The Whump Caretaker

Troy’s passing brought up a lot of feelings in me, even though I never talked directly with him. My first impulse was to say that I am open to anyone who needs to talk, and even to come back for that reason. But this feels so inadequate in a way, as well as promising more than I can really provide, and it made me reflect further.

I think the most useful thing I can say to everyone is that it’s not your fault Troy died. I always feel responsible somehow when these things happen, even if I didn’t know the person, let alone if I did. I have lost people this way before and it’s so difficult. If I was anywhere near them, shouldn’t I have seen something, done something? This happened in a space I used to inhabit, so isn’t it my fault for going off and abandoning my community instead of making more and more friends, being more and more of a support for people? And it’s not, it’s really not anyone’s fault. I see everyone promising to listen to each other, begging one another to live, asking how this happened in such a nice community and how we can prevent it in the future, and it’s a wonderful thing but I also worry that part of it stems from a misplaced sort of guilt. 

Of course I would try to help anyone who is suffering and having suicidal thoughts. But to be brutally honest, there is a good chance I will fail, because I do not have the training needed to do that. I’ve tried many times to just save as many lives as possible by doing things like going onto the suicide hotline subreddit and talking with people. Sometimes it helps people in the moment, but it’s not a long term solution. I often felt like I was just providing a false sense of security and perhaps enabling rumination without tackling the underlying problems that lead a person to feel that way. Suicidality is enormously complicated, intertwined with family situations and economic hardship and discrimination and underlying mental health issues and physical health issues. It rings hollow to me when I hear people say this is an easy thing to tackle. It’s easy enough to be kind to each other, and to ask how people are doing, and to listen with compassion when someone comes to us for support, and we should do that. But saving another person’s life is more complex. Even a close friend or family member can’t really do it 100% of the time. People have to choose to live. Helping someone see the reasons why they should stay alive is a very serious business that takes training. So if someone you know hurts themself despite your best efforts, that isn’t your own fault.

The topics we discuss on whumplr are very intense and the bonding that happens is very intense as well. We work through things via our writing, and via asks to others who may help us imagine what it would be like to experience comfort or to relive trauma in a safer way. Sometimes whumplr feels like a trauma support group. 

But we are not a trauma support group.

If your conversations here leave you feeling drained and worrying that maybe you just made things worse instead of better, if there are friends who say their life depends on your reply, if people are venting to you in ways that make you overwhelmed, if you don’t know what to do or say in these kinds of situations, it’s okay to step back. You aren't killing anyone by doing that. If you find yourself feeling that the conversations you have and the things you post will single-handedly determine whether other people live or die…that’s no good. Anyone will crack under that kind of stress, and anyway it’s not true. We can all do what we can all do. But sometimes you are not the right person to help someone, sometimes you’re at capacity mentally and just can’t give anymore, sometimes this is not the venue someone needs, and that’s not anyone’s fault. Kindly let people know when you are unable to respond as effectively as you’d like and then get offline. Talk to people in your real lives if you really want to help someone. There’s a good chance someone in your irl circle is struggling too. Take care of yourself, because if you're stretched than thin, then YOU are the one struggling as well.

And to those who DO treat whumplr as a trauma support group: 

I truly care for you, and it is for this reason that I say, please find resources near you physically. I would gladly talk to you, but I am unfortunately not enough in most situations. Find someone better equipped to help you. It exists, no matter your diagnosis or your situation. Talk to professionals, and find specialists in your particular category of mental illness if possible. Join a real support group if there’s one in your area. I am the first to say that therapy is not perfect, and you will usually have to try a few bad therapists before finding a good one, but even if you don’t want to go that route, real life connections are SO important. Make friends with people who can hold you while you cry and cook you dinner on a bad day and notice when you’re relapsing and (crucially) come to you or call help to your location if your life is in danger. I understand that in-person support is not very accessible for everyone, but if it is possible for you, please do take advantage of those opportunities. Keep trying. There’s an enormous difference between that kind of support, vs the occasional supportive discord message. 

Haunted Artifact

Marlacht, Silven, and three others are captured while protecting Idrisha. Adelais turns Marlacht into an Artifact and half turns Silven (as was described in CITB). Marlacht is released, leads them back to the base, and kills Idrisha - we know this part.

