#ls.rtf

"To Hermitcraft, silly bird. We've still got charged creepers to curtail and pranks to be had."

Grian blinked. Once, then twice, Scar's words both completely natural and entirely foreign to him. Hermitcraft... Yes, he'd gone there to escape, once. To pretend to be something he wasn't. He froze, not quite like the chill and more like sandstone, before very slowly turning to look at his wings. Yes, here he couldn't hide. Here, he couldn't blind anyone to what they could see. He could be a mortal parrot anywhere else, but between worlds, he would always be a Watcher, always be deification incarnate. He turned back to look at Scar, eyes wide, mouth slightly ajar, unsure.

Scar lifted his hands an inch off the ground. The chains held firm, but he shook his wrists, just enough to draw Grian's attention to them. "I tied myself to you," he said, simply. "I'm mortal. You're not. You never were. I didn't know at first, but I figured it out, right? I didn't pull you down from the heavens, you did that yourself. But I held you there, and now you're holding me here. We can go together, now. No more tug-o'-war. No more war."

If one thing could be said, it was that he had no idea how fast he could move when untethered to a mortal form. But he found himself abruptly sitting in Scar's lap, his fingertips at his lover's wrists. The chains vanished the moment he touched them, and Scar's hands grasped his own, tight with reassurance. He could feel the kiss through his shirt at his shoulder, and leaned back. Scar rose to his feet, lifting Grian into his arms as he did. He turned towards the faint light in the distance, and started to walk.

"C'mon," he whispered, voice low and soft and deep. Grian closed his eyes, leaning against him. He could listen to that voice forever. "Let's go back to our happy ending, together."

.

When he’d woken in a world washed with pine and peat and mossy stone, memories returning slow like water falling from dripstone or from his eyes, he’d curled into the fetal position and screamed until his voice was hoarse. When his voice had given out and he couldn’t scream any more, he resolved to get up and at least try to make himself a shelter for the night. It hadn’t been the first time he’d woken up in a new world with nothing but the memories of older, ravaged worlds that he’d had his hands face-deep in bloodshed over.

But when he’d closed his eyes to focus, to see if anyone else was currently within this new world, he’d found himself wholly and completely alone. And when he had bit his tongue until it drew blood, calling something a little bit beyond the world, two things had made themselves apparent:

One, this was the same world he’d fought two death games in, its terrain reset and buried until it was something new. If he dug deep enough, past the bedrock and past the void, he’d find the bones of his friends and his own semi-mortal skeleton paralyzed in the ground. And two, the steady ticking of a clock, tick-tock, tick-tock. A chill had run down his spine, and he had learned two more rules to this world. At least it was inner knowledge, called from magic and deification, and that made it significantly more trustworthy. The third rule was that he only had one life. If he died, the world would fall with him into the darkness.

The fourth, and the most important, was that he had a total one hundred hours in this world: no more than that. Likely not less.

He’d spent the first week building himself a house with some gardens and villagers – whose language even now, after hundreds of worlds, he still couldn’t speak worth his shovel – and resolving to spend his hundred hours in this world remembering what it was like to be alone, and to let the bloodlust soothe itself, and all the reasons why he’d stolen a mortal corpse and made it his own in the first place. It wasn’t just running from the Watchers.

Okay, maybe it was a little bit running from the Watchers. But that hadn’t been the only reason he’d tied himself to a mortal body, and that was good, because in order to be here, he must have failed at that so severely that this must have been his punishment. Not quite a hell tailored specifically for him, they wouldn't have reset the terrain if they were trying to tailor it for him. Maybe more a purgatory.

The second week brought Joel and Scar, who promptly shot arrows at him and set up TNT traps and made it clear their only jest was the bloodlust and how close they could inch to death without managing it. Scar had built his home hanging from a great tree off the side of a gorge, half a mile above a river he didn’t even have clearance for.

He loved them too much for it to be a hell. He loved them far, far too much, and knowing there to be no danger but their own stupidity, he’d allowed himself to relax, and kiss Scar when the nights were quiet, and joust ghasts with Joel by his side. It had been a long time, that he could remember, since he had been able to relax, and enjoy being mortal for a little while.

.

“Jimmy, you hit me, you moron!”

“No I didn’t! I didn’t hit you!”

He swung his sword at the nearest vex – as family as the Watchers, really, don’t think about it, don’t think about what you’re doing, just try to survive, just under forty hours in – and jumped, just in time for the evoker’s fangs to slice just below him. Thank the stars he had his wings.

“Oh, oh, there’s so many-“

“Totems!”

He was barely listening, backtracking to the stairs just to catch a few gasps of winded breath. A pair of creepers followed him, tripping on the gap. He dispatched them with a well-timed swing of his sword, bolting towards the nearest room to toss a torch or two into it. Joel, always ready for a fight, ran down the length of the hallway yelling something incomprehensible in the chaos.

“Why’re you going so far in?” he yelled. Joel yelled back an apology before doubling back. Something golden caught his eye and he bolted forward instead- “Totems!” -Joel’s words finally kicking in.

Something smacked him in the arm as he doubled back towards the stairway, vexes chasing them back, multiplying almost as fast as they were dispatching them.

“Oh, I just got hit so hard- something I think was Tim-“ he snarled, half-snappish, voice echoing down the hall.

“I swear, Jimmy, if you’re the thing that kills us-“ Joel halfway answered, swiping at a vex before dodging behind a pillar.

“I’m trying not to!” Jimmy’s words were halfway muffled by mirth and exhaustion. The battles had been almost endless since the second floor. It was nice, to fight with friends without the bloodlust roaring in his wrists. But they dispatched the vexes at last, although he could hear the snarling of one more illager behind the thick wooden walls.

“Right, there’s one more, I think we haven’t actually gotten to the meeting room.” He advanced, shield and sword in hand and caked in gore, scanning the hallway in case of the evoker reappearing. Evokers had vexes, but they also had totems, and that was the whole point of defeating the mansion. Scar needed them, if he was going to make it all one hundred hours.

The pain registered against his back before he felt his legs give out. A second slash, and all he heard was the sound of a window shattering.

.

