glimpse the unknown for a moment...

not really spoilers but y'know

fate collab spoilers under the cut

       “ It is magnificent, isn't it. ” A train that flies through the sky. No matter the fragility of Phainon's enthusiasm, Furina still clung desperately to it as she led him through those fabled train doors and along the carriages to the room that had now been designated as his own. If Amphoreus had taught her anything, after all, it was to hold tight to the present moment, and in the face of everything that had happened — the highs and lows of the battle against Irontomb, the pyrrhic victory and emotional exhaustion that had followed — there was one particular, incredible miracle that she wished to hold onto.

       Phainon was here with them. Furina did not understand how, she suspected that not even Madam Herta and Mr Screwllum knew exactly how he had manifested from the pages of As I've Written. But he was tangible, he was real, he was him. Not the hollowed, pained husk that she encountered in her search for March's other half, but the bright-eyed boy who had made her feel so welcome when she had landed in Amphoreus on her first Trailblazing journey.

       In spite of everything else, she knew that was something to treasure.

       Though he was not quite the same, and Furina noticed that shift as he entered his new room — sparse for now, but a place he could call his own and would have the freedom to decorate as he pleased. A part of her had been anticipating the change ( they were all changed, after all ), and perhaps that was why she had greeted him on Herta Space Station with such a beaming smile and a hug, why she had led him by the hand to the Astral Express after the offer had been officially extended to him to join the Nameless. Some part of her deep down had known that he was going to need her strength.

       Her gratitude to Terravox for passing to her the strength of the Earth, to Amphoreus for restoring her memory, and to the ripples of Focalors' consciousness for granting her peace of mind... was so overwhelming that she feared it could never be fully repaid.

       Furina loitered in the doorway until Phainon spoke, her smile waning, her heart breaking as she caught that oh so familiar look in his eyes. “ It was terrifying. It still is sometimes. ” Slowly, she closed the door behind her and crossed the remaining space towards him. “ Suddenly you no longer have a purpose. Your life is yours, but you have no idea what that means, and every minute spent agonising over how to spend it feels like a minute wasted, seeing as you're only here because of another's sacrifice. ”

       With a slow exhale, Furina reached out to take Phainon's hands in her own, giving them a gentle squeeze. “ But, for the first time in my life, I wasn't alone anymore. I had friends I could share my burdens with. ” Her smile was tinged with both sadness and strength as she raised her mismatched gaze to meet Phainon's eyes. “ I know your friends in Amphoreus can't be here with us right now. But you have us. You have me. ” A faint breath of laughter escaped her lips. “ I think you even won over Madam Herta, and I still don't think she even knows what my name is. ”

a few tvl thoughts under the cut~

as part of moving blogs, i will also be taking a good look at my drafts and dropping some things that i'm no longer feeling. any plotted things are safe, this is mainly directed at very old things buried in my drafts or things that i don't feel like are particularly going anywhere ( which is fine, we can always start new things, that's the joy of rp ! )

She had turned down dinner.

She had turned down lunch.

She had turned down – or well, not turned down, but she had told him that it would be far more beneficial to enjoy a pastry on the side, demanding that he could it for her so that she could keep an eye on the changing numbers of the slumbering world. After all, there had been a small change in the readings, and it had been just small enough for her to freeze in front of it. Not just her, of course, for Screwllum had also come to clear his schedule. Not for Amphoreus alone, but for Herta, knowing that she would spend quite the time trying to figure out what that specific change meant.

Of course, this also meant time would pass, and what must have been yet another endless hour of no change brought the intellitron's hand up towards the back of her neck.

"Herta," Screwllum spoke gently, voice lowered as warming touch allowed itself to knea around the back of her neck. Thumb pressed alongside index, digging a little into her skin. She had been standing for so long already, surely she was getting tired, too. "If you wish to stand here for the reminder of the evening, then I shall accompany you, however, it has been a significant amount of time since you allowed yourself to rest and as your romantic counterpart, I believe my general concern weighs heavier than our prevous relation."

Translated; I am concerned about you, as your lover.

One hand therefore turned to two, the intellitron positioning himself behind her with a proper grasp of her shoulders instead, keeping one a tab of Amphoreus' data open in his visage alongside the readings of Herta. "There are several points of stiffness located in your upper body," and as loving as it might have sounded, it was also him stating the obvious – or rather, warning her as he pressed against those exact points.

"I can keep the readings open on my visage," he continued, still massaging Herta's shoulders. "If you would be open to it, perhaps we could retire for a short moment so I could reach your stiffness better? Should there be a change in Amphoreus' readings, I will notify you right away."

       A small change in the readings could mean anything. She was no evolutionary biologist, but in a rudimentary sense she understood that Amphoreus' memory zone was going through a significant transformation. Small changes were to be expected. And yet, every time a notification appeared on one of her screens, or on her phone, she felt compelled to turn her full attention to the live video of Amphoreus' current state. For hours at a time.

       It wasn't hope. Amphoreus would be reborn, emerge from the memory zone and enter the rest of the cosmos: the longer Herta spent studying its composition in the aftermath of the Irontomb battle, the more certain she was that it was a matter of when, not if. Instead, it was an almost custodian feeling of responsibility.

       Who else from the Intelligentsia Guild and the IPC knew how much had been sacrificed in order to reach this moment? They could have read about it in As I've Written, of course, but they had not seen scepter δ-me13's data logs detailing millions of cycles of human struggle and endurance in the face of insurmountable odds. They had not received administrative access to those scepter logs with one single, brilliant caveat from a formidable little empress. They had not seen the look on Cyrene's face as she accepted the sacrifice that she needed to make in order to seal Irontomb away forever.

