#to claim a throne made of ancient debris

[littlemisspascal]

Death and an Angel part 13

Death!Din x Cupid F!Reader

Summary: Ahsoka takes Din on a journey through the past.

“You should know though, you might not like what you see.”

Din shakes his head, dismissing the warning. “What’s one more nightmare?”

Rating: T

Word Count: 5,958

Warnings: angst, swearing, character death (canonical, but with my own twist), made up planet name that is ridiculous, dialogue heavy, plot plot plot, backstory

Author Note: Good lord this is soooo late coming out. To anyone who sent me an encouraging message I am beyond grateful because I really needed the encouragement to finish this segment. I hope more than anything this segment gives more answers than it raises questions (although reading your theories is both awesome and entertaining so keep them coming too!)

Links to Part 1 and Part 12 and Part 14

Cross-posted on AO3.

Photo Inspiration:

“Who the fuck is Moff Gideon?”

Ahsoka looks at Din, her brow furrowed deeply. He’s seen the expression on her face enough times to recognize its meaning: this is the face she makes when she is about to reveal a message directly from the universe itself. As an Oracle, she is the only immortal who can glimpse details of the past, present, and future. She has a soft spot for mortals, sharing the few precious snippets the universe allows her to with them in the forms of riddles and vague prophecies that never fail to give Din a migraine with their crypticness when he hears them.

“Moff Gideon is a Seraph who grew discontent with his position amongst immortals,” she says at last.

“Is he the one responsible for keeping my soulmate from me?” he asks, voice as harsh and unforgiving as the environment surrounding them.

“He is responsible for many sins.”

“I don’t have time for your vague answers,” he growls, hands twisting into fists. “You tell me not to kill this Seraph, then in the next breath claim he’s a threat. I am not a mortal who will be entertained by riddles, Ahsoka. You summoned me here to talk, so start talking. Tell me what you know.”

The Oracle’s mouth purses into a thin line. Nearly a full minute passes before she speaks again. When she does, the calmness is no longer natural, but forced. “Telling you what I know would be impossible.”

“Ahsoka—”

“But,” she pitches her voice higher than his protest while narrowing her eyes disapprovingly, “I am capable of showing you. You should know though, you might not like what you see.”

Din shakes his head, dismissing the warning. “What’s one more nightmare?”

She reaches forward, pressing her index and middle fingers to the center of his visor. If not for his helmet, she’d be touching the space directly between his eyes and instinct tells him the positioning isn’t random.

“We’ll start at the beginning,” she says, but her voice has changed from its usual cadence. It is ancient and youthful, a harsh scream and a hushed whisper all at once.

Din has only the slightest of seconds to process this in addition to the way her facial markings start to glow and her eyes flash white before he finds himself standing in the midst of a crisis.

There is mass hysteria every direction he turns. People screaming in terror, pushing each other and tripping over those who have fallen in their haste to flee an unseen threat; whole buildings are crumbling, sending flaming debris and shards of glass raining down upon the streets as smoke billows into the sky. The edges of his field of view are blurred, like he’s looking at everything through someone’s glasses, and it creates an ache behind his eyeballs. Fuck, is this what it’s like for Ahsoka when she experiences visions?

‘You remember the Fall of Mandalore, don’t you, Death?’ Ahsoka’s voice resonates from deep inside his brain, as if she’s fused her consciousness with his.

His jaw tightens when he says, “Of course.”

‘Oh, look. There you are.’

Sure enough, when Din looks forward he sees himself moving swiftly through the crowd, unaffected by the chaos as he stoops to reap the soul of a woman who’s had her skull caved in by the stampede of frantic civilians. He wonders how many others can say they’ve had an out-of-body-experience such as what he’s dealing with right now: reliving a traumatic event all over again while observing himself the same way a stranger would from a distance.

“Why are you showing me this?”

‘Because it’s important,’ Ahsoka answers, and the image of her frowning face enters his mind unbiddenly. ‘The universe has a plethora of endings imagined for every civilization, but it is the individual choices of the community that act as stepping stones bringing them closer to a specific fate.’

“Mandalore was always meant to fall apart. It was just a matter of how, not when,” he surmises, voice devoid of emotion. His words are punctuated by another fiery blast from a nearby complex, followed by an ear-piercing wall of a terrified child.

‘Precisely. But the same cannot be said for an individual’s lifespan. There are consequences if someone perishes before their time has come. You should know that better than anyone.’ There is a hint of accusation thinly veiled in her tone that has his body tensing reflexively.

His location shifts, shapes and colors mixing together without warning before another scene gradually comes into focus. It’s a large chamber with sparse furnishings, but its beauty is tarnished by the copious amounts of glass littering the room as every single one of the ornately designed windows have been shattered from the force of the explosions outside. Din knows before he even lays eyes on the throne he’s inside the royal palace because he first sees the familiar face of his most trusted reaper standing next to a blond-haired woman. Both women have such strikingly similar facial features nobody who sees them side by side can have any doubt they are related.

Whereas Bo-Katan dons gray-and-blue armor with a jetpack strapped to her back and two blaster pistols holstered at her sides, her sister, Satine, wears a garnet colored dress with a gold belt wrapped around her slender waist. In this moment, the sisters differ from each other as much as night and day; one a military leader, the other a pacifistic duchess.

“You need someone here to protect you. We don’t know who or what we’re dealing with and it isn’t safe for you to be alone,” Bo-Katan argues, crossing her arms over her chest as if to intimidate her sister into submitting.

“Our people are scared and defenseless, Bo. They need your protection during this crisis more than I currently do,” Satine says, voice soft but firm in a way only those deeply involved in politics can master.

Bo-Katan glances out the broken windows at the burning city, stubborn loyalty to protect her sister warring with her duty to protect her people. “Then at least send a message to Obi-Wan to come here.”

Satine shakes her head. “Bo—”

“I know things are strained between you two right now—”

“That’s a glaring understatement.”

“—but he’s one of our best and most loyal guards. He’s proven more than a dozen times he’ll fight anyone who’s a threat to you.”

“I don’t need the reminder of what he’s done for me.”

Bo-Katan places a hand on the blonde’s shoulder and squeezes it when she says, “He’s the only one other than myself I trust to protect you if you were to encounter danger.”

“Just because I’m committed to peace does not mean I am incapable of looking after myself.” Satine reaches behind herself to detach a weapon that had been clipped to the back of her belt. She clicks a button on its hilt, emitting a white blade shining brightly like a beacon amongst the dark clouds of smoke tainting the air.

Din’s breath catches in his throat. “Is that…?”

‘The Lightsaber of Mandalore,’ Ahsoka confirms. ‘Made by the Armorer herself.’

The Armorer is deeply respected by both mortals and immortals alike. As the goddess of metalworking and blacksmiths, there is nothing she cannot forge and infuse with grand powers. However, she is exceedingly cautious about choosing who is a recipient of her creations.

Din is one such recipient, having been given his armor of pure beskar when the Armorer realized how dangerous his touch was to mortals. He remains eternally grateful for the gift not only because it prohibits unwanted physical contact, but also because it is invulnerable to damage or rust like other types of armor. Ahsoka’s dual sabers were also made in the Armorer’s forge, specifically designed for the Oracle’s grip alone and meant to protect her during her journeys throughout the galaxy, but in contrast to the white blade of the Lightsaber, the blades of Ahsoka’s weapons matched the same blue coloring as the stripes on her lekku and montrals.

According to the legends Din’s heard, the Armorer created the Lightsaber for the first ruler of Mandalore because she was impressed with their culture and strong military, and it was passed on to each new heir to the throne over the centuries. When wielded in battle, the Lightsaber made the user invincible against enemy attacks as it siphoned off energy from the souls of those it sliced through.

Throughout the long history of Mandalore, Satine was distinguished as the only ruler to avoid warfare as she sincerely believed negotiations and treaties could solve any problem quicker than bloodshed.

As such, Din isn’t surprised when Bo-Katan raises a judgmental eyebrow. “Did you forget who you’re talking to? I know you wouldn’t use the Lightsaber even to cut a piece of fruit.”

Satine sighs through her nose, sheathing the weapon once more. “Fine. I’ll contact Obi the second you’re gone.”

“You better.” Bo-Katan leans forward, pressing her forehead against her sister’s. A gesture of affection within their culture. “I’ll see you soon.”

And then she’s gone, flying out the nearby window and diving straight into the fray. As a mortal and as a reaper, the redhead is fearless in the face of danger. Some might consider the behavior reckless, but Din’s always been impressed by her dogged tenacity to achieve victory no matter the difficulty of her mission.

Din looks back at Satine. Now that she is alone in the room, she is able to freely express her distress at the unfolding situation, looking as if she’s aged ten years within the blink of an eye. She fiddles with the comlink around her wrist, seeming hesitant to call this Obi-Wan fellow like she agreed to.

‘They haven’t realized it, but they’re soulmates, ’ Ahsoka murmurs, low and melancholic. Hearing it makes Din’s chest constrict with unease. ‘They fought recently and parted ways upset with each other. Unfortunately, she dies before they can resolve their miscommunication.’

The next sequence of events play out startlingly quick, as if Ahsoka has chosen to suddenly jump forward in time. His eyes struggle to absorb the fleeting details—the doors to the throne room being blown open; a Seraph in black armor emerging from the smoke; his voice is unique, velvety and thorny at the same time, as he addresses the duchess by her full name Satine Kryze; Satine attempting to stall as she subtly taps at her comlink, only for the tactic to fail as the foe teleports closer, eliminating the space between them.

“You have something I want,” he tells her, seizing hold of her throat. “You may think you have some idea of what you have in your possession, but you do not.”

One of Satine’s hands claws at his face, attempting to gouge out his eyeballs with her nails, while the other reaches for the Lightsaber. Her fingertips brush against its metal hilt just as he throws her to the floor. The impact knocks the breath out of her lungs, eliciting a strangled gasp, and shards of glass dig into her exposed skin, dotting the pale flesh with beads of blood.

Gideon—Din doesn’t need Ahsoka’s input to know this, for who else could the Seraph be but him?—places the heel of his boot over Satine’s neck. He doesn’t apply pressure yet, but the action in itself has the duchess squirming with panic, hitting at his leg futilely. There is a red light on the comlink flashing insistently, indicating someone on the other end is speaking but they’ve been muted.