Joel tensed. Grian looked up from the blueprint spread across Joel’s kitchen table, puzzling his way through repairing the bridge Joel had made through a mountain to make it slightly easier to reach him – or rather, his enchanting table – when it was needed. They'd been home from the mansion for a few days, half a shulker's worth of totems stashed away for Scar upon his return from another world's hospital. The middle of nowhere didn't specialize in heavy-duty antibiotics, and Grian couldn't leave the world without killing it. It was nice, to be at Joel's.

“What’s wrong?”

“Scar’s back,” he said, eyes focused in that way recognizable as a man checking who was currently present on the world. He blinked before smiling at Grian, expression sunny as the desert. Grian’s heart clenched, briefly and painfully stilling before dropping into a fiery race. Scar was back, he’d finished the quest of not dying in another world and he was back, he was home, he was where Grian could find and protect him, where he could protect Grian-

“That’s good,” he managed. “We should go check up on him, then, I’m about ready for a break anyway from the nonsense you call architecture.”

Joel glared at him before bursting into brief laugher, exaggerating an irked pose. “I think I’ll check in with him tomorrow – how about you go see him now? Shouldn’t overwhelm him so suddenly.” Grian tilted his head, studying his building partner for a moment. Joel winked, leaning forward to push Grian by the shoulders in his chair.

He lifted his hands in surrender. The fire in his chest roared to an inferno. “All right, all right. I’ll go see him now, since you’re too much a coward to come with.”

Joel laughed. Grian’s own quickly followed.

.

He wasn’t quite sure why he wasn’t running, why he wasn’t flying and travelling as fast as he could to get to Scar’s home and into his arms where nothing, not even the Watchers, not even the ex Scar had used up half a season’s allotment of magic to curse, could hurt either one of them.

He wasn’t so daft to say that they might have been allowed to win the first death games they’d taken part in if he’d been allowed to spend more time in Scar’s arms. But Joel had never asked after the manner of their relationship, only stepped aside to ensure he wasn’t physically between them in hopes of not ending up sandwiched between them. “This is what you get for being straight, Joel,” he’d remarked once, and his friend had laughed almost hard enough for his wife to hear all the way in the Ocean Empire, several worlds down a spatial highway and a few hours by fiber-optic train.

Scar had been building a rollercoaster here, modeled after that very train, and it wasn’t quite done yet, and he wasn’t taking it, he wasn’t allowing himself the simple joy of experiencing Scar’s handiwork as he meant it to be experienced. No, he was walking at an almost leisurely pace, flight feathers drifting across the mossy ground and pausing every few moments to investigate a flower or particularly interesting bush. Every part of him, every instinct from human to bird to Watcher all said the same; to run for his lover and sit on him until he understood that leaving was a terrible idea and returning was the greatest since the only time he'd donned a veil and cloak as a mortal man.

He could feel Scar’s magic course through his collarbone, the magic he’d been gifted with that secret kiss. Even now, lightyears and years away from that world, he could feel that magic. It pulsed like a heartbeat, it always had, strengthening with physical proximity to his lover. Every instinct in his body told him to run for the one person he’d trusted enough to openly show mortal wounds to… every instinct except for one.

Joel and Jimmy had helped him out of the mansion after he’d kissed his own corpse’s forehead and brought it back to life, healing over the wounds before stepping back into it. Neither of them had seen the eyes scattered across his wings, the halo, the blindfold he’d needed to avoid ripping the world apart with his gaze. They only saw him sit back up after they’d dispatched the final room of illagers. Joel, unsure if he could stand, had scooped him up and carried him out, allowing the torches to set the whole damn thing ablaze in their wake.

The inferno engulfing the mansion wasn’t so quick or so powerful as the greatest spells he'd ever seen, but it had still felt like he could taste the smoke of that world’s ashes in the back of his throat as the trio watched it burn, standing knee-deep in the river, safe from the flames. Jimmy had jumped into the first boat he’d pulled from his inventory and fled, understanding from the past two worlds at this address that standing beside two murderers watching the flames of a supposed villain’s home was not a smart idea.

He knew why he wasn’t rushing. He only had one life, after all, but he’d broken the rules.

Thirteen hours hummed behind his eyelids, eighty-six and some minutes left to go. There were consequences for turning back time. There were consequences for bringing deification into a world he’d chosen to be mortal within.

The world had been soaked in blood, and he’d thrown himself down from his throne to the remains of the desert to stay with those he loved.

The moon had crashed into the world, and he'd fled from the world in the arms of his friends to stay with those he loved.

He’d held to Scar’s chest, letting his cloak hide them both as Scott burned bright as a curse of consequences for daring to choose something other than bloodlust, and he’d stayed to witness the remains with those he loved.

The world had burned and seared its way to glass, and he'd held fast to his lover with twin black veils to their chin to stay with the one he loved.

He kept walking, slow and steady, stopping to consider the flowers on his way. He would be at Scar’s soon, and if he’d learned anything from mortality, it was that they didn’t need to all be priests in order to tease the secrets of deities out from the code that made them. Sometimes, all they needed to be was sorcerers.

.

Scar wasn’t waiting for him at the door of his house when he stepped onto the entryway bridge, but the front door was ajar and a dog slept just inside. It didn’t raise its head as he walked across the bridge, creaking the floorboards all the way. He wanted Scar to hear him coming. Willing his own invisibility was fine and good, if he wanted to pay the price of startling his lover out a window and down to the churning river below. He stopped in the doorframe, not quite over the threshold, hesitating a moment. Scar’s magic slipped its way through his veins, pulsing like a heartbeat, like the heartbeat of the man it had originally belonged to.

He breathed in the scent of sweet, clean forest air and burning pine, the smoke drifting out an open window from the running furnace pushed to one side. He closed his eyes, breathing in the taste of the woodstove, breathing in the scent of Scar’s magic. It wasn’t that his magical signature matched the gorge, but he’d built everything here but the natural landscape, and that scent was as baked into the walls as the sawdust from cutting up the planks.

There would never be a world, he didn’t think, where the scent of something burning didn’t translate to safety. He inhaled one more, one last breath of Scar’s magic and burning pine, before lifting his chin to call out. “Scar? You home?”

“Upstairs!” came the reply of a cheery-sounding, baritone voice, and he smiled with half a chuckle, reaching for the ladder. The tuxedo cat at the foot of the furnace flicked its tail, but did not lift its muzzle to mark his passage. That was almost all right: every animal save Jellie and the birds ran from him, given half a chance. They knew something was wrong, and could never put their paws on it.

