#fractures: sundered

[evienyx]

Fractures: Sundered, Chapter One: Returned

'With the arrival of Princess Azula, Toph Beifong, and Master Piandao to the Fire Nation, Fire Lord Zuko, barely staying afloat as is, finds himself thrown directly into the very thing he's been avoiding: the fallout of the Hundred-Year War.

As faces old and new emerge from the shadows, some friend and other foe, Zuko struggles to help both his nation and the world while grappling with exactly what it means to do what is right.'

- - - - -

And so it begins.

[sntoot]

visiting the moon (getting rid of those ridiculous gloves)

[spiribia]

it will come as no surprise to pretty much anyone that my azem’s true name is Eurydice. a nebulous figure that is ‘destroyed’ only because certain philosophy (ironically, primarily the guy named ‘hades’) doesnt have faith looking forward at the future where parts of her could yet live, it looks back for the static and vaunted memory of her, thus disservicing her and whatever she would’ve actually wanted to represent. or whatever the hell.

[joiedecombat]

Give us a theron headcanon you've never shared before!

Ooh, interesting question!

I pondered in it and I don't think I really have any good Theron-specific headcanons that I haven't already shared or that aren't generally accepted fanon, so this is more of a Theron/Maia headcanon. Mostly Theron, though, since it's entirely his doing:

Theron and Maia's wedding rings have several sophisticated and Very Interesting technological features designed into them, including a long-range beacon and a two-part encryption key that only works when both rings are brought together.

What does the key unlock / activate? He has not told me yet, but I assume it's something important.

[whyisaravenlike-awritingdesk]

Begged & Borrowed Time (xxvi, ao3)

(Chapter twenty six: In the aftermath of Hybern, Nesta wakes at the House of Wind.) (Prologue // previous chapter // next chapter)

The darkness spoke to her like a lover, at first.

Softly, low and edged with promise, it hummed as the water closed above her head and it forced its way inside. It murmured like it might lay the world at her feet as icy fingers pressed against her skin and scratched at her soul. It spoke her name— the Cauldron spoke her name within its depths, as though it were a fragment of something substantial lost in the abyss, whispered through the cold. 

Nesta.

Nesta.

Nesta.

It echoed— in the void, where time and space and air and light could not find them. On and on and on, endless it stretched as she kicked and thrashed and cried and fought, until the whispering voice inside her mind turned into a hiss.

And then, in the black, everything began to burn. 

Burned like ice as her veins expanded, collapsed, and through every eddy and swirl she felt it— felt the Cauldron’s hunger, how desperately it wanted to devour her. It swarmed, knifed against her throat and punctured her skin, and though she opened her mouth to scream, there was nothing— a deep and empty nothing with all the silence of a grave. She didn’t know which way was up, couldn’t find a way free, and as that cold, cold water began to boil her blood, she screamed in earnest as she drowned. It was death and destruction and a breaking so brutal that through the silence Nesta could hear her bones snap as the Cauldron swept inside her, forcing the way until its essence was snaking through her veins, smothering and strangling and stopping her heart until there was nothing left. 

Nothing.

Everything ended; everything ceased.

She didn’t know how long had passed— whether the Cauldron had taken a moment or an eternity to cleave her from her humanity. It felt like the latter, and when her heart started to beat again, it hurt. Shards of ice radiated from her chest, and every pulse was a hammer against new-formed ribs threatening to shatter, a physical pain that burrowed deep into every single bone, every muscle torn and every nerve frayed. And as the icy depths of the Cauldron broke her apart…

Nesta Archeron found her fury.

It was the kind of molten, incandescent rage that filled the gaps in her broken bones, and with teeth and nails and a scream not a soul could hear, Nesta writhed in the nothingness, searching for something to hold onto— something to cleave apart with her fingers.

The Cauldron had broken her— and she wanted to make it break, too.

Her chest caved with the force of the scream that left her, and as the cold water forced its way down her throat still she clawed and grasped, until she felt something irrevocable snap beneath her fingers. As she begged for death, something fundamental sundered, something ripped as she thrashed, and this time… she didn’t think it was her bones snapping.

The water swirled and twisted, turned violent.

The Cauldron didn’t whisper her name now. It shouted— it screamed, and still intent on breaking her, it grew colder. Crueller. The darkness shifted, churned, and then—

Light.

After an age of pain and screaming, there was light— breaking through, painful and bright - far too bright - and the world tilted as Nesta was tipped from that Cauldron and thrown onto the cold stone floor. As if no time had passed, as if nothing had changed. The darkness slipped away, leaving only a shadow of itself inside her veins, and as she tried to breathe her lungs ached. 

The burning was everywhere now, as though it had become part of her.

And in that puddle of dark water, her world fractured and broke apart all over again as she tasted blood, smelled it in the air. A familiar voice drowning in its own agony whispered her name, and as Nesta lifted her head, she realised with terrible, terrifying clarity that this was real, not a dream or a nightmare but real, and that was real blood coating the stone floor. His blood, his voice, his—

***

With a start, she woke.

A dream— an awful, terrible dream.

Blinking against the morning light, she stared up at the unfamiliar ceiling and listened to the silence as the dream faded. 

No— not silence.

She could hear the wind. Could hear birds singing distant songs and far away - far, far away - the crashing of the ocean. The light still hurt her eyes, unadjusted and ill-equipped, and as she lay there, in a strange bed in a strange bedroom, wrapped in sheets she knew ought to have been as soft as silk… 

They scratched against her too-sensitive skin, sliding across her bare arms as she sat up. She didn’t recognise the nightgown she wore, the material a kind of satin that felt as uncomfortable as the sheets. Everything was sharp, too sharp, like the keen edge of a knife. Even the air felt different. Tasted different— like it, too, was sharper somehow. Crisper. 

She shifted, extending a hand to shove away those damned sheets.

But the movement was too fluid— her limbs longer, her skin smoother. Foreign, it all felt so foreign, like her mind didn’t recognise her body anymore. 

Horror crept up her spine and coiled within her as she glanced around the unfamiliar bedroom once more, taking in the plush carpets and the sound of civilisation beyond the walls. She ran a hand over her hair, her cheeks, her ears—

Her ears.

Not a dream.

It hadn’t been a dream at all.

Nesta felt the tips of her ears, tracing the new arch there that served as a brutal reminder that everything she’d relived in her dreams was real. As her hand fell away, she couldn’t help the sob that tore from her chest. Her throat was raw, her voice weak from disuse, but her cries left her anyway as she wrenched herself from that bed and stumbled to the dressing table and mirror sitting along the opposite wall. When she looked into the glass, she stilled.

Feyre might have been made beautiful by immortality, but it had made a stranger of Nesta.

Her hair was longer, its colour brighter, and left unbound it lay in a curtain across her neck, made even more elegant by the loss of her humanity. She pushed her hair back, revealing her ears, and catching sight of those pointed tips…

Her tears came thicker, faster.

Silver glinted in the mirror, a flash in her eyes that had Nesta’s heart skipping a beat— skipping several. They were almost the same, her eyes. Almost the same blue-grey as before, the same as her mother’s. And yet— beneath, there was silver writhing there, ribbons of it encircling her irises.

Something else seemed to twist beneath her skin too, something as cold as ice that burned like fire, and it made her fingertips twitch with unease as she looked in that mirror and watched her tears slip down unfamiliar cheeks. 

Feyre had been granted immortality and emerged with a whole host of extra gifts, and when Nesta had been inside that god-forsaken Cauldron she had felt something come away in her hands, some part of it she had taken for her own, and as she looked at that silver in her eyes, felt that burning in her fingers—

She forced the thought away— pushing herself away from that dressing table so hard the mirror rattled.

Not going there.

She wasn’t going there.

Instead she crossed the floor to the window, to see where she had been taken in the aftermath of Hybern. Pulling apart the curtains revealed the sun streaming through the clouds beyond the glass, the sky a brilliant, azure blue above a river curving through city streets. She’d seen it before— been there before, and as her eyes alighted on a small, half-hidden dock…

Nesta recognised it.

Velaris.

No longer was she in that castle, then— the one they had been taken to in the dark, that fortress of roughened stone. There, they had been kept in a cell so far beneath the ground that neither light nor sound could reach them. The stone walls were rough and unfinished, the cold and the damp seeping between the cracks. Elain had cried silently, curling her knees to her chest and tucking her head in her arms as if hoping it might shield her, and Nesta had wished she could shield her sister from it all too. Wished she could spare Elain the terror. For hours - or moments or minutes or days, she wasn’t sure how long they were down there - she’d kept her eyes on the bars that held them, only barely discernible in the dim light. Watching that black space, she had hoped against hope that someone might come to save them. 

That he might come to save them. 

She had lost his dagger.

Cassian’s dagger.

