teylecg. Although y' may as well just call me Nineteen."

"Axa Mala." He felt soft, fine fur in his hand when she shook it, and with it an extremely confusing mix of emotions. The elf behind her introduced himself as well, as Aloth Corfiser, before she continued. "Nineteen, huh. You mean to say you think you're next?"

Edér smiled sadly, looking up at his friends and neighbors in the tree. "May as well be. Eighteen's my former captain in the war. Was my headman on the farm till Raedric put 'im up there for darin' to stand up for us. For me." He squinted back down at the little woman, clenching his pipe between his teeth. "Bein' honest though, way you were carryin' on with the magistrate the other day, I can't see you makin' it much further than, oh, 22, 23, tops. You seem like the sort of lady likes t' get involved."

She really did, too. For the first time since they'd started talking, her gaze met his, and the intensity of her bright violet eyes almost made him want to look away. Not quite. But almost.

She had a strange, guarded look on her face as she peered up at him. "Do you know what a Watcher is?"

Edér choked on his pipe smoke. This little gal was full of surprises.

---

"Caed Nua, huh? ...Haven't thought about that old place in a long time. Man such as Maerwald, there might be things I wanna ask him. Don't know why I never thought of that."

Obscured One, you have truly outdone yourself this time, Axa mused, a slow smile spreading across her face. This was what she'd been missing after her expulsion: A mission, a purpose, a destination in life.

I was ready to die, and you gave me this gift: an absolutely insane convoluted nightmare scenario, compelling me to try to make sense of it... and in doing so, requiring me to stay alive. I am truly grateful. She closed one eye, sending her prayer to Wael.

It was remarkable how much better she felt just knowing what was wrong with her, having a name for it. Watcher. The knowledge presented new challenges, certainly, but at least now she knew what she was up against. And she even had a tangible, short-term goal in mind:

Get to Caed Nua. Find the Watcher, Maerwald.

The blond folk, Edér, scratched his bristly beard while he thought about her offer. But she could tell he'd already made up his mind. This couldn't go any other way. She'd seen him in her dream, alongside Caldara. A clear sign! This was meant to be!

...Okay, maybe she was taking it a bit too far there.

"I dunno about settin' out with a couple of strangers. Strange strangers at that." He glanced at Aloth and grinned apologetically. "No offense, cousin."

"I'll vouch for him," Axa smiled, stretching, preparing for the work ahead of her. "It's me you have to watch out for."

Aloth shrugged. "Either way, you're probably better off out there with us than here, being sized up for a noose by every other neighbor."

"Can't argue with that. Aw, what the Hel. Sure, I'll do some sightseeing with you folks." Edér grinned at the two of them, his broad, ruddy face brightening considerably. "Where's our first stop on this little roadtrip? We're buyin' supplies, I suppose?"

Axa winced, clutching at her sad, barren little coinpurse. "Uh. Listen... About that--"

---

#pillars of eternity #fanfiction #fanfic #poe anthem infinitum #watcher #watcher axa #aloth #eder

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ofgoodmenarchive · 4 years

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Blighted Empire: Ch. 3.5

Despair

Dorian Pavus still held his hand when he awoke.

Evallan experienced gratitude and mortification in equal measure as he stared at the arch of the tent above, mentally rehashing the nights occurrence.

The Tevinter could not have known physical contact would interrupt the channelling, nor could he have known to maintain his grip throughout the night. Yet by some instinct, he had realised what was required for Evallan to sleep undisturbed.

Painfully conscious of every restless finger, he pressed them astride the other mage's knuckles as he'd wanted to in dream. Since there was no reaction he gathered more nerve, gingerly rubbing his thumb along the curve of his hand. His heart hammered in his ears and his chest constricted, but he couldn't help himself.

Dorian's hands were softer than his, he noted, much less assaulted by their environment- he likely made more effort to care for them than Evallan. The few notable imperfections were recent, from their sparring. It was strange to think of his existence as something abraded into the man's flesh, but the thought was unavoidable.

I could lay here for a while.

I could lay here and pretend it is normal for us to do this.

He forced himself to sit up, freeing Dorian with a reluctance that gouged his heart- this was inappropriate.

It was also inappropriate to observe him as he slept but Evallan found himself doing that too. Not for the first time- he remembered the first, when the foolish Tevinter wandered to their aravel years ago. Even then he could not help seizing the opportunity to admire without witness- the subject of his admiration included.

And now with no one there or conscious to scrutinise, it was impossible for him not to extend his fingers, brushing against the Tevinter's jaw.

It is true that you are quite handsome.

Dorian stirred as if sensing his thoughts. Anxiety fractured his musings and he retracted, hastily exiting the tent.

They would have to discuss the issue of Lightbringer- perhaps it was not awful Dorian knew. He had watched over Evallan before and his own clan-sister attested to the man's reliability. Evallan simply had to be careful.

Careful not to turn the situation into something it was not.

Some of the Tevinter's behaviour implied he might not even mind if it were otherwise- but Evallan minded.

We are not really the same.

He cannot understand the responsibility we have.

What has been lost, or what must be regained.

He has his own responsibilities- his own losses.

He will not walk with us.

While he agonised over his thoughts, he prepared a campfire. Sky still untouched by day, the temperature within their tent would drop with only Dorian inside. But he couldn't bear to be enclosed with him any longer- at least not while he was unaware and Evallan's thoughts were permitted to drift.

There was nothing for him to do but prepare a cleansing potion for Dorian and appoint himself sentry-duty until the Templars roused. His first task took hardly anytime- they had most of the ingredients, and spindleweed was easily located nearer the Deep Roads entrance

Fortunately the Templar Commander was one of the few who kept similar hours to him, and he would know to expect Lavellan alert and awaiting direction. On his third or so lap of the area, Marcus stood outside a shelter, waving him over.

The commander was swift in reciting duties and strategies, the handful that made up his usual crew present. Some yawned inattentively but if Marcus smacked the war table or barked their names they responded without delay.

More often than not Evallan strived to be attentive but as he'd told Dorian Pavus- he was prone to distraction. While Marcus spoke he gestured with a fist clenching a half-eaten apple and this usurped Evallan's gaze. Fresh food was not commonplace, fresh fruit even less so. He tried to process the Templar's words but his eyes pinned the ruby sheen, wondering where it could have come from. He personally found it vulgar of Marcus to consume it so blatantly in front of his men.

“Are you listening, Lavellan?” Marcus snapped, slamming apple and knuckles onto the Deep Roads map between them.

“Yes.” He stated automatically- untruthfully.

“Then what in all of fucking Thedas did I just say?” The Templar rasped. Evallan fought to look at the man's face and not what he held.

“Something I have heard countless other times, and that I do not need to hear again?” He matched the commander's impatience.

“Where's your blighted head at, Lavellan?!” Marcus spat, eyes narrowing, searching his face.

“It is nowhere!” Evallan snarled. “I have heard this before!”

“You're not looking at my Maker-damned face.” His worn brow punctuated his stare. “What are you looking at?”

“Nothing!” Hands became fists, glowering as much at the man's face as he could.

There was a strained silence between them as they glared and the group of Templars spectated, likely mystified.

Marcus began shaking his head, angling his hand upwards, the true point of Evallan's focus catching the light.

“It's the void-damned apple, isn't it?!” He accused, baffled and infuriated- which enraged Evallan in turn.

“It was not!” He went so far as to stamp his foot, only realising how childish it must have looked a moment later. Evallan tried to will the humiliated colour from his face while grinding teeth but Marcus merely turned away, muttering.

“Can't fucking believe the blighting shitting nonsense I have to put up with-” He wrestled something from a pack hanging in the corner. “Ten fucking years of this shit, Lavellan! Like looking after a blighting kid!”

Turning, he slammed an apple onto the table.

“Take your fucking fruit and listen!” He bit out the words. “And don't say I never fucking give you anything!”

Evallan plucked the offering and cradled it in his grasp but must have eyed Marcus strangely, thoughts written on his face- at least to the Templar.

“What now?”

He bit the inside of his cheek, hardening features but aiming to speak demurely.

“May I have two?”

“You may not have two!” Marcus spluttered, incredulous. “I'm not shitting apples, Lavellan!”

“Where did they come from?” Evallan hazarded, causing Marcus to sneer- but still he replied.

“They're doing some regenerative thing on the lower levels, the garden crew. These came from the first edible batch but they don't have seeds, so they're spoils of war now.”

“You speak of Fila, she leads that research,” His head tilted. “She is a Lavellan. Technically those apples are mine.”

The Templar's chest quaked with tearful, agitated laughter, pressing a hand to his forehead.

“Did I ask for a fucking lesson in Dalish property law?! You're not getting another blighting apple!” His boot assaulted the table-leg. “Why are we arguing about fucking apples?! Is this what I called you in here for?! To give me an apple-lecture?!”

Lips thinning, Evallan lowered his head and considered whether or not to share this 'spoil of war' with Dorian Pavus. The Tevinter could probably use the nutrition after his night of drinking and in a way he had as much right to the rewards of Fila's labour as Evallan.

He pondered this more than he listened to Marcus but was still the first to leave when dismissed.

On his way to collect morning rations he was stopped by a voice that was only vaguely familiar.

“Lavellan?”

He halted reluctantly, peering over his shoulder at the Templar and recognising him as the most junior of Marcus' crew. Though anyone could surmise as much; his features lacked visible scars and were slightly rounded from passing youth.

“What do you want?” He saw no reason to mince words- though the young man was likely harmless, he still fulfilled a role that put him at odds with Evallan. That he was lower in hierarchy than Marcus only meant Evallan felt less keen to humour him.

“Um...I'm Bauer- Jordan- do you remember me?”

“I asked what you wanted, not who you were.” He said tersely.

At this the young Templar beckoned for patience with a nervous gesture. A hand slipped into his cloak and when it was unveiled, extended a new apple towards Evallan. The Keeper studied it, then scrutinised the Templar's face with as much visible disdain as he knew how to communicate.

“What is this?”

“...An apple?” The Templar reproached, blinking in a way that suggested he was truly vexed. This incensed Evallan, his study of the man evolving into a glare.

“And what do you want for it?”

The Templar looked around as if seeking guidance from his Maker.

“...Nothing?” He began awkwardly. “You want it for your brother, right? You Lavellans are picky eaters.”

He examined more intensely but did not touch.

