#sky is writing again

[buttercupshands]

MHA didn't create some miracle way of helping others. It was never promised to be this way. And when it came to villains...

Spoilers for manga all the way to chapter 423.

The only way to get anything in life in MHA was to be born "normal" like everyone else and that way of thinking never left Izuku with Toga getting the same treatment she did before from everyone from her family to her "normal" classmates. It was Ochako who helped Toga even if just a little by lifting the weight of all the feelings that Toga had.

She couldn't save Toga the way one could save a civilian by saving them from harm. If it worked that way Dabi would've saved Toga even before Ochako could apologize for failing to notice Toga. She was so lazer focused on saving everyone else, that she was just another villain to stop, not a human.

Even if by the end of it Ochako helped Toga to deal with her grief, acceptance as it was wasn't something possible when a quirk makes you want to drink someone's blood from jealousy.

We got a bittersweet ending with Toga, in which she probably died from blood loss just like her double did in MVA. If it wasn't for Twice she would've died back then.

Giving away her blood for Ochako wasn't a redemption or a way to save Toga in the end, more as it was her being true to herself until the very end.

Just like Twice chose to stay with the League even if Hawks offered him a way to survive that battle. He refused and died protecting his friends who accepted him instead of choosing to betray them and accept Hawks' offer.

After Twice's death... It was a matter of time that more 'active' LoV members would join him as well. As sad as it is, we now can return to Izuku.

Who, after his time OFA-AFO quirk space, now wanted to help a "crying boy" he saw in Tenko just as before with Katsuki in chapter 1. He didn't forgive Tomura and didn't excuse the way he chose to solve his problems.

It didn't mean that Tomura would survive in their battle, even if Izuku didn't see killing others as a way to solve problems. He didn't understand Tomura, but he still wanted to try, and try he did.

The rest of this post was nothing more than a contextual prologue to understand that it's not the first time a hero failed to save a villain and in Twice's case we know that he died and his death was the reason Toga started thinking about her own possible death and Dabi finally revealed himself as Toya.

The goal of saving a "crying boy" never was an end-goal for Izuku in the Final arc, since helping Tomura deal with his feelings just left him hollow with a goal that clashed with Izuku's. As being a hero for villains meant destroying the world for them to help them live freely.

But that was before AFO resurfaced.

Sadly after that Tomura who was talking about making his own choices for a while now stopped doing that. Even if he still had a goal of helping villains and only villains, Tomura was almost gone. And his goals were now unreachable.

Izuku helped Nana who in turn kept Tomura from fading away entirely. In MHA there were countless situations where Izuku's help affected people by helping a different person to keep hope, All-Might being the first one and Nana being the last one at the moment.

Hollow after Izuku helped him to get rid of his hatred Tomura could do the only thing he did - accept the situation as it was.

Accepting AFO as his Sensei, accepting Stain's ideals and Overhaul's deal was the way he solved his problems. Just like Izuku had a problem of understanding something outside of his norm, Tomura was accepting too many things, which lead to his downfall after accepting AFO's quirk.

Just like Twice could've given up everything that he had for his friends so did Tomura.

With Izuku helping as much as he could let Tomura to finally rest as he wasn't really living ever since waking up in the hospital. With his body now affected by AFO's wishes instead of his own until the end.

In a way Izuku didn't succeed in his wish for Tomura to stop ever since PLF war arc. As he "kept fighting to destroy" no matter how hard Izuku tried to stop him.

The only thing he succeeded in was changing Tomura's mind about himself, instead of viewing himself as a monster he accepted that he was a human just like Izuku said. A "crying boy" who couldn't really destroy Izuku's hands in the end.

For a group of Villains who weren't supposed to get profiles of their own at the start of the series, League is slowly fading as the most memorable group that there was in MHA, getting backstories, their own Villain themed arc all the while being as human as anyone else.

As sad as their story is they were not "unlucky", they didn't need a happy false ending where they would need to change to be normal - they chose to live this way and they lived it to it's fullest.

[omnificent-orion]

When you wake up, what kind of world will you find yourself in?

Will the world reflected in your eyes be the world you wished for…?

The one who will decide that is you.

[adrift-in-thyme]

@kikker-oma happy belated birthday!!! Sorry it took so long for me to finish this! But I hope it proves worth the wait <333 (Also I hope you don’t mind some whump)

CW for blood and injury, vomiting, a panic attack, and a cave-in (be careful if you’re claustrophobic)

————————————-

In the wake of the explosion, Sky feels nothing. There is a high-pitched ring in his ears, spots in his vision, warm, sticky blood trickling from his nose. But no pain.

Until there is.

It hits like a claymore, cleaving through the half-consciousness he has clung to thus far. And the next thing he knows, he’s jerking upward, gasping. Only, he can’t sit upright at all.

His mind screams the panicked order, his muscles attempt it, but a weak, agonizing twitch is all he manages. Something is holding him down, something massive and heavy. His chest struggles to rise beneath its constant compression.

Sky blinks again, squinting past the tiny eruptions of light and the dust that floats, thick and suffocating in the air around him. There is nothing much to see in the endless darkness. But he can make out jagged shapes, blocky forms, the outlines of sand-covered objects.

Caging him in. Holding him down.

He’s pinned, he realizes with a streak of mind-numbing terror. And suddenly, what little air he had managed to drag in turns to nothing at all. He gasps, eyes blowing wide, as he thrashes.

Or attempts to. All he manages is to bring on a fresh onslaught of dizzying agony. It strikes through to his very bones, sending sharp pricks of static dancing before his eyes and crawling up the back of his head. And for a split second, everything goes a striking shade of black.

Then, he’s breaching the surface once more, too soon, much too soon, skyrocketing back into a world of pain and suffocation.

Sky coughs, choking on blood and tears. He has never really considered himself claustrophobic, but this experience might just change that assumption. Of all the ways to die…

But you’re not, he berates himself. You’re not dead yet, so think, think. Figure out a way to survive.

He can’t reach his pouch. The rubble piled beside him makes certain of that. It presses against him, crushing his side and tugging at the hem of his sailcloth. But if he can move it just a bit…

Trembling hands press to its jagged surface. With a sharp intake of breath, Sky steels himself and pushes.

Something shifts and for a split second, Sky dares to hope that maybe, just maybe he can get free. But then, the rubble on his lower half crawls sideways with the rest. And Sky screams.

The nauseating numbness that had begun to take root vanishes, replaced with the absolute agony that splits through his legs. He turns his head to the side and chokes up bile.

That one moment seems to last forever, pain dancing along his body endlessly. He lies there, limp and gasping, gazing at the blurred splotches his vision has been reduced to. And the waves wash over him, stealing the air from his lungs and turning his thoughts into incomprehensible things.

Needles streak up his neck, bringing with them unnatural heat. His eyelids flutter, eyes preparing to roll back in his head and plunge him back into the painless deep.

“Sky!”

A hand finds his, desperate in the way it grasps at him. Sky inhales sharply, jolting back into some semblance of awareness.

He had thought no other heroes were near the blast. He had thought they were all clear of the area. So, why…

Wait.

Memories crash back into his mind like waves on the sea. Memories of a building crumbling behind him and a boy by his side, running, running away from the collapse, away from certain death. Memories of the fiery knowledge that had situated itself firmly in Sky’s gut, the knowledge that he must protect him, protect the hero who came after him.

Protect the hero who was the first to feel the brunt of his failures, no matter the cost.

His hands fly out on instinct to shove the small figure in front of him through the doorway. Echoes of a terrified voice in his mind as he leaps, meaning to follow, wanting to.

Only for darkness to catch him before he can.

Four. Sky’s breath hitches, a sob of relief and agony catching in his throat. Four is here with him. Four is alive.

And he came back.

“Sky, can you hear me?”

The Skyloftian focuses all his strength. Weakly, he squeezes Four’s hand. The smithy blows out an audible sigh of relief.

“Thank the goddesses. We’re gonna get you free, okay? We just need a minute. If we move anything now…”

Though he trails off, the words left unspoken weigh on the Skyloftian even more heavily than the rubble. He drags in a thin gasp, swallowing against the growing lump in his throat.

“But I need you to stay awake until we can get you out,” Four continues, forcing a lighter tone into his voice. “Can you do that?”

“Yes,” is what Sky means to say. “Hurts,” is the croaked cry that comes out.

Four’s grip tightens. “I know, Sky. I’m-I’m sorry.”

Sky closes his eyes. The darkness there is safer, more comfortable than the dusky dimness floating around him.

“Not your fa-fault.”

“You shouldn’t have pushed me.” The voice is grim and drenched in guilt. Though it aims to sound accusatory, Sky feels that it hardly meets the mark. “‘There was time. We could’ve both gotten out. We could’ve…”

“K-kept you safe.” It is hardly a croak. The word burns in his throat. “Smithy…I w-wanted to…”

He drags his eyes open, stares into the expanse of floating nothingness. He still can’t breathe.

“It’s the least I…could do.”

Four is silent for a long moment. Then, his fingers constrict just slightly. Their warmth is welcome in a world of cold darkness.

“You’re going to get out of there, Sky,” he murmurs and there is something in his tone that Sky cannot identify. Maybe he could if he wasn’t so tired. Far more than usual in fact. This exhaustion drags him down like a leaden weight, pulling at the remaining scraps of consciousness.

“Just hold on,” the smithy says, and Sky pushes back against the endless deep.

Hold on.

He can do that. He can…

“T-tell me about y-your Hyrule,” he croaks.

And Four does. The smithy has many secrets, perhaps, even as much as the old man, and yet, he tells him. Of his grandfather, of Dot, of his home and his world and the tiny creatures known as Minish.

Sky clings to every word that tells him more about the hero who followed after him and the land he fought to protect. He clings to the sound of his voice, the warmth of his fingers, the painting he paints of his life…until his brothers come.

And then, finally, finally, the world is opening back up and the sunlight is streaming in and he can drag in thin gasps of fresh air and…and Four is right there, still holding his hand but gazing down at him now. Concern gleams in his multicolored irises.

Sky offers him a weak smile. “‘M okay now, smithy,” he murmurs, every word agony. “T-thanks for…for staying.”

Four’s face splits into a grin. A teary one, but an expression of joy nonetheless. “I’ll always stay. It’s the least I can do for the person who paved the way.”

There is respect in those words, Sky realizes dimly. Respect and something else…A connection, perhaps, that is stronger even than their bond of brotherhood.

He deserves neither.

But as he lets his eyes slip shut, as the voices of his family swell around him and arms lift him with a gentleness that belies their strength…he is glad to know about their place in the timeline. He understands the look in Time’s eye a little better now, when he gazes upon Twilight.

He is proud of his successor too.

[weepingtalecowboy]

Fanfic prompt: during the final fight of windwaker daphnes didn’t antagonize ganondorf

And he , wind and tetra all came to an agreement that he can bring his people to Hyrule (or what remains of them because he was gone for a while)

And he quickly realized that the Gerudo and hylians cooperated enough that now there is nearly no full blood hylians and Gerudo

Because both were people and in enough desperation to throw race separation into the Dead Sea

Because there is no way both could survive by themselves (inspired by wind waker's round but pointy ear art style like they are SO round )

And now he has to drag everyone into Hyrule because he did say all his people would find a safe haven in his kingdom

And all the people are happy to go because living room is getting smaller with the rising population and Hyrule has a ton of land to offer

So many people go to Hyrule and the triforce wearers build the government up again

Tetra still has problems with ganondorf but she is also under no circumstances giving up her freedom to rule

So they just go and drag wind into the position of heir so that ganondorf has to give up the throne to someone she trusts with her entire life

Because she doesn’t want to be Zelda so he can be princess Zelda if he is this obsessed with fulfilling the king’s wish of a new land (she established the new land she did her part already now leave her alone destiny)

She does sometimes appear to throw in her five cents in during discussions

The Rito are happy to make peace but only if their savior who has saved their great Valoo ends up as part of the leading group

Everything’s going well and a small settlement has already been made and trade with the islands is going well

Ganondorf is insisting on reviving cultural traditions of the Gerudo tribe

And phantom hourglass was over in 10 minutes anyway so it still can happen in this story

Then linked universe happens and with the heir of new Hyrule just gone

Everyone freaks out badly because without the “princess” all agreements and alliances would be in danger

And a massive search happens

Everyone is pinching in because the new settlement could fall apart and the people can’t afford to lose their new homes

The Rito who probably consider the hero of the winds the next best thing after sliced bread

Ganondorf has to give the throne to the one who holds the name Zelda to appease the king (who hasn’t left and stayed salty over ganondorf living in his land

And Tetra and her crew are not going to lose their baby crew mate and she also genuinely doesn’t want to be Zelda

So when the chain appears in Wind's Hyrule they immediately get arrested for stealing the heir of new Hyrule

And time and the chain flips out when seeing ganondorf as the king of Hyrule

Because that looks like an uprising in the making

Time and ganondorf officially hate eachother because they remember each other

[mushroomskykid]

Reference sheet for Mushroom, Prince, Beans and Red.

[skyloftian-nutcase]

I literally set myself a reminder to send a submission to your askbox and forgot anyway. 😅 I would've completely missed it if you hadn't reblogged the post again. Thank you.

Honestly, I would like anything with any version of Hyrule and/or Sky. But I'm going to just put a few ideas below for your perusal.

After the events of Elastic Heart, I imagine Sky probably needs to explain what happened to Sun if he's still recovering the next time they go to Skyloft.

Someone should take healthcare Sky to one of those bird garden things where you can feed rainbow lorikeets. I think he'd enjoy it.

I also think healthcare Hyrule deserves to have a fun camping trip with someone out in the woods complete with s'mores and stargazing and hugs.

Hero of Shadows Link also deserves hugs. If I read what you wrote correctly, he literally stabbed himself in the head with a sword to escape Ganon. A nap and some soup would fix him, right?

Anyway, don't forget to drink water and eat food. Have a lovely rest of your day and/or night. ❤

They weren’t entirely sure what the newest gate would bring, but everyone was huddled closely around Sky as they exited.

This new area was… familiar. The forest was filled with something that felt far more alive than anything he could describe, and there were bright colors everywhere. The others seemed a little confused, wondering where they could be. Sky, on the other hand noticed movement and froze, trying to hone in on it. Hyrule noticed he’d stopped and immediately went on the defensive, glaring around at the tree line.

“Look at these mushrooms!” Wind pointed out. “They’re huge!”

“I wonder if they’re edible?” Wild muttered, examining the large iridescently blue fungus.

Sky gasped. “I know where we are! This is Faron Woods!”

By the goddess, they were in his land!

Then that meant what he saw was—

“Hey, little guy,” Four greeted quietly, kneeling. “We’re not going to hurt you.”

“Machi?” Sky questioned, moving towards him. Twilight and Warriors immediately hovered close to him, nearly crowding him as he attempted to reach his friend.

“Easy, Sky,” Warriors warned. “We don’t know for sure—”

“Link!” The little Kikwi shouted as he emerged from the brush. “Oh, you’re back! We were all wondering if you were okay.”

Sky smiled, tilting his head to the side as he crouched. His body trembled a little at the position, and just as he tried to speak to reassure his little friend, his knees nearly gave out. He gasped a little, but Twilight and Warriors caught him by either arm, easing him to the ground.

Time was kneeling in front of him in an instant. “Are you alright?”

Sky felt himself leaning away from the man, somewhat exasperated and more than a little overwhelmed with everyone’s attention. “I-I’m okay, don’t worry. My legs just got a little tired.”

He knew he shouldn’t be so caught off guard by everyone’s reactions. He, well, had died a few days ago. Briefly. Before Hyrule had revived him with the Triforce.

Goddess, that entire situation had been a mess. But he…

He sighed. He was still trying to reconcile what had happened. It wasn’t a surprise that everyone else was too. He just wasn’t used to so much scrutiny - he hadn’t been this overcrowded since he’d nearly died after his initial adventure.

Huh. There seems to be a pattern there.

He ignored that thought.

Oh Hylia. Oh, Hylia. Zelda!

His heart fluttered, singing with worry and relief, and he shot to his feet, catching his brothers-in-arms off guard. Legend gave some kind of scolding remark, warning him not to exert himself too much, but he ignored all of them, rushing through the woods. He knew his way from here, and perhaps—

The foundations of their little settlement was within sight after a few minutes, and Sky was so close when his body finally gave out.

He hit the dirt hard, groaning a little, before he was instantly surrounded by the others.

“Sky, are you okay?” Wind asked worriedly.

“Sky, I said don’t push yourself, why are you running, you suck at running—” Legend snapped.

Twilight’s voice was next. “Here, take it easy, I’ll help you sit up, okay?”

Sky bit back his annoyance. He was tired and he wanted to see Zelda, but his brothers had a reason to worry. He had no right to snap at them for looking out for him, even if his nerves were fraying. He let Twilight help him sit up, he let Wild hold him steady, smelling the spices the teenager used to cook breakfast. He closed his eyes to block out some of the—everything going on around him as his mind filled with the noise everyone was making.

Four pat his back. ��I see a settlement up ahead. Sky, is it one you know?”

Sky nodded, trying to catch his breath, eyes remaining closed.

He felt Twilight’s arms move around him, readying to carry him, and he scrambled out of the hold. “I’m okay! I’m okay. I promise.”

Time watched him, eye discerning, arms crossed. Sky shriveled under the look a little, but he didn’t back down.

Hyrule, on the other hand, looped an arm around his. “He said he’s fine, let’s go! We have somewhere new to explore!”

Sky smiled at the adventurer, thanking him with a little nod as Hyrule dragged him along. The hold was clearly a protective one as well, but it was less… overbearing. Hyrule wasn’t a very contact oriented person anyway.

It was a testament to how paranoid they all were about Sky’s well-being, honestly. He tried not to feel guilty about it.

With Hyrule’s help, Sky made his way into the settlement without too much effort.

It didn’t take long for him to be noticed.

“Stand back! Who—LINK!”

Sky held an arm out, trying to stop the onslaught, but it was too late. “Groose, wait—”

He was immediately grabbed by the shoulders, manhandled out of Hyrule’s hold, and shaken vigorously while his friend excitedly greeted him. His addled mind half expected some kind of protest from the others, but even his friend recognized that he was ready to collapse as the world spun around him.

“Link, what’s wrong? You look almost as battered as you did after that one fight with the ugly monster—” Groose noted before cutting himself off and narrowing his eyes scrutinously. “Are you hurt?”

“I’m fine,” he mumbled, placing his hands over Groose’s to try and orient himself, but he had no time to do so before someone else had slammed into him, pulling him into a bone crushing hug.

A gentle scent of feathers, sweet soap, and steel filled his nostrils, with the slightest hint of—

“Zelda,” he whispered shakily, closing his eyes and melting into her arms.

The pair slid to the ground together gently, Zelda guiding the descent, until they were kneeling and pulled so close together he could hardly breathe.

Goddess he’d missed her.

He fluttered his eyelashes open, seeing the sunlight caught in her hair, seeing her looking down at him with eyes filled with worry and relief. She smiled when they made eye contact, and the two moved towards each other together to gently kiss. Sky felt tears sting in his eyes at the touch, the familiar sensation, the love poured through it.

He leaned against her, sighing in relief after they pulled away, letting her just hold him, wanting nothing more than to just hold her in return.

Except Zelda was just as paranoid as Groose. “Link, you’re trembling, what’s wrong?”

Sky sighed heavily. “I’m just happy to see you.”

She poked him on the chest. Hard. “What are you hiding, sleepyhead?”

He felt her jolt a little, startling him into action and sitting up. She had just noticed the others, watching them a little warily, her hold on Sky tightening.

“And who are you guys supposed to be?” Groose demanded, sword already drawn. “If we wanted a carnival we would’ve asked Beedle. And where the heck did you come from?”

“They’re my friends,” Sky supplied with mild amusement.

“Beedle’s here too?” Wild asked, incredulous. “How in the world does that man get everywhere?”

“I don’t think it’s the same one, buddy,” Twilight whispered.

“Not unless he knows poetry,” Sky noted with a tired laugh. Then he looked at his fellow Skyloftians. “Guys, these are my brothers-in-arms. They’re…”

Oh, no. Explaining it would immediately tip Zelda off. He fumbled, trying to find the right words. “They’re, ah, knights from other eras of this land’s history.”

Legend scoffed. “I’m not a knight.”

Twilight huffed in agreement.

Sky frowned at them. Work with me, will you?

“I got knighted?” Wind asked excitedly. “Haha, nice!”

Sky sighed heavily, burying his face in his hand.

“We all share the same destiny,” Time tried to explain instead. “We’re all h—”

“Heroic men!” Sky interrupted with a clap of his hands. “Wonderful, truly heroic men and I am honored to travel with them. We’re investigating those dark gates together. They appeared in their worlds too.”

Groose was immediately curious, asking a million questions of the group.

Zelda, on the other hand, only looked at Sky.

“Link,” she said quietly. “What are you hiding?”

Sky bit his lip. “I’m not—”

“What’s wrong?” She pressed, eyebrows pinching together in worry.

“Nothing,” Sky insisted gently, reassuringly, willing all his love into it as he hugged her again. He didn’t want to worry her, please not her. “I’m okay, I promise.”

He knew his best friend too well, though. She’d caught on that something was off, and she would not let it go. She watched him, her expression shifting from worry to something else. Before their adventure, it had been a discerning and somewhat exasperated tenacity that would push him to discuss whatever he was hiding.

