Tales of Anjels

Hello everyone, welcome to my personal page!

Let me introduce myself: I am known as Anjels, Master Scribe, Artist and Keeper of the Celestial Archives.

"My friends consider me an angel, although I don't understand what they see when they look at me" -AJ.

I am Brazilian, a simple person, shy but determined. I love all kinds of arts, but the literal and visual arts are two of my biggest passions, my desire is to share this same passion with others. On this page you can take a peek at my private universe, here you will see art, fiction, theories and even some well-known Aus of Fandoms that I like to create to cover plot holes and sometimes I create some polls or ask questions to know how it would be a certain au or crossover.

On this page you can give a little sneak peak in my private universe, Oh ! In case you are curious about the Celestial Archives and just click on the name above and I will talk about the knowledge and tales I collected.

You can talk to Anjels now! , we also accept requests for scenarios but you must follow some rules

Inbox is: Open Shall we theorize? : Open Commissions (Art, Fanart, Writing) : Open

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Also seeing arts based on my story/fanfics if you want to know them and just go to this link: Ao3

Part II — Not Asked

At six forty-two, Grim noticed the bread.

He did not notice that she was gone.

First, he noticed the bread.

— HEY!

The shout tore through Ramshackle with enough violence to wake the ghosts, Yuu, and probably some unfortunate animal on the roof.

— SOMEONE STOLE FOOD!

Yuu appeared in the upstairs hallway almost immediately.

Not because Yuu had awakened.

Because Yuu was still awake.

Grim stood in the kitchen, holding the empty cloth the bread had been wrapped in.

— She took it! I know it was her!

Yuu came down a few steps.

— Grim.

— What? You didn’t take it. The ghosts don’t eat. I didn’t take it. So it was her!

The smaller ghost passed through the wall.

— She left a letter.

Grim turned.

— A letter isn’t bread!

The oldest ghost appeared behind him.

— It is on the desk in her room.

Yuu stopped halfway down the stairs.

The sentence seemed to pass through the body before reaching the face.

— Her room?

No one corrected the word “her.”

Perhaps because correcting it would require deciding whether the room had been hers for one night.

Grim went up first, complaining. Yuu followed more slowly.

The letter was exactly where she had left it.

Grim picked it up before Yuu could.

— “To whoever deci... decides to read this.” There. I read it. Now, about the bread—

Yuu took the sheet from his hand.

Not roughly.

But without asking.

Read the first line.

Then the second.

Then stopped at the third.

The face barely changed.

The hand did.

The fingers tightened around the paper until the edge crumpled.

Grim tried to peer at it.

— What did she say?

Yuu continued reading.

Or tried to.

Reached the sentence about not knowing they were real.

Reached the sentence about that fixing nothing.

Reached the passage about Yuu.

Then stopped reading.

The paper lowered.

— Yuu?

Yuu handed the letter to the oldest ghost.

— Keep it.

— Did you finish?

— Keep it.

— But—

— Keep it.

The ghost obeyed.

Not because Yuu ruled the house.

Because some things should not be shoved back into the hand of someone bleeding inside.

Grim looked from Yuu to the letter.

— She left?

No one answered.

— She left with my bread?

Yuu closed their eyes.

— Grim.

— What?

— Stop.

Grim stopped.

Not because he understood.

Because he recognized the tone.

The smaller ghost said:

— She left before dawn.

Grim looked at the window.

Light had already begun to touch the garden.

— Where did she go?

— The forest.

Grim was silent for one second.

Then he huffed.

— Is she stupid? She has no magic!

Yuu sat on the edge of the bed.

It did not look as though Yuu had chosen to sit. It looked as though their body had stopped holding them up.

— She does not want to stay here.

— But the forest has monsters!

— I know.

— And weird plants!

— I know.

— And she knows nothing about this place!

Yuu laughed once.

A short, dry, horrible sound.

— She knows enough not to stay.

That ended the conversation for almost a minute.

Then Grim ran downstairs.

— I’m telling the headmage!

Yuu did not stop him.

Nor did Yuu go with him.

The ghosts remained in the room with the letter.

The oldest smoothed the crumpled fold.

— We should take it to Professor Crewel.

The smallest looked toward the door.

— She said to keep it away from the headmage.

— Grim went to get the headmage.

— Then we should go first.

None of them moved.

Ghosts were good at passing through walls.

They were not good at deciding what to do with a living person who disappeared by choice.

While they hesitated, time passed.

At seven twenty-six, Grim found Crowley.

Not in his office.

In the administrative corridor, where the headmage was walking with a cup of tea and the expression of someone already prepared to be admired for surviving another morning of responsibilities.

— Headmage! Headmage! The person from the screen ran away!

Crowley stopped.

— Grim, please use your indoor volume.

— She stole bread and went into the forest!

Crowley’s expression changed only enough to acknowledge an inconvenience.

Not an emergency.

— Ran away?

— Yes!

— From the school grounds?

— Yes!

— Are you certain she is not merely somewhere around Ramshackle?

— She left a letter!

That word bothered him more.

Crowley lowered the cup.

— A letter?

— The ghosts have it.

— I see.

He did not run.

He summoned an administrative employee.

Asked them to check Ramshackle.

He used the word “check,” not “search.”

Then continued to his office.

Grim followed him, talking about the bread.

At eight ten, two employees arrived at Ramshackle carrying clipboards.

Yuu was sitting in the sitting room.

The ghosts had hidden the letter inside the piano.

Not because of some brilliant strategy.

Because they were afraid.

The taller employee asked:

— Is the young woman present?

Yuu looked at him.

— No.

— The headmage was informed that an unauthorized departure occurred.

Yuu did not answer.

The employee wrote it down.

Unauthorized departure.

He did not write escape.

He did not write disappearance.

He did not write danger.

The other employee asked the ghosts whether there were signs of forced entry, assault, or abduction.

The oldest ghost said:

— She went alone.

They wrote:

Voluntary departure.

They asked what had been taken.

Grim answered with mounting outrage:

— Bread!

The employee first wrote:

Food.

Then:

Blanket. Coat. Low-risk cutting implement. Miscellaneous household items.

Yuu heard the phrase “miscellaneous household items” and looked up.

— She took a dull knife because she is afraid.

The employee looked at Yuu.

— We will record that.

He did not record it that way.

At eight forty-three, the employees returned to the administrative building.

The letter remained inside the piano.

At nine twelve, Crowley received the preliminary report.

He read it quickly.

Sighed.

— As I suspected, she left of her own accord.

The employee asked:

— Should we initiate an external search?

Crowley looked at the clock.

There were classes.

There were parents waiting for an answer about another matter.

There was also the small detail that an external search would require explaining why an unenrolled person with no formal record, of interdimensional origin and in an emotionally unstable condition, had spent the night in an abandoned building without proper supervision.

— Not yet, he decided. — She may return once she realizes how imprudent her decision was.

The employee wrote:

Await spontaneous return.

— And inform Ramshackle not to touch her belongings.

— Yes, Headmage.

— Especially the letter.

The employee hesitated.

— We did not bring the letter.

Crowley looked up.

— What?

— The ghosts said it was being kept safe.

— And you did not request it?

— You asked us to verify whether she was present.

Crowley went silent.

The employee began to realize he might have followed the wrong instruction correctly.

— Go back, Crowley said.

At nine thirty, the employees returned to Ramshackle.

The letter was no longer inside the piano.

The smallest ghost had taken it into a wall.

It could not clearly explain which wall.

Ghosts did not organize space in the same way.

Yuu did not help.

Grim wanted to help, but could not remember where the ghosts had gone in.

At ten oh-five, Crowley was informed that the letter was unavailable.

This time, he sent a message to Crewel.

Not out of concern for the player.

Because of the letter.

Crewel arrived at Ramshackle at ten twenty-nine.

He was irritated.

Not alarmed.

Not yet.

— The headmage informs me that there has been an unauthorized departure, a missing letter, and an animal shouting about bread, he said as he entered.

Grim was immediately offended.

— I’m not an animal!

Crewel looked at him.

Grim decided not to pursue the complaint.

Yuu was in the same place.

Sitting.

Hands between their knees.

Eyes far too dry.

Crewel assessed the room in three seconds.

The missing bread.

The absent blanket.

The coat gone from the hook.

The half-full pitcher.

The floor near the door.

The window.

The ghosts.

Yuu.

The absence.

— When did she leave?

No one answered quickly.

— Before dawn, said the oldest ghost.

— Approximate time.