It hurt too much to think his name, but when she’d been woken by Elain’s screams, Nesta had grabbed the dagger he had once pressed into her palms. She hadn’t been quick enough, and the shadowed figures that burst into her bedroom wrenched the blade from her hand before she had chance to move, forcing a foul-smelling cloth against her mouth. When she woke, she was in that cell, wishing she’d been faster. Wishing she still had that dagger.

Don’t touch her.

Don’t you dare fucking touch her.

His voice drifted from some chamber deep inside herself, one she had tried to keep locked. The snarl he’d directed at the king had given her a kernel of hope in that throne room, and she’d watched as he’d stepped forward, the light of his ruby siphons trembling with the force of the power he was aching to spend. She had seen his face - the scar through his eyebrow made pale in the candlelight, the fury etched in every familiar, beautiful plane - and she had known that he would see no harm come to her. That he’d take on the king and the guards and every soul in that castle if he had to.

But then he’d been caught in that blast, unable to even lift his head, and Nesta’s last hope had died. Her humanity had been shredded along with his wings; her life as broken as his bones.

And oh, gods—

She had wanted to run to him, to make sure that he was alright, but when she’d been poured from that Cauldron she couldn’t breathe, the blood in her veins still settling after boiling. On her hands and knees, nobody came to help her stand. She might have remained there forever, curled in on herself, if it hadn’t been for Elain’s sobs echoing through the cavernous space. If Nesta hadn’t hadn’t lifted her head just enough to see that other fae male, with the golden eye and the red hair, reaching for her sister. 

For Elain, Nesta lifted herself off that damned floor.

Her new limbs protested the movement and she didn’t get far, and only then had she seen Cassian kneeling too, his arms shaking as they tried and failed to hold his weight. His wings were a tattered mess at his back, and with her heart breaking she remembered how she’d once ran a finger along the outer edge, how he’d draped one of those mighty wings around her shoulders to keep her warm as she curled into him and slept. A fractured sob built in her chest, and though she’d tried to speak, to stand, tried to cross that room… she couldn’t.

Everything hurt.

And then the fae with the auburn hair had draped a jacket over Elain’s shoulders and said you’re my mate, and even though every single instinct Nesta possessed was begging her to go to Cassian, to stop that flow of blood, she saw Elain shivering on the stone and couldn’t move— couldn’t choose. Then the auburn-haired fae had reached for Elain again and Nesta had been so terrified that he would just take Elain away that she hurtled forwards and— there she was, her choice made.

Her heart had sank, rioting in her chest as her breathing began to feel like knives had pierced her lungs, because Cassian remained lying in his own blood, and Nesta didn’t think she would ever have the strength to cross to him on the other side of that expansive throne room. 

And when he had looked up, their eyes meeting across that vast space, Nesta had tipped forwards, her hands slipping from Elain’s arms. Those hazel eyes, shuttered with pain, his lips parting as if to form her name— nothing in the world mattered quite as much as that. As him. And even though her blood still burned and her bones still felt fragile, too newly-forged to withstand much at all, Nesta tried once more to stand. Bare foot, she couldn’t find purchase on the stone floor slick with the Cauldron water both she and Elain were drenched in. Elain turned her head, dark eyes distant and hollow, and it was at that precise moment that Feyre made her move. The room erupted in chaos as Cassian slipped under, and there was nobody to hear Nesta shout his name as the wards shattered and Rhys fell to the floor, screaming as though his bond with Feyre had been broken.

Cassian’s eyes had closed, his hand outstretched as though even death could not stop him from seeking her out.

In the confusion Nesta remembered Morrigan crossing the floor— taking her hand.

Then— nothing.

As if the pain were too much for her new body to bear, she closed her eyes and let go, and when the crushing, aching darkness surged up to swallow her again, she let it. Let it consume her until her eyes opened again and she found herself in that bed, with no memory of how she got there.

She didn’t know if he was alive.

Didn’t know if he’d made it out.

One hand rose to her chest, palm above her heart, as if she might be able to tell by its beat if Cassian still breathed. 

He had to.

Had to.

But there was nobody around to answer her, and the silence of the house - Rhysand’s, she presumed - turned static. No footsteps echoed down the hallways, no voices drifted from distant rooms. Nothing— there was nobody there waiting for her to wake. 

So Nesta stood by that window, alone, and looked at the reflection staring back at her. Every inch of smooth skin was unrecognisable, from the crown of her head right down to her feet. Her wrists had been rubbed raw by the rope they had bound her with in that castle, but there was no mark there now. She had broken her fingernails clawing at the soldiers that had held her, but those, too, were perfect now. In those dungeons, she had pulled so hard on her chains that bruises had marred her arms beneath the torn sleeves of her nightgown, and yet— gone, too. As if it had never been. Everything had been wiped clean save for that single scar by her thumb. Like even the Cauldron could not erase the damage done by her mother and her grandmother. 

Nesta had been completely reforged, but those wounds— no, those wounds still would not - could not - heal. 

And— gods, when would it end?

The city beyond the glass bustled a thousand feet below, small ships navigating the river as birds soared on the wind across the mountains, and Nesta pressed her palm flat against the glass, dipping her chin as the cold and bitter press of her own anger threatened to close her throat. She gritted her teeth— wanted to scream until her lungs gave out.

When would it end? When would the last of her choices be ripped away?

She didn’t want this life. Hadn’t wanted the one that came before, either. 

She had never wanted her mother to raise her the way she did, chipping away at her until she resembled something that might have been perfect in her mother’s eyes. Her heart started to stutter, her breathing growing unsteady. She had never wanted to marry Thomas fucking Mandray, and the ring on her finger glinted once in her reflection before Nesta tore it from her finger and cast it into a corner, because just like the scar the Cauldron could not wipe away, it hadn’t robbed her of her wedding band either. 

She hadn’t ever wanted to get involved in this war, or play courier to Rhysand and Feyre and yet she’d done it anyway, to the ruination of herself. 

And now here she was, left with nothing.

Less than nothing.

Another sob threatened to slip through her clenched teeth, but before she could let herself fall to pieces, something shifted. Some movement cut through the heavy silence that lay over Rhysand’s house like a shroud. Sheets— the rustle of sheets sounded through the door at the other end of the bedroom, left ajar. 

Nesta smoothed a thumb over the now-empty space on her ring finger before lifting her chin and wiping away the tears that clung to her cheeks. She steadied herself, the way she had a thousand times before, and took a breath.

And when she looked through that door, she found Elain lying in a bedroom almost identical to the one she had woken in herself, her face blank as sleep kept her in its clutches. Her eyelashes fluttered with her dreams, her hand twitching against the covers. 

And despite the hollow, aching kind of grief that was beginning to spread through Nesta’s chest, she looked at her sister and knew she could not leave that bedroom.

For Elain, Nesta had married Tomas Mandray. To protect Elain, she had taken Rhysand’s letters and posted them. Now she pushed aside her own pain and sank to her knees by Elain’s bedside, too weary to find a chair.

And in the silence, she waited.

Taglist: @hiimheresworld @highladyofillyria @wannawriteyouabook @infiremetotakeachonce @melphss @hereforthenessian @c-e-d-dreamer @lady-winter-sunrise @the-lost-changeling @valkyriesupremacy @that-little-red-head @sv0430

[slink-a-dink]

Season of Shattering Poems

These were taken from the official discord

Memory 1 - Jellyfish

The light that swirled here was not warm

These were no drifting currents

Songs lost to the void

Bewildered in final moments of stillness

Memory 2 - Crabs and Dark Plants

Entranced by strange brilliance

And swept into its snare

A familiar glow that hid

Nothingness in its wake

Memory 3 - Mantas

Soft wings flowing to bright beacons

Drawn from the path, trusting until too late

Bound in a merciless harness

Soft wings despairing against stone

Memory 4 - Dark Dragons

Ascending towards darkness

A distorted reflection

The hunter relentless to sate

Insatiable hunger

Memory 5 - Whales

The distant call beyond reach

Echoes swallowed in a scouring silence

Empty light scattering the fragments

Of a spirit sundered in the break

Memory 6 - Elders

Bare at the precipice

Unseen fractures crumble in the chasm

The stars under fathomless weight

Reaching to light and to dark

Carrying memory of all that was held

In the final moment of shattering

[profoundbondfanfic]

do u have any favorite canon compliant / "missing scene" fics?