These days, it felt far more… intense. Piercing, knowing beyond all capacity, otherworldly. It was never threatening or scary, but it was definitely… unsettling.

But it was Zelda. She could never unsettle him. She couldn’t.

Sighing, Sky knew better than to continue the fight. “I… made a bad choice. It led to bad consequences. But I… please, Zelda, I… I don’t want to talk about it right now. I just… am tired. And… it’s a lot to talk about.”

The goddess receded from her eyes, and only his friend remained, worried and supportive. Zelda sighed a little, holding him close. “Well, let’s get you up to Skyloft. We can help you better there.”

Sky smiled, feeling her silky hair slide across his cheek as she moved to kiss him again. He wouldn’t argue over the fussing - he’d endure anything to spend time with his beloved.

[bokettochild]

Points at Wars: You get to be a dad!

Points at Legend: You get to be a dad!

Points at Sky: You get to have a dad!

Them: at........ what cost?

Me: EVERYTHING! Mwahahahahahahaha!!!!!!

[sapphicseasapphire]

It is said that hundreds of thousands of years ago, the Goddess Hylia lost her battle against an unrelenting evil.

Okay, well, lost isn’t exactly the right word, but she definitely didn’t win- just bought herself some time. After a battle that devastated the Surface, Hylia failed to kill the Demon King but managed to seal him away. And while peace befell her sacred land, she knew it would not last. It would take thousands of years for that seal to fail- an eternity for the inhabitants of her realm, but a blink of an eye for a Goddess such as herself.

If she couldn’t kill Demise this time around, the chances of her besting him they next time they clashed were slim to none.

Gods can’t kill Gods.

Hylia knew that in order to finish the battle once and for all, she would have to utilize the great power of the Triforce. The artifact, created by her sisters, was never meant to be wielded by deities, lest its ultimate power overwhelm them. No, only mortals- mortals with a worthy spirit- can hone its power into a single wish.

If Hylia had any hope of slaying the Demon King once and for all, she’d have to sacrifice her divinity and become one of the very mortals she was tasked with protecting.

With so little time to prepare, she hid the Triforce away inside of a temple and gathered all of her people inside. She tasked them with protecting the sacred power, keeping it safe until the time came that she would use it. And then, to ensure the safety of her little Hylians and the Triforce alike, she mustered her strength for the last time and sent her temple and the surrounding earth into the sky. They’d be far out of reach of the demons and monsters below, up above the clouds where the sun would shine on their faces and the wind would ruffle their hair. They’d never have to fear again- the only threat would be falling from such a height.

But Hylia had a plan for that, as well. She split her Hylians’ souls into halves, blessing them with a permanent protector in the shape of a godly bird. These birds, bonded forever to her people, would shield them from evil and prevent them from falling from the island of floating rocks. These birds would eventually become known as Loftwings, sacred gifts from the Goddess.

Still, Hylia was not finished. For a battle against the Demon King would be ugly and devastating- Demise did not fight fair- and the Goddess had to be prepared for every counter he could make. Firstly, she covered the sky with a barrier of clouds to hide away her precious Hylians and the sacred power. She focused her power into three wellsprings so when she is reborn, all she would have to do is meditate in the clear water to regain her memories and awaken the Goddess within. She spent weeks creating a soul for her mortal vessel. She called her Zelda.

And then, Hylia created a failsafe of sorts. A plan B, in case something went wrong that Hylia herself could not fix. Alongside the soul of Zelda, she went to work creating another. One with a strong enough spirit that, with tempering, would be able to wield the full Triforce. One who she could rely on of it all went wrong.

She called him Link.

Lastly, Hylia crafted a sword with the power to defeat such an evil as Demise. The spirit inside was blessed with infinite knowledge and, once tempered, would be an asset to her Chosen. After laying the sword to rest in the heart of a statue of herself, Hylia faded. Having done all of the preparation, all that she could do now was wait.

. . .

Thousands of years later, on a peaceful island in the sky, two special souls were born. Each of them split in two, just like the others, one half creating a Hylian and the other half creating a Loftwing. They grew together, just as Hylia intended.

Link, her Chosen Hero, was oddly soft. He was kind and gentle and a little bit of a pushover. The kid spend long hours of the day either dozing or flying with his Loftwing, he was bullied and didn’t stand up for himself, he rarely spoke at all.

It would take a lot of work to make him the Hero that Hylia required.

Zelda, on the other hand, was perfect. Hylia’s spirit rested within, but no one was the wiser. She was a strong personality, bossy but kind. Her smile could light up a whole room. She was confident and empathetic: where Link lacked the capacity to stand up for himself, Zelda always spoke out. When Link slept in, Zelda woke him in time for class. When Link was lost in his thoughts, mindlessly soaring through the air, Zelda always reminded him to come home before the sun set.

Truly, the Hero came to depend on Zelda. And she loved him.

And then she was stolen away.

All was not going as planned. Immediately after Zelda was stolen from her perch above the clouds, the failsafe was activated and the spirit of the Goddess Sword awoke. Link, wielding the blade, fearlessly dove through the parted clouds in search of his dear Zelda.

Anyone would be shocked by the transformation of the child. While he remained kind and thoughtful, he hardened during his divine quest. His skill with the blade grew exponentially, his body and his mind strengthened, and he had the courage to do whatever was asked of him.

But still, as Zelda worked to recover her memories of Hylia, Link was not yet ready to fight in her stead.

In order to reach his dearest friend, he had to temper his sword along with his spirit. He did this by completing the Silent Realm trails put in place by the Golden Three. Farore’s honed his courage, Nayru’s strengthened his wisdom, and Din’s tested his power.

He completed them without complaint, desperate to see his Zelda again.

He had no idea how short their reunion would be.

Zelda, his best friend, the love of his life, the person who he risked everything for, had revealed their roles in the Gods’ divine game. That she was none other than Hylia herself. And that… that she had used him.

And still, it wasn’t over. He could not yet wield the Triforce.

There was one more Silent Realm that he had to complete: Hylia’s own. The Goddess’s Silent Realm was the hardest of all of them. Not because of its technical difficulty, but because it took Link’s home- his safe space- and warped it. Turned it against him. This Silent Realm’s purpose was not to test his virtues, but to forge the Hero’s Spirit. To make him into something more, more powerful, more courageous, more wise. It would take all the work he’d done thus far and make change his spirit permenantly.

It took him ages to complete Hylia’s final trail.

And when he did, it wasn’t just his spirit that was changed.

You see, one cannot strengthen their spirit when their soul is split in half. In order to become Hylia’s perfect weapon, Link’s soul had fused back together. He emerged from the trail with a new body, a new mind, a new him. The most notable change was the massive crimson wings sprouting from his upper back. The curled tail and fan of red feathers at his lower back.

But much had changed under the surface as well. He was no longer Link. And he wasn’t Aepon either. He has all of their memories, all of their thoughts, all of them, but he was someone entirely new. He was himself, and he felt complete in a way he never had before.

As Link and as Aepon, he always felt a hollowness that he could not explain. In fact, he didn’t even realize he felt it until it was gone. After his fusion, he feels whole. There’s a fullness in his chest, a peace in his mind, that were not there before.

He was not Link. He was not Aepon.

He decided to call himself Sky.

He finished his divine quest, he made it through Sky Keep and wished upon the Triforce. He rushed to the Sealed Temple to hold Zelda when she woke. He defeated Ghirahim and his monsters and the God of Evil and Hatred when Hylia’s plan went awry.

He had finally done it; he had become Hylia’s Chosen Hero. He’s just… a little different now.

. . .

Some notes!

• When Sky is first formed, he’s so clumsy. Link had never had wings before and Aepon’s never had a human body before. So maneuvering around his very difficult. Those wings are heavy! His balance is off for days.

• Everything that Link learned, Sky knows. He’s an excellent swordsman, a musician, and an artist. He’s just as welcoming and humble and soft as Link used to be. Everything that Aepon learned, Sky knows. He grew wings and instantly already knew out to fly, he can speak to birds (when I say he can speak to birds, I mean this man chirps), and he can do those cool spiral attacks in the air. He’s just as proud and loving and fierce as Aepon used to be.

• He is NOT like Four. While he is two separate parts made whole, there are no Link thoughts. No Aepon thoughts. Just Sky thoughts. It’s very confusing in his head, trying to sort through two separate memories of the same moment, but Sky tries to focus more on the present than the past.

• Kind of bouncing off of that last one, Sky doesn’t know how to talk about himself before his fusion. He often has a hard time differentiating between the two perspectives as he tells stories, which makes things confusing for everyone. So he just… doesn’t.

• There is definitely some grief in k owing you’ve changed so much that you’re unrecognizable. The part of him that remembers being Link misses the feeling of hugging his Loftwing or- oh I don’t know- FITTING THROUGH DOORS. The part that remembers being Aepon misses the weight of his Hylian on his back, misses the freedom of the open air. Sky harbors these feelings but doesn’t quite know how to express them.

• Those first few days after his quest are all about self discovery. It makes Sky VERY uncomfortable to be called ‘Link,’ and his friends do that quite often by accident. And while Sky is trying to figure out who he is, they’re all mourning the loss of their friend.

• SO SOFT!!! He’s a hugger and his wings are SO WARM. He’s so kind and gentle but also literally killed a God so don’t cross him. (My favorite character traits)

• He can’t fit into shirts anymore- no way he’s fitting anything over his shoulders- and his Sailcloth is rendered useless now that he has wings. But he can’t bear to not use it anymore, so he wraps it around his chest to cover himself. Zelda helps him the first few times as he’s still learning coordination of his wings.

• Flying is SO important to him. I cannot stress this enough. He spends like half the day in the air.

• Shoes are a big no. It’s a huge sensory issue for his bird brain. But that’s okay because in theory, his feet barely touch the ground.

• BIRD BOY BIRD BOY BIRD BOY BIRD BOY

• He’s my favorite!! I have so much more to say about him but this is long enough so I’ll shut up for now! But there will definitely be more!

Original Character Sheets!

Wild’s Origin!

Time’s Origin!

[egginfroggin]

Yeeting both Ingo and Emmet into Hisui and having them get taken in by the Pearl Clan and Diamond Clan, respectively, is fun, but what if they were both taken by the Pearl Clan.

And then became Lady Sneasler's Wardens (coughadoptedkidscough).

And proceeded to tell absolutely nobody that there were two of them.

As far as anybody who isn't from the Pearl Clan or who hasn't been introduced to the twins by Irida -- the Responsible One -- knows, Lady Sneasler has a really weird Warden named Emmet who just abruptly swaps coats and demeanors seemingly arbitrarily.

And is terrifyingly good at getting around the Highlands quickly.

Honestly.

It's almost like he's in two places at once, sometimes.

Yeah, they went off to the Highlands and one of them (probably Emmet) was like, "Hey what if we just didn't tell anyone that there's two of us," and the other (probably Ingo) was like, "That's a horrible idea. I love it. Let's do it."

The player character knows that there's two of them because Irida herself introduced Ingo or Emmet as one of Lady Sneasler's Wardens, so the player character was basically directly informed of the fact that there's two of them.

Nobody else is aware of this.

Warden Emmet is just a mysterious cryptid lurking around the Coronet Highlands, and everyone is very confused by him. And maybe a little afraid.

Except for Melli, Melli is just exasperated with him. As usual.

And due to the distance between the Highlands, the Pearl Settlement (full of people who know) and the rest of Hisui (the people who don't know), it never really gets properly stated that there are two identical Wardens running around the Highlands. Irida just thinks that people talk about Emmet a lot and chalks it up to him maybe being the weirder of the two. Or maybe Ingo's shy, or something. Who knows.

Either way, they get away with it for years.

[yuhlmaooo]

as promised here's rest of the voice headcanons of the linked universe links!!

you can find the first four here^

[randomwriteronline]

(inspired by this post by @byz-was-here)

So maybe he had been a little too brash.

Not the first time Gresh had gotten that yelled at him, though Vastus was usually physically present instead of just in his head.

The point being, his attempt at sneaking into the terrifyingly enormous robot trying to punch the life out of the rickety body Mata Nui was struggling to pilot had been a success, and after what had felt like hours climbing as fast as he could up a relatively narrow tunnel he had at last emerged onto what had appeared to be some kind of island swarmed with bipedal metallic lizards of sorts brandishing spears.

Only one problem left on his plan's path now: he had no idea what the next step of said plan was.

One of the lizards opened its yellow skull into slices, hissing horrendously at him with what seemed like either a weirdly thick tongue or one of those slugs that tasted like rusted copper that they ate in Tajun, and pointed the end of its weapon at him as it crackled menacingly with an immense charge.

The young Glatorian panicked.

Before he could think of responding in any other way he joined his blades and thrusted them forward as hard as he could: a typhoon arose from them in the matter of a second, sweeping within itself the army of armored lizards. They struggled and writhed within the winds in a desperate attempt at freeing themselves from its pull, but could do nothing as their heads were yanked open and the slugs (they had to be slugs, because if those had been tongues it would have been so, so much worse) were almost all torn apart by the centripetal force, those spared from the gruesome fate ending up launched towards the impossibly high sky-like ceiling.

Gresh struggled to undo the destructive phenomenon before he fully lost control of it. As he heaved after at last dividing his weapons, he jolted upright again when a strange sound suddenly stopped not too far away from him. Nobody was around him anymore, and yet the noise was close, so close - almost...

He jerked his head upwards.

The slugs and the lizards had been weird, by all means - they had been what he might have expected from Kiina's idea of life on other planets: properly alien, properly other, properly just comprehensible enough to remind him of vague things that made no sense when presented in that shape and function.

Yet this, for all the ways it should have looked somewhat familiar, might have been the strangest being he'd ever seen in his life.

The humanoid figure clad in silver and red, floating above him thanks to rockets that seemed welded into its shoulders, looked back at him with glowing eyes that clearly mirrored his opinion.

"Now what in Mata Nui's name are you meant to be?" it sputtered at him without meaning to.

Its voice was almost too normal for its mechanical appearance - it still rumbled with melodies only possibly sung by machinery in-between the whistling breaths leaving and entering its frame like steam from a locomotive, but based on the being's looks hearing it pronounce such clear words instead of hisses, clunks, and revving growls was nonetheless quite destabilizing. It carried a weirdly androgynous quality within its deep pitch that made it impossible to understand if whoever had made it could have been envisioning it as female or otherwise, not helped by the martial image its armor projected without really giving its body a distinctively gendered shape. It was armed - the spinning blades it wielded seemed to be fused into one hand, what appeared to be a mini-sized cannon held into the other, and neither resembled any weapon the young Glatorian had ever seen - yet it appeared much more concerned with assessing the situation than attacking.

Gresh, busy as he was having several moments all at once, took in that pile of information and promptly forgot to think about it.

"I KNOW HIM!" he instead shouted way too loudly, pointing a blade at it without really reflecting on how that might have looked. "I KNOW HIM, HE'S A FRIEND!"

The being stumbled back a little in a defensive pose: "Mata Nui?" it asked, incredulous: "You are a friend to the Great Spirit?"

"YES, I KNOW HIM, HE GAVE ME THE WIND THING!" the young Glatorian continued to yell, now smacking together his weapons to better explain what his not particularly stellar choices in lexicon were struggling to convey by themselves before he pointed back at where he'd come from: "HE'S OUTSIDE FIGHTING THE ROBOT AND ALL! I NEED TO HELP HIM!"

"Fighting the what?"

"THE ROBOT! THE HUGE - THE BIG ROBOT, THE BIG ONE, THIS ONE, IT'S HUGE - I NEED TO FIND THE HEAD AND MAYBE KILL IT, HIM, THEM? MAYBE? MAYBE? POSSIBLY? I NEED TO HELP AND IT'S A BIG ROBOT AND I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO BUT I SHOULD PROBABLY GET TO THE HEAD OF THE ROBOT, THIS ONE, THE ROBOT - THIS ONE, THE HEAD, I NEED TO GET TO THE HEAD!"

He was not making any sense, but in his defense he was probably high on adrenaline.

The floating being gawked at him briefly. In a smooth motion it landed closer to him, looking him up and down with its brilliant pink eyes as it tried to make heads or tails of him without succeeding; Gresh charged at it to try explaining better and distractedly noticed there was flesh within the mechanical limbs.

"HE'S OUTSIDE," he continued just as loud - making the poor thing recoil as it did its best to keep him a little further away before he fried its audio receptors, "HE'S OUTSIDE AND THE PROBLEM IS IN HERE BECAUSE THERE'S A GUY IN THE BRAIN - HIS BROTHER I THINK? - AND IF I GET TO THE BRAIN MAYBE I CAN STAB HIM? MAYBE? PROBABLY? MAYBE? MA--"

"I can hear you," the being grimaced, stern tone imposing some peace and quiet onto the young warrior. "What is your name?"

"GRESH."

"Please quiet down."

"EVERYBODY I KNOW IS CURRENTLY AT THE MERCY OF TWO HUGE ROBOTS RIGHT NOW AND I NEED TO GET TO THE BRAIN OF THIS ONE TO--"

The hand was not as rough as he would have imagined - what with being made of metal and all - and the way it clumsily clamped around his mouth to very quickly and very kindly shut him up reminded him so much of Tarix that his furiously anxious body relaxed all at once, leaving him to look wide eyed into the dark sockets of a crimson helmet housing a pair of miniature yellow stars.

"You were sent by the Great Spirit himself?" the being asked. Despite currently being seconds away from squeezing its cheeks in that annoying way that older siblings tend to do, its tone was quiet with the sort of reverence reserved for gods.

Gresh pulled its palm from his mouth without encountering opposition: "I don't think he knows I'm here," he confessed, "But he's struggling out there, and I want to help him."

His interlocutor mulled over his words thoughtfully.

Its shining eyes took in the young Glatorian's entire frame, the slight change in them muttering its doubts without needing any words - but what could be a creature so strange, made of skin and clad in metal and bone, with a voice laid naked against the absence of its innate mechanical song, holding within such frail hands of flesh and fake phalanxes the same power as a missing brother of Air, talking of things beyond the universe itself, of a battle none knew their god was waging at that very moment, if not a desperate lending hand Mata Nui sent to guide his people in a victory against his cunning usurper?

When at last it looked back into Gresh's beaded pupils, it had taken its decision.

"The enemy is in the brain," it repeated.

The Lebori nodded feverishly: "The head! I think - he should be, right? It's the most important part, all the thoughts and nerves come from it, if you shut down the brain then the whole thing falls down and fails, right?"

A flash of understanding passed through the being's unmoving features: "Metru Nui!" it exclaimed as if remembering something.

"Yes! I think! Probably. If it's in the head then probably."

"We're a long way from there, but we could..." it ran a few quick calculations, producing a sound much like fat sizzling on a slab of lava-heated rock: "How long can Mata Nui last in his condition?"

"From what I've figured out of him I think he'll try to hold on until he's pummelled into scrap."

"Then we should try to be quicker than that."

Without much more preamble the being grabbed Gresh like a sack of flour, hefted him up in the air (he noticed only then how significantly shorter compared to it he was), secured his arms around its neck and shoulders with a practiced ease as the rockets of its armor shifted in a seamless manner to accomodate his passenger and provide the added firepower needed for carrying two people through the air, and got ready for take off as the poor kid scrambled to wrap around it before getting blasted off.

"Huh," it noted with genuine surprise, briefly forgetting their situation: "You're lighter than a Matoran. Are you missing any parts?"

"I'm eating plenty!" Gresh bit back.

A second later he was flying on the back of a mechanical creature with muscle peeking through the gaps of its armor, and the adrenaline washed away his coherent thoughts again.

-

Teridax felt miserable.

He supposed having an entire forty-thousand-feet tall body worth of various cells and microbes and the such viciously, actively and purposefully fighting against his consciousness would have had that sort of effect on just about anyone.

The gigantic robot piloted by a false god trying with all of its dwindling might to kick his jaw in also wasn't helping.

The second problem, however, could be dealt with by punching it into a sobbing heap of mangled rusted limbs begging for mercy with enough determination and brute force; the first one could not.

It required concentration - a very valuable asset currently being used to counter Mata Nui in his ugly runt of a spare frame he'd found in the first trash can of this horrid planet, thus distracting him from unleashing a strong enough counterattack across his organism to stop the squirming little pests from rebelling against him.

So yes, he was cross enough already.

And now he was getting a migraine.

He wondered briefly if fighting someone his own size (or, well... almost his own size, he nearly chuckled out loud to himself as he took a moment to bask once more of the not insignificant height difference between them) wasn't a waste of time. After all, Mata Nui had mentioned something about the safety of those insignificant beasts hurriedly scuttling away from their scuffle: certainly he would have been quite distraught if a careless swipe of his colossal hand caused a couple thousand casualties - maybe enough to be easily toppled and overpowered as he despaired over the loss of so many useless ants...

He raised his palm in the direction of their bothersome scampering, doing his best to place at least some of his power into it as his headache slowly worsened to a nearly unbearable degree.

How much of an increase in gravity would have been needed to flatten them all at once?

They were so small... Maybe just...

"JUNGLE SQUIRREL!" a voice that was not his screamed in his head.

What?

What the fuck?

What was that?

A strong wind arose, but not across Bara Magna.