— I don’t know.

— Three? Four? Five?

— Maybe four.

Crewel looked at Yuu.

— Did you hear her?

Yuu took a moment to answer.

— I heard movement.

— And?

— I thought she was... walking around.

— You did not check.

It was not an accusation.

It was a finding.

Yuu nodded once.

Crewel did not press.

That would have been cruelty with no clinical use.

— The letter.

The smallest ghost appeared halfway through the ceiling.

— She asked us to keep it away from the headmage.

Crewel lifted his face.

— Am I the headmage?

The ghost vanished.

It reappeared in the wall beside the piano, holding the crumpled sheet.

It handed it over.

Crewel read it standing.

The irritation disappeared before the third paragraph.

It did not become pity.

Pity was too slow.

It became calculation.

Risk.

Time.

Exposure.

Hypothermia.

Dehydration.

Disorientation.

Adverse reaction to local food.

Creatures.

Panic.

Self-defense.

The possibility of an indirect suicide attempt.

Not from a wish to die.

From a rational acceptance that dying outside the school might seem less dangerous than remaining inside it.

Crewel finished.

— Has Crowley read this?

— No, said the ghost.

— Good.

Grim craned his neck.

— What did she say?

Crewel folded the letter.

— Enough.

Yuu whispered:

— Did she write about me?

Crewel stopped.

The honest answer was yes.

The useful answer was something else.

— She wrote about harm.

Yuu closed their eyes.

Crewel placed the letter in the inner pocket of his coat.

— What is her name?

The question was simple.

No sound answered.

The room seemed to have less air.

Crewel looked at Yuu.

Yuu shook their head.

At Grim.

Grim opened his mouth.

Closed it.

— I called her Player.

The ghosts did not know either.

The smallest looked ashamed in an almost childlike way.

— I was going to ask.

Crewel looked at it.

— When?

— Before she left.

— And did you?

The ghost lowered its eyes.

— No.

Crewel became very still.

He did not explode.

That would have relieved everyone.

He merely took a small notebook from his pocket and wrote:

Legal name: unknown.

Then crossed it out.

Wrote again:

Legal name: not asked.

Yuu made a low sound.

Almost a breath.

Almost pain.

Crewel closed the notebook.

— Now we have a problem.

Grim pointed through the window toward the forest.

— Now?

Crewel looked at him.

— Yes. Now that an adult has noticed how large it is.

Continued in Part III.

One of the most important things in any continuation of Project Hail Mary is that Grace’s journey cannot be treated like an ordinary trip.

Because of relativity, time does not pass the same way for everyone.

For Grace, the mission is lived in years.

For Earth, it becomes decades of fear, collapse, reconstruction, and waiting.

The distance between worlds is not only spatial.

It is temporal.

Grace does not disappear for a short while.

He becomes a historical absence.

While he travels, Earth keeps living under the shadow of the Astrophage crisis. Agriculture fails. Nations reorganize. Governments make desperate decisions. Technology advances not because humanity is comfortable, but because survival demands it. The planet continues existing beneath a dying Sun, with no guarantee that anyone will ever come back with an answer.

And then, years later, Earth receives the package sent by the Hail Mary.

But that package is not only a biological solution to the Astrophage problem.

From what the film shows, Grace sends everything together:

the Taumoeba;

the scientific data;

the information needed to save the Sun;

the records about Rocky;

the information about Erid;

and the proof that another intelligent civilization exists.

So humanity does not receive only a cure.

It receives a historical rupture.

Earth discovers, all at once, that the Sun can be saved, that Grace encountered another intelligent species, that this species was also fighting for survival, and that humanity’s salvation depended on cooperation between a human and an Eridian.

That is enormous.

Humanity would not have time to process those two revelations separately. The cure and first contact would arrive as part of the same event.

It would be impossible to say:

“Rocky was just a detail.”

Because Rocky is not a detail.

Rocky is part of the salvation.

Erid would not be just an astronomical curiosity. It would be the other world that almost died. The other civilization that faced the Astrophage. The other side of the story.

And Grace would not be remembered only as the man who saved Earth.

He would be remembered as the person who, almost accidentally, began humanity’s first era of interstellar contact.

Where the AU Actually Begins

The fictional part of this AU is not that Grace sends information about Rocky and Erid.

That already belongs to the logic of the film.

The AU begins after that.

It begins when Earth has to decide what to do with that revelation.

How do governments react?

Who tries to control the data?

Who gets access to information about Erid?

How do scientists try to understand Eridian biology without being able to simply visit Erid immediately?

How do religions, universities, militaries, space agencies, and ordinary people react to the fact that humanity was saved through cooperation with an alien species?

How does Rocky come to be seen on Earth?

How does Grace become a myth before any possible return?

And, most importantly:

how do two civilizations that nearly died learn to speak to each other after catastrophe?

That is the foundation of this AU.

It is not an instant utopia.

Earth survives, but it does not come out untouched.

Erid survives, but it carries its own trauma as well.

First contact is not born from peace, curiosity, and luxury. It is born from desperation. It is born because two stars were dying. It is born because two individuals, Grace and Rocky, chose to trust each other when everything suggested that trust should have been impossible.

Humanity After the Astrophage

In this idea, post-Astrophage humanity advances enormously.

Not because humans suddenly become morally better, but because they are forced to survive.

The crisis accelerates research in energy, closed agriculture, medicine, artificial intelligence, biotechnology, orbital systems, recycling, extreme habitats, and space propulsion.

But humans remain human.

Brilliant.

Creative.

Afraid.

Generous.

Political.

Competitive.

Dangerously good at turning a scientific discovery into a struggle for power.

So Earth does not become a perfect federation just because it receives the Hail Mary data. On the contrary: first contact creates new conflicts.

Some people want cooperation.

Some want control.

Some treat Erid as an ally.

Others treat Erid as a threat.

Some see Rocky as a person.

Others try to reduce him to a symbol, a tool, a scientific proof, or a piece of historical property belonging to humanity.

And that is exactly where the continuation becomes interesting.

Because the question stops being only:

“How do we save the Sun?”

And becomes:

“How do we prevent humanity from turning its first alien friend into property?”

Grace understands this.

He knows that contact with Erid cannot become the possession of Earth, of a government, or of an institution. Rocky is not a resource. Erid is not a colony. The Eridians are not tools.

So one of the foundations of this AU is precisely the attempt to turn first contact into cooperation — not domination.

The Eridians

The Eridians remain Rocky’s species.

They live in conditions lethal to humans: extreme pressure, extreme temperature, an incompatible atmosphere, and a biochemistry that requires strict environmental separation.

They are not humans with a different appearance.

They are truly alien.

And that is what makes Grace and Rocky’s bond so powerful.

They should not be able to share a space.

They should not be able to talk.

They should not be able to trust each other.

And yet, they do.

In this AU’s continuation, the Eridians become indispensable in fields where they are far beyond humans: materials engineering, xenonite, high-resistance structures, pressurized environments, thermal control, acoustics, life support, and the construction of incompatible habitats.

At the same time, humans offer knowledge that the Eridians did not develop in the same way: advanced computation, biological modeling, molecular medicine, simulations, artificial intelligence, automation, and comparative translation.

Over time, Grace and Rocky’s friendship stops being only a personal story.

It becomes a scientific bridge between species.

Not a simple bridge.

Not a bridge without fear.

Not a bridge without conflict.

But a real one.

The First Great Change: Building a Place Where the Other Can Exist

One of the strongest ideas in this AU, to me, is that diplomacy does not begin with speeches.

It begins with life support.

A human cannot simply walk on Erid.

An Eridian cannot simply walk on Earth.

The atmosphere, pressure, temperature, and chemistry of each world are lethal to the other.

So before any beautiful embassy, before any treaty, before any ceremony, both civilizations would need to answer a brutally practical question:

how do we create a space where the other can breathe?

That makes habitat technology almost philosophical.

To build an environment for the other is to recognize that their body matters.

That their survival matters.

That they do not need to become similar to you in order to be welcomed.

And that, to me, is one of the most beautiful consequences of Grace and Rocky’s contact.

Human-Eridian cooperation would not be only an exchange of technology.

It would be the literal construction of places where two incompatible forms of life can exist without destroying each other.

Human-Eridian Medicine

Another field that would change immediately is medicine.

Grace living among the Eridians would force Erid to develop ways to keep a human organism alive in a world that should be absolutely incompatible with him.

That does not mean magical rejuvenation.

