#rainerstarter

Life was good now, right?

The whole world was going back to the way that it was supposed to be, but things were good now right?

A few people were probably irrevocably fucked in the head, but at least Canal Cakes was back in business, right?

Micah couldn't close his eyes without seeing it all, he'd taken some time off work because how do you just go back to stocking shelves after all that? Inside that thing that machine that monster that was inside of him, working his brain over, keeping him alive through it all as his power was constantly drained from him. At some point Micah had just gone numb to it, the truth was that the former faiman had died in that future a lot sooner than his body had actually given out. Some dark, distant place, that was where his mind sent him.

Now they were back, and everything was good, right?

"Hey hey gramps." Micah said with a smile as he flicked a bottle cap at the seasoned warrior, maybe he'd do some mister miyagi shit with it and cut it in half. "Good to see you again."

Unphased, Yavie's blade snapped to the side as he tilted his head in characteristic, taunting fashion. Student and teacher had been reunited on the battlefield after a long time, together they'd fought against a God, not many could say the same. The fall eladrin had been transformed in the Astral Sea, now he lived among the stars, two of Rainer's prized students had ascended- one on the brink of godhood, another something else entirely. Yavie wondered what that must feel like for the other, if it made him bitter, or proud. Perhaps neither. "Have you gotten slower?" Yavie teased, "You have, you've definitely gotten slower."

Too late. Titania was always too late. Too late to save her warder, too late to shield her son, too late to love her second born, and now too late to save the youngest. Nalwyn. Aegnor. Farenduil. Meryasek. To so many Titania had always been more Goddess than Queen, not a person but a fixture, people forget that she was still a child when she took the throne. Only a few centuries and still so naive: she'd taken every one of her mother's lessons in stride, grew up learning the ways and the machinations of the ancient elves, only to watch them inevitably fall. Still, when Titania had sewn the seeds of humanity into the garden of Eden, she'd had so much hope. Hope that this dark power she wielded within her breast would serve the greater good, hope that the power she bestowed upon Eve would be the sort of gift that she needed to subvert the same fate as Lilith.

Little by little, time and truth eroded everything that she'd hoped for. Little by little she lost people and homes, creatures that she loved and family that she adored. Titania planted a tree over her mother's grave, then she planted another over Nalwyn's, and then a third over Aegnor's. Once Titania had come to walk through a garden of corpses and gravestones and said no more, I can't take it anymore. For all that she was and all that she had tried to accomplish, at every turn her resolve weakened.

In the end, Titania had found her power too late, even with Mars at her back the two had failed to make it in time to save their son. Her people were all in the dirt, and the realm that was meant to be her mother's great legacy was taken once more.

High above in the sky above them, a great city and industry of Elysian Gold held so many halfbloodeds, her grandson among them. "Rainer. Don't." Titania said as she stepped from the alley, their presence shielded by her magic as the flayed and the autonomous machinations of eldritch technology patrolled the skies and newly-gilded streets. "Don't throw your life away."