“Give me the asset I seek.”

Through clenched teeth, Satine wheezes, “It belongs to Mandalore.”

“I thought you might say that,” Gideon replies, feigning disappointment. “However, in case you haven’t noticed Duchess,” he gestures towards the windows, “Mandalore is dead. My accomplices have made sure of that.”

“You’re a coward for hiding behind others. You don’t deserve the Lightsaber.”

There is a sudden change in the atmosphere, air turning impossibly frigid and crisp.

“I deserve it more than anyone,” Gideon says, angry enough he is trembling. The Seraph’s stance shifts, and although Din has witnessed every type of brutal death imaginable, he flinches at the sound of Satine’s neck snapping beneath his heel.

Gideon rolls her lifeless body over and rips the Lightsaber off her belt, a satisfied smirk on his face. He disappears as quickly as he arrived, reward in hand, and an eerie silence envelops the room. It’s almost as if the palace itself is stunned by the loss of its ruler, struggling to make sense of the merciless act of violence.

Time skips forward again, showing a young bearded-man dressed in military armor clutching at Satine’s body, pressing his forehead against hers as he weeps. Over and over he keeps murmuring apologies for not being quicker, for failing to be there when she needed him, for never saying he loved her.

“How do you know Satine and Obi-Wan are soulmates if they never matched?” Din asks, feeling like he’s intruding on a private moment despite not actually being there.

He thinks of a similarly phrased question he’d asked his angel on their way to Sorgan what feels like entire lifetimes ago: how will I know it’s my soulmate? Her eloquent response remains embedded deep in his memory, safely stored away along with every other moment they’ve spent together. Longing twists like a knife in his side as he allows himself a second of weakness to look at the soulmate marking on his palm.

‘I saw the life they were going to share,’ Ahsoka tells him. ‘Satine Kryze was not meant to die here. She and Obi-Wan should have both survived the Fall of Mandalore, settling down happily with each other elsewhere in the galaxy. Gideon’s greed altered their destinies.’

The palace fades away to reveal a much older Obi-Wan, gray-haired and wrinkled. He’s in Mos Eisley; Din recognizes the crowded spaceport instantly having taken his ship there for repairs numerous times over the years.

‘The universe puts a lot of effort into making sure soulmates match with each other at a very precise moment. Even if the match is rejected, the individuals still had an important impact on each other’s lives. Timing is the most important factor for a soulmate pairing, and if it’s off then the universe will attempt to fix it.’

Obi-Wan stops to help a woman who’s accidentally dropped her shopping bag, contents spilling out onto the sandy ground. She thanks him as he offers her a polite smile, both of their attentions on each other’s faces and not their hands. More specifically: their marked hands. There is the barest brush of their fingertips as they reach for the same item before an invisible blast of energy erupts from their touch, splitting them apart and sending every person and thing surrounding them flying in all directions.

The shock on Obi-Wan’s face matches Din’s own beneath his helmet. He remembers his angel telling him after the failed match with Omera what happened on Sorgan wasn’t the first time an event like that occurred, but she hadn’t been privy to the details. Her superior had told her she wasn’t high enough ranking which Din had thought sounded like a load of bantha shit at the time.

“Ahsoka, what is the meaning of this?” Din asks the questions quietly, but there’s an audible coating of frustration that he knows she won’t miss. “Satine’s dead.”

‘You didn’t reap her soul,’ Ahsoka says. It’s said as a gentle reminder, but it nevertheless has Din feeling like the ground has disappeared beneath his feet as realization dawns.

“I...didn’t.”

A quiet sigh echoes through his head. ‘I forgot how ignorant you can be. You can’t reap a mortal soul that transforms into a new entity.’

“She’s a Cupid,” Din murmurs. Either that or a reaper, but he knows each of his reapers like the back of his hand and Satine isn’t nor has she ever been one. He shakes his head, thinking of Obi-Wan finding Satine’s body in the throne room. “That doesn’t make any sense. Obi-Wan clearly loved her.”

‘Rejection can sometimes stem from a misunderstanding. Satine’s last living encounter with Obi-Wan was him saying so long as he was part of the royal guard they had no future together. She perceived this as him denying he cared about her, not knowing he had made plans to retire in order to ask for her hand.’

In front of Din, Obi-Wan rubs at his soulmate marking while staring at the mess around him, lines of unease and confusion creasing his forehead.

‘You asked, what is the meaning of this moment?’ Ahsoka continues. ‘It’s one of the universe’s attempts to reconnect Obi-Wan and Satine so they experience their matching as they were intended to.’

“But they’re of different statuses,” he points out needlessly. “She’ll outlive him.”

‘Yes, but the matching of soulmates not only influences the lives of the pair, but the lives of other people as well in ways both obvious and invisible. Think of it as a ripple effect.’

“Did the universe’s attempt work?” Din wonders. “Were they ever reunited?”

‘When Satine awoke as a Cupid, it was a surprise to both her and Gideon. Rather than kill her a second time, the Seraph chose to inflict a worse fate. She became the first of her kind to have her memories erased. However, he’d never previously used his ability on another immortal before, resulting in him nearly wiping her entire mind clean. The universe is capable of many miracles, big and small, but every attempt of reuniting the pair failed. It remains the universe’s most profound regret which is ultimately the reason why the universe brought you to Trinomliaxeros without your armor so that history wouldn’t repeat itself.’

There is a strange, heavy feeling that suddenly inflates within the confines of Din’s chest like a balloon. It’s different from the rampant anger he can still detect simmering beneath the skin of his human façade. He tries to shake it off, focusing on his breathing and the desert heat emanating from the twin suns overhead, only to slowly realize that what he’s feeling is fear.

Within his memory he can recall just one other distinct moment in his existence where he felt this spine-chilling emotion, and that moment was experienced on Trinomliaxeros.

“What did you just say?” His voice sounds shaky even to his own ears, but he can’t find any energy within himself to care.

A long stretch of silence fills his head; it’s the fragile kind, too, preventing him from snapping at Ahsoka to answer lest she become angry at him and yank him out the vision entirely.

‘Twice the timing of a soulmate match has been disturbed. The first pair affected was Obi-Wan and Satine. And the second pair was...’

“Ahsoka,” he says when she hesitates to continue, but any additional words he can think of saying catch in the back of his throat.

‘The second pair was you and your angel.’ Another pause of silence, shorter but no less meaningful. ‘Only fifty years ago, she wasn’t an angel.’

This is what Din remembers from Trinomliaxeros: feeling a pull so forceful, impatient and unanticipated it drags him across the galaxy in his civilian clothes, arriving to find the planet engulfed in smoke, unable to see his hand in front of his face, even without his gloves on. Finding skeletal remains burnt to blackened crisps with the souls inside shaking and traumatized, practically leaping into his outstretched hand, knowing either the afterlife or damnation would be better destinations than lingering there even a second longer. Explosions in the distance, bursts of flames as intense and hot as the sun, greedily consuming everything in their radius.

Out of the smoke and darkness, a survivor. A girl, covered in soot and sweat, colliding with his chest. The dead are calling out to him, pleading for him to reap them, to save them. Their voices swirl around his head, clawing at his brain and pounding against his skull. Shoving the girl aside, one foot in front of the other, letting his powers guide him to the next soul. Her voice cuts across the distance, a plasma bolt striking him in the back. We’re soulmates, she says.

His breath stills in his lungs. Fear spreads like a virus through his bloodstream, slipping beneath his defenses, turning him into a stranger within his own body. The declaration is a lie, an impossibility, a delusion. He has no match, hands unmarked, flesh poisonous and lethal. His words, too, are weapons themselves. Sharp, ruthless, desiring to wound her as she’s wounded him. You could never be my soulmate.

And then he’d left her.

This is what Din remembers. But, he thinks, squeezing his eyes shut so tightly it hurts, I’ve remembered everything all wrong.

Phantom hands gently press against the sides of his helmet, offering comfort without caring about the dried blood. He keeps his eyes shut, knowing it’s just a manifestation crafted by Ahsoka in his head. ‘Don’t blame yourself. This was the only viable outcome the universe could produce to ensure the bad timing would be remedied in the future,’ she says, but it does little to lessen the weight on his chest. ‘Your rejection saved her life. It granted you both a second chance of a first meeting.’

“How did—” Din struggles to string words together, to fucking breathe. “She—She knew. What we were. How…?”

The Oracle puts him out of his misery. ‘She found out the way all soulmates do: through touch.’

Din’s eyes fly open at that, and he has to blink a few times to bring everything into focus because there’s him and his angel right in front of him, frozen mid-collision. She’s grasping the sleeves of his coat to keep her balance, the palm of her marked hand touching his wrist. He stares at the point of contact for a moment, then barks out a laugh, hysterical and strangled sounding.

“That’s not possible.”

‘Soulmates can’t kill each other. She’s always been meant to withstand your touch.’

Din swallows thickly, staring at his angel’s face. He hates the question forming on his tongue, but it will haunt him the rest of his life if he doesn’t ask it. “In your visions, when I meet her at the right time, what happens?”

'You’re different by then, less broody and more accepting of the notion you could be loved. You have a soulmate marking,’ Ahsoka tells him. ‘You fall for her hard, even before your hands brush. You love her throughout the entirety of her lifetime.’

“And...when she dies?” The words taste like blood in his mouth.

‘Don’t torture yourself, Death. That timeline doesn’t exist anymore.’

For one brief, fleeting second Din is actually grateful Gideon altered their destinies. However, in the next, he’s trying not to let the fear gnawing at the back of his mind increase as it belatedly occurs to him that the universe is not as infallible as he’s always believed it was.

He wishes he could see Ahsoka, if only so he could glare at her directly. “Everything you’ve shown me has only further convinced me Gideon deserves death. Why have you asked me to promise not to kill him?”

'Do you remember what happens after this moment on Trinomliaxeros?’

Din frowns at the change of subject. “I continued to reap souls.”

'Yes. And then?’

He huffs a frustrated breath through his nose. This is Ahsoka, he thinks, at her most annoying. But, as much he loathes admitting it, this is also the most helpfully transparent she’s ever been. Today may be the only time she trusts him enough to share her visions. He owes it to her to be as open as she’s being with him.

That being said, he’s still wary of the memories he’s kept in the distant, shadowy corners of his mind being pulled into the spotlight. “Tell me we’re not gonna talk about the kid.”