Then, in the confusion while Adelais is being taken away, Cam tranquilizes Marlacht. Cam and Marlacht are among the only few survivors.

Marlacht begs to try to revive Idrisha, so Cam puts Marlacht in skin-to-skin contact with Idrisha's body while still heavily restrained, and Marlacht floods her with mana, with instructions to obey her - "I’ve been your possession for eleven years, Idrisha. I know how it feels. I’m putting that feeling into you now. I won’t let you die. You aren’t allowed. It’s against your nature to be dead, do you hear me? I want your life. I want it. I want it. I want it. Like I’ve never wanted anything." It works, and Marlacht is now in charge of Idrisha's body, which operates like a zombie. It can't speak and the head doesn't do anything, but the body can fight perfectly. From this point onward, Marlacht prays only to Idrisha, not to any of the gods. She is trying to commune with Idrisha's soul.

Idrisha is trapped in the waiting room in front of Ievenar, refusing to go through with the judgement and pass on because she believes Marlacht will eventually succeed in bringing her back to life. She is in fact able to hear Marlacht's words sometimes when they are addressed to her, and can watch what her body is doing.

In any case, Rodrick is already on his way back to sweep the remains of the base for survivors, intel, etc. So Cam is forced to run and leave Marlacht and Idrisha.

Idrisha hides from Rodrick and his men. They don't know she exists.

There's a lot of discussion about what to do with Marlacht, and whether to let her operate "autonomously." They decide to try it for a while. So they just outfit her with better armor and then let her drive off and track where she's going. Idrisha and Cam are both following in secret - Idrisha's body by force and Cam voluntarily because she's down bad for Marlacht AND Idrisha.

Marlacht is forced to walk and fight for long periods of time without any more rest than her body absolutely needs. We get a lot of whump surrounding exhaustion, being outside in the cold and snow, feeling like she is in a nightmare and trapped inside her own body while it experiences unpleasant sensations, etc. She has panic attacks, but her heart can't change rhythm so these are very unsettling and dissociative. Her suffering is beautiful and beloved by Aithenar, but what good is that to her? She decides to stop bearing things gracefully and allows herself to scream and rage.

Most importantly, after being physically controlled, she starts to really feel the wrongness of the fact that she wanted to own and control Idrisha, and tried to secure her love by manipulation. Idrisha's body is going through withdrawals because Marlacht won't allow it to smoke or use drugs, and she wonders whether Idrisha can feel that. At one point, she is desperately lonely and Idrisha's body steps forward as if to kiss her. She is immediately so horrified by this potential act that she sends the body away. She wonders whether she is no better than the people who did this to her, and whether Idrisha hated her.

Marlacht's body starts massacring other bases and also some civilian areas. Silven and the others are doing so as well, but Korsaivar is experimenting with them, and airdrops Silven into a situation where he is overwhelmed by enemy forces and killed. So clearly, despite their fantastic fighting skills, it is possible for the Living Artifacts to be destroyed.

Marlacht tries to weaken her body by refusing to eat, but her own hands force food down her throat. Anyway, she's not sure it would help if she died - after all, Idrisha continues to fight as an Artifact while dead. Silven only stopped when he was completely turned to ash.

Marlacht almost kills her family, but Idrisha steps in and saves some of them, although no one sees exactly what happened (Idrisha uses some kind of cloaked vehicle or something, idk, haven't figured it out yet). Rodrick realizes something went wrong and that Marlacht is resisting somehow, so the Korsaivar soldiers take her into custody and restrain her, deciding that magic alone shouldn't be allowed to determine what's best for Korsaivar.

Beyond this, Rodrick decides that he wants the Living Artifacts to serve him instead of serving Korsaivar as whole. It's not clear what is in Korsaivar's best interests anyway - will the magic consider his coming coup to be a threat, or a good thing? He's not willing to take the chance, so he re-enchants Marlacht and all of the other living weapons to obey him instead of Korsaivar. There are now about 20 of these weapons, all in a lab-like military facility at the border of South Corland (which is mostly eerie, foggy marshland), where the second war is beginning. Rodrick tells no one what he did and, because he wants them to fight on Korsaivar's behalf right now anyway, no one notices. They are essentially sleeper agents.

