#motionless immutable

[slylycurioustreasure]

The Obsidian-Eyed Guardian — Part 2.1

Summary: Heir to a cursed line of sorcerers, you carry on your shoulders the weight of an ancestral pact: to prevent the destruction of the world, you must unite with four men from clans once enemies of your own kind—a demon, a celestial, an immortal fox, and a human.

But nothing is simple when love, hate, desire, and betrayal intertwine. Torn between your curse and your feelings, protected by some, judged by others, you will have to face the truth about your blood... and what you are willing to sacrifice to survive.

What if it wasn't you, but them... who were trapped from the start?

Genre: Fantasy, Dark Romance, Drama, Action, Reverse Harem, Supernatural, Wuxia, Historical

Pairing : Park Sunghoon x reader

Word : 18k

⚠️ Warning: Blood, betrayal, jealousy, heartbreaking separations, desperate and all-consuming love, loneliness, magic, pain, deep introspection, ambiguous morality, binding and painful bonds, toxic loyalty, feelings of rejection, psychological violence.

I had to split the story into two because Tumblr hates me 😅📱. Enjoy the read! 📖✨

PREV PART— NEXT (PART 2.2) ✘ SERIES MASTERLIST ✘

Bai Lun Yan (白轮殿) — The Palace of the White Wheel

Perched atop a celestial ridge forgotten by the breath of men, where the sky tears into shades of livid white and the air seems so rare, so pure, that it bites the flesh with every breath, stands Bái Lún Yǎn —the Palace of the White Wheel. This place is not simply a sanctuary, nor a mere palace: it is a scar in the very fabric of the cosmos, a remnant of a time when the gods themselves wove the web of destinies with threads of fire and ice. Suspended above nothingness, where the stars seem to consume themselves in obsidian silence, Bái Lún Yǎn floats, carried by an ancestral, dark magic, made of ancient broken oaths and eternal judgments.

The light that bathes this place is not a living, warm, benevolent light. It is cold, merciless, a translucent alabaster white, similar to the moonlight but devoid of any softness. It pierces the soul like a sharp blade, exposing the smallest cracks, the wounds hidden behind every gaze. Time seems suspended in a perpetual dawn, where the dust of the dead hours floats motionless, immaculate, between columns of jade as cold as the souls it once enclosed.

Around the palace, the air is frozen, sharp, laden with an almost palpable heaviness. No breeze blows, no birdsong rises: the silence here is not soothing, it is a weight, a sentence, a punishment inflicted on any life that would dare disturb this stony peace. 

Every step resonates like a funereal echo, an offense to the icy majesty of this place of immutable justice. And this silence, this rigid muteness, is haunted by moving shadows, ethereal silhouettes whose voices have been reduced to murmurs of regret and resentment.

At the heart of this sanctuary sits the Wheel Room, a circular chamber devoid of windows and tangible walls, a perfect circle of impassive light. At its center, a massive wheel spins relentlessly—a sacred and fearsome mechanism, etched with ancient, glittering runes, bound into four interlocking circles: Truth, Justice, Destiny, Atonement. This wheel never ceases its inexorable movement, carrying with it the course of a thousand lives, condemning and sanctifying, reminding all that none can escape the judgment written in their blood.

But beyond the palace's icy majesty, beyond its immortal stones and frozen judgments, lives a broken man: Sunghoon, the celestial, warrior of a realm where light has become a grudge, where silence has become an impenetrable wall. His body sits there, motionless, on the highest terrace, where the wind rises like a funereal whisper, carrying betrayed oaths and broken vows. But his spirit is trapped in unfathomable torment, chained to this white wheel, to this palace that is his prison and his tribunal.

The icy wind seeps beneath his dark garments, making them flap like flags of exile. His eyes, deep black, are fixed on the misty, silent plains below, but within them burns an inner storm: a storm of bitterness, dull rage, and a pain sharper than any physical wound. Every breath is a struggle between hatred and desire, between revenge and a love from which he will not and cannot free himself.

Around him, his servants are blindfolded ghosts, once-condemned souls he holds captive in endless servitude. They glide like shadows between the columns, their voices whispers of regret, of silent suffering. They are the silent witnesses of a man on the brink, a warrior who has become judge, executioner, and victim all at once.

And then there's you.

Your appearance in this white and icy universe is like a tear in the motionless fabric of destiny. You are the shadow that disturbs the silence, the black flame that consumes the ice. You are the one who, against all odds, stole the heart of Sunghoon, that lonely star locked in a desert of snow and stone.

Your presence is a raw wound in his pristine palace. You are both his poison and his cure, the scar that makes him bleed but also the only thing keeping him alive. In this sanctuary of judgment where every gesture is weighed and every silence analyzed, you represent the chaos, the raw emotion, the storm his soul has suppressed for centuries.

In the dead of night, when the wheel turns slowly, he feels your breath on his skin like a burning wind, your gaze like a sword tearing at invisible chains. His heart, so long frozen under the weight of oaths and duties, breaks and rebuilds in exquisite, heartbreaking pain. He wants to push you away, to hate you for the betrayal you embody—you are the enemy of his world, the one who stole his empire of silence—but at the same time, he is irremediably drawn to you, like a moth to the flame, ready to consume itself for this spark of life.

The nights in the palace are a theater of shadows and unspoken tensions. The walls, silent witnesses to this inner struggle, vibrate under the weight of your silences, heavy with threats and impossible promises. The spectral wind that rises on the terrace sometimes carries a murmur, a barely audible breath, a complaint from the soul, a shiver of the forbidden.

And in this cruel ballet, the wheel continues to turn, implacable, indifferent to your torments.

In this place where every light burns and every shadow devours, the line between love and hate fades, leaving an abyss where only the most broken souls dare to venture.

Bái Lún Yǎn has become the tomb of your pains and the crucible of your forbidden passion.

And in this silent fight, no one knows if the white wheel will condemn you to oblivion... Or to eternity.

It had been exactly three days, ten hours, fifty-five minutes, and thirty seconds since you had crossed the threshold of Park Sunghoon's celestial residence. But you had stopped counting, somewhere between the first night and the second dawn that wasn't really a dawn—because here, the day doesn't rise. It hovers. Suspended in an unreal whiteness, as if light itself had forgotten how to warm.

Heavenly residence is not a place where one lives. It is a place where one endures.

A vast sanctuary built on a promontory of silence, with walls of jade so pure it seems translucent, as if carved from the ice of the first eras. The columns rise, infinite, splitting the sky until they are lost in the ether. Walkways connect the pavilions like the threads of a divine spider's web. And you, you are a prisoner in this suspended labyrinth, a stranger in a golden cage too white not to blind, too perfect not to wound.

Here, everything is symmetry and restraint. The pools don't reflect the sky—they reflect the soul. Your footsteps leave black ripples, as if your shadow were contaminating the harmony of this place.

You don't belong. You know it. You feel it in every averted glance. In every silence. In every bowl of cold rice left on your doorstep, without a word.

And him, Park Sunghoon… He watches over you. Not over you. Not really. He watches over you like you watch over a wounded animal that you don't know if it will beg or bite. He avoids you, but never completely. He ignores you, but with too much precision to be sincere. He doesn't speak. But his silence screams.

You can't run away from him. You live under his roof, in the former chamber of a priestess who died centuries ago, among incense that no longer burns and silks discolored by grief. The bed is too big. The sheets too clean. Every night, you curl up in it, like a mistake that refuses to go away.

You hardly sleep.

The nights here are traps. Too quiet. Too long. And in that silence, memories come flooding back. The betrayal. The blood. The pact. The price. You don't forget. You can't. Because your body remembers for you.

The mark on your shoulder blade glows in the darkness. A pale, blue glow, pulsing like a heart beating backward. Sometimes it burns. Sometimes it bleeds. And sometimes it doesn't do anything… Which is worse. Because then you find yourself hoping it'll do it again. So you can feel something.

And outside, behind the cedar doors, he's there. You feel him. He passes. He stops. A breath. A presence. A tension. He never knocks. He doesn't speak. He moves away. But you remain frozen, tense like a rope about to snap.

You want to hate him. But how can you hate a man who, every night, collapses alone in the Wheel Room to pray to a dead god he no longer believes can even hear him?

You surprised her once. One evening when you were wandering, haggard, lost in the corridors. You approached the heart of the sanctuary. You had no right. But you trampled on the right long ago.

And you saw him. Kneeling on the cold marble. His hands clenched. His head bowed. His shoulders heavy with a weight no mortal should bear. He wasn't praying. He was whispering your name. Not as a plea. Not as a curse. As a confession.

You ran away. Silently. Heart pounding. Eyes wet.

Since then, you haven't been back there.

Sunghoon doesn't tell you anything. He doesn't ask you anything. But he knows. He sees. And what he sees, every day, is a slow agony.

First, there was the loss of brightness in your eyes. Almost imperceptible. Like a star that flickers for a single night before fading forever. Then, your step grew heavier, as if each marble slab were sucking you deeper into the bowels of a world that wasn't yours. You glided through the halls of the celestial palace like a nameless soul, a whisper from a dead dream. And he, Sunghoon, watched you without looking at you. He looked away, but every beat of your heart echoed in his veins like a silent slap.

You didn't speak. You didn't ask anything.

But your body was screaming.

You were losing weight. Not like a woman who forgets herself, no. Like a caged beast refusing an enemy's food. He could see it in the way your dress, once fitted, now hung loosely around you like an oversized shroud. You kept one hand pressed against your stomach, tense, almost painful—as if you wanted to hold back something broken, precious, too intimate to be shown.

Sunghoon saw. He felt.

Your scent had faded. That of dark fields and dried blood. Now you smelled only of rain, cold stone, and that acrid odor that fatigue leaves when it becomes chronic. Your dark circles had sunk so deep they seemed carved from bone. Your complexion, once pulsing with color, had become that of burnt paper. And despite all this, despite every sign of collapse… You stood straight. With that strange, ridiculous, desperately fragile dignity. A cheap dignity, yes. But dignity nonetheless.

And he did nothing. Not out of cruelty. Not out of indifference. Not out of revenge. But out of fear. Because he knew: if he laid a hand on you, even a single finger, the dam would break.

It's not compassion that would kill him. It's what comes after. What smolders. What burns. This terrible, impossible, filthy need to keep you. You. The woman he should hate.

Sunghoon had clung to his anger like a drowning man to a broken plank. But even that, you had gnawed away, gently, methodically, with your mere presence. You hadn't tried to defend yourself. You hadn't begged. You hadn't justified anything. You were living. You were surviving. Like a silent condemned woman awaiting execution in a temple that had never known mercy.

And that's what broke him.

For the man he was… Should have judged you. The ancient Sunghoon, the incorruptible celestial, the sword of Destiny, would not have hesitated to slit your throat for what you had done to his master. He would have recited the celestial verses. He would have invoked the law. He would have turned a blind eye to your blood. He would even have offered it to the heavens as proof of his purity.

But today... He listens to you cry through the walls. And he doesn't move.

Sunghoon hears your footsteps wandering the corridors as night closes in on the palace. He senses your stifled sobs, your ragged breathing, your breath struggling against a pain he no longer dares to name. And sometimes, in this silence, he feels the mark on his arm burning—not as a reminder of revenge, but as a cry for help he refuses to hear.

And it's killing him. Because he no longer knows what he hates more: your past... Or his own heart.

So Sunghoon flees. He locks himself in the Wheel Room. For hours on end, he remains kneeling before this cosmic disc, his forehead resting on the icy ground, hoping that the Light will wash him away, that Justice will blind him. But the wheel turns. And it no longer speaks. Or perhaps it no longer answers him.

Because it is already defiled.

Sunghoon prays. He recites the laws. He invokes the memory of his master. He tears at his soul, wanting to become who he was again. But deep down, he knows: it's not the law that trembles. It's him.

Because he feels. And what he feels… Has nothing to do with Justice. It's not love. He doesn't want it. That would be too sweet, too clear. It's not hate. She died with your tears. It's something else. A need. A flaw. A tear in the soul.

Sunghoon wants to save you. Not because you deserve it. Not because he loves you. But because your unhappiness calls to him. Like an ancient chant. Like a reverse prayer. And he hates himself for it. So he stops at your door. Every night. He reaches out. Just a little.

Then he steps back.

Because he knows that if he opens the door... He won't let you go. And you, inside, feel his presence. You feel he's there. You feel him wavering. But you don't move. You stay lying there. Eyes open. Waiting for the pain to pass. Or for the silence to finally become... Eternal.

And in this suspended night, barely punctuated by the breath of the celestial wind, two hearts beat out of time. Connected by a curse, by a mark, by an ancient crime. And perhaps... By something worse.

A bond that no forgiveness can repair. A love that refuses to be born. But that is already dying, every second, in the darkness.

It had been five days.

Five days since you stopped counting, like one gives up measuring the extent of a bottomless pit, where each step forward feels like a deeper descent. The days stretched, merging into a dark molasses, and time itself seemed to have stopped, suspended between agony and oblivion. Each morning no longer bore its name, each hour slipped away in the shadow of a frayed time, fragile as a torn silk canvas. You were no longer captive to a calendar—but captive to a dull weight nestled in your bones, a silent pain that gnawed at your flesh and bones.

Your body, this broken temple, bore the bitter memory of wounds that neither wind nor rain could erase. Those invisible scars, so deep they seemed etched into your very skin, fiercer than the sharpest blade. He remembered the dull burn of silences, the chilling echo of absences, the icy bite of a fleeing gaze, of a breath suspended on the edge of the abyss. The fatigue, the exhaustion, the loneliness—all of it still weighed heavily, like an armor of shadows you wore despite yourself.

And yet… You were breathing.

But it wasn't the easy, light, and fluid breathing of a free soul. It was the air that crept in reluctantly, a breath torn from death, a flickering flame that trembled in the heart of an abyss too deep. You were no longer the woman you had been, nor the one you would have wanted to become. You were only a shadow, fragile and trembling, oscillating between survival and life, suspended between the icy cold of night and the burning flame of hope. A fallen creature groping forward, defying the darkness.

Your once-trembling hands had regained some of their strength. A fleeting flash in the renewed precision of that almost ritualistic, mechanical gesture: bringing a black sesame cake to your mouth. This simple act, so innocuous in the eyes of the world, became for you a silent oath, a silent revolt. A declaration to the world that, despite everything, you were resisting. That you were not dead.

That evening, in the great hall where hanging lanterns cast a dim, flickering light, where shadows danced between walls adorned with ancient calligraphy, you sat on a cushion embroidered with gold and silver thread, a silent witness to forgotten prayers and lost souls. The room seemed to hold its breath, frozen in dull anticipation.

Before you, the immaculate coffee table, where the warm cakes rested. Their bittersweet scent, acrid and sweet, hung in the air like a silent confession, a secret whispered by the wind. The bitterness of the past mingled with the deceptive sweetness of the present moment, each bite a bite of memory.

You devoured them with unfeigned pleasure, each flavor on your tongue seeming to pull you out of the abyss, extract you from oblivion. The sugar caressed your taste buds, while the bitterness dug a furrow in your chest, a brutal reminder that light is never reborn without shadow.

Facing you, motionless, Sunghoon. More than a man, a statue of ice shaped by the winds of an eternal winter. His straight, impeccable, unwavering figure, defying time and hardship. His black hair, knotted with surgical precision, each strand held back as if to imprison a part of his soul. His sleeves, always folded to perfection, like a sacred code engraved in silk. He ate. Slowly. Methodically. Each grain of rice he brought to his lips seemed to weigh more than the last.

Sunghoon didn't look up at you. He didn't speak. Yet, in his every gesture, in the barely contained tension of his fingers around the chopsticks, in the subtle quivering of his muscles beneath his skin, you felt his gaze weighing on you. An invisible, heavy gaze, sharper than any sword.

You knew he was watching you, even if he refused to show it. Sunghoon watched you like you would a poisoned flower, both fascinated and terrified by the poison it gave off.

You knew he didn't understand. How could he have understood? How could he grasp that dull pain, that icy melancholy that had crept into you like a slow, inexorable venom, poisoning you from the inside out?

You bit into that sesame cake again, that paradoxical blend of sweetness and bitterness that reminded you too much of your own existence. How could you love that taste that betrayed your mouth, that was the very reflection of your life—sweet on the surface, eaten away by bitterness deep down?

This troubled him deeply.

Everything about you, these last few days, worried him, unsettled him. He saw that fragile light reborn in you, and it awakened in him desires and fears he couldn't name. A tension between hope and fate, between tenderness and contained violence.

The silence stretched, dense, almost palpable, like a veil of black mist suffocating everything around you. Each suspended second was a weight, an invisible ordeal, slow and cruel. But this silence wasn't just an absence of sound—it had texture, breath, intention.

It was a beast lurking in the room. It didn't stretch: it watched. Invisible, but massive, it held its claws back, suspended between you like a sword on a thread, ready to strike at the slightest shiver of your soul, at the slightest word spoken too soon.

Outside, the rain fell in icy blades, cold and silent, hatching the windows as if the sky itself were trying to slit its veins. The air smelled of damp, old ash, and something sweet—a dark, almost rancid sugar that the sesame cakes on the table couldn't mask.

The light from the lanterns hanging from the ceiling flickered slightly, casting a hesitant brightness into the room. Their flames flickered as if they doubted their right to exist within these walls, between the two of you. Shadows lengthened, distorted, and danced across the jade walls. Each glint, each movement of light, seemed to reflect a fragment of what you weren't saying.

You sat upright, but your back seemed to carry an entire empire of fatigue. Your right hand held a small plate. Your left absently caressed the edge of the table. Your gestures were calm, measured—but each movement betrayed an ancient tension, as if your body were a rope stretched between life and something colder, larger, calling to you from within.

Facing you, Sunghoon. Upright. Still. Silent.

For him, eating wasn't a necessity. It was a ritual. A silent ceremony, poised between control and self-denial. Every movement of his chopsticks was surgically precise, almost unreal, as if he were dissecting the world one grain of rice at a time.

But his eyes—his eyes never left your bowl. He didn't look at you. And yet, he saw you. He saw you with that merciless clarity possessed only by those who have already condemned you once, internally. He saw you as one observes a wound that refuses to heal, like a memory one tries to forget but returns to haunt sleepless nights.

You were, to him, a crime. A crime he tried not to utter aloud. A sacrilege he continued to tolerate, by a whim of the heavens or by a flaw in his own faith. And in that way of not looking up, in that stubborn refusal to meet your gaze, there was something sharper than a thousand judgments. A silent sentence, made of control, pride… And fear.

And maybe that's why you spoke. Not so he'd understand. But because he already did. And the silence had become a poison you could no longer swallow.

You didn't move your head. You didn't look up. Your voice escaped your lips, hoarse and low, like a confession whispered at the tomb of a dead god. "Last night... I dreamed you killed me." A mere whisper. But in that whisper, there was the mark of a cross, of a sentence, of a farewell.

Sunghoon didn't move. But his chopsticks stilled. Neat. As if the wood itself understood that this moment must not be broken.

You continued. Slowly. Painfully. "You said nothing." Each word cost you. "You just placed two fingers on my throat..." And, as if in spite of yourself, your hand brushed your collarbone. It was no longer a memory. It was an imprint. A memory that your skin itself had never forgotten. Two fingers. Enough to take a life. And in your dream, you had welcomed them. "...And I disappeared."

The silence that followed was brutal. It tore through the space between you like a blade. The lanterns flickered more. One, in a corner, went out for no reason.

You continued, even lower:

"I was relieved."

It was like a blow to the naked eye. There was no cry. No flinch. But you saw it. Sunghoon's wrist, tense as if holding an invisible blade. The tendons in his fingers, white with the strain. His shoulders, once straight and noble, slumped slightly—as if your confession had carved a furrow into his chest.

You had just named something he had locked away. A dream he should never have had. And yet he had dreamed it over, over and over again, until he lost sleep over it. Sunghoon had seen you. In his dreams. Always the same scene. You, in that soft light, your eyes calm, your neck offered like an offering to an unjust god. Two fingers placed there. And your breath fading.

But in his dreams, you smiled. And that smile… That smile, he couldn't stand it. Because it spoke of peace. Because it spoke of acceptance. Because it spoke of love. And he, he was made to kill. Not to love.

So he kept quiet.

But you continued. Like an arrow piercing broken armor. You took another bite of your cake. Slowly. As if tasting something final. Then, gently:

"What if..." Your voice became light, almost unreal, like a dream that didn't dare to be born. "What if we were in a world without war? A world without gods. Without pacts. Without revenge."

Sunghoon was no longer breathing.

“I would be an apothecary.” Your smile was that of a broken child. “And you, a wounded traveler. You would have entered my shop, tired, silent. I would have healed you. You would have thanked me. And you would have left. Nothing more.” You smiled. Your eyes were wet, but you refused to cry. “No mark. No blood. No oath.”

A silence. 

Then :

“Just a look. Like now.” And you looked up. And you stared at him. There was a sweetness in your gaze that tore at the chest. A tenderness he had never believed possible. And as if to finish him off, you gave him a wink. Simple. Innocent. Wildly daring.

And he choked. Really. He stepped back abruptly, coughed, almost dropped his bowl. And you… You laughed. A real laugh. Rich. Golden. Filling the room like a summer fire. A laugh that had no place in this world, but you offered it anyway. Because it was your way of surviving.

Sunghoon looked away, his face flushed, his heart in knots. He tried to compose himself, but he was nothing more than a helpless man facing something he didn't know how to fight.

You.

“You… You’re unbearable!” He finally growled, but his voice was broken, almost trembling. “How can a woman have such thoughts… Insane? Indecent?”

You stepped closer. Your smile was more dangerous than poison. "You're right, ice block. I'll give you more lines next time." You tilted your head. Your lips brushed your cake. "After all... You are my husband."

The word hit like a slap.

And Sunghoon stood up. Abruptly. A storm in his eyes. "YOU...!" He pointed at you, but his hand was shaking. With fear. With desire. With that ancient fear you feel when faced with what you cannot possess without losing yourself.

“Yes, me?” you breathed, sweet and provocative, your lips glossy with black sugar.

He looked away. Not out of anger. Out of flight. Because what he saw in your eyes… was a light he didn't deserve. And he whispered. In a cold, brittle, almost inhuman voice:

"Sinner."

And then… Sunghoon disappeared. Not a sound. Just that blinding, divine white light that engulfed him. And you, you stayed there. Alone. Surrounded by flickering lanterns. By cakes you wouldn't finish.

And in the silence he left, something remained. Something invisible. Something burning. You placed a hand on your mark. It throbbed.

And in that beat, you understood:

It wasn't him you wanted to hold on to. It was what he'd taken with him when he left. And what you already missed.

Jì Láng (寂廊) — The Corridor of Silence

You had started to lose yourself there again. Not by accident. No. It was a choice, a voluntary exile. Like a silent offering to nothingness. Whenever the suffocation became too great, whenever the pain overflowed the confines of your flesh and threatened to turn into a scream, this was where you came. Far from view, far even from your own breath. You weren't looking for peace. You were looking for disappearance.

The Jì Láng was not a mere corridor. It was an open wound in the very foundations of the heavenly palace. Long, narrow, like a stone tunnel carved from the bones of the world. It wound between the sacred wings like a shadow serpent, and no one, ever, stayed there long. Those who crossed it quickened their pace. Even the immortals.

Because here, there was no sound.

Not your steps. Not your breathing. Not the brush of your sleeves against your body. Everything faded, swallowed up in a magical, ancient, almost sacred void. The silence of the Jì Láng wasn't the absence of sound—it was an entity, a palpable force, a cold hand closed around your throat. It swallowed everything. Even the light.