He climbed the ladder with quick jumps, wings folded tight against his back until he landed on the third floor, turning to face Scar’s bedroom. Scar himself was sitting up in his bed, propped up by pillows and his redstone socks that allowed him to walk discarded beside his nightstand. He didn’t look well, as far as Scar usually looked, wearing nothing but pajama pants and a wizard’s hat, his lithe figure decorated only with a scattering of his namesake and heavy-duty bandages wrapping around his abdomen.

His chest was still sculpted by a master of the craft, crossed with a few patches of dark hair, his left breast splatter-dyed a paler shade of tanned oak across the heart. His arms were equally sculpted, equally marked with old wounds and old stories. His hips weren’t clearly visible between his sleepwear and his bandages, and they didn’t need to be for Grian to remember what they looked like. His legs rested atop the blankets, one propped up with a spare pillow. And his face… His hair was long enough he’d brushed it back into a small ponytail; not quite long enough for all of it to fit, enough that half his hair still stuck up in various angles around his forehead. He hadn’t shaved once in the week he had been away from Grian’s side, but there was a smile on his lips and his cheekbones were dark with exhaustion and illness.

He looked like he’d been thrown quite some distance into a tree by a ravager. Grian didn’t inhale, staring at him with wide eyes, taking in his form. Whenever Scar left his side, the full memory of his beauty went with him. When he returned, it always took a moment for Grian to remember how to breathe.

Scar smiled up at him, allowed him a moment to gather his composure as his own green eyes scanned Grian’s form. He let out a low whistle before beckoning him forward towards the bed. Towards him.

“Do you intend on just standing there, or do you want to be warm?” Scar asked, and the question was wholly rhetorical. Grian didn’t realize he was moving until he was already pouncing over the baseboard of Scar’s bed and into his arms. His face landed in his lover’s chest, wings settling to either side of them as he pressed a kiss to his sternum. Scar let out a soft hum of appreciation, pulling him closer with what arm strength he seemingly had. Grian shifted his position in response, settling himself between his legs and closing his eyes. Scar’s hand ran through his hair, stroking out any knots that might have formed since he’d last brushed it out.

“Mm, I missed you,” Grian murmured. “Feeling better?”

He felt the brief warm wetness of Scar’s lips against his forehead, spreading that warmth slowly but easily through the rest of him, like a wave of the sea sliding down his spine all the way to his toes. “Less like roadkill, that’s for sure,” came Scar’s reply, low and sweet as sugarcane. “Were you having fun here, my little bird?”

Grian laughed, and if it was halfway a desperation, something broken, he tried not to let it show. “Oh, you have no idea,” he answered.

He’d staggered home from Joel’s cottage alone, insisting that he could handle himself. When he was able to pull out of his armour and sweater, it was to find fracture-like wounds crossing his shoulders and biceps that hadn’t been there before, weeping a glowing green substance that seemed to instantly evaporate upon being touched by anything that wasn’t his skin. The green wouldn’t stain his clothes. He could hide it. It glowed as if his life itself was leaking out of him, slipping drop by drop out of his skin. The wound in his back where the illager had driven their axe into his back glowed a green so bright it was almost white. It didn’t hurt. It just glowed, and wept green, and reminded him every time he wanted to be less than fully dressed what it cost to call himself mortal when he wasn’t.

One hundred hours. He didn't want to know what happened when he touched sixty, let alone the full hundred.

When Scar shifted his weight to sit up, Grian sat up as well, smiling up at his lover’s tired, handsome face. Scar reached up with one hand to cup his cheek, and he closed his eyes briefly to enjoy the simple bliss of his touch, pressing a kiss to his palm. Scar’s magic pulsed in his collarbone, warm like fire and sparking with affection. Scar’s collarbone would feel similar, Grian’s own magic constantly humming adoration and obsession and approval as it extended his natural lifespan and accelerated the regeneration of his magic. They were better together. Even when that magical connection had been bled red and corrupted into a madman’s curse, they were better together. Even when the world had seared to glass in the wake of a wedding and Grian's magic was the only thing keeping Scar from death, they were better together.

Scar’s hand drifted from his cheek down to his chest and his side, coming to rest on his hip for a moment. “Come on,” he murmured. “Shirt off, and you can tell me all about your adventures.”

Grian looked up at him, scanning the multiple old wounds across his face before dipping his head, reaching first down to undo the buttons of the wing sleeves and then up to tug his sweater off, discarding it onto a nearby chair at Scar’s drawing desk. Under his sweater was a white tee, made of heavy enough linen that the glow of his resurrection wounds didn’t betray him so quickly.

But Scar pulled him closer, and he went, burying his face in his lover’s hair as he felt him tug the collar of his undershirt aside and press a kiss to the soft part of his neck. He exhaled deeply, sighing as he felt Scar lightly sink his teeth into his skin. Some things from the desert remained, and he was glad they were Scar's preference of privacy and his territorial love, not the curse that had driven them to so much unnecessary violence. The mark tingled as Scar tilted his head, marching kisses up the side of his neck. Grian tilted his head away, allowing him as much room as he needed to continue the gesture, cheeks flushing slightly when Scar’s hand drifted casually from just behind his hip to a little lower.

He shifted his arms around Scar’s shoulders, settling comfortably in his embrace. They normally slept together in a curled up heap, close enough for warmth and to share a single bed when resources were scarce. Spooning was reserved for the warm fields and forests of Hermitcraft, when there was no need to be so protective of each other that Scar wasn’t allowed to circulate blood through both arms. But here in the treetops, here where they were together and nothing could come near them enough to hurt them, he settled on top of his lover’s chest, halfway surrounded by a nest’s worth of pillows and blankets and his wings casually spread enough to take up most of the bed.

Scar pressed a kiss to his jawline and drew back, inhaling sharply in surprise. Grian opened his eyes, about to say something. “Grian, what the hell,” Scar hissed, tone low and suddenly on edge. He lifted his head so he could look up at him, feathers only slightly ruffled.

Scar’s lips weren’t quite dyed the same green as his eyes, but glowing green blood dripped from them all the same, evaporating instead of staining the scruff on his chin. Grian blinked, before shrugging. “We were trying to raid a woodland mansion, so we could get you some totems. I was jumped on the last room and kind of exploded.”

