I will show you fear in a handful of dust; PHASE IV

[Carnage]

lord, I fashion dark gods too;

She follows some of them. She does not follow others. Time is strange. There are timelines where she dies – where they all die – and ones where she lives. But this Gail – the one we follow – is in the wormhole. It’s not like last time. Last time, it was a blur, a rush, her stomach dropped out from under her. Last time she only heard whispers, a susurrus of voices that could not quite be made out. This trip is slower, and gives them time to see images as they move from future to present. She sees glimpses – smoky, ash-choked air, and a great beast rising from the sea, fires raging unchecked. Wars, between nameless horses, clashes for reasons she doesn’t know. Diseases. She wonders why she came back, why any of them did. There are six of them left. Six acolytes. Time merged back, rivers to the ocean, so they travel this wormhole together. But it’s slow. “He’s struggling,” she says, amazed she can speak as they crawl through time. It’s because of her. She is his anchor. She has always been unreadable to him, his magic has not worked on her the way it did others. He’d taken her there, to the end of the world, and it had been easily because hadn’t she helped, on some level? She’d wanted to go. Now, she is not so sure. Part of her wants and needs him, to be reunited with such a vital part of herself. The other part misses the beach, and wonders what the world sounds like between the langoliers’ teeth. ***** He can feel them. They are close, and they have her. But she is a weight, leaden in his wormhole. Gods do not take kindly to failure, ***** The others spill out first. Back on the beach, where it began. Where it all began. She is the last, and when she comes to the wormhole’s opening she does not spill out. It’s like hitting a placental wall. There is give and stretch but it does not want to let her through. She can hear him saying her name, the dark god who was once a black little boy she loved so dearly. “Carnage,” she says, and presses against the membrane. It thins and she can see him. The membrane snaps and for a moment they embrace, him smelling of smoke and blood and she of the end of the world, and oh --. And then the beach breaks beneath them. A chunk of the beach breaks off, spits the dark god back onto further shores (and when he surges forward he finds he cannot). It takes Gail, and the six, and there is another wormhole. This trip is not so long. For they have not traversed through time, not exactly. Instead, it is another realm – both part and not-part of Beqanna. A land of the dead, its own personal Hades. The spirits come out, emboldened to walk among them by the queer power this piece of the beach (now an island, adrift in its own realm). Some of the ghosts she recognizes as her own children and her knees go weak. “I’m sorry,” she says to the six, who were brought with her by association, “I wasn’t supposed to live and now I’m here, now we’re here, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” For she was not. She is a woman drenched in the apocalypse after spending so many years there, when the dark god tried to draw her back into Beqanna the land rejected a woman so thoroughly dead. The compromise (reached, though subconsciously, by the dark god and his blood land) was this – an underworld, a realm of the dead where the old kings and queens and children and everyone in between could walk, crafted of Beqanna’s own beach. And they should not be here. Already they are aging, gray flecking their muscles. The children – and some of the six are children, still long-limbed and scrawny – grow and fill out and turn into lovely adults, but they will soon droop and weaken. She does not. She is protected, ageless. The idea comes to her. It is desperate, but so is she. She followed so that they would not die, and here they are, dying before her, proof nothing can be saved. “They can help,” she says, looking to the horses around her, the spirits, who have gathered, curious at their own existence and at that of the living, “I think. Find someone. Find someone you loved, who loves you. Ask them for help. Your magic doesn’t work here, but theirs might.” Rules: LAST PHASE! Beqanna wouldn’t allow Carnage to bring Gail back into the land of the living, so as a compromise, it carved off a piece of the beach and sent it through the wormhole to create a magic-imbued ‘afterlife’ where all Beqanna’s dead horses may rise and interact among themselves. Your goal is to find a dead character of yours who has some connection to your quest character (if you don’t have one, ask permission to powerplay someone else’s who they were connected to but died, or make one up) and ask them to help get you home. Your traits don’t work here, but the ghost horses’ do, because reasons. You can encounter more than one character, but don't go crazy. In your post, please include a brief note of who you encountered and how they’re connected to your character (and if you, say, played your horse’s ex-lover who was actually played by someone else in life, make sure to note you got permission) because my reading comprehension isn’t really up to par. Posts will be judged on style and creativity. I’ll probably inevitably end up being unable to decide and will end up randomly rolling a die or something, so have fun with it. I won’t have reliable access to a computer until next Tuesday (May 26th), so take your time! If you have any questions please email me also this post might be heavily edited later when I am less sad and using writing as a form of escapism so double check it before your post. or i might have given up, idk.

[Wrynn]

Oh look, oh my star is fading

Author's note: Rain is a stillborn daughter of Scorch and Hestoni, Wrynn's full sister. Kora is the daughter of Kagerou, one of Scorch's few close friends. Rain and Kora were born a year apart, and their mothers bonded over their loss. So in the world of the dead, their daughters bonded too. Permission to use Rain granted by Sid. Permission to use Kora granted by Lydia.

Also, cameo appearances by a pretty substantial mass of nameless stillborns from throughout the history of Beqanna, who have all met in the afterlife and bonded because I'm pretty sure children inevitably do that no matter whether they're dead or not.

---

They are moving, but the world is molasses. One step at a time, one step. It doesn't matter that it is stranger now, that it is slower, that it seems like it's harder. It doesn't matter, because suddenly the end is in sight –there is Carnage, and her little heart sings to see them reunited, the quest almost at an end. They spill out, and she looks back, seeing Gail struggle, and as the girl moves to help, the woman breaks through.

And then suddenly, there are no more steps. No more reunion. No more Carnage.

It is a world she knows, and not anything she knows. Because who is she to know of death or loss? She's so young, too young to have been spoiled by the world just yet, too young to know what it is to ache. And so she doesn't know what they are, as they gather around their little band, pressing close, pressing in. They are curious, and she is curious right back. She reaches out to touch noses with one, but Gail speaks just before they can touch noses.