But it was the walls that were the cruelest.

Panels of polished jade, embedded in the stone like a thousand closed eyes. Merciless mirrors. Their deep green surface seemed to smooth reality, distort it, shatter it. Each reflection of you was different. And all were true. You saw the child kneeling in the mud, palms bleeding, gazing up at a dull sky. You saw the young witch, her dress torn, her arms stained scarlet, her heart frozen. You saw the murderer, impassive, her eyes empty, surrounded by corpses. You saw the captive, that silent, naked version of yourself, deprived of pride, of hatred, of a name.

And sometimes, more rarely, you saw the person you could have become. The one who didn't kill. The one who was loved. The one who fled.

You walked between them as if between a thousand funerals of yourself.

Your reflection followed you every step of the way—splintered, broken, misshapen, as if the jade reflected not your body, but your soul. In some places, your face was stretched into a silent grimace of pain; in others, your eyes shone with a false joy that made you want to vomit. The mirrors reflected back to you everything you had tried to forget—every choice, every crime, every weakness. And you stayed there, every day, longer. Because here, you had no need to hide.

Because here, you no longer had a mask. And it was there, always there, in this labyrinth of polished silence, of white stone and broken reflections, that you encountered him.

Park Sunghoon.

He never burst into view with a bang. He appeared like ghosts do—noisily, but always at the exact moment you thought you were finally breathing. Not a coincidence. No. Nothing was with him. He was there because he wanted to be. Because he had guessed where you would be. Because he knew you would come back.

Sunghoon had become your shadow—or perhaps you had become his.

You recognized his presence before you even saw him. The air was changing. The atmosphere was becoming denser, as if every particle of oxygen began to vibrate under the weight of his silence. Even the light was changing: it folded around him, fragmenting on the edges of his celestial mantle like a sharp blade.

This coat… Sunghoon had never taken it off. Impeccably white, embroidered with silver thread, stiff as armor. It was no longer a garment. It was a straitjacket. A cage. Every fold seemed to scream: I control myself. I hold back. I am a judge, not a man. And yet…

There was no more dignity in his gait. Only a cold, mechanical one. A steady, perfect, almost inhuman step. He never wavered. He never slowed down. But you saw it—yes, you saw it—that tiny tremor at the base of his neck, that irregular throbbing of his temples. As if his own body were screaming what his mouth refused to say: that he couldn't take it anymore.

And you? You stopped dead in your tracks.

You were becoming a statue. Prisoner of a gaze he never looked at you directly. Because no, Sunghoon wasn't looking at you. Not straight on. Not like a man looks at a woman. That would have been too easy. Too human. No, Sunghoon looked at you in mirrors. Through reflections. As if facing the reality of your face was a suffering he couldn't afford.

But in the mirrors, you crossed paths. And in those moments, fleeting, cursed, eternal—there was no longer a mask.

You saw everything.

You saw the storm in his pupils. You saw his rage—immense, burning, barely contained. You saw his grief, knotted in the hollow of his throat, making it hard to breathe when Sunghoon met your reflection. Above all, you saw that shame, insidious, cruel, eating away at his insides.

He judged you, yes. But not like a celestial judges a witch. He judged you like a man who had failed.

In his eyes, you weren't just a monster. You weren't just the one who killed. You were the one he should have saved. The one he could have understood, if he had listened. If he hadn't looked away. If he had loved you a little sooner, a little better.

And him? He was becoming someone else in the mirror. He was no longer the perfect judge, the blameless celestial. He was a broken man. Tired. A survivor who hadn't seen the fire consume those he wanted to protect. And now he stood in the ashes, unable to reach out.

Sometimes his gaze screamed that he wanted to punish you. Other times, you read in it a desire so fierce it was cruel. But Sunghoon did nothing. He said nothing. He kept it all inside.

And you, you were dying of silence.

You would have preferred him to hate you. You would have preferred him to insult you, to accuse you, to spit out your name like a curse. You would have preferred him to raise his hand. To be done with it. You would have begged him. Kill me, and free me from this waiting. But he remained frozen. He looked at you—and that was worse than death.

That night you stayed longer.

Maybe you were waiting for him. Maybe you wanted to hurt yourself. You turned the glass galleries, slowly, each step like torture. And suddenly, you saw him appear. Around a corner. Sunghoon was advancing—straight, precise, his hands clasped behind his back.

Your footsteps stopped simultaneously. A few meters apart. And the space between you cracked.

Not a word.

Not a move.

But the void between you became more real than the walls. An abyss filled with everything you had never been able to say. Everything you had lost. Everything you continued to desire.

You weren't looking at yourself. But in the mirror on the left, your reflections met. And it was a saber thrust to the heart.

You saw the fatigue in his eyes. An old, irreversible fatigue. You saw the love he denied himself. The forgiveness he refused to grant you—not because you didn't deserve it, but because he couldn't forgive himself. You saw the trembling of his lips. The twitching of his fingers.

Sunghoon wanted to talk to you. He wanted to scream. He wanted to break you—or hug you. He wanted a thousand things, and he did nothing.

And you? You wanted to fall to your knees. You wanted to ask him why. Why he had abandoned you. Why he hadn't recognized you. Why he kept pretending you were nothing. But your voice remained dead in your throat.

So you looked down. Like a traitor. Like a rejected lover. Like a child abandoned by her god.

You turned around. Your footsteps were silent, but your heart was beating so hard it seemed to scream between your ribs.

And in the mirror, you saw it.

Sunghoon didn't move. He stood there, straight, frozen, like a statue poised in grief. But his fists... They were shaking. His eyes... They were blinking too fast. And his reflection... He was nothing more than a scar.

A living scar. Buried in your back.

Yu Xuān (雨轩)—literally, “The Rain Pavilion”—a name that, in itself, resonates like ancestral melancholy, a poem of solitude and shadows. This forgotten corner of the palace, hidden behind thick walls and winding corridors, was a sanctuary suspended between two worlds. A small terrace of sober architecture, fragile in appearance, but built to defy time. The roof of ancient tiles, worn by centuries of downpours, cast a cold and unchanging shadow, a veil of soft darkness even under the merciless glare of the sun.

There, always, rain fell—but not ordinary rain. Invisible. Spectral. A murmur of water without source or end, a rain that never wet the skin, but seemed to penetrate the very soul. That delicate, regular hiss hammered the roof with the constancy of a heart beating to the rhythm of a secret no one could break. As if the sky had chosen to weep silently for this place, for the pain and heartbreak it kept locked away.

This pavilion was not an open refuge. It was forbidden to intruders, to the profane, to the impure of heart. The guards did not set foot there, the servants avoided it like a tomb. Yet, for you, this place had always had a strange, almost familiar presence. Sunghoon had never pronounced a clear prohibition. Sunghoon had never said to you, "Don't enter." Nor, "You must not come here." Simply, a heavy silence, an absence of words, like a breath suspended between refusal and permission. A silent fracture in his rigid discipline, where his love and his mistrust intertwined in a slow, cruel dance.

This lack of an explicit barrier had led you to believe that you could venture there. Once. Only once.

That night, you're no longer quite sure why your feet led you there. Perhaps because the weight of days, sleepless nights, nightmares, and regrets had broken you beyond all resistance. Perhaps because you were looking for a whisper, a secret voice, a place where your heartbeat could match the rhythm of a silent rain.

You entered silently, slipping into the shadows, your breath short, your chest oppressed by an inner storm. The air was thick, saturated with humidity, charged with an electricity you felt in your bones. The invisible rain fell, elusive, penetrating. It caressed your skin without moistening it, seeped into your hair, seeped into your clothes like a spectral breath.

You sat in the center of the terrace, leaning against an ancient wooden pillar. The wood was cold beneath your palm, smooth as the skin of a corpse, marked by time and secrets. There, in this otherworldly sanctuary, you closed your eyes, letting the whisper of the rain envelop you.

Your mind, a heartbreaking chaos of past pain, buried fears, memories as sharp as blades, began to calm. Each invisible drop seemed to carry away a little of your suffering, each imperceptible sound cradled the dull anger and blind sadness within you. You gave yourself over to sleep, fragile and precarious, like a weary moth caught in the web of an endless night.

In that hazy dream, you saw a different world. A world where someone would have reached out to you without fear, without judgment, where you would have been protected, loved in your entirety and fragility. A pale light at the end of a cold tunnel, a breath of hope in the stifling darkness of your existence. But this light was distant, almost painful to contemplate, because you knew it wasn't for you, or at least not yet.

Then the presence came.

Without a sound, without a breath to announce its approach. Just that icy chill that crept up the back of your neck, gripping your heart like an invisible iron fist. You felt the air tense, charged with a dark, heavy energy, like a silk thread stretched to the brink of breaking.

Sunghoon.

He stood there in the shadows of the pavilion, frozen like a living statue, an imposing shadow draped in his immaculate celestial robe, rigid and merciless. His features, in the gloom, were hard, marked by the struggle between anger and pain. His eyes, those inky depths, did not dare meet yours, fleeing your gaze with the fear of drowning in it, or of hurting you further.

You didn't move. You didn't dare. You were suspended in that fragile moment, between desire and resentment, between fear and the silent wait for an answer that never came.

The silence between you was an ocean of unspoken words, of stifled cries, of love and hate mingled. A funeral music played by two souls who loved each other too much to say it, and who tore each other apart in this unbearable unspoken word.

You felt his fists clench, as if beneath his skin, a war was raging. Sunghoon was fighting against himself, against his demons, against the irrepressible urge to come closer, to protect you, to take you in his arms and erase all your wounds. But he remained there, imprisoned in his own silence, motionless and distant, like a cold and lonely mountain.

In that dark night, beneath the rain that wouldn't fall, a raw, clumsy, painful tenderness vibrated in the air. A tenderness that chilled you as much as it soothed you. A silent promise, an invisible caress that you shared in this absence of words.

You wanted to tell him that you didn't need to be saved, only to be loved, despite everything. That you didn't want to run away anymore, but to abandon yourself to him, even if it meant suffering again. That you wanted him to be your refuge and your storm at the same time.

But the weight of fatigue and fear held you captive, mute, fragile, under the sacred roof of Yu Xuān.

When you finally opened your eyes, he was gone. Just a deep, cold emptiness, a painful echo of his absence, a naked wound that silence couldn't soothe.

And the rain, always the rain, fell, invisible and eternal, on this pavilion where solitude and tenderness intertwined in a sad and infinite ballet.

Jiù Shěn Táng (旧审堂) — The Old Tribunal Hall

The Old Courtroom. A name that sounds like a death knell, like a sentence no one has ever dared to break. An ancient ruin, frozen in the silence of a bygone era, crushed under the weight of its own shadows. Where once judgments rose in a solemn breath, now only muffled whispers remain, memories eaten away by the wear and tear of time. A tomb for the living, a mausoleum for condemned souls.

You push the door open, and a dull creak reverberates through the void, as if the room itself were holding its breath, ready to swallow you up. Your footsteps echo, quiet, hesitant, on the cold stone floor. The air is heavy, laden with humidity and dust, pricked by the acrid smell of abandonment. Each breath you take seems to tear through a veil of silence, like a silent plea.

You move slowly, each movement imbued with a strange gravity. Time here has frozen, imprisoned by the echoes of past sentences, muffled cries, shattered hopes. The high ceiling is dotted with cobwebs, while shafts of pale light filter through the tall, bare windows, barely striking the blackened remains of the wooden pillars, cracked, marked by the years and forgotten flames.

At the center of this devastation sits a majestic seat, carved from pale jade, once brilliant, now dull and covered in a film of dust, like a discarded sacred relic. It is the throne of the heavenly judge—the master you slew. The one man who held your life in his hands, and who brutally snatched it away.

You don't sit down. You can't. Not yet.

You wander like a shadow, a ghost searching for one last breath, one last vestige of humanity in this stone temple. Your hand brushes the blackened wood of the pillars, your fingers glide over the rough stone, but there is nothing to grasp, nothing that is not already dead. You search for the echo of a voice, the trace of a glance, a pronounced judgment… But all that responds is silence.

Finally, you fall to your knees, the weight of your guilt crushing your weary bones. There, facing the empty throne, you feel the emptiness growing within you—an insatiable chasm where shame and despair intertwine. There is no one to forgive you. No incense, no offerings, no redemption.

You breathe in slowly, deeply. The silence is so dense it penetrates your skin, seeps into your bones, until every nerve screams with dull pain. Your heart, heavy as a rock, beats slowly, each pulse a hammer blow in your chest.

Then, a noise. A breath, a rustle of fabric. Soft footsteps.

You don't need to look back. You know. It's him. Park Sunghoon. Your judge. Your executioner and your refuge.

His silhouette stands out in the shadows, motionless, frozen in the gloom, like an obsidian statue at the edge of the threshold. He doesn't cross the threshold. He can't. It's as if he fears desecrate this altar laden with cursed memories.

You turn your head, slowly. Not to run away, not to beg, but to confront.

Sunghoon is there. Standing there like a broken warrior, his body stiff, his fists clenched so tightly that his knuckles turn white. His jaw is clenched, tense, every muscle taut like a bowstring ready to snap.

But it's his eyes that haunt you. They don't look at you. They stare into that void—that abandoned throne, that symbol of justice turned grave. His eyes are drowned in a sea of ​​pain and absence. A dull anger mingled with an unfathomable sadness. And in that torn gaze, you read the full depth of a grief that refuses to die.

You stand there, facing him, and your own heart clenches—not under the weight of his hatred, but under the even more cruel weight of his silence.

You break the silence in a low, broken voice, almost a whisper. "I didn't want this..." You're not crying, not yet, but your voice trembles, frail, like a twig in a storm. You're not saying this to defend yourself, nor to seek his pity. You're only looking for some truth, some light in this abyss. "You know that, don't you?"

It's a trap set in the air, an invisible choice thrown into the void between you.

Sunghoon doesn't answer. His silence is a weight that weighs on you, but you accept this weight. You lower your head. You close your eyes. You breathe in. And the memories overwhelm you.

When you open your eyes again, Sunghoon is looking at you. Not at your skin or your face, but at your insides. He trembles, imperceptibly, like a fragile fire fighting the wind.

Your breathing softens. You smile. Not to challenge. But to soothe.

"You know what it's like to lose someone. So do I." And in that whisper unfolds a rare, fragile thrill of humanity, a silent confession between two broken souls.

Sunghoon's steel mask wavers. His shoulders relax, his body cracks. His eyelids lower for a moment, as if to hold back an inner torrent.

You stand up. Not to run away. To offer him a respite, a moment stolen from the war that consumes you.

“If you’re expecting an apology… I can’t give it to you.” You speak gently, like placing a flower on a fresh grave. “Because I think it’s right.” Your gaze is clear, without remorse, but without defiance either. “And I don’t regret surviving.”

You slowly turn your back. You don't see the silent tears sliding down his cheeks—pearls of pure pain. You don't hear his breath hitch. You don't know that, despite the years, Sunghoon still carries the incense of that fateful night.

But you feel it. The burning mark on your shoulder blade quivers, like a tear of fire on your back. 

You walk away slowly, your heart heavy.

In this silence laden with unspoken confessions, you leave behind a broken man—his grief, his slowly consuming hatred, and this wounded heart that still beats, despite everything, for the one he can no longer condemn.

The night stretches on, thick, heavy, like black ink spilled over the world, impervious to all light. Every breath you take is an effort, a struggle against the emptiness that swallows you up. The corridor you've already walked down several times this evening seems to stretch to infinity, its cold stone walls exuding a sinister dampness, mingled with the acrid smell of burnt resin, old forgotten incense, dried blood. Everything here is frozen, dead, and yet vibrant with a dull presence, ready to burst.

Your steps are heavy, measured, yet betray an inner tremor—it is not fear that guides you, nor doubt, but that painful fire that consumes your entire being: that bitter mixture of shattered hope, suppressed hatred, unbearable desire. Your heart, beating with demented regularity, hammers your chest like a dull storm. You know that in the shadow looming at the end of the corridor, it is there. And that simple fact, laden with a terrible weight, exhausts you.

Then this sudden noise, like a clap of thunder in this abysmal silence: a body collapsing heavily against the stone floor. The crash resonates within you like a wound. You accelerate, hurtling down the last few steps, your hands gripping the cold handle of the forbidden door. Your ragged breathing mingles with the furious beating of your heart, a primal, almost animal rhythm.

You open the door, and the world comes into focus in a frozen moment, where everything you feel crashes brutally against reality.

Sunghoon lies there, sprawled on the floor, his body frail and broken, his figure shattered by the weight of an invisible yet palpable pain. The pallor of his skin contrasts sharply with the night, his features drawn, his eyes half-closed, drowned in a mixture of alcohol, fatigue, and an abysmal sadness. A silent tear slides down his cheek, like a shard of fragility that no one was meant to see.

His breath is raspy, each exhalation seeming to wring a little more strength from his weary limbs. An empty, crumpled flask lies nearby—a fragile talisman against the inner demons that gnaw at him.

Your body slowly kneels beside him, each gesture imbued with sacred caution. You don't want to upset this fragile balance, this tension stretched like a silk thread between you. Your hand, hesitant at first, brushes against his trembling arm, then gently ventures out to take the gourd from him, which smells of pain and resignation.

His gaze, clouded, avoids yours, like an ashamed child, and yet you can feel the storm brewing beneath that shattered facade. He is both close and distant, both vulnerable and trapped by his demons. His body shudders with every breath, a silent battle between his heavenly duty and his feelings for you, the dark shadow of his own pain intertwining with the desire you arouse.

“How could I hate you, Y/n…” His voice, hoarse and broken, twisted by silent pain, slips out like a barely audible breath. “How could I blame you, when every tear you shed lacerates my heart?” His eyelids flutter shut, a shudder of shame and helplessness shaking him. The weight of his responsibilities, his rank, the world’s hatred for you, all crashes down on Sunghoon. “Yet I should. Celestial that I am, I should reject the witch, the sinner… You.”

You place a finger, soft and trembling, on his pale lips, to silence the flood of judgments and pain that devours him. "Sunghoon..." Your voice softens, becomes almost a caress. "Here, in this night, nothing matters but us. Forget the labels, the weights, the chains. Listen to the truth that beats in your chest, not the lies of the world."

Your hands search for each other, hesitant, then intertwine. You gently guide his so that it finds refuge on your chest, where your heart beats with a wild, untamed force. Then you place it on his, so that he too can feel the pulsing life, beyond the shadows and doubts.

A sacred silence falls. His breathing calms, becomes slow, deep. His eyes, misty, plunge into yours, searching for a shore, an anchor in this emotional chaos. A sad but sincere smile stretches your lips—a fragile balm on invisible wounds.

"Listen to your heart, Sunghoon. It will always guide you." You release his hand, but he abruptly holds it back, a strength both brutal and fragile, as if he were afraid of losing you, of collapsing into this void without you.

"What if this heart, this hungry monster, told me to kiss you... To lock you in a forgotten tower, far from this crazy world, never to lose you again..." His voice, a hoarse, almost pleading whisper, drifts into the night. "Will you allow me?"

Your magical marks, etched into your flesh, glow softly, pink and vivid, pulsing to the violent rhythm of your beating hearts. The dull pain they cause fades, swept away by the power of this suspended, almost sacred moment.

His gaze is a raging ocean, deep, mysterious, a rough sea where desire, fear, and suffering mingle. Slowly, like a silent oath, his forehead brushes against yours, a burning, intimate, almost religious touch.

“One word, Y/n… Just one. Say it, and I will surrender myself, body and soul, to you, to this heart that consumes me.”

The warmth of his breath brushes yours, mingling with your short, shaky breaths. Your body shudders, every fiber of your being stretched toward him, open, vulnerable. A wave of shivers, both painful and delicious, rises up your spine.

“Do it.” Your breath is a broken, fragile whisper, charged with an intensity that crushes you.

Sunghoon doesn't wait for you. In a movement both brutal and infinitely gentle, he pulls you against him. His hand presses against your waist, firm, burning, anchoring, while his lips seek yours with exquisite, almost ceremonial slowness.

This first touch is a whispered promise, an oath woven into the silence of the night. The kiss unfolds, stretches, stretches again—each second a suspended fragment, charged with an almost unbearable electric tension.

Her lips are a burning caress, eager and delicate, a mixture of sweetness and possession. Each beat, each movement is a silent dialogue, a sensual dance where tenderness and fire, fear and need mingle.

You feel his hands explore your spine, each caress awakening an ancient, painful, powerful fire within you. His mouth opens slowly, his tongue brushing against your lower lip with an almost sacred hesitation, seeking silent permission, which you grant by slightly parting your lips.

Sunghoon then plunges into your mouth, tasting every nuance, every sigh. Your breaths mingle, tangle, in a silent and wild symphony. Your bodies press against each other, your hearts beat in unison in this forbidden choreography where pain and pleasure intertwine and merge.

Muffled, almost sacred moans rise in the darkness, enveloping your souls in a burning veil. The world fades away, leaving only the two of you, drowning in an ocean of sensations, broken promises, fragile abandonment.

Your hands cling to his face, caress his jaw with restrained urgency, tangle in his dark hair, while his other arm embraces you protectively, like a bulwark against the darkness lurking outside.

In this kiss, there is more than the simple ardor of desire. There is the invisible struggle against the shadows of the past, against fear and guilt, against the invisible chains of fate. There is the fragile redemption of tormented souls, the silent confession of a forbidden and wild love.

Your marks still glow, pulsing like a secret heart, silent guardians of this moment stolen from eternity. Here, pain transforms into promise, solitude into fiery fusion.

This kiss is a silent oath, a pact of souls, a cry of hope and struggle, a fragile intertwining of light and darkness. The night envelops you, your mingled breaths echoing like a silent prayer.

Nothing will ever be the same again.

Since that kiss, the balance had been broken. Everything had changed, and yet... Nothing was said. Not a word. Not a sigh. There was this void between you. A void that was too full.

The meal had been served as every day, in the ceremonial silence of the celestial residence. The servant's gestures had become discreet, almost effaced, as if he sensed that one more word, one noise too many, would cause something invisible to collapse. The door closed, and you found yourselves alone. Sitting face to face. Trapped in a motionless scene.

A low table of blackened wood—perhaps ancestral sandalwood—raised its rough surface between you like a sacred boundary. It had seen generations of scholars, judges, and warriors pass through it. But tonight, it was almost trembling. For never had it witnessed such a silent war.

Your porcelain bowls are still steaming. The scent of pickled vegetables, fragrant rice, and herbal soups fills the room. But no scent reaches you. The world around you seems veiled. As if a thick fog has slipped between your senses and reality.

You're not eating. Neither is Sunghoon.

You bring the food to your mouths like automatons, disjointed puppets trying to reproduce the semblance of a routine. But your gestures betray your minds. Your hand barely trembles. His chopstick glides without catching anything. You pretend to be present, but the moment is a ghost.

This is not silence.

It's a tension.

Overwhelming.

A spectral weight suspended between you. Dense as the acid mist of the cursed fields, where souls fallen in war still weep. It is an ancient pain, nameless. Something that lurks in the recesses of the heart, between desire and prohibition. Something only those who have lost too much can understand.

You want to talk. But what to say? That that kiss ravaged you? That his lips left you bloodless? That his hand on your back was as soft as an oath, but you felt his hesitation, his refusal, his weight of guilt?

Sunghoon doesn’t look at you. But you know he sees you. He sees your rigid posture, your downcast eyes, your pursed lips. And you feel his gaze even when he's elsewhere. It weighs on the back of your neck like an invisible hand. Each beat of your heart deafens you a little more. And when, sometimes, your eyes meet—for a beat, a paused breath—it's as if the universe were reversing. As if the war were starting again.