Scar licked his lips, eyebrows furrowed with his shock and concern. “This is a hardcore world,” he said, slowly, before glancing to the exposed skin of Grian’s shoulder and what was likely at least two fractures through his skin, emitting light that might have been almost blinding, at such close proximity. “What did you…” He paused. “Stupid question. You did Grian things and that’s why I collapsed on the packet-train.”

He seemed to have lost his words for the moment. Grian opened his mouth to reply, only for Scar to press a finger to his lips. “You need to be more careful, my little bird,” Scar murmured. “Dying in really stupid ways is my duty to the worlds, not yours. This many old wounds will start to ache after a few years, you know.”

Grian didn’t shift his position, but leaned back down, resting his chin on Scar’s shoulder. “One day you’ll tell me what you did to earn those wounds,” he whispered in return, voice only barely loud enough for his lover to hear. It had never really made sense, much as he wished it to: every wound Scar had ever sustained in any of the worlds they’d shared had disappeared when he left it, permanently tied to the data that made up their various realities. The ones he kept – the claw marks across one cheek, the gash across his nose, the obviously-healed-wrong nose itself, the slit in his eyebrow, the splatter-wound atop his heart, the straight gash across the centre of his throat, the ripped-apart seam down his spine, and various others – had been there when they’d met, and had never quite faded. They couldn’t have been from elytra accidents or creepers or ravagers or death games. They were too old to remember how to be forgotten. “I’m okay with us matching, in this world.”

Scar’s laugh was brief, and brilliant, and underscored with something bitter underneath his mirth. “You told me you were a god once, trusting I’d never believe you, when you showed me what happened for you to seek it out in the first place. I’d tell you where I came from, but you’d have to break me out of jail five minutes after we got off the train.”

Grian laughed, and pressed a kiss to his jawline, just underneath his ear. It was only very slightly pointed: not quite out of the realm of human, but enough on the edge that it told of some fae ancestry somewhere in his heritage. It would answer where his magic had originally come from, before Grian had pledged his own to him always, if he wanted to theorize. “You’d make a wonderful criminal, if you weren’t so concerned with looking more trustworthy than you are.”

Scar kissed his cheek in return, shifting his position slightly under him. “Maybe in our next world I’ll show you what I learned before I stumbled onto Hermitcraft,” he answered. “For now… shall we get those wounds of yours cleaned up?”

“Maybe,” Grian replied. “They don’t stain, they’re just a mark of magic, I think. My back’s a whole lot worse, I actually got hit there, ha…” He trailed off, just in time for Scar to sit up a little more and force him to do the same.

When he met his lover’s eyes, it was to find them green as copper, as focused and as firm as the metal implied. “Shirt, off, now.” His voice was even and measured, but stubborn: there would be no argument to this. A wave of warmth swept through him and he nodded, pulling off his undershirt without a word of protest. Scar didn’t use that tone with him often, and when he did, it was almost always in his best interests to listen. (It was not, of course, in his best interest to listen when Scar was sure he wasn’t going to get hurt. He always was. That was why Grian had gone to the mansion in the first place, after all. That was why he'd taken him to a world he'd shed his mortality to escape. Only if Scar knew the danger could he have understood what he was up against.)

(He might never have sat down and totaled the sum price of keeping his lover safe, decided whether or not it was worth it to keep paying. He never had to. He only chose and chose again, and never regretted the charges.)

Scar made a hissing noise of sharp disapproval when he saw the extent of Grian’s scars visible from the front, and promptly tugged on his hips to imply he needed to turn around. He acquiesced to this; after all Scar was the one who knew first aid better than anyone else he’d ever known, and for good reason. Scar’s hiss of disapproval turned sharply into a deep inhale, and not a word.

“It doesn’t hurt or restrict my mobility, if that helps,” Grian remarked, voice light and easygoing. He could feel his lover’s disapproval and concern in his collarbone, steady-pulsing, fiery magic suddenly electrified with worry. He never had to ask how his lover was feeling, not unless he wanted to keep their cover, and if none else were around, he would never have to. Joel had figured out they were lovers, but he didn’t know how deep their bond was.

To wed a Watcher is no task for the faint of heart, and such bindings sink deep enough to hit bone and keep sinking. To wed a sorcerer was almost, if not quite, an equally difficult task. The quest to get to their wedding with no witnesses but the Watchers was substantially harder than either one. Such things cost, and cost dearly.

“I would offer to seal the wound, but I think all I could manage would be an illusion to hide it,” Scar said uneasily, almost to himself. “This isn’t your magic, and it’s too thick for mine to penetrate. It isn't… It's not life-threatening. It's a reminder. It'll stay."

Grian turned his head to look back at his lover. "What d'you mean, it'll stay?"

Scar looked up from Grian's back and tapped the claw marks across his cheek with one finger. "Most wounds don't stay with you once you're on the packet-train." His eyes, green as copper, green as a forest, green as Pizza's saddle, hardened. He had come from somewhere, before Grian had all but fallen into Hermitcraft and met him. Xisuma never asked where any of them had come from when they showed up to stay. He'd never had to, and when Scar sliced through joviality to something blunter, harder; it was impossible to not think that he had earned every scrap of every wound across his skin. "Some stay. They fade a bit after a while, but if they change us… they stay."

Scar's palms were significantly lighter than the back of his hands. He didn't have much feeling in them, thus his inability to remember to use gloves. His magic had burned more than just a world. A wave of guilt swept through him. Grian's actions had cost Scar his hands, once, and now he bled green, and Scar couldn't fix it. He looked away again, turning his head to his own hands. "Is it… is it like Scott's crown?"

"Something like that." He felt Scar lean over and slip his arms around his ribs, pressing a kiss to his shoulder blade just above the wing. He leaned back into him, closing his eyes. He hadn't meant for either one of them to get hurt. "I appreciate it, you know." Another kiss, this time to his neck. "I think it'll be nice to match, although matching any more and I might just have to try that water-bucket trick and show you how it feels."

His magic, all fire and copper and lavender, flared in Grian's collarbone. He might not know how his emotions affected his lover, but he knew perfectly well how his lover's emotions affected his own. He sighed, somewhat dramatically. "Well, good thing you're worth the effort."