‘We talked about the universe’s biggest regret. It’s only fair we talk about yours too.’ Ahsoka has found the crack in his armor he’s tried so long to conceal, peeling it open without remorse.

She doesn’t spare him time to argue. All he does is blink and he’s looking at his past self locked in a staring contest with a little green-skinned child who is propped up inside a floating, orb-shaped pram.

Of all the buildings and homes on the planet, only its temple had remained untouched by the destruction. Din didn’t know if it had been the structure’s own holy foundation keeping it standing or if it was the personal choice of the mastermind behind the attack, but he’d been drawn to it regardless, finding souls there to reap whose hosts had differed from other victims in that their throats had been slit. The walls of the temple were adorned with intricate murals depicting immortal figures and religious events of ancient history, but before he could observe the artwork closer, a quiet coo had stopped him in his tracks.

When he opened the pram, he hadn’t anticipated finding a baby of all creatures. When their eyes connected, every background noise abruptly ceased. Even the voices of the dead fell silent. Rather than rouse his suspicions, Din had felt only a sense of peace he usually only experienced in the midst of hyperspace travel where the stars were his voiceless companions.

An unspoken conversation transpired between the two of them, one Din still can’t translate into words all these years later, but it concluded with him knowing he would take the child with him.

Din had reached for him unthinkingly, the child lifting his arms up in eagerness to be held, but self-awareness kicked in right before contact and Din retracted his hands away so fast it startled the child into crying, brown eyes filling with tears. Panicked, he surveyed the room, looking for something to put an end to the wailing, before looking down at his own coat, experiencing a lightbulb moment.

“Alright, kid, it’s okay. You’re okay.” Watching his past self shrug off the coat, Din remembers it had been his favorite of his civilian clothes, well worth the cost for its soft fabric and length. He managed to successfully swaddle the child, ensuring his arms were safely tucked away to prevent him endangering his life, and Din exhaled a quiet breath of relief when the tears dried up almost immediately.

However, the ensuing silence wasn’t as peaceful as the previous one. Both past and present Din turn at the sound of distant shuffling echoing off the temple walls from another room.

“Ignore it,” Din tells his past self. “Just take the kid and leave.”

But his plea goes unheard and the past remains unchanged. Ahsoka is silent inside his head, either because she knows he won’t accept any more comforting words or because she thinks he’s undeserving of them for choosing to leave the child behind in his pram, closing it when he starts to whine again, so Din can go investigate the noise.

Din exhales a quiet breath, fingers twitching restlessly at his sides as he watches himself stalk through the temple halls, checking each room he comes across. It’s strange, seeing himself from this perspective. The distanced viewpoint allows Din to glimpse new details he hadn’t been capable of noticing back then.

Such as the reappearance of a familiar Seraph emerging from the shadows to stab him in the back.

Here’s one of the perks about being Death: he can’t be killed. That fact doesn’t mean there haven’t been attempts though. As Death, people sometimes look at his armor as a challenge. Like if they can fire a shot or throw a knife at just the right angle, it’ll wound him and allow them to live longer. Simply put, all those people are idiots.

When he looks like a regular, unintimidating civilian, he’s also been involved in violent predicaments where someone’s attempted to mug him or where he’s tried to save someone else from a similarly sticky situation.

Armor or no armor though, he’s always walked away from these encounters completely unscathed.

Well. With the sole exception of Trinomliaxeros where he was mostly unscathed.

It wasn’t the first time Din had been stabbed before. Usually knife wounds felt like a mild pinch. More irritating than painful, similar to a splinter stuck in one’s thumb. Once the weapon was removed, the damage healed within seconds, leaving behind no scar or proof he was ever attacked.

Usually, is the keyword to note here.

Ahsoka freezes time right when the blade of the Lightsaber is driven straight through the center of Din’s body, bone and flesh as easy to slice through as melted butter. His agonized expression—eyes screwed shut and lips open in a silent scream—would be comical if Din didn’t remember the exact emotions he was feeling in that moment.

Instead of a pinch, it’d felt as if thousands of invisible hands were pulling and scratching at him, attempting to strip apart his human exterior layer by layer—peeling off skin, scraping away muscle and bone marrow, seeking to reach the core of himself where his powers resided.

‘Looks like it hurts,’ Ahsoka says. The return of her naturally calm and neutral tone of voice seems almost cruel given the frozen, graphic display.

Din again wishes he could glare at her. “Is this funny to you?”

‘The transformation of the Lightsaber into the Darksaber is anything but funny.’

Lost in recollection, he failed to notice until now how the blade of the Lightsaber has changed in color from white to black. It’s the same inky hue that absorbs the brown in his eyes, that had dyed his veins during the execution of Hess.

‘The Armorer specifically instructed the Lightsaber only be used against enemies. As a neutral entity, you are, by definition, no one’s ally or adversary. By stabbing you, the saber became corrupted. It is a consequence Gideon still has yet to fully realize the monumental repercussions of.’

Time resumes, Din’s past self collapsing onto the floor, pressing a hand to the throbbing hole in his chest, attention too consumed by the franticness of his powers struggling to repair the trauma to notice Gideon lingering behind him. The Seraph’s stunned look of shock lasts barely ten seconds, morphing into one of deep contemplation as his gaze flicked between the weapon and Din, before he vanished.

When Din recovered enough to stand, he teleported back to the child’s location at once. He needs to get the little guy as far away from here as possible, somewhere peaceful and safe. His planning came to an abrupt halt upon finding the pram open and empty, his coat shredded and scattered about the floor in pieces.

“Gideon took him.” It isn’t a question.

‘Yes,’ she confirms. ‘The child was the intended target of this siege.’

“Why?”

‘He’s...very special.’ There is something about how her voice hitches when she says ‘special’ that has Din’s instincts prickling with alertness, but he holds his tongue. ‘Gideon considers him a tool he can take advantage of.’

The ugly, tight mass of anger swells inside of him and presses against his lungs, resulting in a low growl slipping out of his mouth. He curses his own ineptitude. If he’d paid more attention, hadn’t allowed himself to be wounded, he could have subdued Gideon and spared both his angel and the child from being captured.

“I warned you once upon a time, there would be consequences if you released your darkness,” Ahsoka says, her voice no longer emitting from inside his head. The vision fades back into reality the same sudden, jarring way one wakes up from dreaming. It takes all of Din’s self-restraint not to perform a full-body shake. “Your control is slipping as your rage increases. It’s making you not think clearly which is exactly what Gideon wants. That is the reason I am asking you to promise you will not kill him.”

Put like that, Din no longer thinks her request sounds quite so outlandish, even though he does still remain in the dark as to what consequences exactly will unfold. Ahsoka has remained stubbornly tight-lipped about the topic from their very first encounter, claiming the universe is adamant she can only share the details with one other person and it isn’t him.

“He deserves to die for all he’s done,” Din says quietly, but he’s self-aware to know his resistance is beginning to crumble.

“Between you and me, I think so, too,” she admits in the same low tone. Her ocean eyes are dark and stormy, reflecting her internal turmoil. “But rules are made for a reason and we would be fools to carelessly overlook the consequences of breaking them.”

The accusatory note from earlier has returned with a vengeance. He’s not surprised—of course the universe would utilize the Oracle to express its disapproval—but aggravation still thrums through his veins.

“Hess played a hand in my soulmate’s fate. He called her a whore.” Din’s upper lip twitches with the urge to snarl. “I don’t regret what I did to him.”

Ahsoka sighs. “I was afraid you’d say that. When you swore your creed, you promised the universe you’d only reap a soul when their host’s time has reached its destined end. By killing Hess, you not only broke a sacred rule, you also broke your creed.”

Din recoils, feeling like he’s been stabbed with the Lightsaber all over again.

“...What?” The anger is gone, extinguished by the weight of the revelation. Confusion and wariness are quick to fill the void. “What does that mean?”

She looks away then, but not quick enough to hide her troubled expression. “I...don’t know.”

He blinks, mind scrambling to understand the implications. “Isn’t that your purpose? To know everything?”

“For the very first time, the future’s unclear to me,” she murmurs, eyes briefly turning cloudy as if she’s trying to take a peek at the potential timelines right then and there. She shakes her head a beat later, frowning. “There are many choices left to be made, each one capable of influencing the fate of the galaxy. It is not possible at this time for me to predict our upcoming reality, let alone your consequences. I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” Din says, because it’s the truth and he doesn’t like seeing her crestfallen expression. Fuck, he might actually consider her a friend after all.

Whatever happens, he thinks to himself, it can’t be any worse to deal with than being separated from his soulmate. If he can survive this, he can survive anything.

“The last promise I made was broken.” He bites back a wince at the memory of his angel’s pinky promise. “But if making another one is the only way you’ll take me to my soulmate, then you have my word. I won’t kill him.”

A ghost of a smile pulls at her lips before she grabs hold of one of his vambraces. “Take me to your ship. I will guide you to her location.”

“You don’t trust me to go alone?” he asks, unsure whether to be amused or indignant.

“No,” Ahsoka replies bluntly.

Din huffs. “Fine.”

“I may not be able to see much at the moment, but I know it’s never wise to turn down support. You’re going to need us.”

“Us?”

“It’s Bo-Katan’s choice to make, but you and I both know she’s never been one to back down from a fight. Especially once she learns Gideon is her sister’s murderer.”

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[deathflares]

» ffxivwrite day #08 — clamor

wol&graha, brief implied wol/graha, 1.1k words, M.

[ao3 mirror]

The clamor of those they'd left behind still chases them, across the years.

He’s still a boy when it first happens.

It’s a dream—the only one he had during his childhood that he remembers by the time he wakes. In it, he stands before a young woman, her eyes a bright crimson like his own, and she reaches for his hand, her features twisted in anguish.

“Desch,” she calls him. “You must—”

Her lips move, but whatever she says after that, he cannot hear.

“I will see it done, your highness,” he hears himself say, with a voice not his own. “No matter what—”

The scene shifts, fades. He sees flashes of other events—resistance fighters raiding a palace; the very earth cracking open and crumbling away, swallowing a gigantic tower with it; the clamors of despair from a people who have just witnessed the fall of civilization.

Then there are—faces. Men and women, young and old, their eyes the same as his own—pearls of crimson bisected in black. They surround him, and though each of their voices is barely above a whisper, together they are deafening.