Find someone you loved. She loved everyone, but there are so few who even know her yet, let alone love her. Her mother, her father, her brother, they're not here. Who else does she know? The press of horses around her grows thicker, and she starts to walk, looking for one friendly or familiar. She gives them each a smile, and notices as she does that she's starting to age. She is growing into her prime, starting to grey out, and she almost wonders what she looks like. But it isn't natural, this isn't right, she has to find someone who can help her stop this.

She sees a familiar-looking shade, and halts abruptly. "Brother?" the shade is roan, and in form so very like her own brother. It looks up at her. "Leiland!" there is excitement in her voice, and she starts to move toward what she thinks is him. It's not until she gets terribly close that she notices the shape is all wrong, it's not her brother, it's a girl. An Amazon girl, with the vine-and-bud trailing up her leg, a tiny fire tattoo flickering just below the bud, and a faint tattoo of flames where two of her ribs should be. The grin fades from her face and she collects herself in front of the small girl. "I'm sorry, I thought you were someone else." her voice is gentle, apologetic.

The girl's face is fixed on her, and although it's not her brother's face it's somehow familiar. It's only a moment before the girl returns Wrynn's gentle smile. "I'm not your brother, silly." her voice seems somehow far away. "I'm your sister." Wrynn isn't sure what to make of this. None of her sisters are this age. Almost as though the girl understands her thoughts, she speaks again. "My name is Rain. I was born twelve years ago, and I died twelve years ago." the girl's voice is gentle, childlike, but clearly she's come to peace with her situation. Wrynn's eyes go wide, suddenly understanding where they are, why she's aging, and why their predicament was suddenly so dire.

"Rain." the girl says, giving a smile to her older-sister-that-wasn't. "Wrynn and Rain."  she says, delighted with how close their names are. She sobers then. "Rain, can you help us get home?" always us – Wrynn isn't thinking of herself. She isn't even thinking of herself and Gail. She's thinking of all of them. Her older sister frowns. "I don't know if I can do it alone." she smiles. "But maybe we can do it together." And suddenly Wrynn sees that Rain is not alone. Next to her stands a bay filly of the same age, and many more foals stand behind them. And in a flash, she understands – these are the unborn of Beqanna, the babies who never made it past the womb, the ones who died before ever knowing their mothers, their families, their homes. And she wants to weep for them, her heart breaks for them. She is stunned into silence.

"Don't be sad." Rain's voice is kind. "I have lots of friends, like Kora here." She smiles, indicating a bay girl who stands beside her. "Kora's mom is here too. Kagerou, our mom's good friend. Really, everyone ends up here sooner or later. We've got plenty of friends. It's not so bad, once you get used to it." Wrynn is still silent, trying to comprehend, and so Rain takes charge. "But you shouldn't be here. Not yet." Wrynn knows it's true, and she knows time is of the essence. "We're on a mission, me and some others. We were almost back, but then we slipped away." she doesn't know how else to describe it. She looks down the beach, down at the grey woman for whom they are doing everything. "She thinks that you can help us get back." The two ghost-fillies smile then, looking at each other before Rain speaks. "At the very least we can try. Family helps family, and we're all family here. Not just me and Kora, but all of us." she is speaking, Wrynn knows, of the vast mass of the unborn, all of them bonded by the sights they've never seen, the families they've never known. Rain speaks again, and this time her voice is sober, quiet and serious. "Besides, I don't…I don't want mom and dad to lose anyone else." The two sisters' eyes meet. "Thank you Rain." Wrynn says, because she doesn't have words to express what she really means. "Thank you all." Rain collects herself then, strong and every inch Scorch's daughter. The smile is back, and her voice is bright. "Let's go. We've got work to do." And she nudges her sister, and Wrynn has to work at not shuddering at the touch of death.

She heads back for Gail, and when she does it's not just Rain and Kora that follow. There are many more, baby ghosts, the tiny spirits of the unborn, and as she walks it's like she's leading a small army. Small in number, and small in stature. Wrynn herself continues to grow every minute, now a white mare in the prime of her life. They fan out behind her, the saddest of the dead, the youngest, those who never knew the world. They never knew it, and yet she will rely on them to return her to it.

It's only a moment before they reach Gail, and Wrynn touches the woman with her nose, reassuring her. "Gail, I found my sister." her voice is older now, but still sweet and gentle. "And some new friends." She pauses for a moment. "I hope we're enough." They'll have to be enough. She looks back and forth between Rain and Gail. "What do we do?"

Her ghost sister looks pensive for a moment, as though she's racking her brain for ideas. There's no magic in them, or at least, not magic like Carnage or like some of the others here who can do feats beyond her imagination. But they do have a magic all their own, the magic of the young, the power of the many who gather with a single purpose. "Think of Beqanna." Rain says to Wrynn. "Shut your eyes and really focus. Picture mom and dad, picture your brother. No matter what, don't stop thinking of them and don't open your eyes." The ghost girl pauses for a moment. "And when you get home, tell mom and dad I love them." Wrynn nods, eyes closed. She would love nothing more than to bring her sister home with her, but she knows in her bones that it just isn't possible. It will be hard enough to get the living out of here. To free the dead is a non-starter. "I will, Rain. I promise." Rain's nose touches Wrynn's shoulder again, and this time it isn't so cold and startling. She feels, rather than sees her ghost-sister move away, turning to the assembled children.

"We need to send Wrynn home." Rain is speaking to the assembled group now, leaving Wrynn to keep focusing on her parents as instructed. "Let's start by imagining grass. You might remember the feeling of it, during the short time that you were with your mother. You might know it by how she felt it. It's so green, so bright, and so soft." One by one, the small ghosts close their eyes, losing themselves in memories they don't have, feeding off of things in Wrynn's mind (and perhaps in Gail's mind too) while she holds the picture of where she needs to go. "Imagine the sun. It's so warm, warmer than it is here, and bright. In Beqanna, nothing is grey." There is something happening, Wrynn can feel it. She doesn't know whether one of them has power – who knows, they might – or whether it's simply that all of them have power. "Think of the rain," her sister is saying, and Wrynn can almost feel it, rain and sun and rainbows and the hum of something, she doesn't know what.