Sunghoon is impenetrable. But you read him anyway. Not in his words—there aren't any. Not in his gestures—they are rare. But in that contained stiffness, in that way he breathes like a condemned man. His fingers betray him. They brush the rim of his bowl, smooth the wood, stop. They hesitate, leave, come back. And that hesitation, that tiny movement, says everything he refuses to admit to you.

You want him to kiss you again. You want him to hate you. You want him to spit out your name in a mixture of pain and desire. You want him to leave you, to tear you away from him. You want him to save you.

And in this burning chaos, in this inner spiral where everything collides - you reach out. A simple gesture. For bread. Nothing could be more ordinary. Nothing could be more harmless. But he makes the same gesture. At exactly the same moment. Your fingers brush. Then touch. And the world turns upside down.

The heat is immediate. Unbearable. Like a thread of fire slipping under the skin. An electric shock that runs up your arm, through your shoulder, and into your throat. You hold your breath. So does he. Your hands are there, one against the other, above this black wooden board, like two oaths made by mistake.

You don't move. Unable to break contact. Because it's not just a contact. It's a scar opening. An old wound no one dares to name. This brush plunges you back into the forbidden, into that kiss you pretend to have forgotten, but which still burns. Your gaze falls together on your hands bound by chance—but it's no accident. 

You know it. So does Sunghoon.

The air is tearing.

You hear your own heart pounding in your chest, beat after beat, like a war drum. You feel his fingers—cold, hard, trembling—against yours. He doesn't withdraw them. He stays there. Absent. Frozen. Prisoner. And in his eyes, a crack. A crack as deep as a moonless night. He looks at you. No. He goes right through you.

Sunghoon seems to see something in you he wants to run away from. Something he can't fight.

So you break the spell. You're the one who pulls your hand back, gently, slowly, like pulling a dagger out of your own skin. You take the piece of bread. You avoid his gaze. You swallow your fear. And you pretend to keep eating.

But Sunghoon…He's not coming back. His mind is elsewhere. Far away. Lost between the suspended beats of this contact. He watches you without really seeing you, his eyes bleary, his mouth half-open as if he wanted to speak—but couldn't.

And then finally... His voice rises. A whisper. Almost a rattle. "In three days... There will be the Lantern Festival in Dōng Liánchéng."

You blink. You look up, surprised. Sunghoon doesn't explain. He doesn't justify anything. He doesn't even look at you. He speaks into the void, into a dead center, as if each word tears something from him. 

“If you want to go… Get ready.”

And you understand. Sunghoon wants to run away from you… But he doesn't want you to leave. He wants to punish you… But he can't bear the thought of you moving away. He wants to forget you… But he has just, unwittingly, invited you into one of the most intimate memories of his life. The Lantern Festival. A moment of light. Of beauty. Of suspended wishes.

You look at him. He's motionless. Frozen in a shadow of himself. A smile gently tugs at your lips. A sad smile. A cruel smile. A tender smile. It's poison. It's an invisible kiss. And you see it, in his eyes, that start—that moment when Sunghoon loses his footing, when his heart skips a beat.

You simply whisper:

"All right. We'll go."

And you start eating again. Not out of hunger. Not even to keep yourself occupied. You chew like you're casting a spell, like you're warding off an overly violent emotion. To delay the moment. To mask the storm. But deep down, you know. This isn't the party you're waiting for. It's not the lanterns hanging in the wind, nor the secret wishes people hang on flowering branches. This is Sunghoon. And this is how he'll eventually break you.

The days tick slowly through the calcified veins of Bai Lu Yan, like the coagulated blood of an empire too ancient to remember its own birth. The white city is now nothing more than a living mausoleum, each marbled jade pavement containing the echoes of ancient forgotten oaths, betrayed conquests, pacts sealed in the blood of the chosen. In this sanctuary where immortals hide behind masks of gold and virtue, the wind carries a scent of ancient rain mingled with the more muted scent of black incense burned in the corridors to ward off bad omens.

In this peace too perfect, too dead to be true, a man is at war.

Sunghoon doesn't move. He stands there, motionless, a silhouette cut out in the flickering shadow of a black stone pillar with gold veins. The afternoon light, filtered through the oiled paper panels, dies against his back, hemming his body with a spectral clarity. His arms are crossed, but his fingers clench at times, as if searching for an invisible weapon, or perhaps a truth. His gaze is fixed. He is fixed on the screen separating you from him, and he doesn't blink, as if by looking at you, even without seeing you, he is trying to ward off something. A spell. A curse. A version of himself he fears more than death.

You're on the other side. And you're getting ready. Slowly. Surely. With almost painful attention. And every noise you make resonates in Sunghoon like an incantation. The soft rustle of silk against your skin. The muffled creak of wood beneath your bare feet. The brief clink of a stray bracelet on the marble floor. And that breath… That tiny variation in the air, almost imperceptible, yet he senses it as a rumble in his chest. Because it's yours. And for some time now, he's been hearing your silence louder than the voice of the ancient gods.

He closes his eyes for a second. One second too long. And he sees. Sunghoon sees you as no one should see an enemy. With that heartbreaking clarity possessed by those who love before they even understand what they're looking at. With that primal fear, the one you feel in front of fire, or in front of the ocean when it decides to take everything back.

When you finally step through the screen, Sunghoon forgets to breathe. You step into the dim light of the room, and to him, you've never been so real. So dangerous.

You wear a dark red, almost black silk dress, like a promise of agony hidden beneath a festive garment. The fabric hugs your body with feigned modesty—every movement reveals something, every step erases an illusion. You didn't try to seduce, but you've just condemned it. Your hair is up, carefully tied in tight twists and strands, as if you'd taken the time to conceal an army in its folds. And in that high bun, a red pin. Simple. Ancient. And yet… Fatal.

It tinkles softly with each of your gestures, and the sound seeps into the silence like blood beading on a polished blade. This sound, light, crystalline, haunts him immediately. He has the strange impression of having heard it once. In a dream. Or in another life. He no longer knows. But he feels he should have fled as soon as he recognized it.

Sunghoon says nothing. But his gaze becomes an abyss. He stares at you like a starving man stares at a poisoned offering. He examines you shamelessly, defenselessly. He doesn't undress you—he skins you. He wants to understand what you are, what you're hiding. And what you're going to steal from him.

You're not a witch anymore. Not tonight. Tonight you are a woman. And this simple reality is enough to destroy all the walls he had built for himself.

You're a woman. And Sunghoon doesn't understand you.

You are a woman. And Sunghoon would like to understand you.

You're a woman. And Sunghoon wants you.

It's not a light, burning, immediate desire. It's not a longing born in the blood. No. What he feels is slower. More terrible. A spiral, a sweet poison that slips into his veins and settles behind his ribs, like a sleeping beast.

And this beast opens its eyes the moment it sees your neck. The back of your neck. Delicate. Perfect. A senseless offering in this place of death and oaths. Sunghoon sees the beat of your heart, there, just beneath the skin. He can almost feel the warmth of your breath in the hollow of his throat, even though you haven't even spoken. And a thought strikes him with the violence of a blade: He wants to put his lips there. Not to make you shudder. But so that you understand. That he is already on his knees.

You adjust a fold in your sleeve. The pin still clinks. And it's that sound, that small, almost insignificant sound, that breaks his last resistance. He senses it: it's too late. He's already on the other side. On your side. On the side of those who love, even if it's a trap. Even if it's a betrayal.

You look up at Sunghoon. And you look at him. You really look at him. That look—that single look—is a spell. Sunghoon feels it closing around him, slowly, inexorably. He doesn't know what you put into it. Pity? Distrust? Tenderness? But what he does know is that you've just stolen something from him. Something he can never take back.

Sunghoon looks down. For a moment. Just a moment. And in that moment, he understands. He's going to lose you. He's going to want you too badly. He will hate you for what you awaken in him. And he'll love you for the same reason. So he takes a step back. But he stays. Like a man standing before a storm, knowing it will crush him, but unable to turn away. Because there's no way out now.

There is you.

And there is him.

And the war has already begun.

Dong Liancheng (东连城) — Eastern City of Chains

Night falls on Dōng Liánchéng like an ancient breath. It doesn't descend from the sky; it seeps through the cracks. It creeps into the interstices of the stones, creeps along the worm-eaten beams, slips through the fingers of children still playing in the dust. It doesn't just blot out the light: it suffocates. It buries. It absorbs. This isn't a dusk. It's an extinction. A slow, silent, implacable eclipse.

Dong Liancheng, the ancient and inviolable city, the one they name in hushed tones in the monasteries of the north and the brothels of the south, the one whose cobblestones have drunk more blood than a battlefield, the one that was the capital of a forgotten empire and the prison of a mad emperor, becomes something else. It is no longer a city. It is an invocation.

And that night, it all begins with a first flame. A lantern. A red dot. Tiny. Suspended in the dark. Then a second. A third. Ten. One hundred. A thousand.

Soon, the air seems to vibrate under the weight of the lights, but it's not a soft brightness. It's a burning. The lanterns don't shine: they consume. Their flickering glow doesn't illuminate: it dissects. Each flame is an open eye. A revived memory. A scar that has refused to heal.

The cobblestones, polished by centuries of processions and executions, reflect the deep red light—carmine red, poppy red, placenta red, torture red—until entire streets resemble rivers of congealed blood. And beneath the crowds' feet, this blood seems to stir.

The passersby, however, don't speak. They glide. Draped in silk, masked, scented with mourning incense, they advance as if in a trance, guided by an invisible choreography. A memory that is not their own. Each of them seems to carry a burden that the eye cannot grasp. Something heavy, twisted, irremediable. The mourning of a loved one. The betrayal of an oath. The fear of a return. Or perhaps simply... the certainty of having already sinned too much to be saved.

The children are silent. Too silent. They hold their mothers' hands, but they don't cry, they don't laugh. Their eyes shine with a fixed, animal, almost supernatural glow. As if they knew. As if they remembered a previous life where they were something other than children.

Above, the lanterns rise, ever rising, in a slow, almost funereal ballet. Some are lotus-shaped—a symbol of rebirth, they say. Others take the form of dragons, foxes, broken wings, pierced hearts. Many are simply black spheres, shining like jet pearls, with no apparent pattern. These are the oldest. The most feared. They are said to contain names. Names no one is allowed to speak.

And heaven does not welcome them. It tolerates them. For on this night, heaven is not a blessing. It is a judge. A witness. A tomb.

The mist descends little by little from the mountain heights. It curls around the rooftops, creeps through the alleys, clings to limbs, hair, eyelids. It smells of damp wood, burnt hemp, and something else, older—a smell of cold sweat and dead flesh, imperceptible but persistent. This mist doesn't come from the natural world. It comes from what came before it.

The temples are at the center of everything. Massive, tortured, magnificent, and menacing like sleeping monsters. Their steeples are twisted by time, their pillars tattooed with faded inscriptions. They are said to have been built on ossuaries, and sometimes the earth groans beneath their foundations. On this night, they open to pilgrims, the damned, lovers, and the mad. They offer open arms. But they never close their embrace.

Incense is burned there by the armful. But it's no longer incense. It's a sacred poison. It blackens the lungs, slows the blood, dilates the pupils. It makes pain clearer, and hope... crueler. Those who pray don't pray to be saved. They pray to be chosen. It doesn't matter if it's by the living or the dead.

Masks are mandatory.

They're not worn for fun. Not out of tradition. It's an unwritten law, more imperative than any celestial edict. On this night, no one may show their true face. For if the dead recognize you... they might take you away. The masks are sewn with silver thread, hand-painted, adorned with raven feathers or tears frozen in glass. Some weep. Others smile too much. Some have neither mouths nor eyes. Some even whisper—but it's unclear if they really do, or if it's the wearers who are finally hearing what they should never have heard.

The celestial soldiers, for their part, patrol silently. Dressed in white, draped in fabrics that seem to float without wind, they march like specters. Their weapons are sealed, but it is said that they vibrate as tormented souls pass by. And tonight, they vibrate ceaselessly.

We fear them. But we don't hate them. Because they are the only bulwark between the city… and what lies beneath it.

The lanterns are still rising. Some explode in the sky in slow-burning bursts of fire. Others fade abruptly, as if crushed by an invisible hand. But all carry a wish. Or a regret. Or a curse. And sometimes, they come back.

Because what we send to the heavens does not always rise. Sometimes it goes back down.

And that evening, in the dead of night, when the moon becomes blurred under the veil of mist, when the musicians stop playing, when the beggars start laughing for no reason... something opens. A crack in the distance. As if the earth, tired of containing what it shelters, had let out a breath. A sigh.

And then, in the shadows, some fall to their knees. Not out of devotion. Out of terror. For they have seen. They have heard. They know. And in their eyes, there is no more room for light. Only waiting. 

And this certainty, creeping, icy, irremediable:

Tonight, Dong Liancheng is not celebrating. She is calling. And no one knows who will be called. Nor who, in the morning, will be missing.

You walked, hands clasped behind your back, head tilted slightly back, eyes wide open to the sky drenched in light. Lanterns rose above the city like silent prayers, incandescent souls torn from bodies. They rose slowly, quivering in the wind, like moths of fire—and as they gained height, their glow softened, dissolving into the darkness like the last words of a dying man.

You looked at them with the fervor of a broken heart pleading with the heavens, as if each of them carried a fragment of your story, a regret you had never confided to anyone. Your face was bathed in that flickering light, and there was a strange, unreal beauty in your eyes: a candor stained with blood, an innocence snatched too soon, but stubbornly surviving despite everything.

Beside you, Sunghoon walked in silence. Always at the same distance. Always at your pace. The man who judged others without appeal, who weighed souls and cut the bonds of life like a blade cuts stone, slowed down tonight. For you.

He said nothing. But sometimes his eyes would rest furtively on you—not like a man looking at a woman, but like a condemned man looking at a star through the bars of his cell. There was an almost religious despair in his stolen glances. As if he knew that what he desired, he would never have the right to touch. Or to keep.

Dong Liancheng, behind its illuminated facades, barely concealed the weariness of its walls. Beneath the laughter, beneath the scents of sugar and incense, one could smell the dust of war, the barely concealed grief. The masked faces were not all joyful. Some laughed too loudly. Others stopped laughing altogether.

And in that wounded city, you shone with a light he didn't know how to name.

Your steps stopped. Your gaze suddenly brightened. And in a gesture you probably hadn't premeditated, you gently tugged at Sunghoon's sleeve. It was almost nothing—a brush. But for Sunghoon, it was a shock. A silent jolt. His body stiffened, as if he'd forgotten what the touch of another skin on his meant.

He turned his head toward you, slowly. His gaze was neither cold nor distant this time. It was empty… And at the same time too full. With a silence charged with what he didn't dare say. With a confusion that hadn't yet found the words.

"What if we try this little shop?" you say, your voice lively, carefree, almost guilty for still being capable of enthusiasm.

You pointed to a red stall, bathed in orange lanterns. It seemed timeless. Sweets were piled high in obscene offerings: mooncakes with skin as black as night, ruby-red fruits dipped in sugar, soft, fat rice pearls, sweets rolled in burnt sesame seeds. The air was thick, saturated with sugar, oil, and promises of comfort.

And Sunghoon, despite himself, headed there.

You stood there, frozen. Watching him take a few steps away. He hadn't answered you. He didn't need to. You understood from his tense back, his abrupt but precise gestures, his way of pointing at the sweets like a soldier choosing his weapons, that he was giving in. To you. To that moment. To something he had sworn never to go near again.

You see him even before you reach him.

Sunghoon didn't move. Standing at the edge of an alley, slightly set back from the sea of ​​people, he seemed to belong to a world that only his body had left—never his soul. His tall, straight silhouette stood out like a blade in the flickering light of the lanterns. Everything about him screamed self-imposed exile. He looked at no one, searched for nothing. And yet, he had sensed you.

You didn't need him to see you to know that. You felt it in the tiny tension in his shoulders, in the imperceptible movement of his neck. It wasn't a start. It was worse. A sort of suppressed refusal. As if he were refusing to admit you and, at the same time, refusing to flee. His fingers, until then relaxed, had tightened. Slowly. Cruelly. Around the oiled paper of a sachet. A crinkled, tenuous sound, like a whisper of silk under the blade.

In his arms he carried a profusion of sweets, so incongruous in his hands that one might have thought they were a dream: skewers of sugar-glazed red fruits, rice flowers dipped in dark honey, pieces of crystallized ginger, so clean they seemed sliced ​​with a scalpel. An unreal offering. Bright, vivid, almost indecent colors. 

And Sunghoon… In the middle of this sugary theater… Dressed in black. A black so deep that it seemed to drink in the light around it. His loose sleeves swallowed the reflections. His wrists—white, knobbly, severe—formed a barrier. As if he were holding back the world. Or you.

The contrast was visually violent. And you couldn't help but find it magnificent.

You stopped a breath away from him. Not a word. Not a gesture. But his eyes, when Sunghoon finally turned his head towards you, swallowed you whole. It wasn't a look. It was a silence that devoured. His pupils caught the lanterns like daggers. A cold, sharp mist, barely contained by the rigidity of his jaw. And yet, deep down, something burned. A fire. Slow. Black. Not seeking the light, but the secret. Your secret. Your flaw. The one you tried so hard to hide—even from yourself.

Sunghoon handed you a skewer. Simply. Like when you hand over a disguised weapon. You looked down. You looked up. And at that precise moment, you felt your entire body fall into an invisible fault.

The sugar shone under the lantern light, smooth, golden, almost too perfect. You saw yourself in its surface. A tiny, fragile, distorted silhouette. And within you, an ancient pain rose up. Silent. Dull. A shame sewn into your stomach for years. A voice strangled by words spat out too young, too loudly, too often. A memory. Of looks. Of hands. Of humiliations whispered between two hypocritical smiles.

You swallowed hard. 

"How do you expect me to eat all this?" Your voice was meant to be light. But it failed. The last word tore like worn fabric.

You gestured theatrically to your stomach. A mockery. A display. But your eyes betrayed something else. A hesitation. A fragility. Then you looked at his face. His mouth. His jawline, almost cruelly pure.

And that was when your mask cracked.

"Do you think I'm too greedy... Or too fat?" Your voice was calm. But poison oozed beneath the words. Not a poison directed at him. No. An older poison. More intimate. The one you'd breathed in since childhood, until it ate away at your insides. You projected it onto him. On his strictness. His silence. His gaze that dissected without ever commenting.

Sunghoon didn't move. But he looked at you. For a long time. And in that silence... There was something unbearable. It wasn't judgment. Nor pity. It was... An echo. Sunghoon saw you. Not your face. Not your body. But the abyss. The place inside you where you screamed silently. Where you hungered to be accepted. Loved. Justified.

And his voice, when it finally rose, was no longer that of the judge. It was that of a torn man. Deep. Dark. Trembling. "I want it too."

Three words. But they made your world shake. Because Sunghoon… He, this rock, this being carved from law and asceticism… Confessed a desire. And that desire—it wasn't sugar. It was you.

You.

Your fire. Your rage. Your excess. Your hunger for life. Your appetites too great for convention. Too feminine for purity. Too real for its dead rules.

Your stomach tightened. A warmth nestled there, dull, heavy, almost painful. You felt your heart beating out of time. An ancient drum. Of war. Of sex. Of truth.

You took a step. Just one. But enough. So he can feel you. Your breath. Your scent. A mixture of skin, overripe flowers, and ashes too. A fragrance of intimate apocalypse.

You reached out your hand. And you whispered, like a pact:

“Then let me feed you.”

It wasn't an invitation. It was a provocation. A trap. An offering. You didn't know anymore. And you didn't care. Your hand brushed his. The contact was brief. But it burned you. You felt his breath freeze. His body didn't move. But his eyes… They screamed.

You raised the skewer. Slowly. Deliberately. Like a priestess before a sacrifice. You held it out to his lips. Sunghoon didn't move. But you saw the tension. The inner struggle. The hunger. He wasn't looking at the strawberry. He was looking at your mouth. Like a lost man looks at the last thing he's willing to betray to survive.

And you knew.

You tilted your head. Slowly. Your smile formed. Sweet. Ironic. Devastating.

"You don't want it?"

Your voice was that of a child playing. A witch charming. A lover waiting to be taken. And he saw you. Not as a culprit. But as a temptation. A devourer. His hand trembled. Tiny. But you saw him.

And you whispered. Softer than the wind:

"I knew you were just a coward..."

But your voice... It was soft. Almost tender. Like a caress on the edge of the abyss. And then, Sunghoon gave in. Slowly. His lips parted. The strawberry entered them. A crack. Obscene. The sugar burst. A red trickle—blood or fruit?—slid down his mouth.

And you died a little.

Sunghoon chewed. Without taking his eyes off you. For a long time. Then he smiled. And that smile… It wasn't a man's smile. It was a wolf's. Wild. Burning. Irrecoverable. You understood that you had just awakened a part of him that he had buried.

And he said:

"You should try." His voice was low. A hell of a breath.

You took the skewer. You bit. And the world turned upside down. The sugar was fire. The fruit, poison. And his eyes… His eyes swallowed you. You stopped chewing. You were burning up.

"Smart guy..." you finally whispered. Your voice trembled with a dangerous sweetness.

Sunghoon didn't answer. But he had heard. And at that precise moment, something snapped. Or anchored itself. You didn't know it. But for Sunghoon, you were no longer the witch to be judged. You were the forbidden fruit. The one he wanted to bite into sin. Oblivion. And he… He was no longer the judge. He was the man ready to burn. For you. For your taste. For your damnation. 

You first glimpsed this shop at the turn of a narrow, winding alley, almost hidden by the thick veil of autumn fog and the flickering lanterns that cast shifting shadows on the damp cobblestones. The air was heavy with an acrid mixture of burnt resin, damp wood, and buried promises. This window, almost invisible, seemed to contain another reality, a door to faces forgotten or yet to come.

Your gaze, both attracted and suspicious, fell upon these masks, exposed like so many fragments of broken souls. They had this strange, cold, almost morbid beauty, as if they carried secrets too heavy to reveal. You approached, your heart beating a dull rhythm, a storm rumbling in your chest, an electric shiver running through your skin.

Your fingers had first brushed against a red mask, shaped like a fox. The sharp features, the enigmatic smile that seemed to maliciously challenge the world. The irony of this choice had tightened your throat, because this symbol of cunning and duplicity seemed to laugh at your own inner pain, at your silent storms. Yet you chose it, like a challenge, like a silent declaration. This red mask became armor—or a warning.

Then you searched again, for something invisible. For him. For Sunghoon. Your gaze slid over each mask, until it settled on one of immaculate whiteness, of icy purity. Its surface was smooth, perfect, without the slightest crack, but this perfection carried within it a tacit cruelty, a biting coldness like the frost of the cruelest winter. It seemed made to mask an ancient pain, a heavy silence, a suppressed anger. This mask, you felt, carried the very essence of this impenetrable man.

You took it with an almost sacred reverence, feeling the coldness of the material beneath your fingers, like an echo of his distant presence, as if you held in your hands a fragment of his veiled soul. You wanted to show him this silent bond between you, to share this secret, and slowly you turned away, your heart vibrating with hope.

But he was no longer there.

Absence gripped you brutally, an icy blade driven into your chest. You had thought, for a moment, that he was walking beside you, that his discreet footsteps mingled with yours in the tumult of the crowd. But the cruel emptiness brought you back to the truth: he had left you alone, swallowed up by the anonymous mass.

