My blind optimism to blame

[reddosmod]

APRIL 2022 EVENT

IMAGE DESCRIPTORS IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE
Prompt One
[Image One: A large green butterfly.]
[Image Two: A woman staring in a daze at light orbs floating around her face.]

Prompt Two
[Image One: A volcano with meteors falling down around it.]
[Image Two: A ball of quivering light hovering in the dark with woman standing in front.]

Prompt Three
[Image One: A woman staring at a mirror-like humanoid being staring back at her.]
[Image Two: A woman in a field of grass with humanoid-shaped flower sculptures nearby.]

[NAVIGATION]

Prompt 1 • Prompt 2 • Prompt 3 • Plotting • Newsletter

[JUMP TO COMMENTS]

MIGRATION OF MOONLIT BUTTERFLIES

WHEN: April
WHERE: Everywhere outside
CONTENT WARNINGS: Hopelessness/corruption, heavy themes of mental trauma/health, killing of gentle creatures.

---

Excerpt from BEASTS OF DEER COUNTRY Chapter 12: Migrations:

"One of the most beautiful natural phenomena of Deer Country is the migration of the mysterious Moonlit Butterflies. These giant creatures are most often the size of a house, with exceptional wingspans. Fear not: they are not violent creatures. Most will fly well above the city of Trench, leaving trails of glittering orbs of light that fall all throughout the city. However, it is common for some Moonlit Butterflies to land and rest throughout Trench. Despite their massive size, these creatures appear to weigh very little, able to rest harmlessly on homes, lampposts, and the like. Don't be surprised to find some scattered throughout your neighborhood.

They have a gentle aura about them and are most famous for their behemoth wings which glow a radiant green. They are aptly named due to their ability to store immense power from the moon during April and are seen as distant children of Argonaut. Being near them will enchant the air with the scent of amber and fresh linen, and you may hear a soothing song emit from these beasts.

Despite their rare and incredible beauty, it is wise to not linger in their presence no matter how captivating they are...And they are captivating. Many residents of Trench have been known to stop and stare, enthralled by the wings or the orbs of light that are shed by the butterflies. Those who have been staring for too long will have an unnatural glowing green glaze over their eyes, obscuring their pupil and gaze. This is known as the Moonlit Drain.

These butterflies do not gather all of their energy from moonlight...but they gather it from hopeful beings as well. It is why they gather among populations of sentient beings. They soak up all hope in the area and the longer you stand in their presence, the more hopeless you may become. Standing in the presence of a Moonlit Butterfly has driven people to rapid, severe corruption in under ten minutes. It is best to avoid these butterflies no matter how mesmerizing they may be to look at.

The little orbs of light are actual manifestation of everyone's hope. Touching them may restore hope and they can be gathered into jars for future treatments of corruption. They do not "go bad" as they are the essence of emotion. One way to restore hope to a corrupt or beast-ridden soul is to slay one of the Moonlit Butterflies. They are incredibly easy to kill as they are naturally delicate and non-hostile.

Be warned: the one who slays a Moonlit Butterfly will be consumed with instantaneous corruption and possibly even beasthood. But once the butterfly has been slain, anyone in the surrounding area besides the killer will have corruption alleviated. Killing a Moonlit Butterfly has been known to fill people with incredible grief and guilt. Few have survived."

WONDERKIND

WHEN: April
WHERE: Everywhere outside
CONTENT WARNINGS: Possible spoilers per canon, time/vortex style presence, variety of possible monsters.

---

Excerpt from an essay titled "The Wonderkind Pthumerian" from the book The Curious Nature of the Weakest Pthumerian: Argonaut and Misconceptions:

"Most of the other Patron Pthumerians are known for exceptional strength and durability during trying times. It is only Argonaut in which people think of weakness. They believe the Patron to be a fickle, tiny thing with little worth, but there is a unique and powerful quality to Argonaut that should not be overlooked.

This is the phenomenon known as Wonderkind. It has only been known to happen once every few years and only ever during April, but those who have seen it would testify to the hidden strengths of our explorer Patron. There is much to be said about curiosity and resilience, after all. Argonaut has wandered through the lives of many without most ever realizing it. He has likely seen into your own life, curious about the odd Sleepers that show up on the shores of this world.

Wonderkind appears as a meteor shower, but these are no meteors. Balls of flaming light will fall from the sky, silent, beautiful, striking, and somewhat ominous and terrifying. They rain upon Trench in intervals throughout April. They do not crash into the city so much as glide throughout. These balls of light are shimmering orbs that have split open time and space itself into unraveling cocoons, exposing portals into worlds foreign to this one.

These portals cannot be entered for they are not portals out of this world...But portals into this world. Sleepers have claimed to find beloved items and pull them out of these portals. Some may find old pets that come out to greet them. It can be a lucky and cherished event for many. Tragically, these portals do not seem to be able to bring in sentient beings applicable characters, but you may be able to talk briefly to a loved one who isn't yet in this world.

But that's not all that can crawl through these portals...Monsters from other worlds have been known to flock to these portals and make their way through. Monsters from your worlds or other worlds slip in to wreak havoc on the streets of Trench. It is during this time that it is of the utmost importance that our Hunters take up arms and protect the vulnerable. If you recognize the monsters or disasters from your world entering ours, then please, make sure to caution those against it.