It does not mean the Eridians can solve everything.

They had never known humans before.

But they do have extreme precision engineering, extraordinary environmental control, resistant materials, acoustic sensors, delicate instruments, and an enormous ability to construct stable environments.

Grace, on the other hand, brings human knowledge with him: biology, genetics, physiology, Earth medicine, the Hail Mary data, and his own experience as an alien organism being kept alive on Erid.

From that, comparative medicine is born.

Experimental.

Careful.

Imperfect.

But revolutionary.

Grace does not become young again as if he drank a potion.

The idea is stronger if it stays more limited: his body is maintained, repaired, stabilized, and protected through Human-Eridian technology. He remains a man marked by lived time, but not destroyed by an environment that should have killed him.

And that feels much closer to the scientific spirit of Project Hail Mary.

Not miracle.

Cooperation, error, testing, maintenance, and care.

Travel Is Still Difficult

Another point I wanted to preserve is that Astrophage does not erase relativity.

It makes interstellar travel possible, but it does not make the universe small.

Distances still matter.

Messages still take time.

Journeys still separate people.

Every mission can still mean years for the traveler and decades for those waiting.

So, at the beginning of this AU, humans and Eridians do not immediately become a comfortable interstellar civilization. Their relationship is slow, difficult, full of delays, archives, messages, probes, and incomplete interpretations.

A question asked by one civilization may take years to reach the other.

An answer may return after the person who asked has grown old, changed position, or died.

This creates a very specific culture:

researchers working for readers who may not even have been born by the time the message arrives.

First contact, in this context, is not a live conversation.

It is correspondence between worlds separated by time.

And that is painful.

But it is also beautiful.

Because continuing to answer becomes an act of scientific faith.

Other Civilizations

Once humans and Eridians prove that a relationship between radically different species is possible, the universe of the AU does not need to stop with two civilizations.

But I also did not want the expansion to feel easy.

Each new civilization needs to bring a different question.

With the Eridians, the question is:

can we recognize a person in a body completely incompatible with ours?

With the Avelari, the question becomes:

can we accept that another species understands space, gravity, and distance better than we do?

With the Izerix, the question is harsher:

can we cooperate with a civilization after part of it almost destroyed everyone’s trust?

And with a fifth, still-unknown civilization, perhaps the question is:

can we communicate with a form of life that may not separate language, body, technology, and environment the way we do?

Each species expands the universe in a different way.

The Eridians expand the concept of personhood.

The Avelari expand the concept of distance.

The Izerix expand the concept of political responsibility.

The fifth civilization expands the concept of communication itself.

The Avelari

The Avelari are a species created for this AU.

They come from a low-gravity world, with colder light and complex orbits. I imagine them as tall, slender beings, with light movements, large eyes adapted to dimness, and a short layer of fine down covering parts of their bodies.

To humans, they might seem almost fae-like.

But they are not magical.

They are alien.

Their specialty is gravity.

More precisely, gravitational coherence technologies.

They do not create instant portals.

They do not teleport.

They do not completely break relativity.

Their technology is more limited, more expensive, and more dangerous than that.

But it allows something revolutionary:

reducing the effective distance between systems.

This makes it possible to build slow, unstable, difficult, but functional interstellar corridors.

Without the Avelari, humans and Eridians would remain separated by absurd distances. With them, the possibility of a real interstellar community begins.

Still fragile.

Still expensive.

Still full of risks.

But possible.

The Izerix

The Izerix are another species created for this AU.

They are amphibious or aquatic, connected to ocean worlds, high pressure, salinity, currents, closed ecosystems, and fluid engineering.

But I did not want them to be simply “the villain species.”

In my idea, there was an expansionist Izerix regime that tried to control resources related to Astrophage, Taumoeba, and interstellar routes. For some Izerix political structures, Astrophage was not only a threat: it had also become part of their energy, military, and economic systems.

So the cure also threatened power.

That is where the conflict begins.

But an entire species cannot be reduced to the worst government it ever had.

Some Izerix supported the regime.

Some resisted.

Some fled.

Some were used.

Some were born afterward and inherited distrust caused by a war they did not choose.

I like this idea because it prevents the AU from becoming too clean.

Peace does not erase trauma.

Cooperation does not erase fear.

And an interstellar alliance built after near-extinctions would not be comfortable, perfect, or sentimental all the time.

After the conflict, the Izerix become indispensable in areas such as water treatment, ocean habitats, hyperbaric medicine, aquatic agriculture, closed ecosystems, fluid engineering, cooling systems, and survival on water worlds.

They are, at the same time, a political wound and an essential part of the future.

Concordia of the Four Horizons

With humans, Eridians, Avelari, and Izerix trying to cooperate, the idea of a shared institution emerges:

Concordia University of the Four Horizons.

But Concordia is not only a university.

It functions as a university, embassy, interspecies hospital, research station, cultural archive, translation center, diplomatic space, and first-contact laboratory.

It exists because no civilization can carry the future alone.

Humans are strong in computation, biology, and improvisation.

Eridians are incomparable in materials, pressure, temperature, and extreme habitats.

Avelari master gravitational coherence and routes.

Izerix master fluids, oceans, water, and closed ecosystems.

Each species solves a type of impossibility the others cannot solve alone.

But each one also brings its own fears, interests, traumas, and arrogance.

So Concordia is not a utopia.

It is an attempt to prevent first contact from becoming another war.

The Heart of the AU

To me, this AU works because it does not turn Project Hail Mary into a generic space adventure.

It tries to follow the emotional and scientific consequences of the original story.

Grace and Rocky remain the symbolic heart of everything.

Their friendship proves that a person does not need to have a human face.

They do not need to breathe oxygen.

They do not need to live at a comfortable temperature.

They do not need to speak with words.

They do not need to have a body shaped like ours.

They need to be recognized.

And maybe that is the greatest legacy of the story.

Grace and Rocky did not only save two stars.

They made the universe bigger.

And after that, none of the civilizations involved could ever pretend they were alone again.

So this is the foundation of my AU: a logical continuation of Project Hail Mary, taking into account relativistic time, the full package sent by Grace, the impact of first contact, Earth’s reconstruction, cooperation with Erid, and the later expansion toward the Avelari, the Izerix, Concordia, and a still-unknown fifth civilization.

What do you think?

Author’s Note

@bi-panicatthedisco said they loved my reblog and wanted to read a chapter based on the idea, so I finally wrote it.

This first part explores what happens when the Player realizes that, no matter how understandable the characters’ anger may be, remaining at the NRC is no longer safe.

Everyone asked what she was. No one asked who she was. No one even asked her name.

======

Not because she had slept.

She had not.

The room in Ramshackle had remained dark all night, except for the gray light entering through the broken window and the faint glow of something magical lodged in the cracks in the wall. The house creaked from time to time. A pipe complained downstairs. Somewhere in the hallway, Grim snored.

Yuu did not snore.

That much she knew.

On the other side of the wall, Yuu’s silence was awake.

There had been no loud crying. No argument. No threat. That would have been easier to understand.

There had only been the continued presence of someone trying not to exist in the same space as her.

The player sat on the floor with her back against the bed she had not used, holding her knees to her chest. The old blanket she had found in the room covered her shoulders. It did not warm her properly. It smelled of dust, damp, and old wood.

She thought about putting it back.

Then gave up.

The whole house was borrowed. The floor was borrowed. The air was borrowed. So was the pause before the next accusation.

The only thing that truly belonged to her was her body.

And even that seemed debatable in this place.

For hours, she had tried to organize what had happened.

Not in terms of justice.

Justice was too large a word for someone who was still trembling.

She tried to organize it in practical terms.

They believed she had watched them.

Correct.

They believed she had controlled them.

Partly.

They believed she had known they were real.

Wrong.

They believed her ignorance did not erase the harm.

Correct.

They believed her presence was intolerable.

Also correct, at least for many of them.

The part she could not make fit was smaller.

Much smaller.

No one had asked her name.

Not in the hall.

Not when Grim shouted.

Not when Crowley tried to explain the situation with words that seemed chosen so no one could blame him for anything later.

Not when the dorm leaders looked at her as a problem, a threat, an invader, an object of disgust, or something to be calculated.

Not when Yuu stepped back.

Not when Ace said something too cruel to be accidental.

Not when Deuce looked at the floor.

Not when Kalim tried to take a step and Jamil stopped him.

Not when Riddle demanded explanations.

Not when Azul smiled as though he were already sorting every piece of information into drawers.

Not when Vil looked away.