Meanwhile, Cam has been searching for a necromancer to try to contact Idrisha's soul and bring it back into her body before the body can decay too severely. The decay IS delayed, because according to Marlacht's wishes, the body is doing things to preserve itself like circulating blood, but there is still necrosis starting.

Cam finds a necromancer who I would have eventually named, but we'll just call it Necromancer (it/its). Necromancer is capable of contacting the dead for brief periods of time in certain situations, but it is difficult and this type of magic is still undeveloped. However, because Idrisha has not left Ievenar's waiting room and her body is in such a unique condition, Necromancer is able to establish an ongoing connection between Idrisha and Cam. They can now talk. Cam learns that Idrisha has been praying to Aithenar to show her beautiful and poetic things, and was shown Marlacht and Cam's "beautiful" pain. This has shaken her faith in Aithenar, because she sees how something can be undeniably beautiful and yet offer no comfort and be something that should not exist.

She also asked Ievenar why Rodrick is not being punished for his actions. Ievenar explained that it made a covenant with human beings long ago which limits the ways punishments occur, but beyond this is not for her to know. It is between Ievenar and Adelais.

However, Necromancer isn't able to bring Idrisha's soul back into her body.

It wants to see if it can work with Marlacht as well, and potentially help get her out, so it enters Rodrick's Living Artifact facility as a spy. It seems to become genuinely close with Rodrick, and Cam starts to be suspicious of its intentions. But it is able to establish a connection between Idrisha and Marlacht, and Idrisha is now able to pass messages between Marlacht and Cam. The Necromancer is also able to help with this sometimes. Cam confesses that she cares about Marlacht very much and explains everything she has been doing to try to help. Idrisha explains that she does not hate Marlacht for using her body. Even though she is angry about much of what Marlacht did while they were fighting side by side, she still loves her, but only as a friend. Marlacht, who had thought Cam had given up on her and that Idrisha hated her, is extremely touched and overwhelmed. She starts to realize she does have feelings for Cam. She also has an idea of how she can bring Idrisha back to life, if they can just get close enough to each other.

Up until this point, life in the facility has been very very bad for Marlacht. Rodrick is fully aware that she is a person and not just a weapon, but it becomes obvious that he has no regard for living people of any kind - all people are tools to him. He keeps Marlacht restrained whenever she is not actively deployed in battle so that her body won't do anything he doesn't expect, and he keeps her gagged and blindfolded much of the time to eliminate the parts of her body she does have control over. We get sensory deprivation whump. He's also experimenting on the Living Artifacts to see how they are able to resist the magic, if at all. So he does unpleasant things to Marlacht, like cutting and burning her, to see if there is any point at which she will be able to fight back or flinch. She can't. However, she has some ability to resist commands to use her magic.

She is also resisting via Idrisha. Marlacht wants Rodrick dead, so Idrisha starts trying to kill him every time he leaves the facility. He knows he is being hunted by something, but does not know what. He's been trying not to go out much, but he is forced to travel to Korsaivar to see Adelais (where, as we know, he turns Adelais over to Ievenar's followers and begins the coup). Now that all three of the women are working together, they are able to get things just right and successfully kill Rodrick on his way back to South Corland after turning Adelais in.

Marlacht and the other Living Artifacts are suddenly released because Rodrick is dead. They storm out of the facility and Marlacht reunites with Idrisha and Cam. Even though they are all in "ugly" circumstances and her love story with Cam is not the epic, tragic romance she or Aithenar had wanted, she has decided that she would rather have an ugly and boring life of mundanity and hard work with people she loves, than a beautiful life of romantic misery. If pain is beauty, she does not want it. The three of them permanently turn away from Aithenar.

Finally, Marlacht executes her plan to bring Idrisha back to life. She re-enchants Idrisha's body with instructions to obey Idrisha instead of Marlacht, effectively letting her go. In combination with Necromancer keeping a channel open for Idrisha's soul, this allows Idrisha's soul to re-enter her body. They fully heal her of all the necrosis, fully disenchant her, and she is back to normal (although she is going to go through severe withdrawals from Aithenar's magic, which functions similarly to a drug).