The portals close after a few hours and cannot be manually closed by anyone. Nothing can be sent into portals, but one can stand by a portal and guard it for potential dangers. Portals from your world may reappear several times throughout the month, so don't let your guard down for even a moment, and always expect the worst even when hoping for the best."

Quick Facts:

1. Respect the setting. Do not bring in monsters that would be capable of destroying the world/city/etc.

2. Things like unique plants/items can be gained through these portals.

3. You do not need to engage with portals from your own canon. You can invent new worlds, engage with other canons, or alternate universes. It's up to you.

FROM WITHIN AND WITHOUT

WHEN: April
WHERE: Everywhere
CONTENT WARNINGS: Instant beasthood, corruption of soul, draining of soul, replication of soul, mistreatment of sex workers/night walkers.

---

An excerpt from a journal kept by a Night Walker named Charlotte Finch. Finch was known for being one of the first established Night Walkers and was known for her advocacy on the front of Night Walker work and its relationship to beasthood. This journal is kept in the Archives. It contains content pertinent to Beasthood yet, unfortunately, due to ongoing biases against Night Walkers, this journal is kept in the autobiography section rather than the section for beasthood. Good luck finding it.

"the job of the Night Walker is, of course, undervalued by this world. we do our best to soothe the troubled souls of this place and yet they continue to doubt our worth. what must we do to convince them? must we wield blades to show them how we fight? must we shed blood to prove our dedication? must we pick up books to show our intelligence? nei, we not do that. we sleep beside our worn hunters and rest heads upon the chests of scholars and hold the tired hands of architects. we guide the way to light in a way disciples could never.

all us are valuable, it be true, but why must the night walker be left to the wayside? why must our duties be written off? why must it be that it always a night walkers blood in the streets that leaves no tears to be shed? nei, nei, it is hatred of those who understand the soul and body have a close connection.

you know what i believe? these souls of ours change the landscape of our bodies. you cannot have one without the other. when the soul is corrupt, it only be natural that the body corrupts, turning rigid and hideous and monsterous and beastly. aye yes i have seen it myself, though none of the others believe except for other night walkers.

you see, there is a shape that comes to us in the Long Night of april, a shape much like our own. looking like a person ought to look but with no face and no features, like a mirror glimmering in the shape of you. they look like us, and they will mimic us. these odd mirror beings is the shape of our soul, you see, and once it finds you, it will copy you, and you will be driven mad! mad! how does this thing move as you move? how does it replicate what you replicate?

aye, it is your soul, my friend. your soul in a shape you can see. or something like it, may not soul be in your lexicon. it is you, as you are it. it is the Tether between you and beasthood, see what i say. the Tether will begin to soak into you if you let it, if you let it consume you, and it will consume you rapidly. people have been known to be ravaged by the Tether and turn into beasts within seconds, AYE yes, seconds, not minutes, into a vicious beast. the Tether wins.

But you need not let it be a victor, my friend. you see, we proved it, we did, us night walkers, we proved to lay with the Tether is to soothe the Tether. Allow yourself the kindness of another soul, another companion. touch and feel and express companionship. holding the hand of your lover or your friend or your brother or sister will cause the Tethers to weaken before ye very eyes! i do swear it, my friend, i should not lie on a subject i hold so dear.

you see, when we hold one another dear, when we cherish one anothr truly and wholly, we abate the darkness in our souls. listen to your companions, my sweet friends, and let your souls heal, and you can stop the Tether from consuming. you see, you see. surely you see. this is what it looks like. the Tether is always with us, but only in April under this moon can we see it always and will it be vicious and invasive. do not allow it.

do not allow it."

Quick Facts:

1. Tethers will take the exact body shape/size of you and mimic your moves. They may follow you around for several hours/days. Once they decide to "consume" you, it will be quick. It will essentially look like your body is turning metallic and then you become a beast.

While Charlotte states it happens in a matter of seconds, this can happen in several hours/days as well. Depends on the character and their general resolve.

2. People can be pulled back from this through emotional support whether verbally or physically and general acts of kindness. It's the sincerity that matters here. You do not need to be familiar with the person to help them.

3. Everyone can see each other's Tethers so you can determine how severe someone's Tether has become. The more severe the Tether, the more silvery the impacted person will look.

4. Tethers cannot be destroyed with weaponry/attacks. Trying will only hurt the person they are mimicking. You could actually kill someone by trying to "kill" their Tether. The tether will vanish with those who died but reappear once they have reincarnated.

CODING

Comments

ii. wonderkind

[terriblepurpose]

[At first, Paul thinks he's cut himself under the grey, soapy water in the sink. He pulls his hand out of the water with a soft, quick inhale, and he's running the tap to rinse the suds from his palm when he feels the alien, invasive press of something foreign in a wound that isn't his.

His gorge rises in a scalding eruption of citrus, prophecy burning in the back of his throat as his eyes flare with pale light.]

Don't -

[He's not saying it to the man at his elbow, whose void-black gaze falls on Paul from a great distance removed. He closes his hand around his left wrist under the shadow of a cresting wave of obliteration, and when it falls, so does he.

There is pain that can be anticipated and braced for. There is pain that cannot. That Paul has felt nearly this before doesn't change that. The sounds that spill wetly through his clenched teeth as he goes to his knees (steadied and slowed, though he can barely tell) are proof of that. He feels a hand dissolve tissue layer by tissue layer, nerves exquisitely flensed, ligaments and bones in sizzling disintegration.