Not when Idia vanished from the call.

Not when Malleus merely watched.

They asked what she was.

They asked where she came from.

They asked what she knew.

They asked whether she understood what she had done.

They asked whether she could go back.

They asked whether she was dangerous.

But they did not ask:

What is your name?

The conclusion did not come as tears.

It came as data.

To them, she was not a person yet.

She was a function.

The Player.

The person behind the screen.

The intruder.

The possible culprit.

A person with a name would require too much care.

The player rose slowly.

Her body hurt before she made any real effort. Not because of a serious injury. Because of exhaustion, nervous hunger, accumulated tension, cold, and adrenaline spent without rest.

The desk in the room had a jammed drawer. She tried to open it once, nearly gave up, then pulled with both hands. The wood gave way with a crack that sounded far too loud.

She stopped.

Waited.

No footsteps.

No voice.

Only Grim turning over downstairs and muttering something about tuna.

Inside the drawer were yellowed paper, a broken quill, a pencil stub, and two buttons. She took the pencil. The quill would require ink, and spilled ink would be one more physical piece of proof that she had been there.

She sat at the desk.

The first sheet remained blank for almost ten minutes.

Not because she did not know what to say.

Because everything she said sounded like a request for permission to remain alive.

In the end, she wrote without a personal greeting.

To whoever decides to read this,

She stopped.

The sound of the pencil seemed coarse in the room.

She continued.

I did not know you were real.

Crossed it out.

The sentence sounded like a defense.

She rewrote it beneath.

I know this sentence fixes nothing: I did not know you were real.

Better.

Not good.

Nothing there would be good.

She wrote slowly, compressing her handwriting so more would fit on a single sheet. She did not want to leave a stack of pages someone could call a manifesto, an attempt to move them, emotional blackmail.

A short letter had a better chance of surviving contempt.

She said she was sorry.

She said she had not chosen their lives.

She said she had seen fragments presented as a game.

She said she was not a goddess, was not omniscient, did not know what they did every day, did not know their private lives beyond what the narrative showed.

She said that did not erase the invasion.

She said she would not stay.

That was the easiest part to write.

Her hand stopped less often.

I will not remain at the school. My presence inflames pain, anger, and fear. Even if some of you understand rationally that I did not know, emotionally I am still the face of the harm. I cannot repair that by remaining within your reach.

She read the sentence.

It sounded too cold.

But perhaps that was better.

She continued.

I also do not trust the administration to protect me. Yuu is still here. If Crowley has not returned Yuu home after everything Yuu has done for this world, there is no reason to believe he will do more for me.

She stopped again.

The pencil tip broke.

She stared at the broken graphite.

It was almost funny.

Almost.

She picked up the dull knife she had found on the nightstand and carefully sharpened the pencil. The blade was bad. It took far too long.

On the other side of the wall, a floorboard creaked.

Yuu was standing.

She did not breathe for several seconds.

She waited for a knock on the wall. A request to come in. An accusation. Anything.

Nothing.

The silence returned.

She lowered her head and wrote faster.

Perhaps you are right to hate me. But perhaps I am not the origin of what happened. Seven overblots in less than a year do not look like coincidence. If there was a bridge between worlds, someone opened it. If I was thrown here knowing you would hate me, perhaps someone was counting on that hatred. Perhaps I am only another piece on the board.

That part seemed dangerous.

But it was the only point that might matter after she disappeared.

If anyone read it.

If no one tore it up.

If no one handed it to Crowley first so he could bury it in some drawer with a polite label.

She did not write about each of their traumas.

She had no right.

She wrote only:

What I saw of your stories helped me face things in my own life. That does not turn your pain into a lesson, nor does it give me any right over you. It only means that, without choosing to, you were more human to me than many perfect heroes. I am sorry I received that without your consent.

At the end, she left the pencil resting above the last line.

Her name lodged in her throat.

She could sign it.

She should sign it.

A name was proof.

A name was a person.

A name was also a thread.

If she left her name, perhaps someone could call her.

And the worst part was knowing that some part of her wanted that.

Wanted someone to call not “Player,” not “the player,” not “you,” but the name her family would use if they knew where she was.

That was why she did not sign it.

She wrote:

— The player who should never have crossed the screen.

She folded the sheet once.

Then reconsidered and opened it again.

At the bottom, she added:

Do not look for me to punish me. Do not look for me to forgive me. If you are going to look for anything, look for whoever opened the door.

She folded it again.

Left the letter in the center of the desk.

Not on the bed.

Not at Yuu’s door.

In the center of the desk, because a letter on a desk looked like a document, not a plea.

Then she took what she could carry.

A piece of hard bread from the kitchen.

Two fruits too small and too bright to be entirely trustworthy.

A bottle of metallic-tasting water.

The dull knife.

The sharpened pencil.

Thread.

A needle.

The old coat hanging near the entrance.

The matches were damp. She took them anyway.

She almost left the blanket.

Then took it.

Not for comfort.

For survival.

Before leaving, she passed Yuu’s door.

The door was shut.

Light showed beneath it.

She stopped.

Did not knock.

If she knocked, perhaps Yuu would not answer.

If Yuu answered, perhaps Yuu would tell her to leave.

If Yuu told her to leave, she would go shattered.

If Yuu asked her to stay, that would be worse.

So she did not give Yuu one more thing to endure.

She went downstairs.

One of the ghosts appeared in the middle of the corridor.

It did not shout.

It did not ask where she was going.

It merely looked at the coat, the blanket rolled beneath her arm, the bottle in her hand.

— The forest is bad at night.

She nodded.

— I know.

— It is bad during the day too.

— I can imagine.

The ghost looked toward the kitchen.

— You took bread.

— I did.

— Grim is going to be angry.

The player almost smiled.

— He can put it on my tab.

The ghost did not laugh.

Perhaps it had not understood.

Perhaps it had understood far too well.

— Are you coming back?

She tightened her grip on the bottle.

The honest answer was I do not know.

The useful answer was none.

— Keep the letter away from the headmage, if you can.

The ghost went still.

— Is it important?

— It may be the only important thing I left behind.

It nodded once.

She left.

Ramshackle’s front door opened reluctantly and closed behind her without drama.

No alarm sounded.

No rune lit up.

No adult immediately sensed that a vulnerable person had left the school.

The night simply received her the way it receives anything too small to change the shape of the dark.

In the garden, she did not run.

Running was for people who knew where they were going.

She walked to the gate, crossed the driest part of the grounds, and avoided the mud. At the edge of the property, she stopped only long enough to look back once.

From a distance, Ramshackle looked almost gentle.

That angered her.

She turned toward the line of trees.

And entered.

With the Project Hail Mary movie starting to gain attention here in my country, I found myself thinking about something: this story is far too big to end simply with “Grace saved Earth, Rocky saved Erid, the end.”

Because if humanity truly discovered that it was not alone in the universe, and if first contact was not with a civilization similar to us, but with the Eridians — a species of high pressure, high temperature, complex sound-based communication and biology completely incompatible with ours — then everything would change.

Not only science.

It would change politics, medicine, diplomacy, religion, technology, education, family, and even the way humans understand what it means to be a person.

So this AU was born from that question:

What if Project Hail Mary continued? What if Grace and Rocky were not the end of the story, but the beginning of an interstellar civilization?

My idea is not to treat the Hail Mary mission as an isolated event. Before anything else, I wanted to imagine a logical continuation: decades after the events of the original story, humans and Eridians remain connected by the consequences of that first contact.

They develop comparative medicine, compatible habitats, interspecies translation, life support for biologically incompatible organisms, new forms of communication, new attempts at travel, and a kind of diplomacy that simply did not exist before.

But none of that happens quickly.

That is an important part of this AU: time does not pass the same way for everyone.

Grace does not disappear, save Earth, and return the next day to receive medals. The distances between stars are still enormous. Relativity still matters. Messages take time. Travel takes time. Earth goes through years and decades of uncertainty, reconstruction, and political dispute while Grace experiences a different rhythm of time among the Eridians.

To humanity, Grace becomes almost a historical figure before he can become a concrete presence again.

To the Eridians, he is the human who lived among them, taught, learned, aged differently, and helped build the first real bridge between two intelligent species.

This difference between lived time, Earth chronological time, and interstellar time becomes one of the foundations of the AU. Contact between worlds is not instant, clean, or easy. It is full of delays, losses, myths, political versions of history, and people trying to control the meaning of what happened.