“Have you done anything to it?” He asked, drilling his gaze into this 'Jordan's' face once more but the young man came across earnestly perplexed.

“Why would I do anything to it?” He swung it between them, coaxing.

“If you have, you will regret it.” Evallan warned, icing over his expression.

“I didn't- I swear!” The knight chuckled and nudged the apple towards him. Evallan allowed it to fall into his grasp, leering.

“I don't even like apples.” The Templar announced with another clumsy laugh.

“Taking this does not in-debt me to you.” Evallan clarified, angling the object near his face.

“No,” He answered with a bewildered half-grin. “It's just an apple. I thought the other Lavellan might want it- that's all.”

Ignoring him, Evallan turned the produce over in his hands, sensing nothing amiss- even so, he made a mental note to give the other one to Dorian Pavus, keeping this one for himself. If it had been tampered with he would hardly notice- whereas Dorian would be quite miserable. As he meditated on this, the Templar was given opportunity to inquire;

“So...the others say you've worked with them a long time but don't remember their names?” He sounded amused- if somewhat disbelieving.

The Keeper met his eye sharply, displaying the apple before him once more.

“Does this require me to remember yours?” Said icily, but it was a genuine question.

“No,” The young man breathed out in exasperation. “Still just an apple.”

“Then I will take my leave.” Tolerance spent, he made to do just that but hesitated upon hearing the cheerful criticism tossed at his back-

“No thank you? It's true what they say- you Lavellans have no manners!”

He wavered- certainly he had no obligation to politeness towards those he considered his jailers. Still he managed to feel shame, sighing over his shoulder.

“Thank you for the apple.” Not bothering to see how that was received, he plunged onward. Attention descending to the fruit he now held, it was something else that flashed a light in his brain-

A glint of amber from morning sunlight- Dorian's amulet exposed against his chest, on the outer layers of his clothes instead of neatly wrapped.

Of course he would not wear it in such a way and if he misplaced its position, he would notice- and someone should have reacted! The weighty gold was like a target painted on dull colour, an obvious discrepancy against his typical frost.

There was only one explanation and indeed images crept into his mind- The Deep Roads, the Darkspawn Ogre, Dorian Pavus- that fool!

To confirm his theory he spun and tossed the apple at the Templar's calmly retreating back. He was bonked on the head and the fruit rolled away but the shem ambled along, a puppet with an inattentive master.

Evallan was unconscious- dreaming- looping memories in the Fade- his vessel likely sprawled out somewhere in the Deep Roads-

“Lightbringer!” He begged the dream “You must wake me! I cannot stay here!”

Stillness. Nothing more.

“Lightbringer!” He kicked the ground, raising his voice higher. “Do not ignore me!”

She commenced doing just that. He knew she was aware- since calling for her, the activity in his environment had ceased unnaturally. Evallan identified her illusion so there was no point in expending will- but that was not a sign of cooperation.

Knowing his choices were limited and he could not leave Dorian to the Deep Roads alone, he spread his fingers along his chest.

“I may not have the will to summon you...but I will still try! If you do not-”

The threat was enough- he supposed it would be. The Spirit's goal was to force recuperation after the drain on their combined stamina. Accepting her chosen would not relent, the colour and shape of the world ebbed until it was stripped completely.

Evallan recognised the area that materialised- it was his place, his dream; the wrecked, void-ridden library decimated by ice, covered in script and blood. That was not all- a space he knew had contained spires was missing, replaced by a shimmering border not unlike Lightbringer's shield.

Behind it stood Lightbringer herself- a tall and slender being of light, draped in robes akin to the Lavellan clan's- for what could be seen through the radiance. The shifting glow made her features indiscernible- though he long understood 'she' was a title of habit more than descriptor.

As his eyes adjusted he processed more detail- the dream housing Lightbringer was different from his. Not a snowed-in landscape; it was winding crystal, so reflective his eyes watered. It was her place; as the tower and wintery wasteland was his echo, her echo was of a homeland long lost.

Connecting these tiny worlds was a luminous tether and he noticed it wasn't projected only onto the barrier but also his chest- a pin-point of light. If he turned one way or the other, or angled in certain perspectives, it vanished or flickered like a children's mirror-trick.

Fascinated and never having been this close to Lightbringer or her dream, the nature of this bond stole his focus. He passed his hand over it, tilted his body this way or that, paced the barrier to watch the pin-point extend or blur, depending on direction...

It soon occurred to him Lightbringer observed somewhat crossly- hands on hips and the morphing brightness of her visage attempting to cast a frown. For a moment she looked painfully like his mother but with this came a flood of embarrassment. Straightening, he cleared his throat.

“I apologise...” He attempted to appear serious. “Why do you hold me here?”

Tapping her foot, Lightbringer gestured to the tether- apparently unimpressed he failed to note the most important thing. Somewhere in the middle, the connection had frayed- light seeped from the vulnerability and into the Fade.

“I have strained something, no?” He had expected this consequence- it changed nothing. “But it is not fatal, we will heal stronger. In the meantime- I cannot cast, but I can walk.”

Lightbringer regarded him coolly then folded her arms, still seeming unimpressed.

“I know what you wish to do.” He furrowed his brow, determined. “But you cannot leave me in stasis to recover. Dorian Pavus cannot navigate without us- I will not trade his life for mine.”

At this she craned her head thoughtfully as if to say 'is that so?'. No motion was made to free them from the dream. A pang of shame corrupted his resolution and he did his best to crush it.

“I know he is not clan!” Did he not remind himself every day? “But he chased me into that blighted hole, despite his fears! And if it were not for him- I would not have survived The Harrowing! I would not have thought to summon you without his instruction- I would not have created an anchor if he had not taught me!”

With each word he closed the gap between him and the barrier and once there, he smashed his fist upon it, ignoring the glimmer of vibration while eyes squinted at the Spirit.

She watched, passive.

“My life does not have more value than his!” He struck the forcefield again, heart drumming in his ears, agonising against his ribcage- surely she could not really expect him to abandon Dorian Pavus to the Deep Roads?!

“You will send me back!”

She continued to eye him with something odd and difficult to comprehend in her gaze- did she think this funny!? Overwhelmed by frustration, he assaulted the barrier again and again, wailing with voice as well as fists.

“Lightbringer! I am serious!” Familiar, tireless words possessed his tongue. “We must continue!”

The expression he strived to identify on her face was further bemused. He was on the verge of insisting to know what was so wretchedly funny when the ground melted, a sensation of endless descent lurching through his nerves.

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#dragon age #dai #dorian pavus #apocalypse au #m!lavellan #pavellan #da fic #dragon age fic #blighted empire #my writing

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shinglescat · 4 years

Text

This is the end, yay.

Previous or all stories at once.

The voice of the Prince still lingered in her head. The bizarre time in his custody – something she could’ve never imagined to happen; not a single lesson from her grandmother ever prepared her for this. The Prince… was rather gentle towards her, caring even, as far as you can call a Daedra caring; she even thought this isn’t him, someone else, someone but Molag Bal, but the longer she spent her time keeping him company, the more she saw behind the friendly façade. He noticed, but never acknowledged it, sticking with this game of sheer politeness and kindness, still.

He never forced her into anything, always provided her with new things to do and discover. Upon her arrival, the Prince delivered her of the wicked illness of his own creation – she almost lost herself to the thirst for blood that she sworn to never sate. She must’ve been pathetic enough for him to take pity on her. A benevolent ruler of his own dark kingdom, treating her like the most esteemed guest.

She would lie to herself if she said this wasn’t an important time in her life, that she regrets it. Molag Bal taught her lots of things, most of which were so surreal even her psijic grandmother had no idea about. In between the lessons, they used to have normal conversations, and the man would usually tell her a story of a kind and give her his insight into various events that ever happened. The things he said – the really disturbing things – she had a hard time believing him, yet he made it all sound so right, so logical…

She looked at the house down the street – the family’s that took her cousin in, their house. It was so tiny and so humble; she’s never seen them like that – too used to the comfort of the Sorano estate, too used to its hearth, its smells, its looks and the atmosphere of luxury; the cold and harsh climate made her look back at what she’s given up – the warm and ever sunny Isles. Will she ever see her home again?

“You are the only one I can trust with this,” the Prince would to tell her, “He needs you now the most he ever needed you, he needs your guidance”. What made him think so, she wondered, of all people to entrust this to her – to a scared and a broken girl. He saw the looks she gave him, the mistrust in her eyes, yet still… Livaen sighed, stopping in front of the door, pressing her forehead into the dried out wood. What makes her obey his… plea? request? order? She could’ve just stopped, abandoned it all and instead followed her heart on this one. Was she scared of him? Or was she scared of what may happen? It was so easier back home – she had servants to take care of everything, and Esmir herself would decide upon urgent and important matters. Now – it’s just her, her and her dearest cousin, both all grown up.

She pressed the palm of her hand into the handle, pushing the door forward. A wave of smells rushed into her face, the sweet and meaty tones, warm and homey – so different from what she’s used to. It made her nauseous with nostalgia – it felt like home, but… it was an alien home, someone else’s but hers.

- ...They only have fifty years of time to do everything they want. They don't have a promise of a millennia like you, – Aspen argued, leaning against the wall. This quarrel again, Livaen sighed, they’ve been on it since they’ve returned from the Void a few days ago; it seemed like her cousin got bit in the ass about the dumbest thing in the world. He’s been quite vocal in his discontent about the girls’ departure in the nearest future, even with his strong dislike towards Visenya’s attitude. The girl used to say he just envied her and was jealous of them, the ashen haired man on the other hand was sure Mark was just afraid to lose them, yet it was only her that saw through it, Livaen thought. His usual phlegmatic nature, his temperament all of a sudden shifted towards that of a more choleric nature, making the elf unusually snappy and angry, reactive and irrational; almost a polar opposite of himself. And as another addition to that – the gold of his skin has completely faded, replaced with porcelain instead – it didn’t go unnoticed by anyone this time: the parents were concerned about his wellbeing, believing he might’ve contracted a disease of sorts that made him look and behave like this, yet… – Both Meltem and Visenya have their own lives now, they can't be forever at your side, – he moved closer to the elf, his palm touching Mark’s forehead. The kid flinched at that barely noticeable, but remained still, – You have a fever, – the man concluded, making Livaen cringe at that – the man was so over the top sometimes, it made the girl want to vomit.

