Part 14.3

Heracles VS Lernaean Hydra

Author Note: I was thinking about it and I really wish that GT9 used more draconic symbolism throughout the story when (or if) I revisit Team Crowley VS Rosencreutz I'll have symbolism of Aleister (TheBeast666), Aiwass (Codename: DRAGON) and Coronzon (The Dragon of the Abyss) all have symbology of them being Dragons preying on a God/Hero like CRC and the reversed conflict of Chaos VS Order you see in mythology, I also wanted to achieve something similar with Kakine Teitoku as he can represent the Fallen Angel and the Seraphim but for now I'll try adding draconian symbolism into Gunha VS CRC.
True Expert Christian Rosencreutz, with his golden rosy cross sword, clashed relentlessly against the indomitable force of the Strongest Gemstone, Sogiita Gunha. With each clash of their powers, the air crackled and compressed, and the pavement trembled beneath.
CRC, observed Sogiita with a mixture of intrigue and disdain. "You fight like the legendary Heracles," he remarked, his voice carrying over the din of battle. "But know this, I am the Lernaean Hydra, and no matter how many heads you sever, I shall always rise again!" Rosencreutz roared to slice the #7’s midsection.
Sogiita, his entire body wreathed in unknowable energy, met CRC's blade unyielding. "Bring it on, old man!" he retorted, his voice brimming with confidence. "I'll knock you down as many times as it takes! I won't stop till you come to your senses and remember your roots, like the roses you love so much, Rosencreutz!!"
Their clash intensified, that old man’s higher dimensional sword colliding with the raw power of that boy’s fists and kicks as they pushed each other to their limits with each sword swing, punch, kick and flash.
Sogiita unleashed a barrage of punches, each strike carrying the force of a meteor, while that silver young man countered: he wielded his sword in his right hand and released impacts followed by white light that was enough to previously take down all of The Bridge Builders Cabal.
As the battle raged on, the very fabric of reality seemed to warp and shift around them, bearing witness to the titanic struggle between two unparalleled forces.
The founder of Rosicrucianism who intimidated reality itself to obey his will and that Gemstone with an unstable personal reality that could change on a whim.
The atmosphere crackled with electrifying distortion.
Sogiita's fists tore through the air with the ferocity of meteors, their velocity enhanced by his ability to adapt and accelerate, surpassing even CRC's speed. As each blow was released, the friction with the surrounding air molecules ignited a scorching heat, intensifying the impact.
The rapid movement of molecules generated an escalating thermal energy, causing the air to seethe with increasing temperature. It was akin to a tempest of incandescent projectiles hurtling towards CRC, their speed surpassing the limits of human perception.
It was like a storm of brilliant fiery arrows was fired at Rosencreutz.
These blazing arrows of force were reminiscent of the elusive strikes employed by the Rose & Cross Leader, ignoring distance with deceptive agility.
With each thunderous punch, that bandana boy sought to overpower his adversary through sheer kinetic force, his unwavering resolve palpable in every motion.
But that wasn't enough for this superhuman.
CRC, wielding his cross sword with precision and skill, deflected each and every one Sogiita's flaming arrows with calculated strikes of his own. Each impact unleashed a burst of blinding white light, sending shockwaves rippling through the chaotic city.
"You think brute strength alone will defeat me?" the silver man taunted, his voice cutting through the chaos of battle. "You may be strong, but strength without strategy is nothing but raw power wasted."
Sogiita grinned, his confidence unshaken. "Strategies for cowards who can't handle a real fight," he retorted, his voice ringing with defiance. "I'll K.O. you with my fists and guts alone!!!!"
Rosencreutz's eyes narrowed as he parried another of Sogiita's punches. "Your arrogance will be your downfall," he warned, his tone tinged with certainty. "I may not match your overall speed, but I have something you lack: intellect and precision.”
Christian Rosencreutz then plunged his cross sword into the ground.
"This is what harmed Kamijou Touma," he declared, grinning and unleashing a torrent of lethal invisible attacks from his outstretched palms.
However, the #7 countered with a relentless barrage of flaming arrows from the thermal aftershock of his punches.
Each strike akin to a particle accelerator in its intensity and speed. That Gemstone was the particles being fired on the right and that True Expert was the particles fired on the left.
As the attacks clashed, the battlefield became a spectacle of raw power and precision.
“Roar!” CRC held his open palm to his mouth and blew gently on the tip of the middle finger.
That was all it took for a blaze easily outdoing a flamethrower to rush out. And this was not just any fire. It fed on the power of a ley line and stole vitality from space itself. This overwhelming mass of light and heat was wielded for no other purpose than to take lives. Anyone who tried to survive it using simple composite armor or special fibers would dry up and burn away in less than a second.
But that wouldn't kill another superhuman would it?
Of course not.
“Aaaaarghhhh!!!!” screamed the #7.
Some assaults bypassed the fray entirely, slipping through the chaos like elusive particles in a collider.
A smokescreen.