Scar laughed, and it was bells on the wind, music echoing off the ground of a glassy wasteland. Grian slipped his hands into his lover's, brushing his knuckle across the wedding ring nobody could see unless Scar wanted them to. His own chimed against it.

He'd taken him to a civilized world somehow still standing, once, when the night had been a little too long and the shadows a little too deep for either one of them. A world he'd once gone to the Watchers to escape, and they had made a marionette of him for a while, until he'd snapped their strings and run farther. They'd held to each other's hands as they walked through the streets, Grian pointing out old wounds in the architecture and Scar noting the hidden places where law enforcement wouldn't go.

A man, halfway to a hare, somewhere between their ages had left one of the better-built structures and seen them down the street. He held his hand aloft, as if to say hello. As if to say he recognized them. Grian had stopped dead, frozen where he was. Scar had studied the man for a moment, as he came walking over to them.

"That's him, isn't it?" he'd asked, and his voice had been level, and neutral, and harder than bedrock.

"That's him," Grian had answered, his own as thin and invisible as a single glass pane.

"I thought so. Stay here a moment, will you?" He'd let go of his hand and strode forward, shoulders square, redstone socks holding him upright.

Grian had felt his magic rise before he saw it. But he'd seen Scar's hand, dark as tanned oak on both sides, plunge through the man's chest with no more regard for the flesh in his way than it would for a curtain of jungle vines. He'd seen the splatter of blood stain his lover's face.

He didn't hear what Scar said to the man, as his lips - his pretty lips, the ones best worth kissing - moved. Even now, in his lover's arms with a gash bleeding green light down his spine, he wanted to believe it was a spell's incantation. Even now, he knew that Scar was far too powerful to actually need it. The fire in his lover's chest burst from him. It flared like a shockwave outward. The builds around them turned to smoke upon contact, his clothing the same. He'd shut his eyes and hoped, desperately, that Scar knew what he was doing.

The city around them had gone silent. He'd opened one eye, and then the other, blinking when he saw the black lace veil, long enough to brush his chin. Somehow, the fire had transformed him, had transformed everything against the golden light of the dawn, shimmering against the smoke. He'd squinted through the veil against the shine of the ground, no longer asphalt, no longer a city at all.

Sand melted to glass and dirt melted to obsidian, and that was all that had been left beneath the smoke, an artful array of shimmer and black. Just like the velvet suit he wore, just like the veil. The smoke had cleared with the wind, slow but present, until beyond it he could see his lover, sitting a few feet away, dressed equally in black and red to match.

His hands were soaked in red, oak to cherrywood and when he had turned his torso to smile at him, it was with a dazed expression. The scent of coppery blood had wafted to him, and Grian had found he could run after all.

"Scar!"

He had knelt at his lover's side, sliding half a foot with his momentum until he was kneeling in front of him, reaching for the red that was his hands. Scar, still smiling, held up the bloody mass that some part of his mind registered as a human heart. "Hey, you," he murmured. Grian had stared, before taking the heart out of his hands, placing it aside before reaching for his hands. They had been soaked in blood, and not all of it was that man's, whose name he would never again speak.

"Let me heal you," he'd said, and Scar had nodded and acquiesced, and Grian's magic had flooded between them, briefly penetrating the thick haze of Scar's magic, still burning what was left of the wasteland.

Scar had lifted pale palms from Grian's touch a moment later, had picked up the heart, and held it out again to him. "Will you marry me?"

Grian had stared at him. They had sat together in the ruins of a semi-thriving world, and he had been able to tell Scar's magic levels were low enough, and the world's magic levels were low enough, that there might not be a respawn waiting for him. He had looked down, briefly, to Scar's hands and the only remains of the man who he'd shed his mortality to escape.

"Right here, and right now…?" His voice was thin, but existed, and that was more than he'd ever expected. The world that plagued his nightmares was gone, and that was a daydream far beyond any reality. His laugh had been quick, and brittle, and honest. "Nobody ever has to know who we are again. We can be just what we say we are. Yes. Yes, I will."

Scar had reached for him, then, and Grian had pushed their twin veils out of the way, and kissed him.

.

Grian shifted and sat up, blinking away heavy sleep. Scar was still on his back beside him, dead to the world and fiery magic in Grian's collarbone down to a low simmer of dreaming something peaceful. He lifted his left hand, allowing his magic to fall away, studying his wedding band. It was simple, brass with a copper inlay and a carved peridot stone. Scar's, he knew, was almost identical, with an amber inlay instead of copper.

He hated the nightmares, much as they had become more fleeting over the years since their wedding. At some point, they would have to inform the others of the ceremony, if only because their decade's anniversary was likely to fall near the end of the next Hermitcraft season. He hoped the moon wouldn't ruin it. Once was more than enough.

He sighed and leaned up to stretch, ignoring the slight jolt of protest from his bandaged back. Scar had done wonders for him, even if he probably shouldn't have been using magic this soon after his adventures to another world. He'd sleep it off, and Grian knew enough about making soup to not be worried about him - at least, no more than usual.

The night in Scar's gorge was quiet enough, even with the distant, echoing roar of the river. He shifted back over, settling back into his position between his husband's legs and his face firmly in his sternum. "What am I going to do with you, Scar…?" he murmured, softly.

Hades and Athena had had yet another argument. and to prepare for the expected Holy War and to fix the issue of a lack of Cosmos in the area, Athena had resurrected several of her Saints. Defteros had been among them, and while he pretended he didn't know, he was well aware of the rumour that their resurrection was exactly why Hades was angry this time around.

Asmita, who had not come with them, had often meditated to harness his Cosmos, or something like that. When the current Virgo Saint hadn't been looking, he'd stolen a few books on the subject. He had no intention on asking the other resurrected Saints if it was just him who felt this way, as though he was only halfway into the physical realm and the rest of him vanished to somewhere else, but he knew better than to try fighting in the Gold Cloth with a mind any less than perfectly stable.

The last time he'd worn it with anything less than absolute certainty in his role, it had killed him. He'd tried to talk to his brother. To reason with what was left of him. But Athena had wanted him dead, and he hadn't killed him. Killing him the first time had been difficult enough. He'd paid his life for that one moment of independence. The only moment he had been allowed to choose for himself what he'd wanted, and for it Athena had allowed his death at the hands of his brother, still playing the role of the marionette. They were all marionettes to the gods, and defying them - even for just a moment - was an unforgivable offense.