It is as though a crescendo is building, her sister's voice in a litany of Wrynn's own memories, her thoughts of her parents, the rain and the sun and the hard press of Beqanna on her magically aging body. Is she traveling? Is she on the broken beach, the real one, somewhere else? The sensation of it all makes it impossible to tell. Like a glorious symphony of cacophony it rises to a crescendo-
and then it stops.

Desperately curious, but oddly unafraid, she opens her eyes.

wrynn

Accidentally posted this as Evie, couldn't change it to Wrynn after the fact, and couldn't handle it not being posted by Wrynn so here we are.

[Nihlus]

there's no religion that could save me

no matter how long my knees are on the floor

i'll pick up these broken pieces 'til i'm bleeding

if that'll make it right

They are so close (close enough to taste; poignant, seductive).
Time moves slowly, or rather, it moves backwards (through the wars, the disasters, the plagues).
Gail says that he’s struggling, fighting against some sort of magic (or rather anti-magic).
Nihlus shudders, the movement rolling from his shoulders all the way to his bark-lined legs. (I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die.)

They meet the end, or is it the beginning? Six acolytes and the goddess, crammed in a wormhole; two lovers, reunited. Nihlus watches as they embrace, the membrane snapping for their indefinable love. Stark blue eyes like the skies of summer memorize the outline of their bodies pressed together, of the way they become one. For a moment, Nihlus tears his gaze away, studying the liquid walls of the wormhole. Images of a two blacks children in a familiar embrace drift across its sides, echoes of their beginning, of their definition complex.

”Oh,” --

-- Beneath their hooves, the beach breaks. His ecstatic words are sucked into the vacuum of the wormhole, stealing the stale air from his lungs as they fall, fall, fall. Nihlus strains towards the beach, towards Carnage, towards his family. Mentally, he grasps at the present; in reality (or is this but a dream?) he cannot move. The wormhole traps him, drags him down, down, down, further until they are, at last, upon firm ground once more.

Firm, but figurative.
Reality, but alternate.

His lungs claw at the fourth-dimensional air, processes it with a horrified look.  It slips through his entire being as he inhales, as though only a portion of the oxygen reaches his lungs, while the rest simply is. As his ears move lightly through the space as though no resistance was to be had, Nihlus distinctly comes to know that he is not supposed to be here. None of them are.

Gail verbalizes his thoughts, the frequency of her voice higher than he had heard it whilst the langoliers screamed for their blood, as though the space between them is thin, empty. The frightened boy (for that is all he is, a man barely out of childhood) latches himself to the goddess’s words so much so that he does not notice when the spirits come. They walk quickly, their legs moving more slowly than their bodies, as though perhaps they are lighter than the living, thin and empty like their surrounding space. When Gail’s voice indicates an audience, Nihlus snaps his head around, eyes wide, ink-bay coat twitching. As the spirits stare at them raptly, Gail mentions magic. Nihlus immediately moves towards his rain, towards his shapeshifting, but all he feels is the way the wind plays wispily against his skin, practically manifesting as it rolls along his broad shoulders. His magic, however, is not to be had.

Theirs is.
Nihlus knows none of them.
Too young he is, inexperienced of death (yet this is what he has always dreamed of, isn’t it? A true understanding of what mortality means, a clear view of what happens when no more blood remains to drip from a throat. This is what he has come here for, he muses).

As the others recover from the shock of falling through the realities, Nihlus simply stares. He does not recognize one face in the crowd. Each horse drifts towards the spirits, except him. While they embrace the ones they have lost, Nihlus thinks of Daemron, Cerva, and Noori. His heart breaks for them, shatters at the thought of never seeing them again.

“Oh come on you little fucker, don’t act like no one has told you the tales of your great grandmother Echion.” Her voice is deep, broad, commanding. Even as a spirit, the legendary Queen of the Amazons demands respect, exudes authority. Nihlus squints at her hesitantly. He had heard of Echion, of course. Scorch wouldn’t shut up about her to Noori, and Noori needed some place to blow off steam. The triplets were that opportunity. He just hadn’t really thought –

“Now, now, Gran, don’t frighten the poor child.” This voice rings more softly in his ears, like bells tinkling out a windowsill. Nihlus shifts his gaze to a beautiful red-roan girl who looks to be about his age. Like Echion, a vine-and-flower lay upon her skin, and just beneath it, fire in the shape of crossbones; when the Jungle magiked Rain’s physical bones on to Scorch’s skin, Scorch’s fire had been given to Rain. To the stillborn. To the “what if.”
“He’s of my blood. My blood doesn’t get scared.” Echion speaks to Rain even as she dips her black-and-white head to Nihlus, powerful wings rolling as though perhaps today she will have need of their services once more.

The youthful roan rolls her stark green eyes, smiling both warmly and sadly at her nephew. “Ignore her. It took me weeks to actually get used to living with the proclaimed Khaleesi Echion. I’m Rain, by the way. Your aunt. Noori must have mentioned me a time or two.”

Throughout the familial banter, Nihlus stands in utter shock and fascination, the snap of his eyes from grandmother to aunt the only sign of movement and life. When the two turn their eyes to him, expectant of a reply, a sound not dissimilar to the langolier’s static escapes his mouth. How, exactly, was one supposed to go about this?

No time to think. Act now, Nihlus. The others are leaving.

"Well, err, I’m Nihlus. I guess you two know that already,” He speaks haltingly, a numb laugh ending the sentence. "Could you maybe – please – help me get the hell out of here? I’m sure that it’s nice and all, but I’ll enjoy it better when I’m actually… Dead.” The final word drops like a weight through the vacant air; Echion and Rain wince in symphony, cringing away from the reality of their existence. Nihlus shifts his gaze, immediately sorry for how he had spoken.

