Hi all, Llithium here. This is a sequel to my old Moonstone blog. A proper one. The original is not required reading, but this will follow the same askblog format.
Post episode 91 of Jaffa Factory 2, Lalna- the 'original' Lalna- is left behind in a past version of their world. Abandoned, the world starts falling apart around him. Can he find a way out before it corrupts completely.
As with Moonstone, asks are the driving force. There is a rough plot, but most events will be determined by You!
Content warnings for death, unreality, potential gore, and semi-accurate depictions of grief.
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~ I won’t like, uh, make fun of you or anything. Not that I would- I won’t judge.
= What was he like?
~ Who?
= Rythian. The- The other me.
~ Oh.
= You don’t have to answer.
~ No, no, just let me think a bit. I- I got a bit wiped, too.
~ He was… Passionate. I-I think that's the best, like, single word for it.
He glances at Rythian’s face, judging the response.
~ Was always so determined and, sometimes to a bad extent, single minded about stuff.
Rythian nods. Lalna wishes he spoke more.
~ He was a lot more, uh, chill, when we first met. Bit messed up, new to the world. Not far off from you now, really.
~ You really remember nothing?
= Very little. Bits and pieces, little images. Nothing concrete.
~ Do they even have concrete here?
Rythian snorts.
= You know, I’m not sure.
He pauses for a moment.
= So, he wasn’t all nervous like me?
~ Oh!
Lalna’s turn to laugh suddenly,
~ Gods, he was worse! Kept it all hidden, obviously, but he was a wreck. We- We fought a lot, for a while. He was scary, a bit unstable, uh- But I know he had a reason.
= The Queen, right?
~ Yeah.
Rythian pulls at some loose fibres on his cloak.
= Was he… bad?
~ No.
= Not even-
Lalna bumps their shoulders together, huffing.
~ No. He had- God, he had so much going on. And with what you filled me in on, even more than I knew about! No wonder he had such a stick up his arse.
= A what?
~ He did some bad stuff, probably, but it was all in this big, grand world-saving effort. I think you should cut yourself some slack, mate.
= Thanks.
= Really. I- I have all these questions I couldn’t get answers to, and- and now you’re here.
~ Worth the rescue?
= Oh, a thousand times over.
~ Aww. You’ve gone all soft.
~ I don’t want you to think that I’ll know everything, though. I’m probably not that helpful in the uh, big plan.
= Despite what Kirsty says, I think you’re plenty helpful.
~ Woooow. I’ll tell her you said that.
= Only because you’re scared of her.
~ She reminds me a lot of you, honestly. You wanna know what you were like? A soldier running away from, I dunno, death or whatever. Right in front of you, buddy.
~ I missed you.
= Sorry.
Lalna leans over, wrapping his arm around Rythian’s shoulder.
~ Not your fault. Yours, I mean. I blame that prick Rythian.
= And what about you? How're you handling all this?
~ I blame that prick Lalna, too.
It's not that Kirsty was cold. Lalna knows cold. The world-ending blizzard clung to him through the world change, forcing him to bundle up despite this new world's gentle spring.
She has been avoiding him, though, and stares at him with, assumedly, intention to kill.
Lalna ignores this for a few days. He's an outsider, and he knows they spent good resources on bringing him here. She's right to feel a bit hesitant, he thinks.
But eventually it starts to gnaw.
Lalna finds himself having free time, and no Briony to drag him towards one of her many projects. He takes his opportunity and wanders over to Kirsty's treehouse.
Her wolves eye him as he passes, sniffing the air.
It's a fairly small room, at least compared to Rythian's grand library and Briony's adjoining cottage, but it's packed to the ceiling with barrels and crates full of all sorts. Weapons, old potion bottles, trinkets and jewelry.
Kirsty is sat at a white-wood desk, writing in a journal. Her lupine ears perk up as he approaches, and she sets down the pen.
"Hey, um-"
"What do you want?"
Lalna shuffles his feet. "To talk to you? I feel like we haven't had a chance."
She stares at him.