Leaving Kanon Island at all was a bad idea, he mused, and a shiver that he couldn't quite feel ran up his spine. Focus, Defteros, that isn't what the book said...

On the island, he'd trained himself to stop feeling at all. To have two rules of life and to stick to them, and to never bend his will to another's again. Now, resurrected and stuck in the one place he hated the most, his emotions and thoughts seemed eternally just out of his grasp. Embers on the wind that disintegrated when he reached for them.

He'd spent years feeling nothing but the dull pain of his existence whenever Aspros wasn't standing between him and anything else that was breathing. And the pain had only sharpened when his brother would try to take the pain instead.

In the distance, Cosmos flared up around the Pisces Temple. He detected Athena, arriving to go be commanding and get the Saints to do something unreasonable again.

He didn't even know what his relationship with the goddess was, anymore. It occurred to him. then, that this is what Aspros had felt like, both as a resurrected Spectre and likely for a good portion of his life. Thinking about his brother only hurt more - a Spectre had told him when caught unaware and near killed that after his death, had gone immediately after a man named Mephistopheles Youma, who had supposedly been controlling him the entire time.

Another Cosmos - Shion, he assumed - appeared at the front of the Gemini Temple.

“Defteros?" Shion called, his voice seemingly a little nervous in front of the silent temple, almost entirely in shadow.

“Coming,” he answered, and a few moments later, his eyes still closed, he found himself a few feet from the Aries Gold Saint. Upon thinking on it later, he still wouldn't have any idea how he had gotten there. “Can I help you?”

“Lady Athena has called us,” he said. And by the looks of things, it's bad.”

“I'll be there, just let me get changed,” he answered, and Shion left. Defteros looked to the sky, and counted his favourite stars. Not a single one was out of place, and they all glittered as brightly as they should.

Despite everything, he was pretty well aware of what the title of World Guardian meant to everyone. He’d fooled them all, and accidentally so, and he didn’t even know why he’d done it in the first place. He’d been the one there, vaguely interested in Guthixian ruins if only to tell Juna about them later, and he’d been the one in everyone’s way. He was the only suitable candidate there to become World Guardian, so when Guthix had asked him all those questions, he had never answered truthfully. 

Lying came easily to him. Everything from how many cookies he’d stolen as a child when the chefs of the Kinshra weren’t looking to why he was interesting in helping out the Temple Knights. Yes, Guthix had asked his opinion and he’d wanted to make Guthix proud, but he was not a person Guthix would naturally be proud of, so he’d made it all up on the spot. S. Larius the World Guardian came after.

The gods themselves looked upon him, and he made a persona up on the spot to explain why he was there, what he was up to. Stories and history were one thing, but it had been millennia since any god had come to Gielinor, and any one of them could have been an ally or a target. He was reserved, a little shy, more than awestruck at their presence.

Saradomin probably took it as deference to his authority. Zamorak recognized the anxiety of a mortal way in over his head, and likely noticed the almost-stereotypical growth and confidence from it. Zaros still had no idea how badly he’d been sabotaged, and still thought that he’d had to grow into the role Guthix had bestowed upon him. Armadyl had swallowed the lies but seemed to know he was doing his best either way. Seren only saw him as a saviour, and the only possession Guthix had given the world upon his death. Icthlarin had probably been the only one to know that he was being lied to, though he hadn’t known exactly what the truth was.

He could hear Sliske’s thoughts as well as his own, now, though he had never had any difficulty in knowing which thoughts belonged to whom. He’d forced himself to stay standing after Sliske’s death and his subsequent possession. Sliske had forced him to lie more, and he still didn’t know if he was grateful for the lie or not.

He’d never expected anyone to really figure out what the truth was. Sliske knew, it was hard to keep his thoughts to himself these days. The last person he ever expected to figure out how much he’d lied was Amascut.

Mah was dead, and with her death, Amascut’s insanity had eased. Saberon had stolen the Kharid-ib from her again and stuffed it somewhere reasonably safe, and the disappearance of it had helped a little. He wasn’t exactly helping her because he enjoyed her company - it was difficult to do so in her condition - but he had wanted to make Icthlarin happy, especially now that he’d realized that if anyone would know something about the Elder Gods, it would be her.

He’d taken her out with him on slayer missions, challenged her not to use her destructive magic. She wasn’t the first mage he’d helped rehabilitate after they’d fallen wayward, and she seemed to enjoy the challenge of doing things a different way.

They’d gotten drinks together after a particularly difficult mission, a few bruises still on her face but healing well. He’d not dared bring her to anything really horrific, lest she panic and fall back into her old ways. They sat outside, watching the setting sun of Ardougne fall over the far horizon. She’d started talking, and he hadn’t known what she meant to talk about at first, but he quickly figured it out.

When she and Icthlarin had gone to Freneskae, they found out quickly why mortals wore masks in the desert. When she had been afraid, as death gods could be in a place without an afterlife, he had been there. But when he had been offering the Mahjarrat a place in Gielinor, she’d found Mah.

She stopped short, then, incapable of forming the words to describe the warped and screaming excuse of an Elder God.

“It… she… she was…”

“Horrific,” he answered, after a few seconds. He had faced Mah twice. Once, while realizing he could use it to his advantage to sabotage Zaros, and twice, when he had proved in front of all of the Mahjarrat that he was better than them all, and deserved to be there as much as they did. It had felt so real, to sit there before the setting sun on a clear day, and still lied through his teeth facing an elder goddess herself. It was the closest he had ever been to his blood, and he still screamed his lies like they were true. “Screaming that made you want to put it out of its misery just to make it stop, but there would be no way, because you are still an ant looking at the front claws of a dragon.”

She nodded silently, mouth still open a little. “A face you never stopped seeing, screams you never stopped hearing. The senseless desires and destruction of a delirious child with more power than even Guthix could have dreamed of. Until there was nothing left but the screams.”

“I became like her,” Amascut whispered. “I couldn’t get the screams out of my head. If I made her happy, would she go back to sleep? Would she go to sleep? I knew it was all a lie. I knew I could never please her.”

“They made me the World Guardian, and never considered what it meant.” Guthix, ancient and wise Guthix, who had either put his faith in the wrong person or admired his commitment to living a lie. “So I would never be anything but a lie again.”