“Of course you will.” Echion speaks curtly, voice commanding action from her great-grandson even as a single note of sadness accompanies it. “Now get off your ass and follow us. We have an idea for what might get you out of here.” Nihlus nods wordlessly, visibly revitalized, even in this thin reality. The boy steps up between great grandmother and aunt, receiving a smile from both, though one is distinctly colder, and the other warmer. The Noorison returns the look faintly, continuously dazed by what has come to be. What has always been, he muses.

"It’s a pleasure to meet you,” He blurts genuinely. Two chuckles slip through the void-like air, their sound identical, deep, broad, and powerful. Humility fills the boy’s broad chest for the first time in his life; he is standing among the kings, queens, and legends. Awe soon accompanies the humility.

“Don’t mention it, Nih. Echion built an army of children for a reason.” Rain moves to bump her nose to his neck, but the touch leaves the boy feeling chilled; it was like the wind felt in Beqanna, invisible and there all at once. He finds himself inching away from his beautiful aunt; she lends him an apologetic look, sadness carved in her vibrant green eyes, eyes that have only ever known this reality. Nihlus shudders, sickness clenching his stomach.

"I wish I could know more about you,” He whispers, tears coming to his eyes. The chill has reached his extremities, and he suddenly knows that it was not Rain who caused it. Too long in this narrow fourth-dimension, and he too shall fade into one of the spirits. "I wish I could tell you about everything that’s happened.”

”There’ll be time, Nih. Don’t worry about us. You get used to feeling like you’re only skin after a while.” The boy nods in understanding, tears dripping quickly from his glowing eyes. He reaches for Rain, then stops himself. He doesn’t have much strength left.

A moment later, they’ve come to where the sea meets the sand. Nihlus stares at one part fixedly, where the foamy waves do not meet the gray shore the way it ought to. His lips part to ask about the missing seam when Echion’s strong voice materializes. “We’ve know about this for a while. Some people tried jumping through; Librette made it, so did Carnage and myself for a day. But it doesn’t always bring us back. Sometimes we just float in the nothingness for a while, before eventually making our way back to this place.” Echion watches the boy closely. “That’s the risk you’ll be taking by jumping into the seam. Blackness, or life once more.” The Khaleesi says nothing of a goodbye, though the way her eyes sag at the thought of losing another speaks speeches of unsaid feelings to him.

”Tell Mom we said hi, and that we love them, okay? Echion too. She didn’t say it very well in real life. Don’t let Mom forget that actions speak louder than words… Now go on. You’ll find your way back soon enough. Nihlus nods, the rock in his throat preventing a proper farewell. He stands there for a moment, glancing between them, and then nods.

With a sharp inhale, he leaps into the seam.

Nihlus

rain manipulating, rabbit shifting son of Sinder & Noori

Rain is his strillborn aunt, Echion is his great grandmother.

[Kellyn]

I wish I could feel it all for you, I wish I could do it all for you

ooc; Sorenson and Bethanie are Kellyn's dead uncle and aunt on Brennen's side. Bethanie died after fighting in Elite's Valley crap and is understandably bitter;  Sorenson is here because in my head they would have found each other in the afterlife and also he's the calm to Beth's angry. <3

‘I don’t know if I’m angry,’ Gail says and Kellyn gives her a long, unfathomable look. She doesn’t presume to know the woman’s feelings, but she has been angry before and over so much less, and a part of the strawberry girl doesn’t believe that the woman could be aught but angry, in some part of her being.

Time shifts, blurs, the langoliers destroying the world around them, but finally - finally - Gail steps forward and they move into the wormhole. Kellyn wants to shiver in relief, but there is something wrong. They don’t drop into a new place like before, and time doesn’t snap to the correct orientation. It is constantly shifting around her, not quite out of control but so close to it that she feels nauseous, and wonders if she’s the only one. Is her it sensitivity to time that makes her sick, or do they all feel it? A quick glance reveals that they are seven – only six travelers, and Gail. Three more lost to this mission. Though she did not know them, she feels a renewed need to succeed. It would be wrong, somehow, if they died for naught. ’He’s struggling,’ Gail says and the pink girl flicks the mare a glance but does not respond. There is nothing Kellyn can do to help – she reached for time, wanting to try, but she couldn’t touch it. All of the manipulation must be done by Him – from the outside.

The steps seem interminable, endless, until she stumbles onto sand and a breath of cool, salty air. The strawberry girl scrambles to her feet, relief coursing through her as she spins to see Gail step out of the wormhole, and then there is nothing again, a moment of disorientation, and they are on a new beach. It looks like their beach, but something is wrong. The girl shivers, staring blankly at Gail as she offers apologies, before her gaze drifts to those who have wandered towards their group, and then back to the sickening vision of her companions aging alongside her. Gail tells them to ask the dead for help, and Kellyn heeds her as if it is another order from Carnage, stepping forward, but then she stops.

They are all unfamiliar. Not a single familiar face. Her family, though scattered to the corners of Beqanna, lives on beyond this strange underworld. As the other participants seek out friends and family, the red girl stands frozen, unsure of whom to seek. It is not in her nature to speak to strangers, and so in this important task she is nearly useless.

“Kellyn,” the voice makes her spin around, instinctively reaching to freeze time as she has trained herself to do when threatened; but there is nothing to grab. Time here is not her time, and she cannot change it. With a shiver, she lifts her eyes to find two sets of bright blue eyes, bright even in this strange place, watching her from white-splashed faces. She doesn’t know them, but lets her eyes drift across their bodies. She’s bright chestnut, the color Kellyn imagines she might be with the white roaning, and he’s bay, both of them splashed liberally with white. She doesn’t know them, but yet…something in the back of her mind says there’s something about them that she should recognize. “Who are you?” she asks finally into the silence, noticing that he’s smiling, gently, but there is something harder in the mare’s eyes.