In this continuity, Grace does not become merely a historical footnote or a retired scientist.

He becomes one of the central figures of the first human-Eridian interstellar era.

Humanity, after the Astrophage crisis, also does not remain the same. It survives, advances, and has to face the consequences of discovering that there are other intelligent peoples among the stars.

But the humans in this AU do not automatically become a perfect civilization.

They survived.

And surviving is not the same thing as becoming a utopia.

The Astrophage crisis forces Earth to advance greatly in energy, biology, medicine, closed agriculture, artificial intelligence, emergency systems, and space technology. But humans remain human: brilliant, competitive, generous, afraid, political, and dangerously good at turning a scientific discovery into a struggle for power.

Grace understands this.

He knows that contact with Erid cannot become the property of Earth, of a government, or of an institution. Rocky is not a resource. Erid is not a colony. The Eridians are not tools.

So one of the foundations of this AU is precisely the attempt to turn first contact into cooperation, not domination.

Because, to me, the most beautiful thing about Project Hail Mary is not only saving the Sun.

It is the fact that Grace and Rocky prove that two completely different species can recognize each other as people.

And if that happened once, then the universe can never become small again.

That is why the AU does not stop with humans and Eridians alone.

Over time, other civilizations eventually enter this network. Some through peaceful contact, others through tension, conflict, necessity, or gradual discovery. The impossible friendship between Grace and Rocky opens the way to something much larger: an interstellar community that is still imperfect, full of trauma, disputes, treaties, and risks — but real.

My idea includes humans, Eridians, and other civilizations that appear later, each one expanding a different consequence of that first encounter.

Because one thing is discovering that intelligent life exists beyond Earth.

Another thing is accepting that perhaps no species has the right to be the center of the universe.

I like this idea because it turns Project Hail Mary into the origin of an era, not just a mission.

Grace and Rocky remain the emotional heart of everything.

But the consequences of their friendship spread outward.

Their friendship changes science.

It changes diplomacy.

It changes medicine.

It changes the idea of family.

It changes the most basic question of all:

What makes someone a person?

Because after Rocky, a person does not need to have a human face.

They do not need to breathe oxygen.

They do not need to live at a comfortable temperature.

They do not need to speak with words.

They do not need to have a body shaped like ours.

They need to be recognized.

And maybe that is the most important legacy of Grace and Rocky.

They did not only save stars.

They taught the universe how to become larger.

So, this is the foundation of my AU: a logical continuation of Project Hail Mary, where the first contact between Grace and Rocky does not end the story, but begins an era of interstellar cooperation between humans, Eridians, and other civilizations.

— and how to take “easter eggs” from famous franchises and turn them into original stories

Sometimes all your fiction needs to become truly unique is adding something no sane person would place in the same universe. It’s in that beautiful strangeness, the neatly-fitted chaos, the “this would never work” that the best conflicts are born.

It doesn’t have to be literal. It can be an inherited power, a forgotten artifact, a rule from another universe, or an entire concept lovingly stolen.

✨ Here are 9 ideas for bizarre, epic conflicts, perfect for crossovers and alternate worlds:

1️⃣ The Dolittle Gift 🐾

(Dr. Dolittle, Robert Downey Jr. version)

Imagine a world where the Dolittle bloodline survived and evolved. The protagonist is a young woman, 19–20, who inherited the ancient gift — able to speak with any living creature driven by instinct:

– animals – plants – insects – alien creatures – kaiju – symbiotic organisms – even biological machines that mimic animal behavior

Suddenly, she becomes a living megaphone of the entire natural world.

Put this into Transformers Prime: Optimus Prime thinks he understands organic life… until he realizes a human girl can negotiate with an Insecticon or a Predacon better than he can.

And just like that: conflict.

✨ And in Pacific Rim? Imagine a Jaeger pilot who can talk to kaiju — and learns about the secret masters of the kaiju, ancient beings who teach strategies humanity never knew existed. Kaiju battles stop being just physical; they become diplomatic, biological, tactical puzzles.

2️⃣ The Persian Sanctuary ⏳

(Prince of Persia, reinterpreted)

A hidden fragment of architecture deep in the desert, older than any recorded civilization. It pulses. It breathes. It bends time.

The entire Sanctuary is a living temporal mechanism, and only someone of ancient Persian blood can activate it. Once activated, it links events and worlds unpredictably, creating conflict between civilizations from the past and the future.

3️⃣ The Traveler of Other Worlds 🌌

(John Carter / A Princess of Mars, expanded)

A man disappears and later returns claiming he visited Barsoom — but his journey spanned several worlds, forgotten realms, and lost planets.

He leaves behind:

Star maps that match no NASA catalog

A sword forged from extraterrestrial metal

A diary about dimensional portals, interplanetary secret societies, and unthinkable creatures

The monsters? Quintessons — organic-mechanical hybrids created by the ancient Quintos Prime, engineered to annihilate entire worlds.

Conflict: the protagonist and her allies form an interplanetary alliance to fight the Quintessons. No negotiation. Only strategy, survival, cosmic war.

4️⃣ Sleepy Hollow 🌲

(1999)

Forests that are living portals, guarded by ancient spirits. Enchanted hearts that can possess objects, people, or even machines. Conflict arises when advanced civilizations (or alien robots) try to exploit these forests, unaware that nature is awake — and fighting back.

5️⃣ The Last Witch Hunter 🧙‍♀️

Unstable immortality, ancient magic tied to the Tree of Life, and plagues that manifest as living creatures. Conflict: immortality traps the protagonist in a power struggle, while secret societies try to control or destroy the Tree.

6️⃣ TRON: Legacy 💻

Living code, digital beings with souls, technology that can be born, recreated, and rebel on its own. Conflict: who controls the living code? Robots, AI, and vehicles begin acting of their own free will, and entire digital worlds rise against their creators.

7️⃣ Jumper ✨

Hereditary teleportation. Dimensional travelers hunted by secret societies and religious assassins. Conflict becomes global and interdimensional — espionage, strategy, and moral dilemmas about manipulating time and space.

8️⃣ Seventh Son 🪄

Inherited rare abilities, mystical creatures, and artifacts with their own rules. Conflict: the tension between heritage and choice, using power to protect or destroy.

9️⃣ The Golden Compass / His Dark Materials ❄️

Dust (conscious energy), daemons (the animal form of the soul), and parallel worlds connected by ancient physics. Conflict: crossing realities, manipulating living energy, and surviving alongside allies who are not fully human, while ancient secrets shape every action.

💡 Final Tip: Mix these “easter eggs” into impossible crossovers: kaiju with consciousness, dimensional travelers vs. Quintessons, heroes navigating living forests and sentient energy. That’s where truly unseen, unforgettable conflicts are born.

Halloween may have passed, yet some memories linger... In the candlelit lab, the young alchemist continues his craft beneath the whisper of ghosts and fading lights.

Meet Raj Al-Madani, leader of the Tales of the Night Dormitory. Born in the Land of Warm Sands, he is the third son of Sultana Aisha and her eighth consort — the royal physician. A second-year student at RSA, Raj is known for his sharp mind and calm demeanor… but those who truly know him say that beneath that quiet gaze lies the heart of a tiger.

✨ Unique Magic: Return to How It Was Before! A spell designed to restore the target to their state from 24 hours ago. However, the pain once felt is doubled — shared between the healed and the caster.

💫 Specialty: Potions and Magical Biology 🐅 Personality: Calm, rational, and fiercely protective of those he holds dear. 🍰 Likes: Dogs, kittens, cakes, milk, and helping those in need. 😒 Dislikes: Fools, reckless people, egocentrics, and the lazy.

Halloween RSA

Dorm Leaders;

🎃 Medicinal Art — Festival of All Saints’ Day: Memories of the Lost 🕯️

Author’s Note: This story was born in the shadow of the universe created by Keferon — a world both haunting and beautiful, where even silence knows how to sing. Your words sparked a flame that found its way into this one. What I wrote here is only an echo — a light kindled by yours. Some worlds never end; they resonate. Yours did. And this is the sound it made.

------

"R̸͘ɇ̴͢pЯ̷͝ɪ̴͞s͜ɇ̶̛,̴̨ ɓ͞uͦɍ̡nͣ ̴͝w̸͡ɪŧhͦ͘ ͝mͫɇ͜.̶̕""

It was the first phrase I learned to say with faith. And, ironically, it would be the last thing anyone would ever hear from me.

They say space is silent.

Lies.