“I don’t know who I am, anymore, and I don’t remember enough of who I was to try and rebuild it.”

“I know who I am, and who they need me to be, but I never wanted to pay the price.”

“You’re the World Guardian, though,” Amascut said, almost as if she’d realized what his lies were all over again.

“Why do you think they call me that? I will never be anything else to them,” he replied, his voice more bitter than he’d wanted. “All I ever wanted to be was my father’s son. He will never see me as anything but Guthix’s last toy.”

“I wish I could be free of her, as you could be of his ghost,” she whispered.

“She’s dead,” he said, short and blunt, as if he had said ‘good day’ or ‘that would be a floor, yes’. “Seren put her out of her misery, and her ghost doesn’t scream. The silence before us made us realize just how vast the universe is, and how little we know. If you stand up there now, where she used to be, it’s still silent.”

“I told you, we don’t need to have an entire forest in this stupid key.” Seth raised his arms and gestured to virtually everything around him on the word ‘entire’, his expression as grumpy as a child pretending to be upset over the wrong type of dinner.

“And I didn’t say an entire forest. Just some forest,” Adam attempted to clarify. Seth ignored him, but he continued anyway. “You might enjoy spending all your time in your weird lab making more children that try to mutilate me but I need to spend at least some time outside a building.”

Seth rolled his eyes. “You’re not leaving this key,” he said; then paused. “No, more like I doubt you could.” He tapped at nothing in particular, but a small blue light pulsed from the invisible spot he touched. “You just had to raise them like fools.”

“Were your ghoul children any better?” Adam countered, a scar on his hand tingling in almost a reply.

“Shut it.” Seth turned on his heel and stalked off, the wall in front of him melting into a doorway, returning to a wall once he had exited through it.

Adam stared at the wall. Buildings didn’t do that. At least, they shouldn’t do that.

“I live. In a key. Because I am dead.” Saying the words didn’t make his situation seem any more real or less like some strange hallucination. He focused on the wall again, wondering if he was actually capable of making it adapt to his will like it did for Seth. The wall pulsed the same bright radioactive blue, then shifted into a window with a bit of a wobble.

On the other side of the wall appeared to be a small living space. Seth lay there facedown on a leather couch, silently screaming into the armrest.

Adam huffed in annoyance at his roommate’s utter drama, and released his grip on the window. It melted back into a wall.

It had been two days since they’d gotten stuck in the key. His foster children, who he was no longer certain if they were human at all, had already stuck the key in someone’s mailbox, deep into Apocalypse territory. How they had gotten there was a mystery - the key did not always let them see into the material world - but it had not yet been found by anyone.

For a split second, he wondered if it was possible to get hungry. He hadn’t actually eaten anything since before his death, and truth be told, he wasn’t exactly sure if they even had a kitchen.

Adam scrunched up his face, trying to turn the wall into a door. A splatter-shaped, ever-changing hole seemed to be the best he could do, so he stepped through it and hoped he didn’t get stuck.

He opened his mouth to ask Seth if they had a kitchen, but the moment he was in earshot, all he could hear was muffled screeching. He waited a few moments. The screeching didn’t stop.

“Seth.”

Screeching.

“Seth.”

The aforementioned man lifted his head, all the grace of a pouty child on his face. He didn’t stop screeching, but it was now less muffled. Adam didn’t exactly know how to deal with that, but there was an armchair beside him, so he took the small pillow, aimed, and tossed it in Seth’s direction. As planned, Seth suddenly had a mouth full of pillow, and momentarily stopped screaming.

“Do we have a kitchen.” It was not a question.

Seth removed the pillow. “Go make one.”

“I’m going to go make a forest,” Adam announced, “and I am going to hunt wildlife and cook it over a fire and roast some s’mores-”

Seth cut him off. “What are s’mores?”

Adam stopped dead, horror filling his body to almost the same degree from when he had seen the Leviantan Senate for the first time. Seth stared at him. Adam choked out, “You don’t know what s’mores are?”

“Uhhh… No?” Seth looked puzzled, and slowly the horror went away. Adam huffed and stepped over to him, lifting him up over his shoulder effortlessly and willing the walls to take him outside.

“We are having a campfire. You are going to enjoy it.” Seth let out a plaintive whine of vague distaste. Adam ignored him.

  A few hours later, when Seth had been persuaded to make it look like nighttime in the key and had graciously sat somewhat still on a rock long enough for Adam to chop some wood and make a fire, Adam managed to will into existence some forks and hot dogs.

Overall, he was pleased with his progress. Seth gave him a dirty look, but his eyes had never left Adam for about four hours. When would Adam notice that? Not for a couple hundred years, probably. But neither was to know that.

Seth sat on the rock, legs planted firmly on the ground with the campfire fork in his hands. He stared into the fire, not even bothering to fix it when his hot dog caught fire.

“Seth, no, that’s not how you cook-” Adam protested, reaching over from his own rock to pull Seth’s meal out of the fire and attempt to stop the flames.

He was left with a very burnt hot dog, and a Seth whose last fuck had flown away several hours ago.

“Do you know how to cook with a fire?” Adam gave a moment’s wish that the answer would be yes. The wish was useless.

“Do I look like someone who functions without proper research technology?” came the answer, and Adam wasn’t sure if he even had the right to be surprised.

“You’re going to learn,” he declared, and forced Seth’s rock to elongate itself so there was room for two. Seth stared at him in vague distaste. Adam at least tried to be oblivious of that.

  A full half hour and three more burnt hot dogs later, Seth had finally gotten the hang of cooking. Once Adam had compared it to heating some chemical substance or other, his roommate had done a decent job. And then immediately tried to grab the end of the fork and swore - quite loudly - at the heat.

Adam tried not to laugh, and got the fork swung at him in response. He ducked, and it missed him by inches.

“Now you get to eat it. See, isn’t that a good reward?” He smiled, trying to be friendly. Seth pointed at the hot dog.

“This is your dick.” Adam watched, suddenly aware of Seth’s nature as an HER and not sure what to expect. Seth made a very lewd face, put half the hot dog in his mouth, and bit down, ripping it in two in one motion.

And then he smiled ever so smugly at the horrified expression on Adam’s face.

