#lunar propecies

[lunarblazes]

As soon as Ren finally goes down, Scott knows he’s not going to get a last ritual. Who would be there to do it for him? There’s nobody left. He’s got two more harming potions. He casts a silent apology to the still-warm corpse beside him as he prepares for his own death.

There is shockingly little to do. Well, he supposes it’s not exactly shocking, more… jarring. After so long running away, so long being hunted and running and fighting only when necessary, picking battles and choosing allies, it’s strange to finally be able to sit and hear the birds in the forest. The leaves crunch under his feet as he gently sets down the bucket that contains his final friend, Binky the axolotl. The pink salamander seems content as always, bubbling around in his little bucket under the oak tree.

Scott sighs. He does briefly wonder if axolotls have the capacity to say last rights, but then thinks better of it. He wouldn’t know if they did, and they probably don’t. No use wondering about it.

He still feels bad about Ren as he takes out the harming potions carefully. He could have said last rights for Ren. He could have. But the zombies hadn’t left, and as guilty as Scott feels, he doesn’t want to die so uncivilized. He feels like as the winner he’s earned the right to a dignified death. Cleo and Pearl didn’t get that.

Just as Scott’s preparing to do the deed, he hears voices from behind him. He doesn’t turn. He knows everyone is dead, and he’s not about to go his life with that haunted look that Grian held the whole time they were here. He knows, instantly, who stands behind him. Who stood behind him, rather, as technically they’re still dead, and ghosts are just fragments of other, past things that have been shattered, and… maybe he should hurry. Scott’s had too much time to think about the existence of ghosts, apparently.

He does smile and nod, still not turning, so he knows they’re there. He’s proud of them. He can feel their pride too, even if it’s begrudging.

Before he can shatter the first bottle at his feet, a swirling apparition of light appears before him. Scott sighs.

“Hello.”

“Hi,” the apparition says back.

“I was about to kill myself, you know. Kind of important, I’d say.”

“Yes,” it agrees softly, “it is.”

“So…?”

“So?”

“Are you going to… do something? Or are you just here to watch?”

Scott could have sworn the apparition flinches at that. “Oh, um… I don’t think you want to kill yourself, do you?”

Scott considers this. There’s a pit of dread, somewhere deep in his stomach, that instinct that tells you when you’re about to inflict pain on yourself. His survival instinct is still strong, even if he’s alone, and he can’t quite give up hope yet. Even as he holds the bottles that will end him.

“No,” Scott says primly, “but it’s tradition, isn’t it?”

“I suppose so,” it says. It sighs. “You don’t have to.”

“No,” Scott says, “but I think it’s best to move on, isn’t it?”

It flickers for a moment. “Yes, I… yes. I suppose it is.”

A pause. Scott still doesn’t know why this thing is here. It’s not a normal ghost, but it’s definitely dead, even with the glow surrounding its features. He has a guess as to who it is—who it was, in life—but he doubts it remembers that now.

“Do you want another way out? Something bright?”

Scott raises an eyebrow. “I’m listening.”

“I… I think I could get you out. In a blaze of light. Something like that. It wouldn’t hurt. I don’t know if you would… die, but you’d be out of here. And… you’d keep your victory.”

Scott shrugs. What does he have left to lose?

“Sure. I’m tired. I don’t think I really care about the victory at all right now.”

“Yeah, I didn’t either, I don’t think,” it says.

“Could I ask something of you?”

“Mm?”

“Do you know how to bury the dead?”

The spirit nods. “I do.”

“Can you interact with the world?”

“I can.”

“Can you make sure they… they get their funerals? Properly laid to rest. I don’t want weird ghosts wandering the lands that I’ve put there.”

Scott can’t make out the spirit’s face, its features are still blurred and hidden under the shifting light, but he could have sworn it smiled. “Yeah. I can do that.”

“Good. I can… I can leave, now, I think.”

Scott watches as a lightning bolt forms above him, though instead of random bursts of energy reaching for the ground, the bolt feels like hands, reaching forward to hold him. They are here to help. To alleviate his loneliness. To affix him to the heavens, to let him out of the blood-soaked world.

Scott sighs one last time and let the energy take him away. It doesn’t hurt.

The ghosts of the land dissipate with him, all except for the glowing spirit. Scott rests.

[lunarblazes]

Ren needs something. His rule isn’t being properly respected—the hermits have grown restless and wild, challenging his authority.

Ren knows that the faerie stories of old are not just stories. There are tales of fae who aid any kind of rebellion, any kind of creature resisting a force, for a price. A small price, if Ren’s plan goes smoothly, which it will. Sir BDoubleO has seen to it that pure iron shackles are crafted and enchanted to bind Ren’s new helper to his will. No betrayals are to be had on this day.

And thus, Ren stands in the shopping district, a world away from where his hired help will find their task. He carefully steps around the faerie circle he’s concocted out of mushrooms around an old, battered stump, wary of getting too close and being sucked in. Fae are dangerous. Tricky. They cannot sense any weakness about you or they’ll pounce on it.

He waits for nightfall, until the stars shine overhead, the shackles in his hands poised and ready to coil around the first hint of faerie fire. As the sun rises, Ren sighs, deciding his hopes must be misguided.

It’s not a bright flash of light, or a spectacular supernova of petals. Ren smells the scent of sickly sweet rose petals, honeysuckle, and lavender on the wind before he’s even seen the creature. He snaps his fingers on instinct. The shackles lunge at the signal, snapping around the vague shape of a fae creature, and Ren smiles, his fangs on display.