“I’m Sorenson.” the boy says, stepping forward a step from his place beside the other. He’s taller, but just a bit, though clearly he is young. A part of he realizes that he must have died at this age – barely out of foalhood. Her age. “This is Bethanie. I’m your uncle, Beth’s my sister. Your aunt.” She’s older than both of them, body and face mature, and a brace of shocking white scars across her belly and back. It’s that Kellyn finally recognizes – the stark white scars against the bay of her hide match Brennen’s, and quick glance up to their slightly dished profiles cements it in her mind. She knew, of course, that she has many aunts and uncles on her father’s side – some dead and some alive – but she had met few of them. “I…uh…how did you get here? Can you get us out?” The strawberry girl’s eyes flick to the forms of her companions scattered across the beach, growing older with each passing minute. Somehow, she knows that too much time here might leave them a face worse than denizens of this place, because the spirits aren’t aging in the same way the travelers are.

“I died because of your mother.” This time, it’s her that speaks. Beth. Kellyn’s eyes fly back to the pair, startled at the cold and the venom in Beth’s voice. ”Beth,” the boy says quietly, but she raises her voice to keep speaking. “Because of Him. My son grew up parentless, and my family mourned. But Elite got Cagney, got you, got her perfect little family.” Kellyn is speechless, shocked, struck by the anger but also because it must be true that the dead can watch the living (because while Kellyn is not the world’s best kept secret, neither she nor her close family had flaunted her existence either). Before she can formulate a reply, Sorenson turns to give his sister a look, accompanied by a reproachful murmur: “Beth, she’s not her mother.”

Kellyn wonders if now is a very, very bad time to say she’d ended up on this godforsaken beach out of a morbid curiosity to meet her grandfather, the Him Bethanie spoke of. Her Aunt’s blue eyes are hard like the ice of the Tundra, but Sorenson still has the gently sad look he had when the conversation began. “My father saved my mother because he loved her, and because he loved me. Ending her life would not have brought back the people her actions killed.” Despite everything, that was one thing Cagney had always stressed to her. The deaths in the Valley might have occurred on Elite’s orders, but they did not occur at her hooves. “Cagney was willing to see Elite die, because she told him to let it happen. But ending her life would have ended mine, and that he could not bear.” There is quiet between them, and in total contradiction to her years of life Kellyn feels the need to fill the silence. “I wasn’t really raised by Elite, you know. She was comatose, and then she left us. And I wasn’t really raised by my father, either. He loves me, but he’s not a great parent. And my older brother – well…Vader couldn’t live with us for long. Elite was not kind to him, and my father’s love wasn’t enough to overcome that. Mine, either.” She wonders if Vader is somewhere on this beach – she has not seen him for so long, and that is an ache now in her heart. They are silent still, so she continues, a quiet smile gracing her face. “Brennen raised me. My grandfather…your father…is that not enough to tell you I am not my mother?”

He smiles at her, his blue eyes gentle, but he looks at Bethanie and Kellyn knows that he will not do anything without her approval. The bond between the siblings is clearly stronger than what he feels for her – and she does not blame him. The mare looks steadily back at her, a flicker of something in her eyes but not yet yielding. “Elite was an innocent once, too, with a family that loved her. But yet she grew into a monster, and her actions got people killed. How do we know you are not the same?” But Kellyn notes with hope that her Aunt no longer sounds quite convinced of her position. “You look like her, you know. She never looked evil, either.” The last is almost a whisper, as if she wants to be convinved. “I don’t know how to convince you I’m not like her. But I’m not the only one here.” She murmurs quietly, turning to look towards the others , knowing those bright blue eyes will follow hers.

Towards little Nihlus, and littler Wrynn. Towards young Ramiel, and Trekk. Towards Rhy – another niece of theirs, though on the other side of the family. Sorenson sighs, leaning into his sister, and Beth spends a long time looking at them before she turns back to Kellyn, and if the coldness is gone, her gaze is still grave. “Some have gone back. There are ways, for the powerful and the strong. There’s a path, if you are brave enough to take it. But not everyone makes it.” Bethanie’s quiet voice is not an apology for the things she’s said, and a part of Kellyn wants to stay – to make her understand that she can be good, like they are. Like Brennen. But she’s not sure that would be the entire truth because she’s never been quite like them. “Show me.” she says quietly. “You won’t regret it, I promise. I can be different than my mother.” For a long moment, the strawberry girl and the chestnut mare stare at each other, each lost in their own thoughts, but at last Bethanie nods, making Sorenson smile widely at the both of them.

They lead her away from the water, to where the ground rises, and there is a familiar dark opening. She was born in a cave, after all, and she practically lived in one for many years. Caves are home territory. Somehow, this one both calls and repels her, and she stands shivering at the brink and looks back at them, and back at the beach behind them. “After I go, can you help them? If their people won’t?” All of her companions are intently talking to spirits, but still she worries about them. They have lost journeyers already, and she hopes they are safe at home, but she doesn’t know. Sorenson smiles, touching her shoulder with a cold nose. “Of course, darling.” He’s a kind soul, and Kellyn wonders what happened to him. When she gets home, perhaps Brennen will know. “You are not your mother’s daughter…yet. Take care that you stay that way.” Is her Aunt’s final warning. Not quite a declaration of love, but Kellyn will take what she can get. She steps into the cave.

Kellyn

time changing daughter of cagney and elite

[Ramiel]

OOC: Adolpha is his mother's mother (grandmother played by me) and Erros is his mother's father (grandfather played by Aeris, who gave me permission to use him)

Already, he has taken on more than he ever thought possible.

The burden of responsibility is an amulet heavy on his breast; the taste of adventure, once savory, grows increasingly stale. More than anything he wants to succeed, to bring home what he had promised to return. It’s almost hard to remember that promise now. It seems eons ago (and it likely was – the Holocene epoch a time he is ready to return to) when those two syllables slipped easily from his tongue (wetted from naivety and youth, he realizes now). Okay. How much has he been through since then? How many horrors await the still-baby world he hopes to get back to? Of all of them – the langoliers, the Great Old Ones, even the degraded and manipulated land itself – he has come to fear time the most. He fears it, not because of its strength, of its ability to change everything, but its weakness. Ramiel always saw time as a constant, an immobile string threading from the past into the future. But this journey has proved otherwise. Time is not a steel rod, not linear in its path. It is yarn: easily unspooled and unwoven, altogether fragile and unreliable.