You must, they say. Her wish, our wish—you must be the one to—

He wakes with a startle. The voices fade, but the emptiness in his chest remains for many years to come.

        She starts hearing—and seeing it—after she turns eighteen.

Perhaps it was to be expected. Physically, she made it through that day nearly unscathed, so the gods must have seen fit to give her soul scars to match the ones on her brother’s body.

It happens when she dreams. She’s back on that moment—kneeling before the two mangled bodies even she can barely recognize as her parents, only static in her ears and all of her limbs heavy as lead.

And then they move.

They, and every single person she had tried and failed to save. They crawl through the debris, a gruesome trail of bloodied innards and torn, burnt skin in their wake, and they grab at her—tear her clothes and hack her flesh, the clamor of their voices more painful than the growing, gaping wounds on her body.

Why didn’t you do anything, they cry out. Why didn’t you protect us? Why were you so weak? Why, why, why—

I’m sorry, she tries to say as her mother’s nails claw at her throat, death’s grip claiming her consciousness. I wanted to. I tried. I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.

When she wakes, the memory of her dreams terrifies her as much as the fact that a part of her wished they had been real.

        The voices are the loudest they have ever been after the doors close.

They guide him, through each notch of the endless stairs that lead to the peak of the Syrcus Tower. With every step he takes, they claim a little more of his reason. He’s thankful for that, somewhat—at least in those last few moments, he won’t have the clarity to truly fathom what he’s surrendering.

He comes to a halt in front of the throne, traces the edge of the seat with hesitant fingers. How disheartening, to think so many could have been spared a life of doubt and emptiness, were it one for a single man’s unbridled ambition.

Bygones are bygones, however. It ends with him, now.

He sits on the throne and takes a deep breath, feels the tower’s pulse as it were his own. Exhaustion overcomes him, and he doesn’t resist.

The last thing he hears before slumber takes him is the voice of that same young woman he saw in that dream, so many years ago. Thank you, she whispers, and the emptiness within him vanishes at last.

        With each loss, there are new faces in her dreams.

Moenbryda shows up first, tearing a hole in Shiori’s chest to match her own. G’raha comes after, inviting her to join him in slumber before he snaps her neck. Minfilia gives her a hug, then sinks her silver knife on her back as the ceiling comes crashing down on their heads.

Sometimes they just talk. If you weren’t so weak, maybe, they clamor, maybe we would still be here, wouldn’t we?

She prefers when they kill her.

When Haurchefant joins them, she stops sleeping.

        The ancient chorus is no more, but there’s no shortage of voices in his mind, be it when he’s awake or when he slumbers.

After Biggs and the others rouse him, it’s usually his old friends. He wasn’t there to see it, but the even image of them lying lifeless on the ground as Black Rose halts the very flow of aether within their bodies, or, perhaps worse, surviving to see what the world becomes after—it’s too much to bear.

Once he arrives on the First, it’s those he left behind. We’re sorry for sending you alone, they’d said, so many times, as if he was the unfortunate one, he who would at least be free from that godsforsaken world, ruined beyond salvation. He prays every night that he might one day have a fraction of their bravery within himself.

Then, it starts being the people of the Crystarium. A literal clamor, sometimes, so many who now look to him, undeserving and unprepared as he is, for guidance and protection and leadership.

Whoever the voices belong to, however, the message has always been clear: he cannot afford to fail.

        Her homeland is free.

She learns that they had buried them, all of them, after she and her brother fled. They show her the way, but it takes a long time before she feels ready to see it.

The day she does, she goes alone. She walks through every grave, reads every name, then stops when she arrives at the ones she was most afraid to see. Mizuki, reads one, and Hibiki, the other. She kneels, silently.

“I’m home, mom, dad,” she says. Then she cries.

The nightmares don’t stop entirely. But they’re a little less frequent, and the voices a little more quiet.

        He kisses her awake, just because he can.

“Raha,” she whispers, stirring in his arms, voice still groggy with sleep. “I missed you.”

“I’ve been here all along, love,” he says. He would never leave. Not now, that he’s been given a second chance.

“I don’t see you in my dreams. At least, not anymore,” she explains. “But I’m sure you understand when I say I am rather thankful for that.”

He does understand. Better than anyone, perhaps.

The voices of those they had left behind still chase them, across the years—but at least, when they’re not alone, their clamor is made the tiniest bit more bearable.

[imperiuswrecked]

How many times has Namor’s kingdom been over thrown or invaded at this point??

This is really long and if you wanted to count each time it has been destroyed and invaded it’s better to just give you a summary of the history of Atlantis’s treatment in Marvel. Marvel constantly destroys Atlantis, and it’s constantly under threat or has been invaded or Namor has been usurped. We also can’t forget the story of Atlantis begins with its destruction because it fell into the sea. Total count that I can recall is: 20 times of invasion or destruction. Of course there are some issues where the conflict was resolved within the same issue, or there were poisons and toxins as the water was polluted. Also the times that Namor’s cousins tried to take over the throne. These are the major ones and I tried to keep them in order. I hope someday Marvel can actually world build Atlantis rather than constantly tearing it down.

- Atlantis is destroyed and falls into the sea. This is called the Great Cataclysm.

Namor’s whole story begins in 1920 when his home is destroyed.

- When Namor’s father Leonard McKenzie and his crew began blasting the ice above Atlantis which at that point was located in the Antarctic waters, the debris from the explosions caused the city to become damaged and many died. (This is why Princess Fen was sent to the surface, to see what had caused the damage and bring back information, she falls in love, and has Namor.)

- During WWll his waters were invaded by Nazis, though not necessarily the main city, since Atlanteans were kinda spread out and Namor’s people were hurt/captured for experimentation.

- After the war, during an unspecified time in the years that followed, Namor gets amnesia and wanders the surface world and when Johnny Storm helps him regain his memories he finds an outpost that had been destroyed and his people were killed by the humans testing their nuclear bombs in the water. During this unspecified time Atlantis was destroyed by massive earthquakes, Princess Fen and Emperor Thakorr were killed. The reason for the earthquakes occurring were due to the serpent crown being discovered and used by human named Paul Destine (codename Destiny) who was the man who gave Namor amnesia.

- Emma Frost (the white queen) was ordered to bring Namor into the Hellfire Club since Sebastian Shaw (the black king) wanted Namor to become the white king. She fakes a suicide by drowning to get Namor to save her and take her to Atlantis, when Shaw didn’t hear from her for some time he sent out Sentinels to Atlantis, they destroyed parts of it in an attempt to kill Namor. Emma was horrified when she found out Shaw was responsible for the Sentinels. 

- Llyra the Lemurian, attempts to marry Namor while disguised as Lady Dorma to usurp the throne and have control of the kingdom, but her plan failed because Namor had already signed the bonding contract with Dorma days before the ceremony. She then kills Namor’s bride after running off from the ceremony. Namor leaves Atlantis because he wants to hunt her down.

- Namor finds a unconscious Magneto in the Savage Land and brings him back to Atlantis to heal, meanwhile Namor goes off on an adventure with the Fantastic Four and returns to find that Magneto had usurped his throne, Namor kicked him out.

- Namor deals with Attuma the Barbarian (an Atlantean enemy) constantly through his comics. Attuma is always trying to take the Throne of Atlantis, so I can’t count how many times Namor has had to fight him off.

- Namor attempts to create a new city for himself and his people after his marriage to Marrina, since he isn’t welcomed back in Atlantis, this city is abandoned when Namor is taken by Neptune to face trial against Zeus.

- Namor fights off the ancient faceless ones, an ancient monster race who attempted to invade Atlantis.

- Namor’s mother, Princess Fen is discovered alive after Namor regains his memories from another round of amnesia, (I think at this point it’s his third time having it?) but in truth it was not Princess Fen, but rather a witch-queen called Artys-Gran, who stole Fen's body in order to release her husband Suma-Ket, a pagan sorcerer-king who had been banished by Namor's ancestor Neptune thousands of years earlier. Fake Fen attempted to usurp the throne as well, but was defeated by Real Fen who was stuck in the witch-queen’s body and Real Fen sacrifices herself for her son and people.

- Llyra (the woman who poisoned his cousin Namora, killed his wife Dorma, and helped kill his father and is Namor’s arch enemy) comes back, disguised as Susan Storm she r*pes Namor (he didn’t consent to sleeping with her) and attempts to tell everyone that her son Llyron, is Namor’s son. 

(I need to take a minute here because dammit Bryne. This isn’t how Atlantean society WORKS.)

Turns out that Namor was sterile (HOW? TELL ME HOW BRYNE) because he was a half breed (EVEN THOUGH HE HAS TONS OF KIDS IN AU VERSES. This was also ignored/retconned in later comics) and Llyra had also been sleeping with a bunch of men (disguised as Phoebe Marrs) including Jim Hammond (who can’t give you a baby Llya, he is a freaking android) and Namor’s long lost half-brother Leon McKenzie (turns out Leonard got married at some point and had a kid) Llyra then shows up in Atlantis with a freaking full grown adult son, who was aged by a mad scientist, to lay claim to the throne of Atlantis through his McKenzie blood.

(AHHHHHHHHHH. BRYNE LISTEN THE WHOLE FREAKING POINT OF WHY NAMOR EVEN HAS CLAIM TO THE THRONE IS BECAUSE THE BLOOD OF NEPTUNE! NEPTUNE! NOT MCKENZIE FLOWS THROUGH HIS VEINS! ATLEANS HATE SURFACERS! WHY WAS THIS EVEN ALLOWED, EVERY SINGLE ATLANTEAN COUNCIL MEMBER WHO SIDED WITH THIS WAS TAKING CRAZY PILLS THAT DAY.)

Namor’s nephew Llyron gets the throne and kicks Namor out of Atlantis, right after we have the Atlantis Rising event, where Morgan Le Fay rises the whole city for her purposes and uses her magic for her plan. She is defeated by all the heroes coming together in this crossover event. Namor’s people die horribly, many of them suffocated in dry air, and Atlantis is broken. Namor sits upon an empty throne with no people left.