Hello there! Yes, here are a few suggestions with fics that include extra scenes like the 'fanfiction gap' and add something new to Cas and Dean's relationship.

a kiss for every season (literally) by sobsicles [Explicit, 22k words]

The first time Dean and Cas kiss, it's not really even a kiss at all. It is not, however, the last kiss that they share. ~~~ Dean doesn't think about it. Not about what it means, not about what it makes them, not about how it affects him. This life—that's not how things work. It's just this, these "in the moment" moments that always slip right out of his fingers because he lets them. He doesn't try to hold onto them, and neither does Cas, and maybe they shouldn't. Cas kisses him like no one else does, like no one else ever has. Dean absolutely does not think about it unless it's happening to him, and then he doesn't have the ability to think at all. What does it say about him that he occasionally kisses his best friend, who's a man? Dean doesn't know, and he doesn't really want to find out, either. 

All This Happened, More or Less by ceeainthereforthat [Mature, 88k words]

Dean had no idea that inheriting John Winchester's Impala was only the beginning of the destruction of his life. That Sam's dreams were more than just the consequences of late night pizza dinners. That angels looked like slightly rumpled tax accountants. And he's not ready for any of it.

Fracture Mechanics by Rend_Herring [Explicit, 43k words]

Admitting it won’t make Dean any more inconsolable than he already is, and he’ll never feel Cas’ absence any more or any less acutely than he does in this exact moment. “He’s gone,” Dean finally admits, because it seems like the only thing left to say. When the terrible, swollen vacancy of the room offers no recourse, Sam says, “I know.”

Home by FriendofCarlotta [General audiences, 2k words]

This is the story of a car, and the boy who loves it so fiercely, it becomes a home. As the boy grows into a man, his car is the one constant in his life. Until, one day, he meets an angel, and "home" takes on a new meaning.

If I Could Change One Thing by 2Minutes2Midnight [Explicit, 13k words]

Spoilers through Season 5 finale. When Dean gets sent into the future where he refuses Michael, he vows to change one thing, if nothing else. He must prevent Castiel from becoming human. No matter the cost.

Revisions by zeppazariel [Explicit, 127k words]

From the beginning, Dean and Cas continue to find their way together over and over. Chuck keeps erasing it.

That Wasn't Supposed to Fucking Happen! by anyrei, queerwerewolf [Explicit, 66k words]

What if it all wasn’t just subtext? Individual, subjective interpretation? What if we’re only seeing a fraction of what’s going on with the Winchesters? What would happen if we saw what was actually happening off-camera? Destiel might not technically “exist”, but that’s because the cameras haven’t captured it. Now that the fourth wall has been broken, subtext may become explicit text. Explicit being the operative word here. Season 12 Ongoing Fix It from 12x09 through 12x23.

The Sum Of My Regrets by LoveIsNotAVictoryMarch [Mature, 20k words]

“A quick trip to the past, that’s all. Look Cas, I know we can’t do anything about all the innocent people getting into the crossfire of our battles, but this I can do. Let me rescue this child and give Lily Sunder back her life. What can possibly go wrong?”  In which Dean Winchester travels through time, learns a thing or two about best laid plans and falls in love with an angel – all over again.

these masks we wear by deansnuggles [Mature, 24k words]

These are the things you hide, when you’re John Winchester’s oldest son: A feather Sammy found and gave you. A piece of satin you cut from a nightgown you swiped from the thrift store. You like to keep it in your pocket and rub it between your fingers. A romance novel left behind in a motel. You tape the cover of a Stephen King novel on the front. A picture of Robert Plant hidden under the fabric on the bottom of your toiletry bag. A cassette of Queen, a cassette of The Beatles. You like to draw. Knights and dragons and cowboys. A mockingbird. A lily. A boy in your class. You rip that one up and burn it. We follow Dean through important times in his life as he slowly learns to accept who he is and figures out what a happy ending means for him.

this ain't for the best (but i want you) by jewishdeanwinchester [Explicit, 8k words]

Five times Dean and Cas fucked, and one time they made love. Or, times Dean and Cas could've been but weren't. (Until they were.)

You can also check our coda tag for fics that follow along with specific episodes.

[amaurotine-daydreaming]

XXVI. Last

Azem would not be returning.

Azem would not be returning in the star’s darkest hour, when it was paramount that the Convocation displayed unity of mind and purpose in a world unraveling at the seams. 

From his seat on the Convocation in Amaurot, Emet-Selch laced his fingers together, leaned his forehead against them, and cursed.

In the end, he turned to the only one he knew who could be relied upon to take their place. 

Hythlodaeus, of course, had previously declined any and all overtures to become a Convocation member. I am deeply flattered, but I believe I can better serve this star as a steward of the Bureau. May I suggest Hades instead? He is dedicated, and much less distractible than I am, I assure you.

And thus it fell to Hades to take up the mantle of Emet-Selch. At the time it almost felt like Hythlodaeus had concocted the scenario as a prank, a way for him to put Hades on a pedestal to show him off–as he enjoyed doing at many an opportunity–and to fob off the subsequent responsibilities onto him. 

Nevertheless, Emet-Selch had no great appetite for putting his friend in such a difficult position now, after he made his feelings clear–even if Emet-Selch could, and would, reasonably blame their wayward friend Azem for the situation they found themselves in now.

Hythlodaeus hesitated, as Emet-Selch knew he would. But in the end he acquiesced, as Emet-Selch knew he would, for Hythlodaeus–unlike the Azem he was replacing–ultimately put the needs of the star above his own. 

Yet that tenure was all too brief. Hydaelyn had soon after sundered their world and most of the Convocation with it; Hythlodaeus’s soul–in its soft-hued shades of amaranth–a priceless mosaic shattered across space and time.

They, the Unsundered–himself, Elidibus, and Lahabrea–regrouped. They charted their course, and Emet-Selch’s Soulsight was instrumental in picking up the pieces of their colleagues’ souls. It most often fell to him to scour the shards for their fellows, a process he found not only exhausting but sickening, as it was he more than any other who was forced to bear witness to the full extent of the ugly, fractious, miserable existence Hydaelyn had wrought.

When at last Emet-Selch found Hythlodaeus’s soul and pulled it from the Lifestream, he chose the delicate moment between memories washed clean and the soul’s rebirth. When he plucked its light from the flow and then beheld it there within the rift, he recoiled. He doubted anyone else with the Sight, had they remained, would have been able to recognize this dim, pale, watery light as a part of what was once Hythlodaeus’s vibrant, resplendent soul. It was…abhorrent. 

The crystal in Emet-Selch’s hand, at least, was still full of color. With it, he could at least restore this piece of Hythlodaeus’s soul to something approaching respectability. And the process would become easier with time: With each Rejoining, Hythlodaeus’s soul would burn more brightly. The mosaic of his fractured soul, like the star itself, would eventually become whole and restored to its former glory.

Emet-Selch summoned the memories within Azem’s crystal, and they flowed into the soul suspended in front of him. Without memories of a past life to distort the process, Hythlodaeus’s soul easily took to his appearance as Emet-Selch remembered it, down to the few strands of lavender hair that slipped from his braid.

Emet-Selch’s heart seized.

For a moment, the shade that stood before him looked peaceful, as if in slumber. Then Hythlodaeus–Azem–came to with a jerk, as if suddenly surfacing from a nightmare. As all the soul shards did upon awakening, Hythlodaeus looked around in confusion, taking in the Ascian garb he had been clothed in, the wine-dark cosmos all around, and the empty pedestals of dark crystal that marked the Ascians’ stations. All the others were presently attending to their duties, allowing Emet-Selch to conduct this reunion with his cowl pulled back and his mask shed.

Hythlodaeus squeezed his eyes shut for a long moment, groaning. 

–Hades remembered the light slanting through the blinds in their shared apartment in Amaurot. Hythlodaeus embracing his pillow even tighter and burying his face in it, grumbling, unwilling to get out of bed so early–

Hythlodaeus’s eyes opened again and his face morphed into recognition. “Hades?”

His arms opened, and Emet-Selch stepped into that embrace before he could think to do otherwise. 

“Oh, Hades, how I’ve missed you,” said Hythlodaeus. He wrapped his arms tightly around Emet-Selch and buried his face into the crook of his neck, but his being was so diluted from the Sundering it felt like naught more than a faint breeze in this airless place. “What’s happened? Where are we?”

It was tiresome, so tiresome to have to repeat this story over and over–the Sundering, the aftermath, all of it. The tale was never any less bitter on Emet-Selch’s tongue, but nevertheless he stepped back from Hythlodaeus and told it. Even though Hythlodaeus was still grappling with disorientation, he listened as attentively and patiently as he had ever done. 

“I see…” was all Hythlodaeus said at first, when Emet-Selch concluded the tale. And he remained silent for a time, his eyes downcast and his lips resting against the curl of his hand as he mulled it over. Emet-Selch reined in his impatience and waited.

When Hythlodaeus looked up, his eyes were bright with love and sorrow. “Dearest Emet-Selch–dearest Hades. Surely you must know that I cannot condone this path you have chosen.”

“What?” Emet-Selch’s voice was a disbelieving rasp.