Those brilliant fireworks from hell weren't meant to take Sogiita’s life. They were meant to disrupt the Gemstone's senses and sight so he couldn't counter all of that old man’s deadly attacks.
Invisible strikes found their mark on that Gemstone, and the searing arrows of the arrows scorched Rosencreutz.
CRC was wounded but he rejected to make any whimpers. Instead with a sudden burst of velocity, the young silver man picked up his cross sword from the ground and launched a flurry of strikes, cutting at the #7’s body with pinpoint accuracy.
His arms, his head, his face, his stomach, his legs, his midsection, his back.
Each blow landed with devastating force, causing Sogiita to stagger back under the onslaught.
If that bandana boy hadn't had his defenses and general stats raised by the #5 he’d be cut to pieces.
The #7 fell on his back.
"There's a fire," Sogiita declared, his voice ringing out amidst the chaos of battle.
With each attempt to break his spirit, Sogiita's resolve only grew stronger, fueling the flames of his determination. "Every time someone tries to make me give up, it's like wind feeding my flames, making them burn even brighter just like my punches," he explained, his words carrying the weight of his unwavering determination.
He refused to stay down.
With a roar of defiance, Sogiita surged forward once more, his movements blurring with speed as he disappeared from view. In the blink of an eye, he reappeared behind Christian Rosencreutz, catching the magician off guard.
"Hey, old man," Sogiita taunted, his voice filled with confidence as he seized Rosencreutz from behind.
Christian Rosencreutz's eyes widened in surprise as he realized he had been outmaneuvered.
As Sogiita Gunha faced off against Christian Rosencreutz in their airborne duel, he felt the flames of determination burning within him, driving him forward with unstoppable force.
Before he could react, the boy lifted him effortlessly and slammed him onto the pavement below with a resounding thud.
"I'm not just a kick-boxer!!" Sogiita sang.
As the impact reverberated through the air, the young silver man let out a pained cry. The force of the collision compressed the surrounding air, heating it up until it crackled with energy. Christian Rosencreutz's head struck the ground with a velocity equivalent to mach 20, igniting his body in flames upon impact.
This move is called a suplex.
Struggling to regain his bearings, Rosencreutz muttered in a daze, "The House of the Holy Spirit...the seven walls..."
"You said it yourself, didn't you?" the gutsy boy retorted, cocky. "My power and my guts can break through your impenetrable walls. And I can spread those same guts to the world around me."
With a grimace, Christian Rosencreutz acknowledged the truth of the boy's words. "Your uncontrolled AIM field grants you the ability to imbue non-organic objects with the properties of your virus," he observed, his voice tinged with begrudging admiration. "Allowing them to bypass even the defenses of the seven-walled tomb.”
"A virus? Don't be so gutless, CRC," the #7 retorted, his voice filled with defiance. "This battleground ruled by wills is a two-way road between you and me."
Christian Rosencreutz raised an eyebrow at the boy's words. "Hey Gemstone, you could've killed me if I weren't a superhuman with an idealized body that accomplished The Great Work and crossed the Ungrund, what then short-stack?" he questioned while fitting an insult against his height.
Even without the seven-walled tomb or sheets of diamonds Rosencreutz was cartoonishly durable.
"Sorry, old man," Sogiita retorted, a hint of irritation lacing his words at the jab about his height. "I may have let my enthusiasm get the better of me, but rest assured, I understand the magnitude of this battle. Just like the Hydra, no matter how many heads you regrow, I'll persevere until I've completed my labors.”
"Mhm, so you do know your mythology," CRC remarked, a hint of amusement in his voice. "The Lernaean Hydra, or simply Hydra, is a serpentine lake monster in Greek and Roman mythology. Its lair was the lake of Lerna in the Argolid, known as an entrance to the Underworld. In the canonical myth, the monster is slain by Heracles as part of his Twelve Labors."
"Yeah, I know," Sogiita replied confidently. "I studied the tales of great gutsy heroes in school.”
"So, short-stack," Christian Rosencreutz began, his voice carrying a hint of scholarly interest. “Have you ever considered the parallels between our battle and ancient Near Eastern religions?”
Sogiita listened intently. "Are you saying you see yourself as a god of war or a hunter?" he inquired.
CRC chuckled softly. "In a sense, indeed. We are both assuming roles in this grand theater, are we not? I, the Hydra, and you, Heracles."
He continued, "Consider the Second Labor of Heracles. Eurystheus, the king of Tiryns, sent Heracles to slay the Hydra, which Hera had raised specifically to defeat him. Heracles approached the swamp near Lake Lerna, where the Hydra dwelled. To protect himself from the poisonous fumes, he covered his mouth and nose with a cloth and shot flaming arrows into the Hydra's lair, causing it to emerge and terrorize the surrounding villages."
CRC paused, drawing a comparison. “In our own clash, the flaming arrows that Heracles hurled at the Hydra find their echo in your lightning-fast fists, generating shockwaves that ignite the air with their speed and force. It's as though each strike of yours is akin to shooting a flaming arrow, much like Heracles did.”