- And will you stay with me for a millennia? – Mark asked, anger and poison leaking from his voice, tired of everything – he’s been so restless lately, – Of course you won't, – he smirked, – I don't even know how old you are, might just fucking leave me as well before you die too, – he threw his arm into the air as if to make a statement, turning around himself, his voice faltering – the last part of the sentence ended up being silent. The elf went straight for the door, only now noticing the witness to the argument, and the girl instantly felt bad about it – for not interrupting them beforehand. Mark stopped for a moment, as if deciding what to do next, and stormed out of the house as he made his mind.

Livaen looked behind her, the door closed with a loud thud.

- What was this all about this time? – she asked, going to the kitchen table with a small basket full of foodstuffs she got for herself at the market. The man loudly sighed and covered his eyes.

- He’s sick, – he replied, taking a sit on the ladder, – He’s sick, and he doesn’t want to do anything about it.

- He’s always been like that, – she nodded, sitting down on the bench. Meltem had told them that they – she, her now wife Visenya and half-sister Jacqueline – were leaving for Chorrol in a few days. The sisters had a house left from their shared father, no one’s been living in there for quite a few years since his passing, making it stay abandoned for just as long, – I wonder how much their marriage is going to last, – she said quietly to herself, but that didn’t go unheard by the man. He looked at her with a wordless question on his face, – Did he meet him? – she asked instead. Livaen knew the answer herself – the elf did meet the Prince and even had the talk with him, otherwise he wouldn’t have just… changed so much asudden. She asked about it nonetheless – to divert the attention and to avoid any more of the unnecessary drama her question might cause later. Aspen glanced at her, still puzzled, – You are always with him. Did he meet the father? – she repeated the question again, a little bit annoyed. He must have met him, he’s just a coward to do what he’s been told.

- Yes. Yes, he did, but we didn’t tell anyone…?

The girl brushed her hair.

- He.., – she started, trying to explain the thing, gesturing vaguely in front of her, – His blood… it’s acting up. It’s like… if you hold bad emotions locked inside, they will find a way out someday. And he’s got daedric blood in him. He’s… he’s just so confused. I don’t really know, he, – she implied the Prince, – didn’t warn me about the mood swings, – Livaen sighed, getting up from the bench. He did warn her though that she must guide him along this path and be there when he needs her; she must help him understand and reconcile with himself, – We need to find him before it gets worse. Wouldn’t want a psycho on the loose..

They’ve found him under the giant tree, sitting on the bench, facing the old statue of Talos. He buried his face into the palms of his hands, breathing heavily. This was the worst period in his life: the uncertainty, the separation, the revelation – it all hit him at the same time, making his existence insufferable. He had no idea what awaits him in future, he’ll probably have to carry on alone later, for all his loved ones are humans with a lifespan of a burning match… And him being a demi-prince didn’t ease the burden. It all just snowballed and like an avalanche buried him underneath, no way for him to escape this.

Livaen stopped in her tracks near him, observing: he was miserable, she’s never seen him so crushed, so depressed; it seemed like he was about to break apart. And there was nothing she could do on her own to help him, to ease the suffering.

Aspen came close to him, letting his hands into the jet black hair of her cousin. The girl grimaced, for the hundredth time today, it seemed: all these idle touches, glances – it was so disgustingly sweet, mawkish even; her cousin was so in love with the man – it’s going to hurt to bring him back on track later. Maybe she just was jealous, envied him – it was hard for her to think about it: she would banish the thought just before it surfaces in her mind – over and over again, and she didn’t want to admit, too pathetic to own up to her flaws. She never had a feeling just as strong as her cousin’s to this man – this thought about it made her anxious – she never had a chance to experience something like this – to fall in love and be loved in return. Yet her dearest cousin had it all, it seemed, from a caring bride-to-be to some… random hookup. It wasn’t fair; her entire life was planned out for her by their own grandmother – some Alinor nobleman already waiting to get his hands on her fragile frame. She had no say in this, but she just accepted her fate and patiently waited for when it’s time. Livaen snorted at her own thoughts inelegantly: after what she’s been through even arranged marriage would be impossible – who needs a wife that cannot bear children anymore in a society where succession matters most? She suddenly felt disgusted and repulsed: her cousin was so irresponsible to throw himself into someone’s arms like that, especially those of a man; it was selfish. Now that she herself won’t be able to bring a child into this world, he’s the only one who could continue the line, but he instead preferred lust and debauchery… it was her envy speaking – she couldn’t help but turn bitter at what her cousin had and what she’ll never have; it was easy to hate on him, easy to disregard the story behind them both.

- Shit, – she heard Mark swear. He shook his head a little to make the bothering thoughts go away, remaining silent for a moment and allowing himself to enjoy the gentle hands in his hair – a universal medicine for calming down, – I’m so sorry, I don’t know what’s gotten into me, – Livaen rounded the bench to sit near the cousin. He was shaking slightly, as if having a fever, face pale and sick, – I’m just… It’s all so fucking overwhelming, I can’t handle it all, – he grabbed the hands in his hair and pulled onto himself, throwing Aspen’s arms around his neck in an embrace, – It feels like I’m drowning, suffocating, and those cunts don’t help it a bit, – Mark hid his face in the man’s upper arm, letting out a strangled wobbling sigh, – I’m… so sorry, I can’t really control myself at the moment. I’m such an angsty asshole lately, – he laughed hysterically, squeezing Aspen’s hand. He pulled it closer to his face, placing his lips on man’s knuckles, – I’m so fucking sorry for making you see this shit.

This gesture – it almost made the girl gag.

- You need to return to the Void, – Livaen told him, fighting with herself to keep the face straight. She reached his hand, holding it softly but firmly in hers, – Bal told me, it’s going to… make it easier for you, – Mark snorted sarcastically and shook his head. Behind the sarcasm though was pure dread, – I know you are afraid of it. But we can always do it together, right? – she addressed the ashen haired man, and he nodded in agreement. Livaen smiled at her cousin, – You sure do love company.

...

They made their way up to the infinite pillars that were rising from below the water and stretching far into the sky, disappearing somewhere above in the impenetrable veil of mist. It welcomed them with a lone boat bobbing at the end of the platform – no walkway for them to get to the Heart.

The Void was the same today, same as before, yet different: a couple of plants managed to break through the stone and bloom under the ethereal sun: a field blossom and a tiny shrub of rowan. It was something new, but not unheard of – the Void brought leviathans into this world on a whim; it decorated everything with the violet silks… yet flowers? They didn’t look out of place, they looked like they belonged together with the obsidian of stone and the sapphire of waters; it was a strange time to have a spring here though; however, the plants brought hope with them, and thus – some inner peace for a change.

The boat set sail as soon as they got themselves comfortable – Mark sat at the very bow with Aspen just behind him in the middle, Livaen having her place at the stern – it took them farther away from the usual places they’ve been to, maneuvering in between the giant monolithic towers. From a distance a light breeze brought some rogue petals and flowers, making the girl wonder what was so exciting for the Void to start blooming all of a sudden.

It was curious for Livaen: as it turned out the Void is a plane of Oblivion, the girl thought, and the realms always reflect their masters, their emotions and feelings, their state of mind. Would it be possible for them to reflect something else, something the masters hold dear? She will never get to test this theory, but if it was true – something must be influencing the Void to change.

The veil ahead of them started to clear out, leaving patches of white clouds here and there, revealing a lone island in this sea of nothing. Stone thorns swirled all around it, cradling the Heart, creating an impenetrable shell to protect the insides; from behind the stone – a faint glistering – something flowed behind like a silk in the wind. This is the core of the Void – it was blooming in full, its blossom slowly spreading away from the Heart far beyond the thick shroud of mist.

As the boat docked with the island, the only entrance of the Heart opened the way, welcoming the guests with a complete darkness seeping from the inside. Within – the same dark stone with cerulean waters glowing from behind them, illuminating the place softly; in the middle – a basin with ornate smoke circling under the water; above them all – a myriad of suspended in the air crystals reflecting in the stone and lone silks hanging from the thorns. And all around them – flowers’ bloom.

Mark sat near the basin, the others beside him, holding him by his hands. He looked into the water, watching a black swirl of mist emerge from below, enveloping the people with darkness and silence…

...

A woman’s shriek, the one that could tear a soul apart; a pained cry of a baby – it was all covered with a cloud of obscurity – nothing could be seen but felt. “Get it away from me!” – the woman cried, her anger and fear leaking through her voice directed at the newborn soul. She asked for it, begged on her knees; she knew the price she had to pay. She thought it would make her stronger, thought it would open new prospects. She got what she wanted; now – she does not want it anymore, too scared of it. “Get rid of it!” – could be heard echoing in the darkness, voice decaying quickly.

A bright flash, and a white light engulfed it all, slowly fading to reveal a snowy forest in the middle of winter: bright setting sun lighting the snowdrifts, reds and oranges scattering through clear frozen crystals. Under a tree – a roll of fabric lied, tiny golden hands showing from under the thin blanket. The baby cried, loud at first, calling for its impending doom: if it’s not the frost to take its live, then wolves; its bright and cold umber eyes red from the tears. As the sun went lower – the cries turned silent. The gold of the skin faded, now sick and blueish, cold quickly creeping to clench its grasp around the tiny heart and claim it. “Here we go”, someone came over to rescue the child as if they knew it would be here at the mercy of the fate. A man held the child in his arms, gently stroking the frozen face until the red of blood started flowing again, bringing back the fading life into the newborn. “It is decided then”, a cold and quiet voice of a woman spoke, as she appeared before the man. She looked at the child with a genuine smile, stroking its forehead with her finger – the child already opened the eyes, beaming at its saviors – the man smiled in return too, too hard to resist, hiding the smile behind a frown the next moment. “Name the boy”, the woman commanded. “Markus”, the man said, “Now let’s get you home”, he finished, as the memory was enveloped into a dark cloud only to reveal another one.