“Did our brethren not give up themselves–and therefore their own futures–willingly for the star?”

Emet-Selch’s temper rose like the bile in his throat. “Did I not just tell you? For a star unbroken. For a star Hydaelyn and her ilk have not desecrated. A world made whole is the one for which they gave their lives.”

Hythlodaeus’s face contorted in sympathy. He brought his hand up in a familiar gesture–to smooth a loose strand of hair from Emet-Selch’s temple or to soothe the pinched lines he saw around his eyes–

Emet-Selch recoiled from the touch. Hythlodaeus’s hand dropped. “Pray allow me this question, Hades.” 

“Be quick about it,” Emet-Selch snapped.

Hythlodaeus met his eyes, resolute. “If the choice was between saving our star–knowing it could never be again as it once was–and consigning it to oblivion, would you have chosen not to save it?”

Emet-Selch’s jaw worked. The audacity of the question–

“Of course not,” Hythlodaeus answered for him, gently. “You would still have done it. Let us then, in turn, not presume the selfishness of others. If those who gave themselves had known the star’s fate upon taking this course, I have no doubt the majority would still have done so willingly.”

“Yours is a false dichotomy, no doubt from the flawed reasoning of a flawed existence,” was Emet-Selch’s clipped rejoinder. “Hydaelyn’s meddling was not inevitable.”

“Yet that is what we are left with,” Hythlodaeus pointed out. “There is naught to be done about the past, Hades. ‘Tis one thing for those to give themselves willingly for a cause, but to condemn those lives that exist now, without their consent…does it not go against the wishes of those no longer with us? They sought to preserve the future, not the past.”

Spoken like a true Azem. “You have not yet observed what they have become, Hythlodaeus. How selfish these twisted, broken reflections are, and the misery they beget unto themselves and others. They have become diluted in mind, body, and morality all.”

“Mayhap,” Hythlodaeus conceded. “But even divided, are they not still our friends and loved ones?”

Emet-Selch’s expression was baleful. “You might see them as such, having been thus reduced. Yet they are but an insult to their memory–their sacrifice.”

“What is sacrifice, Hades? If such acts are done with the expectation of being undone–”

“I have made an oath to our people,” said Emet-Selch, coldly. “I have my duty, as you have yours. You are of the Convocation, Azem–you would do well to conduct yourself accordingly.”

Hythlodaeus frowned. “I do not remember the Convocation as being without its disagreements.” 

Emet-Selch swallowed and attempted to bridle the frustration and anger jumping through his veins like levin, for Hythlodaeus’s sake. “This division is precisely what we can no longer afford, for ourselves and for our star.”

Hythlodaeus sighed, fidgeting with his braid for a moment. “We must all do what we believe is best for the star.” His hands slid from his hair. “Therefore, I will not seek to change your opinion. Pray do not seek to change mine.”

Emet-Selch knew now: This shard would not do. It appeared this facsimile, having been cut from threadbare cloth, was flawed beyond all recourse.

“You misguided, misbegotten thing,” he spat. “You are not worthy of the memories you bear or the station you hold.

“Begone.”

Snap. 

Hythlodaeus’s form began to dissolve. “I am sorry, Hades.” He smiled sadly. “I pray we meet again, under more fortunate circumstances.”

Hythlodaeus’s form–and his light–dissipated. The soul crystal Emet-Selch still clenched in one fist glowed warmly, its memories returned. It felt like a brand against his palm. He banished it.

Emet-Selch went to his seat and slumped into it. He laced his fingers together, pressed his forehead against them, and cursed.

Hythlodaeus, his closest companion and a member of the Convocation, standing in defiance of Convocation degree like his predecessor. To refuse what needed to be done! It almost made one believe there was some inherently corrupting influence in the station of Azem. Had he, Emet-Selch, not been betrayed by three of them now? They had all turned against him at the last, each and every one. 

Perhaps the next shard would do better. Perhaps on his next attempt, he would keep the memory of their life as a shard intact, so that they would understand the untenable state of the world.

He would return to sleep, for a time. Then, on his vow, he would try again.

[dawntrailing]

6.5 New Minions/Mounts & Collectibles

Minions

Tourmaline Weapon - PVP Series (Level 15 Reward)

Kydonia Strolls Ⓣ - 400 Faux Leaves

Vicarious Vacationer - 4,000 Seafarer's Cowries

Wind-up Oschon - Alliance Raid (Thaleia)

Wind-up Golbez Ⓣ - Dungeon (The Lunar Subterrane)

Wind-up Forchenault - Merchandise (Eorzea Encyclopaedia Vol. 3)

Hydaelyn Idol - TBA

Zodiark Idol - TBA

Ryunosuke - Heavensturn (2024)

Mounts

Lynx of Abyssal Grief - Extreme Trial (The Abyssal Fracture)

Apocryphal Bahamut - Quest (7 Lynx Mounts)

Sabotender De La Luna Ⓣ - 600 Faux Leaves or 1 Gold Khloe Certificate

Garlond GL-IIT - 100,000 Seafarer's Cowries (Rank 20?)

Island Peerifool Ⓣ - TBA

Island Adenium Ⓣ - 200 Vegetal Vouchers

Peatie - Little Ladies' Day (2024)

Crescent Moon - Mogstation (TBA)

Barding

Abyssal Barding Ⓣ - Crafted

Orchestrion Roll

FINAL FANTASY IV: The Final Battle (Endwalker) Ⓣ - Crafted

The Red Wings (Endwalker) Ⓣ - Crafted

Kingdom of Baron (Endwalker) Ⓣ - Dungeon (The Lunar Subterrane)

One among Wonders Ⓣ - Alliance Raid (Thaleia)

Fair Winds to Guide Ⓣ - Alliance Raid (Thaleia)

Course Uncharted Ⓣ - Alliance Raid (Thaleia)

Myths of the Realm Ⓣ - Alliance Raid (Thaleia)

Pennons Aloft Ⓣ - Submarine

From Fear to Fortitude Ⓣ - Submarine

In The Balance (Amanda Achen Vocals) - Merchandise (FORGE AHEAD: FINAL FANTASY XIV Arrangement Album)

Dedicated To Moonlight (Forge Ahead) - Merchandise (FORGE AHEAD: FINAL FANTASY XIV Arrangement Album)

Dedicated To Moonlight (Amanda Achen Vocals) - Mogstation

The Labyrinth (Forge Ahead) - Mogstation

Carrots Of Happiness (Forge Ahead) - Mogstation

What Once Was (Forge Ahead) - Mogstation

Flow (Forge Ahead) - Mogstation

Athena, The Tireless One (Forge Ahead) - Mogstation

In The Balance (Forge Ahead) - Mogstation

Scream (Forge Ahead) - Mogstation

White Stone Black (Forge Ahead) - Mogstation

To The Edge (Forge Ahead) - Mogstation

Triad Cards

Halone - 24,800 MGP

Oschon - 24,800 MGP

Nymeia - Duel (Ylare - Old Gridania)

Althylk - Duel (Ylare - Old Gridania)

Nophica - Duel (Ylare - Old Gridania)

Thaliak - Duel (Malliart - Old Sharlayan)

Lymlaen - Duel (Malliart - Old Sharlayan)

Eulogia - Alliance Raid (Thaleia)

Durante - Dungeon (The Lunar Subterrane)

Zeromus - Trial (The Abyssal Fracture)

Fashion

Colorful Carrotsol - 6,000 Seafarer's Cowries

Emotes

Defeatist Attitude (/slump) - PVP Series (Level 5 Reward)

Greasy Delights (/eatchicken) - Promotional JP KFC collaboration

Apocalyptic Charades (/exodus, /sundering) - TBA

Love Heart (/loveheart, /heart) - Valentione's Day (2024)

Joyous Leaping 1-5 (/jumpforjoy) - Mogstation (China)

Framer's Kits

Palaistra - PVP Series (Level 10 Reward)

Cloud Nine- PVP Series (Level 20 Reward)

Twelvestold Blessings - Quest (Myths of the Realm)

Vanu Vanu - 6 Vanu Whitebone

Vath - 6 Black Copper Gil

Moogle - 6 Carved Kupo Nut

Wondrous Whimsy - 2 Silver Khloe Certificates

Fantastic Faux - 600 Faux Leaves

Season 8 PVP (Several) - PvP from ranking rewards

Notes & Sources

Ⓣ - Marketboard Available (Tradeable)

FFXIV Reddit

Garland Tools

FFXIV Collect

[azems-familiar]

more of the ascian Azem au beneath the cut: aka i finally wrote the Sundering (and wow was it hard to get the tone right)

They’re standing on a street corner conferring with Elidibus and Lahabrea - or rather, Hades is conferring with them and Azem is only half-paying attention to the conversation, keeping their eye out for their little follower, who they last saw skulking in the shadow of a nearby residential building half-destroyed in the Final Days and yet to be reconstructed. They should try to get her name out of her when she follows them home tonight, Azem thinks absently, and maybe some paperwork to establish their apartment as her current residence. If- if she wants to continue staying with them. Someone will need to have guardianship of her if she’s to be properly taken care of, and she at least seems to allow Azem to help.