In the span of a moment Teridax found himself ripped away from the middle of a titanic fight back in his blasted gaseous form as it was slammed and spread into a fog against one of the walls of the Core Processor. Disoriented, bleary, furious beyond belief, he came to his senses just in time to see rushing amongst the machinery Tahu, Takanuva, and - and a short, green, Toa-like, weirdly organic thing that sprinted directly into the control panel of the Great Spirit Robot which had once housed the synthetic soul of Mata Nui.

-

As incomprehensibly terrifying as a pair of colossi duking it out in the middle of the desert was, their size and loudness at the very least allowed much smaller beings to see and hear everything they were doing so that they could make an attempt to move as far away from their hellish battle as possible.

It hadn't been a pretty spectacle so far (few fights like these were), but it had given them more time to move out of harm's way than they would have expected. The escape was going incredibly smoothly, too, which was never how these sorts of things tended to go: neither Zesk nor Vorox had dared coming anywhere near the commotion, which had managed to scare off Bone Hunters and Skrall as well - even as easy a prey as the Agori were at the moment, scattering half directionless into an unclear part of the desert, they were not worth the risk of accidentally getting stepped on by who knows how many tonnes of metal.

The biggest causes of concern other than avoiding collateral damage were thus reduced to two: making sure everybody was accounted for as they left, and whether or not Mata Nui was winning.

Ackar, to the dismay of his blood pressure, was having serious trouble juggling his attention between them.

Tarix yanked him back to attention by his prosthetic arm, causing the Tapyri to hiss in pain: "What's the point of asking me questions if you don't listen to my answer?!"

"I'm sorry," he growled back, "A friend of mine is fighting for his life right now, Great Beings forbid I'm a little worried for him!"

"So are we!"

"I don't see you trying to dodge the fists of a giant robot right now!"

"Because I'm trying to get the slow walkers out of its space so they won't have to dodge its colossal debris!"

"As entertaining as your yelling is, I think we have bigger slugs to fry," Gelu interrupted them in a flat tone. Head caught in the crook of the Koniri's elbow, Berix squirmed and pushed as he desperately tried to regain the sweet taste of freedom only to get squeezed a little tighter. "Somebody tried to go back to the crux of the struggle."

The other two Glatorian abandoned all tension between them to give the young Gaquri a suffering disappointed look, filled with the kind of tiredness that only an adopted father and the kindly man who puts out carved pumpkins for the mangy were-possum creature that skitters around the edges of his property to feed off of every now and then could muster; coherently, Berix replied with an inarticulate mumbling whine too low in volume and high in pitch to be intelligible that was meant to be an apology.

He was very lucky Kiina was not present, or she would have screamed his scales off.

Evidently he wasn't that lucky, because Kiina materialized on her chariot seconds later with Vastus in tow.

"Most of the oldest, youngest and motion-impared are already being moved on vehicles to a safer cave system a few Lebori knew," she informed the small group urgently as the other dismounted from the back of her ride with a worried look on his face.

Getting no answer, she searched their faces for an inkling of what they were thinking and landed squarely on her younger brother's: the immediate rage that took over her features made him scramble harder to evade Gelu's grip and her inevitable wrath all at once, eventually ending up falling right on his ass in the sand when the Koniri let go without warning.

"YOU." Kiina thundered while he scuttled away behind the other Glatorian: "WHAT IN PLUDE DID YOU DO NOW?!"

"Nothing!" he shrieked back, clinging to the white armored leg even as it tried to shake him off. "Gresh and I thought we could have helped if we got in maybe, you know, since it's a machine and so I could have messed up its wiring or something like that so it could have fallen over and the height advantage could have--"

"Wait - wait, Gresh?" Tarix paled. He turned to his wife: "He was with you, right? With you two, further down?"

Vastus replied with an equally terrified face: "I thought he was down here with you," he replied softly as horror built into his voice, "He insisted in covering our backs, he promised he wouldn't have done anything stupid..."

Ackar sunk his fingers into his eyelids with a groan, Kiina following suit in a nearly identical fashion.

The kids needed a hobby.

Any hobby.

Just as long as it kept them away from pulling shit like this.

If they got him back in one piece, they were going to beat his ass.

An ear-piercing sound that was far too close to a pained lament shook them out of their collective mixture of fear, worry and well-deserved rage, rattling the sky alongside with them.

"Fuckin' Quartz Peaks!" Gelu exclaimed.

His eyes were fixed on the gargantuan figure stumbling back into the dunes on suddenly unsteady legs, leaning forward as it clutched its head in anguish and curled upon itself to stave off the pain clearly rippling through it - shoulders so low that they were almost at the same height as the prototype robot's, which instead stood tall despite the strain placed upon it.

Had Mata Nui dealt a decisive blow as they weren't looking?

But the collision should have caused something akin to a sonic boom, and the mechanical body's stance was just as surprised at the change in its opponent's demeanor as the spectators of their fight...

Then suddenly, the Great Spirit Robot spoke as it had done before.

"My head hurts," it said, with a strangled voice that was not the one that had taunted its adversary so mercilessly until now.

The fraction of a second passed.

A green bolt shot through the golden sand in the fight's direction.

Berix tried to follow, but Tarix latched onto him like a lifeline.

"GRESH!" Vastus shouted as he ran as hard as he could, and Ackar realized his heart was beating far too loud in his ears.

He turned to the other Glatorian, skin pasty and spent like that of a dead body: "Tarix, Gelu, you keep everybody going, as far as you can," he ordered. For a second he was struck by a gross sense of familiarity that almost cut off his breath; some part of him grabbed the resurfacing memories of the Core War and beat them back into the hole he'd buried them until he could almost feel the blood on his knuckles. "Get to those caves, make sure nobody is left behind, keep them all in place until you're certain the coast is clear. Berix, don't move from either of them. Kiina, you're with me, I can't run that fast. Are we good?"

All four nodded, and the chariot's engine revved urgently as he jumped upon its rickety frame.

"You'll better get my nephew back, Tapyri," his once enemy hollered before they could speed off into the desert, with a tone closer to a plea than a threat or a joke.

"Who do you take me for, Gaquri?" Ackar shouted right back: "He's my nephew too!"

Tarix watched him and Kiina drive off as fast as the vehicle allowed; only when they caught up with his wife, still shouting for the young Glatorian as though he could hear that feeble cry from that far away, and scooped the veteran Lebori up with them, did he turn away and rush to take care of the last few stragglers.

-

The prototype creaked pitifully as its enormous hands found the massive elbows of the Great Spirit Robot and struggled to sustain them alongside with everything else that was already putting a strain on its faulty frame.

"Gresh?" Mata Nui whispered, searching for his former body's eyes. "My friend, is that you?"

Through the massive fingers peeked at last a large, glowing iris: upon its dark orange color, so similar to red, laid a whitish beaded line - an attempt at replicating the peculiar shape of a Lebori's pupil on a surface not meant to have any.

"This is too tall," the Great Spirit Robot groaned quietly in a still boyish voice, optics hiding away again before the sense of vertigo became too much.

A tremor overtook its massive frame, threatening to destabilize the prototype robot alongside with it; Mata Nui held onto him a little steadier as he tried desperately to figure out how in the name of the lonely endless vastness of the known and unknown universe the young Glatorian had managed to get himself inside the control panel of the Core Processor of all places.

Even ignoring the fact that he should have gone for the Manual Override Computer instead of putting himself through the immense strain of piloting such a colossal body (although in his defense he may have not known how to operate it or how to recognize it or where to find it - hazy memories of it reminded him that the Great Beings really had placed it horrendously, goodness gracious, so perhaps he had a little too much faith in how effectively Gresh could have located it in the first place), knowing that a physical body was currently governing the Great Spirit Robot was absolutely baffling.

Was this possibility planned? Had anybody considered that one day a bodied being could have needed to take the helm? Were there proper safety measures in place for such a happenstance? Did anybody even stop to consider if it was possible? Did a few dozen thousands years old kid just physically brute force his way into a contraption designed to house immaterial beings and make it work? And hold on, how on Aqua Magna had he shoved Teridax out of it? And actually, now that he thought about it, how in the name of himself had he entered the Robot and gotten all the way to the Core Processor apparently completely on his own?

"How did you do this?" he only asked in the end.

"I went in - in the robot, and there was - we went in the brain, in the, the brain, and we - I threw - Bota Magna sanctissima mentula libera me a malo my body hurts so bad--"

He leaned forward into Mata Nui's embrace, enormous body moaning in pain as long fevers crawled over him.

It must have been an internal infection - it must have meant that those within, the inhabitants he had so carelessly allowed to rot in their own bloodshed, had been fighting back against Teridax.

Had he not been preoccupied with being puzzled out of his wits and helping his friend not succumb to the fever of a lifetime, the former Great Spirit could have been overwhelmed by pride for about an hour, cried himself into unconsciousness for a couple more, spent another pair feeling really bad about them putting so much effort into it when he had ignored them for so long, and experienced a sudden spike in the need to beat the tar out of his fated brother's mask harder than he already had been for a few good minutes.

Fortunately, his mind was fully focused on a variety of other things.

Trying his best to pull Gresh into his arms so that he could better offer him support, he steeled his groaning rusted body and spoke to distract him from the pain: "You are in the Core Processor right now?"

"I - I think, so, yes, I think- I think-"

"You removed Teridax from the controls?"

"I threw - with, with the winds, I yanked him out, 'cause he's - weird, he's weird smoke and all - my legs, my legs--"

"You are not alone with him, are you? Is there someone else in the Core Processor?"

"There- yes, there's Ta, Tahu and Tahu- Taka-Takanuuu, va, Takanuva? Tahu and T-Takanuva, they're - they helped, me, get here, and, and - they're here, they're here too, they'll - I'm in, in safe hands - aren't I?"

Mata Nui's grip around him was wonderfully comforting, and for a moment he felt as though his anguish was a little more bearable: "Safe hands indeed," he heard him speak, voice laden with a wondrous pride that set him at ease: "They are as brave and reckless as you are - and I'm certain they will be able to do the impossible and stave off Teridax, just as you did."

The praise cooled the violent temperature in the young Glatorian's momentary gargantuan body, and as he held onto the otherworlder he at last found the strength to overcome the nausea and pull himself up: despite the terrible aches lighting its every inch on fire, the Great Spirit Robot stood tall once more.

An idea struck Mata Nui as he looked at its orange eyes.

His destiny had been meant to be shared by two bodies and minds of equal strength - but he was stuck in a frame too weak, and the mental strain the task would have put on Gresh risked being too much for him to sustain; and yet, if he had already gotten half of the work done in this rickety thing, and if he continued to maintain his efforts steady as his duty demanded of him, the much larger robot would have expended much less energy, keeping the Glatorian's frail mind and frame safe...

"Gresh," he murmured softly: "How are you feeling?"

"Nauseous," his friend replied truthfully, "But I can - I can manage, I can - it's, not as bad as the- the Skrall in Tajun. I can manage, I can help. I want to help. I want to help."

"I am afraid what I could ask of you might be beyond what you should allow for your safety's sake."

To see such a massive creature of metal tremble fiercely as it did its best to bear its anguish was a frightening spectacle, terrible, unnatural; but Gresh held that heavy body tall and straightened its back as best as he could, and his voice was as steady as they came: "I'll bet I've handled worse."

"Worse than pulling two moons into a planet?"

No answer.

"The robot is equipped to do so without having to physically grasp the satellites."

Gresh wheezed - either in relief, or because something in the Voya Nui area had just exploded hard enough to give him a chance to experience appendicitis again: "Ah," his voice rattled out of him, "Alright. Yes, I can do that, that's feasible."

-

For a striking, minuscule second, it felt a little like a deja-vù.

Nothing was the same - not the location, overflowing with unrecognizable machinery; not the fight, much wilder and cruel in its coreography than a slightly more dangerous game of kohlii than usual; not the spectators, who weren't exactly spectating as Tahu was desperately trying to keep his Hau's shields functional around the three of them while not going blind and Gresh was kneeling completely unresponsive if not catatonic in the sunken spot he had jumped into; not even his opponent, nor himself, although they were still virtually the same beings.

But for a striking, minuscule second, it felt like nothing had changed at all from that confrontation beneath Kini Nui.

Teridax lunged at him with its disgustingly rotten green cloud of a body open like a gaping maw seeking to devour the Toa of Light whole; the gaseous particles scattered briefly as Takanuva swung his spear through them, the arch drawn by the weapon's trajectory producing a blade of light.

The Makuta recomposed himself behind his back in a matter of seconds, spreading to cover the entire wall with his essence. There were no eyes in that clutter of loosely held together atoms, but the Toa could feel them stab right through his armor.

He'd almost been less frightening when he'd had a body.

"I HAVE GROWN TIRED OF YOU!" Teridax's voice boomed through the cramped space, bouncing off of the surrounding machinery with the harshness of a sledgehammer: "THE TIME FOR GAMES IS OVER, LITTLE TOA! I HAVE WELL EXHAUSTED WHATEVER PATIENCE I ONCE MAY HAVE HAD FOR DEALING WITH YOU MISERABLE VERMINS!"

"Sounds like a you problem," Takanuva mumbled in reply through gritted teeth.

The wall of shadow toppled towards him with a long, shrieking whistle, like a faraway bomb on the way to the ground: Tahu had two seconds to shield his eyes before his younger brother's body burst with a blinding flare that would have no doubt brought a weaker being to their knees, but only repelled Teridax back into the corners of the room, divided but not broken, ready to slither back into a plume of horrid olive smoke.

How long was this going to go on for? Keeping his Hau active was slowly starting to wear him down, and in the time Takanuva had been struggling against the Makuta it seemed that absolutely nothing had changed from their predicament.

He would have loved to leap to his aid, but his feet were already singing and nearly melting the metal floor from the stress: if he wanted to get them all safely out of here, fighting wasn't an option.

A strange sound, like a strangled whimpered grunt, prompted him to try his luck and open his eyes again.

Gresh was shaking.

As he still kneeled deadeyed and unresponsive within the pod sunken into the ground, his entire body had suddenly started shivering harshly, spasming as though he was being electrocuted - but nothing appeared to be coming from the walls to provoke such a reaction.

Tahu hurriedly lowered himself towards the strange being while Takanuva continued fending off Teridax: "Gresh!" he called out, reaching for him: "What's wrong?"

His hands found themselves stopped in their tracks by an invisible force just above the being. He tried again, pushing as hard as he could in an attempt to make it through the thick air to no avail as his muscles strained but found no gain all the same. Was this what was affecting the green armored creature? Or had it been like this from the moment he'd jumped in? Then it should have protected Teridax when he'd been swirling within it too, but he'd been blown out of it... Could elemental attacks bypass this invisible barrier?

While the Toa thought furiously how to get him out of there without hurting him, Gresh slowly pulled his head back to look out of his shallow prison with small, jolting motions; he began raising his arms upwards at the same agonizing pace, straining for the open exit just above him.

The struggle tore a strangled whine out of his throat. Takanuva staggered at the sound, and the distraction nearly allowed Teridax to rush through his chest and tear his heartlight away with him - only sending the Toa of Light careening back when the gaseous mass instead collided with the shield Tahu reinforced just in time, saving him from shapeless jaws aching to tear him apart.

"FOOLISH INSECTS!" the Makuta snarled as vicious as a Rahi Nui, "YOU CANNOT STOP ME! YOU CANNOT CHANGE MY DESTINY!"

"It was never your destiny!" Takanuva growled right back: the shadows in the room shifted according to his desire, rendering Teridax heavy enough for him to be hit in full by a blade of light too quick for him to avoid. "You usurped Mata Nui and acted like it was always meant to be!"

Pained hisses turned into a harsh laugh: "DON'T PRETEND YOU CAN UNDERSTAND WHAT HAPPENS AROUND YOU, LITTLE TOA," Teridax mocked him, twisting into a tornado that threatened to rip the whole room to shreds. "THERE ARE THINGS THAT WILL LAY BEYOND YOUR COMPREHENSION FOREVER - AND ONCE THAT THING YOU'VE BROUGHT ALONG WITH YOU COLLAPSES FROM A STRUGGLE IT WAS NEVER MEANT TO FACE, NOTHING WILL KEEP ME FROM TAKING MY RIGHTFUL PLACE AS THE EMBODIMENT OF THIS UNIVERSE AGAIN!"

The young Toa could have said something quippy, or sarcastic, a good line to at least go down with the satisfaction of a glorious comeback; as he was not planning on dying, Takanuva just roared and blasted the brightest light bomb he'd ever made in his face.

Unaware of the immense luminescence above him, Gresh's fingers finally clawed at the edges of the control panel.

Tahu snaked his own hand under the thin fleshy phalanxes as soon as the explosion of light dimmed, elated to discover the force field waning enough in that area to let him actually interact with the other being and immediately trying to leverage him up - although it was easier said than done, considering how little he had to work with.

Maybe it was a stupid move, after Teridax had so blatantly claimed that Gresh was the only thing standing between him and complete control over the universe, but he had his reasons: for one, it certainly wouldn't have been the first time he'd pulled this sort of thing, so whatever reserves he might have had about the situation had likely already been obliterated into fine mist; secondly, he was not going to let a sapient being die between convulsions like this, especially not an emissary and friend of the Great Spirit; and finally, if that ancient talking cloud that was the Makuta thought he or Takanuva wouldn't have jumped in the Control Panel to take over from the poor organic thing even at the cost of sacrificing themselves to keep his gaseous ass from doing any more damage to the entire known world, he was sorely mistaken.

Gresh shook harder in his grasp, but did not budge an inch.

The Toa of Fire willed himself coolheaded as he gritted his teeth: "Come on, come on, don't give up on me..."

A blast of light turned his vision spotty for a few moments, Takanuva's pained groan reaching him only moments later. The shield must have gotten weaker - he turned his focus back on his Hau in full, but the flare of its power flowing once again around his younger brother filled his limbs with molten lead as exhaustion settled into him and suddenly pulling Gresh out felt akin to getting his arms ripped off.

Had using the Vahi been this excruciating, or was he just easily fatigued when forced to balance his attention between two things? Gali would have never had this kind of problem.

Then again, she would not have had a Mask of Shielding either; so he would grit his teeth and bear it, and succeed even if it killed him.

Maybe it was this desperate burst of bravado, maybe it was Takanuva scattering Teridax across the corners of the room again before the Makuta could even get close to him, maybe it was Mata Nui, wherever he was, managing to perceive their thoughts and lending them a blessing of his own: but at last, somehow, inhaling in a horrendously loud gasp, Gresh clutched Tahu's hands tight and tore through the forces keeping him down as he lurched upright on his feet, nearly slamming right in the metallic chest while struggling still against his yet to be quelled tremors.

Before the Toa of Fire could say anything the organic creature was feverishly crawling out of the sunken trap, pushing him to the floor alongside himself and cawing with a panicked voice: "Down! Down!"

Takanuva turned to check on them. His opponent wasted no time ramming into the force shield around him, nearly slamming him into the opposite wall had Tahu not almost dislocated his arm to catch him in time and pull him under himself to protect him.

"I HAVE TOLD YOU, LITTLE TOA!" Teridax howled victoriously as he spread his form to completely sorround the now three overwhelmed beings curled on the pavement, powerless to stop him: "YOUR IDIOTIC RESISTANCE IS MEANINGLESS! YOU CANNOT CHANGE MY DESTINY!"

He dove back into the control panel with a horrifying laugh, filling its every crevice, at last returning to the so very maddeningly empowering feeling of a gigantic body once more regained, subjugated, under his utter control.

Before he even had access to his eyes again he could recognize the fever of rebellion burning through his limbs, the rusted hands holding fast onto his chestplate, the sound of straining machinery now on its last sputtering forces: at last his immense irises burned bright with a vermillion hue, facing the crude prototype features of his brother's furrowed momentary face in the battle he had been so rudely interrupted from finishing.

But just as he was about to taunt him, Mata Nui pushed with all his strength, and his sluggish reflexes did not let him react in time.

-

Vastus screamed.

He screamed until he felt his chest shrivel and implode.

Ackar wrapped his prosthetic arm around his back, pressing him against the chariot with all his might because he knew full well that if he had let go the Lebori would have let himself fall off into the sand, but looked just as pale as the dead while they both watched the Great Spirit Robot slump forward into the smaller titan's hold.

"He's fine!" Kiina barked while she struggled to regain control of the chariot after swerving too hard, covered in cold sweat and gripping the wheel so hard the scales of her knuckles were creaking. "He's fine! Mata Nui wouldn't just--!"

"He must have gotten him out before that," the Tapyri agreed much more softly, "He wouldn't have let him come to harm."

Vastus heard them both only faintly. His eyes were stuck on the enormous body with a hole in the back of its head that just moments ago had been speaking with his nephew's voice.

"Your friend better pray to the Great Beings Gresh hasn't come to harm," he hissed, feathers raised and bristling with furious premature grief, pupils constricted so tight it hurt, as he watched the rusted colossus lay its enormous bretheren to the ground slowly, carefully: "Because no fucking robot the size of a mountain will keep me from dismantling him with my bare hands if it's the last thing I do in my miserable life."

-

Takanuva blinked. Then he blinked again two more times, just to make sure his eyes were open, as the red shield faded away.

He flexed his fingers in the dark, trying his luck against the shadows sorrounding the three of them to create a little mote of light... Which formed instantaneously, without encountering any trouble or opposition whatsoever.