       While Herta was certain that Amphoreus' Imperator would gladly put the IPC representatives through the ringer the second she laid eyes on them, that could not happen until the fateful moment that the planet's evolution was complete. Until then, Herta had concluded that such a responsibility fell to her and Screwllum.

       Cyrene's sacrifice. The little one's grief and hope. Phainon's endurance. Each one was a weight on her shoulders that she would bear until this project reached completion.

       That she had been stood in this same spot for hours on end, eyes glued to the screen, didn't matter.

       It was also not the first time that Screwllum had witnessed her so engrossed in one of her projects. But perhaps it had been naive of her to believe that he would simply do as he always did when she was in the throes of her latest fixation: hover by her side, fetch her things that she needed ( even if she didn't know she needed them, like the pastry she had absent-mindedly eaten an hour or so ago ) and gently suggest that she get some rest.

       The gentle suggestions of rest were there again, of course, but there was something else in his words that seemed to cut through her haze of concentration.

       As your romantic counterpart, I believe my general concern weighs heavier than our previous relation.

       “ Huh... ” Herta blinked, the the main control room of her Clocktower coming back into sharp focus around her. Suddenly she became quite aware of Screwllum's mechanical fingers gently pressing into the back of her shoulders. He continued speaking. Herta frowned, still trying to focus on the sight of Amphoreus on the screen. “ Since when are you so concerned about my upper— ah... ”

       As his fingers kneaded a particularly sensitive spot, a sound halfway between a sigh and a groan escaped her lips. “ Screwllum... ” Herta only realised after she'd said his name that it didn't sound much like a reprimand at all.

In fact his name on her lips sounded very different indeed.

       Herta cast him a sidelong glance, trying to catch sight of the intellitron in her periphery. Screwllum, apparently unperturbed, simply continued to massage her shoulders. His mechanical fingers were warm and soothing in a way that wasn't just welcome, but seemed to encourage her mind to wander, especially with how precise they seemed to be in locating the source of that tension in her shoulders.

       And while his body didn't radiate organic warmth in the same way that a human would, Herta was acutely aware of how he stood behind her, how those bulbs that functioned as eyes were boring into her as he worked. How she idly wondered exactly how he proposed to 'reach her stiffness better'...

       Well, she was thoroughly distracted now!

       She made a greater attempt to stifle the next groan threatening to escape her, hissing through her teeth. “ I hope... you're pleased with yourself. ” He knew exactly what he was doing, and both of them knew it. Herta exhaled, lamenting how shaky the sound was. “ If something changes and the IPC... get there first because you didn't notify me, I'm holding you responsible, Screwllum. ”

       The implication in her words were clear however: these newfound, underhanded tactics had yielded a 100% success rate on the first try.

the cosmos might be facing another disaster, but this woman has been BUSY

His arms were far from a stranger in becoming the foundation will can steady her. It was impulsive, but the nodes of her mood, that tremor that ripples akin to concern more than anything else just snagged his attention. Herta will always find this warmth wholly prepared if the moment ever felt fitting, conversations themselves don't need to be a mere 'ice breaker' onto the matter at hand. At times, the emotions themselves are enough to lead him into action. That current of protectiveness always had this touch of finality to it, as if he truly was always carving these moments of keeping her in his arms into the finest memory, regardless of the circumstance. "Let's slow it down for a good moment." Despite the strength of his words, it never tilted beyond the realm of suggestion. A warm, gentle intensity lingers within his gaze as he proceeds to take an appropriate look at her.

We'll always make a moment.

"You've been looking a little frantic. Has somethin' troublesome sprung up?" (Caelus to Herta!)

       Would it ever stop surprising her that he sometimes knew her feelings before she did? Gifting him that mirror fragment enabled her to resonate with his emotions, to communicate with him without the spoken word and across great distances — but, in obtaining those things, she had to grant the same permissions to him in return. He knew when she was deep in concentration, on the verge of a breakthrough. He knew when she was annoyed or irritated by something. And he knew when this stubborn, persistent thread of anxiety was permeating her mood.

       That was why Caelus didn't say a word as he crossed the room towards her ( she hadn't even been expecting him at the Clocktower today ) and simply pulled her into an embrace.

       To say the gesture came as a surprise was an understatement.

       Eyes widening, Herta instinctively tensed as his arms wound around her, unsure initially of how to respond — and with a what are you doing? ready and settled on the tip of her tongue. Yet, as she felt the warmth of his body, as she recognised that same warmth and affection and concern radiate within their shared connection... the words died in her throat. She relaxed, slowly returning the gesture, letting her arms wind around him and her head rest against the crook of his shoulder before he drew back.

       A moment. “ It's nothing to worry about. ” And how exactly had that same dismissive attitude served her when he'd visited and subsequently scrutinised her condition post-Irontomb? Not very well. Herta exhaled slowly. “ Some bad dreams. It's likely a lingering side-effect of communing with Nous. I connected my brain to THEM and saw into THEIR thoughts. Even for a genius, that's an overload of information that my brain is only now able to parse for itself. ”

       Under the weight of those golden irises, Herta felt compelled to continue. “ Droidhead is constantly calculating the future, and anchoring THEIR preferred chain of events using THEIR Instants. What I can't tell... is whether the images being generated in my subconscious are accurate to those future events, and whether Nous chose to reveal them to me for a reason. ”

       It still didn't sit entirely easy with Herta to recognise that Zandar was right, that no matter hers or the Trailblaze's efforts in altering Nous' Instant, they were still beholden to the calculations of an aeon nonetheless. But she was not about to embark down the Path of Destruction to change things like her senior had. “ The last thing I want is to chase any of these prophetic images like Destiny's Slave or any of the Stellaron Hunters following his script. But I can't easily get them out of my head, either. ” That was the dilemma. And, even just to voice it to her most trusted confidante like this did lift a weight from her shoulders.