When it's done, it still hurts. His unharmed wrist is a raw, burning wound, his unblemished hand past it a numb absence. It moves when he tells it to, but when he sees what it looks like when he does he decides to keep it still. His face is slick around the eyes, damp around the mouth, and he shivers at the cold.

He's not thinking when his Omen scrabbles out of his sleeve to fall to the floor in front of him, when he looks to her with wild, thoughtless panic.]

Lazarus. [He ekes out, rasping and strained, as Sophia's ears prick up for vocal transmission.] Where are you?

[hearthebell]

[Would that L was thinking about his Bonded in Crenshaw, in the abandoned house without water or power where he is hiding tonight.

Paul's message comes when he's spent an undetermined time blacked out, faceplanted into a couch he was pushing toward the door to barricade the room. That's what makes the most sense right now, after all; a wounded animal can't just open his dwelling and his life for predators to pick him clean. No, more than ever he absolutely must guard his stumps and bloody bones.

He's in a mode where he's gathering and holding everything close. No moonlight in the room means that everything is washed in alarming red. He feels bad, weak and nauseous, and the answer feels like closing everyone out who could possibly come for him, for the purpose of helping or harming.

That's why when he answers Paul with shaky, slow fingers, it probably seems pretty unconvincing.]

creNSahsdw

wHy ?

[terriblepurpose]

[Lazarus' presence along the edges of Paul's nervous system is usually a nebulous, undifferentiated thing, and his elliptical orbit of a sleep cycle rarely draws Paul's attention except at the grinding edge of exhaustion near its outer reach. It turns out that separation of conscious awareness doesn't hold as true when it comes to shock. The world fills with grey static as Paul waits for his answer, curled up against the kitchen counter under a blanket considerately draped over his forcibly motionless shoulders. There's nothing wrong with him, so there's nothing more to be done for him than that.

(He says it's all right to let him wait on his own; he's still not, and that's another kind of static, dappled like rain.)

It's in this context Paul reads the message on the Omni balanced precariously on his chest tucked knees, and he does find the question just a little disingenuous.]

You know why. [Control has come back to his voice, obsidian sharp and brittle.] Don't play a game with me. I'm not in the mood.

[hearthebell]

[The reply takes awhile, beacuse L is typing so very carefully now in a last ditch effort to get everyone to leave him alone in his agony. He's sorry that he's sharing it with Paul; the fact that it hurt him was unfortunate, but it's not as though L wanted this to happen to either of them.

Unlike Paul, he has no blanket. He's shaking in the dark, one sleeve off his shirt to reveal gooseflesh along his bony arm that ends in a stump,, his blanket and most of his clothes wet and sticky and useless for warmth.

He gives up on typing, but speaking is almost as much effort through his shivering, distracting pain, and increasing state of disoriented confusion. Lycka glowers nearby, equal parts concerned and furious.

She and Paul probably have that in common.

The message comes through, forced-calm and still shaky. His words are a little irregular, less precise and crisp than they usually are when spoken aloud.]

No game... there's been an accident but I'm handling it. I'm going to take a powerful opiate shortly and then you should get some relief.

[There's the sound of a piece of furniture being less pulled, and more thrown out of the way. Lycka is not having his barricade efforts in the least.]

cw: reference to medical overdose (opiates), death

[terriblepurpose]

[Lazarus might be pleased to know that Paul has spent most of his time waiting in thinking about what might have happened, in various levels of visceral detail. 'An accident' does, in certain technical senses of the word, line up with the theory he's developed out of the evidence of the hand's probing and unraveling in combination with the transitory sting in his fingertips on the night of the party.

Paul would like to have something he could sink his teeth into. He settles for pressing the tip of his tongue against them when he closes his eyes to think of cool grey stone. Unlike Lycka, it's not going to do anyone any good if he starts throwing objects or accusations. He has a persuasive case to make.]

Traumatic amputation, significant blood loss, and opiate use. What do you set your odds of survival at?

[Concern takes precedence over anger, but it's almost as cutting from him.]

[hearthebell]

[The couch, knocked aside, is a new task, too much to handle. He almost had it by the door for his barricade, and then Lycka ruined everything by throwing it clear.

He might make a sound, a shout or snarl to indicate his frustration with his own soul foiling his plans so badly. But he's speaking to Paul with a voice that is fraying like string, and his old habit, reaching up to pinch at the bridge of his nose, has become an odd and jarring truncation that is also deeply upsetting.]

I know the odds.

[Simultaneously an answer, and not one.]

I understand that the pain is an inconvenience and I promise it'll be ended shortly. I've done what I can.

[And that, the implication hangs, and stains, is all that can be done, here and now, forever.

Lycka bolts from the room, leaving him. Paul will be seeing her shortly in the flesh, or rather misty smoke, as she plunges through the walls of the Bone House and rather rudely pursues help so that her stubborn, proud sleeper might live.]

[terriblepurpose]

[The channel of communication closes, which is for the best. The only words that come to Paul in the moment are better not spoken.

By the time Lycka comes through the wall, Paul is on his feet, pallid but unwavering. The pain can be disciplined and harnessed with sufficient will, and that's something Paul has never lacked. All he needed was a direction to focus it in, which Lycka provides for the entire nearly silent, seething trek from Lantern to Lantern until the last short, walked leg of the journey.

It doesn't take long for the unlikely rescue trio to arrive on Lazarus' bloody threshold. The lock gives way with a single sharp blow, framing Paul in the doorway as he takes in the gory room and the crumpled, abbreviated figure in its center.