A good sign. Puzzling, but pretty good.

He turned his head to look around, feeling Tahu's protective hold around him weaken to allow him to properly take in the room and search for... For what? He wasn't really sure. He felt a little dizzy.

Little seemed to have changed in the wake of Teridax returning in control and the subsequent earth-rending rattle that had overtaken the whole chamber for a terrifying second. The walls were still standing, and with them all their machinery as well; everything was however eerily dark and silent, the hushed buzzes now absent, the faint gleams that all together had made up the room's lightsource snuffed out. Even the small chasm the Makuta had disappeared into was unusually quiet and dim.

"Are you both alright?" his brother asked, still so concerned that he hadn't had the time to catch his breath.

"Yeah," Takanuva replied distractedly: "Yeah, I'm fine. Gresh?"

Faceplanted on the floor and making no movement whatsoever, the organic being responded with a grunt that could have been considered affirmative. Tahu carefully lifted his head to check on him a little better while his younger sibling continued to look around, convinced something was off: beaded pupils struggled to peek through heavy eyelids fighting to stay open.

The Toa of Fire turned the poor thing face up, hoping he could be a bit more comfortable: "You look like you got in a fight with a Rahi Nui," he grimaced.

Gresh's mouth twitched spasmodically for a moment or two: "Drippin'," he mumbled back at him.

"What?"

"Sumfin's drippin'," he slurred again, and craned his neck in mild discomfort as he whined: "Oh, tha's so annoyin'..."

"Where do you hear dripping of all things?" Takanuva argued.

"Wha'y' mean, can'y' hear i'? 's loud 's all Plude..."

"In all fairness Takanuva is not known for being too keen in that sense," Tahu said, completely ignoring the pointed look the Toa of Light immediately shot him, "But I can't hear anything either."

"D'y' go' ears full of w'rms? 's blowin' my head op'n, 's righ' 'here!..." the young being bemoaned as he struggled to raise his weak unstable hand to point somewhere right next to them - in fact, bringing their attention back to the shallow chamber that had housed him mere seconds ago.

The small mote of light illuminated what appeared to be a slowly growing puddle of sickly greenish liquid slowly expanding across the metal floor, half caught in the depressions left by Tahu's smoldering feet where they had nearly melted the pavement. A drop landed into it at that moment with a sad little splash: both Toa followed its path in reverse to find its source up, up, on the ceiling...

... Until their gazes sat on a wide wet stain splattered across metallic panels, likely the product of a gas condensed far too high, of a color concerningly similar to antidermis.

Just to be safe, they slowly crawled away from the puddle.

You could never trust Teridax to consistently stay dead, after all.

They picked themselves up in a sudden hurry to leave. When Gresh remained unmoving on the floor, only twitching and groaning at the stray droplets that sometimes fell, Takanuva eyed him with a little bit of worry: "Are you ok? Do you need help?"

"Gimme a sec'nd," the other replied through gritted teeth.

He shifted his feet enough to pull his knees up, only to have them fall to the side rather bonelessly moments later; he opted for turning around so he could be on all fours, achieving getting on his stomach only when the Toa of Fire gave him a hand as though he were a turtle laying on its shell, and while he did manage to push his torso off the ground with his arms his head very stubbornly refused to raise, blocking him in a very stupid pose. The larger beings very kindly elected to slip their hands under his armpits to lift him despite his mumbled insistences that he could do it himself: the second he was put on his feet his legs decided to crumble like a melting cheesecake, and before he knew it he was cooped up nice and safe in Takanuva's surprisingly big arms as his golden sphere was replaced by a warmer ball of fire, courtesy of Tahu.

"Wow, you're light," the younger Toa noted.

"Right?" his brother agreed. "He weighs less than you did."

"Wait, really?"

"Well, y're re'lly whi'e," Gresh grumbled, offended. His head was lolling back towards the ground in a way that clearly strained his neck, but no matter how hard he tried he could not lift it. He gargled defeatedly: "M'helme's 'oo heavy..."

"Ah - hold on," he heard as he was jostled a little while the other two began walking out of the room and into the tunnel that would once again lead them into the open air.

A kind if clumsy hand carefully went to sustain his nape, lifting his head along with the heavy armor sitting upon it. It took a couple trials, but the helmet did come off eventually: the poor thing's olive green face poofed to almost twice its size as he groaned in relief, and Takanuva watched with awe by the warm light of his brother's flames as the thin feathers adhered back against the skull to reveal features surprisingly flat instead of concave - thin nostrils above a thin mouth adorned with thin ivory teeth, and lashes like a moth's antennas hanging for dear life on tired eyelids, and small ears covered in reddish plumes twitching slightly, and patches of greyish tawny skin between gaps in the down dotted with scars.

The Toa of Light stared, fascinated. Gresh stared right back, so dazed that he barely realized he was conscious.

Takanuva leaned down to his face and told him plainly: "You look even weirder up close."

The other curled up his nose: "An' how d'y'look under tha' mask?"

"Like this, of course," the Toa replied as he briefly lifted the Avohkii.

Gresh huffed a little frightened "Hoo!" and poofed his feathers out right away with eyes blown wide open, thoroughly spooked: "Oh, y'p'ple're ghas'ly."

Takanuva would have objected more vocally if a known voice hadn't rung out at that moment, calling for him and Tahu.

The Toa of Fire enlarged the sphere of flames in his hand while sprinting forward, responding to the cries in tone: soon enough natural light was streaming into the tunnel, allowing the three beings inside it to clearly see Nuparu and Hewkii clambering as fast as their amphibious feet allowed towards them.

"How are things up there?" Tahu asked them immediately as soon as they stopped mere bio before him to catch their breaths: "Is everybody safe? Teridax should be neutralized for now, but we felt some kind of--"

"Sky's broken," Nuparu interrupted him.

The older Toa blinked, shook his head, and sputtered: "What?"

"There's a HUGE HOLE in it!" Hewkii continued whilst flailing his arms wildly in his Earth brother's stead, as he was noticeably more athletic and not currently in the process of being forced to reshape his lungs into something that could actually hold oxygen again: "It was on top of us and then it SHIFTED and went to the horizon and the sea just - pshwoooosh, just fell out of it, all of it - ok, maybe not all of it, but there's- it's- there are Rahi CHOKING on AIR because the sea is just, THAT little, there's THAT little sea in the sea right now, because it- because it FELL OUT. OF THE HOLE IN THE SKY. AND - and there is, there's stuff outside of the hole! There's a sky! A second sky!"

"A what?"

"It looks like the sky on Mata Nui and Voya Nui but maybe I'm imagining things because I'm still reeling, but then there's - sand! There's SAND, there's MOUNTAINS, there's--"

"Hold on," Takanuva piped up, looking as flabbergasted as his older brother, "Hold on, the hole - how, how did that happen?"

"WE JUST DON'T KNOW!!"

"Something might've," Nuparu interjected again, taking a big breath before he could go on: "Scraped it off. Some water - real water, not protodermis - fell onto us when the hole appeared, so a portion of it could have been knocked off or crushed or-"

Gresh chose that moment to give exactly two singular squeaky laughs. He sounded like he was having the most baller time of his life.

"Smack'im with a big rock," he gargled, "Now tha's a classic."

All eyes turned to him.

For a very long second, no words came to anybody.

Then Nuparu said, with the voice of a genuinely intrigued Archivist unfortunately dragging along a rich tapestry of concerning implications: "What is that?"

"We're not archiving him," Takanuva shot him down instantly.

"Yes, but what is he?"

"His name is Gresh and he's in no condition to answer right now."

"Why is that?"

"He's barely keeping awake!"

"So?"

"Not the time for this!" Tahu interrupted them exasperated, launching himself forward to get out and figure out what in Karzhani was happening out there, because while there's a big hole in the sky was a perfectly comprehensible string of words with a meaning behind it there was no way he had processed even just a single one of them in a way that made sense.

-

She would have been much more relieved to see her older Fire brother emerge from the barely still standing buildings relatively unscathed from whatever challenge he'd just gone through (she had actually only vaguely heard of him needing to go under the colosseum alongside Takanuva without knowing what exactly they were meant to do there, but she considered her guess to be a very educated one because quite frankly there was always a challenge of some sort wherever a Toa had to go) had she not currently been wrestling with a skull-splitting migraine caused by the incessant shouting coming from Pridak's now beached fleet as their ships were left at the mercy of Ehlek's enormous water-dwelling Rahi, which were contorting madly in a desperate attempt to get back under what little ocean was left for them to breathe in.

The panicking army was very lucky Gali had been her example for how a Toa should behave, because had she been more closely exposed to, say, Nokama Hordika instead, they would have all been washed out of the enormous hole in the horizon by now.

That little piece of tangible cosmic horror was also certainly not helping her current state of mind.

Back fins outstretched to slow her descent, Hahli glided down from her observation point to land right into her brother's arms, slamming her whole weight on his chest hard enough to make him stagger. The impact tore a loud 'oof' out of him, but he managed to hug her upright without either of them toppling over in the end.

"Glad to see you," she sighed.

Tahu placed her down on her feet, looking her over for injuries: "Are you alright?"

"No," Hahli groaned. Her brain pulsed painfully as if to underline her statement, and she grimaced. "But I'll live. What about you? And Takanuva? Is he alright? What did you two--"

"Teridax has been disabled for now," he just told her, very cautiously wording himself in order not to jinx it.

He then turned towards the enormous hole in reality - bathed not in an impenetrable darkness but in sunlight, looking back at him with the sight of an enormous desert which seemed in some parts to be slowly receding under a quiet wave of something - and stood quiet before it for a moment.

At last he raised an exhausted arm to point at the whole incomprehensible debacle and asked: "What in the Makuta is going on with that?"

His little sister made a pained sound, like the saddest Hapaka howl: "Wouldn't we all like to know..."

"Alright, let's go for simpler questions first," Tahu conceded for the sake of their mental health. "How's the city, is the damage widespread? Any casualties? Everybody accounted for? The Hagah, Gali, Kongu, Jaller, where are they? Are they alright?"

"Pouks, Iruini and Gali are helping the Turaga look after the wounded, but they've already said that things look to be much less worse than they could be, thankfully," she replied: "Kualus, Gaaki, Norik, Kongu and I are keeping watch on the shores to keep any more of the Barraki's forces from trying their luck against us, and some of the Matoran are cleaning wrecks and disassembling the Rahkshi and Exo-Toa since they stopped attacking - Nuparu was helping too but he and Hewkii went to warn you, right? And a piece of-" (she gestured upwards, loosely indicating the spot where the hole in the sky had been, too tired to refer to it out loud) "-Fell in the Ko-Metru area, so Jaller and Bomonga went to see how bad the damage is and what they can do about it."

Her brother nodded, relieved: "Good work, all of you," he reassured her with a few good pats on her back.

Hahli allowed the gentle pressure to push her towards him, laying her head on his shoulder to let herself enjoy the respite lent by his warm hold around her.

"I'm so tired," she wheezed.

Tahu nuzzled her forehead sympathetically: "We're gonna take a break eventually," he sighed. "Sooner that later, hopefully. Possibly."

They whined in tandem at the thought.

That sweet prospect of rest seemed farther and farther each day.

A holler in their direction snapped them out of their momentary miserable exhaustion: Takanuva was rushing over to them (Nuparu's thin form disappearing back towards the city behind him, likely to continue cleaning up the streets with Hewkii), arms tight around his chest and a look of pure relief at the sight of his sister and former fellow chronicler.

He was glad to lean into her hug, talking far too quickly for her to register any of his words properly; he stopped only when she squeezed him tight, tearing a strange pained grunt out of him.

"Right, sorry, forgot you were there," he mumbled apologetically. Hahli gave him a weird look, about to ask what he meant by that, but his attention had already shifted, magnetized by the hole in the horizon with its puzzling world beyond it: he tilted his head down towards his own chest just a little without ever tearing his eyes from the strange panorama, and whispered: "Is that were you come from?"

A small movement and another mumble - "May'e," said with a slurring tone typical of someone who's just woken up and is still squinting at the light, "Bi' 'oo green, I fink," - brought her eyes lower down from his silver mask.

She blinked once, twice, thrice. The strange olive green being laid limply in Takanuva's arms, looking on the verge of passing out with a sonorous snore right there and then.

How had she not noticed something like that?

Were her senses dimming?

She had no time to be relieved about being proven wrong moments later, when a long shadow creeped in through the sky's chasm.

The strangest kind of silence erupted from Metru Nui and its surroundings - the quiet of held back screams, of barely contained terror being muzzled tight before it had the chance to bark at the threat much larger than itself with its tail between its legs, desperate to intimidate what intimidated it.

It was enormous: it fell slowy, outside, away from the universe, but the impact rattled the entire world nonetheless. Patches of brownish red (was it rust?) clung to the colossal segments across what seemed like a shoulder, a neck, the beginning of a head. A long, wheezing exhale abandoned the titan, its size turning it into a terrifying sound, and the whole frame hissed in agony as it grew impossibly taught while its metallic components grinded against one another with bloodcurdling shrieks.

It was a short, impossibly quick moment.

A second, really, nothing more.

It felt incorrect - like looking through the water without a Kaukau to shield your eyes, everything around you fuzzy and indistinct.

But for a second, for just one single second, it was...

Hahli stopped breathing.

"Matoro?"

And then the second passed, and the body stopped its whistling lament and laid limp, and the fleeting sensation was gone.

"Fuck," the being in Takanuva's baffled hold murmured, quiet voice devoid of any underlying mechanical song deafening in the silence: "Tha's concernin'."

-

The ground was covered in something, some watery thing, that turned the slowly less and less sandy terrain into a sopping marsh. Vastus speeded through it with surprising agility for someone with his age and a chunk of lower spine missing, although by the standards of a Lebori who'd lived his entire early life in a swampy grove as he was his form was severely lacking - a hundred millenia without any possibility to practice will do that to you.

Ackar was shouting for him above the chariot's waning engine, trying to tell him to wait as he dismounted from the vehicle only to find himself stuck between going after him to make sure he didn't do anything rash and following Kiina to make sure she didn't do anything rash.

Vastus barely heard him anyways. He was still screaming for Gresh.

Idiot rookie that he was - couldn't he have stayed put for once? Stuck close to Tarix as he said he would? Not thrown himself into yet another stupid plan? Now he was starting to sound like Gelu - useless heroics and all that. But Gelu had a point sometimes.

Maybe they should have never indulged him. Maybe they should have never played along with his prattlings about being fully grown when he couldn't even drink yet without melting his liver into goo. Maybe they should have never gotten attached. Maybe they should have never allowed him to become a Glatorian and just left him to tend to the Thornax bushes in Tesara.

Great Beings, his heart was going to collapse.

The robot's colossal head had been laid so that the gaping wound on its nape would almost touch the ground. Liquid still sputtered out of the skull's jagged edges in rivulets: it was silvery in color, like the material making up the gargantuan body it dripped out of, and pooled in a wide shallow pond just underneath the wreckage.

The overwhelming grey hue covering the whole scene did not make the spectacle of a split open skull less gruesome.

It did, however, make it much easier to spot the bright red head of a humanoid figure as it flew right over the cranial cliffs - and with it, the familiar green shape held tight against its front.

Vastus barely registered the movement of his own limbs. In a second he was standing ankle deep in the silvery pond, Venom Talon in hand ready to strike, eyes trained onto the startled creature floating a few feet in the air while holding Gresh tighter in its grip; the young Glatorian's orange eyes opened blearily, heavy, tired, and his arm dangled in his direction in a manner that could have been a purposeful greeting or simply an unintentional motion.

"PUT HIM DOWN!" the Lebori barked furiously.

Either frightened or not understanding him, the being strengthened its metal grasp.

"PUT HIM DOWN BEFORE I PLUCK YOU OUT OF THE SKY, YOU-!"

"Ai aun'ie," his nephew spoke at that moment, craning his neck out of the crook of his captor's shoulder. His head lolled to the side without any strength, helmet nowhere in sight: his feathers were flat, relaxed, but looked spent as though he was fighting through an illness, and his pupils struggled to adapt to the light or focus on anything even as he turned to his captor with a noticeable struggle, mumbling something barely coherent.

Worry overtook Vastus's mind completely: "I SAID PUT HIM DOWN!" he screamed, teeth bared, thin plumage vibrating, arm pulled back as he aimed straight for the crimson helm-

He found his whole body seized tight in an iron grip.

Ackar wrestled him still as carefully as he could, doing his best to keep him from hurling the Talon while not pulling any moves that could have caused the Lebori's back prosthesis to painfully malfuction or become misaligned: "For the love of Certavus, calm down!" he hissed as he almost lifted his fellow Glatorian off the ground, "If he drops from that height he'll break in half!"

"HE'LL HAVE A HEAP OF SCRAP METAL TO LAND ON IN A MOMENT!" the Lebori snarled back.

"And how's that supposed to cushion him?"

He would have bitten into his friends's prosthetic hand hard enough to dent it if his overly keen senses hadn't picked up the heavy splash of something landing less than gracefully into the pond just a few feet before them.

The being raised a hand in either a defense or a peace offering when Vastus whipped his head around to glare at it, gently pushing Gresh's head to lay on its shoulder. The boy blinked, clearly tired out of his mind as he was adjusted in the metal arms to be a little more snug, and mumbled in his aunt's direction another incomprehensible string of words with a little loopy smile.

If that damned chunk of metal didn't let go of him immediately he was going to--

"He's alright," the thing said.

It had a noisy voice, melodious in the cacophonic manner a heavy factory machine might be. Vastus shook his head briefly with a hiss, feeling the sound slither into his ears like a worm.

"He's alright," it repeated softly. "He's not hurt."

"So you can understand when I talk?" the Lebori growled: "Or is it just what you want to hear?"

"Don't aggravate it," Ackar hissed.

Vastus elbowed him as best as he could, syllables leaving his mouth with a dangerous whistling tone: "I told you to put my nephew down. Immediately."

"He cannot stand right now," the thing replied.

"You said he was fine!"

"He's not hurt. He's just exhausted."

"He's fain, aun'ie," Gresh managed to slur loud enough all of a sudden; with immense effort he raised an arm and managed to bonelessly slap his hand across his captor's face/helmet. "He's a fren' - 's name's 'ahu 'n's go' rrrocke's 'n' a big shiel' 'n' fire 'n' s'uff..."

The way the Tapyri's weight shifted away from Vastus's back cued him on the fact that something, for him, had clicked: "You're a Toa, aren't you?" he asked suddenly.

Topaz eyes fixed on him.

"That's what you are, right?" Ackar insisted as he pulled the other Glatorian upright with himself: "A Toa."

"What in Plude is a 'Toa'?" the Lebori snapped quietly.

"One of Mata Nui's. One of his people. He said something about you once, I remember that, compared our swordsmanship - a good warrior, aren't you?"

'ahu (if that was the being's name) nodded slowly.

Ackar breathed a sigh of relief.

"He's good," he reassured Vastus under his breath. He'd almost completely let go of him, keeping a vice grip only on the Venom Talon to stop him from making any brash maneuvers. "He's alright. Gresh is in good hands."

"Doesn't mean I trust them to hold him," Vastus hissed. His breaths were still heavy, still irregular with worry.

His friend nodded, understanding completely, and raised a peaceful hand in the air: "We're on the same side," he told the strange creature: "We're friends of Mata Nui. Gresh went into that robot, right? Mata Nui's old body?"

The strange being froze for only a second, looking absolutely taken aback, as though he hadn't known he'd been residing into a titanic mechanical humunculus until now: "Yes," he replied finally, a little stunted while he tried to focus back on the question at hand: "Yes, he - I helped him reach the... Brain."

"And he moved the whole thing from there?"

"Yes, I... I think so, yes. We've kept him safe, but it's tired him out."

"Alright. Alright, thank you - thank you so much," and his voice cracked a little bit, "For looking out for him, and keeping him safe, thank you. Vastus can take it from here, he'll take care of him."

'ahu shifted his glowing gaze onto the Lebori, then down to Gresh as if asking for his permission, or maybe his opinion.

(Vastus would begrudgingly admit that threatening to skewer the poor thing out of the air with a scythe had not been the friendliest or most trustworthy way he could have presented himself, but fuck you, that was his nephew and he'd been trained by Bara Magna to expect things to generally want to kill you in some manner sooner or later.)

The young Glatorian mumbled something barely intelligible - some kind of reassurance, accompanied by another boneless swat of his hand on the back of the red helm that was probably meant to be a comforting pat to cement his words.

It took only half a step forward, holding him a little further: before anybody else present could blink Gresh had been taken from the metal arms and was resting his head in the crux of his aunt's neck, the liquid at their feet splashing as the older Lebori rushed away with him, towards the chariot, as fast as he could.

"You complete idiot," he hissed the whole way long, "You total and utter dumbass, you stupid damn kid, what in Plude was your plan? You promised you wouldn't have pulled anything, anything! How old do you think you are? Do I have to start watching you like a toddler who can't be trusted to be left alone now? I thought you were all grown! Responsible! Had some sense knocked into you after the first few missing phalanxes!"

"Wen' well," was all he had to say for himself.

"Pro Certavi amore - as soon as you're all better I'll round up every Glatorian available and we'll all kick your ass into next year."

"Wen' well!..."