There wasn’t a flash this time, just careful fade from black to the warm orange of a fireplace, candles that lit up the room, that lit up the two figures standing near a wall. One was the man from before, the other – an unknown woman… the mother, the cowardly mother. A strong grip on her neck prevented her from moving, as the man was looming over her like a menacing shadow, sparks crackling dangerously between the fingers of his other hand. “Try this again,” he said, the memory of the abandoned child in the snows too vivid to forget, “and you will suffer a worse fate”, he warned her. It wasn’t the first time the woman did this, and it won’t be the last – she hates the child, she dreads it with an unreasonable fear. The demonic child, as she called him to justify her actions; she never listens to the warnings, always does what she wants only to be severely punished in the end. “Do not forget, my darling, your soul belongs to me”, he said for the hundredth time already, as the mother couldn’t understand that there was no deliverance from this anymore. “The worse you make his life – the worse yours is going to become”, the man had to let go, as the boy creeped up to him, starving for attention. “Why don’t you take your damned spawn with you?” the woman spat, watching the father caress the son in his hands. “My spawn?” the man laughed wickedly, the child echoing him lightly – the complete opposite of his father, the innocence – kissing the boy’s head. “You begged me for it, and now the least you can do is to be a decent mother”, he finished, letting the memory drift away.

The next memory burst open, black mist leaking out of it, bringing the feel of dread and desperation, filling the place to the brim with pain and misery. The sharp smell of blood, the dampness of endless tears, a silent cry still lingering in the air. And there he was, still infant, lying on the cold stone floor alone and unmoving. It was the mother again – too much of a coward to put an end to his miserable life, to end the agony and torment of her own son; she hated the way he looked at her. He wanted to cry, but no sound escaped him, no tear left his eyes – there were none left, all wasted already to the never-ending woe. A gentle breeze, and from somewhere above a moonlight shone through, serving as the only beacon of light as the jet black shadows crawled towards the child only to be broken by the man appearing from the darkness. The boy couldn’t see anymore but feel, reaching out to the gloom man with his tiny golden arms; the father nestling him up into an embrace to soothe the pain. He stroked son’s face softly, lightly touching the fluff of the lashes – the kid would have probably giggled at the touch, yet not a sound came from him. The boy opened his eyes, slowly, revealing the wounds inflicted upon – no more the noble of umber, only crimson of blood. The man cradled the child, soothing the sore eyes; a moment later – and the moonlight replaced the gore, shining bright silver in the sea of darkness, gleaming still through the thickening mist.

“And what is it that you want, Stone-Fire?” a female voice spoke – the grandmother, sounding through the clearing memories. It was a surprise for her – to see such a guest in her home. “I could tell where your daughter is, and in return you would owe me a favor”, the man replied, holding the details a secret. He wasn’t desperate, just… considerate. What he had seen was the last straw for him – the mother would never change; it was the right time to change the players before something regrettable happens. “I’m listening…” Soldiers in black and gold armors dragged out a woman out of her house, throwing her in the middle of town’s plaza for everyone to see. The golden skin, pointy ears – it looked like a spectacle, a warning for any other that would want to become a renegade, a message to their own kin of the dangers of betrayal. A tall woman with a skin of bronze commanded the parade – it was her daughter lying there, trashing around and spitting out curses. Near the commander another man stood, wide in his shoulders, skin of copper, holding the child found in the basement – his bright silver eyes looking at the mother with dread and sorrow. “Mother! Please!” the woman plead, as the grandmother approached her, slapping her across the face. “You should have thought about your life before you made a run”, she told her daughter, holding her by her hair. The woman was scared, afraid for her own life; she didn’t want to die, not yet. She franticly looked around only to find her dearest husband making his escape with their firstborn; he didn’t even tried to free her, to help her, just left her at the mercy of these people. “Orlan!” the grandmother commanded to the copper-skinned man, “He doesn’t need to see this, turn around”. The man did as told, only tiny golden arms reaching out to the mother as he turned around – the last thing the woman saw, before the grandmother slit her throat, slowly. The blood rushed from her neck and onto the ground like tsunami flooding the land, painting it crimson.

The crimson mist swirled, forming the blood red poppies on a field of gold. Two girls ran around a tree: one with a skin of finest porcelain, hair of raven wing, the other with a skin of gold, hair dark as night. Under the tree the boy dreamed, blessed smile on his face. “Markus!” the raven-haired girl stopped by, taking his hands in hers, tugging the boy onto herself, “Join us!” she said, grabbing the other girl by hand, locking them into a circle and spinning as fast as they could go, red petals flying around softly, taken up into the air by the whirlwind of fun. They broke the circle then, falling on the ground – golden grass was their carpet, their joyous laughter ever so loud. A golden cloud descended from above, forming a male figure – the father; the kids squeaked, cheerful, rushing to the man. He caught the boy in his arms, raising him high into the air, cradling him up into an embrace.

“Markus!” the grandmother shouted – the memory flaring up to let another one in its place – running towards the boy. The kid, covered in bruises and scratches, was kneeling in the middle of a street. It was a mess: once a street full of children looked like a warzone now, destroyed completely by their own stupidity. She warned their parents, she warned them countless times to restrain their children, yet no one listened; now they paid for it, paid for their ignorance and arrogance, hopefully not with their children’s lives.

The grandson was burning, but the flames didn’t damage his body or his clothes. He was scared. It all happened so quickly he had no time to react. He just exploded, releasing it all that’s been held inside. The anger burst open with fires, sweeping away everything that stood in their way; flames burning flesh and stone, drawing the cries from the now victims. He was afraid of this; he didn’t want it to happen – he didn’t know it could happen; he thought he had no magic in him, yet…

The grandmother run to him, pulling him up into her hands. She wasn’t scared of the flames, she didn’t care about them. She could get hurt, but in the end it didn’t matter. What mattered the most was the child in her arms, and she would do everything for him to not get hurt again.

“I’ve… reconsidered”, – the grandmother’s voice was heard, erasing the scene and bringing another, “This... arrangement we had”, she addressed her general, “it’s not going to take us anywhere, I’m afraid. I do not desire to give away the boy, he is my blood after all, my grandson. We should do something about it”. She… got attached to the kid, acknowledged him as her offspring – her late daughter’s legal child. The kid was clever; it would be a shame to give him back to his father later. His blood, the heritage – it all made him even more interesting for her, and with the proper education he would benefit her cause. “Sire”, the general said, “Do you have an idea?” he looked outside of the window, there, where the laughter came from. “Indeed I do, Orlan”, the grandmother nodded, “It’s… quite ambitious, if I can say so myself”, she wickedly smiled, “These two fighting one another for as long as the world exists – they are going to help us. The Princes – they are so vain they will do whatever it takes to destroy each other”, the woman sighed, excited, “And they will have to obey me to get what they desire”. “Sire?” the man asked, her loyal henchman, the right hand. “Why bother with mere racial superiority”, she explained, “when we could bring down Gods and Princes? We could destroy the masters themselves. No gods or kings, only man”…

“He didn’t come, again”, the raven-haired girl complained lightly, as the previous reminiscence faded into a red sunset, girl’s emerald eyes shining softly in the setting sun. The father hasn’t visited the boy yet again, for another week straight. “Grandmother said he had to sail somewhere”, the boy replied, fidgeting with a poppy flower in his hands, “He’s going to be back soon, I’m sure”, he smiled at her. The girl smiled in return, leaning against the boy, her head resting on his shoulder. “Markus?” she called him, to which he grunted in acknowledgement, “Do you love me?” The kid cringed, “EW. No, you are gross”, he replied, which made her giggle. “But you have to!” she jokingly complained, poking him into his sides, “Ouchies”, the boy rubbed his skin, totally unimpressed. “You have to love me, we’re going to get married when we grow up”, the girl closed her eyes, envisioning the future. The other kid wasn’t really thrilled about it. “What if I don’t want it?” he asked, something unpleasantly twisting in his stomach, “You are my friend, and I don’t want to marry my friend. It’s… wrong”, he declared, still fidgeting with the flower between his fingers, “People marry who they love, not friends. I’m going to marry a girl I love”. “But I am a girl!” the young lady pouted. “You’re not a girl, you’re my friend. Gross”, the kid shivered, and they both laughed at that, careless about anything in the world.

A gray fog enveloped it all, fading out quickly to reveal a dark and shiny stone. Cold. Lone. Empty. It hanged up in the air above the obsidian of the water waving with the soft breeze like a black silk. The kids have never seen this place, but it seemed hospitable enough for them to stay. It… it was young, just like them, starving for contact, for living souls. It felt lonely and sad, but now – now it was in delight of finally meeting someone, of finally not being alone anymore, of having… friends. They’ve brought light and happiness to it, their laughter echoing from the stone, going up above into the air. Like a wave the glee washed all over the place, turning the desolation into peace.

“Do you remember those creatures we saw the other day in the sea?” the boy asked his friend one day. The mighty monsters, the behemoths of the oceans – they were so majestic, so noble, he thought, if only he could see them again… It heard the boy, it felt his emotions; as if from his memory the leviathans, gently flowing in the air above the stone, appeared from the thick mist; the lullaby they sang resounded in the very hearts and souls, so dreamy.

No boy was around this time, only the girl. Her raven locks fluttered in the breeze, as she herself eyed a regal woman standing on the other side of the walkway. The woman from before. She waved at the girl as if offering her to make her company, to which the girl did not refuse. They had a talk, a pleasant one at first – the woman seemingly wanting to befriend the young lady; then it shifted to something darker, until the woman took the girl by her arm and vanished. The raven-haired girl returned only after a while; her eyes glowed with gold, happy as never before.

The little noble elven girl cried, as the ship with her friend and her family sailed away. Her cousin on the contrary kept himself collected and serious, a lone tear sparkling on his cheek. They had no idea why the family of the emerald-eyed girl had to leave, but their grandmother knew. The old lady would never tell the children the whole story, maybe some mock up later. Oh, this lying Breton family – she had enough with their deceit. The shady market practice is one thing – it could be forgiven, but an attempt at kidnapping – it is something else. The grandmother was furious to know about this treachery – they already had this marriage agreement, but the breton lord decided to do it his way and kidnap woman’s only grandson. It was a miracle her right hand discovered it, preventing the disaster before it could happen. She should have beheaded them all, but the ruined reputation is worse than any death.