Marlacht is cursed by Ievanar for the invention of new magic that violates the laws of life and death. We end on a cliffhanger with Marlacht collapsing in pain in Cam's arms but insisting it's worth it to bring Idrisha back to life - not for the sake of a tragic love story, but because Idrisha is her friend.

Self-Possession

This story is told chiefly from Rodrick's point of view. He makes prayers in the style of "captain's log" to the God of Logic/Truth (would've been named eventually). He uses these prayers primarily to work out in his head what he should do next from a tactical perspective and what he can deduce from events around him.

Again, we flash back to a point earlier in the timeline. Rodrick is in the helicopter with Adelais, watching Marlacht massacre the base. He immediately wants not only to possess Marlacht and use her as a weapon, but also to BE Marlacht. He envies her raw power and the way that she always moves perfectly. He very quickly realizes that he could achieve this by enchanting himself as a Living Artifact instructed to obey his own interests. He would then have full self-possession, total self-control. He would never make a mistake due to hesitation or flinching or anything else, really. He would be perfect.

So, very simply, he does it. He enchants himself. We get a bizarre account of what it is like to simultaneously gain and lose perfect control of his body - his body now never deviates from what it would be best for him to do, yet it is no longer really him doing it. He can't think to himself, "I'm going to pick up this cup," or anything else, and be certain that this is what his body will do, because maybe, it would be better if it did something else, something that has not even consciously occurred to him yet. So, upon being fully enchanted, Rodrick immediately has a horrible panic attack. But it's like the ones Marlacht experienced while enchanted - his heartbeat and breathing can't get out of control, so instead he just feels dread that his body won't allow him to express, and starts to dissociate violently.

Rodrick does not tell anyone what he did, because he wants people to believe that his success is entirely his own. His life at the top of the military hierarchy is already lonely, and this makes things even lonelier for him. He feels divided from everyone around him, as if he is not a part of humanity anymore. He never really felt like a part of humanity, but now he is starting to reflect on that. Someone challenges or threatens him and his body responds perfectly before he can even think. It occurs to him that no one can stop him or save him from himself if he is going down a bad path.

Rodrick becomes very successful, even more so than he has been in the past. The Living Artifact program is doing fantastic, he fights in battle with even more ease and success despite getting exhausted and injured, his coup is well into the planning stages, he always goes through his morning exercise routine perfectly, etc. But he feels no personal pride or achievement in his victories, because his body is doing most of the work for him, and he feels disconnected from every sensation due to frequent dissociative panic attacks. He compensates for the feeling that he is losing control by exerting more and more control over Marlacht and the other Living Artifacts. He ties them up instead of letting them operate freely because he wants their successes to be HIS decision, not the product of magic beyond his understanding. He has to actively work against his body in order to do this (for example, by telling someone else verbally to do it), because it is technically in his best interests to let the Living Artifacts be untied and working freely all the time. But in his heart, he wants to make the decisions instead, even if he will make a mistake. He no longer cares about his goals, and realizes that maybe he never did. He just wants to regain some control over his life, to feel powerful again.

In his conversations with the God of Truth, he starts trying to reason out whether he has any worth as a person beyond what he does and how he pursues his goals. He concludes that he has no such inherent worth. The God of Truth sends him a dream/nightmare that appears to endorse this theory, telling him he is on the right track and should just make himself as useful a tool in pursuit of his own goals as possible. This is what everyone is according to his philosophy anyway: a tool.

But because he's getting no satisfaction from this path, it really upsets him to hear that it is "the truth." He becomes suicidal. He is afraid his body will kill him as soon as he starts having these thoughts, but it doesn't. Then he becomes afraid his body will not allow him to die.

In the midst of these dark thoughts, Necromancer contacts him, offering services related to contacting dead enemy soldiers to extract information from their souls (remember, Necromancer is trying to enter the facility as a spy). He takes the opportunity, because he wants to talk to someone about what will happen if he dies, and about what a soul is. He and Necromancer begin a series of loaded conversations in which Necromancer genuinely tries to get to know him and contradicts what the God of Truth told him about his lack of worth. It is very kind and understanding, but with a similar detachment as his own. It has no interest in being prosocial or a part of the general world, and like him, it wants to transcend such things. Yet, it does not reject the inherent worth of people either. It embraces seemingly contradictory worldviews that only make any kind of sense through dialectics, and which the God of Truth rejects. It also opens him up to the possibility that he (hereafter referred to as they) does not have to express themself through masculinity, that the fact that they "are" a man does not make it impossible to be otherwise. Privately, Rodrick starts to consider themself nonbinary.