He kicks aside a piece of debris on his way to kneeling at Lazarus' side, slightly unnecessarily. He reaches for the elbow of Lazarus' left arm, jaw set in a terminal, forbidding line.]

Lazarus? [For all his tension, he says it softly.] Do you hear me?

[hearthebell]

[L had meant to hide the book before anyone arrived, and with Lycka rushing from his side, he knows that's likely to happen.

It has to, after all, or he's going to slip into shock and die, whether he takes an opiate or not. So he doesn't; he sits, curled, trying to conserve energy and warmth and stay grimly awake. The book sits where it was dropped on the floor beside the bloody remnants of his melted hand, decorated with random splashes of red.

His stomach heaves when he looks at that spot on the floor. He fights back a wave of nausea, swallowing and and closing his eyes where he sits drooped against the couch that would have been his barricade.

When he opens them, blearily, Paul is here. Either he's been unconscious for awhile, the stump of his wrist and its tourniquet cradled in the crusted dried blood on his lap, or Paul really made it here in record time, with Lycka floating and darting agitatedly at his side. He swallows again, difficult because his mouth is so dry; he hadn't heard, but he nods, doing his best to piece together through context what was asked.]

A portal opened... I was attacked.

[The truth. Not the whole truth, of course, but a decent part of it, containing, importantly, the inciting incident.

Pay no attention to the Emperor's blood-spattered journal.]

[terriblepurpose]

[Paul curls his fingers supportively under the joint of Lazarus' elbow, his thumb falling along the vulnerable inner crease to stabilize it as he lifts the injured limb for inspection. The light isn't good, but it doesn't need to be for him to recognize the devastation of the wound. If not for the resiliency of Sleepers, Lazarus wouldn't have lasted even this long without help. It's a miracle that they found him before anything else did, so much helpless half-butchered meat in an abattoir.

He sets his numb left thumb under Lazarus' left eye, swiping at a crust of blood pooled in the shallow curve of his eyesocket.]

I believe you.

[There's no reason not to. The rest of the story tells itself, splashed over the journal that Paul isn't paying any mind to. He's known Lazarus had taken something since the night of the party, when his fingertips had sizzled with phantom sting. He'd known when he put out his message of amnesty, had it go unanswered, and still said nothing.

And look where it got you, he thinks, the edge of his nail scraping lightly at clotting rust on corpse pallor.]

We're here to help. [Soothingly, as if to a wounded, trapped animal.] It's going to be all right.

[Lazarus is diminished like this. The shame of witnessing this vulnerability evokes black sand, painted silver, and he wonders if the man watching over the result of yet another of Paul's attempts to be good remembers it too. He can't bear to make himself look. He wouldn't be able to tell if he did.

He runs his thumb back under Lazarus' eye, thoughtfulness in his own, their color vague in the dimness of this lasting night.]

Were you ever going to tell me?

[hearthebell]

[L curls instinctively away from the contact, because Paul's not far-off; there is more than a little bit of a cornered, wounded animal about him. He's chewed off a paw to escape a more uncertain doom, and now his eyes are dim and wild and his breaths come quick and shallow. In spite of his weakness there's a tenseness to him that makes him harder to move; it's all he can do, since he can't just will himself to become heavier.

He looks past Paul as he works to remove the bit of crusted blood beneath his eye, the patch he hadn't even known it was there. He can't meet Paul's eyes; that would be quite impossible actually, far too much to ask, and to his relief, Paul doesn't.

I'm missing a hand, he doesn't say, partly because it's obvious and partly because his mouth is still so dry. The rest of the reason comes down to how much realer speaking it aloud will make it seem. He'll have no choice but to look where it got him and the remnants of his stinging pride are present but scattered, protecting themselves rather than inhabiting this body and all its feeble, helpless hurt.

Lycka is faded and paler than her usual strong shape shows up. She keeps her distance; she's angry with him, too, and less subtle about showing it, now that she's done what he wouldn't and asked for help.

He blinks away some of the sting he feels in unexpected, prickling places the more he processes this, his dark eyelashes brushing Paul's diligent thumb.]

No.

[The word rasps out, soft, also mostly honest.]

What I learned, if I ever needed to. I'd never keep that from you, but... I was going to pay someone to break in and replace it when I was finished. Nothing would have changed except what I knew.

[And that says so much about the way L thinks, the way he sees the world, the way he sees himself in relation to the things and people within it. It's pragmatic and chilling, the determination that as long as he moves through the world like a ghost with no lasting or apparent impact on the things around him, he is doing it the right way.

He's diminished, like this. He wants to squirm away from Paul, leaning on Lycka if he needs to. He wants to stand and crisply form a plan to fix everything, while expressing that it was never actually broken and this was all an understandable but rather unnecessary overreaction. He has moments and lapses, like anyone else, and once they're worked out he'll be right as rain. Two hands means a spare one, like two kidneys or lungs or eyes. Doesn't Paul see his tourniquet, a torn and bloody sleeve twisted around a fork? He's resourceful, and brilliant and strong. He knows how to handle himself, especially in a war, and he knows when a sacrifice is needed and doesn't resent its parting.

Why doesn't he feel any of those things, in spite of his sureness? Or is it the other way around, feeling surety in spite of being broken and chilled in this dirty abandoned hovel surrounded by his own blood?]