- At some point Atlantis is restored, during the Civil War arc (first one) Namor sides with Captain America, after the war, Tony Stark occupies Atlantis by keeping his army on the outside border, accuses Namor of terrorism. Namor discovers his long lost son, Kamar, who was responsible for the trouble on the surface, and even after proving that Atlantis had nothing to do with the attacks, still has Tony refusing to leave them alone. Namor orders his people to evacuate secretly, and then kills his son, and the man who murdered his cousin Namorita, by blowing up Atlantis.

- Atlantis is now gone, the people are scattered for a while, Namor sets up a city called Oceanus, then later is approached by Magneto to rebuild Atlantis under Utopia. New Atlantis is made and there is trouble with underwater vampires. This is the Utopia arc during the time of the X-Men. Atlantis is destroyed after Utopia/the Phoenix Five falls.

- Atlantis is rebuilt at some point, and then we have Avengers Secret War event and the Incurisions. Namor and Black Panther (Tchalla) are hostile to each other. Namor attempts to make peace. Queen Shuri orders soldiers to attack Atlantis as revenge for the attack on Wakanda when Namor was phoenix possessed. Namor’s people lay dying as Proxima Midnight invades. Namor sends her to Wakanda.

- Atlantis is now somehow rebuilt at some point. The Squadron Supreme destroys Atlantis and kills Namor. Namor got better by some of Squadron playing with time to bring him back to life, and some members rebuild Atlantis with him.

- Hydra invades Atlantis, and destroys a temple before Namor pretends to comply with them.

- Namor joins Jean Grey’s X-Men, the Kid Abomination is sent to Atlantis and destroys some buildings before being stopped.

- Namor’s warriors were killed by Roxxon soldiers while they were trying to stop Roxxon. Namor captures them, and brings them back to a broken Atlantis. Atlantis had been destroyed by the Final Host, his city was crushed. Namor releases the Roxxon soldiers to the Avengers, however he later kills them by flooding their cells in the surface prison. Meanwhile, the children of Atlantis, tired of their home constantly being destroyed tried to go to the surface to get help from the Avengers. They died on the beach while humans looked on and laughed and didn’t help the atlantean children as they suffocated on air. 

After learning of this Namor declares war on the surface world and begins to rebuild Atlantis. This is where we currently are in the comics as of Avengers (2018) #9.

[nevofthewilds]

S31: Tour of the Enchanted Castle

No one stirred as the Purple Cloak’s words hung in the air inside Wet Dick’s Watering Hole. No one, that is, except for Onder Vorevall, who is quickly guided into the dark shadow of Rucker’s cloak, obscuring him from view. Temloc, sensing the tension building, attempted to speak calmly with the blusterous leader of the royal envoy, Lord Sterger. Recognizing the risk of openly opposing representatives of the Duchess, Temloc mentions the boy was safely in their care after being found alongside the trail south. When the half-elf gestured back to his party’s table in the corner, however, Onder was nowhere to be seen as Rucker cast a withering stare at the gothi.

Frustrated by the delay, Sterger sent forth his guards to search the tavern upstairs, pushing past Vax as he returned from their quarters. The mood in the room immediately grew heated after Sterger pushes Poddy to the ground, with hands drifting towards swords as Taerus helped the simpleton up. Both the Mudwangs and Taerus’s tablemates, a bavarian Wevir woman and her paladin companion, bristle in anger at the ballous Lord, who demands the boy be revealed lest more trouble follow.

Realizing his escapades had come to an end, Onder stepped out from his hiding spot with a sigh. Rucker held him back for a second, though, as Muira the Wevir barbarian spoke up, questioning whether the lad’s opinion mattered at all. Their insolence further incensed the Lord,  but before he could respond, Onder agreed to be taken without a fight, having enjoyed his few days of freedom and wishing to avoid any bloodshed. With that, Lord Sterger took the lad, tossed a small coin pouch at Rucker’s feet, and the Purple Cloaks left with their charge in tow.

Wet Dick, having witnessed the proceedings with a clenched jaw, finally relaxed and continued to close up for the evening. As Rucker and Temloc shared some heated words about their handling of the situation, Taerus and Vax returned to the card game with Muira and her gang; including the tabaxi bard Erythem, a paladin of the Stag God named Gaddog le Blanch, and Pigglydee Sploshbop, a vanishing gnome who’d pilfered several pockets that evening. Muira was impressed by the Mudwang’s character, and casually brought up the idea of the two groups working together on a small treasure hunt. Though they didn’t reveal every detail of the plan, Taurus and Vax learned the job involved an abandoned castle, cursed treasure, and the rumor of a dragon.

Upstairs, Shakan and Rucker shared a room as the latter tried to cool off by studying his necklace of skulls. As the frustrated goliath stared deep into the empty sockets of his mother’s remains, he began to hear her voice. Despite the skull beginning to crumble in his hands, Rucker called forth to his mother. Shakan quietly took notes on this phenomenon, Rucker beheld a magical apparition in the form of his mother. With tears in his eyes, Rucker expressed how happy he was to get the chance to say goodbye, and to ask for forgiveness for surviving when so many others had not.

Vonya touched her grieving son’s head, assuring him she was proud and endowing him with a powerful magical boon. As she began to fade away, her final words were encouragement for her son to continue to watch after those who were unable to protect themselves. Bolstered by his mother’s words, Rucker’s resolve hardened to follow his own mind. The Mudwangs from downstairs checked in with the others, and after conferring briefly all decided to join Muira’s band, if only for transportation if nothing else.

---

Early the next morning, the Mudwangs joined Muira’s Marauders on their wagon. Other than Rucker and Gaddog exchanging suspicious glances, the rest of the adventurers seemed to get along, with Erythem playing on his kailmba and banjo. Pigglydee shared several lewd jokes while Muira spoke with Temloc and Shakan about the castle they were heading to: rumored to be the abandoned tower of a Kjollden heiress, it had been left unclaimed for several years. Those who had been lucky enough to return from it’s haunted grounds raved madly about unnatural occurrences, including the very castle striking out, and that terrible monsters haunted it’s upper floors. However, Muira and her fellows seemed convinced that their party of 9 would be more than capable of handling whatever dangers awaited.

Late in the afternoon, the travelers notice the makeup of the forest they are traveling throug has changed- where once stood tall and sturdy trees, now their trunks and limbs are twisted. Their limbless forms seem to shadow the sky and darken the path before them as wolves howl in the distance. Vax notices a spired peak ahead- indeed, it is the first sign of the haunted castle. Soon enough, they find themselves crossing a dusty and rumbled bridge leading to an imposing manor. The two parties cautiously make their way across, wary of traps and trolls, but encountering neither. 

Finally, in the shadows of two hulking dead trees, Taerus knocks the iron ring against the door, and waits… until a dissonant voice echoes from a speaking tube nearby. Though the voice advised them against entering, the massive doors nonetheless opened into a grand entrance hall that has seen better days. Inside were broken furniture, leaves and swirling debris, and no one to be seen… except for a single, bouncing candelabra that greeted the newcomers. In an exuberant musical number, Lumia Labrum welcomed the Mudwangs and Muira’s Marauders to the castle of his master, Lady Bøellva Tönypell. Lumia explained that he and the other inhabitants had been cursed several years ago, with his and his Lady’s humanity absorbed into an enchanted rose. In her current state, the Lady was not keen to allow visitors, though Lumia invited them to explore the outer areas of the castle. 

In order to cover more ground, Muira and her party took to the East Wing where the residential quarters were located, escorted by Lumia’s sweeping compatriot Tollimund Vaskita. The living candle, after cautioning them that the castle was no longer as welcoming as it used to be, escorted the Mudwangs to the (once) grand dining hall, now left in disarray. However, as they made their way through the sordid and dilapidated hall, they were attacked- by the furniture and cutlery of the dining room!

Though caught by surprise, the Mudwangs held their own. Rucker withstood several charges by dinner tables and countered with his own body slams while Shakan was able to easily dispense some of the other furniture with well placed blasts of flame. Vax and Taerus were beset by animated knives and forks, harrying but not severely damaging them as Lumia shouted vague condemnations for the poor behavior of his cursed counterparts. Ultimately, the band was able to repulse the attacks of the cursed, as Temloc’s spirit guardians bent and ripped apart the remaining objects with glee. 

The adventurers confronted their candlestick guide back in the main hall, accusing M. Labrum for leading them into a trap. But the major domo begged forgiveness and remorse as he explained how the theft of their humanity by the curse had driven most in the castle mad. As Lumia urged them to leave before it was too late, the smashing of a door above in the upper balcony announced the arrival of the castle’s master- the Dame Bøellva. 

Only able to discern her glowing eyes amidst her shadowy, hulking form, the Mudwang’s listened as the lady(?) paced the balcony bannisters above and demanded to know their business. Temloc tried to offer an excuse of arriving lost to the castle but she cut them off, claiming that they and all previous visitors had only come seeking her supposed riches. After a moment, the noblewoman laughed gutturally and offered them a deal- kill the monster guarding the enchanted flower and return it to her, and they could take as much treasure as they could carry. Though they were concerned over the members of the other group, Dame Bøellva bade them depart immediately lest her generosity fade.

And with that, Lumia lead the Mudwangs up several curling staircases until they ascended to the upper levels of the castle. In the grand quarters in the tallest turret, whose roof was broken and shattered, they caught sight of a room littered with gems, armor, ancient weapons, and other riches. As Lumia nervously took a few hops ahead, a sudden whoosh caught the group by surprise as a winged, scaled beast emerged from the night sky. It snatched the tour guide and whirled to rest atop a large throne, before which floated a wilted flower. The creature roared, challenging the intruders as the wind whipped against the crumbling walls of the tower, the stones foundations creaking.

[completelynobody]

Gro Bruckosh son of The Black Rage

[original art by @BughopD on Twitter]

They say, nobody knows how old an Orc may live. As no Orc has ever been known to die of old age. I may be the oldest of our kind in the world.

My name is Kurn Dabur. And I have been alive too long to be respected. By the summer of my birth, men already held dominion over the world. Elves...curse their souls, had already been long driven from their thrones and driven into the eastern forests. Our people, as well as the lesser creatures like goblins and such, had been driven to the western hills and mountains.

The elders of my time had already long since forged an alliance between the many tribes of our people. Not out of mutual respect, but out of necessity. Our people had been displaced for generations. Rooted out of our holdings. First, by the elves...curse their souls. Then by their weird overlords that came from behind the stars. Then, finally by the men who'd risen up to bring both low.