The first sign that something is wrong comes from Elidibus. He stops speaking abruptly, turning to stare up at the strange white satellite that’s been visible in the sky off and on since Zodiark was imprisoned. “What is She doing?” he says, voice low - and then his eyes widen behind his mask and he almost sounds like Themis again, younger and far more present, when he says, “No, don’t!”

And the sky fills with Light. There’s a sound, more felt than heard, like shattering glass, like a crystal cracking down the center, and the world warps around them - ripples on water, wind through leaves, sunlight on windows, a reflection that shifts and morphs and grows, the very ground beneath their feet folding in on itself and then stretching apart on a spider’s web of a million invisible fractures. Against the glaring brightness of a magic just as if not more powerful than Zodiark’s creation, a brightness that sears Azem’s very aether, a bitter burn they can feel all the way to their soul, all they can think of is the child, and they sprint in her direction, ignoring the way Hades cries their name.

They barely make it to the building before there’s a grinding sound that seems to come from everywhere at once and the Light turns so bright they can’t do anything but close their eyes and cower away from it, away from the blade that passes by them so close they can feel the wind of its passage against their skin. It isn’t a real blade, it can’t be, but they feel something cleave anyway, and there’s that awful noise like the star itself is tearing apart-

Then all at once, it stops.

The silence in the air is absolute. Azem opens their eyes, slowly, and- and still they stand where they were a moment before, just inside the main entrance of a residential building’s lobby, but there is something inexplicably wrong about it, as if everything around them has somehow…diminished. Become lesser. A drabness, like the haze of grey they’ve lived in since Helios’s death has manifested over the star itself, all color dimmed and the sunlight shading in through a window weak and thin as if it’s falling through a heavy layer of water. And the aether, when they look at the world through that second sight, drifts past in pale streams so faded as to be nearly intangible, like motes of dust in a sunbeam. One spell, were they to cast it by drawing on the star itself the way Helios has always done, might drain those currents entirely dry.

Horror builds in their throat like nausea. This is wrong. This is wrong. Sickly and feeble and empty, a distorted shadow of what should be-

They suck in a shaking breath, turning in a slow circle, and everything is as it was but nothing is as it should be. They- they can barely feel Zodiark’s presence anymore, His power a muffled pulse that echoes across some unimaginable distance. Not long ago they probably would have been glad for the space between them and His overwhelming Darkness, but now they just feel cold.

Footsteps draw their attention and they turn to see- golden hair, red eyes, their little follower, drifting across the floor towards them. Her mask is gone and there is something- different about her, a dullness to her eyes - and in the aether, in the aether she is nothing but a shade, less present than the weakest animal, more a ghost than anything living. She’s not- she’s not a person anymore - the tiny, fragmented soul they can sense would barely elevate her from the classification of ‘arcane entity’. There is no life in the empty gaze she casts briefly over Azem, unrecognizing, before she simply moves on, a spirit borne on the wind.

She looks exactly as Helios had, when he laid there unmoving on the dirt, unseeing and unhearing and gone.

Azem gathers their aether and pulls themself across the aetherial sea to the aetheryte near the Capitol, something desperate clawing its way through them, as if- as if they can prove that this is just an outlier, as if the world will suddenly change - but everywhere they look they see dead faces somehow still walking, empty-eyed husks shuffling through a fragmented reality, all of them walking away as if driven by some echoing impulse. These- these are not Azem’s people, who they love, who they have given their life to shepherding. This is some ghastly mockery, puppets being drawn across an invisible stage, except they recognize the barest traces of aether left behind in many of these bodies. 

They can’t- breathe. The air is too thin, the aether is too thin, the star is too thin-

Hydaelyn did this, they think numbly, and it feels like ice freezing slowly over the surface of their soul, sealing them away within. Not Venat - Venat is gone, has to be, if there was any shred of her left she would never have struck such a blow, would never have broken the star and the people the way Hydaelyn has. These faded and frail reflections of life - why would She do this? Light lingers still in the air, a persistent sharpness that sinks into their bones, and they stare up at the sky, at the satellite that mars its even curve, and wonder if Her blow had missed them so deliberately as some sort of punishment.

Bear witness to what your failures have wrought, they can nearly imagine Her saying, with that hardness in Her eyes that Venat had developed the moment she learned about the future. It feels apt. One last lesson to the wayward student who has ever been the lesser choice for their seat: abandon your duty and it will be taken from you.

Perhaps Etheirys should have burned, if this is to be its fate.

Some indeterminate time passes around them. A breeze stirs up; it blows right through them. They are not here. They are not anywhere, adrift on the ice floes of their soul. The sky darkens, the stars spill across it like pinpricks of fire against an endless expanse of ink, and Zodiark and the souls He is made of remain frustratingly out of reach. They do not need to look to know that Amaurot is empty.

A warm hand on their shoulder brings them back to the ground, eventually. They blink away the static and lower their head, wincing against the crick in their neck, almost afraid to turn - but then they do, and standing next to them is Hades, his mask loose around his neck and his cowl down. His eyes ache with unshed tears, but they are alive - he’s alive. Hydaelyn’s blow missed him too. That simple fact - that they are not alone - makes them want to cry, though they don’t.

“...everything is dead,” Azem says, as hollow as the rustling leaves. “I’ve seen the people. What is left of them, the shades they are. But…” They swallow, gaze drifting away from Hades’s face to the silent street behind him, and whisper, “I do not know if they are the condemned ones.”

Hades makes a soft, choked sound almost like a sob and pulls them closer, wrapping his arms around them, and they let him maneuver them until he can rest his head on their shoulder, his face tucked into the crook of their neck, his tears cool on their skin. For a long moment they just- stand there, eyes caught on a faded lavender leaf swirling in little circles over an embossed sidewalk panel, caught in the grooves in the material, and then they slowly let out a breath and slide one arm around his waist, tilting their head sideways to lean their cheek against his temple.

When Lahabrea and Elidibus find them later - the last four living things in all of Etheirys, spared the blade of Light in what cannot in even the most twisted sense be called a mercy - Azem does not let go.

[mareenavee]

Metempsychosis

For IndorilJinumon, my friend and Skywind cowriter.

(Thank you to @paraparadigm, @changelingsandothernonsense, @thana-topsy, @polypolymorph, @thequeenofthewinter, and @archangelsunited for your endless support and enthusiasm for my weird little projects.)

This is part weird god voice, part spoken word poem, part short story in Vivec's perspective. 1,000 words exactly. :>

Metempsychosis

I have seen the ways in which you are knit into the fabric of this place, and the ways in which it will unravel. One thread, a sparkling filament – the soul, you say, or something imagined. A tether. A chain. You ask, prostrate at my feet, for so many things. And what of it? When one is but a sliver of another’s dream – and nothing more – what could it want for? The cost of love is one’s whole heart. Mine. Yours. The Mountain’s. To let it break in the absence of fractures, or the weight of knowing. You ask for peace. I give you lies. What else can I provide that will ease a truth, a certainty, that vast expanse of nothing? It is no small mercy. And it is. And will always be.

To you, yourself, you are everything. Solid, tangible, real. To me, you are a dream from a mind beyond that which all else can comprehend. But I have seen, and have been seen. Perceived. Regardless, regarded, regaled, you are convinced only I may ease the burden of aches you have long carried. And will carry. And won’t. A millenia, and your spine remains bent in prayer to something other. I am other. And I am not. And you are not. These are just words to ease our discomfort. Mine. Yours. Meaningless. Or not.

I pass before you, because I must. Because something of me still seeks something of you. Repentance. Forgiveness, perhaps. We are the same. And we are not. You reach, not unlike a hand for a dagger, a spear, a sword not held. What you ask of me cannot be carried. You seek illusions of relief. The pain, the ache – it will return. I can only grant respite from that which is inevitable – the sundering, the suffering, more of the same. A return to this prison of burden and blindness. I have seen what truly is. And isn’t. Still, you ask to ground me. -> Read the rest on AO3

[strangelittlestories]

In the Mutable World, at the apex of the Wars of the Real, two men met in the Crucible of All Things.

This place had not existed a few days earlier. It would not exist the next dawn. But - for a brief time only - this was the most important place in existence. This was the spot where any choices made would echo and ripple, transmuting the world to match its shape.

Did the two men meet there because it was so important? Or did the place become important because the two men would meet there? Who can say. All I can say is what happened:

The men approached the Crucible. One came from the east. One came from the north.