This time in the wormhole, it’s also achingly slow in its progression.

Ramiel feels some level of mistrust as the images glide by the seven of them. Wars that might happen (but could just as easily not, with little effort by a magician), children that grow up strong and powerful (who could instead fall prey to an errant hole in the ground, shattering limbs or necks in equal likelihood), he sees it all and can’t believe any of it. Time is an easy beast with a gluttonous desire for all of its possible outcomes. It craves and consumes the different timelines; it welcomes those who feed it changes. Carnage has changed a lot. The colt only wonders if time is still hungry for it.

He takes comfort in the fact that they are all together again. That’s not right, though, he counts them without needing to, not all of us. We’ve lost some along the way. Lost to space and time? Lost to monsters both real and impossible? He’s not sure and doesn’t want to think of it, anyway. At least those around him now are whole (marked and scarred, perhaps, but blessedly whole). They are against him now, their skin warm and close, grounding him in an otherwise fantastical reality. Gail is with them as they travel, their black light and ticket home. She feels less real to him but no less important – as if she has been gone too long in a time apart to fully integrate again.

The endless cycle repeats when his feet hit the sand yet again. He’s grateful for the soft landing because he is weary to his very bones. Weary, but absolutely ready for whatever comes next. When he sees Carnage, he thinks it’s the end. And where their dark god would normally inspire a trembling fear in one’s gut, the yearling feels only white-hot relief. It soaks his stomach with surety, coats his mesentery with tranquility (this is the end. We are alive and our journey fruitful). He cranes his neck back towards Gail for the reunion which is all too brief. She’s stuck at first, held fast in the creeping wormhole. The holding soon relents but just as soon as she reaches him, as soon as black inevitably meets grey, everything changes. The world drops out from under him. He can feel the sand still (the holy sand, the coarse constant his life has seemingly become anchored to), but he can feel it falling. And he falls with it.

Down.

Down.

End.

Ramiel thinks it is, anyway. He thinks they have surely descended into hell (maybe they have all failed, maybe Carnage has taken them down with him). It’s as black as the stormiest night, as dark as the deepest cave in karst terrain. He realizes it’s because his eyes are closed seconds later, though he doesn’t remember closing them. When he opens them, all the same faces still surround him. It would have been funny in a different time and place (he stops short of wanting to fiddle with time again to relive the moment to make it funny, however) but now he only blinks at his new surroundings. Where are they now?

The beach pulses and rolls behind them, different but still their beach. He can feel the spray on his back but he has eyes only for the creatures ahead. They creep slowly at first, pale imitations of the living. Ramiel senses, rather than knows, that they are dead. Something in their eyes betrays them, some lack of spark and shine. They begin to cluster in, drawn to the heat of the living seven. Most of them are adults who tower over his yearling frame. He feels small until he sees the foals. Many of them are months old, but there are others who are younger still. Days old, hours old children who look forever-lost. It’s the saddest sight he’s ever seen, and he eventually has to look away. Gail says to walk amongst them in order to find help (a way out of this place that already chills him, though he’s one of the warmest there).

As the Finders spread out, the yearling who is black becomes less of both qualities. His coat becomes peppered with grey at the same rate that he rises in height. He doesn’t understand it but welcomes the added inches, at least, and the aging that muscles him. The desolate stretch of sand becomes visible in its entirety from his new height. Every inch of it seems populated with the faded reliefs of the living. Ramiel wonders if they are all gathered in one spot because of the seven (drawn to the breath in their lungs and the pulse in their veins, craving that which they’ve been denied for so long) or if they are actually crowded. He wonders if such a thing matters to the dead, anyway – if they even notice.

“Talulah?” He turns at the name of his mother. He hadn’t known who to seek out and had mostly been too distracted by the machinations of Death’s hand. So of course, the dead would seek him out instead. It’s a mare that does so: grey, hazy, and winged. The lines of her face are rough like sun-bleached bark; the circles under her eyes are deep and hollow half-moons. She is intently focusing on him, but her gaze seems to look through him. It’s unnerving, but he knows her immediately. Adolpha. Grandmother. She looks to his hair then (gold streaks and all that are absent in Talulah’s mane). The shadow passes over her eyes like the sky clearing and she brightens. “No, you must be her son. I don’t think we’ve met.”

He can’t believe his good fortune in meeting this woman who departed from them all too soon. If he couldn’t meet her in Beqanna proper, this is a close consolation. “I’m Ramiel. Mother told me all about you.” The now-grown-boy smiles and draws closer to his maternal grandmother. In his eagerness, he forgets himself. He forgets that the dead don’t just live differently than them, they don’t live at all. Reminding ghosts that they have moved on – that they no longer have a place among the living – is his first mistake. “When you died, mother – Talulah – had to raise herself. She missed you all the time and she never stopped looking for Erros.” She flashes then, flips a switch. Her eyes become ragged and frantic all at once, but that’s not what startles him the most. Adolpha’s skin tears itself in long shreds, accordioning down her sides. Cuts like claw marks appear all over her; her legs and neck sport cavernous gashes. She breathes heavily, and when she does, blood leaks from the wounds (but, curiously, never reaches the ground). The wolves that had killed her living body seem like invisible attackers now, but Ramiel realizes it’s all in her mind. “I’M NOT DEAD!”

He steps backwards quickly, his mouth agape just as another ghost figure appears. This one he doesn’t know, not at first. The chestnut stallion stands alongside Adolpha, running his muzzle down her neck gently. Her tattered wings that were limp begin to stir at his touch. She calms but looks defeated, neither placated nor the sturdy warrior-lady Ramiel had come to know from his mother’s stories. “Not dead. Not dead,” she mutters under her breath. It’s a pathetic hope made worse by her open belief in it. Deep down, Ramiel doesn’t think she believes it, however. He thinks that’s the problem, the divide between her wants and knowledge; he feels incredibly worthless for taking his own life for granted. The grisly wounds begin to heal rapidly as the stallion consoles her. Finally, he looks up at the once-boy.