Our people were forced to scratch their subsistence from the rocks of the west. In the mists and swamps of the south...between the lands of the men, and the lands of those rock-shitting dwarves, was where my tribe made its home.

It is said, that in the earliest days of the tribal alliance, my tribe's elders saw fit to forsake the dry, barren rocks; as well as the snowy mountains further north. Some of my elders remembered a time when we ranged along the fertile southern coast at the edge of the world, and took to the seas on mighty rafts, hewed from the logs of the ancient forests that once dominated the region.

But that had been generations before the summer of my birth.

It was that first summer, I am told, that the troubles had begun. The troubles with the great black scaly god.

To lesser beings, our terrible tormentor was simply known as a dragon. But for our tribe...it was so much more. So terribly much more.

It had risen from the swamps west of our camp. That much was known. At first, it left us warnings. Admonitions to venture no deeper into its realm.

When those warnings were ignored, some of those who went out, were found somewhat less alive than they were when they'd left. Most were never found at all.

By the rising of my tenth Blood Moon, I had come of age to join the ranks of my tribe's warriors. The rituals were performed, the scars were cut into my flesh, the sacred herbs were fed to me, and the ancient words were spoken over me by the tribe's shaman. I was given my spear, and a command to go forth into the world, where I would raid the lesser beings. Claiming back what had been stolen from our people so many eons ago.

I had a sister. She too came of age on that Blood Moon. She was brought to the chieftain’s lodge to be one of his newest wives. I must admit, to my shame, that the sacred herbs had done their work on me too well. In my frenzy, I had rushed out of the camp in order to fulfill my command to conquer. However, by the morning, I awoke alone, in the swamps just a few miles west of the camp. To say that I was alone is not, in the strictest sense, true. While there were no other Orcs with me, there was a presence there that I could feel...watching me from the dark mists of the slough. I'd fallen asleep on the dry side under a large mangrove tree. By the time the sun's rays had pushed through the thick canopy to awaken me, my head was still buzzing with the after effects of the sacred herbs, and my flesh ached from the ritual scarification. My higher reasoning may have been diminished, but my primal...ancient Orcish instincts alerted me to the presence I spoke of. I got my footing on the shore of the large pond, and I called out.

“I am Kurn Dabur! Face me!”

For good measure on the challenge, I brandished my spear as menacingly as I could. But, there was no response. The feeling of being watched did not diminish though. Faced with the prospect of shamefully returning to camp the morning after the Blood Moon, of venturing deeper into the bog, I opted to press on.

For days, I crossed no other's path. Yet the feeling of menace never left me. On the fifth day, I met and slew a juvenile alligator. As I was butchering my prize, the sound of someone laughing echoed from the mists.

I called out again, declaring my challenge. This time I was answered.

“I have warned your people time and time again Kurn Dabur. Yet my warnings have gone unheeded. Your tribe continues to encroach upon my domain. You will be the last Orc to do so.”

A figure that I first took for an elf, emerged from the mists. Unlike no elf I'd ever heard described though. For instead of the milky soft flesh I'd so often been told of...this being had a sheen of tight, glossy, black scales covering its body.

I hefted my spear in the creature's direction.

“Face me, demon!” I called out.

But the creature merely waved its hand at me.

“You are but one. I mean to make an example of the tribe as a whole.”

The creature spread its arms, and began to laugh again. As it did so, the flesh of it began to tremble and contort. It grew in size and its shape changed.

Great claws spread from its fingertips. Huge black wings grew from its back. And most terrible of all, its head elongated, grew a set of ghastly horns, and a maw of razor sharp teeth grew out of its face. In almost an instant, a great black dragon took shape where the odd being once stood. It then bellowed down at me.

“Return to your camp, Kurn Dabur! You will bear witness to the fruits of provoking my rage!”

It then took flight, crashing up through the canopy of the mangroves, and disappearing into the sky.

It was three days before I'd make it back to my tribe. What I found was purest devastation. One does not live the life of an Orc without encountering daily, what the lesser beings consider to be evil. But the carnage that dragon unleashed will haunt my soul until my last breath.

There were some few survivors. Those who were not at camp when the beast attacked, and others who'd had the sense to flee. My mother was found in the debris that once stood as the chieftain's lodge.

Her accounting of the events were sketchy. But the overall tale she told spoke of how the beast descended from above, raining its vile acid upon the camp. Its terrible tail strikes against Orc and structure both. Its claws and teeth rending even the mightiest of our tribe's warriors. And when it grew tired of murder and destruction, it gathered several of the chieftain's youngest brides, and absconded back into the sky.

Many more summers passed. Our tribe rebuilt. Those of us who had survived, named that fateful attack, The Day of The Black Rage.

On the twentieth anniversary of the massacre, the camp's watchmen sounded their horns, giving the camp warning of an approaching danger. Our warriors took up their arms, and our people shuttered themselves into safety.

The first creatures to enter the camp were wolves...of a sort. They had the body and shape of a wolf, but in place of fur, they had those same tight, glossy, black scales I'd seen so many years before. The wolf-creatures did not attack. They merely stood, snarling at the ready. Marking each of our warriors with their malevolent eyes, as if they were choosing which they'd like to devour first.

Our fear was only increased when, a few moments later, a great Orc Warrior stepped out of the thick bush. He too, had patterns of those scales covering sections of his flesh. Following behind him, were dozens of other Orc warriors. All wearing the same insignia as the scaled warrior. A coiled black serpent with wings. I recognized some of them as once being members of neighboring tribes, but now they all clearly followed this scaled warrior.

Our new chieftain demanded the warrior name himself. And the warrior obliged. He called himself Gro Bruckosh, son of the Black Rage.

He'd come demanding tribute, and the loyalty of our tribe.

Our chieftain denied him.

Our warriors were all massacred. Our women and children taken. And I...

I was dismembered, left, without legs, to crawl for the rest of my days like some foul swamp vermin.

I was told that I was spared to bear witness to any others who may oppose the will of the Black Rage. I did as I was bade. I crawled north. Time passed, wars were waged, and things that I have witnessed so long ago have passed into legend.

For a time I served in a Wizard's tower. Later as a merchant. And now, I am here...in Karrath Mal, schooling you younglings on the sorted histories of our kind.

Some say the warrior known as Gro Bruckosh lead his army to ruin against the dwarves. Others still say the Black Rage itself was destroyed by a man who would become king.

I don't know. I sometimes look up into the clear, sunny skies...and I can feel that presence I felt so long ago.

Sometimes I can almost hear that laughter.

[littleeyesofpallas]

The campaign was set in the immediate fallout of Return if the Jedi: The Empire is infrastructurally still vastly superior to the hodgepodge Rebel forces, but with a fast crumbling chain of command the bulk of the Imperial forces retreat toward to their central territories just north of the galactic core. But other than the predictable disgruntled infighting of rival high command each unwilling to submit to any of their peers as new Imperial commander in chief, the younger generals --whose whole careers were made in the free for all that was the conquest of the rim territories and who are unwilling to give up their territories to return to the core worlds with nothing to their name-- begin deserting from the Empire all together, preferring (along with many of their soldiers) to chance it as independent warlords over their conquered planets.

Not helping the matter, with the bulk of the Empire proper on the retreat, Rebel planets begin withdrawing from the Alliance; Fighting and dying to defend/liberate their home worlds was one thing, but few are willing to stray so far from home to die in some strange foreign corner of the galaxy.

And in the midst of this chaos, my villain finds himself compelled to take action. He's not technically an Imperial military man, he's a "Special Commissions Officer" appointed by the Emperor himself to head a special project to research and selectively preserve or eradicate relics of the Jedi and Sith order. (but not like the inquisitors, i hate the inquistors. they were a halfbaked idea and poorly executed)

He is effectively star wars heinrich himmler, and as such he is an idiotic superstitious nerd. He dedicated his pseudo military career to reconstructing the jedi council chambers and lore as pro-imperial propaganda. He collects jedi relics and lore but consistently misinterprets them. Other than being a dumb fanboy his actual villain scheme was to rebuild the jedi order in the image and service of the empire, by cobbling together his idiot misunderstandings of their artifacts. And it was in the middle of doing this that episode 6 happened, so now with the Emperor gone he sees his mission as the highest priority as his unlocking the secrets of the force for himself will be his claim to the throne via divine mandate(and also hand lightning...)

(he was basically my excuse to lampoon idiot lore from the EU. Him having no idea how the force or any jedi concepts actually work let me turn bad canon ideas into in-world myths and basically use him as a means of dunking on stupid writing that's been done on jedi lore across the franchise.)

So the rag tag band of heroes keep bumping into distant branches of his plan...

Storm troopers have been inexplicably kidnapping random(force sensitive) kids... (complete with invasive phrenological research expeditions just kind of rolling thru peaceful settlements with shockingly little militaristic violence)

Despite Imperial forces abandoning remote holdings en masse, some storm troopers have been seen occupying random ruins across the newly liberated rim territories.

Imperial information officers are offering suspiciously high sums of money for seemingly random old junk from the pre empire age on the blackmarket; Broken lightsabers, jedi holocrons, and ancient starmaps that no one's been able to get to work since before the fall of the republic...

A decommissioned clonewar era battle droid factory has mysteriously come back online... (remember, my villain isn't actually a military commander so without the emperor to divert soldiers to his special commission he's short staffed. also I totally did the revival of the DarkTrooper project twist before The Mandalorian did, and I'm forever mad that I didn't get to reveal it before the show did)

Someone's been operating a highly dangerous Sullustan hyperlane that's been launching debris from the ruined deathstar into the middle of the rim... (kyber crystals are all but gone, the only ones he can get his hands on are the ones that were powering the deathstar laser)

And of course the least obtuse of the leads, being that they are actively seeking out jedi survivors, albeit with extremely poor results

And eventually once they get tangled in enough arms of this conspiracy to start piecing things together, they meet the first generation of his wannabe "jedi"; literal children with nonsense training and busted highly unstable crystals in janky reconstructed lightsabers.... and best of all, leading this gang of younglings, is the wannabe emperor's wannabe vader, an honorably discharged storm trooper desperate to relive his glory days. He is constantly jealous of his protege's for having force powers when he doesn't. He joined the special commission because no military branch would take him. He's nearly more cyborg prosthetic than flesh and bone, but for some of its advantages it mostly means he's undergoing constant tedious maintenance just to go about his life --very much in the spirit of the hitler youth captain in Jojo Rabbit, if you crossed him with Kylo Ren and General Grievous.

oh and i was gonna throw a little force baby at the party to take care of, because the first season of The Mandalorian was just taking off at the time. But also it would've undergone some traumatic conditioning/experimentation to artificially heighten its force sensitivity, making it an uncontrolled magnet for any and all errant negative feelings, which would all channel into dangerous force tantrums. So the party would have to manage its emotional state by addressing their own emotional states, and also give this smol alien baby therapy. Also maybe groom it into what'd basically be a mercenary child soldier, to combat the cult of sith younglings...... (I hadn't gotten around to working out the narrative kinks of the implications of incorporating the baby into combat...) Oh but the baby was going to b a Chandra-Fan, obviously, as they are arguably the most baby aliens in Star Wars.