Space screams — but not with sound. It speaks in frequencies the body feels, in pulses the blood translates, in vibrations the skin deciphers. Sometimes, I thought the very vacuum was trying to say something: a language made of lights trying to escape themselves.

Before me, the horizon tore open into a luminous wound. A portal pulsed between Saturn’s moons, unfolding in colors no human retina was meant to understand. On the other side, something vast moved — a living structure of metal and shadow, large enough to devour a world.

Readings screamed across my monitors, and Caelus’ voice echoed through the static channels. “Hymn, fall back. Now. Getting closer is suicide.” I didn’t answer.

While we fought among the stars, Earth still burned under the weight of war and invasion. For centuries, the planet had been a stage for internal conflict — until something greater united all peoples: fear.

I remember when everything began to collapse — the urban decay, the networks falling, the sirens that never stopped. Borders dissolved overnight, and governments lost their meaning. When the first creatures emerged from the oceans, there was no room for faith or politics — only for running, fighting, and surviving.

When orbital communications collapsed, for a moment, the world was believed to have gone mute. But silence was never absence — only the interval before the scream. And it was in that interval that the Legacies emerged: descendants of an ancient project, born from humanity’s attempt to touch the divine.

It was said that before the fall of the empires, alchemists and priests had tried to fuse sacred sparks into mortal flesh. The result was not gods, but limits — human beings pushed to the very edge of their own nature. Strength, reflexes, and a mind capable of seeing patterns where others saw chaos.

They called us Children of the Divine. We had no powers — only biology and purpose. For decades, we lived in the shadows, until the invasions made secrecy impossible.

That was when we joined the MDPP, the Planetary Defense Department — a global effort that built war machines to fight the creatures consuming the world. In the beginning, the mechs required two pilots to maintain neural stability. Everything changed when a descendant of Hephaestus and an heir of Athena discovered a living alloy within the alien carcasses — a metal capable of merging with the human mind.

These machines were not conscious, but extensions of their pilots. When linked to a Child of the Divine, the synchronization was nearly perfect — and through it, the mechs manifested abilities corresponding to their pilots’ mythological ancestry. For the first time, the Legacies touched the power that had always been denied to them.

Few were ever built, but each unit was a divine weapon. Among them, there was one unlike any other — unstable, almost alive: Reprise. No pilot could control it. Until I found it.

I was sixteen when the war took my parents. By twenty-five, I was a soldier shaped by chaos. When I connected to Reprise, it reacted as if it recognized me. The frequencies aligned — a perfect resonance. They said we were a single entity. They said I was no longer entirely human.

With it, I became Hymn — the codename given by the engineers, because my voice modulated the neural sync. I sang, and Reprise answered. Thirty-nine missions, thirty-nine victories. And still, the war was being lost. Humanity was shrinking, the creatures were evolving, and Earth was turning into nothing but ash and silence.

For years, the MDPP tracked anomalous signals between the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn — gravitational distortions, electromagnetic noise, echoes that the machines couldn’t interpret. Everything pointed to a single location: an origin, a nest. Scientists suspected the existence of a Command Core — a hidden base near the conflict zone, used to coordinate incursions and maintain the flow of weapons and supplies.

Drones were sent. None returned.

So they chose someone who could feel what the sensors couldn’t reach. My name was at the top of the list. I didn’t hesitate — not out of courage, but because there was no one left. Earth was dying, the Legacies were disappearing, and I only knew how to do what I was born for: to burn until the end.

The mission was simple — locate and sabotage the source of the anomalies. But what I found defied all human logic.

Between Saturn’s moons, space opened into a luminous wound — a scar pulsing in tones no frequency should ever produce. Around it, dozens of ships orbited in formation, connected by metallic structures that seemed to grow, to breathe. It was a living construct, colossal, and its purpose was clear: a full-scale invasion. I had arrived too late.

On the comm channel, the voice of my operator — the last genius of Command — echoed through static and desperation, trying to persuade me to turn back. His voice cracked, almost dissolving into interference:

“Hymn, fall back. Now. Getting closer is suicide.”

And I answered in a whisper, more to myself than to him: “Look into the abyss... and the abyss will look back.”

Silence. Then, he murmured something that sounded like a prayer.

And then the portal began to expand. Gravitational waves distorted everything — space, time, matter itself. On the other side, an immense shadow moved. It wasn’t an ordinary ship, but a living entity, a mass of metal and consciousness large enough to swallow an entire moon. If it crossed through, Earth wouldn’t stand a chance.

Reprise trembled beneath me. It wasn’t fear — it was recognition. It knew what I intended to do. The sync between us flickered, and for an instant, I could feel something almost human — hesitation.

I took a deep breath, feeling the heat rise along my spine — nerves aflame, pulse merging with the rhythm of the machine. Before me, the horizon tore open into a living flash, and the portal began to pulse in impossible hues. The mission was never to return. It was to stop it. And I, a daughter of a time already disintegrating, understood the cost.

Reprise reacted before I even gave the command. The deep hum of gears echoed through the cockpit as the rear wings unfolded in a precise motion — three segmented panels expanding into fans of light, a blend of thrusters and solar sails, translucent as fairy wings yet fueled by stellar fire. When the engines ignited, space itself bent around us.

The creatures emerged from the glow of the portal — black masses of living metal, twisted, screaming in frequencies that tore through the brain. Reprise shuddered, and so did I. “Let’s go,” I whispered, and the blades detached from my wrists — thin, gleaming extensions made from the same living alloy that coursed through the mech. They vibrated with pure solar energy, slicing through the darkness in golden streaks.

We accelerated. The gravitational field around us bent with the thrust of the wings, and we activated the cloaking system. Reprise vanished — light folded, its silhouette dissolved into the shimmer of the stars. We moved like a flash between the monsters, cutting them down before they could even react. Each strike was a note, each explosion, a chord. Fragments of the creatures disintegrated into luminous dust.

The portal roared. The distortion grew, pulling everything into the dimensional tear. Reprise resisted, its body trembling under the pressure. The wings contracted and expanded in rhythm, exhaling pulses of solar energy that stabilized the field — for a few seconds, just long enough to witness the impossible: something colossal beginning to cross through.

That was when the tattoos beneath my skin began to glow — golden lines igniting like circuits of sunlight. Protocol Lumen — total fusion, divine combustion, absolute sacrifice. Forbidden, forgotten, but created for this: to seal a portal at the cost of one life. Reprise trembled around me, the system reacting to my decision with an electric wail. I looked into the abyss, feeling it hesitate, as if trying to stop me. “I know,” I whispered. “But it’s the only way.”

With the alarms echoing, I opened a direct channel to Command. Static answered first — then a trembling voice broke through the noise. It was Caelus.

“Hymn… what are you doing? Tell me you’re not—”

“Caelus.” My voice came out calm, serene, almost like a song. “If you’re hearing this… tell them to keep fighting, even if the sun goes out. The flame doesn’t die — it only changes form.” I paused. The display flickered red. Reprise’s energy levels were rising beyond their limits. “And tell them… tell them that I heard them. All of them. Every plea, every cry. None of it was lost to the silence.”

The transmission began to fail — static, light, heat. I looked one last time at the portal, the colossal shadow about to cross through, and let out a breath that sounded like a farewell. “Earth was the first hymn. May the next be more beautiful.”

“So it’s a kind of prayer,” I murmured — and touched the console.

The solar core opened. The universe turned white. For an instant, I felt everything — the warmth of Earth, the weight of memory, the silence of the stars. And then, nothing.

A flash tore through the Solar System, and the readings went dark. They say it was destruction. I prefer to believe it was remembrance.

Because every flame, in the end, becomes song again.

“Reprise, burn with me.”

The protocol initiates. Light, heat, pain. Every memory fuses into a single flash — a childhood in ruins, the stars I never saw up close, the sound of voices lost over the radio. The fusion completes. I become fire. The portal begins to collapse, space folds in on itself, and everything disappears into a silence so absolute it feels like music.

Then, nothing. An endless white. No sound, no body, no time. Only the sensation of having been part of something far too vast to comprehend. I think it’s the end. I think, at last, I can rest. But then something pulses. Faint. Rhythmic. An echo. A heartbeat that shouldn’t exist.

I open my eyes — if I still have eyes — and I see light. Not the white of death, but the warm gold of a distant dawn. My body feels heavy. The air tastes of iron and ash. Reprise is silent, or perhaps merely asleep. I try to breathe. Pain answers.