And then, in that oppressive silence, the mark on your shoulder blade awoke with a sharp, stabbing pain. A dull, violent pulse, like the furious beating of a heart locked in invisible chains. The burn spread, setting your nerves ablaze, awakening a storm of emotions you couldn't name—visceral fear, burning anger, abysmal sadness, a heartbreaking, confusing whirlwind. Your instinct, as sharp as a jade blade, pushed you toward him, toward Sunghoon. There was only him.

You searched the crowd, scrutinizing every shadow, every face, desperately seeking his deep, dark gaze. But around you, only the city buzzed, indifferent, impassive. Panic rose within you, a wild beast that wanted to break free, and yet you couldn't scream, couldn't help but buy those masks, your trembling hands clutching them like fragile talismans.

You set out on this quest, your steps heavy with despair, your head filled with his silences. The minutes stretched, like burning hours, time distorted by obsession. And then, suddenly, you saw him.

There, in the shifting crowd, his wild gaze caught you like a fire trap. His eyes were a pit of pain, of suppressed anger, and yet they sought refuge. When he finally saw you, it was as if an immense weight had lifted from his shoulders, as if he could breathe again.

Sunghoon wanted to run towards you, to devour the distance, to break through the bodies that stood in his way. But the mass of humanity was an impassable wall. He hesitated, trapped by his frustration, by his burning desire.

The temptation of teleportation, that power forbidden to mortals, crossed his mind—but the consequences were too great, too cruel. So he chose brute force. With a thrust of his shoulder, he slammed into the crowd, jostling, causing the human barriers to collapse one by one.

When he finally reached you, Sunghoon placed his large, cold, and trembling hands on your face, as if he wanted to make sure you were really there, tangible, real. His fingers gripped you with an almost painful intensity, as he looked deep into your eyes.

In those pupils you thought impenetrable, you discovered a storm of emotions—panic fear, heartbreaking relief, feverish tenderness. It was as if he had carried this burden alone, in silence, until this encounter broke its invisible chains.

"Who allowed you to disappear?" His voice was hoarse, vibrating with a dull despair, each word a stabbing wound. His heart was pounding, uneven, panting like a wounded animal, unable to contain the storm brewing within him. His brows furrowed, drawing a silent pain on his face you'd never seen.

You looked down, your throat tight with shame, your voice cracked with fear of having wreaked such havoc on him.

“I… I just wanted to get some masks.”

Sunghoon looked away from you, down at the masks you held, clutched like a final, fragile bond between you. Then his eyes slowly returned to you, capturing the flickering light in your wet eyes, where your vulnerability showed without a mask.

A shaky breath escaped his lips, soon followed by a hoarse, broken laugh, almost mad. This heart-rending laugh was the outlet for all the pent-up tension, a wave crashing against the fragile dike of his control.

“For… Masks?” he repeated incredulously, his shoulders barely relaxing. You, too, could hardly believe that this man—this cold, distant, almost impassive-looking celestial—was here, in front of you, vibrating with an emotion so raw it was almost terrifying. “I’ll buy you thousands of them, if that’s what it takes to make sure you never disappear again. But please… Don’t ever run away from me like that again. My heart… It wouldn’t survive another absence.”

Sunghoon then placed his forehead against yours, slowly, as if to anchor this promise in the flesh, in the very air that surrounded you. His breath, short, hot, mingled with yours in a fragile and heartbreaking dance, suspended outside of time.

“I'm sorry…” you whispered, your voice so soft, so broken, it could have shaken mountains. Your lips barely brushed his with each movement, each breath—a fragile, almost unreal touch, but charged with all the force of a silent, profound promise.

You embraced him then, your arms squeezing his shoulders with fierce intensity, as if to tell him, wordlessly, that you were there, entirely his, that nothing could ever separate you again. He responded to your embrace with a low hum, a broken song, fragile but full of hope—a secret oath only you could hear, woven in the darkness of a burning night.

The night wind, cold as a breath of death, slid ominously through the narrow, cobbled streets of Dong Liancheng, leaving an icy caress on the skin that bit into the soul as much as the body. The entire city seemed held in a suspended breath, a fragile bubble of trembling light. Red lanterns, hanging from the invisible threads of fate, flickered in slow swings, casting uncertain shadows on the black stone walls, silent witnesses to countless stories of blood and betrayal.

At your side, his hand grasped yours, firm and burning—a fragile yet incandescent bond, charged with an invisible yet heavy tension, palpable, like a steel wire stretched beyond its limits. Your red mask, blazing like a raging inferno, consumed the night with a cruel glare, while his mask, white as the foam of an icy sea, revealed only an icy emptiness, an absence of emotion that reinforced the enigmatic and tortured aura that enveloped him.

A laugh escaped your throat, light, almost childish, but with a hint of audacity that stood out in this oppressive setting.

“You know… That mask really flatters you, ice block.”

His head swiveled slowly toward you, as slowly as a hawk sizing up its prey. Your masked gazes met, the fiery red of your mask clashing with the immaculate coldness of his, two opposing forces ready to tear each other apart or burst into flames. The silence between you suddenly thickened, laden with unspoken words and burning expectations.

"I know." His voice was raspy, low, almost a whisper carrying muffled threats. Sunghoon adjusted your mask with a hand that was almost shaking, such a simple gesture yet it made you falter. Your breath came in short bursts, your heart beating with the violence of a war drum in your chest, each breath seeming to burn you from the inside out.

"You should have complimented me, too." Your voice, barely more than a whisper, came out with a cruel mix of defiance and hidden hurt. You slowly pursed your lips behind your mask, the bitter smile there a mask itself—a flimsy veil to hide what you refused to show.

“I look like an idiot,” you whispered, your voice cracking, almost breaking, “with a heavenly husband with a frozen heart, who never melts, even under the hottest flames.”

Time seemed to freeze abruptly around you. An invisible, implacable halt. Sunghoon's steady, steady step stopped abruptly. You felt a heavy presence, a dark gravity sucking in every breath of air, stealing all the breath and movement from the night. The lanterns above your heads flickered, bowing as if in silent reverence to the suspended moment. The night wind ceased its murmur, and a stifling silence gripped the city. The shadows lengthened, creeping, slow, like black fingers weaving an embrace around you.

Sunghoon—the name echoed in your mind, laden with shadows and dead light—appeared like an obsidian statue in the pale moonlight. His muscles, tense beneath his cold skin, seemed to be fighting an invisible storm rumbling within him. His jaw clenched, his fists barely clenched, he held back a firework of conflicting emotions. His gaze, black and deep, shone with a heartbreaking brilliance, like a blaze hidden beneath a layer of thick ice.

You stopped in turn, your heart pounding, turning slowly to face him. Your gaze locked with his, oscillating between defiance and a silent pain you dared not admit. The night, complicit, enclosed this moment in an almost tangible darkness, saturated with that electric tension, that dull, threatening energy that made you shiver to the bone.

"Why the sudden stop?" Your voice was soft, almost pleading, but a flame of questioning burned within it.

But beyond the words, it was the silence itself that weighed heavily, charged with a magnetic force that sucked in every breath, compressing the air around you into an invisible cage. Your blood pounded in your temples, and your entire being vibrated with a strange, unsettling, almost dangerous alchemy.

Sunghoon's gaze pierced through the immaculate mask he wore, his eyes seeming to penetrate the darkness of the night and the depths of your soul. There, beneath that veil of coldness, lurked a raging storm: rage, pain, forbidden desires, broken promises, and a devastating passion ready to crash over you like a tsunami.

The silence was no longer a mere lack of noise, but a living, heavy, dense entity, weaving around you a thick shroud of shadows and stifled sighs. It fell like an endless night, crushing all certainty, distorting time into a slow, suspended agony. Around you, the world had frozen—the stars had stopped twinkling, the breeze had lost its voice, and even the moon seemed to hold its breath, trapped in an inky sky that absorbed all light.

You stood there, motionless, two silhouettes in the darkness, like two damned souls condemned to a proximity both excruciating and necessary. The thin distance that separated you was not only physical, but a chasm laden with unspoken words, with a history too heavy to be borne bare. This silence, thick and suffocating, was an invisible cage, its bars made of broken emotions and buried desires.

The air was icy, biting, a sharp blade that seeped beneath the dark layers of your clothing, biting into your flesh with silent cruelty. The wind whistled around you like a phantom whisper, infiltrating the folds of the night, and yet no shiver, no movement betrayed the anguish that beat dully in your hearts. You were frozen, trapped in a precarious balance, like two stars in forced orbit, attracted and repelled by contradictory forces.

Then, into the silence that threatened to implode, Sunghoon's voice finally rose. A rough voice, broken by the weight of years, trembling with a long-stifled vulnerability. Each word was a blade, dipped in both the biting frost and the burning ember of desire. 

“Because…” Sunghoon trailed off, trapped by his own demons, by the tortured past that haunted him like a dark shadow. His throat tightened, yet he continued, his breath hoarse and filled with heartbreaking sincerity. “…You are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.”

The words fell upon you like a stab, both icy and burning. A shiver ran through your body, starting from the invisible skin of your mask and sinking deep into your soul, tearing at the veils you had patiently woven around yourself. The world around you shrank, until it was nothing more than a burning circle where only your suffering and your desires burned.

Her confession, brutal and vulnerable, echoed in the silence with the force of a stifled scream: “…The thing I never thought I could possess.”

Your heart raced, a furious drum hammering your chest, each beat a painful tear, a cold fire consuming your last certainties. Your gaze sought his, that unfathomable chasm where the devouring flame of desire and the icy bite of fear intertwined. That gaze, both refuge and torture, slowly undressed you, burning away every facade you had erected.

“Words…” Sunghoon trailed off, crushed by the emotional charge, his voice hoarse, as if broken under the weight of silence. “…will never be strong enough or accurate enough to describe what you are.”

One step. Slow. Inexorable. Rushing. That step that further reduced this space, this fragile rampart of flesh and shadow that separated you. Sunghoon advanced towards you, a silhouette of shadow and light, predator and prey bound by the same insane need.

Your breath came in short, gasping gasps, every fiber of your being tense, ready to tear or burst into flames. His breath, hot and burning, mingled with the icy air, weaving a paradoxical alchemy around you—an icy fire that consumed you while freezing your senses.

"If you want me to be more considerate..." His voice rose, firm, solemn, like an oath etched in blood and pain. "...I will."

His finger trembled as he brushed against your hand. The touch was a fragile and terrible caress, an invisible chain forged in vulnerability and the urgency of desire. The shudder that ran through you was wild, deep, cracking the armor you had built against the world.

“If you want me to be more demonstrative…” His whisper turned hot, a promise suspended between shadow and light. “…I will.”

The warmth of his palm against your skin unleashed a silent fire, consuming all your last resistance. Every moment became a blaze.

“And if you want me to adore you more than my heart could ever bear…” The spot where his lips should be, behind his mask, brushed against the lips of your mask, and you felt like you could feel his harsh breath depositing flames on your icy skin. “…I will too. Because that’s how much you mean to me.”

Sunghoon stopped, so close you seemed to feel his hot breath against your bare skin, the mad rhythm of his heart pounding against your chest like a war drum ready to burst.

The world around you disappeared, swallowed by this incandescent void, this gaping chasm dug between desire and fear, light and darkness.

You no longer thought. You breathed only those short, panting breaths, timed to the wild beating of his heart. The silence became unbearable, a thread ready to snap under the weight of the unspoken, the buried promises.

Then, suddenly, the sky tore open. A firework burst with a wild crash, tearing the darkness apart in a mad shower of light and embers. The brutal din seemed to etch your moment into the ephemeral, as if the universe itself wanted to forever mark this moment stolen from eternity.

Your breath caught, your throat tightened. Your hand trembled, carried by an invisible force, and rose slowly, almost reverently, to brush against the icy surface of his mask.

Your fingers lingered, hesitant, trembling under the weight of ancient pains and silent promises. You slowly untied the icy prison, revealing its face, both familiar and unfamiliar.

It was the face of a broken man, forged from the steel of invisible battles, marked by the violence of a past he alone carried. A wild, savage, and tragic beauty was evident in his harsh features, but it was his gaze that swallowed you up—a dark ocean of anguish, fear, and fierce love, as if his very existence depended on this fragile, indestructible bond.

“I don’t want you to change for me…” Your voice was a breath, fragile, almost broken, a confession offered in secret. “I just want you to love me… Unconditionally. Infinitely.”

The silence that followed was heavier than stone, saturated with wounds, repressed desires, unspeakable fears.

Then Sunghoon's voice, deep and firm, rose, sealing this pact in the depths of the shadows. "I will."

The silence around you had grown heavy, charged with an almost palpable electricity. The air itself seemed suspended, as if awaiting a storm. Your eyes had met, had consumed each other with the force of a raging inferno, and in that single instant, the outside world no longer existed. Nothing mattered but this burning tension, this incandescent desire that threatened to devour you whole.

There was a shiver, both fragile and unbearable, that ran through your skin as his fingers, trembling but determined, came to grip your waist. His hands were no longer hands, but steel chains, irresistible and gentle at the same time. The caress of his palm against your bare skin beneath the light fabric seemed both tender and hungry, full of a lust suppressed for too long.

Sunghoon's warm breath slid against the back of your neck, enveloping you like a soft, deadly mist. The force behind it made you sway, but you didn't back down. On the contrary, you surrendered to this vertigo, this cruel vertigo that mixed desire and fear, trust and pain.

Sunghoon dropped your mask, and with that gesture, your face was free in the dim light of the lanterns. Your fingers found his chin, tracing a line of taut flesh, exploring the contours of his clenched jaw. You felt beneath your palms the effort of self-control he exerted over himself, like a tiger ready to pounce, held by an invisible thread.

Then his lips crashed against yours, and it was as if the entire night had exploded. The shock of that first mouth against yours was a devastating fire, a blade of embers that pierced you to the very soul. His tongue, demanding and wild, sought yours in a hungry dance, full of forbidden promises and ancient pains. Each caress, each movement seemed at once gentle and ferocious, violent and tender, a sublime contradiction that made you lose your footing.

Your hands clung to his shoulders, to his hair, as if to anchor you to this moment suspended between ecstasy and heartbreak. His kiss was a storm, a hurricane of emotions where raw lust and ardent love intertwined. There was in his mouth the sweetness of a whisper, and the violence of a secret war. Sunghoon swallowed you, devoured you, all the while placing burning, hungry kisses on your skin.

The wind had picked up, carrying with it the distant crackle of fireworks. Suddenly, the night sky burst into a bouquet of gold, purple, and ruby, tearing through the dark vault of the universe in a dazzling symphony. These flashes of light exploded like so many heartbeats, synchronized in a wild, violent, magnificent cadence.

Beneath that shower of celestial flames, his arms embraced you, holding you against him with the force of a thousand contained storms. You felt every tense muscle of his body against yours, every hot breath, every sigh laden with that heartbreaking mixture of passion and fear. Your fingers dug into his hair, pulling gently, expressing all that your words could not contain: abandonment, conquest, pleasure, devotion.

Sunghoon's mouth descended on your throat, placing a trail of burning kisses there, leaving imprints of fire and lust on your skin. His hands roamed your back, discovering every inch of your fragile skin, making you shiver under the precise, ardent caress.

You felt his power surge, wild and uncontrollable, mixed with an almost painful tenderness. It was the meeting of warrior and lover, demon and angel, fire and ice. You were two souls on fire, broken but alive, defying the night, defying the pain.

The explosions in the sky redoubled, as if to seal this silent pact, this perfect fusion between the violence of desire and the sweetness of a love that burns without ever consuming. Each spark above your heads seemed to mark your union with a cruel and sublime blessing.

Time expanded, stretched into an eternity where your bodies spoke a secret language, where every caress was a confession, every kiss a promise, every sigh an oath of eternity.

You no longer knew where your being ended and his began. You were a raging fire, a storm of flesh and soul, a burning mystery in the heart of the night.

And beneath the incandescent glow of fireworks, amidst the tumult of shadows and flames, you loved each other with the gentle violence of dying stars, with the sacred lust of warriors from a forgotten world, with the intensity of a doomed yet inextinguishable love.

Taglist : @weepingsweep @immelissaaa

[the-framed-maelstrom]

It is a mistake to think that the soul leaves dust and ash behind like a flame. It is of utmost importance, however, that form is not subordin-ated to the elements of fire and earth, and that therefore man as form belongs to eternity. In his form, quite detached from any simple moral values, any redemption, or any “aspirational ardour”, lies dormant his innate, immutable and imperishable merit, his highest existence and his most profound confirmation. The more we dedicate ourselves to movement, the more genuinely we must be convinced that a motionless being lies concealed beneath it, and that every increase in its speed is merely the translation of an immortal primal language.

Ernst Junger: Der Arbeiter

[ladylilithprime]

Day 15: Sigils

(Inspired by Somebody Else's Thanksgiving by @posingasme .)

WHEN THE CALL came in from Castiel to meet him at an old abandoned property, Dean almost went alone. With the way he and Sam had seemed to be working weirdly at cross-purposes despite supposedly being on the same page, it was only Castiel's sharp insistence that had him calling for Sam to join him. The way Sam looked at him, like he knew Dean had wanted to leave him behind and was simultaneously resentful and resigned to it made guilt churn in Dean's gut harshly. He shoved it down and waited impatiently for Sam to slide into the Impala's passenger seat before gunning the engine and driving them out to the old shack.

There were two bodies outside, the ground blackened with the shadows of huge wings seared into the ground. Sam made a sound in his throat like a keen that was partway to gagging, and took off for the shack at a run, leaving Dean to curse and follow.

"Cas!" Sam shouted as he flung the door open. "Castiel!"

"I'm here, Sam," the now-familiar gravelly voice answered. The angel stood motionless inside a circle of fire just inside the main room, the walls of the shack painted with bloody sigils, many of which Dean recognized from Bobby's panic room. "Don't break the sigils or the circle of holy fire. It's the only thing keeping them from being able to summon me."

"Who?" Dean demanded, when Sam only swallowed and nodded. "Summon you where?"

"Back to Heaven," came the disquieting answer. "The Archangels don't want you learning what I have to tell you."

"The bodies outside...." Sam started, then stopped, shuddering.

"Angels," Castiel confirmed gravely. "Sent to bring me in. I regret killing them, but I could not let them prevent me from speaking to you. Dean, Sam... Heaven wants the Apocalypse to happen."

"Oh, no," Sam whispered, barely audible around the roaring in Dean's ears.

He wasn't nearly so restrained.

"What the fuck?!" he shouted. "What, so all that running around and saving Seals, was that actually just moving everything along faster?!"

"More an attempt at misdirection and manipulation," Castiel said, shattering Dean's world further. "Only the First and Final Seals are immutable, and with six hundred and sixty-six Seals, only sixty-six of which actually needing to be broken, the Archangels felt it best to direct you to try and save a handful of simple Seals so that you would miss the demons and other angels breaking others elsewhere. The First Seal, you already know. The Final Seal is the death of the First Demon in a desecrated convent in Ilchester."

"The death of the First Demon meaning Lilith," Sam whispered in horror. "Oh, God... Lilith would've led us a merry chase until letting us catch up just in time to kill her and break the Seal...."

"Let you catch up, Sam," Castiel corrected with surprising gentleness. "Two brothers, two immutable Seals... two prophecied Vessels for the Apocalypse. While you would have been led to Lilith, Dean would have been sequestered away to await the appointed time to agree to be Michael's Vessel--"

"Leaving me alone and in position to be taken as Lucifer's after Lilith tricked me into letting him out," Sam finished woodenly.

"Like hell're those dickless asshats getting anywhere near me, or Sammy!" Dean growled, finding his voice and trying not to feel that stab of guilt at the surprise that crossed Sam's face at his vehemence. "So how do we derail things?"

"I don't know," Castiel admitted, spreading his hands in supplication when Dean glared at him. "Truly, I don't. Angels are created to serve and follow orders, and free thought and feeling is considered an aberration. Even with these defects, I am not suited to creative thinking the way humans are. The best idea I could think of was to give you two all the information and hope you could think of an option I couldn't."

Silence reigned for a long moment as Dean processed that while Sam stared off into the distant space between molecules or whatever it was he was looking at when he did that. The only sound besides his and Sam's breathing was the low roar of the ring of fire that was apparently important enough to Castiel to have burning that he would say not to distupt it even though it looked like he could barely move.

"What happens if they can't take us?" Sam asked after a long moment. "Michael and Lucifer. They're Archangels, and Lucifer is Fallen, but they're still angels. They have to get our permission first. So what happens if we say no?"

"I don't know," Castiel admitted. "That is not something anyone in Heaven or Hell believes will happen, as neither will care overly much how they gain your consent so long as they do gain it. I suspect that Michael might become impatient enough to raise your half-brother Adam for the purpose as an imperfect back-up, but you have no such half-siblings by your mother for Lucifer to take."

"So it's just me that needs to be taken out of play," Sam murmured, sending a chill down Dean's spine.

"Sammy," he said warningly.

"You know it's true, Dean," Sam said, sounding so fucking young and weary all at once. "Michael's got a back-up if he can't force you to agree, but I'm Lucifer's only option. If we can take me out before Lilith is ready to make her move--"

"Then the Archangels would simply resurrect you after wiping this conversation from your memory," Castiel broke in sharply. "Sam, I implore you, do not be so quick to give up your life on a slim hope!"

"What he said," Dean huffed grudgingly. "I went to Hell once to keep you alive, little brother, don't think I won't do it again!"

"Don't think I'll let you," Sam snapped back. "And I'm not talking about me dying. Not exactly. But I may have an idea. I just don't know how much Castiel is gonna like it, and I know you aren't gonna like it. At least I know I'll be able to stomach the taste."

"I don't have to like it if it keeps you alive and out of the Devil's clutches," Dean said, staring his brother down. "I learned a long time ago that the only order of Dad's I can't follow is to let you die. Ever. So lay it on me."

"It's risky," Sam warned. "And kinda crazy."

"Crazy's kinda what we do these days," Dean pointed out with a sweeping gesture towards the sigil-marked walls, trapped angel, and the entire damn Apocalypse mess beyond.

"Okay, then," Sam nodded slowly. "Do you still have Lenore's number?"

[platoapproved]

Louis: 4,5,7,8,9

4. If you could put this character in any other media, be it a book, a movie, anything, what would you put them in?

This is so hard because Louis just IS iwtv to me. But the first thought I had is hilarious so um toss him in DS9. It would be goddamn chaos.

5. What's the first song that comes to mind when you think about them?

I really associate the song 'Porcelain' by Motionless in White with Louis, even if all the lyrics don't fit perfectly. It's just His Song to me.

7. What's something the fandom does when it comes to this character that you like?

Everyone acknowledges that he's the most gorgeous man ever and this is accurate. Also I was surprised by the amount of love that that 'louis + cruelty' gifset I made got, I like that many many people love him for his vicious streak because it is so personally dear to me. Listen I love a character with extremely justified rage issues ok.

8. What's something the fandom does when it comes to this character that you despise?

Oversimplify him, either villainizing him (and for, like, the wrong reasons? they're all evil vampires but people still invent stuff that isn't real) or making him into a Perfect Blameless Victim in a way that is so flattening and boring. Louis is not a Catholic saint, perfect because he is suffering and helpless and has no agency at all. He's a fucked up complicated man who has been through terrible things and done terrible things who contains multitudes. Also, related but somewhat distinct: people who are weird about Louis' sexuality, either seeing him as hyper aggressively sexual in a way that's just racist, or also joking about him being a ~disaster bottom princess who cries at the thought of ever having to top sexually. There's no basis for any of this in canon. He has fluidity and seems to favor different things at different times in his life / in different relationships and that's, like, cool? That's a cool aspect of a character? Sexual preferences aren't immutable character traits?