Warm hands awoke the boy – it was an old man, the grandmother’s old flame; silver moon shining through a window lit his dark gray hair tied into a high ponytail, his deep green eyes sparkling in the night. “Get up, get the things you need”, he told the kid, leaving him to look out of the window. It was now or never; the only chance he had to leave this place for good. “Where are we going?” the boy asked, rubbing his sleepy eyes. He did not want to leave, but it was of importance to get him out from the Isles, away from his ambitious grandmother. The man knew what she planned to do, her grandeur plans with the kid playing the main role. “Mark”, the old man crouched in front of him, “We have to leave. Now”. “But how about the grandmother, uncle Nar?” The old elf returned a year ago, pledged himself to serve the grandmother once again, loyal and obedient. It was hard to gain her trust yet again, but eventually – she opened up to him once more. It was all part of his plan – to deceive her and to thrust a knife in her back just like she did herself to him before; this wound, however, would hurt much more. “Uncle, I don’t want to go”, the kid said shaking his head. Right, the man thought, he didn’t have any reason to wish to leave this place, even after all the fairy tales of the north he told him. “Markus”, the old man started, smiling at how concentrated the kid got once he used this name, “There is no time for this. We’ve decided. The boat is setting sail in a few”, he had to take the boy away – for the sake of the future, for the sake of this kid’s life; he’d be damned if he’d let the woman use the child in her wicked schemes, “If you don’t like it there – I will bring you back, alright?” The kid nodded, sad and solemn asudden. The man felt sorry for taking him away, but a better and safe life awaits him once they make it from the Isles…

He didn't know the price he had have to pay – to be branded as a traitor by the one he once loved.

“Mom”, the boy said, suddenly shutting himself, eyes wide open as if he said something bad. The surrounding air filled with silence in an instant, and the awkwardness filled the kid to the top. He never had anyone to call a mom or a dad, and this one just… slipped. He felt ashamed; he didn’t want to look in the eyes of this woman anymore, face red from embarrassment. Instead of saying anything though, the woman just moved from her place, locking the kid into a loving and caring embrace. There was nothing wrong that he said; he finally felt safe.

The same girl – raven black locks, emerald eyes, almost a woman now – yet there was something different about her, something… not right. She seemed restless walking around the stone, like if she couldn’t find a place to stay. She brought a lot of things with her this time: many ancient books in a dead language; artifacts of a long gone race. The young lady always strived for knowledge, and the lessons she had along with her friends – it wasn’t enough, she always wanted more. Some of the things that she brought with her – they’ve been lost to the world, and some – hidden so deep inside the other realms it was impossible to recover them; where did she get them remained unknown. The lady would study them thoroughly, always returning to the beginnings to check the things she had learned. And this carried on for ages, it seemed, time stretching so much it fit hundreds of years into a single day. Yet she wanted more…

The woman from before came to her one day as if was called – their speech muffled, obscured by a primordial magic on purpose, impossible for anything to be heard. The girl bowed before the woman in the end, knelt, eyes close shut and brows furrowed. A fear lingered in the air surrounding her, but she was committed like never before – she would do whatever it takes to save the one she cares about even if the words the woman spoke scared her too much. A touch – and it all went ablaze with a brightness of thousands of suns. Regret, remorse, and anguish – all washed over the girl as she realized – she was deceived. It was too late to turn back now, no way for her to save her very self: her soul would be destroyed and absorbed, her body would become a living corpse following commands a few moments later. It reached out to the girl as her shadow imprinted on the place; it reached out and snatched a piece of her soul before the woman would consume it. It hid it in the deepest recesses no one would ever venture to. The girl is the part of it now, fused together into a single entity.

“Look!” a girl with chestnut hair and crystal blue eyes, skin of a cream – now the boy’s sister – pointed at something in the distance. A noble looking young woman, hair of the finest rye, skin of light gold, eyes of bronze; she moved with such a grace it seemed she didn’t walk but flied through air. He’s never seen anyone more angelic than her; she was the embodiment of everything beautiful in the world he has seen and he has yet to see. The woman glanced at him, half smile on her face, and it was enough to make his heart beat faster, blood rushing to his face, his lashes fluttering. “Why don’t you talk to her?” the sister asked, and that was enough for filling the embarrassment quota for today, making him retreat home.

“Aren’t you the one looking for a companion?” the kid came up to an ashen haired man sitting in the corner. He wasn’t a fan of approaching strangers – this one looked weird, sick and creepy, flower tattoo on his neck and a laurel around his ear – but there was no one else in this place who had the same route as him. The silver greatsword shifted on his back uncomfortably – damn be the day he listened to these old men saying he must wield a sword just as big as him. “Where are you heading?” the man asked not even bothered to look up. “Same as you”, it was dangerous to tell the destination aloud, but luckily, there were not many people around to overhear him. It was really careless of him to tell the bartender this, though, one never knows if they’re honest or not, but there was no other way around this: this area was too difficult to traverse on his own, alone, with each turn hiding behind a witch or a berserk ready to skin people alive. “Are you sure you can wield that paddle on your back?” the man smirked at him, getting up on his feet, and the kid sighed in frustration – this is going to be an adventure.

It barely made it in time, barely awoke the outsider the master brought here with him. The vestige, following commands from beyond, layered magic upon magic on the kid, binding him to the image of his long lost friend; he listened to the every honeyed word the vessel said, too enthralled to notice the deceit.

The outsider was right in time to disrupt it – it felt forever grateful to the odd looking man; and now that the effigy was gone, the kid is finally free from harm safe for the mournful melancholy and tears or relief.

It won’t allow this to happen again.

The last memory slowly faded, echoing in the darkness still. The veil of remembrance gradually lifted, sense by sense returning to the unmoving bodies, waking them from their slumber. Too exhausted…

- Shit, – Mark hissed, covering his eyes with his arm. The memories left an unpleasant feeling in his guts along with annoying anxiety playing in the background of his head, – Shit, imagine hating someone but being a fucking coward to do something radical about it, – he tried to stand up, but his own weight anchored him to the stone. So tired.

Livaen shifted on the floor, rising from the cold stone: her body was just as sore, so she just sat there modestly, watching her cousin gasp for air, squirming in his desire to get up.

- Mark, – she called quietly, afraid to scare him. He hummed in response, – I’m so sorry. Your mother, the aunt, I…, – she couldn’t finish the sentence, as he interrupted her with a gesture of his arm.

- Don’t. She got what she deserved, – the kid exhaled loudly, the arm falling limp on the stone. That woman – he wouldn’t even call her a mother; someone else but. His mother, the real mother that loved him and cared for him, waited for him in his new home.

- Do you… Do you need to talk?

The elf cringed painfully.

- Fuck no, I’ve seen enough, – he pushed himself off of the stone, sitting on the floor, – Fuck. Fuck me, – Mark shook his head, hiding the face in the palms of his hands for a moment. It was all so messed up, so twisted; how little idea he had about anything at all, and everything that he knew about his past – it was all lies, a pain inflicted upon him and his loved ones by the creatures more powerful than any mortal. He sighed, removing the hands from his face, looking up into the stone, – Cath? – he called, and the Void responded with a light breeze, strands of his hair waving gently as if someone combed through, – Shit, – he snickered, shaking his head: she’s always been here at his side, and he didn’t even know it, – imagine if I haven’t met you, – the elf addressed the ashen haired man this time that was already standing on his feet.

The soft breeze inside the Heart changed a little, sounds travelling differently.

- You’d be dead, – someone from behind announced, – She would have murdered you first – you would become a threat to her, – the Prince walked inside as if on cue – he must have listened in on everything, but then again – the Void was once a part of his realm, – Then she would have destroyed me. After – she would have claimed both your realm and mine, and for the final – she would have hunted down everyone who has or had any connection to me, good or bad. But, – he offered his hand to the elf. Mark looked at it with mistrust, but soon grabbed it, and the Prince pulled him on his feet, – she was too late, – he looked at Aspen, – Have you thought about that favor I owe you by the way?

Mark walked up to the basin, throwing one last glance into it. The whirlwind under the water calmed down, and smoke just leisurely floated inside.

- What happens now?

- You tell me, – the Prince replied, unmoving, – You could end this right here and now, or you could continue living on with this burden, being hunted by Meridia.

The girl moved from her spot.

- Mark, – she grabbed his arm firmly, reaching around him to look him into the eyes, – Please, don’t rush it. Let us think this through, – she lowered her voice, whispering, almost hissing at him, – He is the Schemer Prince, he may be lying about all of this. Even the memories – they might be untrue!

The kid stopped her with a gesture of his hand. He was so tired of everything. Mark moved past the Prince and through the exit, paying no attention to the three behind him. The air outside was so crisp and clean, like if a thunderstorm washed all over the place – the smell of electricity so prominent and liberating. He inhaled lungs full of air till they started aching, alleviating his mind and soul of the worries. Livaen was right, indeed, it was necessary to think this all through before deciding anything, yet he couldn’t wait anymore.

Was he the one to blame here? If it wasn’t for him, Catherine would be alive, Esmir’s daughter too, and Livaen wouldn’t’ve endured the horrible pain; Narandil would have his face intact – the scar serving him a reminder of the betrayal, and Visenya would have never known the grip of death. Was it his fault of endangering all of these people? Maybe he just shouldn’t’ve been born at all, maybe he was just a someone’s mistake. Right… A mistake. He was a mistake – the mistake of his mother and his grandmother; the payment for their ambitions; a scapegoat. If only they could have quenched their hunger.

The kid stopped at the crossroads, the entire walk absorbed in his thoughts, following the paths the Void laid down before him. He looked around: they followed him closely, not speaking a word, giving him space to breathe. It was now or never; with a heavy sigh he turned around, facing the Prince.

- I’ve decided, – he told him, the words coming off easier than he anticipated, – You have my favor.

The man only nodded in acknowledgement, and nothing else happened. So anticlimactic; he wouldn’t lie to himself, he expected a storm, a battle, an army of Meridia’s Aurorians – anything at all, but not this – just a nod of the head. But come whatever may, it just must end.

- Show yourself, – the Prince commanded to someone, voice like a thunder roaring through the air. The vestige appeared – the Catherine, her hair of pure gold this time, – Using the vessel still, I see? – the man smirked, drawing a low hostile groan from the woman.

- Just do what you have to do, Stone-Fire, – she replied, the look on the face solemn. She possessed the body herself, unwilling to come in person unlike numerous times she did in the memories, afraid of what’s about to happen. Was she trying to buy herself some time? Or was she trying to save herself using the image of the long lost girl?