Author’s Note:

Hey everyone! 💛

I’m really sorry for the delay in posting this part — I know many of you have been waiting, and I truly appreciate your patience. 🙏

Here’s a little incentive: if we reach 200 likes, I’ll post Part 4 (the final) of Chapter 3! And if we get 60 reblogs, I’ll share this whole story on AO3, for anyone who wants to follow it in English and more easily.

Thank you so much for all your support! Every like, comment, and reblog makes a huge difference and keeps me inspired to keep writing. 💛✨

----

With this newly imposed knowledge weighing on my shoulders—and the sense of foreboding that seemed to have clung to my skin—I left the room. Each step echoed on the marble floor as if it were heavier than my twelve-year-old legs could carry. But inside, I didn’t feel like just a child. There was something tired in me that I couldn’t remember, but whose weight I knew all too well.

When I finally reached the light outside, it nearly blinded me. The air was different, dense, as if the clouds above were breathing with me.

The class was gathering on the museum steps, from where we could watch the pedestrian traffic along Fifth Avenue. Above us, a storm was forming. The clouds were the darkest I had ever seen hanging over the city, like a silent army. I tried to convince myself it was only global warming or something. Since Christmas, New York’s weather had been a disaster: heavy snowstorms, floods, fires sparked by lightning. I wouldn’t have been surprised if a hurricane decided to park itself right there.

The strange thing was: no one else seemed to notice.

Some kids were tossing cookies to the pigeons. Nancy Bobofit was trying to slip her hand into a distracted lady’s purse, and Mrs. Dodds, as always, seemed conveniently blind to it.

Grover and I slipped away, sitting on the edge of the fountain, trying to look invisible. Maybe, if we stayed far enough from the others, no one would notice we were from that school—the school for weirdos who never fit anywhere.

Eiri was already there, leaning against the cold stone of the fountain, arms crossed, motionless like a statue. His presence always seemed to shift the atmosphere—people instinctively stepped back, as if carrying the strange sense of standing before a silent predator.

In that moment, his eyes were fixed on Mrs. Dodds with an intensity that made my skin crawl. It wasn’t ordinary anger, nor a student’s annoyance with a teacher—it was something deeper, more dangerous. He didn’t just seem to be watching her; he seemed ready, as if waiting for the right moment to act. A guard lying in wait, silent, on the edge of a battlefield only he could see.

He shot me that steady look, the one that didn’t need words to tell me that I was a chaos wrapped in skin. The tension in my stomach eased slightly.

“Detention?” Grover asked, his voice wavering somewhere between concern, irritation, and resignation.

“No.” I shook my head. “Not from Brunner.”

I wanted to sound nonchalant, but the truth was otherwise. That man had just torn a piece of me out with his words alone.

I sighed and added:

“I just wish he’d give me a break sometimes, you know? I mean… I’m not a genius.”

Grover opened his mouth to reply, but Eiri spoke first, never taking his eyes off Mrs. Dodds:

“Brunner doesn’t ask for anything you don’t already have.” His voice was low, cutting, but filled with certainty, as if speaking of something he already knew far too well.

And deep down, I knew it was true. Mr. Brunner didn’t treat me like the others because he expected more—he expected everything. And, even deeper, that same old voice inside me whispered that I had no choice: sooner or later, I would have to live up to it.

Grover was silent for a while. When I thought he might bless me with some philosophical comment or an observation meant to make me feel better, he simply said:

“Can I have your apple?”

I wasn’t very hungry, so I just handed him the fruit.

As I watched taxis glide down Fifth Avenue, my thoughts drifted to my mother’s apartment, in that residential area not far from the museum. I hadn’t seen her since Christmas. The urge to jump into a taxi and go home was overwhelming. She would hug me tight, be happy to see me, but also disappointed. She would immediately remind me that I needed to try harder—even though this was my sixth school in six years and I’d probably get expelled again. I wouldn’t be able to bear the sad look she would give me.

Mr. Brunner was parked at the base of the handicapped ramp, munching on celery while leafing through an old novel. A red umbrella was tucked into the chair, making it look like a motorized coffe table.

I was about to unwrap my sandwich when Nancy Bobofit appeared in front of me, surrounded by her ugly friends. I suppose she’d grown tired of stealing from tourists, because, without ceremony, she let the rest of her lunch drop into Grover’s lap.

“Oops.” She smiled at me with those crooked teeth. The freckles on her face were almost fluorescent, orange as if someone had spray-painted them with Cheetos.

I tried to stay calm. The school counselor had told me a million times: “Count to ten, control your genius.” But I was so furious that my mind went blank. A wave roared in my ears, subtle at first, like an invisible current sliding beneath my skin. A slow, deep, wet bubbling pulsed in my chest, each breath reminding me of a sea I could not control.

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Eiri standing still, arms crossed, eyes still locked on Mrs. Dodds. He didn’t need to say a word—the silence itself carried a weight that seemed to hold up the entire world. The sound inside me grew, thump-thump, thump-thump, like the heartbeat of a giant water beast, heavy and unavoidable, dominating my perception. Every movement I made felt synchronized with that pulse of power, terrifying and pushing me toward a nearly homicidal rage. The air around me seemed to quiver, though no one else noticed.

I don’t remember touching her, but when I realized it, Nancy was sitting on the fountain’s edge, screaming:

“Percy pushed me!”

Mrs. Dodds materialized at our side in an instant, eyes narrowed, as if she could sniff out the invisible current that was dominating me. Some of the kids began to whisper, but I could barely hear them.

All I felt was the sea roaring inside me, first whispering and uneasy, then thunderous and inevitable, overtaking everything around me—even my own fury.

It was as if the ocean were alive inside my chest: first it enfolds you, subtle, then it consumes you, complete, relentless. And Eiri was still there, motionless, vigilant—a silent lighthouse reminding me to try to contain the chaos—or at least not to drown in it entirely.

I had no idea what Nancy was screaming; all I knew was that I was in trouble again. As soon as Mrs. Dodds made sure the girl was “okay”—offering a new blouse from the museum gift shop and putting on that exaggerated show of charity—she slowly turned toward me, eyes narrowed, her presence so sharp it seemed to cut the air around me.

There was a triumphant fire in her eyes, as if I had done something she had been waiting for all semester:

“Now, my dear…”

“I know,” I muttered. “A month spent erasing workbooks.”

It wasn’t the right thing to say.

“Come with me,” said Mrs. Dodds, her voice cold as ice, yet carrying a threat that seemed to expand throughout the museum.

“Wait!” Grover squealed. “It was me. I pushed her!”

I looked at him, stunned. I couldn’t believe he had the courage to offer himself like that. Grover was terrified of Mrs. Dodds, and yet… he was trying to protect me.

She shot him a look so furious it made his chin tremble.

“I don’t think so, Mr. Underwood,” she said, each word dragging a shadow of warning.

“But…”

Eiri, motionless like a sculpture forgotten among the columns, shifted his gaze just enough to meet Mrs. Dodds’s eyes. His voice cut through the space, too low for the other students to hear, but clear enough for her:

“Strange to accuse the boy, Miss Dodds, when everyone saw Miss Bobofit trip on her own. It was a visible accident. Word against word… or rather, two against one. Are you really willing to stand by that version?”

For a moment, Eiri’s neutral face seemed to darken, as if the steel of his posture had yielded to displeasure. His next words came like a subtle jab, almost casual, but loaded with weight:

“Sometimes, it’s curious how life works, isn’t it? Rumors can be just rumors… until someone insists on them so much that they begin to sound true.”

The Fury arched an eyebrow. The corner of her lips lifted in a cold smile, but her eyes burned.

“Witnesses, Mr. Pärlavakt. I’m certain that if I asked the other students, they would confirm that Mr. Jackson was at fault.”

Eiri didn’t move, but the brief tension in his expression was enough to make his displeasure clear.

“Funny how life works, isn’t it?” he repeated, almost in a whisper. “Pearls break easily, even at the bottom of the sea.”

Grover shot me a desperate look, as if trying to decipher that silent exchange, the words left unspoken.

“All right, man,” I murmured to him, in a low voice, acknowledging his effort. “Thanks for trying.”

“My dear,” Mrs. Dodds growled at me, her voice sharp as a blade. “Now.”

Nancy Bobofit let out a venomous giggle, pleased with the spectacle.

I returned her look with my best “you’re going to pay for this” glare and turned back to Mrs. Dodds.

She was no longer there.

She was at the top of the steps, at the museum entrance, gesturing impatiently. How had she gotten there so fast? It wasn’t just physical speed—it was a presence that warped the space around her, imposing itself like a silent storm.

