Swirl’s Odd Blog

Namely, a theory about Mollymauk and the nature of his death/reincarnation?

I SWEAR I read it somewehre online, and please don’t let it be some dream I had after one of my binge sessions or else I’ll be thoroughly disappointed cause it was good.

It was something along the lines of the ritual that was used was supposed to reincarnate Lucien as a more powerful version, kinda like what that Drow said when they found him in the sewers of Zedash after the collapse of one of the trispire peaks? The Drow mentioned that the dodecahedron reincarnated his people so they came back as more powerful? And for some reason I remember reading some theory about how Lucien was supposed to go through that same process, but something went wrong and a different soul entered his body that night? So Molly and Lucien ARE two different souls, one of whom was supposed to be in the body, but after a messed up ritual, ended up giving it (not intentionally) to Molly’s eventual soul instead.

This would give potential for the body to come back to life again, though there’s no telling who will take the body next.

AND, and...  the imagery of a greyscale scene of hundreds of ghostly souls floating towards a grey tower with a shining beacon is in my head but idk where it’s from. Like idk if it’s from reddit or tumblr, or from some more official website, but I keep thinking about that and I can’t stop thinking about that every time I think of Molly.

If you know what I’m talking about, please help me out and reply with the link if you have it. It’s starting to bug me because I think I’ve seen it around, but at this point idk if it was some sort of dream or not...

And they were in Toronto. Of course. At least it wasn’t downtown…

The clean white snow from the skies was now that dark brown slush that reminded the JTF 2 ops of why they hated coming to this city no matter how many times they did it. Beside them, Jackal and Mira were bundled up, almost looking more like overdressed little kids whose parents were too worried about the upcoming chill to bother about comfort.

Blitz, Jäger, Valkyrie, and Hibana were slightly more reasonable in how they were dressed. They had thick coats and hats, mitts... things that were missing from the Canadians.

“How are you not cold?” Jäger muttered, pulling his jacket tighter around him.

The two Canadians had rosy cheeks which, and despite what seemed probable, were not from the cold. They were rubbing their thin gloves together, but otherwise seemed unfazed by the weather. Snow clung to their fleece sweaters, no coats in sight, but then become problems as it melted and dripped onto the floor.

“The endless pit of fire that fuels my anger,” Frost muttered, shooting an uncharacteristically light glare at Buck’s direction. “But we got into a little spat – nothing serious,” she reassured them, seeing how Pulse stopped buttoning up his jacket to edge towards them slightly. “Just about who’s better at snowball fights.”

“Frost says that she has never lost a snowball fight, and now I want to prove her wrong,” Buck offered, searching in his bag for a thicker pair of mittens. “Either way, we all know that just a one on one fight doesn’t mean much. Come outside and have a snowball fight with us!”

Jackal and Mira both looked at each other and Jackal shook his head. “I don’t really feel like it…”

“That’s because you know that you’ll lose…” Frost bit back, high-fiving Valkyrie as the two women joined together. Buck was still smiling at Jackal in an attempt to get him on his side.

“Come onnn,” Buck reached over and tugged on Jackal’s sleeves. “Don’t make me lose a team member here! We can have a four on four!”

Jackal looked over at Mira who had already joined Frost’s team, along with Jäger. A perfect defenders versus attackers scenario, and if it were almost any other activity, he’d be sure to say yes. Tossing snow at each other and just being in the cold? No, thank you.

And yet Buck’s easy-going smile, not knowing what it was doing to Jackal’s heart, was crumbling his resolve. “Very well. I’ll expect compensation for how miserable I’ll be.”

“Won’t need to pay if you have a good time then, ouais?” Jackal shook his head but followed nonetheless.

They went to Rouge River, a park not far from where they were staying, and set up their rules. The trees, rocks and other natural landscape parts were fair game. And since they were not children anymore, even full on bodily tackles were allowed.

“Your out after getting hit three times with a snowball or if you get tackled to the ground!” Frost called out, about fifty metres away and with her team.

Buck was just as confident, especially seeing how Mira, easily the shortest one on this mission, was already thigh-high in snow. “Whatever you say!”