[terriblepurpose]

[Lazarus gives his remorseless (defiant) confession, and Paul nods in perfectly understanding acceptance. It's beside the point, and would be a little cruel, to observe that the plan never would have come to fruition. Paul has no intention of letting their security be breached like that twice.

But then again: he never intended this to happen. He never even saw it coming, which is one of the only things he's meant to be able to do, prophecy or no prophecy. He never let himself imagine Lazarus would be capable of this extent of recklessness. That of the two of them, it wouldn't be his error that exposed the vulnerable tether between them; that of the two of them, it would be Paul crouched over Lazarus in a moment of desperate, furtive weakness.

Paul hates seeing him like this, almost as much as he can tell Lazarus hates to be seen like this. All he wants is to put an end to it, to relieve the shrinking tension in Lazarus' stick-insect coiling limbs, to bring him in from this chilled, stinking room.

(So why does his thumb stay crooked at the tender outer curve of Lazarus' eye socket? Why is his hand still closed around his elbow?)]

Thank you for being honest with me.

[He could inflect it with irony, or layer it with disappointment, but he says it as he means it - sincerely, even encouragingly. It's good practice to reward the kind of behavior you want to see.]

One more question, and we can see to this. [This, an abbreviating euphemism he emphasizes with a light increase of gripping pressure, his other thumb worked neatly into the joint.] Is there anything else you want to tell anyone? Anything you think you should say?

[hearthebell]

[Why does Paul keep his hands on him? Is it to offer comfort, or to remind him that even if L was allowed, he's well past the point of being able to simply stand up and walk away from this by himself.

It's hard enough just to remain propped upright, even with the support of the couch at his back. It's hard enough to keep his gaze slightly down and to the side, avoiding Paul's. Maybe it's defiance, or shame, or some unsure mix of the two. and it only deepens and grows more confused and complex when Paul thanks him for speaking words he almost immediately regrets.]

Yeah...

[There's a flash as their eyes meet for just a moment, too intense to look at for very long. L, who can stare across the table with a smirk at one who would call himself God, is actively terrified of the kneeling and softly-speaking Paul in this moment.]

You shouldn't have come here.

[The couch at his back lurches with a violent shove from Lycka. He loses his balance and cries out sharply, as the stump of his injured wrist knocks against the floor and leaves a blotted, congealed red smudge on one of the only relatively clean places on the floorboard.]

No one needed to know. I was handling it, and I would have handled what came after.

[Lycka arches and hisses at him, uncharacteristically hostile towards her own sleeper... but that sleeper's mood is reflected in her, pain and fear that lashes out and shoves those who would try to help away. It's the same logic that tucked him under a chaise longue in the Pale Sanctuary, and lets him lie about what Shoyo sees through rose-tinted lenses over and over again, as recently as just a few minutes ago.]

[terriblepurpose]

[It's when Lycka collides with the back of the couch and sends Lazarus toppling towards him, when Paul's nail catches glancingly at friction-tugged skin, when the open wound at the end of Lazarus' arm strikes the floor and sends a mirroring agony lancing up from Paul's closed wrist - it's then, and only then, that Paul understands what he was so carefully not thinking of. The soft, throttled noise in the back of his throat has little to do with pain as he catches Lazarus' weight slightly too late, the hand near his face slipping forward to curve around the nape of his neck.

The afterimage of Lazarus' fear-flooded eyes is burned into the rapid-firing neurons of new memory formation. Paul presses their foreheads together as if by urgent necessity, pressured reassurance of living flesh-over-bone. His voice, when it comes back to him, is no longer soft, only quiet, a plaintive scratching whisper.]

I'm not supposed to let anything happen to you.

[He'd never hurt Lazarus. Lazarus is his friend, his teacher, an anchor in uncertain waters. Whatever impulse hid in his hands isn't him. The dark, throbbing resentment of the past moments dissipates into a wild shame when dredged to light, and that's how it should be.]

I want you to apologize for taking the book. [He doesn't ask; he confesses, in an low, ugly gush.] I need you to be sorry. Please. For me?

[hearthebell]

[L doesn't speak, can't speak for the shoot of sickening pain in his arm. If he'd tried, there would be a quaver in his voice at least, perhaps even a whimper. He swallows, and breathes, everything in his chest shuddering as a fresh, chilled sheen of sweat blooms from his pores.

There's a hand at his neck, and is it really such a surprise? His pain comes back to Paul, after all, and not even Lycka is protecting him anymore, her dark glowering smoke grown beyond sympathy and into rage.

A strange numb peace settles in, the kind that only blankets the doomed as a final comfort. But nothing pierces through his throat; instead, Paul's forehead presses against his, and the blanket falls away and sucks all the air from his lungs, and no amount of shaky, gulping breaths can restore it.

So he doesn't try. The panic unique to the paranoid and mistrustful wrings through his ribs, but he's able to register what Paul is asking of him.

He's not sorry; he'd do it again. But Paul is telling him, in no uncertain terms, what he needs, and what has to happen for him to be safe, so close that their minds are nearly touching.

It's been so long since he felt like they were of one mind.]

I'm not supposed to let anything happen to you, either. That's why I took it. As long as you understand that... I understand what you need, and why.

[terriblepurpose]

[There are so many new ways to be opened up that Paul keeps discovering here. Lazarus asks him for his understanding between ataxic breaths, and it slits Paul sternum to navel in hideous comprehension. Because of course he does; because of course it's more important that Paul understand what this was for than that Lazarus survives it.