“Hail and well met,” Ren says, inclining his head, but not looking upon the creature’s form. “I am King of these lands. Who might you be?”

Ren can feel the thing staring at him as its presence molds around the shackles. He’s forced it to show itself. An irritated sigh wafts in on the summer breeze as Ren continues to stare doggedly at the trees behind the circle.

“I am a traveler,” says the faerie, “and I am quite annoyed with you, King.”

“I require a boon,” Ren says swiftly.

“Don’t all of you?” the fae retorts.

“I offer payment.”

“Well, I should hope so,” it scoffs, “against faerie law not to.”

Ren blinks. He didn’t know that was a thing, but whatever. “I need your assistance. My people, they don’t respect me. I am setting up a gauntlet to test them, to prove that I am their rightful king, and I need your power to assist me.”

The faerie is quiet for a moment, contemplating the request. “I hate that that makes sense. Resisting a resistance. Wonderful technicality, I should have stopped those stupid stories.”

Ren doesn’t quite know what to say to that, so he just clears his throat. “Er, yes, I suppose? You will be paid a diamond, and to gaze upon your task we must travel to the Nether.”

“A diamond,” the faerie says incredulously. “One diamond.”

“Er… yes?” Ren says, trying desperately not to show any kind of hesitation and mostly failing. “That is your payment.”

A long suffering sigh from the circle. “I should have stopped doing this. Blast it.”

“Well, to the Nether!”

It’s only when Ren tries to move the faerie by the enchanted manacles around his wrists that he actually gets a good look at the creature. The manacles are bound to each other with a very large length of chain, large enough to let the faerie move its arms freely, lest they impede its work, and another length of chain sits resting in Ren’s palms so that he can lead the faerie around. He can lead it around and into the Nether by the manacles, and he begins to do so before pausing as he glimpses the creature’s face and freezes.

It has pale skin, only a slight red flush in the cheeks in the colder autumn air, and its wrists are clearly starting to blister. Small feathers wrap around its cheeks and the hollows of its eyes, shining iridescent in the rising sunlight; its hair is honey-colored, golden, and very fluffy, almost like puffy seeds. It doesn’t look very pleased, hissing under its breath when the manacles chafe against skin and leave blisters behind—fae can never touch pure iron. The enchantments might lessen the sting some, but it’s still gotta hurt based on the expression of the faerie being stuck in an eternal mix of annoyance and discomfort.

What’s far more pressing to Ren, however, is that he knows that face. It’s twisted, somehow, projected and dialed up to ten, but he knows who this is, suddenly he’s very sure he does.

“Grian?” Ren asks.

“Took you long enough,” Grian grumps, attempting to cross his arms and only succeeding in burning his forearms with the manacles. “Let’s get on with the stupid project, shall we? Chop chop, I haven’t got all day, especially not for one diamond.”

“You’re not free until I say you are,” Ren reminds him, slightly giddy. “You’ve got all day if I say you have.”

Grian stares at him, then shrugs. “You’re the boss, sure.”

Ren turns back to the Nether portal grinning. Oh this is excellent. Grian is not only a faerie but a powerful enough one to have legends written about him! An ally of the known resistance in the kingdom, and there’s such an easily exploitable loophole to use against him! Their morale will be decimated when they learn their beloved assistant had built an impossible quest against them. It’s perfect! Glorious! Nothing could be going better!

Ren’s so caught up in the glory of actually capturing a powerful faerie that he nearly forgets to stop walking when they reach the vault. Grian yanks on the manacles, snapping Ren out of his daze.

“Earth to King,” Grian says testily. “What d’you want me to do?”

“Right, right!” Ren says, shaking himself back into his skin. “Well, you just—I want each of my minions to build me a vault room in here.”

Ren pretends he doesn’t see the way Grian’s skin crawls at being called a king’s minion. If he sees it, he’ll get caught up in the glory, and he has to pay very close attention to these instructions, or Grian might decide the terms of the contract are unsuitable, and then they’d be nowhere. The manacles were insurance against that; if Grian didn’t like the terms, Ren could just lock him up here until he did!

“Then, every willing citizen of mine kingdom will doth be placed in this chamber! If they defeat the games in the vault, I shall give up my crown. If they cannot rise to the challenge, I shall stay in power forevermore!” Ren continues dramatically.

“Forevermore?” Grian asks.

“Forevermore,” Ren says solemnly.

“Okay,” Grian says, “what do you want me to do about it?”

“I need you to make a room that will cause despair. Make them give up their hope,” Ren says. “They should reach your room and feel as though they’ve hit the worst challenge yet. I want there to be no chance of success.”

If Ren had been looking at Grian, then, he would have caught the way those electric blue eyes of his flicker gold with delight as he phrased his instructions, the way his sharpened teeth nearly outgrow his mouth for a moment before snapping back to their rightful place. Despite his excitement, Grian’s voice is even as ever when he responds, “no chance of success?”

“Mhm,” Ren says absently. He’s just realized that capturing and forcing such a powerful faerie for this project is a great way to legitimize his rule. He’d be the King who tamed an untamable creature, the very forces of the wind and sky themselves! King Ren, the king who bested a faerie, bound him in chains. His people had to respect him after that. “No chance of success.”

Grian smiles to himself. “I can work with that.”