At this point, Rodrick starts to desire Necromancer. They hope that a sexual encounter with Necromancer will be extraordinary because they are perfect now - so they'll be perfect in bed, right? But when they actually sleep with Necromancer, the sensation of not being fully in charge of their own motions is utterly terrifying. Necromancer has to stop halfway through and comfort them, but Rodrick's body rejects the comfort and leaves against their own wishes because being consoled would not match the image they want to convey. Rodrick starts to acutely feel how much they have lost by choosing self-possession over freedom of self-expression. Being an Artifact has robbed them not only of themself, but also connection with others.

During this encounter, Necromancer realizes what is really happening to Rodrick. It asks Rodrick if they want help, to be disenchanted, etc. But Rodrick, unfortunately, has just learned that Necromancer is a spy. They don't believe Necromancer really cares about them - they think it just wants to carry out its mission for Cam and to prove its own ideology through them. Besides, they are at too critical a juncture to go back to being imperfect. If they were to compromise on their goals and to value something other than that, they would have to admit the incredible quantity of harm they have done, and that this harm matters, and they would have to risk being who they truly are.

So Rodrick just doubles down. The mental strain they are under is enormous, and, during their entire visit to Korsaivar, they are in and out of psychosis as they lose all faith in the God of Truth. They no longer know or care what is true and real.

Seeing Adelais doesn't help. Adelais has genuinely found someone to care about and is so openly emotional. Rodrick feels that this is out of their reach and feels terrible loss and envy. When they see an opportunity to destroy Adelais and begin the coup, they take this opportunity immediately.

But, as we know, on the way back to the base, they are killed by Idrisha. They watch from Ievenar's waiting room while Necromancer weeps over their body…and secretly keeps a channel open to let their soul re-enter, before moving on to go help Idrisha. Necromancer was not lying, it really did care about them.

At this point, Rodrick's plan has been foiled because the Living Artifacts have all had time to escape, Rodrick's body is severely hurt, and they have no further use according to the God of Truth. But in total defiance of logic, even though they were suicidal just minutes before, Rodrick breaks ties with the God of Truth and decides they want to live. They re-enter their body and lie on their back, staring joyfully up at the sky for no reason at all.

Intermission

This would be a short series of cute vignettes showing our various friends and romantic groupings being together, but also showing that each one has unfinished business with the gods.

First, Ninlen and Adelais make their way to an abandoned/out-of-use cabin on the mountainside where they can heal more fully. Ninlen (after being through that whole ordeal) contracts pneumonia. Adelais cares for him the way that he was cared for when he had a cold. Adelais admits to Ninlen that he loves him too, and expects that this means their relationship will have to be sexual. Ninlen shuts that right down and explains that they will only do what Adelais wants to do. They also talk about what they should do next, and decide they have to find Marlacht to free her, and find Rodrick to stop him. But they don't know where to begin. Adelais decides to try pleading directly with the God of Truth for information that will help them find Marlacht.

There would be one for Cam, Marlacht, and Idrisha settling into their new dynamic. They comfort Idrisha since she was dead for so long and is now in withdrawals. They also go back to the base and start working with the Living Artifacts, to get them back to their homes or readied for the coming fight to protect Corland, depending on what they want to do. Idrisha explains what she learned while talking to Ievenar: that there is some sort of covenant governing Ievenar's punishments, and that if they can alter or lift this covenant, Korsaivar might be punished for cruelty and the second war might be averted (instead of just uselessly punishing Adelais). But this covenant can only be discussed with people who have invented new magic. So Marlacht, who learned how to raise the dead and is now cursed for it, decides to commune with Ievenar.

Finally, Necromancer returns to Rodrick, and is very pleased to find them alive. It heals them from severe wounds and talks about what they want out of life now. Rodrick has no idea but knows they want freedom - they have realized that everything they thought was good about being in control was really just the freedom to do what they really wanted. Control is useless without that. And now they want to be with Necromancer, but their life is about to be destroyed because the coup has failed and they don't know what to do. Necromancer suggests that they speak directly to Aithenar to protest the ugliness of the situation.