"At least, uh, one to one?"
"About what, then?"
"I don't know! You not talking to me?" He takes a step forward and Kirsty tenses, "I don't care if you don't like me or something, but I wanna know what I did wrong."
"You showed up."
Lalna freezes. "I- What?"
"You showed up. There's the answer."
"And why is that a bad thing?"
"Because your world ended, right? And so did Rythian's," she says, calmly, "So tell me why I should feel safe with both of you here?"
Lalna gestures towards himself, and has to stop himself from shouting. "I didn't end it myself!"
He chooses not to mention the few he did, in fact, end himself.
"It doesn't feel safe," Kirsty turns away from him, "Just- Just give me a while, okay? I helped you get out, I'm not your enemy or anything."
"Some space, then?" Lalna accepts, flinching when one of her wolves brushes against his leg, "Can I ask one question, though?"
She thinks for a moment. "Sure."
"Are you a werewolf?"
"Get out," Kirsty snaps, though there's a tiny hint of a smirk to it.
It usually takes a while, in strange situations like these, for someone to start feeling normal again.
Lalna, now a week or so since ejecting himself from the dying world, has started to feel slightly normal. This is mostly in part to his newest friend, Briony.
The soot-stained rabbit dragged him away from Rythian's tower the moment he could reliably walk. She has a shed built into the hill, supported by thick wooden girders, and once Lalna enters he immediately feels at home.
Tools line the worktops, and a furnace sits in the corner. Briony turns to him, grinning, and gestures at her newest project. It's a rotational mechanism, that she hopes to upscale to rotate train tracks.
"Rythian said you were into tech?"
Lalna beams, manually rotating the gears, "This is beautiful."
"It's not that special!"
The gears fit together seamlessly, almost silently, and the circle of rotation is flawless. Lalna stares at her, blankly, and shakes his head.
"It's beautiful."
Immediate bond established, Rythian finds himself having to collect their new housemate most nights, lest Lalna attempt to fall asleep against one of Briony's more experimental machines.
Lalna finds the tech here fascinating. It's similar, built from the same materials as he remembers, but there is a distinct lack of redstone.
"We use gemstones," Briony explains, accepting the screwdriver Lalna hands her, "Different stones have different types of output, depending on their makeup and colour. For example,"
She holds up a small, orange stone. It's uncut, raw edged and dull, and she places it into the circuitry like a battery. A small red light turns on, and when she flicks the adjoining switch it turns off, and the dull stone starts to glow slightly.
"This provides only a little bit of energy, but since it's magic, they recharge from the natural magics around us! Very handy for something that'll be buried under like, four more layers of metal."
Lalna nods, enraptured.
"We found it quite funny, actually, that your name is Pyrite."
"Well, it's not-"
"I know that now!" She pokes his shoulder, "But before, y'know? We use pyrite here for torches. They're reflective, and when charged with magic you can make a little echo chamber of light. They're guide-stones."
Lalna tilts his head, squinting his eye at her. "And how's that funny?"
"Well look at you! Bright sunny boy! Just like Rythian!"
"The system called him 'Amber'. Which I assume is because he's old, and probably full of bugs."
Lalna wakes up to a low, quiet humming, and the chittering of birds. There's a soft breeze and, currently, a hand carding through his hair.
His head aches, a throbbing noise that pushes against the back of his eyes. He scrunches them further shut, though it does little but just increase the noise. He whines, and tries to press at his forehead with his hand.
Something stops him.
Lalna opens his eye, blinking away sleep and fighting the thrum of pain that makes him want to curl into a ball.
Above him, leaning against the headboard of a grand bed, is Rythian. His eyes are just as wide as Lalna's, and gold like the sun.
"Hey." Rythian says, voice hushed and almost sickeningly gentle, "You with us properly, now?"
Lalna's voice catches in his throat, so he nods, and just watches him for a moment. Rythian starts talking, something about injuries and how he's only a little sorry, but Lalna is far too focused on the real, actual human being leaning over him.