(They have so much in common that way.)

If Lazarus doubts that Paul recognizes the concessions he's made, the extent of his sacrifices, there's only one person Paul can hold accountable for that. How can he be anything but profoundly, terribly affected by the depths of unearned devotion proclaimed in every dead cell smear and puddle?]

I understand. I never doubted you. Not once.

[He pours all the truth he can dredge out of himself into the unadorned statement. Lazarus didn't ask him for a speech, and they don't have time for one even if he did.]

I'm sorry.

[He means that too, as he lifts his head and glances at the doorway behind him, another question scrawled across his face in muted appeal.

(Will Lazarus understand this? Does Paul?)]

[necrolord]

[ In the doorway, God taps his foot and checks his nonexistent watch.

He had steadied Paul in the kitchen, when the boy first crumpled in on himself. He had drawn a worn black blanket around those thin shoulders while Paul huddled senseless with— pain? grief? disorientation? He cannot comprehend it, which is new and frankly fascinating. Whatever is happening before him is part of a closed system, and he hasn't found a way in. Not yet.

He hangs back and watches, all the same, as Paul crouches beside the long skinny flinch of Lazarus. He sees the movement in Paul's shoulders when he leans in, when he smooths a hand across the nape of a dying man's neck. He knows what he'll see on Paul's face in the moment before the boy turns, beseeching.

It's more like home than anything has been. There is something steadying about being able to answer a prayer.

God claps his hands together like a man pleased to be taken off the bench, a shock of noise in the ruined room, and he steps forward. ]

Well. [ Lazarus knows this tone: soft over something hard. ] This is a bit of a mess.

[ He takes no pleasure in the miserable, dying curl of this young man with his sad little fork tourniquet. The stink of blood is an embarrassment to everyone present. He's the adult wading into a kid's tantrum to dispense band-aids and time-outs; it'd be beneath him.

But he does hold Lazarus's dark eyes over Paul's shoulder. He pays no mind to Lycka; he steps past her as though she isn't there. ]

Not sure about your choice of location. It was a bit of a hike.

[ It put Paul to some inconvenience, he doesn't say, because the boy in question is still on his knees. Paul still looks as though he might tighten down to some singularity or he might shake apart. ]

[hearthebell]

[This whole time, L has not noticed the Emperor here. Perhaps he should have known that he would be coming, since Paul came to save him, and there's only so much a Paleblood without rapid healing abilities can do in a situation like this. He droops against Paul, wondering if it would be better to ask before lying down, or just keep on drooping until he makes it there, anyway.

He assumes that Paul is saying he's sorry because Paul understands he's at the limit of his strength, that it's too late and L will have to be reborn before he makes good on his promise of an apology for stealing the book.

When Paul turns his head toward the doorway, L's forehead drops against his shoulder. For a moment he's pressed inside a black and warm cocoon that shrouds his eyes, though they remain half-open, and the pain begins to recede and become a memory that belongs to a distant, closed chapter.

Not yet, announces a fleshy thunderclap, a haughty voice using different words but ultimately saying the same, smug thing. The darkness ebbs away, and though he'd thought he was past fear (past-tense), the flare and flicker of it lights up his limbs. Uncoordinated as they are, they make an earnest effort to get away, and if he can break away from Paul with the sudden rallying explosion of motion, he'll do what he can to keep the couch between them (while conveniently using it for support he can't remain upright without, just now.)]

You brought him here...

[It's more of a numb, hollow realization than a venomous accusation. Paul would have done what he thought was best, meaning no harm, but L's "choice of location" has always been his armor. The secret and anonymity and constant changing between abandoned and condemned properties is a punishing grind and highly inconvenient, but he persists with it because he earnestly believes it protects him from situations like this.

Paul believes he's brought a medic to one wounded. L knows he's brought a monster instead, one who is relishing holding his life in his hands with the knowledge that it can be relinquished or refused at his whim.

Lycka remains where she is as the Emperor passes, a hulking dark shape who resembles a storm cloud more than a gentle and protective orca matriarch. Her sleeper is dying and she blames him; with his survival as a priority, she recognizes the best shot he has. With his survival as a priority, she would rather see him humbled than watch him choose pride over life.

A bit of a mess, indeed.]

[terriblepurpose]

[Lazarus rests his head against Paul's shoulder, and despite everything, including the way it makes his own head swim, he is still apparently enough of a child to think that things will be all right. He still mistakes his wishful thinking for what is, mistakes exhaustion for acceptance, mistakes the coincidental alignment of events for a sign he has control.

What is a teacher for, if not correcting such errors? When Lazarus struggles against him like an insect realizing its entanglement in a web, Paul lets him go in a shock of dissonance as much as spiking pain, but whose fault is it, still, that Paul keeps mistaking the nature of things at hand?

(That's funny. He thinks about saying it. Maybe he will.)

He's on his knees in a dark place soaked in blood. His hands are full of it (it's funny; it's funny), and all he hears is a whirlpool, a ravenous spiral of a throat, and he understands the sound is his rampant heartbeat in his ringing ears.

He looks up at Lazarus from the floor. He draws himself up in a column, into the empty blue eye of a storm, and he opens his mouth.]

Stop.

[It lashes out of him like a snapping chain, a Voice that is like and unlike the Voice his mother taught him, a Voice he's only spoken in once before, to her, buried under burning sands. It is not the Voice of obedience. It is the Voice of the imperative - and it falls apart in his throat like wet ash, the last trailing critical note broken by a sucking hitch of breath.]