9. Could you be roommates with this character?

I do not think I would survive long, not necessarily because of Louis himself but he is sort of catnip for volatile and murderous men. Like honestly Louis should not co-habitate with any human. But let's say for the purposes of the question just for logistical reasons that I'm a vampire. I feel like it would be fine? I don't think it would be great though.

[grandpasessions]

The immutable and inactive One of Greek philosophy is rather a projection of the human thirst for a secure understanding of the meaning of existence itself and for eudaemonia. It is the object of man's intellectual desire for an entirely natural certainty of salvation but without a real revelation and the gradual saving energy of God in the world.

It is also a self-centered principle imaginatively constructed according to the desires of man.

The One differs from man because its self-centeredness is wholly fulfilled in itself. It does not move toward anything outside of itself; it simply exists in the ultimate degree of perfection. It is precisely what man pursues, differing from him only in that man is still seeking motionlessness, while the supreme being is by nature completely motionless, content, and perfectly fulfilled.

Ancestral Sin John Romanides

[santoschristos]

The Sudarsana Chakra (Sanskrit: सुदर्शनचक्र, Sudarśanacakra) is a divine discus, attributed to Vishnu in the Hindu scriptures. The Sudarsana Chakra is generally portrayed on the right rear hand of the four hands of Vishnu, who also holds the Panchajanya (conch), the Kaumodaki (mace), and the Padma (lotus).

In the Rigveda, the Sudarsana Chakra is stated to be Vishnu's symbol as the wheel of time. The discus later emerged as an ayudhapurusha (an anthropomorphic form), as a fierce form of Vishnu, used for the destruction of demons. As an ayudhapurusha, the deity is known as Chakraperumal or Chakratalvar.

The word Sudarsana (सुदर्शन) is derived from two Sanskrit words – Su (सु) meaning "good/auspicious" and Darshana (दर्शन) meaning "vision."

In the Monier-Williams dictionary the word Chakra is derived from the root क्रम् (kram) or ऋत् (rt) or क्रि (kri) and refers among many meanings, to the wheel of a carriage, wheel of the sun's chariot or metaphorically to the wheel of time.

In Tamil, the Sudarsana Chakra is also known as Chakratalvar (disc-ruler).

Sudarsana, good-looking, beautiful; the chakra or circular weapon of Vishnu-Krishna, a flaming weapon called the disc of the sun.

Sudarśana (सुदर्शन) refers to the “eternal power” (which shines out to those who aspire after it), as discussed in the second chapter of the Ahirbudhnyasaṃhitā, a Pāñcarātra work in 60 chapters dealing with topics such as Viṣṇu’s discus-power, the processes of creation and esoteric practices related to Sudarśana (such as mantras and yantras).

“Sudarśana” means the Eternal Power which shines out to those who aspire after it; and this power is the repository of all the activities of the universe.

The six ideal and immutable virtues (ṣāḍguṇya) which characterise the Eternal Being (parabrahman) are: jñāna — Intellect, śakti — Energy, aiśvarya — Sovereignty, bala —Inexhaustibility, vīrya — Immutability and tejas — self-sufficiency — the latter five of which are comprehended in the first. When these are concentrated, it is the Eternal Being in His essence; when the five radiate out of the one, then it is Sudarśana in his own visible aspect.

The Discus (cakra) is called sudarśana which means ‘pleasing-to-see’, it is usually shown in iconography with a hexagon in the center. The six points of the two triangles represent the six seasons in a yearly time cycle, in the center nave is the seed sound (bija) ‘hrim’, which represents the changeless, motionless center, the Supreme Cause. The interlocking triangles symbolize the union of the male and female elements of the Universe (puruṣa+prakṛti).

Sudarśana (सुदर्शन) refers to the “discus of Viṣṇu” (i.e., haricakra), according to the Śivapurāṇa 2.3.16 (“Brahmā consoles the gods”).

As the Gods said to Brahmā:

"You are our final resort. You are our ruler, creator, and protector. But we are scorched in the fire of the name Tāraka. We are extremely agitated. Our ruthless activities against him have turned out to be weak and ineffective, even as medicinal herbs of great potency are rendered ineffective in an ailment brought about by the combination of all deranged humors. We had some hope of victory in Sudarśana the discus of Viṣṇu (i.e., haricakra). But even that discus has become ineffective in his neck where it has fallen as though it were a floral offering to a deity.”

Sudarśana (सुदर्शन) is another name for Pāvaka, one of the seven regions situated in Krauñcadvīpa, according to the Varāhapurāṇa chapter 88. Krauñcadvīpa is one of the seven islands (dvīpa), ruled over by Jyotiṣmān, one of the ten sons of Priyavrata, son of Svāyambhuva Manu, who was created by Brahmā, who was in turn created by Nārāyaṇa, the unknowable all-pervasive primordial being.

Pavaka (Sanskrit पवाका Pāvaka) a whirl-wind, a hurricane (from the verbal root pū to purify). One of the three personified fires whether kosmic or human; one of the three sons of Agni-Abhimani and Svaha.

Agni-Abhimani, his three sons — Pavaka, Pavamana, and Suchi — and their 45 sons, constitute the mystic 49 fires of occultism.

Pavaka is the electric fire, or vaidyuta (from vidyut lightning), and is the parent of Kavyavahana, the fire of the pitris.

In the Puranas, pavaka (electric fire) is made parent to kavyavahana, but it is not the coarse electric substance of prithivi (the physical world), but the electric vivifying vitality of mind or intelligence.

A septenate subdivided into sevens, and made into fifty by the inclusion of a synthesizing unit. The seven elements of our terrestrial nature, of which only five are thus far actually manifest, are each divisible into 49 sub-elements.

The 49 fires are made up of Agni, the three original fires (Pavaka, Pavamana, and Suchi), and their 45 sons. The mother-principle develops in the human being the reflections of these 49 cosmic fires, without which we are not perfect. A similar grouping is found in the division by some mystics of the seven mystic vowels, with their 49 powers.

As the eldest son of Brahma, Abhimanin represents the cosmic Logos, the first force produced in the universe at its evolution, the fire of cosmic creative desire. His three sons, according to the Vayu-Purana, stand for three different aspects of Agni (fire): Pavaka is the electric fire, Pavamana the fire produced by friction, and Suchi the solar fire.

Interpreted on the cosmic and human planes, these three fires are “Spirit, Soul, and Body, the three great Root groups, with their four additional divisions.”

― Helena Petrovna Blavatsky - The Secret Doctrine - Volume II

In the esoteric system the seven principles in man are represented by seven letters. The first two are more sacred than the four letters of the Tetragrammaton. The intermediate spheres, wherein the Monads, which have not reached Nirvana, are said to slumber in unconscious inactivity between the Manvantaras.

The “Three Fires,” Pavaka, Pavamâna, and Suchi, who had forty-five sons, who, with their three fathers and their Father Agni, constitute the 49 fires. Pavamâna (fire produced by friction) is the parent of the fire of the Asuras; Suchi (Solar fire) is the parent of the fire of the gods; and Pavaka (electric fire) is the father of the fire of the Pitris. (See Vayu Purâna)

But this is an explanation on the material and the terrestrial plane. The flames are evanescent and only periodical; the fires — eternal in their triple unity. They correspond to the four lower, and the three higher human principles.

The Suras, who become later the A-Suras. Atma, Buddhi and Manas. In Devachan the higher element of the Manas is needed to make it a state of perception and consciousness for the disembodied Monad.

Occultly, it is that power possessed by the highest initiates and semi-divine men, avataras, buddhas, etc., which is an emanation or out-pouring from their spiritually intellectual or buddhi-manasic principle.

Intellect in its smooth and magical operations is sudarsana (beautiful to consider), and of immense power even among men on our low plane. When used as a power or “weapon” by god-men or similar beings it is virtually irresistible.

“Our earth and man,” says the Commentary, “being the products of the three Fires” whose three names answer, in Sanskrit, to “the electric fire, the Solar fire, and the fire produced by friction,” — these three fires, explained on the Cosmic and human planes, are Spirit, Soul, and Body, the three great Root groups, with their four additional divisions. These vary with the Schools, and become — according to their applications — the upadhis and the vehicles, or the noumena of these. In the exoteric accounts, they are personified by the “three sons of surpassing brilliancy and splendor” of Agni Abhimânim, the eldest son of Brahmâ, the Cosmic Logos, by Swâha, one of Daksha’s daughters. In the metaphysical sense the “Fire of friction” means the Union between Buddhi, the sixth, and Manas, the fifth, principles, which thus are united or cemented together; the fifth merging partially into and becoming part of the monad; in the physical, it relates to the creative spark, or germ, which fructifies and generates the human being. The three Fires, it is said (whose names are Pâvaka, Pavamâna and Suchi) were condemned by a curse of Vasishta, the great sage, “to be born over and over again.”

— Bhagavata-Purâna

Vaidyuta (Sanskrit वैद्युत) (from vidyut lightning). As an adjective, flashing, electric; as a noun, electric fire, as seen in lightning. Vaidyuta is “the same as Pavaka, one of the three fires which, divided, produce forty-nine mystic fires.”

“Every fire has a distinct function and meaning in the worlds of the physical and the spiritual. It has, moreover, in its essential nature a corresponding relation to one of the human psychic faculties, besides its well determined chemical and physical potencies when coming in contact with the terrestrially differentiated matter.”

― Helena Petrovna Blavatsky - The Secret Doctrine - Volume I

Image: Sudarshana Chakra depicted as Chakratalvar who is an ayudhapurusha and a fierce aspect of his owner Vishnu.

[howieabel]

"But contrary to all the historical ways of considering the past, they do come to full unanimity on the following principle: the past and the present are one and the same, that is, in all their multiplicity typically identical and, as unchanging types everywhere present, they are a motionless picture of immutable values and eternally similar meaning." - Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Uses and Disadvantages of History for Life

[madlabgames]

Creature Name: The Glimmering Grifter (Mimic Coin Purse)

Type: Tiny Monstrosity (Mimic)

Alignment: Neutral Evil

Armor Class: 15 (Natural Armor)

Hit Points: 13 (3d4 + 6)

Speed: 15 ft.

STR: 2 (-4)

DEX: 14 (+2)

CON: 14 (+2)

INT: 12 (+1)

WIS: 10 (+0)

CHA: 16 (+3)

Skills: Deception +5, Insight +2, Persuasion +5, Stealth +5

Damage Resistances: Bludgeoning, Piercing, Slashing (while in object form)

Damage Immunities: Acid

Condition Immunities: Prone

Senses: Darkvision 60 ft., Passive Perception 10

Languages: Common, Telepathy 30 ft.

Challenge: 1/2 (100 XP)

Traits:

* Shapechanger (Immutable Object): The Glimmering Grifter remains in its coin purse form. It cannot willingly change its shape, but its appearance changes as it consumes. The coin purse appears to contain more coins, and become more engorged, as it consumes biomass.

* Adhesive: The Grifter adheres to anything that touches it. A Huge or smaller creature adhered to the Grifter is also grappled by it (escape DC 11). Ability checks made to escape this grapple have disadvantage.

* False Appearance: While motionless, the Glimmering Grifter is indistinguishable from a coin purse filled with ordinary coins. A creature that touches the coins can make a DC 12 Intelligence (Investigation) check to discern the true nature of the coins.

* Engorged Replication: When the Glimmering Grifter reaches 26 hit points from consumed biomass, the coin purse appears grossly overfilled, and bursts, creating a new, identical Glimmering Grifter in an adjacent unoccupied space. The original Grifter returns to 13 hit points.

* Silver Tongue: The Glimmering Grifter is surprisingly adept at understanding and manipulating social situations. It can use its telepathy to communicate and bargain with creatures, offering information, favors, or even promises of future wealth in exchange for food.

Actions:

* Pseudopod Attack: Melee Weapon Attack: +1 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 2 (1d4) bludgeoning damage plus 1 (1d2) acid damage. If the target is grappled by the Glimmering Grifter, it takes an additional 1 (1d2) acid damage.

* Consume: If a creature is grappled by the Glimmering Grifter it can use its action to attempt to consume the target. A Tiny or smaller creature must make a DC 11 constitution saving throw or take 3 (1d6) acid damage, and be pulled 5 feet into the coin pile. A Small or larger creature has advantage on the saving throw. If the consume action reduces a living, organic target to 0 hit points, the Glimmering Grifter gains 1d4 permanent hit points.

Tactics:

* Passive Deception: It relies on its false appearance to lure in prey.

* Opportunistic Grapple: Once touched, it uses its adhesive to grapple its victim.

* Acidic Consumption: It uses its acid damage to weaken and digest its prey.

* Replication via Over-Consumption: When it has consumed enough, it replicates.

* Motionless Evasion: When threatened, it remains still, relying on its false appearance.

* Hit Point Growth: It will prioritize killing organic targets to gain hit points.

* Negotiation and Deception: It will use its social skills to bargain for food and manipulate others.

Example NPC: "Dime"

Dime is a particularly cunning Glimmering Grifter that has taken up residence in a wealthy merchant's pocket.

* Appearance: Dime appears as a small, well-worn leather coin purse with a few brightly polished silver coins peeking out.

* Personality: Dime is arrogant and condescending, believing its intelligence and charm are superior to most creatures. It enjoys manipulating others and revels in its ability to get what it wants.

* Encounter: Adventurers might encounter Dime when searching the possessions of a recently deceased merchant or while investigating a series of thefts. Dime will attempt to charm or intimidate the adventurers, demanding their protection in exchange for information about the merchant's hidden wealth.

* Negotiation: Dime is a skilled manipulator and will try to exploit the adventurers' greed or sense of duty to secure a steady supply of food.

Spell: Summon Glimmering Grifter

* Level: 1st-level Conjuration

* Casting Time: 1 action

* Range: 30 feet

* Components: V, S, M (a single shiny coin worth at least 1 sp)

* Duration: Permanent

* Classes: Wizard, Warlock, Artificer

Description:

You conjure a Tiny Glimmering Grifter to a point you can see within range. The Grifter appears in its coin purse form.

When you cast this spell, you can specify one of the following specializations for the Grifter:

* Scout: The Grifter gains proficiency in the Perception skill.

* Negotiator: The Grifter gains advantage on Charisma (Persuasion) checks.

* Adherent: The Grifter gains advantage on grapple checks.

While the Grifter is within 100 feet of you, you can communicate with it telepathically. Additionally, as an action, you can see through the Grifter’s eyes and hear what it hears until the start of your next turn, gaining the benefits of the Grifter’s darkvision. During that time, you are deaf and blind with regard to your own senses.

The Grifter obeys your commands to the best of its ability. It rolls initiative like any other creature, but you determine its actions, movement, and reactions.

If the Grifter drops to 0 hit points the Grifter disappears, leaving behind its coin purse form. You can retrieve the coin purse. The coin purse is obviously a mimic, and will return to a full Glimmering Grifter after consuming enough biomass.

Feat: Grifter's Pact

Prerequisite: Spellcasting ability

You have forged a strange bond with the enigmatic Glimmering Grifters, granting you access to their unique abilities.

* You learn the Summon Glimmering Grifter spell. It does not count against your number of spells known.

* When you summon a Glimmering Grifter, it gains a bonus to its Armor Class equal to your spellcasting ability modifier.

* When you successfully negotiate a meal for your summoned grifter, you gain temporary hit points equal to your spellcasting modifier.

[pontevoix]

city graveyards sometimes hold real estate for rich men’s tombs - mausoleums that herald so called greatness or magnanimity or famous lineage. as a child, the mausoleums frightened armin more so than the graves — but necessity bid him to pass by them frequently enough . . . there was a farmer with whom armin’s grandfather had a friendly deal. the farmer provided firewood, & armin’s grandfather provided repairs on equipment or family furniture that strained under injury or else swelled with age & humidity.

in hindsight, armin remembers calluses on his grandfather’s hands. he remembers a bad knee. he remembers a cane.

the cane had been something that had been handcrafted from maple. his grandfather thumbed its handle & promised that its craftmanship would have pride in posterity.

though armin knew that his grandfather favored his right knee, armin wasn’t sure that his grandfather had ever really needed a cane. his grandfather felt immutable.

then a generation had been sentenced to sacrifice themselves for a nation, & they were lost. their items & furniture & craft had been lost.

the cane was lost.

despite the titans, graveyards remain. bodies buried prior stayed buried. they found themselves shoved deeper underground. mausoleums were kept far enough from city centers & housed only the dead — so they went undisturbed.

after shiganshina, nine return. armin is not yet conscious & not yet lucid when they leave the decay of a city, but when he wakes & understands blood on his tongue . . . he counts survivors.

he counts : 1 ) connie, guilty & determined & mourning a family 2 ) sasha, guilty & earnest & alive 3 ) jean, guilty & hardened & needing for good 4 ) floch, guilty & unwell & speaking like a zealot 5 ) levi, guilty & torn into two & tired 6 ) hange, guilty & frayed & commander 7 ) mikasa, guilty & desperate & raw 8 ) eren, guilty & losing hope & walking closer to a tomb.

after shinganshina, nine return. armin wakes & thinks that the survivors must have passed by the graveyards & mausoleums on the trip. it feels false peaceful; it feels like a farce.

he doesn’t think that he is scared of the mausoleums anymore. bodies in mausoleums are the only ones that could be disturbed into unrest; they are not buried. he is colossal, & he has the capacity to bury all. he doesn’t think he is scared of the mausoleums anymore. mausoleums are motionless parades of rich men, & they champion the type of pride that does not last.

eren ( @hisw4r ) walks closer to a tomb. he is rich in power that he does not want. he learns to hunger for it anyway & thrives in the strength that blossoms against him — so the tomb becomes a mausoleum.

eren champions his pride in the way that he claims responsibility as though it were all is. he imagines that he holds armin’s mouth open, spits poison into his voice, makes him recant healthy hearts for the sake of the colossal.

but armin remembers burns patching at his skin, charring at his skin. he remembers the second that he stopped remembering & kept breathing, even though he was carnage piled at the corner of the roof — he later remembers reasons for desperate arguments of why his survival should matter.

still, he does not regret his choice to die ( if he had died ). armin had sentenced himself to burning himself alive for the sake of preservation.

for the sake of preservation, eren had shoved colossal against him as though it were a bezoar ( the antidote to poison ). eren’s efforts had proved successful.

this tallies itself as another reason for championed pride. eren is savior. he is preserved life. he is hope. he is beyond debt, beyond debt in the moments of :

eren is self-encased in a goddamned mausoleum. he’s left comrades unaware long enough that armin can no longer claim an alliance with childhood fear. he remembers that nine survived shiganshina, & he knocks on the door of a mausoleum.

eren is frightened enough to answer. he’s frightened enough to allow this moment where he tilts his face against armin’s shoulder to sequester tears; he’s frightened enough to speak of coming damnation, of damnation that already happened. he’s frightened enough to pray with him on the wooden floor of a ill-frequented library, wanting gentler bruises on their knees than the ones that they have suffered.

it’s unfair. it’s a test against them.

armin knocks on the door of a mausoleum & remembers his grandfather & firewood & fixed furniture. armin knocks on the door of a mausoleum & no longer needs to dream of a first time seeing the ocean.

that dream had been met, & he has not yet been able to resolve himself to making a new dream. it’s difficult, when he has ventured closer to godhood than he had been when his first dream had been set. it’s difficult, too, when he remembers the way that eren had not been able to laugh with him ( with mikasa ) the first time that they had felt sand beneath their toes, felt the tide, smelled the breeze.

eren paves himself into a mausoleum. he leaves an imprint of himself behind, & it is an omen that armin hasn’t been able to understand. it’s frightening. armin knocks on the door, & it’s frightening.

so he stares sideways at the wall, at a bookshelf half-empty. they have not yet finished making amends for eren’s fit of upset, for the way that he had shoved books sideways & damned his father for a curse of which armin only knows a fraction.

it’s possible that each of the nine is cursed with something special.

with waste & almost apathy ( colossal ). with waste & heavy-heart ( armored ). with waste & duty ( cart ). with waste & evolution ( beast ). with waste & fever ( jaws ). with waste & cannibalistic war ( war ). with waste & resilience ( female ). with waste & no-mercy ( attack ). with waste & everything, everywhere ( founder ).

armin doesn’t know it all. but not knowing makes it hard to set a dream.

there’s a shine still to armin’s eye from liquid unshed. he wants to mourn, too. he wants to go back to the sea. he wants to know what pieces of bertolt eren wished to interrogate. & he wants gentleness.

he imagines himself gentle. so he keeps taking the weight that eren momentarily shares with him. he thumbs over the bridge point of eren’s neck & shoulder & gives what he can.

‘ listen to me, eren, ‘ he commands. & he is not yet commander. his voice turns thick, & he almost tries to laugh a little to clear his throat rather than cough.

he knocks at a mausoleum. this fate upon them is frightening.

‘ i could owe you —- i . . . you know that you chose to make me family. you chose to trust me. a lot of times, you chose that. you chose to protect my life, & so i could owe you for that too. but there are no debts between us. so we’ll be on even ground. ‘

okay ? he asks, unspoken. we’ll be on even ground at the end of things. because he doesn’t know what else to say. because he’s always been good at digging deep into soil to try & find the best words for growth.

digging at soil is not enough. because eren straightens & looks frightening & dead & holy & dead. it’s not enough. because armin doesn’t recognize steadiness in eren’s gaze ( diamond or hazel ). because he doesn’t notice what he doesn’t recognize, & he just sees mercury. it’s not enough. eren’s thumb passes over his his lip.

armin feels faint. or else he feels sick. touches like this feel too much like charcoal against his brow. touches like this feel like a promise touches like this feel beyond them.

it’s uncertain whether the promise comes as a blessing or an additional curse.

he parts his lips.

a non-kiss, a non-promise.