Eiri’s eyes followed her, cataloging every movement, heavy and deliberate. He knew. He knew she was more than a temperamental teacher. He knew that by aiming at me, she was carrying out higher orders.

It was a game of invisible power, and without realizing it, I was already at the center of it. And for the first time, I had the strange sense that we weren’t just students standing before an enraged teacher; we were pieces on a much larger board, where even the smallest move could decide who survived and who would shatter like one of those pearls he spoke of.

---- Back < Chapter 3: (Part 2)

--- (a/note:I had to split this chapter into two parts because the text went over Tumblr’s character limit — classic Tumblr move, right? 😂 Thanks so much for your patience and for sticking with me!) ----------< (≧ ﹏ ≦) >----------

And then they understood — not through words, but by the softening of tension in the very fabric of their being — that Eru saw them. Had always seen them. And if their pain was immense, so was His. For He was not a Creator who rejoiced at seeing threads break, but a Father who suffers when a chord is lost in the vastness. And in the warmth that enveloped them, there was no longer the weight of judgment, but the affirmation that even a note out of rhythm can find its place in the music — not by destroying harmony, but by making it richer, more complex, more alive.

At last, their souls — no longer certain if they were two or one — vibrated in unison with the Greater Song. And in that moment, they understood that they no longer needed to apologize for existing. For their existence, though unplanned in form, had never been a mistake. It was, perhaps, an unexpected chord — but no less beautiful for it.

Yet, even beneath that comforting warmth, hesitation returned — not from fear, nor from shame, but from not knowing if they truly had the right to ask. For they had never known if that desire — to exist outside the mold, to breathe in another tone — was permitted, or even possible within the vastness of the Song.

But the silence itself embraced them differently. It was not the silence of emptiness, nor of tense expectation. It was an open space, extended like the arms of a father kneeling before a small child, lowering himself to the child’s level, waiting with a patient smile for the child to find the courage to speak.

They felt — with the clarity only a bare spirit can know — that Eru did not look upon them with weight or doubt, but with tenderness. And in the seemingly endless vastness, a note arose, gentle as the sound of a breath over calm waters. And that note said, not in words, but in essence: “Speak. I hear you.”

There was a subtle tremor in the web of the two. Mairon’s thread, denser, shimmered like freshly forged metal; theirs, lighter, vibrated like glass ringing in the light. Their sounds, sometimes dissonant, sometimes perfectly intertwined, hesitated, danced in the space. And little by little, what had once been timidity became courage — that fragile yet luminous courage that only those who love deeply can summon.

First came the sound of metal striking metal — the echo of forges, the hammering of hands that never wished to destroy, but always to create. Then, the sound of breath searching for an instrument, seeking a shape, a wood, a chamber where it might transform into melody. Next, a faint chorus of broken notes, trying to align, trying to show — without words — that their desire was not to break the Song, but to find within it a space where they could be themselves, without distortion.

And the plea took form. It was a sound mixing sadness and hope, love and anxiety: “If all creation is made of voices and breaths, of strings and resonances, why can we not... be a new string, a new timbre, a new tone? We have not fought against the Music, but against the mold that imprisons us within it. We ask... not that the score be rewritten, but that we might change the instrument. That we remain sound, still part, but... in another timbre, another form.”

And Eru — oh, the Sound that hovers beyond all sound, beyond all beginning and end — did not respond with judgment, nor imposition. His note expanded, becoming a welcoming vastness, like the sky that never weighs, even though infinite. And in that note there was a tenderness so vast, so pure, that it seemed to undo every fear that had ever existed. The answer was simply: “Continue. I hear. Say everything. There is no hurry.”

And so, like small children who finally feel safe in the arms of one who loves them, the two — the fusion of two who no longer knew where one began and the other ended — finally allowed themselves to sing. To sing their pain, yes. To sing their hope. To sing their love for Creation itself. And above all, to sing the burning desire to belong not as a mistake, nor as a shadow, but as a legitimate variation of the greater harmony. Not as dissonance that breaks — but as the unexpected note that, when well placed, makes the music grow, breathe, live.

And so, like small children who finally feel safe in the arms of one who loves them, the two — the fusion of two who no longer knew where one began and the other ended — at last allowed themselves to sing. To sing their pain, yes. To sing their hope. To sing their love for Creation itself. And above all, to sing the burning desire to belong not as a mistake, nor as a shadow, but as a legitimate variation of the greater harmony. Not as dissonance that breaks — but as the unexpected note that, when well placed, makes the music grow, breathe, live.

And she did not know if she was crying, laughing, or trembling. Perhaps she was doing all three at once. For in that invisible embrace — made not of arms, but of pure existence — something within her finally broke. A prison. An ancient cage, forged not of iron, but of silence, imposed molds, and expectations that had never belonged to her. As if the very fabric of Eä whispered to her, with infinite tenderness: “You were not born wrong.”

And Mairon... ah, Mairon had always known. From the beginning, he had never given importance to form, name, or the weight of titles. In the forge, there was no man or woman — only spark, creation, and will. To him, the sound that becomes steel is the same as that which becomes flame. And in it he never saw error — only extension. Reflection. A living continuation of all they had built together, hammer stroke after hammer stroke, chord after chord.

Now free, she understood that her discomfort had never arisen from being something wrong — but from trying, through countless ages, to fit into forms that were never made for her. And, in accepting that fire which does not burn but transforms, she breathed. For the first time, she breathed as who she is — whole, true, real.

But Ilúvatar did not end there. For, like a father who, seeing the courage of his child, smiles and bends even lower to enfold them, He extended His will as a gift. And thus He spoke — not in sound, but in touch and warmth — granting her a new form. A perfect union, a reflection not of compromise, but of truth.

Her skin took on a warm tone, of light amber — not as dark as Mairon’s bronze, nor as pale as what hers had been before, but a gentle balance, as if the light of fire and the shadow of night met within the flesh. Her hair became a harmonious gradient: roots black as night rested against her scalp, but as it descended to shoulder length, the tone began to brighten into warm reds, until it burst, at the long tips that fell beyond her hips, into a vivid crimson, like newborn fire at the heart of a volcano.

Her eyes, once brown like wet earth, lightened, drinking in Mairon’s light and the gold of creation. The iris had turned to golden amber, where still danced softly the reflection of honey and bronze — like a sunset reflected on calm waters. There, her gaze no longer carried the doubt of one who doesn’t know if they belong; it now held the serene certainty of one who not only belongs but is necessary.

In that form, there was no longer shadow nor excess, no lack nor surplus. There was symmetry. The joining not of broken halves, but of two wholes that had chosen each other — like two flames that, upon touching, do not extinguish, but become a single fire, greater, brighter, and more alive.

Smaller, certainly, in the eyes of the Ainur — only one meter seventy, when Eru’s eldest children could rise like towers. But in her there was no less power. Only the simplicity of a form that finally made sense.

She staggered. The weight of everything — what had been, what was, and what was becoming — collided all at once. She did not know if she was crying, laughing, or dissolving there, in light, fire, and tears. Mairon supported her, not with hands, but with his own spark, intertwining with hers, like two chords that, at last, became perfect harmony.

And then, in that vastness where there is no time, Eru leaned over her. There was no judgment, only love — the primordial love of a Father who receives a daughter long lost, but never forgotten. And in a whisper made of light, sound, and essence, He pronounced: “Mairië.” (the Admirable) A name not given, but revealed, for it had always existed within her, waiting to be called.

Upon hearing — or feeling — that name resonate in her very soul, something broke and, in the same instant, was made whole again. All the forms that were never truly hers, the invisible chains, dissolved like mist. For the first time, she breathed as who she was. As who she had always been.

Mairon... no... Mairië — no longer broken halves, but one fire, one forge, one song. And even if the world dared to reject her, nothing could erase the truth that now pulsed within her essence.

And then, in the space that seemed to hold all times, Eru, with that love that only a Father who created all can have, breathed once more upon her: “Walk. Do. Create. The Song is vaster than even I imagined. And within it, now, there is a space where before there was only silence.”

And if the voices of the Valar should one day rise in scandal, and if future peoples cast their names as curse or lament, none of that would carry weight anymore. For if the Creator Himself accepted them, who among the works and children of the world would have the power or right to deny them?

There, at the core of that eternal moment, not only was a new form born, but a new note — one that could never be undone or forgotten, for it had been woven into the very heart of Creation.