“Sorry you had to see that, she still has trouble accepting it sometimes. Don’t you recognize your grandpa Erros?” He looks at the distinct cloven hooves, the warm, amber eyes and he does. A family reunion of the deceased in the midst of a time-traveling rescue mission – sure, why wouldn’t he recognize him? Adolpha shudders beside Erros but gradually lifts her head, looking better every second (although it’s hard to believe the dead can look better, Ramiel muses). He nods in affirmation before glancing back towards the others. “Look, I don’t think I have a lot of time. It’s wonderful to meet you – both, but I need your help getting back.” Back home. Back to life.

Erros makes to move but checks on Adolpha first, his gaze one of immense concern but also recognition – as if soothing the mare has become a predictable pattern with predictable steps to follow to correct the situation. It’s a touching gesture in such a harrowing realm, though one they hardly have time for. When they move it seems as if they are going to leave her behind, but true to her stubborn nature, the woman follows doggedly behind. Erros leads and Ramiel follows without question. Before, he had questioned plenty. He had wondered about the metal armor, worried about the langoliers and the future, if returning to the past was the right course for Gail or any of them. Here, though, is family. Unstable and squeezed by loyalty as his grandmother and grandfather are (respectively), he cannot fathom a betrayal by them. Or maybe he wants them to be the light at the end of the tunnel; maybe he’s tired of the darkness he has lived through and wants to see a way out.

They are running now, two ghosts and one prematurely-aging yearling. The other ghosts sometimes brush against him and they feel like mercury against his skin, gliding and almost friction-less. He shudders each time it happens. At last, the trio reaches towering bluffs (bluffs that rise up into nothingness and front the water, the site of deaths both premeditated and accidental). “This part rises up into Beqanna, I think.” Erros looks up at the blankness, seeing something that Ramiel tries to but cannot. The chestnut’s eyes grow playful then. “I’ve never tried this, not in here. It’s either going to work or result in a horrible death for all of us.” He grins, “well, one of us.” The long-dead man turns toward the sheer rock face and opens his mouth. Small jets of fire shoot out, ricocheting off the wall at first (Adolpha flares her wings across Ramiel to protect him from stray sparks, the fire reflecting brightly in her eyes. She looks determined, more like the ancestor he knows of). Then, just when the greyed boy thinks the plan a failure, the façade crumbles. A singed hole opens up, though it’s clear it won’t last. “OVER HERE!” Ramiel yells for his companions before turning back to his grandparents. Adolpha is quiet, reflective – silent iron. He touches her and moves on to Erros. The stallion struggles to maintain the gateway. Sweat beads on his brow and slicks his coat, but he smiles at the boy. “We are so proud of you and grateful to meet you, however briefly. Now go, while you still can!” The heat flushes Ramiel’s face, burning off unshed tears that threaten to fall. He doesn’t want to leave them here to the crowd, the sand, the monotony of the afterlife. He wants them home, where they belong. Once again, he thinks of time and how he fears it most of all. He fears that it can do this, can break apart families and not be stopped – its power inevitable and indefinable. “Thank you both so very much. I don’t know – “, he’s shoved forcefully into the gateway by Adolpha. She calls out, her voice steely and sad, “tell Talulah we –“, but is cut off.

Once again, perhaps for the final time, all is dark.

r a m i e l

what a day to begin again

[Rhy]

and when I breathed, my breath was lightning

[Vanquish is Krato’s father, and Kratos and Rhy are in love. Rhy has also met Vanquish during diplomatic visits to the Deserts. Used with permission from Amandalynn. Riagan and Rayelle are Rhy’s parents – they left Beqanna years ago with Rhy’s sister Kora. Kora returned to Beqanna, her parents did not. Riagan is played by me, and Rayelle is used with permission from Lydia.]

They crawl back through time. They had tumbled and raced through time to get to Gail. But getting back was not so simple. This time, they could see the world around them. They watched in reverse as the monsters spit the world back out, as the dead came back to life.

They travel together now. Neither Kratos nor Lagertha travel with them. She doesn’t know what’s become of her friend and her lover. Were they staring down the mouths of the langoliers? Or had Carnage sent them home through a different route?

Perhaps they couldn’t travel the same path with Gail, as the rest did. Perhaps their path was more direct. Perhaps they were already home and safe. Changed, as she was, but safe. She clings to this hope as they crawl through time.

Finally, they spill out onto the beach. Gail does not follow. An invisible wall blocks her path back to the land of living, though she was not dead. But perhaps the Fates had been ready to snip her thread.

Finally the wall shatters and she’s free. For a wondrous, brief moment Carnage and Gail entwine. Rhy watches, missing Kratos in that moment. She's ready to race back to the Jungle for Lagertha, to the Tundra for Kratos. She needed to know if they were okay, if they were alive.

What would she do if they were both gone?

But just as she thinks it’s time for her to go, the beach breaks, sweeping Gail and the six acolytes away. Were the Fates ready for them all, then? Had their time run out, lost to the end of the world and the sound of static that devoured everything?

Gail is apologizing, and Rhy registers the words somewhere in the back of her mind. She’s too busy staring at the ghosts as they come to listen though. The shades appear like the living, but with some key piece of them removed. Paper thin, like a strong breeze could spirit them away.

Gail is still talking, telling them to find someone they loved. Rhy already knows before Gail even tells them that their powers don’t work. She feels empty, drained. Not just because she’s aging rapidly, gold skin now flecked with gray, but because the electric in her veins is gone. She feels cold all over. The electric is so much a part of her that she doesn’t know who she is without it.

She starts to scan the sea of the dead, leaving the other acolytes behind. The world here is strange, not quite alive but not quite dead. It’s so much like Beqanna, but the sounds are distant and the colors muted. And she can feel herself fading with everything else.

Death has stared her in the face this entire quest, and she will meet it if she must. But she is not ready to die.