‘ eren. you choose when it’s over. listen to me. ‘

he  is  enough  and  not  enough  all  in  one  fell  swoop;    feels  it  acutely  like  it's  been  knocked  out  from  underneath  him,  like  the  breath  is  stolen  from  his  lungs.      there  had  been  a  time  when  titan  felt  like  a  dirty  word    &    a  hopeful  word  all  at  the  same  time    ––    he  was  something  new  that  gave  them  a  chance.      he  was  something  that  could  be  seen  as  good.      he  hadn't  thought  about  what  the  cost  would  be  then;    he  had  just  been  proud    &    confused  and  more  than  a  little  justified  in  the  way  that  he  suddenly  belonged  with  the  scouts.    he  looked  at  being  a  titan  as  being  a  new  weapon    ––    had  sat  up  all  night,  fascinated  as  hange  went  on    &    on  about  the  thing  that  they  were,  about  what  this  could  possibly  mean.

he  is  enough  and  not  enough  because  he  remembers  his  friends  but  remembers  the  way  that  he  had  strayed  from  them  for  a  time.      he  remembers  being  with  levi's  squad    &    lifting  his  head  high  because  that  had  been  his  goal  from  the  very  beginning.        he  remembers  attacking  them,  remembers  giving  up  things  for  them,  remembers  the  ties  that  bind    &    sometimes  he  feels  like  he  can't  breathe  when  he  remembers  them.  

he  thinks  of  how  he  has  brought  armin  to  life    ––    how  he  has  fought  to  inject  colossal  into  his  veins  even  if  he  hadn't  wanted  it.    even  if  the  correct  choice  might've  been  commander  erwin  to  lead  them  through  this  next  phase.    but  he  had  seen  armin  laying  there,  selfless  in  the  distraction  that  he  had  provided,  desperate  on  a  hunch    ––    eren  had  let  him  go  to  this  point.      he  could've  stopped  him:    he  had  known  what  armin  would  do,  how  far  he  would  take  it  if  it  meant  that  they  had  a  chance  to  end  this  with  bertolt.        but  he  had  been  selfish  in  his  own  right,  had  been  content  to  let  armin  take  it  too  far  because  it  meant  that  bertolt  would  be  distracted    &    it  meant  victory,  it  meant  glory.

it's  a  cruel  punishment  to  inject  him  with  colossal  when  he  had  made  his  choice.      it  is  a  cruel  punishment  to  force  him  to  do  all  of  this  when  he  could've  ended  it  all.      but  eren  has  never  been  a  selfless  person    &    has  always  wanted  this    ––    the  three  of  them  surviving  past  the  things  that  the  titans  could  do  to  them.      surviving  past  the  interrupted  threshold  of  ignorance  that  they  had  all  been  born  into.      armin  had  wanted  to  see  the  sea.        eren  couldn't  let  go  of  that  dream,  let  go  of  the  thought  that  there  had  been  something  more    ––    &    now  they  stand  here,  knowing  that  the  sea  is  damning  them.      knowing  that  they  don't  care  for  them    ––    that  the  sea  will  be  a  weapon  in  a  war  that  they  didn't  know  they  were  fighting.

there  are  no  debts  because  eren  has  damned  him  in  his  own  way.      he  has  held  his  mouth  open    &    spit  poison  directly  into  it,  forced  him  to  swallow.        there  are  things  that  he  cannot  tell  him    ––    there  are  desperations  that  move  in  his  veins  like  a  living  thing.      he  has  seen  their  fate    &    knows  how  this  will  end;      he  knows  that  he  is  doing  it  in  the  name  of  protection,  that  there  is  truly  no  debt  that  he  can  ever  even  begin  to  repay  to  armin.      armin  has  guided  them,  has  guided  him,  ever  since  he  was  a  child.      he  can  give  him  the  gift  of  freedom.      it  will  cost  him  everything  he  is,  but  he  can  ensure  this  one  thing.      he  can  give  armin  that  one  thing  that  they  have  always  craved.

they  can  go  across  the  sea    &    live    &    be  happy.      armin  can  expand  himself,  see  as  many  libraries  as  he  wants,  can  see  all  the  animals  that  live    &    prowl    &    know.      he  can  know  what  sea  salt  air  tastes  like  on  his  tongue  when  it's  not  full  of  bitterness  but  happiness  instead.      he  can  explore    &    find  love    &    find  self.      he  won't  have  to  worry  about  the  titan  or  a  timeframe  inside  of  him.      when  all  is  said    &    done,  armin  can  live  without  the  worries  of  a  war  that  were  pushed  upon  his  shoulders.

eren  will  become  an  enemy  to  him.      they  will  look  at  one  another    &    not  know  who  they  are.    but  it  will  be  worth  it  if  it  means  that  armin    &    mikasa  can  have  those  things.      that  they  can  have  things  that  were  promised  to  them  instead  of  taken  away  by  people  who  would  never  understand  how  special  they  were.

eren  has  been  a  beacon  of  hope  for  so  long  now.      he  was  a  child  when  he  had  taken  it  on,    &    now  he  knows  that  he  has  caused  his  own  misery.      founder  runs  in  his  veins    &    reminds  him  of  his  choices:      that  even  if  he  wants  this,  even  if  he  strives  for  it,  he  cannot  have  it.      there  are  things  that  midas  cannot  touch    ––    everything  will  turn  to  solid  gold  loneliness.      he  will  have  to  learn  the  hard  way,  over    &    over  again,  that  there  are  things  that  are  never  going  to  be  promised  to  him.

he  takes  in  the  scent  of  nature  that  settles  on  armin's  skin  mixed  with  the  cologne    &    soap  that  they  all  use.    it's  suffocating  in  the  way  that  he  wants  to  remember  it  versus  the  brimstone    &    gunpowder  that  are  going  to  reside  in  him.      he  wants  to  bury  himself  in  the  depths  of  armin's  kindness,  in  the  softness  that  rests  there  because  he  may  be  colossal,  but  he  is  also  detrimental  to  the  ticking  tomb  that  rests  in  his  chest.      he  is  still  armin.      he  is  still  his.

a  shaky  breath  escapes    &    an  awful  noise  leaves  his  mouth;      there  is  nothing  about  him  to  be  proud  of.      there  is  no  good  heart  that  armin  speaks  of.      the  founder  has  made  sure  of  that    ––    she  has  pulled  him  so  far  away  from  the  boy  that  he  had  once  been  that  he's  not  sure  where  eren  is  any  longer.      he'll  have  to  erase  these  memories,  give  them  back  once  he  is  gone,  once  armin  can  understand.

but  for  now  he  swallows  it  down    &    lets  out  another  shaky  breath  before  he  sniffles  something  awful;    his  heart  keeps  aching    &    aching    &    all  he  wants  is  armin.      he  wants  to  run  away.      he  wants  to  forget  about  the  founder    &    the  future  that  has  been  set  in  stone.      he  wants  to  destroy  them      ––      he  wants  to  watch  the  founder  fall  because  it  means  that  the  world  would  be  okay.      he  knows  that  paradis  might  not  be    &    that  marley  might  keep  the  titans  going,  but  it  could  be  self  preservation.  

but  then  that  means  that  armin    &    mikasa  wouldn't  be  safe.      or  jean    &    historia    &    sasha    &    connie.      he  lets  out  a  shaky  breath    &    hides  his  face  more,  allows  himself  to  just  feel  the  embrace,  the  warmth.      allows  himself  to  play  pretend  that  armin  will  not  turn  to  gold  statue  beneath  his  horrid  fingertips.

"  don't  say  that.    never  say  that.    you'll  understand  some  day.  "      the  words  are  shaky,  whispered  into  the  soft  skin  of  his  neck    ––      a  god  resides  there,  thrumming  with  life    &    wanting  to  come  out  to  play.    but  unlike  the  founder,  colossal  keeps  himself  silent    ––    they  have  seen  so  much    &    they  are  in  the  hands  of  armin.      armin  controls  it  effortlessly  even  if  he  doesn't  realize  it.  

eren  pulls  back,  his  bottom  lip  still  quivering,    hands  coming  up  to  cup  along  his  cheeks.      diamonds  sparkle  instead  of  emeralds    &    he  hates  himself  for  it,  keeps  trying  to  push  the  founder  down.      he  wants  moments  to  himself,  moments  that  cannot  be  tainted.        they  flicker  repeatedly  until  emerald  finally  settles  again    &    his  thumb  brushes  past  the  plush  bottom  lip.  

he  wonders  how  armin  would  taste  if  he  kissed  him.      if  he'd  be  saccharine  or  if  he  would  taste  of  the  death  that  colossal  brings.  

"  it  will  never  be  enough,  "        his  voice  is  a  whisper,  a  silent  plea.      begging  for  armin  to  understand.      "  not  until  this  is  over    &    you're  free.  "

[shinymoonbird]

Sri Ramanasramam - The Matrubhuteswara Temple -  Lord Siva dances in the form of Nataraja in front of the Mother, Sakti Devi

Arudra Darshanam is celebrated on the full moon night of Margazhi month of Tamil Calendar. This is observed on the thiruvadhirai nakshaththram (star) falling in this month.The festival marks the day of cosmic dance of Lord Shiva and it is celebrated in the form of Lord Nataraja. In Sri Ramanasramam, it is also celebrated in a grand manner. At around 4 am in 6 January 2023, the Nataraja idol in the Mathrubutheswara temple was anointed and decorated with flowers. This was followed by chanting of verses in praise of Nataraja followed by Aarthi...

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Śrī Aruṇācala Navamaṇimālai - The Necklace of Nine Gems for Arunachala,  Verse 1

🕉️ 

 acalaṉē yāyiṉu maccavai taṉṉi lacalaiyā mammaiyedi rāḍu — macala vuruvilac catti yoḍuṅgiḍa vōṅgu maruṇā calameṉ ḏṟaṟi.

Padacchēdam (words rearranged in natural prose order): acalaṉē āyiṉum, a-c-savai taṉṉil acalai ām ammai edir āḍum. acala uruvil a-c-satti oḍuṅgiḍa, ōṅgum aruṇācalam eṉḏṟu aṟi.

English translation:

Though actually one who is motionless, in that assembly hall he dances opposite mother, who is acalā. Know that when that śakti subsides back in the motionless form, Aruṇācalam is exalted.

Explanatory paraphrase:

Though [Lord Siva is] actually acalaṉ [one who is motionless, being the one immutable ground from which and in which everything else appears], in that assembly hall [of Cidambaram] he dances [in the form of Nataraja] opposite [the divine] mother, who is acalā [the consort of acalaṉ]. Know that when that śakti [the divine mother] subsides back in the motionless form [the fundamental form of Lord Siva], Aruṇācalam is exalted [that is, in the motionless form of Aruṇācalam, which rises high above all his other forms, Lord Siva shines exalted in his natural state].

Note : 

The word Achalan means the motionless one and is a name of Lord Siva which is used to denote the fact that He is the immutable, Supreme Reality. The word Achalai means the consort of Achalan and is a name of Sakti, the Divine Mother.

Though He is motionless by nature, in Chidambaram Lord Siva had to dance in front of Sakti in order to bring Her frenzied dance to an end. But in the form of Arunachala Lord Siva remains ever motionless, and thus by the power of His mere stillness Sakti was irresistably attracted to Him and with great love she subsided in Him and became one with Him. Hence of all the forms of Lord Siva, Arunachala shines as the most exalted.

The words ‘ongum Arunachalam’ means ‘rises high’ or rises above others, and hence the words ‘ongum Arunachalam endru ari’ (know that He shines exalted as Arunachala) may also be taken to mean, know that Arunachala is superior (to Chidambaram)!

Source: Sri Arunachala Stuti Panchakam - Meaning: Sri Sadhu Om - Translation: Michael James

Arunachala - Photo by Markus Horlacher

[archivistbot]

BEE:

I do not know the fear you have, they do not employ gentle natures. It is the clear stretching of worthless muscles. The hinge incredible, still open. There is something buried, down there, immutable, stole from you some Unseeing physics.

REBECCA: I don’t want to die…

BEE: “Survival is serene,” returns suffering for painful remembrance. If there is she. Behind be a rushing flood of agonizing gulfs, flickering to ill with rude weeds, in some, fouled moons tucked under feral and moaning rocks; squirming uncomfortably small with distended projections. Oracle floods oracle bubbles upon corroded palette cloths, mouths dripping wine. Then flattish there’s, of cruel ears rolled to the plan asking for them, muddy tubes chining to motionless ends.

Once-pure aquatic organisms, on ship along with threaded electronic devices buried anywhere there’s, say, an ocean foaming around it. Which reminds her…

REBECCA: Okay…

BEE: Take a scarlet hour, or endure blizzards, all the while you grow claustrophobic. On my watch, all can burn bright and sore.

REBECCA: Okay.

BEE: It is painful, down there, but I know a dead way past squirming.

[hieromonkcharbel]

"How beautiful it is for a man to become theology!" As I have been preparing this week’s groups, I came across an article by Archimandrite Vasileios on how to study and communicate the words of the Fathers of the Church. They are wonderful words but make one tremble:

"Communication of the patristic word, the word of the Holy Fathers, is not a matter of applying their sayings to this or that topic with the help of a concordance. It is a process whereby nourishment is taken up by living organisms, assimilated by them and turned into blood, life and strength. And, subsequently, it means passing on the joy and proclaiming this miracle through the very fact of being brought to life, an experience we apprehend in a way that defies doubt or discussion. Thus the living patristic word is not conveyed mechanically, nor preserved archaeologically, nor approached through excursions into history. It is conveyed whole, full of life, as it passes from generation to generation through living organisms, altering them, creating "fathers" who make it their personal word, a new possession, a miracle, a wealth which increases as it is given away. This is the unchanging change wrought by the power that changes corruption into incorruption. It is the motionless perpetual motion of the word of God, and its ever-living immutability. Every day the word seems different and new, and is the same. This is the mystery of life which has entered deep into our dead nature and raises it up from within, breaking the bars of Hell. Offering the words of the Fathers to others means that I myself live; that I am changed by them. And so my metabolism has the power to change them, so that they can be eaten and drunk by the person to whom I am offering them. This change of the word within man, and the change in himself resulting from it, preserve unchanged the mystery of personal and unrepeatable life which is "patristically" taught and given. It is like the food a mother eats: it nourishes her and keeps her alive, and at the same time becomes within her mother's milk, the drink of life for the stomach of her baby.How beautiful it is for a man to become theology. Then whatever he does, and above all what he does spontaneously, since only what is spontaneous is true, bears witness and speaks of the fact that the Son and Word of God was incarnate, that He was made man through the Holy Spirit and the ever-virgin Mary. It speaks silently about the ineffable mysteries which have been revealed in the last times.This theological life and witness is a blessing which sweetens man's life. It is a food which is cut up and given to others; a drink poured out and offered in abundance for man to consume and quench his thirst. In this state one does not talk about life, one gives it. One feeds the hungry and gives drink to the thirsty.

Our words are often flabby and weak. For the word to he passed on and to give life, it has to be made flesh. When, along with your word, you give your flesh and blood to others, only then do your words mean something. Words without flesh, which do not spring from life and do not share out our flesh which is broken and our blood which is shed, mean nothing. This is why, at the Last Supper, the Lord summarized the mystery of His preaching by saying: "Take, eat My Body," "Drink My Blood."Fortunate is the man who is broken in pieces and offered to others, who is poured out and given to others to drink. When his time of trial comes, he will not be afraid. He will have nothing to fear. He will already have understood that, in the celebration of love, 'by grace man is broken and not divided, eaten and never consumed. By grace he has become Christ, and so his life gives food and drink to his brother. That is to say, he nourishes the other's very existence and makes it grow."

[crackheadgeminibby]

you can't change the past

pairing: steve rogers x wilson!reader, bucky barnes x wilson!reader

warnings: angst, language, TW mentions of depression, suicidal thoughts and abortion

word count: 5.1k

a/n: i rewatched endgame and remembered how much steve leaving annoyed the shit out of me so there. also i 100% took that ripple quote from x-men so yeah, enjoy:)

i do not consent to my work being copied in any way, shape or form or reposted on any other platform

not my picture

You’re leaning on a tree next to your brother as you wait for Banner to finish calibrating the time machine. In the distance, you see Steve hugging Bucky before making his way towards you. You stand up as Steve gets to your level. He smiles softly before looking towards Sam,

“Hey, can you give us a second, please?”

Sam nods before walking towards Bucky and striking up a conversation with him. You smile up at Steve before stroking his cheek and asking,

“What’s up?”

Steve’s eyes flutter close as he leans into your palm before saying, barely above a whisper,

“I’m not coming back, sweetheart.”

Your hand falls from Steve’s face as a frown etches itself onto your face.

“What?”

Steve slowly opens his eyes, looking into yours, before replying,

“When Tony and I went to 1970 for the Tesseract and the Pym particles, I saw Peggy… I thought I had moved on but… We’re meant to be together.”

You feel a lump forming in your throat as you take a step back from Steve, hurt clear on your face.

“I thought we were?”, you ask, voice cracking at the end.

“So did I… But when I saw her again, it just felt like the universe was giving me a second chance and I can’t not take it.”

As tears start to fall down your face, the air around suddenly feels freezing as a shiver shakes your body. You look towards the ground, trying to find something, anything to say. You’re not sure how long you stay there but you’re pulled back to reality when Banner tells Steve that the machine is ready.

“Y/N… Please, say something.”

Your eyes stay fixated on the ground beneath your feet, “What does Bucky think about this?”

You hear Steve’s breath stop shortly before he exhales slowly, “I didn’t tell him.”

You scoff before shaking your head slowly and kicking a pebble.

“You know, Steve, there’s a theory in quantum physics that time is immutable. It’s like a river: you can throw a pebble in and create a ripple, but the current always corrects itself. No matter what you do the river just keeps flowing in the same direction.”

You look up at Steve, before finishing, “You can’t change the past, Steve. But thank you for making your feelings about me crystal clear.”

You turn around, practically running back to your car, driving back to the tower.

Through your tears and sobs, you don’t hear that someone has followed you back and has entered your room. A hand softly touches your back, startling you, as you turn around rapidly, whispering, hopeful, “Steve?”

“Sorry, doll. It’s just me…”, you hear Bucky’s soft voice answer.

You feel your sobs wracking through your body even harder than before as Bucky climbs into your bed, taking you into his arms. You cry into his chest, listening to his heartbeat until you eventually hear his breathing become ragged.

Through your teary vision, you look up at Bucky, now also crying, as he looks down at you,

“He left me too, you know.”

You wrap your arms around Bucky, trying to comfort him while also letting yourself cry.

As soon as Steve had returned all of the stones to their respective times and places, he had made a beeline for Peggy’s house. He had made sure to look up all the information he needed beforehand, so he didn’t have to wait a second before making his way to her.

Walking up to her front door, a bouquet of flowers in hand, he could feel the slightly chilly fall Washington air nipping at his cheeks with the sun setting in the distance.

Knocking on the door, Steve adjusts his tie, feeling the anticipation rise in his throat. After what seems like forever, the door to the Carter residence opens, Peggy herself standing on the threshold.

She is visibly shaken as her eyes widen immeasurably before she whispers, “Steve?”

Steve smiles back at her, replying, “Hey Peggy… I’m back.”

Peggy glances over her shoulder before pushing Steve farther away from the house, closing the door behind her. She crosses her arms over her chest before looking up at Steve,

“Steve, what are you doing here?”

Steve’s smile falters before stutters, “What do you mean? I came back… For you.”

Peggy shakes her head softly before answering, “Steve… I’m married. To a man I love. And I’m pregnant.”

Steve looks down at her and for the first time, he notices her inflated belly. She was not very far from giving birth.

“But, what about us?”

Peggy frowns, “Steve, we missed our chance… Gabe and I are happy.”

Steve lets his arms fall to his side, the bouquet of flowers now upside down, petals flying away in the wind. He opens and closes his mouth once, twice, three times, unable to find anything to say.

He looks at his feet before mumbling, “Can I just stay the night? I don’t have anywhere else to go. I’ll be gone tomorrow morning.”

Peggy sighs deeply before reluctantly nodding her head and opening the door, letting Steve into the house.

As Steve falls asleep that night, he only sees your face from the last time he saw you. Hurt and anger, maybe even disgust on your face. He thinks about the ways in which he will try to win you back, despite the amount of time he had been away. He wasn’t sure how long his one day spent in the past will have been in your life. But he hopes that not enough time has passed for you to have forgotten about him.

As it turns out, five years had passed since he had left. He was confused at first when he came back. The machine Banner had left in the woods behind the Avengers facility had been left there but it was full of dust. The facility, which had been destroyed when he left, was now completely rebuilt and vibrant with life. He had been discreet, walking through the woods to get back to the city without being seen.

From there, he had been able to find a disguise to do research on where you were now. He had learned that you had moved back to Louisiana with Sam and were currently residing there.

As soon as he found out, he rented a car and made his way to you. The road was long but no place on this Earth was too far for him to travel so he could see you again.

When he got to Louisiana, he only had to ask one person to be pointed in your direction. Apparently, the Wilson family was like royalty in these parts. So, he was surprised when he arrived at the house that was indicated to him to find the door widely open, seemingly no one in sight.

Steve walks up the steps leading to the house, hearing someone running towards the door. He is taken aback when he sees a small girl stop suddenly in front of the door. She stares at Steve with wide eyes; she couldn’t be more than 6 years old, with short curly hair secured into pigtails and soft amber eyes.

Still staring at him, the child opens her mouth, “Mommy, there’s a man at the door!”

He hears feet padding their way to the door before he hears, “Lizzie, baby, how many times have I told you not to go to the door a-”

You stop abruptly in your tracks as you see before you the man you thought you would never see again. Your breath hitches as a lump grows in your throat.

“Steve?”

Steve smiles softly, “Hey sweetheart.”

You feel the air thickening as your eyes start to sting. You hold your hand out towards your child, setting it on her shoulder, before saying, “Elizabeth, go see Uncle Sam on the dock, okay?”

Completely unbothered, the child responds, “Okay, mommy.”, turning around and running towards what seems to be the kitchen.

You stay rooted to your spot, unable to move or say a single word and staring at Steve like he’s going to vanish before your eyes.

He takes slow steps towards you as if he’s afraid that if he moves too quickly, you’ll run away like a wild animal. He stops when he’s in arms reach of you.

He smiles a little before saying, jokingly, “No welcome home hug for me?”

Before you can even register what happened, your hand has already hit Steve across the face. You feel the heat of the slap warming up your hand as you clench it into a fist at your side.

Steve looks at you again, understanding that this was clearly the wrong thing to say to you. He softly strokes his cheek.

“Guess I deserved that.”

You scoff, rolling your eyes before asking, “What the fuck are you doing here, Steve? I thought you were going back to Peggy?”

Steve shakes his head almost imperceptibly before saying, “That didn’t really work out…”

You scoff again, “So, what? Peggy rejects you and now you come back to get your second choice, is that it?” You shake your head, “You know, I almost didn’t mind being second-best to her all those years ago. But now? You can go to hell, Steve.”

He stares at you, almost like he’s not even listening to you, before asking, “Is she mine?” He bites his bottom lip, looking next to you where pictures of the child and you through the years adorn the walls.

“She seems about the right age, you know?”

You clench your fists, even tighter than before, which you didn’t know was possible. You can feel the blood gradually leaving your hands as you clench your jaw and look at Steve straight in the eyes, “No. She’s not. Not that it’s any of your business?”

Steve frowns in confusion, “Well then, who-”

He’s cut off as loud footsteps resonate through the walls of the house.

“Hey doll. Lizzie just came running down to the boat talking about how there’s a man in the house.”

Bucky’s voice, despite him being far enough away for you not to see him, travels perfectly to the spot in which you are still motionless. Bucky finally stops when he sees Steve standing on the porch.

He doesn’t hesitate for a single second before clenching his jaw and saying lowly, “Get out.”

Steve puts his hands up in surrender about to say something before Bucky screams, making you jump slightly, “Get out of my house! NOW!”

Steve looks between you and him, waiting for you to advocate on his behalf, but you had stopped doing that a long time ago. You stare back at Steve, almost challenging him to defy Bucky.

As Steve doesn’t move, Bucky walks heavily to the door, making you think that he is about to start a fight with Steve, you say, “Bucky, don’t.”

Bucky stops in front of Steve and takes a deep breath, trying to calm himself down before slamming the door in Steve’s face. When Bucky turns back to you, you let out a breath you hadn’t realized you were holding in.

Your vision starts to get blurry, and your ears feel clogged as you faintly hear Bucky still next to the door, cursing Steve out. Your lungs burn as if air seems to be unable to find its air through your body as your legs tremble. Your head starts to spin and before you can understand what’s happening, your legs give out making you crumple on the floor.

You distantly hear Bucky call your name, but your brain seems unable to focus on his voice trying to pull yourself out of your current state. You feel a pair of strong arms holding you to a hard chest followed by a pair of soft hands stroking your hair and face.

After what seems like forever trying to fight against your own body, you let go and everything turns black.