He didn't react when his head collided the slightest bit with the vehicle's frame while he was sat in it. Vastus checked his eyes feverishly and found them still focused: he wasn't in shock, which was a relief. He preened the spot that had been hit, thin teeth filing through the feathers as both an apology and a nervous urge to do anything that could make him feel better.

A detail struck him: "Where's your helmet?"

Gresh blinked: "Oh, fuck," he mumbled absentmindedly, "Forgo't'ge' it back from 'akanu'a..."

"And what's that?"

"He's a fren'... 's re'ly whi'e 'n' brigh'... 'n'all..."

His eyelids were so heavy, his body so tired. A nap wouldn't have hurt, especially while his aunt preened him... It had been so long, hadn't it? The last time he'd gotten fussed over like this, when had it been? Maybe he would have remembered better after a short rest. That sounded like a good idea.

He felt Vastus's nails scratch his nape in an annoying manner: "Don't fall asleep," he was telling him with barely concealed panic, "Don't fall asleep, stay with me."

Gresh barely managed to squirm a little: "Am fain," he mumbled with a hissing yawn, "Jus' a bi' tir'd..."

"Look," the older Lebori insisted, pointing to the flourishing mountains, to the savanna slowly coming crawling to life, taking a bit of the planet back from the sprawling dunes: "Look, plants are coming back, the plants from before the Shattering - remember we taught you some of them? We showed you, with drawings and everything else? Do you see any you recognize?"

"Am tir'd, aun'ie..."

"Just try - look out and tell me which ones you recognize. There, that one, I know you know it, which one is it? Do you remember that?"

In some way, he must have realized he was worried he wouldn't wake up again if he fell asleep; so he turned his exhausted gaze to the receding desertification, focusing as hard as he could to some kind of bush in the distance the other Glatorian was directing his attention towards, fighting to stay awake so that his aunt would not have to worry after being forced to endure such a scare.

"Gitalis?"

A soft, nervous chuckle: "Way off the mark."

"Am tir'd!..."

"Come on, try again, I know you remember it."

"Hm... 's... 's a iunpre?"

"Correct, good kid." Vastus nuzzled the side of his head and kept searching for any bleeding wounds. "And what's that next to it?"

-

The optic gave in with a few swift stomps, shattering into large chunks of glassy material that were broken into smaller pieces when Kiina landed on them from above, in a manner that would have easily gotten her feet punctured and mashed into bloody clumps had she not been wearing armor.

Her graceless entrance ended up denting some of the machinery in the robot's head - not that she gave a damn about it, as it didn't look like it was ever going to be good for anything other than harvesting scrap (Berix was going to have a field day with this thing), and most importantly she was a woman too focused on her mission to think of trivial things like the integrity of a shitty gundam's internal parts.

She looked around the control room frantically, desperate to spot that tell-tale golden yellow color somewhere, anywhere in-between the rust and the dissipating vapors.

"Mata Nui!" she called out, "Mata Nui! Where are you?"

A suffering groan had her whip her head around fast enough to almost sprain her neck: fallen on the back of the robot's head, half slipped under a machine threatening to topple over it and only held back by a net of hastily grown vines, laid a dusty mask, its features carved out of a humanoid figure standing with arms outstretched.

She hurled herself towards it, grabbing it and pulling it away from the precarious spot in an instant before it ended up damaged. No body laid behind it - but the otherworlder couldn't possibly be far from it, could he?...

The mask shook in her grasp with an anguished sound horrendously close to Mata Nui's voice.

"You're here!" she cried out. Her moment of elation fell immediately: "Fuck, you're in here," and she flicked her finger at the side of the artefact with increasing panic, "How do I get you out of this thing?"

"Don't hit it," her friend struggled to wheeze, "It's dangerous-!"

A flashing memory of Click turning into a shield had her drop the item onto her lap as though it were scalding; she picked it right back up in an instant, completely ignoring her friend's pleading warnings - she wasn't undergoing any painful metamorphosis at the moment anyways, right? - in order to focus on a solution.

This would have been much easier if she could have thought clearly.

Which she was struggling to do.

Due to the panic.

Mata Nui needed a body, she mumbled to herself, a body, a body - where could she have found a body? The robot was not an option, and she could not see anything she could have used to successfully assemble a frame to the best of her not particularly experienced abilities; she could have worn the mask herself, maybe, but aside from not being keen on the idea of having her limbs taken over by anybody else she had the nagging feeling it would have only worsened the other's worries between the prospect of mind controlling a friend and possibly mutating her.

A second after her thoughts returned to the item's transformative abilities, the solution to the nearly unsolvable riddle jumped to the forefront of her mind.

Sand.

She needed to leave this rickety thing. Now.

Kiina looked up: the broken optic was far too high up compared to where she was, with no option to use any of the toppled machinery to reach up to it properly, and the only things she would have been able to grab onto in order to leverage herself out were unstable pieces of broken glass. Not getting out the way she came in, alright, got it. Plan two set itself into motion as she sprang back up on her feet and ran through the only exit, a hole in the upturned pavement.

If where she had entered was the head of the robot, then the tunnel she was hurrying through must have been its neck, which was usually much easier to break through than it was to do through a skull, so the situation was improving already.

There must have been a grate or a ventilation shaft somewhere, right? Something easy to punch one's way through, looking outside? She wrecked her brain to find memories of something that would have had a similar layout and equipment to the inside of the robot, a building made solely with mechanical work in mind, but what she came up with was awfully muddled and helped roughly as much as a hearty spoonful of Thornax stew would have, which is to say not in the slightest.

Frustrated with herself as she was, she barely realized the floor beneath her left leg disappeared until her teeth nearly bit off her tongue as her jaw collided with the metal walls.

She looked back to find that, in her unconscious stomping caused by the antsiness overtaking her, she had serendipitously hit a weak plate which had collapsed into the much more crowded and much more damaged space between the interior and exterior shells of the gargantuan machine: from where she had collected herself to get her limb out of the hole, she could see parse slivers of natural light streaming in from what might have been punctures through the hull.

So Kiina did the sensible thing to do while holding a dangerous incomprehensible alien artefact currently housing her weakened friend's consciousness: she hurtled her way into the opening with the grace of a cannon ball, smashing into the weakest portion of the metal by pure chance and crashing out of the giant ominid subsequently almost dislocating an arm.

She groaned.

A pained wheeze dragged her attention back to her hands, and with great terror she found them empty.

The mask glowed faintly only a little away from her, barely out of her reach: sand was pooling under it, pushing it upward in the vague shape of a head emerging from beneath the earth at a terribly slow pace, as though it was not so much forming a body from scratch but tearing one through the solid surface with a great deal of struggle.

Digits of dimmed gold pulled an entire hand out along with them all the way up to the wrist; the Gaquri grabbed the palm hastily, to yank the rest of the arm out, but the frail limb instead fragmented and shattered in her grip.

A choked sob accompanied the sand slipping through her fingers. She hissed.

"Sorry," her voice slithered out of her mouth in a whisper while she adjusted herself closer to the artificial face still whining in pain. Her hands laid under the nape, sustaining it: "Alright, let's take it slow, take it slow - there you go, easy does it..."

She wondered if it had been such an anguish the first time, too. As she moved to hold the back of a newly formed arm, watching as a knee arose from the dirt with a strained gasp and feeling the way the unstable skin gained a tentative solidity much weaker than the carapace had been against her scales, she wondered if to grow a body all on your own (to be born, all on one's own?) was as traumatic an experience as it looked.

Finally her friend dragged a long gasp through his mouth as he shook in her loose embrace, and his eyes shined in their sockets.

The Gaquri carefully sat him up as he breathed harshly: "There you are - easy now, easy! You just made this, relax. Plude, you're wheezing like a waterboarded Skopio... How are you feeling?"

"Never," Mata Nui coughed instead, "Never touch the- the mask - it was dangerous- you could have--"

"But I didn't." she cut him off sternly. "How are you?"

His head lolled to the side: "Gresh?" he asked.

"He's got Vastus and Ackar looking for him, how are you?"

"Why... Why are you here? You were - were supposed to--"

"We heard Gresh. How-"

"--To be safe - away, from--"

"Everybody else is fine! Now quit avoiding the question and answer me, how are you?"

Mata Nui folded on himself for a second, prompting Kiina to hold onto his shoulders in the very real fear that he would shatter into a trillion particles in case he barely gazed the ground. She felt him lean pliantly into her hold as she pulled him back with all the caution in the world until the back of his neck was laying on her arm: his frantic inhales slowed down across a few dozen seconds or so, timing themselves on the much louder ones the Glatorian was training him to follow.

At last he seemed fairly stable. His body had a mostly clear shape, completely divided from the normal sand beneath it, and the erratic rising-falling rhythm of his chest had calmed down.

His head turned to face the prototype robot; Kiina turned with him.

Such an elaborate load of junk it was, even to a less experienced eye like her own. And yet it had been home for one hundred thousand years, although dismantled and rusted, and it had done what the Great Beings had judged it unfit for: under Mata Nui's control, it had undone the Shattering.

Maybe Berix had a point, scavenging for trash in the hopes to make something worthwhile out of it.

A rueful sigh distracted her from her musings: "I am... Afraid..." Mata Nui mumbled quietly, apologetic, "I cannot - be true, to the promise I've... I've made, in exchange for your help."

Kiina blinked.

"Huh?"

"The robot," he explained, "The Great..."

"The other one?"

"Yes... It was - I am afraid it was the only means through which - with, which - I could have accompanied you, on other planets. As I had promised you... When you..."

Oh!

Oh.

She had completely forgotten about that.

Her tongue clicked loudly against her teeth as she slipped an arm under her friend's and started helping him back on his feet: "Well, I can't say I'm not disappointed," she started, though her tone was humorous enough to tear a breathy chuckle from the other. "Because I will not lie, I am. Just a bit. But I guess I'll take a pal not being dead, and everybody being fine. And a more livable planet too, I guess. I could start touring this one before expanding my horizons, that sounds good."

"That is - a wondrous idea, my friend," the otherworlder convened. He leaned heavily on her as she sustained him while they walked, though he was so light that she was all but unhindered by him.

She smiled sharply at him with a small nudge: "You're welcome to come along, you know. I bet you'd like to."

A soft laugh: "I would... Thank you..."

"And you can start telling me about the worlds you've visited! So I'll be prepared from when we actually get there. Which will be right after you've gotten some shuteye."

He groaned, almost pained: "Please, no more of that..."

"Oh no, you're gonna get as much sleep as we can stuff into you," the Gaquri threatened: "And I mean real, actual, deep sleep for once, not that half-resting-half-awake meditation thing you do. Great Beings know you need it."

"It is not - necessary..."

"Don't give me that! You can barely stand as you are!"

"I do not--" Mata Nui's argument was interrupted by a sudden creak in his knee, which caused Kiina to stop in her tracks and hold him a little tighter before he toppled over. Her pointed glare dared him to speak further on the matter - which incredibly, after a moment to catch his breath, he did: "Is there a chance that I might... Be able to bribe you?"

She gave an incredulous laugh: "Bribing me? You?" she howled, and her exaggerated reaction tore a giggle from the fallen god. "Did Metus rub a scale off on you after he slithered away or is it just the Skrall mentality getting to you?"

"You are right, it was awfully uncouth."

"Well, don't just take that back, I'm curious now! I wanna know what your offering was!"

Her friend leaned a hand on the prototype's head to catch his breath, winded as he was from their steady if limping gait back to the chariot. They were still a long way from it, but considering his fatigued state they were all in all making good progress.

"A universe," he replied at last. "To visit."

"To visit?" she repeated. He nodded. Oh, he was going delirious then. "Like it's nearby? As in, just around the corner?"

Mata Nui smiled: his eyes curled into tired half moons, offering her their soft, gentle glow so alike the one the former Bota and Aqua Magna had bathed her cold nights of stargazing in for the worst part of her life, wishing she could be anywhere that wasn't that damned ocean of sand.

He pushed through his exhaustion to make a few more steps with her, just enough for the head of the Great Spirit Robot to come into view, and pointed to it - past the jagged edges, somewhere far, far inside of it.

"The Matoran's - my own," he murmured.

Kiina stared at the enormous hole in the metallic skull.

For a long time, she said nothing.

Only looking, listening distantly to the faint sounds rising from it (were they shouts, were those words she could hear? Strange accents speaking familiar dialects?), wondering if a body could really be large enough to hold an entire piece of cosmos.

Finding she really, really wanted to know.

A whisper joined her musings, sheepish, almost embarrassed: "It is a small one, perhaps... But a universe nonetheless."

She hummed thoughtfully: "I'll think about it," she conceded in the end, only making a half hearted attempt at hiding her cautious excitement. "After you've taken a nap."

The other groaned.

It made her snort.

Her name reached them with a holler.

Ackar had always had a quirk of running with his head pushed as far down and forward as his body physically allowed it to go, which tended to make him look like he was charging directly into the first person he saw to headbutt his way through their ribcage like a sandray so horribly hungry it forgot it had teeth.

He was mildly aware of this unfortunate resemblance due to several people outside of the arena letting him know by either looking very scared as he approached or screaming at him to slow down with genuine terror in their voices; so he wasn't really offended when the Gaquri automatically threw her free arm in front of herself and Mata Nui as though she was protecting the both of them from some particularly vicious beast.

"WOAH there!" she shrieked like she was trying to calm down a frightened Sand Stalker, "He's frailer than glass right now, you're gonna shatter him into a million pieces!"

She kept a good eye on him as his gait stuttered and slowed in an attempt to regain control of his legs, ready to whisk Mata Nui to safety before the foolish thing ran up to meet the Tapyri head on and got bodied into a heap of sand, but the veteran Glatorian managed to grasp his friend's hand gently enough to press it to his forehead (an expression of fondness common in his tribe that he'd often given Kiina, too) without breaking a single cell off of it.

"So good to see you," he breathed. A wry smile stretched across his face as the other squeezed his palm back: "How are you?"

"Absolutely exhausted and denying it as hard as he can," the Gaquri answered before Mata Nui could try to lie about it: "He's really bad at hiding it, too."

A quiet groan: "That is not true."

"You needed two whole breaths to say that."

"My friend, please..."

Unluckily for him, Ackar betrayed his hope to avoid being sentenced to sleep as he slipped an arm under his shoulder to sustain him as well: "I'm afraid I'll have to agree with Kiina on this one," he murmured, patting his chest comfortingly. "Let's get you somewhere nice and quiet before you collapse on us."

The fallen god craned his neck with a whimper, but could not fight either of them as they dragged him along despite his lack of collaboration - whether on purpose or not, it was hard to tell.

"Where's Vastus?" Kiina asked.

"Back at the chariot, probably - taking care of Gresh."

"Gresh," their friend perked up with worry: "Is he...?"

"Ever more tired than you, but otherwise unscathed," the Tapyri was quick to reassure them.

Hearing that, the Gaquri squinted her eyes angrily, scales almost turning cobalt from a mixture of emotions she was very unsure she could properly put a name to: "I'm gonna kick his ass," she settled for hissing between gritted teeth.

A tremor under her palm distracted her: Mata Nui had started shaking in their grasp, head almost abandoned to itself as it hung low, a terribly quiet litany falling out of his mouth in an inconsolably guilty cadence - I shouldn't have asked, I shouldn't have asked that of him, I shouldn't have, I shouldn't, I shouldn't have asked, I shouldn't have asked, I shouldn't have asked...

Both his friends had to tighten their hold him before his spiraling led him to the ground. His shoulders were starting to shed themselves into sand, and Kiina felt with horror her hand sink into his chest when she tried to push him upright.

Ackar leaned a little closer, doing his best to speak soothingly: "Easy, easy - he's alright, I told you, he'll be fine."

"He's a tough kid!" his fellow Glatorian added, "He can handle it!"

She turned to her friend so he could emphasize her statement only to see him glance away, as though he'd just gotten an idea. She followed his gaze, and...

The thing was looking in her direction, but not at her.

It seemed shocked.

She was surprised she could even tell, what with the lack of pupils and eyebrows and a general face, but the whole of its appearance came off as oddly expressive.

It stood frozen in place a few meters from them, similar to a prey animal when a predator passes close by it.

Perfectly still.

Like a robot.

"Don't you wanna see who brought him over?" she heard Ackar say a little louder: "I think that could be a pleasant surprise for you."

Kiina shifted her eyes back on him like he was insane.

But he wasn't talking to her, of course; and he wasn't checking for her reaction, of course.

She followed the trajectory of his eyes until she found Mata Nui's: they stared ahead, into glowing yellow irises, appearing to gain a brightness of their own the longer they looked.

"Oh."

-

It hit him.

He had no idea if they'd ever imagined him.

He certainly couldn't remember if he had, at the very least when it came to distinctive, clear examples. On the island, despite having a guideline with the stone Vakama used in his tales, the most he'd ever managed to conjure was a bright floating Hau which could have been transparent or golden or red; in Karda Nui, even with the newfound knowledge of the Makuta species, he had many times in his musings given him an appearance similar to Teridax - to his first mangled, chaotic form, befitting of an impossibly vast being uncaring for those beneath him; and if he dug into the memories he liked the least, into the days of his first birth, of his first life, amidst the frustration and tension, the most he could find was the thought of a vaguely humanoid shape, large and splendent and undefined, towering above everything.

He'd never asked his siblings or the Matoran or the Turaga if they had their own vision on how the Great Spirit looked. He reasoned they must have; inexplicably, though, no being had ever made a single comment on the matter, and nobody seemed to have ever mentioned such a strangeness before him.

So it was surreal - to stand before Mata Nui.

(He had no idea why or how he knew. He just did. It was an absolute certainty buried somewhere within him, like the tip of an arrow lodged into a lung. He could have recognized the Great Spirit in any shape it would have taken, be it familiar or not. He did not know why. He just knew.)

The Great Spirit was looking back at him.

He was...

He was a small thing.

A creature like any other, roughly as tall as him, in a battered armor dim with dust, having to be held aloft by two other beings before his legs gave out from under him.

His mere presence seemed to cut off his ability to breathe.

Mata Nui smiled radiantly.

"Tahu," he called.

He had a soft, sweet voice.

Tahu stiffened.

What was he supposed to do? There had to be something, some kind of code of conduct for these cases - for standing before your god. Was there a formula, a specific sentence he was supposed to pronounce? A pledge, a plea, a promise? Was he supposed to kneel, to lay at his feet, to lower his gaze, was he supposed to meet him head on with a Toa salute? Was he supposed to move at all?

He did nothing as the Great Spirit struggled to approach.

He stood, glancing desperately at Ackar and at the other being (China, or Kena, he recalled the older warrior shouting as soon as he'd caught a glimpse of a body coming into view - the watery blue of the armor reminded him of his sisters, but he couldn't be sure) as if to ask them for help. Neither answered; he wondered if they knew what to do themselves, or if they even understood who exactly they were helping walk towards him.

Would they even know that? They came from beyond the universe. They likely had no idea that the terribly frail thing in their hands was divine in nature.

Were they the Great Beings?

Anxiety constricted him. He almost wanted to cry.

Mata Nui reached out to him. Then he stopped, retracting his hand not in disgust but with a strange fear; he looked the Toa in the eyes with a strange sheepish air about him as his fingers twitched, almost too shy to ask what was on his mind.

Finally, very carefully, he placed his fingertips against the chin of Tahu's mask, as if to cradle it.

They were pleasantly warm. And dusty. Like slowly cooling ash.

He smiled wider.

A quiet sound left him all of a sudden, and his limbs started trembling harshly as his armor began falling apart into a thousand particles; without thinking, the Toa grasped his wrists tightly and sent a wave of blistering heat through the whole body for barely the fraction of a second, so quick that Ackar and his friend barely had time to hiss at the sudden surge of temperature. He felt the arms in his palms creak: they'd been crystallized into glass.

Before he could choke in horror at his impulsivity, his hands were being held between near transparent fingers.

"Thank you," Mata Nui breathed with something akin to a chuckle - was that embarrassment in his voice? He replied to Tahu's wide eyes with a look of pure apologetic fondness: "Oh... Oh, forgive me, I did not mean to frighten you. I just... I am so very excited to meet you!"

His gentle grip tightened around the Toa's palms.

Something thrummed across his body, a quick steady beat. Tahu felt it reverberate through him.

He was definitely supposed to do something. Should he have kneeled? Maybe he should have kneeled, and laid his head low, and stopped looking so directly at the incarnation of their universe. But the Great Spirit was holding his gaze and smiling and readjusting his grip on protodermis hands and he could not move an inch no matter how hard he tried, mind drawing up blanks, at once awed to be faced with such reverence from a god and baffled by the knowledge that said god was so impossibly frail that a mere emotion could tear him asunder like that.

He realized he was staring in silence again.

He should have done something.

Anything.

What was he supposed to do?

"You were not made like this, were you?" Mata Nui asked. It was not a reprimand or an insult, only an inquiry born of genuine curiosity. He sounded like he was sleeptalking, in a way.

Tahu shook his head, and gentle eyes tilted a little.

"No, I imagined," the god continued almost to himself; he squeezed his palms again. "I have seen you like this, once, I believe... Somewhere deep in the bog of a dream... I remember you barely, before that - forgive me... It has been so long... You have changed!... Such a wonderful thing!..."

Was it?

The Toa struggled to think. The crystalline touch intimidated him into silence much like too high praises can embarrass a child quiet.