Final Section Tying it all Together

In this way, the three main characters (Adelais, Marlacht, and Rodrick) all end up in the afterlife waiting room, communing directly with the gods. They each only intended to pray in the usual way, but because Necromancer had opened a channel for both Rodrick and Marlacht, and because Marlacht's request concerns Adelais (who is trying to come in anyway), all three of them enter a trancelike state and talk to the gods directly. They learn that the gods are three very close "siblings," or three parts of the same being: Mana. Mana offered itself to humanity millenia ago, to see what wonderful things might be created. But humanity, being imperfect, brought about cruelty, ugliness, and lies. The gods tried to correct this by punishing humanity via physical pain in response to cruelty, via withdrawals in the absence of beauty, and via madness to confuse people if they try to change the nature of reality.

But humanity was stubborn, and disagreed with the gods' decisions. The gods, too, were imperfect, they argued. These were just more powerful kings, with little wisdom. So the people rose up against the gods, and demanded that the punishments for misuse of magic must stop. They did not understand the nature of the godhead, so they targeted Ievenar in particular with their pleas. They made an offering: sacrifice the first user of each new type of magic, to suffer from terrible wounds corresponding to how that magic would be used to harm others in the future. Leave all other magic users alone unless they make a direct covenant with Ievenar (like priests and magistrates do), at least until after death.

Marlacht asks that this covenant be broken, and the others agree. But they don't want interference from the gods at all. No punishments…and no rewards either. If the gods don't like how magic is being used, they just shouldn't grant it in the first place. They all argue for the ways in which going against their own nature has harmed them. Adelais suppressed his conscience. Marlacht suppressed her baser, less graceful instincts. Rodrick suppressed his self-expressive, imaginative side. It didn't work out for any of them. The gods shouldn't do that either, they argue. If they don't want a spell done, then they shouldn't allow themselves to be used to do it.

The gods agree. The covenant is broken, and magic everywhere becomes much, much more scarce - a matter of occasional miracles, usually related to healing, because all the gods must be willing participants before any magic can be performed.

Our three protagonists decide that they will not be like the gods. They will forgive each other and themselves for the suffering and guilt that each has caused, and will try to make amends.

1 - Swapping Worlds

An image of Philos walking down the suburban street where Carmine lived, wrapped in a sheet from someone's clothesline. People are gawking in confusion up and down the street. One is Carmine's husband, but Philos doesn't know this yet, and he doesn't know Philos has anything to do with Carmine. I had started sketching this one. Here was the rough sketch:

An image of Carmine walking through a forest of pink, blue, and purple clouds, with eyes peering at her from the shadows.

The text explains that Philos has entered Carmine's world and vice versa, and that Philos appeared in Carmine's dreams in a time of great need for her. They probably also swapped places because she needed to escape something drastic, but what? Philos doesn't know. He doesn't even know which house is hers. Also, Philos is not sure whether his existence in this world is stable. Things are more rigid here, but his existence is not like that. It is soft, and might just give way. This thought terrifies him so much as to be physically painful. Meanwhile, we are told that Carmine is relieved to be where she is and feeling a great sense of wonder, but we are not told why.

2 - Circus

An image of Philos in a white costume with a frilled collar, dancing on a stage in a big-top tent. The ringmaster stands in the background with a whip. There's a woman moving through the crowd below with a missing person poster that shows Carmine. That is Carmine's sister, looking for her.

An image of Carmine, who has been captured by some of the beasts of this world and forced to dance in front of a bonfire. In the corner of the frame, there is a creature who looks like the same species as Philos, dressed in funerary black clothes and looking very distressed.

The text explains that, while wandering through town, Philos was captured by the ringmaster of a circus and forced to travel with them, until one day, he saw a woman in the crowd talking about Carmine. This woman looked at him with recognition and said Carmine had talked about him. Is she okay? Meanwhile, we learn that Carmine is disappointed to find that Philos' world is not as pleasant as it may have first appeared. She wants to find him to make sure he is okay, and has some hope of doing this when she sees his brother.