The one who approached from the east was an old soul. He did not look it; his face was youthful, his eyes bright, his smile as easy as a breeze carrying the first scent of spring. But if you were around him for any length of time, you would know it. Nothing he did in particular would give it away - his every gesture was welcoming, his every utterance thoughtful and light.

It was just a vibe. A sense that some part of this man had *seen some shit*.

The one who approached from the north was a goblin. Or, to put it more accurately, one of the fair folk. His was a history of great and beautiful and terrible things - all the joys of endless summer and all the power of sudden storms. This being of noble grace and glory, who could have chosen any form, just so happened to prefer a more feral form.

But you would know as soon as you saw his grin, that this was a creature who had crawled happily out of a thicket of thorns. Who had stepped, whole and fully formed, from a vine of ripe grapes.

Yes, it would be more accurate to call him fair. But it would be more truthful to call him *goblin*.

The two walked, at no great rush, towards the Crucible. One at a steady and even pace, one swaggering.

They came to the centre of this locus of possibility, where a world breaking under its own weight could be made whole or sundered entirely, and they regarded each other for a moment.

"I've come to make things better." Said the Old Soul.

Behind his words, you could feel a history - of strange sights seen and weary roads travelled. Here was a person who had travelled the changing lands and had decided to stay in them. To stop, where he could, and to linger a while and help. A person who saw places and people with needs, and realised in that moment that he was a person with ability. It was only natural that he would do what he could.

"I've come to make things *worse*." Said the Goblin.

And his words were alive with mischief and deep with fatigue. It is so very tiring, after all, to have a good time for such a *long time*. This was a being that knew wildness, knew madness, and knew ecstacy and found beauty and kindness in all of them. He had made it his life's endeavour to help others to do the same. He was a person who had seen all the forgotten corners of the new world and the old and had carefully mapped the fractures that shot through them - who had mapped the world in its breaking and raged against them as much as he loved them.

A moment followed where the air around them was stretched with tension, ready to snap. It was the kind of moment where only two things could happen:

One, they would kill each other. The heavy air would break with thunder and these two beings - these two men who carried a world's potential in their shadows - would wreck themselves against each other.

Or two … what *actually* happened.

The Old Soul looked the Goblin up and down and saw all there was to see, then bit his lip and carefully said:

"Well … I suppose we could do both. If you'd like."

The Goblin stared with goblet-wide eyes back and grinned his grin that was like a crack in the void.

"Yeah. That sounds good. Let's do it … together."

And the two men walked back out of that place of change and brought it back into the world, side by side. 

They made it better. They made it worse. It was beautiful.

[markedasinfernal]

Merry Christmas @morifiinwe - I’m your Secret Santa for the @officialtolkiensecretsanta gift exchange! With a Fëanorian prompt, I have put together a piece around a part of canon that I don’t see explored often - the breaking of the Silmarils, and renewal of the world, after the Dagor Dagorath in the end of days. This was really interesting for me to write - I’ve actually never written Fëanor in a fic before - so I hope you enjoy! 

x 

Beyond count were the years that had passed since the Three had lain before him, millennia unravelled unto the birth of civilisation, to the deepest memories of Arda in her prime.

Fëanor shivered in their light, exultant and in awe, for though grief and toil had befallen the world about them, still the Silmarilli were sacrosanct, they were perfect.

War had come, the Last Battle long foretold; the skies fell black, the stars and moon throttled out in shadow, and chaos was unleashed. The lands bled, fractured in tumult; great hosts arrayed in shining silver and white carved across the wide plains of Valinor, and opposite them the Enemy, hosts of demons and orcs summoned from the blackest pits of the earth, they churned those verdant fields to mud. At last it was over; all Eä watched with bated breath as the Great Foe was slain by the sword of a Man, the Accursed and all his foul servants at last extinguished, and never to rise again to trouble the weary earth.

For a while then all was good; the glorious dead awoke once more within the Halls of Mandos, in strength and vigour renewed, all hurts washed away, as shadows fled before the glimmering dawn. And though the lands still bore the scars of their conflict, once more gaiety and laughter returned to the hearts of the Eldar, and their joy flowed forth, from their cities made hale once more to the most desolate of places. Even unto the farthest reaches of the Pelóri once more singing was heard, in gladness not heard since the Two Trees had stretched their mighty boughs above golden Tirion, and the songs of the Eldar filled the skies with light.

Kindred long sundered walked again hand in hand, and though all rejoiced in their hard-won peace, for all the pleasures of those blissful times, still there was memory, there was hurt; Irmo wove both dream and nightmare, and Estë's calming halls were ever-full, Nienna yet wept for the sorrows of the world, for the threads of Fate were not yet fully unravelled. For though all the Eldar wished it so, the injuries of the past were not fully healed, not yet; the Trees still stood barren and grey above ashen Tirion, their branches brittle and trunks gouged, and the songs of the Eldar grew hushed and forlorn beneath them.

The time had come, it was proclaimed; below Formenos' fortressed walls the words were said, though if it were proclaimed by Fëanor, son of Finwë, or for him, he did not truly know. The time of the Silmarils was ended, the people whispered; crucibles of joy and cruel catalysts of pain, as all things must pass so too should they, to heal the Trees, to heal the world, to begin an Age anew.

Long had it been rumoured that this day would come, and long had Fëanor spent in thought of what he might do if it should come to pass, as a deep disquiet upon his soul this thing had lain within him, it had eaten him away. He bade it be silent, and though part of him quarrelled against it he laid in place what he must; he was ready, he thought, for when it came, for when it surely must come, yet unveiled at last before his doorstep still it pained him, and the doubt of his decision was as a raw nerve plucked beneath his skin.          

It was only fitting, though; it was only right, a smirking note of pride hummed within him even as his procession wrote his doom. From maker to destroyer the fates had foretold it must be so; to the snow-capped heights of Taniquetil, most holy place upon these lands, he was summoned, and so he came alone. For none else should challenge the might of the Silmarilli, they had not the wit, he scoffed, not the subtlety. Even the lofty Valar dared not attempt it, for fear of what they might unleash.

Nay, he thought, and smiled to himself, they had not the right to do so.

From Air, Sea, and Earth the Three had been called; the First borne out of the stars, held proud upon the bow of Tilion's silver ship; the Second, swept up on a great wave out of the Sundering Seas, and the Third excavated out from under the earth, quarried out from rock and flame by Aulë's skilful folk. All Three were gathered, all brought to this place, to this time; into the highest atrium of Taniquetil's palace, open-aired to the endless stars above, Varda and Yavanna bade him enter. To the sides of a long table they stood, and between them, set upon a bolt of obsidian cloth lay the Three, and as he entered the chamber how his heart leapt to behold them.

They were as clear and brilliant as the day he had wrought them; their light undimmed, ever-shining, a rich honey-silver near cutting in its clarity. How long had it been since they shone upon his breast; his breath caught in his throat as wondrously he gazed upon them, as dear to him as children, and precious beyond measure of mortal gold or jewels. He loved them still, a fierce rush of delight seared through his veins, a tale of bloody war they had sliced across history, and yet still he coveted them, his jewels, his Silmarilli, his heirloom and weregild. With vicious delight he looked upon them, and to their maker they hearkened; the secret flames within them kindled to light yet purer than before, sweet as dawn, and cold as the everlasting stars.

For a moment then he wavered, pride grappled with purpose within his heart, for before their radiance how his purpose suddenly seemed hollow, stripped bare of all grace to reveal its squalor. For to break the Silmarils would be an insult beyond measure; anger clenched through his stomach; to snuff out their light was a cruelty, an unbearable spite, if their destruction should be the redemption for a world then the price was too steep. His pulse beat hard within his throat, his heart hammered against his ribs; he stood before the mightiest of the Valier, Varda incandescent with terrible light, Yavanna crowned in pale spring flowers, he stood subject before them yet he might hold all Eä to ransom.

He had done it before, in wrath and vengeance he had defined an Age; he could do it again, he thought, and he would. For he had not forgotten those words he swore long ago, amid torchlight and shining swords, bold and fey before Doom and all the world, that terrible Oath that even the Valar feared to speak. It glimmered in his blood still, the echoes of its power swirled there; dread nor danger, nor Doom itself, woe unto world's end... Though his long recumbence in Mandos' halls had cooled him, there was power within him yet that would brook no challenge.

Tall and proud he stepped forward now, he reached out his hand to his Silmarils long beloved. Yet even as his fingers brushed their cool facades suddenly they flickered, the light within them shivered but for a moment, before shining on once more, but in cold dismay Fëanor's heart was stilled. For though now steadied, something within the jewels had changed; where once flowing clear as fresh spring water now their light seemed veiled, cloudier, thick with secrets.