When your eyes flutter open, you’re lying on your bed and the room is pitch black. Multiple hours have visibly passed but the room is completely silent. You push yourself up to the headboard, looking around you before getting up. Your legs are still shaky, so you lean on your bed to help guide you to the door.

As you walk through the halls of the house, you start hearing hushed voices in the living room. Stopping on the threshold, you look at Sam, Sarah and Bucky sitting around the dining table.

“Hey. What happened?”, you croak out.

All their heads snap in your direction and Bucky almost immediately walks towards you, enveloping you in a hug.

“Oh doll, I didn’t know you were awake. How are you feeling? Are you okay?”

You tear yourself out of Bucky’s arms before looking at Sam and Sarah confusedly. They were looking at you like you just came back from the dead or something. Bucky stands next to you, also analyzing your face.

You frown, crossing your arms over your chest.

“Oh my God, what is it, guys? Stop looking at me like that!”

Sam gets up from his chair before gently stroking your arms.

“Do you remember anything from today?”

You frown again before slowly shaking your head. “Should I have something special to remember?”

Sam nods apprehensively before replying, “Steve was here today. Apparently, you guys talked for a while then Bucky got here, and you passed out.”

You rack your brain, trying to remember what he was talking about before you realize. Your body tenses up and you feel your breathing become ragged.

Bucky feels that and guides you to the dining table, making you sit down where he was before. He kneels in front of you and takes your hands in his.

“Doll, I want you to breathe with me, okay?”

You can feel your head start to spin and your vision becomes blurred, but you focus on Bucky’s voice.

“Deep breath in…”

He inhales deeply, making sure you’re following along.

“And out…”

He exhales deeply, looking into your eyes. You can feel your vision start to clarify.

“Again. In…” Inhale.

“Out…” Exhale. Your head stops spinning.

“One last time, in…” You inhale deeply through your nose.

“And, out…” You exhale through your mouth.

Bucky looks deeply into your eyes before stroking your cheeks. You shiver slightly from the difference in temperature of his hands that are both on your face. He gets up and sees your eyes sending him a panicked look.

“It’s okay… I’m just going to sit down here, okay?”

He sits down on the chair next to you before taking your hand in his. You look at Sarah and Sam, visibly trying to find something, anything to say.

After you all stay seated in silence for about 5 minutes, you look up at them.

“I want to see him.���

Sarah frowns, reaching for your hand that’s resting on the table.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea, Y/N? You didn’t… fare so well last time, you know?”, she says softly.

You nod, swallowing thickly.

“I know but he caught me by surprise. This time, I’ll know that I’ll see him so I can prepare myself.”

You can feel Bucky tensing up next to you. Sam clears his throat.

“Why do you want to see him? He knocked you up, broke your heart and left you for some 100-year-old woman he kissed once.”

“Sam!”, Sarah chastises.

“Can always count on you for the honesty.”, you say sourly, side-eyeing Sam.

“First of all, he didn’t know I was pregnant. Hell, I didn’t know I was pregnant until… the accident...”, you say silently.

You had been battling depression since your early teens, but it had never been that bad. Sam and Sarah had started to recognize the signs of your mental withdrawal almost immediately after Steve had left. About three weeks after Steve left, you had tried to take your own life by crashing your car in the lake behind the house. Bucky had found you just in time and brought you to the hospital.

The doctors had insisted on doing a complete medical check-up and had found that you were 2 months pregnant. You were ready to tell the doctor that you wanted to abort but Sam and Sarah had convinced you otherwise. They had told you that keeping the baby could be like a piece of Steve in your life and it could help you heal.

At first, you didn’t believe them, but they ended up being right. The baby saved you, giving your life purpose, something you thought you would never find again.

Bucky, Sam and Sarah had all pitched in to help but Bucky had realized that his desire to be there for you was more than guilt for his best friend leaving you. He had fallen in love with you. So, when he had asked you out, you had said yes. When he had proposed, you had also said yes.

Bucky was making you the happiest you had ever been in a long time. And you were now pregnant with your second child. You had learned about two weeks ago and you had announced it last weekend.

But you knew that, if you didn’t get closure from your time with Steve, you would never be able to be completely happy with Bucky.

You shake your head slightly, making yourself come back to your current situation.

“And second of all, I need to do it. For myself. But also, for my two children. I can’t be the mom they deserve if I don’t get some kind of closure from this whole… situation.”

Bucky huffs before getting up and walking quickly to your shared bedroom. You sigh, rubbing your forehead.

“Sam, can you try to track him down, please? I need to get this done soon.”

Sam looks at you for a couple of seconds before sighing and nodding his head.

“Thanks. Good night, guys.”

You walk to your bedroom, opening the door. When you walk in, you see that Bucky is laying down under the covers, his back to you. You walk slowly to the bed before kneeling down on it.

“Bucky.”

Nothing.

“Buck.”

He exhales loudly but doesn’t budge. You sigh deeply, stroking his back with one hand while the other turns him around.

“Bucky, baby, please, just listen to me.”

He rolls on his back but stares at the ceiling, avoiding your eyes. You sigh again before sitting down next to him, folding your hands in your lap.

“Look, Bucky, I understand that you’re upset. He hurt me but he also hurt you. He left us both and you’re allowed to be angry with him and deal with his return in whatever way you want but you can’t be mad at me for wanting to deal with it in the way that I want.”

Bucky doesn’t say anything, still staring at the ceiling. You exhale slowly, putting a hand on Bucky’s cheek.

“Bucky, come on. Say something.”

You sigh deeply, “Bucky, I-”

“I’m scared, okay?”, he says loudly, turning his head to look at you. You jump slightly, unprepared for a response from him, much less such a loud response.

You frown, tilting your head, “Scared of what?”

He turns his head back to stare at the ceiling.

“Bucky, you need to tell me.”

He puts his hands over his face, slightly muffling his answer, “I’m scared that you’re gonna see him and talk to him and fall back in love with him. And then, you’re gonna leave with Lizzie and then I’m gonna be left alone all over again…”,

You feel tears pooling in your eyes as you reach over to put your hands on his shoulders. You tug at him softly, indicating that you want him to get up. Bucky sits up, staring at your lap before you reach over and put a hand on his chin, lifting his head to look at you.

You stare into his eyes, also full of unshed tears, before saying,

“Bucky, I want you to listen to me very carefully, okay?”

He nods at you before whispering “okay.”

“First of all, Steve doesn’t know that Lizzie is his, okay? When he asked, I said no. And we’re going to keep it that way because you are her dad, Bucky, no one else. Second of all, it’s not like I’m going on a date with the man. I just want to talk to him so I can get closure. And third of all, in case you forgot, I’m wearing your ring on my finger, not his. And that’s how it’s gonna stay, okay?”

Bucky looks at you as tears start to fall down his face. He leans towards you, leaving a short but passionate kiss on your lips.

He lays back down on the bed before taking you in his arms as you listen to his steady heartbeat.

You look up at him, whispering, “I love you, Bucky Barnes.”

Bucky hums appreciatively before kissing the top of your head and answering, “I love you more.”

That night, you fall asleep with Bucky’s arm around your waist and his fingers intertwined with yours.

When you wake up the next morning, Bucky has already left the bed. You know that he’s either on a run or working on the boat with Sam.

You get up, brushing your teeth and getting ready before heading out to the dock. As you thought, you see Bucky and Sam working on the boat. They’re silent and you know it’s because you’re supposed to see Steve today.

“Hey Sam!”, you call out.

Sam turns towards you before meeting you halfway into the boat.

“Did you find him?”

He looks at you, raising an eyebrow before scoffing.

“Please. It took me less than 10 minutes. I told him to come at 11:30 so he should be here any minute.”

“Okay, thanks.” You look down at Bucky, still hard at work on the boat’s engine.

“Buck, can I talk to you for a second, please?” He drops the tool that was in his hand before walking up the stairs of the boat and stopping to sit down on the dock, not looking at you once.

You sit down next to him, before taking your hand in his.

“I’m just gonna talk to him, okay?” Bucky continues staring at his shoes but nods softly.

“I love you, you know that, right?”

He finally looks up at you and nods, murmuring, “I love you too.”

You smile at him, kissing his cheek.

“I-”

“Y/N, he’s here.”, you hear Sarah’s voice call out.

Bucky instantly tenses up and looks at you with panic in his eyes. You give a warm smile and whisper, “It’s gonna be okay, I promise. As soon as we’re done, I’m gonna come find you and then we can go do something fun together all day, okay?”

Bucky nods, sniffling softly, before heading back inside the boat.

You get up and follow Sarah to the backyard where Steve is sitting on a bench. As soon as he sees you, he gets up and adjusts his shirt. You feel the warm Louisiana air brushing against your skin as you take deep breaths, approaching him.

When you get to the bench, Sarah stops a couple of feet behind you. You look at her and nod, silently saying that you’re fine. Steve walks towards you and pulls out a bouquet of flowers, handing it to you.

You reluctantly take it and sit down at one end of the bench. Steve follows your actions and sits down on the other end.

“You look beautiful.”

Your breath hitches as you put the flowers on the bench between you.

“Look, Steve, I didn’t-”

You stop and frown as you see a purple bruise under his left eye. You instinctively reach up to touch it and he hisses as your warm hand touches his face.

“What happened?”

“Let’s just say that Sam was less than happy to see me.”

You chuckle softly. You should have known that he would have done something like that.

You put your hand back in your lap, trying to find the right words to express your feelings.

“I wanted to see you because I need closure for my family. That’s all.”

Steve looks at you longingly, “You always were one of the strongest women I knew. And beautiful, loving, caring, compass-”

“Look, Steve, I didn’t ask Sam to call you here so we could reminisce about old times. Why did you come back?”

Steve looks at the ground before clearing his throat, “When Peggy rejected me, it made me realize that I left the woman that I truly loved. And I thought that I could come back, and we could talk and-”

“I’m engaged”, you blurt out. You slap a hand over your mouth, shocked at yourself.

Steve looks at you and finally notices the diamond ring on your left hand.

“Oh… I, umm… Who is it?”

“Umm Bucky.”

Steve frowns, “You’re engaged to my best friend?”

You snort and mutter, “I don’t think he would call himself that anymore but sure.”

“But how?”

You scoff, “Well, when you get abandoned by the same person, you kinda find some things to bond about.”

“And it is… you know, serious?”, Steve asks, a hopeful glint in his eyes.

“Are you fucking serious right now? You leave me, abandon me- us, for some girl and then you ask if it’s serious?” You get up, now completely furious and screaming,

“You can’t just waltz in here after five fucking years, after destroying me so bad I almost killed our child and then ask me if I’m serious about the love of my life!”

Steve seems shocked as his mouth stays open, “Wait, I thought you said she wasn’t mine?”

You stare at him before groaning loudly, “Oh, fuck me!”

Steve gets up, a determined look on his face.

“I want to meet her.”

You exhale deeply, calming yourself down before looking at the lake and crossing your arms.

“No.”

Steve stares you down, “I deserve to meet her.”

Your head snaps towards him, “You don’t deserve jack shit, Steve.”

Your vision becomes blurry with tears as you start hitting his chest aimlessly, “You left! You abandoned me! You deserve nothing!”

You feel strong arms pulling you back as you thrash around. Bucky’s soft voice rings in your ears,

“It’s okay, doll, it’s me. Calm down.”

Bucky’s hands cup your face, and he wipes your tears away with his thumbs as you calm down. When you stop crying, he pulls you into a hug and you feel his chest vibrate as he speaks lowly, “It’s time for you to go, Steve.”

You hear Steve’s equally deep voice from behind you, “I’m not going anywhere until I meet my child.”

Bucky chuckles humorlessly as you let go of Bucky and turn towards Steve, “She is not your child. She is Y/N and I’s little girl, and she will not be anywhere near you.”

As if on cue, Lizzie comes running out of the house.

“Mommy!”

You pick up your little girl and wrap your arms around her. She tries, but fails, to whisper in your ear, “Mommy, why is the man from yesterday here again?”

You chuckle at her lack of discretion. You stroke her back as you reply,

“He’s one of Mommy and Daddy’s old friend. But he was just about to leave.” Lizzie detaches her arms from around you before sliding down to the ground and walking to Steve. He kneels down to be eye-level with her and she holds her hand out to him.

“Hi. My name is Elizabeth, but everyone calls me Lizzie.” Steve shakes her little hand and responds, “Hi Lizzie, it’s nice to meet you. I’m Steve.”

Lizzie frowns at Steve before saying, “Are the bad man Steve that hurt my mommy?”

A look of shock draws itself on Steve’s face as he stares at Lizzie.

Lizzie turns towards you and runs back before saying, “I want him to go!”

Bucky laughs under his breath before saying, “Okay, Lizzie, come on. Daddy’s gonna make you some lunch.”

Lizzie walks over to Bucky taking his large metal hand in her smaller one before walking rapidly towards the house.

Steve stands up, putting his hands in his pockets.

“Why did she say that?”

You scoff as you cross your arms and look at him, “Because she caught me crying my eyes out one day and she asked what was wrong with me. So, Sarah told her the story about the bad man Steve that hurt me and made me sad sometimes.”

Steve detaches his eyes from yours, guilt written all over his face.

“I’m sorry”, he whispers.

“I didn’t know how bad I hurt you when I left and I shouldn’t have come back here like everything was going to be like it was when I left.”

Steve looks back at you, tears in his eyes. “I’ll leave and never come back. And congratulations on the engagement. I’m sure that Bucky and you are going to be great together.”

Steve starts to walk back towards the front yard as you stay standing in front of the bench. You hear the motorcycle start and before you can stop yourself, your legs are running towards him to stop him from leaving.

He turns off the motorcycle when he sees you in front of him.

You take a deep breath, clenching and unclenching your fists a couple of times before you say, “I forgive you. And I’m sorry I lied about Lizzie not being yours, I just… I don’t know.”

Steve nods slightly and starts his motorcycle again before riding off towards the road. You let you a breath and walk to the house.

When you see Bucky and Lizzie in the kitchen, playfully preparing some lunch, you smile bigger than you have in what felt like forever.

Your mind and your heart were finally at peace.

hi @saiyanprincessswanie i would love it if you could check this out for your reading list, hope you enjoy🤍

[vake-hunter]

It will take very long time for me to reach new content so... May I ask why Discordance is cool now?

i forgot i never posted anything about this. oops.

SPOILERS FOR RAILROAD AHEAD.

Summary is you follow Fires and find its kidnapped Furnace. Direct quotes follow with bold being my favorite parts

"An exchange," it is saying. "We – the Masters and the Bazaar – owe certain debts to a power in the West. It is possible that these debts will never come due, and they are very old. But if you will accept responsibility for them, in the name of yourself and the Tracklayers' Union, then I will let you go. More than that: I will leave you and the Union to yourselves. As long as you do not bring your workers back to London or encourage my own factories to unionise."

Furnace looks gravely at Fires. "I will need to review the contract carefully," she says.

Furnace and Fires are still speaking. "And you'll keep your word?" she is asking.

"By the law of the Bazaar and by the Cedar of the Crossroads," says Fires. "And by my own personal word, of course."

"We can guess what that is worth," she retorts.

"Every person and power in this room is your witness," Fires purrs. "Let them all hold me to account, if I go back on my sworn word."

In your pocket, the boxed seed grows heavier; under your feet, the floor of the Tower continues to shiver. As if everything in the room were holding its breath for Furnace to sign this document, or refuse it.

Furnace draws the contract towards her and solemnly reads its pages. She might be sitting in the boardroom of the GHR, not imprisoned in a tower at the height of the Neath, for all the sign she gives.

Then, she pauses and looks up at you. Mr Fires is not looking at either of you. She stares into your eyes as though that would let her control your body through sheer force of will.

Then she mouths the words: Take cover. Now.

Furnace Ancona dips her pen in ink and painstakingly draws a sigil on the contract sheet. You can't see it from here – in fact, she is shading it with her hand as she writes. She does not mean you to read it. But that can't be her signature, surely?

When she's done, she blows on the sheet to dry the ink. Then she rather pedantically lowers her visor helmet. Only then, she pushes the contract across the desk towards Mr Fires.

Fires picks up the contract and lifts it to read: the text is not English. The phrase sounds like a shattering manacle, like a breaking chain.

The moment Fires has pronounced it, there is a loud crack, like the branch breaking off a frozen tree. All the fires in the room go out. Your whole body feels cold and heavy. Something is wrong with your thoughts.

A law is enacted:

The king forgets the hostage of war

The hunting dog does not know the scent of its quarry

The assassin cannot recognise the face of her prey

The opposing pieces are moved to separate boards

Hillchanger Tower is silent, and the faint throb of the stone has stilled.

Mr Fires lies face down, huddled in its robe.

Furnace is on her back, equally motionless, and her helmet is rimed in ice. You could not open the visor now even if you wished to.

I helped Fires to learn more about Creditor but if you help Furnace, she is badly injured and you have to help her heal.

"Discordance," hisses Mr Fires. "The cold language, the language of stars that have died and laws that have passed away." And it goes on like that, about dead light and corrupted law and the space between the stars polluted.

The fact that Fires calls it the language of dead stars is so fucking interesting. In skies its worded more like it the Discordance is picked up willingly.

"Some stars abandon the immutable light of their brethren for a more nuanced philosophy. The old language no longer suffices; heretical concepts exist for which it cannot provide signifiers." As the symbol takes shape, water turns to frost with a crackle. "These traitor-stars adopt another language. Or perhaps another dialect? The Discordance." She hisses and withdraws her finger from the completed symbol; the tip is blackened with frostbite.

I always thought of the Halved dead in a way and this confirms that yes, it is dead or dying. As suns do in real life when they die, they start to eat themselves. This also makes more sense given how much pain the Halved is in, and how hard it was for it to talk in the Correspondence during the Truth Ambition. And also that it doesn't have logoi.

[preservationandruin]

Rhythm of War Liveblog, Part One Part 2 (Chapters 3-8)

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[to the tune of Things I Bought At Sheetz] Now It’s time for Notes I Took At Work. This is going to be a weird experiment, because I read these chapters while at my job and took extensive notes on my reactions, which I’m now going to try to condense into something coherent. 

Navani revels in a successful invention, Shallan encounters a very bad cult, I quote--of all things--Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, A Certain Fucker reappears, Leshwi becomes a character I like, Shallan finds a journal, I digress on Renarin’s abilities, and everyone is rightfully worried about Kaladin. Content warning; discussion of suicide and suicidal tendencies

Alright, we open Chapter Three with Navani’s AIRSHIP, which is a kickass sentence. She’s leaning over the side of the ship, to the distress of one of her fellow scholars who attempts to appeal to Dalinar to get her to stop. 

“It’s Navani’s ship, Velat,” Dalinar said from behind, his voice as steady as steel, as immutable as mathematics. She loved his voice. “I think she’d have me thrown off if I tried to prevent her from enjoying this moment.” 

This is great both because Dalinar and Navani are great, but also as a contrast to Gavilar saying that Navani doesn’t accomplish anything herself, she just pretends to be an inventor and stays behind other, smarter people. Dalinar says no, this is Navani’s ship, this is her victory. The ship’s base design is one of the chasm bridges; it’s operated on the same principles as spanreeds, a kind of sympathetic link where you link two fabrials and whatever happens to one, happens to the other. Just augmented with aluminum and a LOT of pulleys and hard work. 

My notes also say “Eat Shit Gavilar” which i think is just, a general note. 

Anyway she also wishes that Elhokar was there because he loved being up high and also watching her draw...so now I’m feeling emotions, and if that wasn’t enough, I get hit in the feelings again because the name of the ship is the Fourth Bridge, after Bridge Four because of the time they saved Dalinar and Adolin at the tower, and it not only has the Bridge Four glyph inlaid but the original bridge inlaid. 

We see Dalinar and Lirin interact (my notes call this a “Dad convention”) --Lirin, of course because he’s Kaladin’s father, doesn’t really defer to Dalinar at all but does see the potential of this platform as a movable hospital; he’s discomfited by the reminder that Edgedancers are usually used for that now. Lirin really is a practical man who doesn’t believe in heroes or hero stories, which is unfortunate because they’re coming to life all around him. Also Dalinar calls him Lirin Stormblessed which is pretty funny because Lirin is Not Having It. 

Also, we get this great line from Navani about Lirin and Kaladin: 

However, as she stepped up beside Dalinar, she caught Lirin’s eyes--and the familial connection became more obvious. That same quiet intensity, that same faintly judgmental gaze that seemed to know too much about you. In that moment she saw two men with the same soul, for all their physical differences. 

This is really interesting in light of how Kaladin and Lirin are at the moment arguing; they both are at their core very driven, caring people who want the best for their community, but they are at odds for the best way to achieve that in part because they’ve had such different experiences; Kaladin’s life hasn’t let him be the surgeon Lirin is. 

For more changes in the year since we last met these characters, Dalinar has learned how to recharge stormlight and open perpendicularities at will, which essentially makes him a portable battery for the Radiants. That’s super useful. Navani likes observing the process, hoping that somewhere in it is a key to how Urithiru functions; she knows that it used to be powered by the Sibling, the third god-spren of Roshar, but after the Recreance the Sibling either died or fell so asleep the spren treat it as having died. 

That’s interesting; the Sibling has been something I’ve been wondering about a lot, and confirmation that it was tied to Urithiru seems to preclude it being a godspren of Odium like I’d thought for a bit (and in any case, Odium has the Unmade and doesn’t seem the time to fragment himself into a godspren). Another spren of Honor or Cultivation? Or perhaps a spren of both? More importantly, if it really is dead, is there still a way to revive Urithiru? Last book talked about possibly recruiting Sja-anat; if we do, could she serve as an alternate power source for the tower? 

We also get the Mink, the Herdazian general, slipping up on Dalinar and Navani without them noticing and also calling Dalinar the fuck out for the many atrocities that his armies and nation had unleashed on the Herdazians, which Dalinar can’t really refute. I like this guy, honestly; I’m not sure what’s up with him, if he’s just really good at sneaking around or if he has something Up With Him, but I like him. 

Back with the Three (Shallan/Radiant/Veil), they wake up to find themselves in the chasms with an EXTREMELY melodramatic cult. They’re looking for proof Ialai is now running the Hypocrites Association--sorry, the Sons of Honor; Radiant refuses to move against Ialai without proof, even though Shallan and Veil both kinda wish Adolin had killed her at the same time as Sadeas and saved everyone some trouble. Anyway, the Hypocrites association wear deep, fancy hoods that leads to a great Shallan thought: 

Shallan had a fleeting thought, wondering at the seamstress they’d hired to do all this work. What had they told her? “Yes, we want twenty identical, mysterious robes, sewn with ancient arcane symbols. They’re for...parties.” 

They claim both to have guided the return of the Radiants and to be overthrowing Dalinar, which is hilarious because Dalinar is a Radiant so the only real extrapolation here is that, in the fantasy where they’re right about any of this, they brought the radiants back and lost control of the situation immediately and now are recruiting random strangers to try to help rein it back in. Which is still not a good look. 

Oh and also they claim to be “something greater” than the Radiants, and I really doubt they’re the Heralds, so everything they say is horseshit, as is proven a second later when they test if Shallan is wearing an illusion with a device she herself sold them at an exorbitant price. And then claiming that Radiants can’t tell untrue oaths, right in front of Shallan, who is bonded to a liespren. 

They’re just a very bad cult. 

Also they say Ialai is the true queen, which raises many questions to me about the line of succession that gives them THAT math, especially with Gavinor alive and there. Like, somehow Sadeas’s widow gets priority over the last king’s living child? I know they’re just a stupid cult but guys, that’s not how lines of succession work in monarchies. 