"How are you?" his god asked. "How are your siblings? The Matoran? I did not think... I assumed it would have been tough enough to not let... Metru Nui..."

"We're," Tahu choked. His throat whirred, clacked, struggled against itself and spat out stunted words: "Safe. We are. All of us."

Mata Nui breathed a heavy sigh of relief; it made something physically click into place in the Toa's body, and he felt like his mechanisms were working smoothly all at once again.

He lowered his head immediately, shifting his gaze down to the fingers wrapped around him.

The glass was so soft around his hands.

His god's voice passed through him like a dream - vaguely, in a haze, he realized he'd leaned closer, apprehension once more thrumming through his frame: "My chosen... Are they...? I could not... I barely know... They came to be..."

His chosen? Tahu snapped out of his torpor: "The Turaga are safe," he answered just as hushedly, ashamed to have been distracted.

Mata Nui's tired eyes regained fervor for a second.

"Turaga," he repeated.

A wheezed laugh left him, elated beyond words - Turaga!, it seemed to exclaim. The poor souls he had picked so hastily, with such little time and such a hard task ahead of them, Turaga! He raised Tahu's hands to what might have been his mouth as if to kiss it, holding back just moments before it could touch his mask - moments before the Toa could melt the ground beneath his feet from the surprise as his heartlight flashed madly.

He smiled wonderfully, reaching out to cup the adaptive Hau's cheek in his palm: "You bring me such splendid news!"

Breathing was hard again.

Not because he couldn't do it. He could breathe! He could breathe very well. Perhaps too much. Far too much. So much that his lungs were starting to hurt.

Ackar seemed to notice that. He met his eyes long enough to read his incomprehensible swirl of emotions, and though amused by the childish panic in them he blessedly pulled the Great Spirit a little back as gently as he could with his other friend's help.

"Give the boy some room," he murmured: "He's gonna get a heart attack at this rate."

But Mata Nui kept his hand on Tahu's mask, and refused to let go of his palms.

That blinding glimmer had already dropped from his eyes, and he looked exhausted, somehow even more so than he already had; he leaned forward, reaching for the Toa still despite the small distance between them.

"I am sorry," he spoke. His fingers curled around the red protodermis. "I am sorry - I should have... I am sorry," he repeated. He sounded weak, and quiet, and honest. "I am sorry... If I had been... If I had not... You have endured for me so much - if I had paid close attention... If I had not been so careless," he creaked. A long crack split open the god's arm with a horrid sound. "You would not have suffered... You would not... I am sorry - I am sorry, I am sorry, I am sorry..."

His knee buckled under his weight, cracked, and shattered his leg across the ground.

Ackar and Kena scrambled to hold him aloft, words of concern muddling together: a gentle yank nearly ripped half his chest off, and the arm holding onto the Toa's mask turned opaque as hairline cracks burst from within it before it too began falling apart.

Almost numbly, Tahu realized the other crystalline hand was still clutched around his own in a tender grip, the rest of its limb laying broken in the sand.

He felt himself kneel on the ground with hands outstretched on what remained of the crumbling body: if heated up enough the glass would have melted again, filling in the cracks by itself, wouldn't it? He would have been able to fix it all, to put him back together in the span of seconds, minutes, maybe. He would have managed to fix him.

But what if he just destabilized him more? Maybe instead of breaking he would have started melting. Maybe the hot temperature would have triggered the vitrification of the sand beneath him too, and he would have fused with it and become indistinguishable from the rest of it, worsening his condition as he could no longer be separated from it.

Or maybe it simply wouldn't have done anything. He had already started falling apart Tahu had done anything, and his accidental fix had now grown obsolete. Maybe it was just too much. Maybe he just couldn't hold onto himself.

"I am sorry," Mata Nui whispered. Somehow, his quiet voice cancelled out all other sounds. Somehow, his remaining hand was still holding onto the adaptive Hau. "I am sorry - none of this should have... If I had been... More attentive... None of this should have happened... I am sorry, I am sorry..."

Tahu looked up to his face again.

The peculiar pattern of the Ignika met his eyes.

He had not even recognized it. He had not even registered that what he had been staring at was the Mask of Life. He had known so deeply that the being before him was Mata Nui that, in the petrifying surprise that had taken over him, the artefact on the god's face had looked no different than a common powerless Kanohi.

Couldn't it fix him, then? Couldn't it mutate him? If it could build itself a body it could certainly make one for him too, couldn't it? Why wasn't it working? It had plenty of material to choose from - why wasn't it doing anything?

Mata Nui's eyes were flickering.

He stared directly at Tahu as though it was the only thing keeping him together.

"I am sorry," he begged. "I am sorry, for everything, everything - I am sorry... You should not have... I should not have allowed... Such terrible things... To befall you... Any of you... I should not have... If I had been... I should have been... I am sorry... I am sorry - I am sorry... I am sorry... I am sorry... I am sorry... I am sorry..."

Tahu stared back.

This was a god.

A being for whom countless had lost their lives.

Begging, broken and brittle, with a voice barely above a breath and a trembling hand on his cheek, for the forgiveness of his own universe.

Ackar's voice broke through the haze around him: "You need to rest."

Mata Nui twisted his neck harshly: a long crack slithered around it, and the Toa rushed to grab it before it tore away from the torso already on the brink of shattering.

"No!" his deity sobbed. He could feel the clear throat quake with each phoneme under his protodermis digits, broken edges ringing as they scratched against one another: if he were to press even just slightly more forcefully, he would reduce it to a heap of minuscule fragments. "No, no, please, no, no--"

Kiina grasped the Ignika gently in her hands, allowing the straining pieces of anatomy to fall in favor of protecting the one thing actually containing the delirious entity: "It's for your own good!" she argued back at him, but her voice was soft, desperate, trying her best to pull a friend back from the hole he was sinking into as he kept squirming. "Pushing yourself like this is going to kill you - listen to us, damn it!"

The glass chest creaked as it spasmed erratically in the pantomime of frantic breathing (so set he was on living, on being real and present) and an agonizing whimper left the divine wreckage.

The eyes fixed on Tahu's were blue, flickering terribly.

He felt the fingers crack against the cheek of his Hau as they curled around it.

"I am sorry," his god cried so quietly, "I am sorry, I am sorry - no more, no more, no more sleep, please, no more, no more... I am sorry, I am sorry - Tahu... Tahu... I am sorry... Please..."

A hand of protodermis grasped what little was left of a body and laid it down on the sand, carefully, gently, so it would not break. Its twin wrapped around the crystalline palm as it struggled to keep from fracturing and held it - as gently as it had been held by it.

The Toa breathed.

His lungs filled slowly trough the gaps in his armor.

Then, just as slowly, they deflated.

He kept breathing, hands enveloping what little remained of his god's own fragile one.

Mata Nui heaved, and heaved, and slowed down, until his labored inhales matched his protector's own, until the light of his eyes drooped and struggled to glimmer in resignation.

Tahu spoke as quietly as he could, his entire being turning the words into a hushed mechanical symphony: "We can wait still."

"I am sorry," Mata Nui insisted.

"We can wait still," his guard repeated.

"I am sorry... I am sorry..."

"We can wait still. Until you are safe."

"I promise... I promise... I am sorry..."

"We can wait. Rest now."

"I want to see you... I promise..."

"Until you are safe. Rest now."

"I promise... I promise..."

"Rest now."

"I promise..."

"Rest."

Mata Nui shook again.

Then he calmed.

His hand curled around Tahu's and shattered gently over his fingers.

"Alright," he conceded at last, reassured.

His head crumbled in his friends' gentle hands, his empty sockets lost their waning glow, and lulled by the warrior who was fated to awake him he allowed his endlessly fatigued spirit to slip into sleep once more.

-

His entire body hurt.

Not as badly as when he first woke up, but it still hurt.

It was like every single muscle had decided to file a complaint against his brain and set his nerves on fire in an attempt to get the message relayed much more quickly.

He turned on his side with a hiss to try and keep sleeping it off, but he was fully awake by now.

"Oh," he heard - he wasn't sure he could tell voices apart in this state, but that sounded like Gelu. "Sand mite's awake. Watch him a moment, won't you? I've got to get someone."

Some kind of machine made a rockus near the leg of the bed.

A quiet cacophony of noises caused an uncomfortable shiver to wreck through him. Ah, damn it - he shook his head harshly once or twice, gritting his teeth as his neck immediately flared up: deciding he didn't want to be stuck in a losing battle, he grumbled and blearily opened an eye.

The little thing with glowing lime lights in the sockets of its metal green face jumped a bit and retreated away from him at that.

It seemed to be standing on a stool.

He stared at it for a moment.

"Hi," he said hoarsely.

The little thing blinked once or twice with a clicking sound: "Hi!" came at last the reply, face unchanged: "My name's Tamaru."

Oh, he knew that kind of noisy, industrial-sounding, confusingly androginous voice. This must have been... A baby Toa. Or a Toa kid. Or something of that sort.

"Gresh," he introduced himself.

Tamaru nodded, looked him over, fidgeted, and then asked with no shortage of curious embarrassment: "Wayby, what are you?"

"Lebori," he answered. He managed to point back at... Him? Her? Them? It? Xe? Ti? He didn't know how to approach the subject with a mostly metallic alien, so he was going to go with 'ti' for now. All Agori kids were 'ti' at that height. "Toa?"

The being laughed with a tinny sound: "No, no! I'm too bugsmall to be a Toahero. I'm a Matoran. How are you wellfeeling?"

"Bad," he replied honestly.

"Oh. Eversorry."

"I mean," Gresh shrugged: "Could be worse. But not good."

Ti hummed deep in thought, as though ruminating on his words: "Makes sense," ti decided in the end, "You've been sleeping for two days. You must have been bonetired."

"Huh."

Two whole days, asleep.

Yeah, made sense. He'd been absolutely exhausted.

How must Mata Nui be holding up then, he wondered?

He hoped he was fine.

The Matoran turned tir attention to his face again, leaning closer but not daring to graze him: "Are those feathers?"

"Hm-hm."

"Can I handtouch?"

Sure, why not? Kids from other tribes used to ask to do that all the time, this wasn't any different. He gave ti a very weak ok gesture and submitted himself to the inevitable poking and prodding.

That turned out to have been a very good idea, as Tamaru was not only much more gentle and cautious while combing through his thin plumage than any brash Gaquri or Tapyri or Koniri brat he'd ever met, doing tir best not to pull any plumes or feathers out, but also, despite being the farthest thing from a Lebori, exercised a level of so highly specific care towards it that would have probably won ti an honorary place in his tribe.

He leaned his head into lir touch and bristled his feathers comfortably, driving a giggle out of ti.

The Matoran cooed at him, and he cooed back without thinking.

Great Beings, he missed being preened by his aunt.

"You're good," he mumbled.

"Heh heh! I turntame Gukko birds," Tamaru explained proudly, pushing tir chest out a bit. "I have lots of experience."

He could tell.

Wait, birds?

They had birds? In Mata Nui's old body?

His train of thought was interrupted when the Matoran hastily pulled tir hand away as if caught doing something ti shouldn't; before he could protest a new weight settled on the foot bed, and a scaled hand snuck under him to pull him up a little, just enough so that the Gaquri could see his face.

Tarix looked him over in complete silence, checking him up and down at least twice. Finally he pulled him into his arms and squeezed him gently as he pressed his nose into the reddish feathers denoting his young age sticking out of his head.

Gresh did not fight it. He snuggled into his uncle's hold despite the long scales scratching at him, sighing in relief.

Lebori teeth were good at cleaning plumage in a way that no other tribe could vaunt - namely by being thinner than what was usual for Agori, catching loose feathers painlessly without getting them stuck in place and having to pluck them out with their hands afterwards. By contrast, for example, Gaquri teeth were just a little too large the closer the crown was to the gums and retained much more humidity around them, causing the soft barbs to grossly stick to the enamel and the shaft to lodge itself between them, allowing for a generally less than pleasant experience.

Tarix had lost the will to give a damn about how disgusting it sometimes felt during his and Vastus's courting, and so he did his best to preen his nephew for a minute or two, just to reassure him of his presence, to offer him comfort after what had no doubt been a harrowing ordeal. The kid's weight against him melted the worries that had plagued him for the past two days into slush.

He pulled away at last once he found himself satisfied with his work. He cupped the young Glatorian's face in his hands with a sigh, and told him: "We're gonna kick your ass."

Gresh groaned: "Oh, come on!"

"Don't give me that, you little bastard," his uncle hushed him with the fondest tone he'd ever used as he nuzzled his cheek again: "You scared the ever-living crap out of us, we didn't have a single pair of clean pants between five Glatorian for a day and a half."

He felt the rookie squirm and wriggle to get out of his hug: "But it worked! And I'm fine!"

"Passing out stone cold on your aunt is called 'being fine', now?"

"So what! I've woken up now!"

"I can hear that," Tarix grinned. He smacked a kiss on the kid's forehead, getting a little 'blegh' back. "And now that we're all relieved we'll wait until you're all better, and then we'll kick your ass."

The Lebori shook his feathers at him at maximum pique, hissing to scare him off with no success whatsoever.

Tamaru snorted.

He stuck his tongue out at ti too.

Then something large and blue slid into the room like a fury, so fast that its inertia sent it right against the wall with a loud BANG that spooked the Matoran off tir stool with a tremendous clatter.

"YOU!!"

Tarix curled around Gresh to better help him hide.

Kiina circumvented the issue this posed by crawling on her fellow Gaquri's back like some sort of gargoyle, reaching over his protective stance, grabbing the back of the camisole the rookie was wearing, and frantically starting to pull it back and forth as though it were her victim of choice's shoulders.

"I'M GONNA KICK YOUR ASS!" she yelled: "ARE YOU STUPID?! ARE YOU POSSESSED?! DID A SPIKED WORM HIDE AWAY IN YOUR BRAIN?! YOU COULD HAVE GOTTEN SQUASHED TO BITS! AND YOU BROUGHT MY LITTLE BROTHER ALONG TOO!"

"It was Berix's idea," the Lebori tried to rebuke.

"No it wasn't," his traitorous uncle replied.

"NO IT FUCKING WASN'T!!"

-

Hahli looked upon the silent giant and waited.

What for?

She laid her head in her palms, not knowing how to answer herself.

The protodermis was cooling beneath her. She let her legs dangle for the jagged edge of the Great Spirit Robot's broken skull, swaying with the wind coming down the mountain as evening crept closer with its orange hues in a manner similar to how it used to do on Mata Nui; Metru Nui looked so small, so far below, but she could not focus on it at the moment.

Her saddened gaze remained fixed on the unmoving prototype, studying its features in silence.

It wasn't as frightening as its larger brethren. The Great Spirit Robot had a face that looked right out of a nightmare: it was long and rough, with long lines digging deep all the way down to its chin, stuck in a barely open-mouthed grimace which gave the impression that a rumbling voice was meant to come out of it at any moment, delivering righteous fury and reprimands and orders.

The prototype's skull was stouter, almost oval or round in shape. It had eyes and cheeks - or what appeared to be cheeks or cheek guards, at least - and nothing else. A long segmented line ran across the height of its face; flat crests emerged from the top of its head.

The sum of its pieces ended up resembling a Kanohi much more closely than an Agori visage.

She looked at its broken optic, at its rusted fingers.

Waiting for a light to shine through the gaping darkness within the shell, for the joints between the phalanxes to twitch and scratch at the ground under them as it grumbled to life.

Waiting for it to speak to her with a soft, booming, deep voice.

To turn its head and call out to her.

To say, Hahli?

Is that you?

"Hahli!"

She turned. Takanuva's mask peeked from the edge of the robot's head as he held tight onto the protodermis, evidently having been scaling his way up to her; Kopeke, sitting tight on his shoulders, waved at her in his stead.

His sister laughed, hurrying over and grabbing his hands to help him up: "Hey there! What is this, a Chroniclers' reunion?"

"It could be," her Light brother grinned. He sighed in relief as soon as his feet were once again resting on more or less even ground. "We saw you sitting there and thought we'd come up to say hi."

"Is that so? You just happened to be walking around these parts?"

Her friend did not reply, flustered.

The wrecks rested far away from the camps promising to one day become New Atero, much too far for the pair to just casually come across them while struck by the desire for an evening stroll.

No, it couldn't be a coincidence: they had a specific reason to be here. Just like her.

Hahli huffed playfully and helped Kopeke down from her brother's shoulders: "Alright, come on," she gestured back towards the edge of the enormous wound, inviting them both to sit down with her as she returned to her spot. "Spill it. What are you two investigating?"

The Matoran settled next to her in no time, used enough to vertiginous heights to remain completely unbothered before the void beneath their feet; Takanuva stalled a little more, fidgeting with his hands for a moment: "It's nothing," he shrugged in the end as he very deliberately took his seat as well.

"It's not nothing." Kopeke rebuked.

"Yes it is."

"It's not."

"It's..." the argument died in the Toa's throat. He took a deep breath; Hahli watched him turn to the rusting robot with a forlorn look that perfectly replicated her own emotions. "It's something Tahu said."

She followed his gaze.

The prototype still had not moved.

Maybe it would now that there were three of them.

Or maybe not.

Who knew.

"About Mata Nui?" she asked softly.

He nodded.

"What was it?"

"He said that... Well, he told me that when he saw him, you know, he just looked like any other being. Like a Glatorian. The kind you'd forget after catching a glimpse of them in a crowd. But at the same time there was just this..." he clenched his hands close to his heartlight, almost as if to grasp it within them: "This feeling - this certainty, that what he was looking at was the real Great Spirit, and he couldn't have mistaken him for anybody else even if he'd tried. Like there was something deep in his soul telling him."

Hahli did not reply.

"I think... I think I felt that too." Takanuva continued. His eyes were fixed on the prototype. "When I looked at it, on Metru Nui."

Her fins twitched lightly.

A mellow wind passed through, gently leading the sand to crash against the limbs of protodermis like waves of a calm sea, further dulling the darkened rust that covered the dead colossi laying side by side as it stuck upon it, wearing them down impercetibly.

She heard Takanuva adjust his seat.

"Nobody else did. I mean, nobody really looked at it except for us and some Matoran - aside from the Barraki armies, but- you get what I meant. But I think the Nuva might... I think they'd all feel that."

Then he grew silent again.

His sister did not add onto his hypothesis, and kept quiet.

She was still looking at the robot.

Still waiting for it to turn its head towards them.

Still waiting for it to call out to them with a familiar voice.

Kopeke's silence was comforting. It drowned out their own uncomfortable quiet naturally, in a manner hard to explain: but knowing he sat next to them, hands on his lap, looking out to the sprawling landscape before them, just listening, brought them respite from their too loud thoughts.

Takanuva turned towards her, prompting her to face him.

"Did you feel that, too?"

She gripped the jagged skull under her and did not answer.

He waited.

His voice came out of him awfully small: "You said something," he whispered, sounding embarrassed: "When you saw the robot. But I didn't hear it well because you said it very quietly and I was sort of too distracted to pay attention."

Hahli sucked in a breath to speak.

She couldn't.

She turned her eyes down, to the city slowly being abandoned below them, and swung her legs harder to desperately try and find something, anything, that could have worked as a response.

What was she supposed to say? That she thought she was going crazy? That nothing had happened? That she didn't know?

That she'd seen a ghost?

The barbarian hurried deeper in her seaweed hut, crawling hastily into her bed and hiding her Kaukau under her arms, wanting to forget everything again, to wake up and find that nothing had changed, that she was still just a flaxmaker who never spoke and seldom left her village, who did her duty diligently and went to sleep not knowing there were friends outside of her gate waiting to die.

Kopeke sat next to her. He did not touch her. His silence laid a soothing hand on her burning brain.

"Do you know when - when a part of your head is muddled?" she asked. Getting each word though the knot strangling her throat was a painful struggle. "When it's... When it's all murky, and confused, and swirling too slowly and bubbling, and you can't understand what's happening in it?"

Her brother nodded.

She passed her hands over her Faxon: "It was just a second," (she sounded guilty, and she had no idea why) "Just a second - just a moment, so quick I'm not even sure I understood anything I was thinking... And it was so hazy, and unclear, and unfocused, and I - I don't know why, I'm not sure but it felt like--"

Something in her neck swerved from the strain: an unfortunate gear shrieked as it tried to turn where it shouldn't, interrupting her with a short-lived mechanical cough. Two hands of different sizes were quick to pat her back to dislodge the misbehaving piece back into its rightful place.

With a final harsh exhale, Hahli spat out: "--For a moment, it felt like Matoro."

Her arms shook as though she'd puked her soul into the void.

The robot remained still.

Unmoving, unchanging.

Rusted and broken and dead.

What good was staring at it?

It was never going to be him.

Nothing was ever going to be him.

No one was ever going to be him.

She'd been here for hours yesterday, and that feeling hadn't repeated.

She'd been here for hours today, and that feeling hadn't repeated.

She couldn't stop hoping that maybe, if she looked at it long enough, it would feel like him again.

"Do you think he's him?" Takanuva asked with a breath.

Hahli faced him.

It was like looking in a mirror.

"Mata Nui," he repeated. "Do you think he's him?"

Did she?

It would have been nice. It would have been relieving. To know that this whole time, they'd been fighting for a friend. For someone they loved. For someone who loved them. It would have been nice, because then they would have everything back. They would have their paradise back: their island home, their friends, their family. As if nothing had ever changed. As if nothing had ever happened. It would have been nice, because none of them would have died then.