Stop.

[He can't look at him anymore, not after that, a thing that closes around him like a swallow. He looks at his hands, and can't look at them either, but there's nowhere else he can look. He can't be here. He can't think, except of blood on sand and of how things always happen the same way, and his hands are always reddened to the wrists, streaked up to the elbows.]

I can't let you die.

[He says, in an empty kind of despair, shucked and raw. The question that follows comes in the same tone, but it's as if he's asking it of someone, or something, else - or of himself, or of all of them, or of nothing. He flexes his hands. He observes the differences between them.]

Are you punishing me?

[hearthebell]

[It's not funny.

None of it is; if it's a joke, it's a cruel and humiliating one, and L is betrayed, and angry, and bleeding out as he runs on fumes alone. Even his omen is forsaking what truly matters, here, and the sting of it eclipses what screams in the severed stump in front of his makeshift tourniquet.

Even alone, even if he can't maintain it for a full minute before he inevitably slides to the floor, he'll stand in service of what truly matters. He can be the only one, just like last time, when everyone betrayed him through treachery or stupidity and let a mass murderer win.

I'm right. What matters is I'm right... I wasn't wrong, I'm right I'm right...

The giddy singsong pinging through his brain is shattered into pieces by a voice he can't name, but knows in every fiber of himself. Clinging to the armrest with his remaining, bloody hand, he slips down beside the couch before he thought he'd have to, hollow eyes staring, his own voice stolen by the commanding power in Paul's.

It's not that the Voice sounds like a Shinigami. It's more of a feeling, the pierce of being seen by yellow eyes and marked. And who is he to stand against a god of death? He's the one who tried, and fell; that's his legacy, that will always be his legacy.

The effect lingers even after the sound has crumbled and dropped away. Paul sounds like a scared boy again, baldly telling the room what he can't lose and plaintively asking if he's being punished.

L shakes his head, which lolls sideways against the couch's armrest. He'd never, not intentionally. Even punishing Paul accidentally is still a kind of power he's convinced he can't possess, even at his strongest and sharpest when Paul still believed he could learn something of value from him.

He doesn't know how to be beloved, watching with the bewildered anxiousness of a draft horse who has broken a leg and suddenly become a burden and a liability. Is guilt the punishment that Paul perceives? Or the pain that he should have swallowed with drugs that could blot it out for them both?]

[necrolord]

[ Lazarus attempts to scrabble away like a wounded and cornered animal. It is honestly embarrassing for everyone present. Well; Paul is having a bit too much of a moment to be embarrassed, so God is embarrassed on his behalf. Paul holds himself as though everything around him is made of fragile glass.

And then he speaks.

It shows in John's eyes, for a moment: he knows this trainwreck. He recognizes the timbre, the split-second resonance through Lazarus's answering stillness. To him it plays out not only as sound to air, but in a cascade like dominoes falling. Motion is arrested by processes too neat to be organic; Lazarus goes still in a way living things can never go still without divine command.

He has heard this Voice. It makes perfect, terrible sense that Paul would exert that will here and now, with the hitch of a sob in his chest. That understanding slots into place somewhere deep. He will examine it, wearily, later.

God steps forward. His hand touches Paul's shoulder, in the same way he had steadied the boy when he crumpled in the kitchen, face scrunched in pain and confusion and soap suds still at his wrists. He has that look now, to his Teacher. God sees no difference. ]

I can take it from here.

[terriblepurpose]

[When Teacher puts his hand on Paul's shoulder, his breath doesn't hitch. It implodes, a sucking vacuum collapse that forces his spine straight and ribs wide as he tears at the air like there's not nearly enough of it. It clarifies, scours. It focuses him back down to a single fixed point in space and time, the one his mind keeps trying to wrest him away from.

He's nowhere but here, all control slipped from his grasp like water, his wrist an abbreviated blunt ring of agony, weaving to and from consciousness like a punch-drunk pit fighter, exhausted and undone. He's so tired of always having to be the one who thinks about what happens next, who traces actions and their consequences in spiraling outward echoes. Lazarus, so clever, couldn't see past the end of his rightness to its inevitable outcome, reliant on the mercy of a man who has no reason to give him any.

Except one, and in the pit of this vulnerability, there's nothing gentle or sentimental about that understanding. It's a welling tide, an inexorable pressure that bears down on hairline fractures and wrenches them open. If he looks up, his eyes bruised and ruined with reprieve, he thinks something in him will shatter like so much sun-slicked ice.

Paul's empty left hand rises, barely tremulous, and curls loosely over Teacher's as he turns his still-hanging head, his temple grazing the worn sleeve of Teacher's shirt. He takes another breath, quieter and unforced. He nods, mutely, then lets gravity grip his hand to pull it away.]

Thank you.

[Words as soft and drifting as smoke, but meant, genuine, unmitigated. He's grateful like a surrender.]

[necrolord]

[ Paul crumples. He crumples upwards, into straightness and stillness, but John recognizes this for what it is. The boy touches fingers to the back of his plain brown palm as though reaching for an anchor, then falls away again as though succumbing to the current.

The room is quiet but for Lazarus's ragged breathing. It is dark but for the thalergy-dense and still-cooling blood on the floorboards. For all that he has spent his days in Trench healing the sick, this is something different: there is a feeling to this moment like a shift of gravity, a purity of motion, a divine certainty. When he steps past Paul, it is as God going to bestow a miracle.