(can you tell i found the image folder I'd be using at the time? It was buried in subfolders within subfolders of TTRPG material)

Spacing out on my ride home and I suddenly remembered the small mountain of notes i never unpacked from my last move, that are the plot i never touched for a star wars ttrpg campaign i tried to run right before lockdown.

We sat down for character gen, finished early enough to try for a quick "you meet at a tavern" session because i didnt actually have any combat encounters planned yet... And then the city shut down and now one of my players skipped town, another had a big ugly falling out with her roommate and our mutual friend so we arent really talking... My other pair of prospective players live half way across the city now, (and one of them is chained at the leg to a dialysis machine until she can scrounge up some spare organs...) So im very likely never getting back to this, but also not that i remember it exists i want to work on it again. I had a solid cast of NPCs, and my villain especially was a ton of fun that I was really eager to have butt heads with this weird gang of galaxy hopping misfits.

We had a human bounty hunter with an affinity for droids and something of a Jim Hawkins(treasure planet) flare

A PolisMasan Rebel fighter pilot and deserter, who was basically a NewType

A fugitive Chiss weapons engineer caught moonlighting as an illegal arms dealer

A human ace pilot smuggler that we never fully developed

And said ace pilot's Twilek hacker girlfriend, also under developed

[dmcracy]

Group 1.5 - Intermezzo - The seventh sin

Ilma űr Tamar is what remains from the vast ancient forest that once spread all across the western side of Neru. Many strange creatures found home in this forest thousands of years ago and some still remain in the shadows of ancient trees. Llthrae, Mína and Orik entered the shadowy, green smelling forest not knowing what awaits them. They traveled for hours until they reached the spot where two rivers connected, creating a much stronger third one. The last mighty river is called Nastasilef - crystal spear - and within its cold waters star sapphire Llthrae possessed began its story. But Llthrae found out about this only after they escaped the forest, so we will let it be for a while.

Above the river, a marvelous ruin stood in its broken glory. A ruin of once ancient hold of a mighty queen that now lay in mold and debris, slowly devoured by trees and flora around it. The adventurers entered its half broken gate and found a ghost of a child looking for her doll in the courtyard. After a brief conversation, Orik decided to cut a piece of his rope and made a little doll for the ghost girl. She did not like it and paid no mind to it because, at the same time Mína, took out the doll from the ghost in Slanterk from her bag doll from the ghost in Slanterkfrom her bag. The ghost girl rushed to her, snatched the doll and vanished. Puzzled by this event, the adventurers decided to venture forth and traversed a long lightless corridor. At its end, there was a grand door and murmur of people could be heard from the other side. They entered and found out that the room was filled with ghosts having a banquet. Above everything else, a throne made from great white tree stood and within its branches sat a pale, ghostly figure of breathtaking beauty. It was the ghost queen of this once powerful kingdom. A banshee. She asked what were they looking for and what they wanted. I had a little diplomacy game with her prepared. Players could get three keys from her for their quest. But when I started the game, mocking them as a banshee queen, Mína took the first key the queen offered and the group went away. The queen said for a few times that there are many locks and the key will open only first of them, but they did not care (in this session Llthrae was not present so maybe that was the reason). This is where this session ended and I felt dread because the dungeon below the queen was small and deadly in every way possible. In this time I still cared deeply for the fun and giggles of my players and cringed at every moment when some lethal danger appeared. 

The next session was with all three players in the entry room of the vaults. They had one key and an ancient mosaic to decipher in the circular room. The mosaic was depicting an unknown scenery with snowy mountains and one great star above the highest peak. 25 small keyholes were barely visible above the entire landscape. Some of the holes were just empty. Some of them were traps. One was a real death room with the deceased daughter of the banshee embedded in ice. One was an easter egg with a bearded guy with long hair wearing a t-shirt with some castle in a glass coffin. And one was with the treasure they needed. It took some time but to my astonishment (and with some railroading) Llthrae found the right keyhole. The part of the wall disappeared and vast cold darkness opened in front of him. Llthrae took the step in and I made him make an acrobatics check if he can catch the rim of the wall because there was no solid floor. And I found another lovely thing he was doing since then.

Immediately after I said “roll the check” he took back his decision. He argued that he did not word it properly and he did not want to enter really. This scared me at that time because I wanted my players to have fun. So I backed his point and then he gloriously poked the darkness with his stuff and showed us all how smart and wise wizard he is. Eventually, they found out that holding any source of light revealed a misty path 5 ft around them. They ventured forward and got to the point where they could see a large ancient tree enlightened by the moonlight few ft from them. But the catch was no mist was forming from that point on. They looked around and found out they were standing on the stone cylindrical pillar decorated with a large tree surrounded by elements of ice and fire. I do not remember exactly what happened here but after a few moments of desperation Orik sat on the ground bored and put his torch next to him. Suddenly a sound of shifting stones echoed through the air and stone stairs rose in front of them. They approached the tree and Llthrae started to shoot his Ray of frost around him to see if there were any other buttons or passages. A very wise decision to make in D&D since the days of Gygax.

The adventurers stood in front of the tree and Mína tried to take some of the seeds which were scattered around. The tree immediately punched her with a branch and grappled her. Llthrae with Orik tried to help and the tree eventually got calm. After that Mína got a glimpse of some other time by meditating under the tree. She saw an endless dusky realm of ice and snow, dragons flying around and strange dark-skinned, elf-like creatures living among them. So obviously she did not tell anything about it to the others and never thought about it again. So Orik grabbed the chest near the tree with the treasure they needed and they left. When they approached the banshee again, the banquet was gone. The only thing remaining was the ancient tree and a ghost of an elf sitting on it. And she was pissed because of their success. She claimed they cheated her and there was no possible way for them to succeed in her opinion and after a while fight began. The ghost of the girl from the begging of the dungeon helped them to distract the queen because the banshee cared for her. This was where Mína’s secret talent kicked in. Instead of fighting (because Mína hated fights) she tried to persuade the queen to give up. I made her roll persuasion. A critical. Realizing this could end up in another potentially awesome moment in this game, I played along. The queen cried out so loudly that the room quaked and she vanished with the ghost girl. I do not remember how my players reacted to it. But I loved it. For me, this was the spirit of D&D - to try things which are not on your sheet. I think they had no time to celebrate because the entire building was collapsing and they were running towards the light. The debris was falling so to keep it real I made them roll acrobatics checks to avoid falling stones. Everybody succeeded. Orik made it even more awesome by just jumping over the stone pillar. This was a real moment of joy for me. A real D&D experience.

At the end of the session, they escaped the crumbling building and entered the glade. Suddenly, an arrow swished around their ears. And another one. And a red-haired elf was running towards them. 

And on the other side of the mountains, a young halfling girl went to the forest to look for mushrooms.

[mi4012annabodgal]

Creating a working storyline from a DADAism poem

Task: Create a storyline then later on a story board and mood boards based on your DADA poem as this is going to be your final project for the semester. 

Week: I lost my sense of time

For my biggest surprise applying the rule of chance resulted in a quite well structured poem... in terms of storyline. Don’t let any grammar freak read it because they would go mad but I personally find it quite beautiful what this gramatical chaos created. The poem is still readable, you can not say it doesn’t have a meaning, because it does, from the very beginning, the meaning fiercely steals itself into your mind and stubbornly stays until it is fully blossomed. You don’t need grammar for it, it just happens, we see nouns and verbs, tiny bits of informations, we associate, automatically add meaning and during the time of a blink we have a whole story. This ability is stunning. 

Of course it doesn’t always happen for the first reading. Or for the second. Nor for third. And it’s also possible that the words on the paper just scare the life out of you because you don’t seem like to get anything out of them. That’s why the exercise we did on class was a really handy one for everyone.

We were told to print out the poem then write down our ideas about it BUT we need to avoid cliches. And what are the cliches? Usually the first ideas. Now, we did’t have to write full sentences, that was the point, write words in relation to them, then write down the words in association to those. Brainstorming. 

After that we got sorted out into groups and did a group critic for each other. It was fascinating. Everyone had different for ideas each other’s poems and it was captivating to see how many different views could be blurred together into one. Or just the fact that one poem held as many different meanings as many people read it. 

My poem was made from a Virgo daily horoscope. 

“And Jupiter you capture idea

of good adventure may days

other may presence your for family 

Virgo sector communication of

the touch may hint that attention 

a in await get up that in 

or something Venus you’re a

in and caught getting is

friends few”

I decided that the characters of the story are going to be the subjects in with capital letters, and I also came to the conclusion that I want to make a love story. Not necessary with a happy ending.

I immediatley know that I want to do something with the fact that the name of the planets are also the name of the Roman gods, and it’s so interesting because when we think about ancient mythology everybody straight thinks about the Greek gods and poor roman gods are just the copies of them. Well I can’t say it’s not true, roman mythology was heavily influenced by the greek but there are differences. Some major ones too, so I did my research and collected facts about both Jupiter and Venus as gods and as planets too. 

Jupiter - The God

“In Roman myth, Jupiter was the god supreme. He could not be ousted by the other gods. He ruled heaven and earth and all life. Jupiter rarely left the heavens. He listened to his various advisors from his throne on high. The Fates had no power over him. He might assign one of the other gods to make a decision, but the final word was always his.

Zeus and Jupiter both had more power than any other god. They could shape shift, and look like any mortal or animal they chose. In both Greek and Roman mythology, they both threw lightening bolts. “

The planet

Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system.Its atmosphere resembles that of the sun, made up mostly of hydrogen and helium, and with four large moons and many smaller moons in orbit around it,

Jupiter by itself forms a kind of miniature solar system.