“Rhy.” The voice is a deep rumble. Not her father’s, but familiar nonetheless. Turning her head, she sees Vanquish lumbering toward her. He is as large as his son, perhaps larger. Her heart tugs at the sight of Kratos’s father, because she cannot tell him if his son is alive.

“Vanquish. I…” But she doesn’t even know where to begin, and she trails off for a moment as he comes to stop before her. She is nothing without the electric in her veins. Nothing but cold and tired and dying.

She doesn’t have to say anything though. His deep voice rings out, so clear in this half-life. “Carnage almost killed me too. A poisoned cut, in the Valley War. But I didn’t die, and right now, neither will you.” She doesn’t know how he knows this, that Carnage had sent them here. A guess, perhaps. It's a likely guess. But he continues, and she understands.

“I’ve been watching. My son, mostly, but through him you as well. Together, you could tear apart heaven and hell. Push him to be better, Rhy. Make him a King, because he should be. He has royalty in his blood. Make yourself a Queen.”

There are tears in her eyes now as he speaks of his son. Kratos. He didn’t make it through the wormhole. He was somewhere, sometime, some world. She had no idea. “He came with me,” she says. “But he didn’t come back. I don’t know where he is.” Her words are quiet and her head low. Time is slipping away from her.

But Vanquish doesn’t have time to answer because she sees them then. Her golden parents, splashed with white and black. They are together. They are smiling. Rhy’s heart soars at the sight of them after so many years lost. But then realization dawns on her, and the tears stream down her cheeks now. No. They couldn’t be dead. She wanted to see them again, in real life. She wanted them to come find her one day and see what she’d made of herself.

She wanted all those years that they never had together. She wanted so many things that they would never have now.

Her parents close the distance, wrapping themselves around their electric daughter without fear. Here, she cannot hurt them. They are cold, but so is she and she finds she doesn’t mind. She could stay here; she could die with them wrapped around her.

It’s as if they know her thoughts. They pull away, looking at her with love and determination. “Rhy,” her mother says, the sound of her voice like sunshine. Rhy had forgotten how she sounded. “We love you so much. And we're so sorry, for everything. But look at the mare you’ve become. Even without us. We are so proud.”

“Mom. Dad.” She chokes on the words though, and nothing more comes out. She wants to yell, kick and scream over how they left her all alone. At the same time, she wants them to know how much she loves them, how much she missed them. But she can’t say any of it, and in some way, she thinks they know anyway.

“You have to go, Rhy.” Her father says. His voice she remembers, deep and earthy and kind. It’s the voice that told her over and over just to breathe, that everything was going to be okay. She remembers his brown eyes, the way they glimmered with gold in the light. She remembers the burns he took from her, and notices they still dot his hide.

Vanquish has come up to her side, a black shadow that towers over them. But unlike everything else in this journey, he is not a monster. Not to her, at least. “Krato’s is alive, Rhy. In the Tundra. You’ll find Lagertha when you return home as well. Because you will get home.”

She looks at her parents as they stand together with nothing but love in their eyes. At Vanquish, fierce pride in his eyes. Not for her, but for his son, and in saving her she also knows he’s accepting her. Still, part of her isn’t ready to go. She’s only just gotten her parents back, and again, she’s losing them. Again, she’ll face the world alone.

But no, that’s not true anymore. She has Lagertha and Scorch and the rest of her Sisters. She has Kora now, finally, after so many years. She was ready to die for the love of her sister. She has Kratos. And perhaps she would never die for love of him, but she would fight for his love. She would fight her way home to him.

“We love you, Rhy. But don’t worry about us. We’re together, and happy. And we’ll be here when you return, when the time is right. Now it’s time for you to go home. You have a brother, as well. Leander. He looks like you. Find him for us, when you get back.” It’s her mother speaking; her mother who reaches out to give her a gentle touch of encouragement. After so many years of paying more attention to Kora, it’s her mother that gives her the strength to go.

Vanquish leans down and she understands without being asked. She clambers across his neck, wishing she could switch to a lion and perch on his back. But that’s not an option here. He heaves himself upright. She’s small enough compared to him and his strength that it’s not too difficult. Rhy’s directly in front of his wings, and she can feel the muscles and bones moving as he spreads them. A few powerful flaps and they are airborne.

Exhaustion washes over her. She feels this place closing in on her, and wonders how gray her golden coat has become. He keeps flying, up and up. “I’ve seen horses jump,” his says, his voice booming in the cloudless sky like thunder. “Some of them make it back. I’ll give you an extra push, but then you are on your own.” He says this without doubt though, like he’s certain she can get back.

Rhy isn’t so sure, but she’ll try. She has to try.

She’d forgotten, in the whirlwind of everything, why she’s even here. “Gail,” she says. “Can you send her too? If she’ll go?” Vanquish nods, and she trusts that he will try. Gail may not come. Gail may not be able come. She is the reason they are all here with the dead. Because she is long gone, because maybe she does not want to live. But still, Rhy came for Gail. She has to ask. She has to try.

He starts diving now, and she slips toward his head. He arches his head up, keeping her place until she sees something like a rip in the sky. Not quite natural, and she knows this must be the place. She has no idea where it will take her, and it sounds like he doesn’t either. It might take her home. It might send her back to the langoliers.

Vanquish comes to an abrupt halt, bucking his hind end up and ducking his head below her. And she’s gone, flying off his neck and through the air in a haphazard mess. And she laughs, the sound ringing out in the silent sky like electric. She is alive, and she laughs at the absurdity of this moment. She laughs because she cannot cry, not anymore. Not over all she has seen or the death of her parents. She doesn’t want to cry, either. She wants to live. She wants to tell this story.

She flies through the tear in the sky. To somewhere. To home, she hopes. To Kora, to Lagertha, to the baby brother she doesn’t yet know. To Kratos.

rhy

the electric lioness of riagan and rayelle

character reference here  | character info here

(sorry, I'm dumb and posted as Kyra and not Rhy and it was bothering me...I had to fix it)