But what about before that? When the Great Spirit refused to look at them? When it neglected and endangered them? Could that have been him? And if it hadn't been him, then who had died with him? Who had he usurped and doomed to fade into non-existence in much the same way as Teridax had usurped Mata Nui? Who had they been fighting for before the Mask of Life chose its vessel?

"I don't know," Hahli replied. "I just don't know."

Her brother leaned his head on her shoulder.

His weight anchored her to reality, dissipating her swirling thoughts.

Kopeke looked, silent, at the massive robotic body.

Krahka came to his mind.

He had seen her - he had traveled with her, with Tahu and Johmak and Onua, and Lariska and Guardian. She had looked exactly like he'd expected, so like nothing he could have thought of at all: but he'd still recognized the sharp grin that spread too wide, the voice that was neither a hiss nor a growl nor a chirp and yet resembled all those sounds, the frighteningly clever eyes that Vakama's narrations had described in such vivid unspoken detail.

She had been every bit the legendary Rahi lurking within the Metru Nui archives, so cunning and terrible that even the Rahkshi fleed from her.

And yet, while he'd looked at her wreck chaos upon Daxia's surface with Onua, something incredible had happened.

No matter what beast she turned into, she looked just like a Toa.

Something about her, about her shifting anatomy, her erratic fighting style, her voice heckling back at Onua when he shouted above the rockus at her, her strange glee - she had seemed like a wild mixture of the Turaga's selves, as though a little bit of each had gotten stuck in her shapeless form and molded alongside her ever changing body, made hers, until she was an equal of what they had once been.

Until she was, indisputably, one of them.

He remembered how Turaga Onewa had sat next to Vakama as he'd recounted their first proper battle against the Horde. He had claimed he was staying to make sure the firespitter told the tale right, but had kept completely quiet the whole story through.

He had caught how he'd clenched his hand during the last struggle between the Tahtorak and the Zivon, his eyes shut tight, as though he were bracing himself for a devastating blow - and how he'd let his fingers rest, dejected, resigned, when the shapeshifter disappeared into darkness.

Maybe she is a Rahi who discovered a little Toa inside.

Kopeke mulled over Pouks' words.

He wondered if Mata Nui liked Rahi.

If he found them intruguing in a manner very different from the detached scientific approach of Onu-Metru archivists.

If he would have talked to tamed ones when they clamored at him, or even repeated their own chatterings back at them to try and communicate with them more accurately.

He wondered if Mata Nui had a good singing voice.

If he would have been shy about it, or instead enjoyed bellowing out hymns and songs to his heartlight's content.

If he would have had such a powerful control over it that he could go from humming a lullabye to declaring a dirge to grinning along a festive chant in mere seconds.

He sighed.

His little body reclined against the cool protodermis as he scuttled closer to his once fellow Chroniclers. Night had fallen: clusters of stars crawled across the dark sky like an infinity of beetles.

His quiet thoughts enveloped the Toa.

He felt them lay down with him, a little calmer, a little more at peace.

In another hour or so a small group of worried Matoran, Turaga and Toa would finally catch a glimpse of Takanuva's glow and start screaming at them to come down, chastising them for disappearing like that without giving them any notice as soon as the three of them were in manhandling reach.

But until then they laid with the empty robot, paying it no mind, breathing in asynchrony under a universe vaster than they could have ever imagined.

It would have been nice.

If Mata Nui had a little bit of Matoro in him.

[shootingstarpilot]

You know, occasionally you might be struggling with a particular scene, trying to figure out how to get over that bump, and then A Certain Someone drops seven DELIGHTFULLY LENGTHY COMMENTS on back then, i was dauntless and you manage to hammer out 300 words over your lunch break and then that same person hits you with AN EIGHTH LOVELY AND THOUGHTFUL COMMENT on the same fic and suddenly the way through the thicket of a scene becomes visible-

Anyway, have a section of that scene, spoiler alert for a plot point in the next chapter- I'd appreciate any feedback!

Eventually, Quinlan’s shoulders steady and still. He pulls back just enough to make eye contact.

He does not let go.

“Obi-Wan,” he says. “Focus on me, please. Okay?”

Fear is not helpful here, present though it may be. Obi-Wan breathes in, breathes out, and listens. He drops his hand, squeezes Quinlan’s, feels the tendons stretch and flex as Quinlan mirrors his grip. He notes the tickle of hair on the back of his neck, the ever-present ache in his chest, the way his boots scuff against the pockmarked concrete. The acrid smell of fuel is a constant companion in this district, and not even the pollutant disposal system is enough to completely disperse the settled smog that casts a yellow pall over the surrounding structures.

“Okay,” he says, and then again, firmer this time– “Okay. Tell me?”

Quinlan closes his eyes. Leans forward. Presses their foreheads together. 

And does.

Footage.

The footage.

Discovered in Palpatine’s– the Sith’s– files.

They’d called Mace to deal with it. As soon as he’d realized what it was.

Copies of the footage may have been saved– elsewhere.

They’re searching, now. Poring over lines and lines of code.

For a dead man’s switch. Release onto the holonet.

Irretrievable. Inescapable.

Obi-Wan sets the words aside. A safe distance away. Picks them up, one by one. Studying them.

They.

“Who else saw?”

“Just me.”

“Tell me.”

“I was the only one looking at the screen. I was the only one who saw it. No one went further, after I realized–”

“Tell me who else was there.”

Yaddle, as it turns out. Tholme. Names Obi-Wan doesn’t recognize.

Too many.

“As soon as. You said. How long did– how much did you–”

“Four seconds.”

Too much. Too long.

“I didn’t– recognize you. At first.”

“No.”

Metal in his mouth. Prying open. Jaw popping, dislocating– no breath left–

(The pain had ceased to matter, after a bit. Meaningless next to the supreme and unmatched agony of being bent out of shape.)

“I don’t think I would have, either.”

Yellow sky. Sour bile. Warm hands.

Shaking. Disbelieving. Fingers at his pulse point.

Bare hands.

Psychometry is a powerful tool. Furniture. Flimsiwork.

Data chips.

“What did it feel like?”

A breath. Two breaths. The two of them, matching.

“Bloated,” Quinlan whispers. “Like an infection. Septic joy.”

Obi-Wan nods.

Yes.

That tracks.

[doodlejoltik]

my favourite writing device is having an un-Rei-liable narrator

[adrift-in-thyme]

Congrats on the follower milestone, Trin!! For the lil fanfic suggestions, how about Sky and Warriors bonding? I do love how you write emotional hurt/comfort, and it would be cool if Wars were the one comforting, but these are all just suggestions! No worries if you don't feel inspiration from this prompt :) Hope you're having a good day!

Tysm @unclemoriarty !! And thanks for the prompt! I love writing Wars and Sky, especially when it’s angsty ;) I hope you like what I came up with!

No warnings, just some angst

———————-

Sky brushes a hand roughly across his eyes, trying to do away with the moisture there. He doesn’t deserve to cry. Not after everything. But the Shadow’s words still echo in his mind, a sentence he never wanted to shoulder.

…and yet has for years now.

“Have you told them yet?” Crimson eyes gleam in his mind’s eye. Cool metal presses against his neck. “Have you told them that you are responsible for all their pain?

“Tell me, hero, have you informed them of the curse you allowed to take root in your souls?”

Seeing their faces had been the worst of it. Worse than the wounds the Shadow had inflicted, worse than the fear and pain. They had looked at him, questioning, confused, and all he could do in the aftermath was spew a choked explanation full of excuses.

“I should’ve stabbed him right then and there. I shouldn’t have given him the mercy of another moment of life.” That is what it really comes down to. His foolish belief that he had won, that he could spare the fading god a few more seconds to breathe his last.

Decency and morality are things he clings to. They’re what make him a hero. He has no plans to release them now. But…

He gazes out into the dim light of a cloudy day, wincing as even that much brightness assaults his aching eyes.

But in this moment he is beginning to think his decision was more pride than anything else. Or…perhaps it was just exhaustion. A yearning for it all to be over so he could go collapse in his friends’ waiting arms, safe at last.

It doesn’t matter either way. The point is that he failed. And now others must shoulder the repercussions of that failure.

“Hey, Sky.”

He jolts abruptly out of his thoughts, breath hitching. In an instant, he is on his feet. But it is only the captain standing there, looking a bit damp from the drizzling rain.

“Sorry,” he says, holding up his hands in a gesture of surrender, “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

Sky shakes his head, forcing a smile onto his lips.

“It’s fine.”

He turns away, flopping defeatedly back down onto the ground. If Warriors knows it for the sign Sky means it to be, he doesn’t indicate as much. Instead, he comes to sit down beside him.

“It’s not a very pleasant day today, is it?”

Sky doesn’t answer, but he can feel the captain’s eyes on him, searching, questioning, perhaps even judging. He fights not to crumble before their scrutiny.

“No,” he croaks, finally, “it’s not.”

Warriors has turned now to gaze out into the endless gray. Sky still feels exposed, raw. Suddenly, he has the distinct yearning to claw out of his own skin.

For another agonizing thread of minutes it is quiet. Then, Warriors speaks, his voice soft.

“We aren’t angry at you, Sky.”

Sky looks down at his boots and doesn’t reply. The silence is agonizing, but speaking is far worse.

Warriors allows it for a short while more.

“Did I ever tell you how the War of Ages began?” He says, finally, still soft, far softer than the captain usually sounds.

Sky shakes his head. Warriors chuckles, short and bitter.

“I figured as much. Well, you should know…it started because of me.”

Sky’s eyes widen slightly. He turns to Warriors, but the captain is facing away still, expression carefully guarded.

“A woman named Cia became obsessed with me without me even knowing it. She attacked Hyrule to get what she wanted. I wouldn’t give in — and neither would anyone else — and in the end we defeated her. But to get there, to obtain a victory…”

He ducks his head, that hollow chuckle ringing out again. It tears Sky’s heart in two.

“It’s what it means to be a hero, Sky,” he murmurs. “To lose, to fail, if only to succeed in the end. We carry heavy burdens — every single one of us.”

Finally, he turns to Sky, a sad smile on his lips. Gently, he puts a hand on Sky's shoulder.

“But if we stick together we’ll be alright. Trust me.”

Sky swallows hard. Tears still pick at his eyes and the lump in his throat warns of the sobs that are still to come. Far away he can make out a dark haze amongst all the gray — rain approaching fast. He watches it through blurred eyes.

“I’m sorry about the war,” he says, quietly. It’s not enough — he knows it isn’t. What can he say to wash away Warriors’ guilt, his pain?

“Not your fault. And I didn’t tell you to gain your pity. I told you because I wanted you to know that I understand. And I know the others do too.” His arm is around Sky now, drawing him in, nudging away his barriers. “That’s why we don’t blame you. Why would we when we all bear our own guilt?”

Sky inhales shakily. The rain is even closer now. They will likely be soaked soon. But with Warriors warm and steady beside him, he can’t bring himself to care.

He doesn’t deserve this comfort. The war that had made Warriors a hero wouldn’t have even happened without his failure, after all. Yet, he feels incapable of pulling away.

“I’m sorry anyway,” he murmurs, thickly, because words are all he has to offer. “Even if you don’t blame me for the curse…I’m sorry.”

Warriors doesn’t reply. But he coaxes Sky closer until the Skyloftian is resting on his shoulder. And when the rain comes pouring down and Sky shatters beneath it, Warriors holds him tightly while he sobs.

[weird-bookworm]

7:48 ᴘᴍ

warning! beaches and water and one mention of going underwater? it this triggering? idk but i'm putting it here just in case !!

this trip was not planned.

you are sitting in your car, sipping coffee and driving to the nearest beach, while wonwoo sits in the passenger seat ("you be the passenger princess today, i feel like driving"), almost half asleep. both of you had stayed up until late last night, packing for an overnight trip for the weekend.

the idea literally came out of nowhere, but it just sounded so perfect you knew you had to convince wonwoo. the simp that he is though, he agreed without any resistance, and the two of you started packing.

you check your phone for the directions once you hear the telltale deep snores of your boyfriend, just to see there was a three hour drive still left. you groan and wonder why you chose to drive, but one look at wonwoo's face makes you straighten up and continue on.

"ready for the beach?"

wonwoo is already wearing swin trunks and a loose hawaii patterned shirt ("wonwoo, i love you, but please don't take that thing, it's embarrassing" "all the more reason to take it then!") and has a bag full of things you might need a the beach.

"yeah, just gimme a second," you pick up another, smaller bag, with things like sunscreen and sunglasses, and hook your arm around wonwoo's, "let's go."

the beach is not too crowded, but there is just enough life around for the day to be fun. wonwoo first focuses on setting up a parasol and laying down the towels beneath it, as you take off your t-shirt and shorts for your swimsuit underneath.

then, as you excitedly wait for him to finish his task, he takes out a book and sits on his towel. to read. oh, hell no.

five minutes and lots of pouting later, you manage to get rid of wonwoo's shirt (you might have kissed him enough to distract him and then just. pulled off the shirt, but that is for him to know and for us to never find out).

of course while he (half heartedly) complains about you being unfair, you take time to admire his body— you admit it, you are shameless, but also, he's literally your boyfriend, you have every right to ogle him whenever and wherever.

he catches you in the act and smirks knowingly at your red cheeks at being caught, but you thank the gods because he says nothing about it. you apply sunscreen on his back (while, yet again, enjoying the muscles rippling below your palms) thoroughly, and then you are ready to go.

you have fun in the water, splashing water at each other and running straight into oncoming waves. for someone who wanted to read on a beach instead of enjoying the summer day, wonwoo is a really good swimmer. he easily submerges in the water (which makes you wonder how well he's holding up without his glasses) to scare you and stands like a rock when you try to shove him inside.

you don't know if you find it sexy or annoying.

after about three hours of fun, the two of you decide to get out of the water and spend time together on the soft sand. the sun is setting, leaving a warm glow all around, and the beach has almost descended into a comfortable silence.

it's romantic, despite the salty water clinging to your clothes and the rigorous hair washing that you know is waiting for you back at the hotel.

but for now, you only have eyes for wonwoo (who has already wiped himself and is sitting down to continue reading— this man) and the adorable smile that lights up his face.

@blue-jisungs this is for you <;33

[our-blood-is-our-ink]

if your still doing the prompt thing how about 17, 23, 25, 29 with power!bottom claire being stressed and intern!reader offering to help but don't have any sexual experience so claire teaches them

Thank you so much for sending this in! I'm so sorry it took so long to complete, life got very hectic, but I have it for you now! I hope I've done this request justice <3

Afterhours

Ship: Claire Debella x Reader

Summary: When you, an intern working at the governor's office, offer to stay with the governor while she works late into the night, you find yourself in a situation you have only ever fantasized of.

Word Count: 5.8k

Disclaimer: 18+ ONLY, minors dni

Warnings: smut, hints at dark!Claire, pet-names, praise kink, degradation kink, fingering, oral, first time, virgin reader, legal age gap, power imbalance, mommy kink, begging, implied subspace

It's an open secret at the office that Governor Debella is paranoid.

If the extreme vetting process to just simply become an intern is anything to go by, the woman could use some relaxation time.

After all, a single intern hardly would have the ability to take down the political powerhouse that Governor Debella is.

Or, that's what you think anyhow.

You knew you had been lucky to land the job, the experience and credentials that will pad up your resume and qualifications that will come from working here, but some days, all you can think about is how stressed the top boss constantly is.

Being a people pleaser, being a people fixer, you started to stay late, wanting to get as much work done as possible.

Sure, you're only a low level entry personnel, but what you do helps free up time for those above you to focus on more important things.

After a few weeks of being the last one in the office, Governor Debella notices.

“Don't you have someone to get home to? A boyfriend, or a pet, or something?”

You nearly topple back in your seat, startled by your boss’s boss’s boss’s boss (seriously there's a chain of command here, and you're merely a bottom feeder) not having heard her approach from behind.

“Governor!” You gasp, trying to recover. “Uh- I don't- I live with a few roommates, but they never care if I'm there or not. We're all very busy.”

Governor Debella frowns, and crosses her arms.

“There's no reason for you to be staying so late. You're an intern. You don't get paid overtime.”

You shrug.

“I don't have much else to do. Call it volunteer hours.”

(And god, doesn't that sound pathetic, especially because it's true.)

Her frown deepens.

“It's illegal for you to stay and work without pay.”

“Are you telling me I need to start going home at quitting time?”

The words spill from your mouth before you can think them through.

There's a moment of silence, and for a second you could swear it's hesitation on Governor Debella’s face.

“No.” She says, after a beat too long.

There's another, much longer silence.

You hate the quiet, and you find yourself breaking it.

“Then, er, what do you want me to do?”

Governor Debella blinks, and it draws your attention to the dark bags underneath her tired silvery-blue eyes, her makeup must having had rubbed off enough for it to begin to show.

You suddenly realize that perhaps it's just as exhausting for her as it is for everyone else to deal with her stress and paranoia.

“Would you like some company while you work?” You offer, a gentleness in your tone that you hadn't made the decision to speak with. “I could clock out and then just… Sit in your office with you if you'd like. I know how empty the building feels when everyone has left.”

This time, you know you haven't imagined her hesitation.

“I'm under contract, anyhow, Governor. If there's an additional paper you need me to sign, for security reasons, well.” You shrug. “What's one more?”

Again, there's silence, and then…

“Call me Claire, if you're really willing to sit and do nothing for hours besides for staring at my office walls.”

You're a bit shocked she's accepted your offer, and you stumble over your response.

“I- oh. Uh… Okay, um. Claire.”

The governor’s lips twitch, as if she's hiding a smile.

“But not tonight. I was just about to head out, which means you definitely should too. Security won't stick around once I leave, and the night shift…” Claire scowls. “I need to remember to get them replaced.”

It's the most you've ever heard her talk without snapping at someone to do something, let alone to you.

“Isn't that what your assistant is for? To remind you or to arrange that on your behalf?”

“That's only if I remember to tell him.” Claire mutters, before shaking her head. “Shut your computer down, you're not staying if I'm not in the building.”

She waits, hovering over your shoulder as you listen, and she walks with you out to the front of the building.

“You didn't park in the lot?” She asks, when you start to head towards home.

You can feel your face flush.

“I uh… I don't exactly get paid enough to own a car.” You refuse to look at the older woman. “Usually I just walk back.”

“It's two in the morning.” Claire sounds incredulous.

“I have pepper spray.”

“No. You're not walking home anymore.”

Claire has her arms crossed again, and an all too familiar glare is being leveled at you.

Before now, you always thought it was an angry expression.

You're beginning to wonder if maybe it's a stubborn one instead.

You sigh.

“Well short of driving me home yoursel-”

“That's exactly what I'm going to do.”

You barely manage to keep your jaw from dropping as Claire turns, clearly expecting you to follow her.

You suppose if you don't, you won't get too far before she can find you walking.

Or if not, possibly fire you over it tomorrow.

You push down your anxiety.

Don't worse case scenario. You scold yourself.

Claire drives a nondescript silver minivan.

“I have custody every other month.” She explains your unanswered question.

Ah, right.

Sometimes you forget that Claire just recently went through divorce, that she has two little ones to care for.

You remember how the media had dug it all up, how they aired her very private life for the public.

For a minivan, it's pretty nice.

When Claire turns on the car, a few loud notes play, before she quickly slams her palm against the knob that turns the car music on and off.

You raise an eyebrow, but don't say anything about it.

Instead you ask, “how are they?”

“My kids?”

She sounds mildly surprised as she reaches for her seatbelt.

“Yeah.”

You click yours in as she replies.

“They're… They're okay, all things considered.”

She puts the car in reverse, and you rattle off your address so she knows where she's headed.

Her nose wrinkles, and you're willing to bet it's because you don't live in a particularly nice area.

“You had to hire shadows- uh, bodyguards for them, right?”

Claire's hands clench the wheel, turning her knuckles white.

“I don't know of any other governor who's had their children's lives threatened.” She practically growls. “It scares them, but they won't say anything.”

“I'm sorry.” You murmur.

Claire glances at your pale face, and she takes a breath, forcing her body to relax.

“It's not your fault.” She shakes her head. “They're my kids. I'm their mother. I'm bound to be a bit overprotective.”

You choke back an unamused laugh.

“You would hope.”

Claire gives you a quick look, before returning her full attention to the road.

“What makes you say that?”

Oh crap, you didn't mean to invite Claire to dig into your life.

“Er… My parents… They weren't the best.” You mumble.

Claire frowns, eyes still looking forward.

“How old are you again?”

“Twenty-three.”

Claire hums.

“And how much are we paying you again?”

You rattle off the salary.

Claire hums again, and then there's silence for the rest of the short drive.

When she pulls up in front of your apartment, you say, “this is it.”

You undo your seatbelt and open the door, moving to leave.

“I'll have the paperwork ready for you on your desk by lunch.” Claire says.

At your confused look she huffs.

“For your extended night hours.”

Oh!

“Right, thank you. And thank you for the lift.”

Claire nods.

“If you don't have those papers past lunch break, hound my assistant. Don't take no for an answer, I might not remember to let Brian know to expect you to be a bother.”

The word bother echoes around your head, and you swallow down sudden anxiety.

“Sure thing. Good night, Governor-er- Claire.”