And with that, it was on.

Growing up in a place where winter was quite often and long, Buck knew what kind of snow this was. This wasn’t the fluffy snow that made nice snow men and snow angels. This was the kind where if you packed and rubbed enough, would feel more like ice. Frost certainly would know this… the others… maybe.

Buck started smoothing one ball in his hands, feeling as the snow started smoothing over into a harder surface. As he looked out from behind the tree he was taking cover behind, he heard a frustrated yell from Valkyrie as she was probably getting pelted by a particularly large snowball from Blitz. Still on his side, Hibana was having trouble running in the tall heaps of snow that were not yet trampled by hikers and other outdoors people, and chuckled as she gingerly hopped from one foot to the other, taking a nasty looking hit from Frost on her way to cover.

Frost of course, was seemingly walking from cover to cover without slowing down too much, and dodging the lopsided, loosely packed snowballs from Jackal. Buck threw his own at her but missed just barely, hitting a large tree hard enough for the remnants of the ball to stick to the bark.

“Try again!” She taunted, and half a second later, a snowball, just as well made as his came at Buck’s face. He ducked out of the way and saw Jackal gingerly packing together a snowball that would probably fall apart before it even met its target.

“Jackal!” The taller man looked at him, and Buck felt a little relieved to see the pure adrenaline in his eyes. At least he looked like he was enjoying this activity more now than when they first suggested it, and that, more than anything, made his heart beat just a little faster. “Catch!” And Buck started furiously making snowballs and passing them to Jackal who was rapid-fire throwing them at the others. Mira was already sitting on a taller rock, snow covering her entire left side, and looking a little pissed she was taken out so quickly. Blitz was just then waddling up to her as he was sporting a neat row of snow balls over his chest.

“Faster, Buck!” Jackal hissed. “I’ve got Jäger pinned! I just need one more—”

And just as he reached out for the one Buck was offering, Valkyrie managed to come out from behind one of the larger trees near them, and with one arm stacked high with snowballs, started tossing them at the pair. Buck felt a solid impact on his chest, and saw two of them hit Jackal as the two men fled form their area. Hibana got one in on Valkyrie before getting tackled by Frost, seemingly coming out of nowhere.

“LET’S GO!” Frost yelled at the remaining members of their team, chasing Buck and Jackal further into the forest.

“Buck,” Jackal hissed. “Follow me!” and led him off the path.

Forgetting that Jackal wasn’t used to snowy scenes, forgetting that Jackal knew this area even less than Buck, and forgetting that despite his height, Jackal was not someone used to even walking in this terrain, Buck followed him down a shallow cliff, rolling and hearing the branches crack under his weight as he rolled over and over again to the bottom.

“Fuck, you ok?” All the soreness and the feeling of a few light scratches faded when he saw Jackal lying on his back. But as Buck basically crawled over, heart beating hard until he realized that the man was actually smiling, eyes closed, and still breathing hard.

“That…” Jackal’s snow-covered glove flopped over his face, and immediately got withdrawn as he realized that it was still cold. And definitely still wet. “Was exhilarating yes, but I don’t want to continue.”

Buck let out a breathy laugh as he heard Frost shout from above them both.

“What happened? Are you two ok?” Buck looked up above them to see Frost’s face looking back down at them.

“We’re fine! Just a fall.” Buck shouted back. “Don’t come down, be up there to help lift us out!”

“Alright!” Huh. Buck waited for the line he was sure he would hear. “I think this means I won! You kinda tackled each other there in friendly fire!” Aaand there it was.

“Nuh-uh! Just wait till I get out, we’ll have a talk!”

He tried to lift himself up to his hands and knees at least, but an arm snaked up and around to his back, and he looked down at Jackal, still smiling, though looking just a little worn out.

“Just wait… here,” he murmured, voice a little soft as both pulled Buck down and lifted himself up a little to give the other man a quick peck on the lips. “There. That’s compensation for my misery now.”

Buck couldn’t help the small smile on his lips as Jackal all but collapsed back on his back. With a sly smile, he asked him, “Does this mean—”