3 - Candy Shop

An image of Philos in an apron, cowering away from a confectioner wielding a large ladle, surrounded by shelves full of sugary hard candies that resemble crystals. The confectioner's employee is Carmine's sister, and she is frantically dialing 911 to help Philos.

An image of Carmine in a valley full of crystals which are growing skyward, into the cloudy, soft area above. A massive amount of blood is dripping down the crystals from a source hidden by clouds, forming a blood waterfall. Philos' brother is pointing to the crystals and explaining to Carmine what they are.

The text explains that Carmine's sister helped Philos escape the circus, and told him that she's very concerned Carmine might have been murdered by her husband, who was becoming increasingly abusive and controlling. She brought Philos back to her shop to try to get him decent work while they figure out what to do. But her boss considered him an abomination and attacked him. Meanwhile, Philos' brother informed Carmine that crystals are growing over the place where Philos once lived, making it inhospitable. Eventually, these crystals will mature and gain sentience. At that point, they will actively subject everyone to hard demands and Philos will be killed. He tells her that Philos is condemned to die so that this creature can live, and that because time is not linear here, it has already happened in a manner of speaking. Carmine says it must be stopped.

4 - Hospital

An image of Philos in a hospital room. A needle is about to be put into his skin, and he cowers away. The band around his arm (used to make veins stand out before inserting a needle) is causing bruising.

An image of Carmine confronting an enormous, snake-like creature to extract acidic venom from its tooth. The creature has bitten her already and the bites do NOT look good.

The text explains that Philos was taken to the hospital after Carmine's sister called 911. He was held against his will because he had no documentation to explain his identity and was saying things that made no sense. But, while there, he snuck into the medical records and found Carmine's chart. It revealed that Carmine was newly pregnant, and was in despair over this because it meant she would never be able to divorce, so she was recommended for psychiatric treatment. (A creature is growing inside her which will be born at the expense of her own inner life and self-love - this echoes the crystals killing Philos.) Meanwhile, Philos' brother has told Carmine that the way to slay the crystal creature is to erode it with acid from this snake, so she is fighting the snake to obtain her weapon.

5 - Homecoming

An image of Philos severely beaten and tied up against a radiator in a motel. His ear stretches into the adjacent frame, where Carmine is holding it and stroking it. It is not bruised, and the not-bruised area appears to be spreading as she heals him. His eyes are closed and he's crying.

An image of Carmine, comforting Philos as described, also severely wounded and crying. She appears to have leapt down the blood waterfall to escape the snake, which is still hissing above her. She has landed at the heart of the crystal creature and its spikes are jabbing into her.

The text explains that Philos was kidnapped out of the hospital by Carmine's husband, who heard reports about him and realized that he matched the creature he saw the day Carmine disappeared. He tied him up and interrogated him about what he had done with Carmine, only becoming more enraged when Philos said that she left of her own free will to go somewhere safer. Meanwhile, Carmine leapt down the waterfall just as described to escape the snake, and is now comforting Philos before making her final stand.

6 - Amendment

An image of Philos stabbing Carmine's husband in the neck (or maybe eye? I didn't want to draw that, but it would be better) with the needle, which he snuck out of the hospital with him while being kidnapped.

An image of Carmine stabbing the venomous tooth into the base of the crystals, which are dissolving as if touched by acid. The acid is spreading, as if there is much more than the tooth could have contained. They are stabbing at the same point, where the two images meet, and reality is fracturing around the stab in a flood of light.

The text explains that their worlds are merging back together.

7 - Freedom

One, continuous image of Carmine and Philos walking hand in hand in the sun by a roadside motel. Things from the other world are bleeding through - strange creatures fly in the air and run alongside the road, and the clouds are pink. The ground is sparkling with a mixture of broken beer bottles and broken crystals.

After the nightmare and the hug, things are awkward for a time between the Marquis and LaCroix. They barely talk at all, and Vincent is depressed about it. He thinks LaCroix is upset with him and he's just really embarrassed about having hugged him. But because he's being more careless, he ends up being wounded pretty severely in the course of his work for LaCroix. Of course, LaCroix takes care of him, and they reconcile. Vincent takes his second taste of vitae, deepening his bond with LaCroix. This is also the beginning of their real relationship and the smut portion of the book - they're pretty much dating from here on out.