  Once they had finished eating the hot dogs - Adam had returned to a rock on the other side of the fire - he pulled out a bag of marshmallows. “So, s’mores. You roast the marshmallow like with the hot dog until it’s golden brown all the way around. Then you take some graham crackers and put a piece of chocolate on one. Then you put your marshmallow on the other cracker, and make a sandwich. There you go. S’mores.”

“That does not sound in the least bit healthy,” Seth answered somewhat flatly.

“Neither was the thing you did to that hot dog.”

“Your face made it worth it.”

“The taste will make it worth it.” Adam tossed the bag of marshmallows towards his roommate, hitting him square in the chest. “Go roast your marshmallow. And please don’t set it on fire this time.”

Surprisingly, Seth made a proper s’more on his first try, despite shaking half the marshmallow into the woods in surprise at how liquid it was under its skin. Adam watched his face carefully to try and see his reaction to the taste.

Seth looked like he just swallowed lava, but forced himself to keep a neutral face. Adam mirrored it. “Is it good?”

“It’s food.” Seth gave him a very careful neutral expression, almost as if hesitant to have any sort of emotion that wasn’t some form of Malice-driven arrogance.

Adam attempted to make a pouting face. Seth sighed. “Pass the marshmallows, woodcutter boy,” he said.

  This is a story of one; a story of five. This is a story to question and to shatter, a story long forgotten in the melodic rains on a dark Tuesday night, in a world that could perhaps be and almost was. So:

  The rain crashes down, less a tender pitpat and more like rocks against thin glass. It soaks those walking home from work and at least attempts to muffle the unfaltering city lights. Yet the metro continues undeterred, sheltering its passengers from the rain without thanks nor sound at all. The people within shake with the train on occasion, but see no reason to speak.

  They know each other. Or perhaps, they do not. This world is graced with strong mortals and street gods, lovingly crafted histories and small magicks. How else does the pale-haired girl sing to her fly-trap companion in such a whisper, as it curls around a branch like a tamed snake? How does the enby-folk across from her cast gentle neon lights across the raindrops of their window, lighting the world with more colours than dark lightning?

  These people take the same train home every day, and I could describe them all if I wanted to. However, they are not all important- only one should we focus on for now.

.

  He stands still near the door, knuckles faintly pale from being clenched so tight around the pole that holds him steady, like it is all that ties him to this world. A cloak hides his face, and for good reason: his skin may be tanned and his hair a surprising shade of azure, but his face is marred with violet rot, dragonscales where flesh should be under open sores half-bandaged if only to save face. A purple eye stares blind on his forehead, looking around like it searches for something. His name is Exos, and while his face drips tainted liquid like violet tears; his power is not corruption.

  So he stands mostly still, tethered to the pole with his other hand in his pocket, his last finger tapping to a beat of a song he barely pays attention to, muffled by the static of the radio. He waits for the sixth stop until the end, and soon enough the bell chimes and announces that very thing. The train rumbles to a stop and he steps across the neon-yellow line. His hand abandons the pole, knuckles turning faintly red upon release.

  A scream resounds. Sharper than shattered crystal glass and yet the boy, barely an adult, ignores it. So do the others crossing the line with him. All it means to him now is that it is half past six: a curse that comes with power, and as such, only he can hear it.

  "Shut it," he mumbles, unwilling to listen to it today. His voice is hoarse not from lack of use but from hours of restless chattering, screeching to be heard and unwilling to relent. Now, he stays mostly silent, resting for another day of half-spoken songs.

  Even if he were late, the scream would sound precisely at half past six. It is a good marker of time, he thinks, and nothing more. Exos steps off the platform and onto the streets that might take him home. Or, as close to home as the ground could take him.

.

  He passes an alleyway. One for air, the singer who screamed in anguish as Exos ran far, far from the confines of the sky. There is a shuffling of movement, and he raises a hand in mute greeting to it, the eye on his forehead sensing a surge of power. The movement takes shelter under an awning, the flickering lights lighting its face. Their faces, really. They are demigods of fire and shadow, long since forgotten and unsure if they were content with their current state.

  The scent of fresh bread appears on the breeze, not so sudden as gradually appearing. He follows it, and soon leaves the bakery with a small loaf stained violet from the taint on his hands. So turns into a second alleyway, for this one is of rushing, flowing water; the navigator who runs and never tires.

  A light flickers on behnd him and he smiles to himself, a dangerous slant of a thing, twisted and tainted without the strength to refuse. He picks up the pace, and the puddles below him between the cobblestones ripple, as if to acknowledge him.

  Faster than rain, though it splashes his face without end. Faster than the river, though it flows parallel to him. But never faster than sound for the scream that splits the sky sounds as the clocktowers strike seven.

  Exos counts the corners, one two three four left. The light of fire follows, and he need not be a pyromancer like his younger brother once was to know what it means. He curses his power and lifts the hem of his cloak, grazing the water. It brushes the tops of the murky, sleek cobbletones, and soaks him to the core. He turns to the right.

  The water rises to his ankles, and the flame is gaining on him. He discards the cloak, sending it westbound as the flow carries it downstream. He turns upstream and runs, a useless moment's wish that the cloak coveres his tracks. He will find it again later. For now, he runs from the light.

.

  Sometimes, one must wonder. Is there strength in the water, whittling the earth down to a crumbling dust? The answer hangs in the air. Is there strength in the rain of solemn tears, masking the past with sorrow? The answer lies so suddenly lost. They say there is no strength in running away. But surely there must be strength in swallowing pride, of picking your battles.

  Somehow, Exos finds there is strength in avoiding the screams of dead blood. The light goes out, drowned by the storm and tasteless corruption. He reaches his destination and slams the door behind him, standing uselessly on a mat and dripping a faint, translucent violet.

  The dreamcatcher made by the shadow god rattles on the back of the door, woven in jewels and beads and spun spider silk. Exos clears his throat, and hopes for little corruption.

.

  "I can grant every wish but my own. Therefore it shall not be the wish of my mind nor soul, but the wish of a decaying body: may the light die sooner, plaguing not my sleep nor return home, the wish of a decaying corpse. Somehow-" he takes a breath- "still breathing."

.

  No shimmer fills the air, no magic warms the room. Exos sighs, in mild resent and distaste.

  Perhaps tomorrow, he guesses, the rain might wash away the blood on his hands. Maybe then he'll outrun the past and his murdered siblings, no evil blood but all their own in their still hearts.