The boy before him is a miserable curl of blood and desperation. He is all undirected agony; he is a fight-or-flight mess. It is nothing like he'd been on the beach before the battle, drunk and careless on his coming death. It reminds him more of a bad dream.

He offers his hand out, steady in the space between them. His eyes are implacably dark, the central rings the same white as bone or scouring ash. On the beach, he had made this offer with a slouch and a smile; here it recalls the half-real press of a plastic water bottle between hands. It awaits the indignity of a choice.

Just balancing the scales, really. ]

[hearthebell]

[A different current laps and rushes at the edge of the tatty, ragged couch. It's one L knows; he's felt it before, seen the world growing dimmer and narrower, keenly aware of how a heart beats wrong and then doesn't at all.

That day on the beach, he was different. He hadn't yet lost the first community he'd found and belonged to; he hadn't yet lost Paul. Comparing death and vicarious death is something he can do now; he knows, without contest, which one is worse.

The impulse to fight or flee looks messy and humiliating, but at its core, doesn't it mean that one wants to live? Paul needs to see that he's trying; Paul needs to see that he's not being punished.

It's why, when the Emperor's lightless eyes meet his drifting and unsteady gaze, L puts aside the sting of mutilated pride and attempts, honestly, to reach for his offered hand. If that had gone as intended, the bloody tourniqueted stump would have found its way into the warm, steady palm; instead there's the feeble tink of a fork against wooden floorboards.

He couldn't lift his arm, not even a few inches from the ground. His shivering exhaustion is apparent with every shredded breath; there's no comfort in any of it, except that there's no way Paul can see it as a refusal.]

[necrolord]

[ It's a choice, if a bad one. To live will mean submission; to die will mean flipping off the still and stricken boy watching at his side.

Lazarus chooses submission, or tries to. God will remember that.

The sad little fork tourniquet goes trembling to the ground, and God knows the hazy-eyed look of a body without much time left. This does not worry him. A slow death has very little power when he's in the room.

In acknowledgement of the effort, he reaches out. He touches plain and gentle fingers to the ragged edges of that bloody wrist, and when he pulls his hand outward from that stump, the flesh follows like molded clay. He draws out bone, first, which forms a wet red lattice of phalanges. He webs these with blood vessels, clothes them with tendons, strokes his thumb over the forming lines of metacarpals like a parent comforting a child. He turns Lazarus's half-formed hand in his and traces a thumb along the naked swell of palmar muscle as though admiring his own handiwork.

He isn't so petty as to make it agony. He isn't so gentle as to make it painless. It hurts in the way punishment should, all sting and shudder and wrenching vulnerability. All the while, he does the necessary work: flooding the system with fresh blood, strengthening the flagging heartbeat, wiping clean the clutter of that frantic endorphin high.

It will feel as it did on the beach. It's a phoenix-fire rebirth, a blaze of invisible scouring light, and it is over in an instant. Lazarus is left still bloodsoaked but whole, with his hand in God's hand. God is still looking at those pale and restored fingertips as he says, mildly: ]

I appreciate dedication to the bit, but I don't think the four days are meant to be cumulative.

[ Or: consider dying less often. ]

[hearthebell]

[Sometimes, the choices are a rock and a hard place. Sometimes it's about getting what you can out of a stone. Sometimes it's about knowing that one will be entombed, but at least getting to choose where and how.

It's something. And when there's nothing else, that becomes everything.

Not flipping off Paul, in this case, has become everything. The cold and dark that frame such a small universe make it seem as though it will be easy to dissociate for the duration of what that costs, but he learns, extremely quickly, that disconnecting from his body is just not possible when he is regrowing a hand.

He's seen cadavers. He's seen corpses in every state and stage of decay, every horrible thing that can be done to a human body in the name of cruelty or passion or calculated criminal necessity. It still doesn't prepare him for the surreality of The Emperor creating life from nothing, pulling something neat and gathered from void and entropy, and manages it with an obscene sort of tenderness that is both violating and strangely, sickeningly paternal.

Kira couldn't do that; a true god could, and as The Emperor steadies and strengthens his heartbeat and flushes him with new blood, it feels like a different kind of death.

For Paul; it's for Paul. And that's bearable, until his improving mental clarity kicks him in earnest, and he's reminded that he is also supposed to be grateful, and sorry.

It's a long, untenable and utterly exhausting list. Though he's freshly mended of wounds, The Emperor slyly salts him anyway. The bit, as though to suggest that this Lazarus is inauthentic, not actually having earned the miracle.

That's fine; it's true. What's not fine is the notion that the Messiah is, in fact, authentic, with the grace to perform the miracle for the unworthy.

Healthier than he's been in weeks, L is in fact not fine. His voice is careful; he speaks with measured intention, peering intently at The Emperor's face while he is still inspecting his work in his warm, skilled hand. Eye contact, after all, can make even the most improbable statement seem more sincere.

Paul hadn't asked for sincerity; not really. The point of asking someone to lick a boot is not for them to learn to love the taste of leather.]

I apologize for stealing from you.

[Done. The bare minimum, but exactly what was asked for, in a tone that is neither gentle or petty. Because he's not sorry; he is glad for what he has memorized cover-to-cover. He would do it again; he will, or something like it, just with a recalibrated strategy when he can once more call himself "fine."]