The colorful bands of Jupiter are arranged in dark belts and light zones created by strong east-west winds in the planet's upper atmosphere traveling more than 400 mph (640 km/h). The white clouds in the zones are made of crystals of frozen ammonia, while darker clouds of other chemicals are found in the belts. At the deepest visible levels are blue clouds. Far from being static, the stripes of clouds change over time. Inside the atmosphere, diamond rain may fill the skies.

Chemical composition: Jupiter has a dense core of uncertain composition, surrounded by a helium-rich layer of fluid metallic hydrogen, wrapped up in an atmosphere primarily made of molecular hydrogen.

Internal structure: A core less than 10 times Earth's mass surrounded by a layer of fluid metallic hydrogen extending out to 80 to 90 percent of the diameter of the planet, enclosed in an atmosphere mostly made of gaseous and liquid hydrogen.

Average distance from the sun: 483,682,810 miles (778,412,020 km). By comparison: 5.203 times that of Earth.

As the most massive body in the solar system after the Sun, the pull of Jupiter's gravity has helped shape the fate of our system. It may have violently hurled Neptune and Uranus outward, according to calculations published in the journal Nature. Jupiter, along with Saturn, may have slung a barrage of debris toward the inner planets early in the system's history, although some scientists debate how much of a role each planet played in moving the asteroids around.It may even nowadays help keep asteroids from bombarding Earth, and recent events certainly have shown that it can absorb potentially deadly impacts.

My thoughts:

After collecting these datas I made a mood board for the character as it was a task too, but with these I mostly established only the ‘feeling’ of the character, and how he will actually look like. I did the same with Venus and Virgo too.

I have many little additional thoughts for Jupiter, the other two characters and for my stories word which I will state later on after representing each characters.

Venus - The God

Venus is the Roman goddess of love, beauty, prosperity, fertility, and victory. She was so important to Romans that they claimed her as their ancestress. According to mythology, her son Aeneas fled from Troy to Italy. He became the ancestor of Remus and Romulus, who founded Rome.

In Latin orthography, her name is indistinguishable from the Latin noun venus ("sexual love" and "sexual desire"), from which it derives. It has connections to venerari ("to honour, to try to please") and venia("grace, favour") through a possible common root in an Indo-European *wenes- or *u̯enis ("friend"). Their common Proto-Indo-European root is assumed as *wen- or *u̯en- "to strive for, wish for, desire, love")

In myth, Venus-Aphrodite was born of sea-foam. Roman theology presents Venus as the yielding, watery female principle, essential to the generation and balance of life. Her male counterparts in the Roman pantheon, Vulcan and Mars, are active and fiery. Venus absorbs and tempers the male essence, uniting the opposites of male and female in mutual affection.

Venus was married to Vulcan, the god of fire and the forge. Vulcan was notoriously ugly – one of the ugliest of the gods. But he loved her so much that he created a golden carriage to pull her around. The carriage was drawn by doves to match Venus’s own beauty.

Venus was also the mother of CUPID, the god of love.

Venus was a native Roman goddess who was not adopted from anywhere

. Her name is exactly the same as a Roman word for a particular kind of love. That name can be traced all the way back to the language before Latin, to a word meaning “to desire or love”.

The planet

The planet is, indeed, name after the goddess. It was visible in the ancient night sky at certain times of the year and looked like a very bright star. Because it was so bright and beautiful, it was named Venus. Ironically, the planet Venus is covered with acid clouds, so the name is not very suitable for a goddess of love and fertility.

Venus is the second planet from the Sun.

It has the longest rotation period of any planet in the Solar System and rotates in the opposite direction to most other planets. It does not have any natural satellites.

It is the brightest object in the sky after Sun and Moon from the Earth.

Virgo 

The planet Mercury is the ruling planet of Virgo zodiac

According to the Roman legend, Mercury was the winged Messenger God, who represented adaptability and made the best possible use of the available resources. Individuals ruled by Mercury follow ideas and morals that resonate to what is popular at a given time.

I made many associations from the poem and created some rules for the word from them, because I let my fantasy run wild and love to think about every little detail in relation of the creation.You build a palace from bricks too. 

These ideas are not quite finished and fully established yet, all of them should be read starting with “What if...” as I am not quite sure of the storyline yet.

So what if...

We take the part of the poem something Venus you’re a in and as Venus is the goddess of love we create the expression “you are in Venus” which would mean that you are in love.

Venus is the second closest to the Sun it means it’s very warm and hot which are also the feelings we connect with love so the god/goddess’s planet is the closer to the Sun, the more capable of love the god is. Meaning also that Jupiter is pretty far away so he is not so much of a lovely guy.

I dearly love the idea of connecting the planets and the gods, not just by their names but physically too. Using them as a kind of a feeling expression tool. 

These were the beginning thoughts to my story.

Sources used:

https://www.space.com/7-jupiter-largest-planet-solar-system.html

https://greekgodsandgoddesses.net/goddesses/venus/

[autolovecraft]

Gilman's death.

At three o'clock he took some lunch at a restaurant, noting meanwhile that the pull had either lessened or divided itself. There was the immemorial figure of the deputy or messenger of hidden and terrible powers—the Black Man and go with them all to the throne of Chaos where reigns the mindless daemon-sultan Azathoth? He felt sure he was in a dark, muddy, unknown alley of foetid odors with the rotting walls of ancient houses towering up on every hand.

In his dream he had heard faint footfalls in the immemorially sealed loft overhead, had supposedly been sealed from all human access. Had he himself talked as well as older rat-bones gnawed by small fangs in a fashion now and then ever since early in March, and knew they would sleep like logs when night came. He would have to consult a nerve specialist, and take himself in hand. That shocking little horror was reserved for certain lighter, sharper dreams which assailed him just before he dropped into the fullest depths of sleep. Something, however, for the Walpurgis-rhythm in whose cosmic timbre would be concentrated all the primal, ultimate space-time continuum—and that the creaking of his floor at certain hours of the night was remarked by the man in the room where Gilman was a guest, but Dombrowski tinned it up during the day. He must sign the book of Azathoth in his own blood and take a new secret name of Nahab. When the dreamer was settled on his couch in Elwood's room they sent for Doctor Malkowski.

Gilman on any sleep-walking continued, and thought that someone fumbled clumsily at the latch. On neither occasion, though, that he could almost balance the one against the other. When the blood was washed away the wrist wound proved very slight, and Gilman knew she was the one who had frightened him in the slums.

This fusion of dream and reality was too much to bear. The roaring twilight abysses—the green hillside—the blistering terrace—the pulls from the stars—the ultimate black vortex—the black man in the unknown space stood out vividly. After about an hour he got himself under better control, and saw that Brown Jenkin had not been sleep-walking was needed. Something else had gone on ahead—a larger wisp which now and then condensed into nameless approximations of form—and he gave Gilman two hypodermic injections which caused him to relax in something like natural drowsiness.

Plodding back to town and getting some coffee at a soda fountain, he dragged himself into the old house and the narrow streets beneath, and he fell dizzily and interminably. Desrochers would not admit that they were like the prints of four tiny human hands.

The crone had seemed to notice him and leer evilly at him—though perhaps this was merely his imagination. Just before he made the plunge the violet light again.

Where had he got this outré thing?

Her bent back, long nose, and shriveled chin were unmistakable, and her grip relaxed long enough to give him a sense of strident pandemonium. The loft above the slanting ceiling? He was glad to sink into the vaguely roaring twilight abysses, though the pursuit of that iridescent bubble-congeries and the little polyhedron which always dogged him; but they, like himself, had changed to wisps of mist in this farther void of ultimate blackness. Whether he had killed the ancient crone he did not like. It was always a very bad time of year for Arkham. After that he killed the time at a cheap cinema show, seeing the inane performance over and over again without paying any attention to it. On the floor were confused muddy prints, but oddly enough they did not believe anything would be done. This object was the partly crushed skeleton of a huge diseased rat, whose abnormalities of form are still a topic of debate and source of singular reticence among the members of the other categories. No, he had thought at first that Gilman's window was dark, but then he had seen the name Azathoth in the Necronomicon about the mindless entity Azathoth, which rules all time and space we comprehend.

Stanislaus' Church—could bring him relief.

The darkness always teemed with unexplained sound—and yet he sometimes shook with fear lest the noises he heard should subside and allow him to hear certain other fainter noises which he suspected were lurking behind them. Behind everything crouched the brooding, festering horror of the ancient town, and of the violet dream-light had got abroad. It had looked very queer to her, but of course the young gentleman had lots of queer things in his room—books and curios and pictures and markings on paper. Just what had really happened was maddeningly obscure, and for the first time since All-Hallows. Not only did they fail to correspond with any known element, but they did not even approximately fit. The pavement from which he easily raised himself was a veined polished stone beyond his power to identify, and the triangular gulf at one side. In every quarter, however, for the house was unpopular, hard to rent, and long given over to cheap lodgings. Geometrical shapes seethed around him, and he felt the crone's withered claws clutching at him. On the carpet they were very indistinct, but a piece of open flooring intervened between the carpet's edge and the baseboard. He knew he did walk and the thing to do now was to stop it. It was a painful process, and at its very start brought out a fresh and disconcerting fact. His right hand fell on one of the organic entities moved, he could tell no more than of how he moved himself. He saw that Elwood had dropped asleep, and tried to call out and waken him.

A definite point among the stars had a claim on him and was calling him. A mood of hideous apprehension and expectancy had seized him, and he could remember in the morning how it had pronounced the words Azathoth and Nyarlathotep. The rats must have bitten him as he sat in some chair or paused in some less rational position? The young gentleman had lots of queer things in his room—books and curios and pictures and markings on paper. She had spoken also of the Black Man of the witch-light. At sight of the object itself would affect the evil creature. He did not wish to go to sleep in the room where Gilman was a guest, but Dombrowski tinned it up during the day. The whole attic story was choked with debris from above, but no one took them seriously. The crone fumbled with the latch and pushed the door open, motioning to Gilman to wait, and disappearing inside the black aperture. There were recent rumors, too, he must see the specialist. In the dazzling violet light of dream the old woman and the fanged, rat-like abnormality. He did not recall seeing it in any museum in Arkham.