Upon the First of the Three he looked, his brow furrowed; once borne aloft on the breast of Eärendil the Mariner, and fleet Elwing, granddaughter of Lúthien the Fair, it gleamed before him as a meteor fallen to earth, and within it he saw slaughter. Upon its glassy surface cities crumbled; white flames leapt high over shattered towers, over broken homes, and in his ears he could hear the din of battle; the croaking wounded, the silent dead, and those in between yet gasping for life. Bright axes clove through flesh, through wrack and ruin there his sons strode; Caranthir bellowed, ruddy-cheeked as his greatsword swung; cunning Curufin whispered, lies slithered over his lips as beneath him a kingdom's foundations trembled. Swift Celegorm grasped at a raven-haired maid, his eyes sharp as knives and a sneer upon his face, and all about him was tumult, chaos black and roaring as the world emptied into it; the guttural grinding of war and the howls of those who stoked its fury. For everywhere his banner gleamed; an eight-pointed star dripping in gore, a war in his name, seething now to bloody crescendo.

With difficulty he tore his gaze aside, his breath came hard into his lungs, it skewered in his throat, and once steadfast now he wavered. From the ends of the table the Valier looked at him, motionless, their stern faces impassive.

Upon the Second of the Three, dredged up from the depths, his gaze at last came to rest. He could smell the brine on it, and the silt in which it had lain, thick and cloying. There was stillness in this one, and sorrow; though its light still shone clear it was paler than the others, opalescent and cool. And as he turned his thought towards it how clearly he could hear the rush and swell of waves, the hiss of foam breaking upon wind-swept sands, the lonely cries of gulls and whimbrels scattered upon a distant shore. The wildness of the place purred in his heart, and suddenly he longed for the vast plains of Beleriand stretched out under the stars, its rugged coasts and deep, cool forests, untameable and endless, full of potential. Yet amid the land's splendour so too came sorrow, a melancholy tune laid upon the wind; a lone piper walked ever along those unforgiving cliffs, playing a strong and stirring melody that brought an ache to his bones, wounds etched in flesh and soul alike. On and on the piper played, in grief before the Sundering Sea, gentle Maglor there forever doomed to walk, until the seas arose in wrath, and what became of him then the stories would not tell. His youngest, Ambarussa, flame-haired and fey, they flitted amid barren hills, outcast and leaderless through fields trampled and burned, driven out unto the edges of the world.

They had lost their way, he thought, and grieved; tears glimmered upon his cheeks as suddenly he swayed, he leaned an arm upon the table before him to steady himself. Still the Valier watched him, unmoving, but for the glimmer of pity in Varda's fathomless eyes.

He could scarcely bear to look upon the Third. He dreaded what it might hold.

For here was a Silmaril that had known torment, and blackest despair. From the brightest flame of his forge it was birthed, largest and most brilliant of the Three, its light burned hungrily, and yet to fire was it in the end born, stolen thrice over, and in the end, immolated. He could feel the hurt laid into its glass, emotion clotted in his chest as he felt the scarred palm that clutched it, he felt the prickle of its light upon his skin, drenched in blood of self and kin, from violent life it had wrought a violent end. He could hear the breath of his son, his firstborn, his son; frantic at first, laboured, strung thin with pain. And then those breaths turned to chokes, as the ash filled his lungs, as flame drove the air from his chest, and still the Silmaril burned, through charring flesh, through melting sobs, it burned brighter than all the consuming fires of the earth, until those desperate sobs were stilled, and flesh crumbled away, and only It remained.

Tears fell freely down his cheeks now, for the pain of Maedhros' passing was yet too great for any father to bear. With bittersweet sorrow he had awaited his son within the Halls of Mandos, to greet him with love, as he had the others, to hold him, to hug him, to lay hurts to rest and to heal. So eagerly he had awaited him, his firstborn, his greatest pride, and yet he had not come. He had not come, and all of Valinor questioned why, and though he too had wondered why it was come of late that perhaps he understood; the compulsion of the Oath, the jealousy of the Silmarilli, the torments he had suffered in their name, they were too much to endure. Perhaps, in the end, he did not wish to heal, or to forget. Only to end.

Only to end.

A great breath shuddered into Fëanor's lungs, he straightened, and wiped the tears from his cheeks. The Silmarils gleamed before him, and his son was gone. He would carry that hurt for the rest of his life.  

And for the first time now he looked upon the Silmarils with doubt in his heart; as beautiful as they were perhaps in the end this was their undoing, for ever the shadow of greed fell upon them, murder after murder, the ceaseless hunger of ambition consumed them, and all about them.

Without word the Valier to his sides stepped closer, and Doom tolled within his heart. For with every step that had brought him to this place he knew that this time would come, down to his bones he knew what he must do, he had prepared the way, a spell that weighed heavily upon his heart, and yet still, still, he hesitated. For the awe of those jewels held him yet, their radiant light illumined him, in shadow and in grace, for all the evil they had inspired still he gave pause.

"Come, Fëanáro," Varda spoke suddenly, her voice soft and yet terrible, like the distant roar of a falling star. "Their tale has ended. Let them rest."

"Together," Yavanna said, her voice deep as a tree's digging roots and young as summer. "Together, we will create something new."

They had asked this of him once before, to break that which he held dear. He had not understood it then, not fully, what it would cost. If he knew then, as he did now, would he have chosen differently, he wondered. He thought, and softly then he smiled.

Without word, without further sign he reached his hands to the Silmarilli, and though such joy suffused him as their cool faces met his palms, he steadied himself, he took one deep breath and closed his eyes. His spellcraft had been long, had been laborious, for though to make the jewels was a feat of astonishing craft, to unmake them would be greater, it would require sacrifice; tears flowed once more down his cheeks as still he smiled, the spell blistered over his lips as he spoke it, and suddenly light swelled through his fingers.

The spell scourged through him, he spoke now as one possessed; he could not stop it if he wanted to, their unravelling, their undoing, crystal cracked beneath his hands and suddenly he laughed, blood dripped from his palms as crimson tears while still he wept; even as he was in the night of the Kinslaying, fey and in the prime of his power, he lifted the Silmarils aloft, their chambers shattering in his palms, he laughed and he wept as the light within them surged, it seared through his flesh, it scoured the breath from his lungs, and even the Valar turned their eyes away as with one final word, with one final, bloody breath, the Silmarils broke, and their light was blinding. It washed away the world in gold and silver brilliance, in silence, in beauty and terror and pain and delight, and through it all he laughed, and wept, for so his Doom was ended.

But though the scholars may write of that day in their histories, of the world made anew, though they might say that Fëanor broke the Silmarils willingly, let it not be said that he was repentant.

[xxlovelynovaxx]

Free Ganon from the curse. Let him be:

Gerudo again, a king with sundered crown remade,

power in all the majesty that it may be with responsibility;

the courage it takes to do the right thing,

the wisdom to know what that is.

He will need them both

to mend the triforce fractured

from the weight of his ambitions.

Who will forgive him?

Who will welcome him home?

Who will give him the careful patience

to heal the pain he has wrought his people;

of which he is one?

The fated enemies who by fighting the war

prolong it – though they have no choice.

A princess, a shield, a hero, a sword,

and at the center of it all,

a man, a monster.

A prayer to the goddess for salvation.

Could redemption like hope be fluttering

just out of reach of a king enslaved to his desire,

chained by Malice?

Could its singing be torturous

to a man too afraid to believe he could still be loved,

too?

A hero infected, whose duty just – slips –

out of his grasp.

A princess trapped in a deadly dance,

lost once freed to fall away from the world.

Could they both reach out a hand, to

pull

him away from ruin,

or will they together rush headlong into it?

For whom are the tears of the kingdom wept?

A crown of thorns, a sword of rot, a kingdom of ruin.

A duty learned too late to avert

the Doom of the Champions,

that was the key to victory –

without Fury, Protection, Discipline, and Grace,

how would the Hero and Princess

have tamed the Beast?

Sundered from the world by the blight,

do they not call to sunder the blight from the world?

Yet they whisper that its carrier may yet be saved:

with Fury, Protection, Discipline,

and Grace:

Fury, to remember those lost,

and that he stands among their number,

Protection, to cease bloodshed,

and prevent the power of the malice

from pulling him into the void,

Discipline, for the new Champions that rise,

with grief in their hearts but yet hope in their eyes,

Grace, for forgiveness.

What hope will it give the hero,

who could only save one of the ones he came to love,

who slept away the apocalypse,

recovering so that he could be the hope

of generations beyond one that fell to fated ruin?

Can he forgive a man who could do no more

than succumb?

What hope will it give the princess who feels

she has blood staining her hands red like phantoms,

to see ultimate evil brought to its knees,

not in forced and open animus,

but willingly submitting to beg forgiveness:

Can she forgive one who now only wants

to put the pieces back together, and undo the harm they've done?