- I was about to, – he told her, bowing slightly before her as a courtesy, – But I have something to ask first. Mark? – the Prince addressed the kid – he looked fatigued, eyes weary and sleepy, – What are you going to do about Esmir now that you know everything? She almost sacrificed her own child for her ambitions; murdered her daughter; wanted, most likely still wants to use you in her own devices; indirectly caused Catherine’s untimely demise; melted Narandil’s face; tortured your friends and almost killed Visenya… She was and is one of those behind Thalmor; she still bears the idea of bringing down the masters. What are you going to do about her?

Mark frowned, looking at the Daedra. A strange timing to this question, yet so weirdly right, he thought, as he forgot about the grandmother completely. It had nothing to do with the situation at hand, though still he decided upon indulging the man in this matter.

- Well, – he started, calculating every possible outcome for her and for them, – Esmir has to go, – Mark said, voice stern and confident. Livaen looked at him, a wordless question in her eyes, yet said nothing, – Livaen will replace her as the head of the house, – the decision earned an interested look from the Prince, but he didn’t interrupt the elf: he expected him to say he will seize the power for himself, like a child of his should, yet he didn’t. The kid took a deep breath, thinking: there was no denying of the crimes the woman has committed, and she would have to pay eventually for everything. But at the same time…, – She is also very valuable to dispose of, if that’s what you were waiting from me to comment upon, – Mark glanced at the Daedra. The man nodded in response, – She might be vile and cruel, but she’s one of the most brilliant people that ever lived. It would be a shame to lose her. So – she will stay by Livaen’s side as an advisor, nothing else, – a twisted glee flashed on the Prince’s face, and he applauded. It wasn’t what the man expected: he expected the son to give the woman to him to torture her endlessly for every broken deal they had; but this decision was… very prudent, to say the least, practical, and it made him feel really proud of the child. He would make sure himself the woman stays on track and serves the children properly.

- Now tell me, – the Prince asked in a curious tone, too excited with the previous answer. He moved closer to the kid, throwing an arm around his shoulders, – I’ll let you decide her fate, – the man gestured at the vessel, implying the person behind it. A fury crossed the vessel’s face, but died out quickly, – What should I do with her?

- Let her live, – the elf answered confidently, the answer final and definite. The woman looked at him, bewildered, not saying a word; the father just smiled wickedly – oh, the practicality of this kid: the woman was too… dear for him to get rid of, his very existence would become boring without his nemesis, and now that she’s defeated – she’ll try to avenge this embarrassment sometime later in future. It’s a fun game, a tug of war of sorts, and the man definitely enjoys it despite the lesser failures along the way. She must love it too… The Prince used the confusion of the woman and made a leap forward all of a sudden, getting close to the vessel in one big step and cutting its throat. The body went limp in an instant, no blood pouring from the wound; the man caught the finally dead Catherine in his arms, gently laying her down onto the stone. His finger stroked her face softly, closing her eyes forever now. After – he rose up, turning around to see the son one more time.

- She wouldn’t do the same for you. I hope she appreciates it, – and with this the Prince disappeared into thin air.

It was anticlimactic.

Later that day they placed her body onto a boat – the bed of roses – its material very similar to that of a wood. Mark set the float on fire, her body catching flames quickly – the blaze so hot and bright; the Void’s tide taking her away into the mists beyond. The breeze carried her ashes away as she burned, turning them into the finest crystals. It was sad, but he was also happy she finally has her peace – she finally reconnected with herself, he felt it in the air; she was gleeful about it, she’s been waiting for so long to become whole again. It was snowing after for a few days, snowing with sparkling in the invisible sun crystals.

...

- Hurry! – the elf girl commanded to a servant, – Please, don’t break it! – she looked all over the crates they’re going to ship back to Alinor – all filled to the brim with Skyrim’s treasures.

It was the end; they were boarding the ship to set sail back home – to Summerset. Esmir and her loyal bodyguard were already aboard, yet Livaen still lingered ashore for someone to finally show up and say farewells. She wanted him to leave with her, to join her and return home; she was dreading the time she’ll have to step in in her full rights as the head of the house with little friends by her side, she wanted him to share this power and ease the burden; he was adamant about staying up here in the North though.

- Livaen, – someone gently touched her elbow, soft and low female voice getting her attention, – Relax, don’t want you start spitting diamonds here, – Meltem smirked at her, making a remark about the tension in the girl’s whole body, pointing at two riders in the distance. Here they are, the girl smiled shifting her gaze onto the woman – she followed their path with her eyes before meeting Livaen’s. She’s bound to leave Skyrim with her, in so many years finally changing the place; it was heartbreaking to see her go, but hopefully it’s for the best. Everything happened so quickly; it happened just as quickly as they got married: just like Livaen anticipated their marriage didn’t last long, and they had to put a stop to it. Visenya – the girl’s head is full of wind, careless and childish still; their relationship was like a game to her, something unimportant and something she could disregard with ease. At least she doesn’t have an ache in her heart – she married the jarl’s brother the next day after the divorce. Maybe it was for the better… Meltem wanted to leave in the end, to leave Skyrim behind, wanted to go with her sister to Chorrol as they planned, but she couldn’t see herself as a housewife or anything like that. She is a warrior, and she will die with swords in her hands doing something that is worth dying for. She would’ve left, but Mark stopped her, suggesting she stays by his cousin’s side, being her shield and most importantly a friend for her.

- Hey! – the voice of her cousin returned her back to senses: he dismounted his horse, his companion following him closely behind, as always. They came closer, the elf locking the girl into an embrace – it was finally all over for him and for her, and she can safely return home as the new lady of the house, – You’re all ready? – he asked, firmly holding her by her shoulders.

- Yes, – she nodded, smiling, watching as he switched over to Meltem, their embrace so warm and everlasting; it was hard for both to let go. The ashen haired man followed the elf as he pulled away from the woman facing Livaen yet again. She sighed, a bit sad, – Are you sure you don’t want to leave with us? – the same old question, but it didn’t hurt asking.

- No, – Mark laughed lightly, shaking his head. He’s so different now from what he was a month ago – finally bright and full of life, – but I’ll visit you someday, – he leaned forward, kissing Livaen’s forehead, – I’m going to miss you both, so expect me, – the kid told both women, as an annoyed captain urged them to leave the docks and finally go aboard the ship. They hugged one more time saying their farewells and left the two behind ashore. Mark waved his hand, watching them set sail for the South – it was bittersweet to say goodbye, but this was life, and it’s unfair; he still has Aspen by his side, his parents in Whiterun too, and they’re going to visit the Isles sooner or later. With this thought, he smiled brighter than ever after them, his hand blindly finding the other man’s hand and squeezing in tightly.

#sc_storytime #SC_Mark #SC_LivaenSorano #FV_Aspen #SC_MeltemEsteban

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authorgreybrooke · 5 years

Text

Red Daughter (The unsung hero of Kasnia)

Kasnia was a cold place, an extensive woodland with patches of snow decorating its wild landscape. The villagers were poor and wrapped in scratchy attire, always pulling their thin scarfs tightly around there necks. The stalls of food were old and rickety, manned by staving people, desperate for their wages.

The soldiers were brutal but honest, fuelled by their anger, at the Americans and their Hollywood, and their fancy chefs, and fancy clothes, and comfortable beds. They pushed around the populace and protected them at the same time. Kasnia had a mandatory military program, a type of conscription, that meant every male citizen had to do a minimum of four years of service before the age of thirty. The hatred was trained into them, beaten into them, it made them strong, hard, fierce, it made them warriors.

In a dirt field, on the edge of the market, some kids kicked around a dirty soccer ball. A blonde-haired woman with a broad smile, and a grey and red uniform ran around with the group, pretending to be bad at the game and laughing at herself with them.

Close to dusk, a loud whistling noise pieced through the ambients, and Snowbird grimaced at the familiar call. The General was summoning her back to camp, using a device that emitted a high-frequency sound that only the woman could hear, similar to a dog whistle. She waved goodbye to the children, who begged her to stay for just a little bit longer, and took off into the sky.

. . .

The base was metal and brick, void of colour. The guards patrolling never smiled at Snowbird. The only person who would look her with affection was Alex, and he seldom visited, though he sent her books. She loved The Great Gatsby, it sparked her imagination, told her about a fantastical world of music, colour and grandeur. It was meant to be a learning tool, from Alex, to educate her about the American's selfish lifestyles, their disregard and greedy natures. Still, Snowbird kept it close like a child with a teddy bear.

Snowbird obediently entered her room, the door locked behind her, and the sharp metal sound of the lock hurt her ears. She knelt by the pile of books in the corner and pushed a few aside, philosophy, Shakespeare, poetry, dark fiction, biography's -- her favourite was romance. There was not a lot about love, family, friendship, what she uncovered twinged something painful inside her chest, something she hadn't found the words her to describe.

The story of Gatsby was tragic, a missed loved, a series of unsatisfied grand gestures. The copy that Snowbird had was beneath her pillow, it had been read the most, Snowbird cherished the novel, keeping it close for comfort. The pages held secrets, scribbled between lines and on edges, her sporadic thoughts and feelings, confessions and wishes on stars. She used to write about Alex. slowly, the idea of him she had in her head faded and transformed into something else, like a mentor or a father figure, the term "family" did not quite mesh with the words he said and the words she had read over and over again in her books.

When Alex spoke of his sister, an unfamiliar feeling threaten to consume her spirit, she felt it when she read about Daisy, the untouchable love, the unrequited, the missed, the unreachable, the unobtainable. Photos, images of the Americans were pinned to walls of Snowbird's tiny room, faces she was supposed to observe and learn, expression to mimic for when the time came.

"Lena." Snowbird practised the name, replayed it in her mind, spoke it with different accents, the sound was somehow imprinted within herself long before she had even known Lena Luthor existed. She traced her fingers over the images, unexplainable angry when she looked at Kara Danvers, smiling, with her arm around Lex's sister.

She'd met Lena, briefly, when she was Imitating her counterpart in America. The L-Corp CEO appeared discipline and compassionate, powerful and kind, beautiful in a way she had only read about but never personally witnessed.

Kara Danvers's journal had revealed many things, such as Kara's deep, seemingly unrequited, feelings for Lena Luthor. Kara spoke of her alien biology and her fears of hurting any human she loved too hard, she talked about their friendship and how she couldn't risk anything more beyond that, afraid that she would lose her best friend ultimately, she talked about being too scared to tell Lena about Supergirl, afraid of losing the one person who made her feel as vulnerable as any human.

