#tf singularity

Nova and Nebula once guarded a magical tree. Because of their jobs, though, they weren’t really treated as people. Nova in particular experienced a lot of abuse and harassment from the village nearby. 

And so, finally, after about 20 years and several more weeks of planning and worrying over whether it would cause the end of the world at some point, they left. Just packed up their shit, took an apple each, and split in the middle of the night. 

It was great. For a while. They traveled around, seeing new places and meeting new people. They eventually went their separate ways, because Nebula decided he wanted to stay somewhere while Nova wanted to keep traveling, but they kept in touch. It was like they were normal people finally.

But the Tree did not like that its guardians had left. Since it couldn’t drag them back to do their jobs, it did the next best thing:

Create a new guardian.

Singularity was intentionally created to be neutral; inert. The Tree hoped this meant that she wouldn’t be harassed into running away, and it… it technically worked. Sort of.

Singularity was born with the physical body of a young child, and the language skills, mental and emotional maturity (or lack thereof), and general Existence Knowledge of a child her apparent age. This was done in the hopes that, if anyone did still try shit, the kid could do something.

Her being so young is the only reason she wasn’t accused of getting rid of Nebula. 

But they compared her to him.

And Nova.

Constantly.

At first they thought she’d be just as ‘helpful’ as Nebula, but when she kept insisting she needed to stay by the tree they thought maybe she’d be like Nova instead. But she never caused any trouble, either. And they just…kept going back and forth.

“Why can’t you be like Nebula?”

“I’m glad you’re nothing like Nova.”

“You can be almost as nice as Nebula when you want to be.”

“You’re almost as anti-social as Nova was.”

Unsurprisingly, this infuriated her.

One day a pair of siblings moved into town. The older one, Meteor, wasn’t particularly friendly to anyone at first, but had an interest in weapon crafting. The younger one, Antares, was about Singularity’s apparent age, and they never compared her to the other two guardians. They became friends pretty quick.

Singularity was very happy to have a friend! 

But after a few years, once they were adults, she heard Antares and Meteor. 

Antares had been meant to gain her trust to get her out of the way. Meteor had created a weapon designed specifically to kill a spirit like her, and they were going to use it on her when she had her guard down so they could take the apples.

Antares had long since decided they didn’t want to hurt Singularity, but had been trying to hide it from Meteor. They’d be doing a pretty good job; it was pretty easy to convince them that Singularity refused to let her guard down when so many people around them seemed to always have ulterior motives. But Meteor discovered that this was not the case, and was confronting them about it. 

This conversation very efficiently obliterates all trust that Meteor and Singularity had in Antares.

When Singularity eventually eats the apples, wrecks shit, and runs off, Antares and Meteor are the only survivors, and they get separated.

Antares ends up staying with a small, loud, aggressive lady named Pulsar, who is the captain of the local military. She also lets this tale pale dude named Comet stay, and the three of them become good friends. can you imagine Cross Sans bunking with UF Sans and US Alphys in Alphys’ house though. So many questions

Anyway. While Antares is making new friends, Meteor finds themself near a whole new Tree of Feelings. And this one has two guardians. 

Meteor made another weapon, but this one was much weaker. They didn’t have all the materials and magic they needed to make it as powerful as the other one. It should have been enough to deal with this Tree’s guardians, though.

Unfortunately for Meteor, Vela and Pyxis were on high alert for people trying to attack them. Vela especially. As time went on, the villagers got more and more aggressive with him, and while they hadn’t done anything yet, he and Pyxis heard some people talking about trying to get rid of him. It kind of sounded like it wasn’t serious, but Vela didn’t trust that it wouldn’t evolve into an actual murder plot. And Pyxis couldn’t blame him

They were trying to form a plan to either dip or make sure they couldn’t actually hurt Vela when Meteor appeared. Meteor clearly didn’t care about the guardians so much as the apples themselves, and the pair really didn’t want to run off and leave the Tree undefended.

Well. Mostly Pyxis didn’t. And he didn’t want to leave it undefended even when there wasn’t an obvious threat to it. But Vela sure as fuck wasn’t going to leave Pyxis to defend it alone.

And soon enough, Meteor does try to kill them.

And fails. Instead, they manage to hit the Tree itself. 

Meteor doesn’t live much longer after that, and their weapon is destroyed, but the damage is done.

The Tree is dying.

Vela and Pyxis managed to find a way to keep it alive and stable, but it’s still slowly dying. And as it withers away, so do the apples, and the balance. They're doing everything they can to find a way to save it. It's going okay, but not great. While they're finding ways to keep it alive longer, they still haven’t found any permanent solutions. They're getting closer, though.