“Good night.” The other woman says, and you shut the passenger door firmly behind you as you sprint into your building.

—»•«—

You do have to bother her assistant the next day, and the stack of papers Claire presents you with is frankly ridiculous, but you pull out a notepad, read them through, and write bullet points of what you're agreeing to.

You sign, and initial, and date.

And then you binder clip it all together and drop it with a fairly solid thud onto Brian’s desk.

“Governor Debella will want these to be scanned and filed.” You say, even as an intern knowing the procedure for important documentation.

The man frowns at you.

“You're not done.” Brain says, and then seemingly out of nowhere, produces another stack of papers.

You groan, but your impatience quickly disappears as you stare at the sheet of paper, towards the end of the stack, that says how much of a raise you're receiving for signing on to be Claire’s personal intern.

Claire's personal intern.

$47,000

That was $15k more than what you had been making.

What the fuck.

You sign the papers, and don't say a word.

Slowly, as the day progresses, people trickle out, until you're the last one in the main office.

Brain looks at you as he leaves, and nearly walks into a wall trying to maintain his stare.

You head towards Claire's office and knock on her door.

“Come in.”

She sounds frazzled, and you realize you haven't seen her flying around the office today as you normally do.

“Everything alright?” You ask, taking note of Claire's disheveled state.

“No.” Is the simple answer you get, and you don't push as Claire continues to frantically scribble something out.

You glance around, familiarizing yourself with the private office you so rarely see the inside of, and take notice of a little seating area, with two arm chairs and a very comfortable looking couch.

In addition, there's what appears to be a bar cart, but it's filled with bottled water and sports drinks instead of alcohol, as well as a giant TV screen and what looks like a game console hooked up to it.

Somehow, you can't quite picture Claire playing video games while at work, and you have to wonder if perhaps she has ever been forced to watch one or both of her kids while working.

You don't want to become an annoyance, so instead of pacing the space, you choose to settle into one of the armchairs, curling up with one knee to your chest, the other dangling off the side of the chair.

You stare at the ceiling and let your mind wander as you examine the embedded ceiling lights.

“This is fucking bullshit.” Claire suddenly growls, and the sound of a pen clattering against the plastic wood of her desk sounds through the room.

“What is?” You ask.

Claire’s head jerks up, and for a moment, she looks surprised.

“You're so quiet.” She says. “I forgot you were here.”

You shrug, and don't say I’m good at that, I've had a lot of practice growing up.

You do say, “I didn't want to be a distraction.”

Claire hums.

She does that a lot, you realize.

“Well, maybe instead I can bounce this off of you.”

She gestures for you to come around to her side of the desk, and you quickly skim over what appears to be a proposal for a bill.

“Is it even legal for me to be doing this?” You ask.

Out of the corner of your eye you see Claire shrugging.

“You work for the government office this will be coming out from. It's not illegal, just out of the norm.”

You make a noise of understanding, going over the contents of it, frowning.

“What’s the problem with this?” You ask once you're finished giving the proposal a once-over.

Claire viciously stabs a single digit at some handwritten notes laying next to her keyboard.

“This section, this sentence, this paragraph, this fucking word is wrong, but the thesaurus is being useless-”

“Whoa, whoa.” You slow down what was sure to be Claire spiraling into more stress. “What's the most important thing to fix here?”

Claire blinks, pauses, frowns, then flips through her notes.

“Here.” She finally decides. “This entire section needs to be completely rewritten.”

You scroll to the right place on the computer screen and read it over more carefully.

“I'm pretty sure we can bullshit what you want to say here.” You murmur half to yourself. “It shouldn't be too difficult, most of the framework is here, it's just about closing the loopholes and rewording things to be less polarizing.”

“You make it sound so simple.” Claire grumps, leaning back in her chair and frowning as she crosses her arms.

You shrug.

“I bullshitted my fair share of essays, the difficult part to it is having a decent outline, which you already have.”

The other woman grumbles something under her breath before sitting up, shooing you away with a flick of her hand.

“Alright, well if it's that easy.” Her tone is disgruntled, but her fingers are already clacking against the keyboard, and you take that as your signal to return to the armchair you had been lazing about in.

At the end of the night, she drives you home again.

It becomes a routine.

For the next few months, Claire uses you as a sound board during the late hours, and you've taken to bringing either a book to read or an adult coloring book to do while you sit with her.

And then something big must have happened in her private life, because Claire is an absolute menace even to you one Monday, tearing through the office morale like a hot knife to butter.

You don't dare say a thing, even when she snaps at you later that night for being incompetent, and you just sit and take it.

She doesn't mean it personally.

You know that.

But by the time Thursday rolls around, her attitude hasn't changed, and you've found yourself retreating, becoming as small and invisible as possible in an attempt to spare yourself from Claire’s wrath.

You hear shuffling from where you're curled up on the couch, and you look up, and find Claire downing a shot, a bottle of amber liquid sitting on her desk.

“I know I've been an ass.” She says when she catches your eye.

“You've been stressed.” You excuse.

Claire shakes her head.

“There are better ways of releasing steam.”

“Well what do you usually do?”

You think this must be the first conversation all week that Claire is having civilly.

“Get high. Or have sex.”

Your mouth drops open at her blasé answer.

“And I haven't been able to do either.” She complains.

“Well, er. I could- I could help. If you wanted. To- um. To destress, I- I mean.”

You don't know why those words left your mouth, and the moment they do, you can feel your face heat up.

Sure, you've begun to have the occasional fantasy or wet dream about your boss, but that wasn't the same thing as implying you'd have sex with her.

HR is going to have a field day with you.

You're going to be fired.

You bury your face into your hands, and when Claire gently brushes her fingers against your back, you jump.

You hadn't heard her move.

“Look at me.” She softly says, and you shiver at how low her voice is pitched.

“There's a good girl.” She smiles as you listen, and the pulse of heat that shoots down your spine makes you feel dizzy.

Her hand comes up to cup your face, angling it upwards and forcing you to meet her eyes.

“Do you mean it, baby?” She asks, and you shiver at the pet-name, biting your lip as you grow more aroused. “You'll help mommy destress?”

Your eyes widen at the title Claire has bestowed upon herself, and you flush with embarrassment as the whine you've been fighting to keep down slips out through your mouth and escapes.

Your boss chuckles.

“Such a sweet thing. You had no idea what you were getting yourself into, offering to stay so late with me, did you?”

You frown, confused, despite your ever growing arousal.

“Wh-what do you mean?”

Claire smiles, but it's a sharp thing that causes gooseflesh to erupt along your arms.

“Please, doll. I've seen the way you look at me. And we both know how aware you are of how… Lonely, I have been.”

Her hand reaches out, and she brushes her knuckles gently against your cheek.

“Say yes.”

Her voice is pitched low, and it makes you shiver.

“Say yes to mommy, and I promise, you'll never have to worry about a thing again.”

Perhaps it should be your sign to leave right now, the possessiveness that practically drips from the governor's tone, but all it does is empty your head of thought.

“Yes.” You breathlessly say. “Yes, I'll help mommy destress.”

“Good girl.” She purrs, and when your lips part to allow a moan to tumble out, Claire gently presses against your tongue with two fingers.

When you stay still, frozen and unsure of what the older woman wants you to do, she furrows her brow and withdraws her fingers.

“Have you ever had sex before, honey?”

Immediately you can feel heat rise to your cheeks as you shake your head, shame rising in your throat.

“I- I'm a virgin.” You whisper, tripping over your words. “This is my first time…”

You trail off, embarrassed.

“Oh, sweetheart.” Claire coos, her eyes sparking with something that makes you feel a bit like her prey. “Budge over.” She says.

Mindlessly, you obey, scooting all the way down, and Claire settles back against the arm of the couch, and she lazily smiles at you as she slowly, tantalizingly spreads her legs.

You had no idea a suit skirt could stretch so much.

You had no idea how well it could hide the fact that Claire wasn't wearing any underwear either.

“Teach me how to make you feel good.” You're flooded by a sudden need to please this woman spread out before you, a sudden desire to watch her come undone because of you. “Show me how to touch you.” You beg. “Please.”

Claire chuckles deeply.

“You're going to be so perfect for me, baby.” She husks out, and you can feel how your pussy pulses, leaking wetness against the material of your underwear.

Unlike Claire, you're wearing a pair.

A niggling feeling of regret bothers you.

You wish you were easily accessible for your boss.

You want her to ruin you.

“Come here, honey.” Claire beckons you with a single finger, and you're obedient, crawling until you hover over her.

She reaches her hands up, and oh so gently cups your face with her hands, guiding your head downwards until your lips are just millimeters apart.

One of her thumbs softly brushes over your cheek, moving back and forth in a soothing sweeping motion, and her silvery-blue eyes gaze deep into your own.

The moment stretches, and you grow impatient of waiting, and despite your heart hammering against your ribcage, you close the miniscule gap between your lips and hers.

They're so fucking soft.

Claire isn't your first kiss by any means, but you deeply wish it were.

You're moaning into her mouth like you're a slut, and when Claire enters your own with her tongue, it's all you can do to keep yourself from falling atop of her as your limbs go weak.

Languidly, you make out with your boss, and as you do so, one of her knees makes its way between the apex of your thighs.

When you instinctively buck into the touch, Claire pulls away, and breathlessly laughs at you.

“Remember, doll. This is about mommy, not about you.”

Your head is spinning from the lack of oxygen.

You whimper, and bite your lip.

Her expression softens, and she reaches up to tuck an errant strand of hair behind your ear.

“Didn't mommy say that as long as you're with me, I'll see to all your needs? Make me feel good, and I promise, you'll get a reward, sweet thing.”

You drop your head against her shoulder, and the whine that escapes you causes Claire to reach up and stroke at your hair.

“Let me show you how to touch mommy, baby. Let me show you how she likes to be pleasured.”

It's not fair, you think. No one woman should have the right to say things like that in such a husky sounding voice.

Your pussy throbs.

You lift your head up, and shift your weight, settling back so that you're straddling Claire.

“Please mommy, teach me.” You beg, and the older woman groans at the plain desperation that drips from your tone. “Teach me how to make you scream for your baby.”

At the word ‘scream’, Claire's eyes light up, something that simultaneously sends a shiver of fear through your body, but also a shiver of anticipation.

“You want to make mommy scream, doll? Get off, and I'll show you how.”

Gracelessly you tumble off of Claire and onto the floor, and she shakes her head as she laughs.

“You’re adorable, sweetheart.”

She stands, and as she walks back to her desk, she strips, carelessly leaving her clothes crumbled on the floor.

As she settles back into her leather seat, she spreads her legs wide in a clear order.

Her gaze feels intense as she watches you wobble over to her, before you collapse, dropping to your knees, your legs unable to continue to support your weight.

Your head spins as the scent of Claire’s arousal overwhelms you, and you look up at your boss with wide, pleading eyes.

She chuckles, and her hand comes down to pet your hair, before they tangle and tug at you.

“M-mommy!” You protest. “I still don't know what to do!”

Claire groans, but she doesn't stop guiding you forward.

“You're smart, doll. I'm sure you can figure it out.”

You whimper, but don't protest further, and then the older woman's cunt is directly in your face, and you're powerless as you stick your tongue out hesitantly.

You give her a taste test.

The wetness that is slowly dripping from Claire is a bit salty, but mostly, it just tastes musky.

It isn't bad.

It's just… New.

You give Claire’s pussy a few more tiny little licks, trying to acclimate to her taste, and she tightens her hold on your hair.

“I thought you wanted to make mommy scream.” She bites out, yanking you flush against her pulsing center. “So do it. Mommy needs to relax, and you're going to help.”

Helplessly, you do as Claire commands, and you start lapping at her earnestly.

When she lets out an unrestrained moan above you, you can't help but moan in return, and Claire gasps.

She yanks your head back, her chest heaving slightly, pupils blown wide.

“I never thought you could make such sweet noises, baby.” She breathlessly says.

You feel heat rushing to your face, and Claire's free hand grips your chin when you try to look away.

“Neither did I.” You whisper, ashamed.

Claire tsks.

“None of that now, honey, mommy wants to hear you again. Moan for me.”

Your mouth drops open, and your mind goes blank as you try to process your boss’s demand.

Her grip tightens.

“I said moan for me, bitch.”

It tumbles involuntarily from your mouth, loud and uncontrolled, and Claire's grip on your chin turns painfully.

“Does that turn you on? For mommy to degrade you like the little fucking slut you are?”

The noise you make in response causes Claire’s eyes to glint as she smirks.

“Who knew beneath all that innocence was a whore.” She coos, before jerking your head forward in a clear demand.

You eat her out for what feels like ages, the taste of Claire filling your senses, and you grow progressively lightheaded.

You find your thoughts slipping away as you become utterly focused on not letting one drop of your boss’s wetness to escape your tongue, and you find your hands keeping her legs spread apart as you become more eager in your ministrations.

You feel drunk as Claire begins to make higher and higher pitched noises until finally, she goes so high, it's a shrill thing that your ears can barely withstand, and there's a wetness soaking your face that isn't from how vigorously you had been pleasuring her.

She hasn't told you to stop, though, and you find yourself not wanting to regardless, so you continue to lap at her until she harshly jerks your head away.

“Enough.” She pants, eyes closed, chest heaving. “Enough.”

Your head spins, and you feel dizzy as you stare, memorized by the woman above you.

You open your mouth, aware there's something you want to ask, but you can't seem to conjure enough words in your mind to even speak them aloud.

Silvery-blue eyes open, and the most self satisfied smirk you have ever seen curls at the edges of Claire’s lips.

“How precious.” She murmurs, before sticking her heeled foot out.

You hadn't noticed that despite shedding her clothes, the older woman had kept her shoewear on.

“Why don't you make yourself feel good, and put on a pretty show for mommy, hm?”

You slowly close your mouth, becoming aware it's been hanging open, and give your boss a confused look.

Claire sighs.

“That's right, you really don't have any experience. Could have fooled me, with how well you've made me cum, doll.”

You flush, uncertain if it's from the praise or from the degradation.

You watch as Claire carefully stands, and you're startled when she hisses, her left leg buckling from how loose and relaxed her muscles have become.

“Strip.” Claire orders, her knuckles white from how hard she's clutching at her desk. “And then lay back on the couch.”

You scramble, tugging your shirt off as you simultaneously attempt to undo the button of your pants, and you wind up tripping, falling to the floor.

Claire's laughter causes your face to heat up.

“Looks like my baby needs my help, hm?” She giggles, toeing off her heels so that she can walk properly.

You whine, and can feel tears pricking at the corners of your eyes with embarrassment.

“Aw, sweetheart.” Claire pouts. “Mommy thinks you're cute for being so eager. No need to be so sad over it.”

You whine again, but slowly force yourself to sit up.

“Mommy.” You whimper. “Jus’ wanted to feel good.”

The older woman’s amused expression visibly softens, and warm hands reach for you.

You stand with Claire's help, and she almost reverently helps you undress, gently kissing each newly revealed piece of skin.

“Look at this beautiful body, honey. Just so perfect for me.”

Unable to bear the compliment, you choose instead to bury your head against the upper part of Claire's chest.

She coos, and runs her fingers through your hair.

“Oh, sweet thing. Is my baby feeling shy?”

You nod against her, noticing the soft smell of vanilla.

You've never noticed it before.

You had thought it was maybe the air refresher in Claire's office, but no.

It's her.

Your head spins.

And you're so wet.

Claire's laugh rumbles against you, and she easily guides you towards the couch.

You only grow steadily redder as she pulls your legs apart, kissing her way up from one ankle, and then kisses her way back down the other, over and over until you're squirming with your need.

“Mommy, please!” You cry.

Claire groans, eyes fluttering shut for a few moments, before she pulls you close, hooking your legs over her shoulders.

When she noses at your clit, your hands find her hair, and she tsks.

“No, doll. I won't reward you if you pull at my hair.”

Reluctantly, you release your grip, and bury your fingers against the cushion of the couch instead.

“Good girl.” Claire praises, and you moan softly in response.

When her tongue presses against you, you shudder at the new sensation.

It's wet and warm and slightly rough, and–

“Oh, fuck!” You cry out. “Fuck, mommy!”

Claire's hands harshly grip at the sensitive skin of your inner thighs, making you whimper, but she continues to lavish her tongue over your clit, and you begin to squirm in earnest.

You've masterbated plenty of times, and have a few toys in your bedside drawer, but that is nothing compared to the older woman’s touch.

Within a few minutes, you're already near orgasm, and you chase the release, fighting the urge to bring your hands back up to tangle into Claire's hair.

And then right when you're about to reach that high, the moment before the waves of pleasure can overwhelm you, she pulls away, and you loudly sob.

“No, please.” You gasp.

Claire smirks, and you whimper at how lustful her gaze is, at how your wetness glistens on the bottom half of her face.

“You want to cum, baby?” She mocks you, pouting. “You want mommy to let you feel good? Then beg for it. I need to hear my cute little doll ask for permission first.”

You whimper.

“Please, mommy.” You can feel tears start to gather with how badly you want this. “Please let your baby cum, I wanna cum for you, I wanna feel good, please, please, please!”

“Hm…” Claire hums.

“Please.” The tears start to roll down your cheeks. “I wanna to cum, mommy. I want you to make me cum, please.”

You let out a sob of desperation when a single digit finds your swollen clit, and lightly begins to circle it.

“Please.” You whisper, your voice getting caught in your throat.

For a moment, you think your boss is going to deny you, and you open your mouth to continue to beg, when instead you gasp, two of Claire’s fingers suddenly stretching you open.

You let out a high pitch noise when she curls the digits, pleasure burning through you, and you buck your hips.

“Mommy, mommy, mommy!” You chant, unable to form any other thought, let alone words.

“Cum for me, princess.” Claire softly orders, and as if your body was designed to obey her every desire, you convulse, a scream tearing it's way from your throat as she continues to finger fuck you, the gushing wetness weeping from your pussy causing a squelching noise, and you writhe as you ride the high.

“Fuck, baby.” Claire groans. “I want you to come for me again.”

You squirm desperately, the aftershocks still pulsing through you, but Claire is stronger than your now limp body, and she thumbs at your clit, sending electric waves up your spine, causing your back to arch painfully.

“FUCK!” You cry out, unable to control your volume, and you can barely hear Claire's responding moan over the static in your ears as a new wave of ecstasy crashes over you.

You're gasping for air with how it steals your breath away, and when Claire collapses on top of you, you gladly welcome it, despite how it further suffocates your lungs of oxygen.

She smells so good. You think as you start to come back to your senses.

The scent of vanilla is still prominent, but it's now mixed with the smell of Claire’s sweat.

Somehow, it's more appealing.

The smell of sex still hangs heavy in the air, and you throb as your body unfairly grows more aroused again.

“Mommy.” You whisper.

Claire groans, burying her head further against your neck.

“You smell so good, princess.” She says. “And you look so beautiful when I fuck your brains out.”

A whimper catches in the back of your throat.

Claire finally moves, shifting until she's sitting upright, and you don't think she's ever looked as enthralling as does now.

Her cheeks are flushed, and you can clearly see faint freckles that are usually hidden under a layer of makeup that Claire must have sweated off, and her hair has gone from stick straight to gentle waves, a halo of frizz framing her face.

You lose yourself in her eyes, at how she smiles so tenderly as she helps you up and to the private attached bathroom in her office.

“Let's get cleaned up, doll.” She says, and you grin goofily at her.

Your head is still spinning.

She giggles, a light sound that makes you join in once a light snort causes her to double over.

“You're so cute.” She smiles, and you obediently spread your legs when she taps your thigh.

She gently runs the wash cloth in her hand over the sticky residue of your arousal, and you flinch every time she passes over your clit.

“You’re still so sensitive.” She breathes out. “Did mommy not satisfy you, doll? Do you want mommy to keep going until it hurts for me to?”

“I- ah!” You cry out when Claire firmly swipes the cloth over your swollen bud. “I just want to be good.”

Claire peers up at you, and you hold your breath as she weighs your words.

“Next time then, maybe.” She decides, and you aren't sure if your shoulders slump with relief or disappointment.

She finishes cleaning you up, before moving on to herself, telling you to wait as she does so.

You watch as her back muscles move with her motions, and you can't resist the urge to kiss them, to nip at them.

Who knew the governor would have such fairly well defined muscles?

“Baby.” Claire warns.

“Mmm… Mommy.” You reply, before darting the tip of your tongue out against her warm skin.

“Baby, if you want to go home, you'll stop.”

“But you're so pretty. I can't help it.”

Claire turns around, shaking her head.

“You're adorable, honey. Come on, let's get dressed so we can head home.”

Claire has to help you into your shirt and pants, and you don't notice when she pockets your underwear instead of giving it back to you when she spots it under the couch.

Before you leave, your boss insists on watching you drink a glass of water, predicting you'll be too tired to do so once she drops you off at home, expressing how important it is to her that you take care of yourself.

By the time you get to her car, you're stumbling with exhaustion, beginning to crash as the endorphin high wears off.

You can't keep your eyes open once she starts driving, and when you let out a huge yawn, Claire glances at you.

“Go to sleep, baby.” She soothingly says. “I'll wake you up when we get home.”

You're used to listening when she asks you of something, and so you don't think twice as you finally allow your eyes to stay close, and you drift off, Claire's warm hand on your thigh.