There was an article within Kara's diary that she'd had the urge to steal, it was written by her counterpart and was about Lena Luthor and her company. It spoke of her charity and innovation, Lena had the potential to change the world, and Snowbird hoped that the younger Luthor would join the Kasnian people, hoped that she could see the beauty of the Kasnian land as Snowbird saw it. It was a fantasy, a dream, to stand firm for her people with Alex and Lena at her sides, she shook away the vision as sleep pulled her under.

. . .

The morning came slowly, it was cold and dark as the new day began. The boots stomping outside Snowbird's door woke her from a restless sleep, the blanket wasn't warm enough, and the room seemed to hold the cold air inside, never circulating or warming. The room remained stagnant and devoid of anything homely. Snowbird ran her hand over her face, trying to push away her half-asleep imaginings, she was a soldier, she didn't need friends or family, she had Alex and Kasnia, and that was everything.

The days passed, and Snowbird trained, she played with the kids, explored the wildlands, read about people doing things she could never dream up. Snowbird was content, happy even, ever since she had introduced Lex to Mikhail, feeling a warmth in her chest as the pair interacted -- like everything was coming together, she may not have the type of family written in books, but she had one, sitting around a broken table, laughing about simple things. Life in Kasnia may not be glamorous, it never needed to be, Kasnia was magical and peaceful all on its own.

The extra time in between training sessions gave Snowbirds mind the chance to wonder, she thought about things, imagined other things, mainly what her counterpart was doing in America. While Kasnia carried on, Snowbird slipped away, her curiosity taking over once again.

. . .

National City was loud, Snowbird cringed as she entered the busy, messy place. Kara Danvers' apartment was empty when she flew near enough to look in through the window. She didn't want to visit that place again, it made her irrationally angry, and she could fathom why an American apartment would evoke such a feeling.

She found herself hovering above the L-Corp building, watching Lena Luthor bite her lip and type furiously at her computer. Without much thought, driven purely by instinct, Snowbird floated down onto the CEO's balcony. Lena's heartbeat was loud in her head, pushing violently against her own pulse. Snowbird pressed her hand to her chest, trying to slow the powerful beats, it was dizzying, distracting, overwhelming.

"Supergirl!"

Snowbird felt a warm hand against her own and flinched back, stumbling.

"Are you alright?" Lena had moved without a sound, she stood before the Kasnian, watching her closely.

"I'm fine," Snowbird croaked, it wasn't loud, it wasn't even a proper American accent, it was fragile and broken.

"You don't look fine. Why don't you come inside," Lena pushed open the door and tried to reach for the fracture Kryptonian.

"I shouldn't."

"Why not?" Lena tilted her head slightly to one side.

Snowbird knew nothing at that moment, only that her feet would step wherever Lena Luthor wanted them to travel. She staggered over to the couch and sat, trembling and unsure.

Lena sat beside her, calm and so undeniably beautiful. "Did something happen?"

"You hate me..." Snowbird recalled the fallout Lena and Supergirl had over the creation of Kryptonite, how Supergirl had sent Guardian to infiltrate Lena's private laboratory.

"I don't hate you. I don't trust you. There's a difference." Lena's voice was steady, soft, soothing.

"I understand."

"I like the new uniform. It looks warmer."

Snowbird looked down at herself and remembered that she was not in disguise and that she should not be in Lena Luthor's office. Alex was going to be so mad. "I should go."

Lena nodded. "Maybe you could stay for a bit. I have some work to do, and I would like the company. Just for a bit."

"Just for a bit..."

"Yes. Please."

Snowbird realised in that instant that she could not deny Lena anything. The CEO stood and returned to her desk, glancing over to the alien on her couch every so often with a small smile. Snowbird just sat and waited, and watched Lena in return as she slipped on a pair of glasses, sipped her warm coffee, stretched her arms above her head and rubbed the back of her neck.

The night moved slowly into dawn, and the Kasnian listened to the city folk stir, the traffic grew more intense and the buildings awakened. It wasn't until she heard Eve enter the floor from the elevator that the Kasnian snapped out of her daydreaming.

"I have to go!" Snowbird stood and made for the balcony. The last thing she saw before she jumped into the air was Lena rushing to her feet, almost as if she wanted to stop Snowbird from leaving.

. . .

The Kaznian market strip was a flurry in the late afternoon, children rushed about, catching the last of the sun while the women and men bartered for there dinners. A military jeep, the old rusted kind, sped down the main dirt road, forcing the crowds to disperse in a panic. The soldiers aboard screamed at the scrambling pedestrians, angry that they couldn't move out of the way faster. One woman, frail in her old age, tripped over nothing, dropping her bag of overly ripe fruit onto the ground. Torn between forcing herself to her feet and reaching for the food she desperately wanted, she didn't move out of the way fast enough.

The soldier driving pushed down harder on the accelerator, intent on not letting the human speedbump slow his vehicle down. There was a shout, and then the sound of the engine zooming passed. The old woman stood shocked, confused and holding her bag of fruit, safely away from the military convoy.

"Are you okay?"

The woman spun around to see her saviour smiling down at her gently. The older Kasnian rushed out a few gratitudes in her own tongue and insisted that the hero take some fruit for her next meal.

"No, I couldn't. Please. Keep them."

The woman insisted, pinching the blushing blonde's cheek and forcing fruit into her arms.

Snowbird laughed and thanked the woman, earning another pinch and a pat on the arm.

The people of Kaznia had never feared her presence, she was a strange woman in strange clothes who spoke their language and helped them when the soldier would kick them.

Not all of the soldiers were bad, but Snowbird was exceptional, she played soccer with children and built them a school, she raced people to doctors and dove into frozen lakes for lost things, she found lost pets and used her heat vision to start fires when her people were freezing. It wasn't glamorous or even exhausting, it was just how she helped.

. . .

Snowbird sat in a tree, resting on a thick branch, obtaining a wondrous view of the sun disappearing behind the treetops. The sunlight flickered in orange, purple and blue, before dimming away. A sweet juice ran around her smile and down her chin as she feasted sloppily on the yellowish mango, it left her fingers sticky, but she was happy. It had been a good day. Even though she still missed Alex, regretting the things she had said to him.

The American's had attacked, and she wasn't around to save her people, she had been distracted, and it had cost her everything. Mikhail was gone, murdered, and she had let her feelings dictate her actions, she sought revenge for his death and almost ruined all of Alex's plans, she had disappointed him, genuinely and it broke Snowbird even further.

She'd accused Alex of being controlled by his emotions, whether she was projecting or not, she couldn't know for sure, all she knew was that she had dropped Lena's name in the heat of their fight and it had ruined everything between them.

The General called her back, using the sharp whistle that always made Snowbird flinch, and so, she hopped down from the tree, landing too hard, making the ground shake a little.

Before she zipped all the way back to the military base, Snowbird levitated above the blackened crater that was now Mikhail's grave. The anguish that she had felt the day that he'd died was unlike anything she had ever felt, the pain itself lingered, in her limbs, in her chest, gnawing away savagely at her innards.

Everything ached, the weight of it manifest and she dropped to the ground beside the destroyed soccer ball, she watched it, waited for it to no longer be broken and when it refused she angrily snatched it up from the ground.

Snowbird held onto the punctured, charred soccer ball, closing her fist around its torn skin. Since the attack, her people had been afraid of monsters across the ocean and the Kasnian soldiers who patrolled with itchy fingers.

Alex had left Kasnia, and Snowbird stood in the wreckage, angrier than she had ever been before, alone and full of self-loathing. Alex had taught her, saved her from Kryptonite and she had failed. It was time to prepare, to train, it was not the time for distractions. Mikhail deserved better. Kasnia deserved better.

She tried to imagine what it would be like to lose Alex forever and a sick feeling crept along her gut. The ash got swept up in a breeze forcing its scent onto the visitor. Snowbird cough and cringed and flew away in a desperate hurry, eager to be locked away safely in her room.

. . .

That night brought twisted nightmares of Mikhail's face, his sweet smile, melted away by the volatile American weapons. Alex, vaporised by a missile, as he sat at his desk, scribbling notes. Lena, typing and relaxing, then being dragged away by faceless terrorist as she cried out for Supergirl's help, cries that went unanswered.

Snowbird gasped and screamed, throwing herself out of her bunk and onto the cold ground. She had been angry before because people told her to be angry -- but she had never hated, never so purely. She hated the Americans. She hated everything Supergirl stood for, all of the lies, Mikhail's murder, the typical American way of life. The pictures of Kara Danvers' picture-perfect life mocked her from their places above her bed. Supergirl defended the people who had murdered Mikhail, she protected them.

Snowbird didn't notice at first, that she was getting weaker, the first nose bleed never worried her although it did worriy the General, he watched her with narrowed, cold eyes and frowned. He would call Alex -- she knew that he would, and so she waited, she was ordered to halt her training and to rest. Alex would come soon, and he would make everything okay again.

Except, she wasn't sure that Alex would return. There had been no new books, no letters, no new orders, and Snowbird felt the absence deeply. The General made her rest and had the doctors run test after test. The sun wasn't helping as much as it used to, it didn't give her the strength and energy it did when she stepped out of the bunker months ago.

It took a lot of her reserves to push up into the sky, she told herself that she wanted to find Alex, even as she crashed into Lena Luthor's office.

. . .

The lab below L-Corp smelt of chemicals, it was cold and bright, the light reflected off the clean white surfaces. Lena had a laptop that she typed on, a machine that analysed things and safety glasses on top of her reading glasses.

"Do you feel any tingling?"

"No."

"Is your vision blurry?"

"No."

"Do you feel nauseous?"

"No."

Snowbird had awoken on a gurney beneath a giant sun-lamp, and since then Lena Luthor had been the motivated scientist, determined to diagnose the problem that made the Kryptonian crash land into her office.

As the warm radiation seeped into her veins and energise her muscles, Snowbird watched the dark-haired woman she obsessed over, obsess over her instead. Lena Luthor fussed about her temperature and her EKG readings, her hands turned her head and checked if her skin was clammy, her eyes frantically scanned Snowbirds body for signs of anything.

It was a selfish pleasure, the Kasnian enjoyed the attention, the worry covering the other woman's face. She enjoyed having Lena entirely to herself, if only for a moment.

Lena flashed a small torch into her eyes. "How are you feeling? Headache?"