Who are they really forgiving, if they believe

that even the cruelest of Beasts,

could want to be better?

Could be better?

Free them, the triforce embodied,

from being reborn into fates

wherein their only story

is wretched death at the others' hands

time and time again.

Free them from the grief and ruin,

there will always be other monsters to fight

which lurk deadly in the night:

but Courage and Wisdom walk without the Power

to escape their devastating fate,

So give Power back to them.

Reunite the triforce,

and let them be free.

[remma-demma]

I think I’ve always known this instinctually since playing shadowbringers but going back and reading the lyrics to To the Edge and Shadowbringers really punches you in the gut with “THIS IS A BIBLICAL ALLEGORY” but like, in a fun supernatural esq way. Not even mentioning all of the allusions in Pandaemonium and it’s songs (hell, the name itself)

They literally name drop Paradise Lost in shadowbringers 😔

If you want to hear some examples they’re in the cut below.

From Shadowbringers (in general)

-obsession with sin

-angels being corrupted by light

- Ascians straying from God’s Light ™ (Hydaelyn)

- I guess this makes Hydaelyn God ™, Elidibus Lucifer (bright one), Zodiark Satan and….. the wol Jesus???? I fucking guess?????

- Ascians being Upsetti Spaghetti that Hydaelyn (god) chose humanity over them. (Although there were extenuating circumstances understandably, we Stan Hydaelyn in this household.)

Shadowbringers (Song)

- Here proud angels bathe in their wages of blood (rejoinings)

- This entire part (demons being agents of free will (authors of their own fates), defiance, literally name dropping paradise lost)

- HOOOOOOME (isn’t the whole point of demons that they want to recreate their life before they fell but like. In a way that says fuck god tho)

- We fall (pretty clear allusion)

To the Edge

- Like broken angels, wingless, cast from heavens gate (obvious) (also: no longer shall man have wings to carry him. Henceforth he shall walk)

- We only fly when falling, falling far from grace (also obvious)

- Scions and Sinners

- This (isn’t casting stones a biblical thing? Also lambs being gods children and being led to the slaughter because they have no free will and AT THE MERCY OF THOSE WHO PLY THE SWORD. SUNDERING, BABY!!)

- On hands and knees we pray to gods we’ve never seen (not necessarily a biblical thing except for praying but I would like to point out this is probably about zodiark because they had no idea if it would actually work.)

Bonus: Pandaemonium

(Warning here’s where a lot of the references are things I probably won’t get but I’ll try my best. Also obviously there’s a shit ton of Greek mythology references but I’ll ignore those for now.

- Name, obvious. All Demons, Lucifer’s palace in Paradise Lost / hell’s capitol.

- You go there with Elidibus :3

- Prison for Bad Things (hell)

- some of the arenas are called *blank* purgatory

- When the castle gets teleported to the source in the third tier it’s literally called The Dæmons Nest. Okay. (Also the theme for the gate is called “Where Dæmons Abide”)

- Just. Every lyric from Hic Svnt Leones. Really let’s you know You’re in Hell Now! Enjoy being tortured for eternity! Bye bye now!

- Same goes for Scream. “Fractured will” “With each bite does your sanity die” “say a prayer as the light leaves your eyes. Scream all you like your gods can’t hear you”

- More hell vibes from White Stone Black

- One Amongst the Weary/The Tireless One, false prophets, manipulating the masses, etc etc.

- Fleeting moment… BWAHHHHH. If To the Edge was fighting Lucifer, king of Demons, this is fighting Lucifer, God’s favorite little meow meow. (Hmm.. they both wear white robes…) Something something balance because he’s been both the Most Pure ™ and the Most Corrupted ™. ALSO sorry if I’m mistaken but wasn’t Lucifer described as like the hottest most prettiest most attractive person ever. I mean, look at him. He’s so gender it’s crazy.

Unrelated to biblical stuff but I can’t help but want to make lyrics for that song that are happier than those of To the Edge :( Something about Hope and Balance and “I will never die” (sure buddy keep telling yourself that)

[rafent]

✦ 𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐒𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐘𝐄𝐀𝐑 𝐒𝐓𝐑𝐄𝐍𝐆𝐓𝐇 ✧

* warrior mastery drabble ( fell xenologue spoilers )

Crumbling remnants of bygone emblems encircled the bracelet altar. Missing eyes, missing limbs, missing heads - statues all found in varying states of missing just like one twin sundered from another.

Just like Rafal.

𝐈 ;

Those aged limestone warriors with their cracked faces and crawling hairline fractures often judged him, seven against one. Across the first half of a hundred years he thought them unsettling, broken effigies whose misery he had never been forced to truly measure until he was and truly alone.

Long, long ago - Nel's placid attention backed by the noisiness of their Winds - Rafal hadn't needed to take in the sad, sunken measure of Lythos Castle to its most profound depths. At least not in any way he thought to matter. Lythos hadn't been his home, after all. Not in Nil's eyes. Only a straw roof he borrowed, easily caved in on his lies. Something transient, deeply impermanent, beyond both the reach and right of the imposter he'd been.

But now; now, in greater truth, it was. It was home. A belated home, just as all concepts and things came to Rafal belated. The love for his sister. The regret for his Winds.

The knowledge that nothing he'd done for power had been the everything he hoped it would be.

" . . . "

𝐈𝐈 ;

Nel would wake in a thousand years.

Upon her awakening Rafal would beg her forgiveness, if forgiven, they would make the passage to another world together; there where life awaited them as a pair. If not, he would stay. And Nel would go. Regardless of one outcome or another, in that time he could not neglect his health. That vehicle which would make either of these true.

When he was hungry, he foraged outside the castle and returned. More monk than dragon in the consumption of mushrooms, berries, and taproots. When hopelessness settled, he patched the tearing walls of his mind with the Divine One’s promise. When grown tired, he curled up next to his sister and slept with fraught lines.

Each and every one of that sister’s cellular functions had stopped, perfectly equivalent to a corpse, but Rafal’s power placed her putrefaction in a state of stasis, with the abject sterility of a doll lacking need for food or water or waste. Still he wiped Nel’s face clean, once every morning and night, as filial son might do unto sickly mother. He held her hand in just the same dutiful way.

All such fractions and more composed the whole of his memories. The chalk-white etchings he tallied onto the walls, painting significance onto the annals no-one else could know. The daily prayers spun from his greatest wishes. His life saved extending to be shared, seeping from hot to cold - brother unto sister. Rafal's cyclical existence in the manner of a serpent engorged on its own tail, a life without seams and an endless passage of days that bled one into the next-

into the next, into the next, into the next.

...

𝐈𝐈𝐈 ;

Between his episodes of madness, of those periods abounding with quiet, not quiet, loud, too-loud swirling darkness and doubt, it was one beacon alone which anchored him while stranded out at the loneliest sea.

it took a thousand years for another Lumera to revive another Divine One. Rafal remembered that. Rafal thought he could be able to do it; far more than could, he would. If Nel did not wake up today then tomorrow. Or the one after that. He clung to his tomorrows in that way, greedy and never satisfied, like the priceless metals that had at one point proven their world's currency. Even as each and every one passed him overhead and turned into yesterday.

"Today, sister. It will be today," he would whisper to her, to Nel, on a scratchy voice calloused by atrophy and disuse. An insistence to him that wasn't meaningless.

Rafal who feared that without practice he would forget to speak entirely, that if - when - his older sister awoke, he might not even be able to say his name. Rafal who trimmed his nails and strained the dirt from his hair not for the way he looked, but for how Nel might one day look upon him. Because when sullied by the elements he showed those signs clearer than anyone, white all over, any hint of muck or soot turned him grey.

So he kept clean; kept as sharp of his senses as Revanche and Represailles did - polished, oiled, propped aright neatly in the corner for a future where they could be used together. Unwavering in those habits as the years passed.

As so many of them did.

...

...

...

? ? ? ;

Five hundred years. Five hundred summers.

As estival heat waned to autumnal ambivalence, as winter settled into the nooks of the skeleton castle and clawed its way toward the heart where Rafal sat beating, he banked the fire - the hundred, thousandth, hundredth-thousandth fire - and watched its smoke. His blood-colored eyes an aged vacuum that sucked in the sight of the guttering flames and reflected back a strange resilience of their own.

His form, his gaze, all of it unyielding; like a pale warrior made of stone. As if among the ruins of the seven statues that once stood tall around him, Rafal could be their eighth. A monument belying idealistic inner strength, not the power of a dragonstone he once elevated above all else.

The burning wood crackled. Plumes of chilled air parted from him on a quiet, chapped laugh. On a thought of retrospects.

Didn't that sound like something the Divine One would say?

「 RAFAL 」 has mastered Warrior