The way his hair moves, long blond strands that hang past his face and cascade down his back. The way his ears twitch in annoyance. How his mouth curls into a grin, pulling at now-ancient scars.
"Is the blond too much for you?"
"What?"
Rythian laughs, leaning backwards to swing himself off of the bed. "I'm gonna get you some water and stuff, uh- Don't move."
Lalna tries, always the contrarian, but he hurts too much to make a real statement. Rythian sighs, softly, almost fondly, and excuses himself from the room.
It's a large room. Decadent, too. Books line the walls, set into dark wooden shelves and cupboards. A desk sits opposite the bed, with a sturdy and beautifully patterned chair sitting diagonal to it.
He assumes it's Rythian's room. It's overwhelmingly purple. He pulls the covers closer, (also purple), and presses his face into the cool pillowcase.
"I'll have the girls come in later," Rythian mumbles as he walks back in, holding the door with his shoulder. "I don't think you've met, uh, ever? So, it's just me on 'you' duty for now."
He places down a mug, and a glass of water, on the side table, and sits himself down on the bed again.
Lalna startles, and he props himself up to look at Rythian, "The ribbits! Are they okay?"
"The frogs?" His face turns very soft, "They're just fine. My uh- My dragon has adopted them, I think."
Lalna chooses to process the 'dragon' later. "Okay. Okay, awesome."
"Your bag is over there, too. We couldn't recover your rocket-"
"Fuck the rocket."
Rythian laughs, and helps him sit up. "Drink some water, Lalna."
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The ribbits have gone still in his arms. They're fine, of course, just sleeping through the cold.
Lalna can't move. He stopped shivering a while ago.
Memories of a meteor flash through his mind. And a prison. Does he keep ending up like this?
"Just keep doing this, huh?" He asks, to no-one in particular. He hopes they can still hear him. "What- What was even my goal, here?"
His chest hurts.
"Fuck's sake!" He knocks his head against the chair, "I can't- I'm sorry, okay! I was gonna kill you! I didn't even question it. They said 'jump' and I said 'how high' like a fuckin' idiot."
"Pyrite? Hah. Of course."
"I regret it, okay, if that means anything. Doesn't matter, though. We're just- We're nothing to them. It's just a game."
His eyes can't stay open. The next breath doesn't fog against the glass.
Just as his vision fades, there is a bright, scorching light. And then.
<The hum of the border pitches into a deafening roar. An Overseer launches close enough to latch its claws into the rocket.>
<The explosion scorches it away. It scrambles around on the launch pad, claws loudly pounding at the metal. He can hear it over the engine.>
<Lalna leans back into the chair, curling the ribbits towards him.>
<The cabin shakes violently.>
The rocket breaches into the lower atmosphere with a final, horrid rattle. It's beautiful. No matter how many times he sees this, no matter the world, Lalna could never tire of the view.
The planet stretches out ahead of him, illuminated by a sickly, neon blue. Beneath it, blanketing the sphere, is an expanse of pale, endless white snow.
<The door slides into place with a pressured hiss. It's a slow motion, torturously so, and all Lalna can do is watch through the window as the bluelight of the border charges towards him.>
<The Overseers cling to the border, statically charged to whatever code it emits.>
<Lalna was trained to be a pilot, a long time ago, and despite the urgency of the situation he still dutifully straps himself into the chair. The Ribbits settle on his lap.>
<He busies himself with the controls, glancing up at the window between inputs.>
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time to get the fuck outta there cutie!! lets go hop to!!
<Lalna watches with a quiet resignation as the first Overseer claws its way over the mountains. It's not a long moment, as he very quickly turns tail and runs for the launchpad. He grabs a rucksack on the way, sliding it across the foundation.>
<The Ribbits stare at him with their big, darling eyes. He tries to return the smile.>
~ We gotta go. Now.
<Legs salutes and climbs the small ladder into the rocket's cabin. Lalna scoops up the shorter ribbit and places them next to their sister.>
<The backpack is slotted under the seat.>
<He takes one final, unobstructed look across the valley.>
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