"No." Snowbird reached up and let her fingers slip into the soft dark locks that had been hurriedly pulled back into a messy bun. Lena's eyes locked onto her own. "Glass. There was glass," she mumbled, letting her hand drop away again.

"Well, you did destroy my window. It was supposed to be shatterproof. Three inches thick."

"Sorry."

"Ripped up my carpet too."

Snowbird grinned. "Sorry."

"I don't know how I'll explain it to Eve."

The Kasnian looked down at her own hands, suddenly very, honestly guilty. "Sorry."

"Hey, it's okay. I am a billionaire."

"I have betrayed you. I fail everyone."

"You're not Supergirl. I know."

"But... How? I don't. I'm sorry." Snowbird shook her head, angry with herself for thinking she could deceive Alex's sister.

"It's okay," the CEO assured.

"I need to go!" Snowbird stood up, but hands quickly pushed on her shoulders.

"Relax. I won't hurt you."

Snowbird scoffed at the absurdity. "Aren't you afraid I'll hurt you?"

"No."

"Why?"

"You kept me company." Lena shrugged, nonchalant about the whole situation -- as if she were often visited by Supergirl copies in the middle of the day.

"What?"

"Besides, you're very weak right now. I think I could take you." Lena smirked and winked.

"What? I... Um... I don't understand."

"Rest. I have a few more test."

Snowbird would have argued, but Lena looked at her in that way she looked at Kara in those pictures, and Snowbird was stuck, frozen in her place on the gurney. Lena order food, piles of food, bags of greasy, unhealthy food and each new flavour was a revelation. Lena watches with a fondness as the weak alien in her lab consumed mountains of noodles and pizza.

They talked, sparingly. Mainly Snowbird avoided questions, avoided eye contact, avoided breathing too loudly. Lena noticed and she was clearly cautious in the way she approached the creature in her lab, she circled around but never stood too close. Snowbird could feel her everywhere in the room, she didn't need to look at her, no matter how much she wanted to.

Eventually, Lena could no longer hold her beneath L-Corp, though she did ask her to return soon, once all of the results were back. They walked slowly back up to the shattered balcony, and Snowbird took off into the sky after begrudgingly promising to visit again soon -- the whole experience left the Kasnian feeling uneasy, and for the first time, she was thankful that Alex wasn't around to learn about her city visits.

. . .

The General had cleared her for training again. Snowbird didn't tell him how lethargic she had felt the last few days, like always, she kept her weaknesses close to her chest. A full night under a sunlamp with light conversation from Lena Luthor helped her energy levels somewhat, but Snowbird wouldn't tell the General that either.

She was stronger, and that was all the General cared about, she did attack drills, and soldiers threw grenades at her to test her resilience. The first ten didn't hurt, but the last five gave her a headache. The ringing in her ears made her dizzy, and she messed up her evasive flying technique. Scientist scribbled things down in their notebooks and asked her to repeat specific actions.

By the end of the day, she was exhausted. She had never felt so tired, and when she retired to her room, she fell asleep instantly and dreamt of nothing.

#supercorp #supergirl #red daughter #linda lee #lena luthor #lesfic #fanfic #kara danvers #fanfiction #supergirl fanfiction #WLW #wlw love #lesbian fiction

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tawakkull · 4 years

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Spirituality in islam: God and the Truth of Divinity

The sacred term Allah (God), which is also referred to as the Word of Majesty or the All-Supreme Name in the sense that it is the Chief Divine Name comprising all other Names, is the proper Name of the All-Majestic, All-High Divine Being, Who introduces Himself to us with His All-Beautiful Names and draws a frame in our minds with all His Attributes of Glory so that we may have knowledge of Him; He is the All-Sacred One called by all His Names and the All-Glorified One described by all His Attributes of Perfection, and it is He Who is the sole, peerless Sovereign on the Thrones of Divinity and Lordship. As also stated by Sayyid Sharif al- Jurjani, the all-blessed word of God is the proper Name of the Divine Essence as God, (from the viewpoint of His absolute Uniqueness and His total detachment from the created). According to the scholars of the basic principles of the Religion and the religious methodology, Allah (God) is a proper Name particular to the Divine Essence exclusively. Known also as the Name of Majesty and the All-Supreme or Greatest Name, this all-blessed Word is particularly mentioned as the Greatest or All-Supreme Name.

All the other Names belonging to the Divine Being are descriptive names or the names or titles that function like attributes, while the wordAllah (God) is the Name of His Essence (Dhat), and comprises all the other Names directly or indirectly. That is to say, if a person declares their belief with the expressions such as “There is no deity but the All-Holy and All-Pure,” or “There is no deity but the All-Compassionate,” or “There is no deity but the All-Glorious with irresistible might,” and so on, they have not declared their belief properly, as none of these Names wholly designate the Divine Being, Who is known by all His Names and recognized by all His Attributes. One who declares their belief only with such expressions knowingly or unknowingly attempts to restrict the infinite sphere of Divinity and Lordship to the areas of the manifestations of the Names the All-Holy and All-Pure or the All-Compassionate or the All-Glorious with irresistible might, thus trying to make the infinite finite or the all-encompassing encompassed in one respect.

The All-Majestic, All-High Being Who is called by the all-sacred Name God is the unique source of the truths of humanity, the universe, and things, and their ultimate, unique origin and ultimate, unique, primary cause. He is the Necessarily Existent Being Who exists by Himself. All our studies of the outer and our inner worlds demonstrate this fact. There is not a single thing in the universe that does not have multiple indications of the All-Sacred One Who is called by the Name of Glory, God. It can be said that the All-Sacred Name God exists inscribed both on the face of every thing and being and on the visage of the universe as a whole. However, this truth is more manifest and more clearly eligible in the physical and metaphysical face of humanity. As Imam ‘ Ali said, a human being does not comprise a small, physical body; a human being is the miniature, the most precious copy of the whole universe; the human contains the entire contents of the universe and bears witness to the Divine Being as loudly as the entire universe. With all our states, we human beings demonstrate the All- Initiating; with all aspects of our lives we exclaim that we are dependent on Him. With the outer and inner dimensions of our existence, we proclaim Him.

There is no opposite, nor peer, of my Lord in the universe;

He is the All-Transcendent and exempt from having a form.

He has no partners and He is free from begetting and being begotten; He is Unique, having no equals— these He mentions in Suratu’l-Ikhlas.

He is neither a body nor a substance, nor is He an accident, nor of matter.

He does not eat and drink, nor is He contained by time.

He is absolutely free from change, alteration, and transformation, and from colors and having a shape as well—

These are His Attributes in the negative.

He is neither in the heavens nor on the earth;

Neither on the right nor on the left; neither before nor after;

He is absolutely free from any direction.

So He is never contained in space.

As the respected Ibrahim Haqqi says, God is neither a body nor a substance; nor is He a compound or a composite, a divisible being, or a part, nor does He have a form or shape or any other feature that is attributed to the created. He is the First, the Last, the All-Outward and the All-Inward—He is the All-Inward, more inward than anything inward in His manifestations, and the All-Outward, more outward than anything outward in His being hidden. As He has no physical contact with anything in His Acts, He is also exempt from having or using any instruments in pronouncing His will or decrees.

Furthermore, Divine Uniqueness and Unity have another aspect which is related to the All-Holy, Purely Divine Essence. On account of Its mirror in which It is reflected, Divine Uniqueness or absolute Oneness has been expressed as: “God was and there was nothing else besides Him,” while Divine Unity has been interpreted in the sense ofEverything is perishable (and so perishing) except His “Face.” His alone is judgment and authority, and to Him you are being brought back (28:88). While the former refers to God as eternal having no beginning, the latter refers to Him as eternal having no end. According to this approach, since the rank of Uniqueness relates to the Pure Essence, this Uniqueness has been accepted as having precedence over the rank of Unity, Which is considered together with the Names and Attributes. As for Divinity, It has precedence over both Uniqueness or Oneness and Unity, for It has the transcending characteristic of giving everything its due and restoring every right in the vastness of all realms of contingency, and the rank of All-Mercifulness (ar-Rahmaniyya), which is regarded as the horizon of the initial manifestation of all Divine Names and Attributes, has been considered as Its area of unfolding. The proper title of this rank is the All-Sacred Name the All-Merciful (ar-Rahman), to Which are referred the Names of the Divine Essence such as the All-Unique of Absolute Oneness, the One of Unity, the Eternally Besought One, the All-Holy, and the All-Supreme, as well as such Attributes of His like Life, Knowledge, Hearing, Seeing, Power, and Will.

The rank which encompasses God Almighty’s Names, Attributes of Glory, and wise Acts has been called the sphere of Divinity on account that He is—and is accepted as—the Divine Being Who is Absolutely Deserving of Worship, while the rank which relates to the Name the Lord and draws attention to His being— and being accepted and obeyed as—the Lord has been designated as the sphere of Lordship. The statements of the Qur’an concerning both of these spheres are explicit and decisive. The Qur’an tells us to believe in God as both the One of Divinity and the One of Lordship. For example, on account of describing God Almighty with His Attributes of Perfection that are inherent in His Essence and declaring Him to be absolutely free from any attributes of defect, Suratu’l-Ikhlas (Sura 112) emphasizes the Unity of Divinity or God’s being the Unique One of Divinity. WhileSuratu’l-Kafirun (Sura 109) pronounces that worship and adoration are particular to God exclusively, Who has no partners, rivals, or equals, and therefore emphasizes the Unity of God as the All-Worshipped One.Suratu’l-Fatiha (Sura 1) teaches and stresses both the Unity of Divinity and the Unity of God’s being the All-Worshipped One and the Unity of Lordship.

How can it be possible to describe the All-Protecting Owner!

What is proper is not to attempt to describe Him.

If the goal and result of all these attempts to know God and to make Him known is our servanthood to Him, our love of Him, and our pleasing Him, then we should pursue these with our outer and inner senses and our faculties to try to reach our goal. He has never disappointed those who have turned to Him with love and attachment and He has never abandoned those who come to His door, or left them unrewarded.

I was ashamed of myself in the realm of love; turning to my body, soul, and heart, I reprimanded myself.

I leveled to the ground the building of self on the path of love;

O Nigari, I destroyed my physical existence for the treasure of His love.

In a poem in his Diwan-i Kabir, the respected Mawlana Jalalud- Din ar- Rumi speaks about love for God as follows:

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