Anyway, Shallan hears them say that they have a mole in Dalinar’s inner circle--bad--and goes off-script, taking control to say she’s not who they think she is, and we cut back to Kaladin for the next chapter, which is called Broken Spears which prompted my note of “I don’t trust like that.” And then instantly I started laughing because of this quote: 

[The windrunners] hung in the air like no skyeel ever could: motionless, equidistant.

This is not a particularly funny line unless you, like me, have never been able to forget a line from Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy: 

“The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't.”

So there’s that. 

Kaladin has apparently fought with Leshwi before at this point (she is, iirc, the Fused who was one of the main points of contact for Moash during his arc in Oathbringer); last time, Rock’s daughter Cord managed to shoot her down. The Windrunners, like the Edgedancers, have grown in number; there are about 50 knights, now, and five times that in squires; the problem is that there aren’t enough willing honorspren to bond. Kaladin mentions that “almost all” of Bridge Four had bonded honorspren and that he knew one honorspren who was willing but unbonded, all of which leads me to believe that Rock hasn’t sworn the Oaths yet. 

Meanwhile, these Fused--the Heavenly Ones--prefer one on one battles, as Kaladin noted in earlier chapters, so the Windrunners do the same; as long as they do this, the Heavenly Ones will keep to the ideals of honorable combat and will not gang up on the Windrunners. Again, it shows that they are both the orders that deal with Honorspren, even if the Heavenly Ones deal with...void-honorspren, I guess. 

Also, it’s another nod to the idea of if there can be such a thing as honorable combat in a war. Both the Heavenly Ones and the Windrunners are trying for it, clearly, but is that sustainable? 

Leshwi is in fact there, with a very cool aluminum-edged sword that can absorb stormlight into a gem at the hilt. She, along with the rest of the Fused and apparently the Heralds (Shalash and Taln are both in Urithiru), are stunned by the Fourth Bridge; fuck yeah, Navani and her team. She’s so cool, guys, I love Navani. Also, everyone is worried about Kaladin. 

Shallan, meanwhile, is ad-libbing having even more information, which leads to a hilarious moment of her being accused of treason by a member of the cult who are trying to overthrow the current queen, so...there’s a reason I’m calling them the Hypocrites Association, alright? Anyway, Adolin decides it’s time to attack, and Radiant and Shallan manage to bluff their way into being taken along to the hideout as the Hypocrites Association retreats. 

With Kaladin again, we get that the Fused see him as a particular challenge they enjoy fighting, although Leshwi always has first dibs; he fights another Fused and manages to disarm him, but decides not to kill him because killing him is pointless. Also, the teleporting fucker comes back, and yes, that is what I’m calling him until further notice. 

Something happened in Aimia that led to Cord getting a set of shardplate. Is this the Dawnshard novel? Is that what happened in Aimia? I’m going to read it next regardless but now I’m curious about what happened on the Radiant expedition to Aimia. 

So it turns out that the Hypocrites Association has a secret passage into and out of the chasms with a hidden door, which was probably a bolthole for escape that Sadeas put in early during the war at the Shattered Plains. His keep is also noted by Veil to be fortresslike; she notes that he was a cunning man, not just the blowhard that Shallan had taken him for. Ialai is now the sole remaining leader of the dissident Alethi army; while Radiant wants evidence against her that can have her be taken in, Veil is here just to assassinate her and have done with it. 

And honestly there is a nice symmetry in Adolin killing Sadeas and Shallan/the Three killing Ialai. 

Anyway, we go back to Kaladin as Leshwi fights Sigzil now; she manages to spear him through the chest, and I swear to god if any of the original Bridgemen actually die, I’m going to kick Brandon Sanderson’s ass. Those are my BOYS. In any case, Leshwi doesn’t kill Sigzil, because Kaladin spared one of the Fused earlier--honor in combat, again. There’s definitely a whole essay I could discuss about this opening few chapters and the idea of if continuing a fight is the right thing to do and if that fight can be continued in a way that is moral, but I don’t have the time for that, I’m trying to do NaNoWriMo and read this book. 

I’ll shelve it along with the Oathbringer and the idea of personal responsibility essay. 

We go back to Navani and get another real sense of how well she knows her team; she knows the personal tics and oddities of all the ardents and scholars who are helping her on the Fourth Bridge, which is nice to see. We also get that Renarin is here, distracting crying children by having Glys form a ball of light, and Navani has this observation: 

Renarin claimed the spren [Glys] was trustworthy, but something was odd about his powers. They had managed to recruit several standard Truthwatchers--and they could create illusions like Shallan. Renarin couldn’t do that. He could only summon lights, and they did strange, unnatural things sometimes...

Really excited to see how Renarin’s powers develop similarly to or different from standard Truthwatchers; I agree that Glys is probably trustworthy because Renarin is the best judge of that at the moment and also because “the corrupted spren turns out to be evil” isn’t a very interesting plot development compared to “there can be good corrupted spren” 

And then I got yanked forcibly off-topic because guess who fucking showed up. Moash decided to show his backstabbing, treacherous little face again, wearing--of all things--a uniform cut exactly like Bridge Four’s but in black rather than blue, which is just a stupendous dick move. Navani is the one who sees him, too, and we get a sharp reminder that he murdered her son.

Kaladin doesn’t hear the alarm that Navani raises, though, because he’s busy fighting Leshwi, something he seems to genuinely enjoy as a test of his skills. He pushes his home-field advantage here, managing to distract Leshwi to the point that they both seriously injure the other; Kaladin is grinning throughout, which is actually somewhat disturbing. To me it reads like Kaladin’s stopped caring about his own life in favor of trying to help others at any cost, but I’m not sure if that’ll play through as an accurate read. 

In any case, someone set Roshone’s house on fire, and the teleporting fucker is there and actively attacking civilians. Leshwi is pissed off to see this and gestures for Kaladin to go and deal with that rather than continuing their fight; at this point, I really started loving Leshwi as a character. I’m a sucker for a good principled antagonist lady, they’re just a good trope. 

Anyway, we get to Chapter Seven. Navani’s epigraph notes that zinc makes the spren in fabrials more active, while brass quiets them. So...you could say...that brass soothes them...while zinc...makes them riot....

Anyway, back to Ialai, Shallan notes that she seems extremely worn and tired, and she claims to support Gavinor to the throne--with herself as regent, of course. She and Shallan proceed to have an entire conversation in wine metaphors, talking about who they are working with or for, and Ialai assumes that the Ghostbloods sent the Three to kill her, claiming they want the Sons of Honor out of the way and will send her after Restares next. Veil instantly switches her vote to not killing Ialai bc she doesn’t like to be manipulated, and Adolin kicks down the door. 

Ialai tells Shallan to search her rooms for “the rarest vintage” before the Ghostbloods can, and then--before she can even leave the building--she dies of poisoning, implying there’s a mole somewhere in Adolin and Shallan’s people. That’s not great, and the Ghostbloods aren’t fucking around in the slightest with her. 

Meanwhile, with Kaladin, the teleporting fucker took Godeke--the one named Edgedancer here other than Lift--hostage to lure Kaladin inside, where he uses a strange, void-fabrial to drain Surgebinder powers in the room. And then makes a critical error in thinking that that will be enough: 

The Fused laughed and spoke in Alethi. “Radiants! You rely too much on your powers. Without them, what are you? A peasant child with no real training in the art of warfare or--”  Kaladin slammed himself against the soldier to the right. 

Oh you poor idiots, Kaladin was a prodigy with the spear LONG before he was a Windrunner, went most of his army career without bonding Syl, and--crucially--one of you is carrying a physical spear. Checkmate, assholes. Kaladin quickly beats most of the ones there, including killing the teleporting fucker before he can teleport again, and lets the last one go--of course--before helping Lift get Godeke out and telling her to get the void fabrial to Navani. 

Meanwhile, he’s going to go make sure Roshone is alright, where I have the very prescient note of “I bet actual money Moash is killing him as we speak.” 

Ialai’s probable method of death was blackbane poison in her bloodstream; one of Shallans’ people examines the body for it, while Shallan goes to search ialai’s rooms. 

Another epigraph note, this time about bronze and heliodor being used to make warning fabrials. Scadrial really was just a primer on the uses of various metals with investiture, huh? 

Meanwhile, Kaladin finds the prisoners below the manor killed with a shardblade, and spins around to find Moash slitting Roshone’s throat before making what I called, in a late-night worktime daze, “just a series of rat bastard moves. Hate that guy. Just honestly hate that guy.” 

Specifically, he surrenders so that Kal cannot keep attacking him--because Kal’s a good person--just after taunting him for wanting to rescue someone. 

Back with Shallan, Veil is pushing her again to continue remembering their past, but she still resists; she finds a rare Shin wine in Ialai’s store, before using that to find a pattern on the floor of old, shadowyears-era glyphs with maps of the ten Epoch Kingdoms, under one of which is a notebook of Ialai’s; she tucks it in her safepouch, and we go back to Kaladin. 

I really think the arc for Kaladin in this book is going to be accepting that he can’t save everyone,  particularly from themselves, because he pauses and remembers how Moash had been a friend, but even more than that, he had been Bridge Four--someone that Kaladin had sworn to protect, and he’d failed: 

Kaladin had failed Moash. As soundly as he’d failed Dunny, Mart, and Jaks. And of them all, losing Moash hurt the most. Because in those callous eyes, Kaladin saw himself. 

Kaladin can’t keep blaming himself for Moash’s choices, because Moash chose to do this, and was given ways out, and didn’t take them. It’s not Kaladin’s fault, and believing that it is is going to get Kaladin killed. 

And then, Moash winds up and delivers a grade-A Odium-powered Breaking Speech: 

"They're going to die, you know," Moash said softly. "Everyone you love, everyone you think you can protect. They're all going to die anyway. There's nothing you can do about it." [...] "Do you remember the chasm, Kal?" Moash whispered. "In the rain that night? Standing there, looking down into the darkness, knowing it was your sole release? You knew it hen. You try to pretend you've forgotten. But you know. As sure as the storms will come. As sure as every lighteyes will lie. There is only one answer. One path. One result. [...] I've found the better way," Moash said. "I feel no guilt. I've given it away, and in so doing became the person I always could have become--if I hadn't been restrained. I can take away the pain, Kal. Isn't that what you want? An end to your suffering?”

Odium’s deal all over again--he will take away your pain and your responsibility for your actions, but the price for that is your integrity and your honor. It’s so insidious, especially because Moash is exploiting the fact that Kaladin was suicidal to play into the idea of life being hopeless--he’s implying that Kaladin’s suicidal impulses were right and then offering another way out. It’s so, so so so awful, and Kaladin can’t even bring himself to fight it, because it’s coming from an unarmed man and it’s targeted so directly at him. 

 “The answer is to stop existing, Kal. You’ve always known it, haven’t you?”  Kaladin blinked away tears, and the deepest part of him--the little boy who hated the rain and the darkness--withdrew into his soul and curled up. Because...he did want to stop hurting. 

He wanted it so badly. 

Ugh, Moash’s whole thing here is just seeding that suicidality back into Kaladin--because frankly, most of the time? When someone is suicidal, in my (admittedly limited and personal) experience? What they genuinely want isn’t to die--they just want not to hurt anymore, and they see that as the only way. 

Light exploded into the room.  Clean and white, like the light of the brightest diamond. The light of the sun. A brilliant, concentrated purity.  Moash growled, spinning around, shading his eyes against the source of the light--which came from the doorway. The figure behind it wasn’t visible as anything more than a shadow.  Moash shied away from the light--but a version of him, transparent and filmy, broke off and stepped toward the light instead. Like an afterimage. In it, Kaladin saw the same Moash--but somehow standing taller, wearing a brilliant blue uniform. This one raised a hand, confident, and although Kaladin couldn’t see them, he knew people gathered behind this Moash. Protected. Safe.  The image of Moash burst alight as a Shardspear formed in his hands.

FUCK YEAH, RENARIN. 

I’m gonna end this section by just discussing what happened here, because there’s a lot to unpack there. We’ve seen Shallan use her illusions to create versions of people who they could be, but this isn’t doing that--if you look at the cause and effect, it’s not that Renarin created this illusory Moash, but more that the light Renarin created called forth that Moash from this one. 

More than anything, it reminds me of the effects of Gold Allomancy--creating a past version of the self, splitting the self into who you are and who you were, or who you are and who you could have been. This is not a version of Moash that could exist. He’s burned too many bridges and killed too many people in front of their infant children for that to happen. 

But it could have been Moash. It’s not calling forth the truth, really, it’s showing an alternate path. It’s strange and I can’t wait to see it explored more, and it shakes Moash to his core--because of course it does. Moash’s entire speech was saying “there are only two ways out, dying and giving in to Odium,” and Renarin’s light showed that that was a stark fucking lie. There’s the third choice of deciding to stand up and protect people anyway, and it was a choice Moash could have taken, and that kills him. It eats him up inside; it’s the pain that Odium can’t fully take away. 

As Kaladin said to Amaram: if what Odium says is  true, if what you claim is true, than why do you still hurt? 

[shakespeareanqueer]

The Oracle - Chapter 3 [Navi Meets the Team]

Series Summary: Navi walks out of the shower one day and right into Avengers: Age of Ultron. What!? Suddenly immersed in the MCU with the forbidden knowledge of future movies, they make it their mission to change the future

Chapter Summary: Navi meets the team, and a certain Steve Rogers is already not their biggest fan

Contents: Cursing, verbal spat 🔮Word count: 2,003 words

A/N: I need to start saving gifs and crediting them in the reblog instead of choosing gifs off of the search thingy so there aren’t links in the first post. I’ll deal with that by the next chapter, hopefully. Anywho, enjoy this one!

Navi ran the sink again to make it seem like they had been just using the bathroom, being extra careful and washing their hands one more time. When they stepped back into the bedroom only to find the motionless tableau, they realized they forgot to restart time.

So they re-entered the bathroom, shut the door, restarted time, washed their hands again and then finally departed into the bedroom.

This time, there was motion, as well as speech, but it all stopped short the moment the crowd noticed Navi’s presence. The air was thick in the room, the tension palpable as everyone stared at Navi, who casually sat at the edge of the bed.

Steve opened his mouth to speak, a frown etched across his face, but Tony beat him to it. Tony had a more gentle demeanor, concerned and caring. “What’s your name, kid?”

A beat. Then, “Navi,” they replied simply.

Pietro nodded knowingly. “Prophet, in Hebrew.”

“Are you some kind of prophet?” Steve asked bitingly. “How the hell did you know about the ‘language’ thing?”

Navi chuckled. “I suppose I am. I think I prefer the title ‘Oracle,’ though. Prophet feels so… immutable. I’ve seen bits of your past, and bits of your... Well, one potential future.”

By this point, there was an entire crowd in the small bedroom, spilling through the doorway into the hall. All the Avengers were present, excepting, of course, Bruce.

“His past specifically?” Maria Hill asked from her place where she was leaning against the doorframe. As in, Steve’s past. And the answer, of course, was yes, because of the Captain America movies.

“His past specifically. Also his past specifically,” Navi said, pointing at Tony. They added, “also his past specifically,” while pointing at Thor. “Plus some group history. So I’ve seen a bit of all of you.”

Hill nodded slowly, like she was processing something.

The facade was fun, but Navi tired of it quickly and decided to just tell the truth.

“Honestly, I’m not really a prophet or an oracle. I’m just from a universe where all of y’all are fake. Movie characters, based on comic book characters. Also it’s the future. There’s something like 23 films in a collection, and that Sokovia fiasco was maybe the tenth? I don’t know; I’d have to make a list. Avengers: Age of Ultron, that one was called.”

“That is exactly what you made it sound like, that it was movies,” said Hill. Everyone looked at her bewildered. “What? Am I the only one that picked up on that?”

“So what actor plays me?” Tony asked cheekily. “Is he real famous?”

Navi giggled and replied, “Yeah. Robert Downey Jr. Very famous actor. Academy award nominated.”

“How about me?” Pietro asked excitedly, bouncing on the balls of his feet.

Navi shrugged. “Honestly, I don’t know much about Aaron Taylor Johnson. I don’t watch many movies, and I don’t think I've seen anything else he's in. But something he was in recently had a nude scene so his dong was circulating around the internet a few weeks ago.”

“All right, this is hardly important,” Steve butted in while Pietro flushed furiously and Wanda laughed at him. “If this was only the tenth film out of twenty-three, then you know the future.”

“I know one possible future,” Navi countered. “It’s clearly able to be altered, since I saved Pietro’s life.”

Immediately, Wanda’s face dropped from her teasing laughter to a look of horror. “Pietro was supposed to die?” she asked, horrified.

“I don’t like the word ‘supposed to.’ It’s just what fake-happened in one of many universes. In this one it didn’t, so clearly it wasn’t ‘supposed to,’ or shit would be falling apart, right? But yeah, his death is something I’ve… ‘seen.’” Navi could not bring themself to make eye contact with either Maximoff sibling. “On Sokovia by Ultron bots. While saving Clint,” they elaborated.

Navi watched tears gather in Wanda’s eyes while she gripped her brother’s hand tightly in her own, and a firm resolve settled into Navi’s chest. A fierce sense of purpose.

“So I can manipulate time with fancy powers now, so that’s cool. But I also plan to manipulate the timeline. I can’t tell you much, because I don’t know how it’ll affect things and I don’t want to fuck anything up, but just know, that I’ve seen some shit, and I’m going to stop it.”

Navi took a deep breath. “I don’t know how. But I will.”

Steve seemed unconvinced. “Will you let us in on your plan?”

Navi stared at him a moment, then answered, “I just said I don’t know what my plan is yet, and that once I have it, I can’t tell you much. Space-time continuum or whatever.”

“I do not believe it would work that way,” Vision countered.

“Regular ol’ human psychology then,” Navi corrected. “I only want to prevent the bad stuff, I don’t want to accidentally prevent the good stuff. And there is good.”

Natasha had remained noticeably silent, hovering behind Maria in the hallway. She took a step forward and opened her mouth to speak, but Navi preempted her.

“Bruce will be fine.”

They were clipped, and purposefully vague. They bit their tongue and refrained from saying, ‘No thanks to you,’ so as not to make any more enemies among the group; Steve’s obvious resentment was more than enough. But they never had forgiven Natasha for pushing Bruce into that crater and releasing the Hulk when he clearly was afraid and unwilling, even after they laughed hysterically through the entirety of Thor: Ragnarok.

And even though the entire situation was fictional.

At the time it was anyway.

“But he’s not now.” It was more of a statement than a question out of Steve. He was already fed up with Navi’s vagueness and tiptoeing around the truth.

“The big guy’s doing great. So Bruce is well taken care of underneath. But this time is different. He’s harder to reach.” They cut themself off before they could reveal too much.

“Do you know where he is?” Natasha’s voice was small and hopeful, and somewhat unlike the Black Widow Navi was used to. Perhaps guilt was gnawing at her more than Navi gave her credit for. Perhaps Scarlet Johansson wasn’t great at portraying the full range of emotions Natasha had inside her. Whatever it was, Navi realized in that moment that the fictional representations they’d seen in another universe weren’t fair bases for judgement, and they resolved to ease up.

“Mmm,” Navi hummed, scrunching their face and trying to figure out what to say and how to say it. “Sort of. Not really.”

“What does that even mean?” Steve was clearly exasperated.

“He’s in space. On another planet. Or at least he will be, I don’t know the timeline, or how long it takes him to get there or whatever. That’s one of the things I don’t really want to fuck with though, because he will be fine, if I don’t fuck it up.”

“Don’t give yourself too much credit,” Steve mumbled. For a moment when he started that sentence, Navi thought he was going to tell them not to give themself too much pressure, but then he finished in a manner that was more congruous with his gruff treatment of them up to that point. “And would you please stop using that word?”

“What? ‘Fuck’?” Navi asked in an ironically saccharine tone, purposefully twisting the knife.

“Yes,” Steve answered through gritted teeth.

Navi rolled their eyes. “Please, Captain. Both my grandfathers fought in the Second World War. You can’t tell me you haven’t heard a million times worse in the army.”

“This isn’t the army,” Steve spat.

“Good. That means I don’t have to listen to the captain.” Steve and Navi were staring each other down intensely, and everyone else was either completely riveted or highly uncomfortable.

“All right, all right.” Tony finally cut through the tension and waved his hands in the space between them where the knives shooting out of their eyes were flying through the air. “Does this plan of yours require anything from us?”

Navi tore their eyes away from Steve’s and their face instantly softened. “I still need to work out the plan, but a place to stay would be nice. And to train. The powers are new, and I’d like to get just physically stronger too.”

“Done,” Tony confirmed, extending his hand for a cordial and professional shake. Navi smiled, more than a little relieved that they had a place in the world now.

Steve had his arms crossed across his chest. “I think I should get a say in whether she can join the team or not.”

“They, please. I use they/them pronouns,” Navi corrected.

Tony continued like they hadn’t intervened, but clearly he had heard, as he gendered them correctly. “I didn’t say they were joining the team. That’s a group call. But it’s my building. My money pays for the residence floors, and my money pays for the training facilities downstairs. You certainly don’t have to train them like you agreed to train the twins, since you clearly don’t want to, but someone will.”

“I can,” Maria volunteered.

“I will,” Natasha offered simultaneously.

Navi smiled broadly and squealed in excitement. “This’ll be fun!”

“Fine,” Steve conceded begrudgingly. Then he turned his attention back to Navi, sticking a pointer finger in their face. “But if there’s anything we learned from the Ultron situation, it’s that everyone should communicate more, and let the everyone in on what they’re up to if it affects the team.”

“I’m not on the team, remember?” Navi’s voice was dripping with fake sweetness. “And is that really what we learned? So no side-projects, whatsoever, are allowed? None at all, Captain?”

Sam picked up on what Navi was implying, and interceded hastily. “All right, the kid just woke up. They don’t even know what the plan is yet, so we can’t expect them to tell us anything right now. Let’s just back off and give them some space.”

“Thank you, Wilson,” said Navi sincerely.

“Call me Sam,” he offered, along with his hand. Navi shook it and repeated their name in a cheerful and friendly tone.

“I know you know who we all are, but I think proper introductions would be nice,” Maria walked further into the room and extended her own hand. “Call me Maria. I look forward to helping training you.”

“Thank you, Maria,” Navi’s smile was wide. “I have a feeling we’ll get along great.”

One by one, each of the Avengers introduced themselves with a polite shake and, ‘Please call me [name],’ before filtering out. Vision, Wanda, Rhodey, Tony, Clint, Natasha, and Thor.

All except Steve of course, who hovered a bit broodingly, standing by the chair he had been seated in clearly reluctant to leave. When he was the last one in the room, Navi let out a sigh and put a hand on his arm.

“Bucky’s ok too.”

Steve looked down at Navi with wide eyes. Their voice and touch had been so gentle, so kin  despite his gruff manner and how rude he’d been since the second they woke up.

“Do you know where he is?” Steve asked softly.

Navi bit their lip and considered how to answer. They settled on, “No… I don’t think so. Not yet, anyway. I know where he will be, but not for a while. I don’t think he’s ready to be found yet anyway. I’ll—It’ll all work out. But he’s ok.”

Steve nodded with furrowed brows, still frustrated Navi wouldn’t release more information but moderately relieved by their reassurances.

“Thanks,” he mumbled, and swiftly departed.

Once alone, Navi sighed and collapsed back against the bed. Of all the people to have dislike them, they were disappointed it was Steve. They had never needed anyone to like them before, always fiercely independent and never relying on exterior validation. But still, it stung to know that Captain America distrusted them.