But after this point, I really didn't have things planned out too thoroughly. I just knew there were a few things I wanted to include:

The Adjudicator coming looking for Vincent. But by this point, Vincent has decided he wants to stay. To keep Jude from being a Masquerade violation, Vincent pleads with LaCroix to let someone turn them. Jude is eventually embraced as a Lasombra.

Vincent being compelled to play piano for LaCroix. LaCroix learns that this is something Vincent used to want to do before he was forced into the High Table life, and Vincent is reluctant to show him because he's out of practice. So Sebastian compels him, and...he's actually not good anymore, he's really out of practice and it sounds awful and LaCroix laughs and Vincent starts yelling, crying, etc., and heavy angst ensues. BUT! LaCroix encourages him to start practicing again. (This one was directly inspired by ideas from @kavalyera way back when I was writing the story, thank yoooou!!)

This is also a bridge to them talking about Vincent's childhood later on, because Sebastian comes to him to apologize for reacting so rudely in the moment. He asks why Vincent was pressured so much not to play piano and talks a bit about his own past, and they make up.

After this point, Vincent realizes he can use LaCroix's compulsion to his advantage by being commanded to do things he is afraid to do or might not ordinarily be good at. He asks LaCroix to push him and to be harsh with him. LaCroix likes that Vincent takes this approach and really starts to consider how good a vampire he'd make. He hints that if he turned Vincent, he'd have all of eternity to get good at piano and anything else he wanted and he shouldn't give up.

Buuuut he immediately regrets making that comment because Vincent starts to nag him about "please embrace me, pleasepleaseplease" until he snaps and starts ranting about how much he hates being a vampire - the decades of war he has seen, the fear of sunlight, everything he can't do, and so on, and just generally admits for the first time that he hates his life. He also makes mention of what it means to be embraced as a Ventrue, and the grueling training Vincent would have to endure, which he went through himself. He says a bunch of things about how he hates Vincent for being so much like himself, that it's like looking in a mirror and he can't stand it, etc. This all sends him spiraling into bad memories for a while - kind of a prolonged trigger, and he starts ignoring Vincent.

So Vincent starts trying to get through to him by giving him pieces of the things he used to have as a human. He warms his skin in the sun and then lets Sebastian touch him, for example (yes, this is a sex scene).

At some point, Vincent takes the third sip of vitae. He is really resentful about it.

But he is not at all giving up on being a vampire! He keeps insisting that he can handle the training and eventually LaCroix gives in.

Ventrue training. You know the drill. LaCroix pulls no punches but is internally angsting about hurting Vincent so much. Vincent shows no weakness but is internally a sad wet kitten that simultaneously wants to claw out LaCroix's eyeballs. They have kinky kinky sex in the middle of it and soft, soft (also kinky) sex afterwards.

Vincent is now dealing with being a vampire. He misses sunlight. He misses food. He hates feeling cold. That one fic about the hot chocolate made of blood becomes canon. Lots of hurt/comfort for Vincent.

He's also upset that he's still tied to LaCroix by the blood bond. He says he'll never stop hating LaCroix until he's free. Sebastian is too afraid of him leaving to stop feeding him vitae, but, to even the playing field, he drinks from Vincent too, three times.

It's around this time that the sarcophagus really enters the story in a big way. Vincent does in fact track it down but he has no intention of letting LaCroix have it. The two of them fight over it and end up racing each other get it. I'm thinking we have some kind of situation where it's being transported and they're in a car chase trying to head it off. Because they're fighting over it, it crashes over a bridge, off a cliff, into the sea, or something to that effect and shatters and explodes and they're both like, "Well I guess our constant competition saved both our lives ^_^ Love u babe!"

At the very end, they talk about why they both fought so hard to get the sarcophagus even though there might be something dangerous about it and they admit that they each feared the other would not respect them otherwise - and that they each wanted to use the antediluvian's power to protect the other.

They also finally talk about why it is that Vincent is able to resist compulsion so well. This conversation probably starts off with an insecurity on LaCroix's part - "Do you really hate me that much?" And no, it's not that he hates LaCroix (at least not in that sense), but that he is capable of channeling his love into rage and capable of being harsh even with people he loves. LaCroix adores this about him. He says he is a true Ventrue, and begins calling Vincent by his title of Marquis once again.