“Huh? Are you suggesting we're caught in a time loop? That some enigmatic group, like the Bridge Builders Cabal, manipulated events to resurrect you, pitting us against each other in a timeless struggle? I've never met them, and I'm certainly no child of Zeus. Are you implying that our battle will be distorted into a Greek legend by a meddling time traveler?!” frantically asked the boy.
“No, no, you simpleton. This world contains synchronicities. In Sumerian, Babylonian, and Assyrian mythology, the war and hunting god Ninurta was celebrated for his deeds. The Angim credited him with slaying eleven monsters during an expedition to the mountains, including a seven-headed serpent, possibly identical to the Mushmahhu, and Bashmu, whose constellation was later associated with the Hydra by the Greeks. In Babylonian contexts, the Hydra's constellation is also linked to Marduk's dragon, the Mushhushshu.”
“Uhhh….” That shounen boy was dumbfounded.
"Hhm, I suppose calling it a time loop isn't technically wrong," Christian Rosencreutz began, his tone measured. "I'll break it down from history class and reconstruct it through the lens of the occult. Historic recurrence, young Gemstone, is the phenomenon of events echoing throughout time. Whether it's the rise and fall of empires or the repetitive cycles within a single society, it's all part of this grand plan that was decided when Adam ate the forbidden fruit."
The #7 with his guard up but curious listened: "So, history just keeps repeating itself? Just a series of coincidences?"
Christian Rosencreutz shook his head sagely. "There is no such thing as coincidences. Take, for instance, the Doctrine of Eternal Recurrence, pondered upon by thinkers like Heinrich Heine and Friedrich Nietzsche. While it's said that 'history repeats itself,' it's not quite that simple. Rather, these recurrences stem from identifiable circumstances and chains of causality."
He continued, his voice carrying the weight of centuries of philosophical debate. "Consider the phenomenon of multiple independent discoveries in science or the reproducible findings in natural and social sciences. These recurrences, whether in the form of rigorous experimentation or comparative research, are vital to our understanding of the world."
Christian Rosencreutz paused, allowing the weight of his words to sink in. "G.W. Trompf, in his seminal work, The Idea of Historical Recurrence in Western Thought, illustrates the recurring patterns of political thought and behavior since ancient times. Through these patterns, history offers us invaluable lessons, often leading to a sense of resonance or déjà vu."
Their words reverberated like a challenge to destiny itself, a testament to their unyielding determination in the face of adversity.
That Gemstone didn't surrender his characteristic fervor. "History echoing through time, huh? It's like the universe itself is stuck on repeat, and we're just caught in the cycle. But you know what? If history's gonna keep looping, then let's break the pattern! Let's smash through those chains of causality and forge our own path. Who cares about déjà vu? We'll create something entirely new, something that'll shake the very foundations of this world and we’ll do it with guts!!!" He defied that silver monster.
But Rosencreutz wasn't finished. He pulled out his Crystal World Map.
The supposedly old man listened intently to that boy's impassioned response, his expression inscrutable behind his clairvoyant card. After a moment of contemplation, he spoke.
“Gemstone, you speak of breaking free from the chains of repetition, of forging a new destiny against the backdrop of eternal return. It is a noble aspiration, indeed. However, consider this: eternal return is not merely a philosophical concept or a whimsical notion of fate. It is the very fabric of existence, woven into the nature of time itself.” He pressed his finger on the Miniature Garden and a 3D holographic projection flew out—
“In ancient times, the Stoics grappled with the idea, seeing in it both a sense of cosmic order and a challenge to individual agency. Augustine and others recoiled from its implications, fearing it as a negation of free will and salvation. And yet, Nietzsche, in his brilliance, dared to confront the concept anew, exploring its depths in the crucible of human consciousness.”
Didn't Aleister Crowley say that he had to shatter every single phase in order to eliminate the concept of fate?
“I will shatter every last phase and put an end to all mysticism. It can be helped and we need not restrain our tears and bite our lip when faced with tragedy. I will bring back the pure world in which everyone can feel anger like normal and question it all like normal!!”
And didn't Coronzon appear to break down all the phases including the Pure World?
Partial destruction would be meaningless. If anything remains and an eternal distortion is born from that, then it will all happen again. I will eliminate the ten spheres, the twenty-two pathways, and the hidden eleventh symbol. Collisions between phases? Sparks and spray? You cannot save anyone if you only treat those symptoms. All of the fundamental clogs must be removed. All so we can pass the baton to whoever comes next.”
“Sparks and Sprays…” Rosencreutz muttered.
“Eh?” The #7 didn't quite hear him.
"Beside time stands fate, cruelty's steadfast herald. In the silent chambers of the soul, whispers the most profound wisdom. Humanity, in its folly, neglected to exalt life's splendor, its radiance, its grandeur. Truly, it is a rare gift to comprehend the forces that shape our existence.” That magician spoke in despair.
“From the moment man ate the fruit of knowledge, he guaranteed your species’ failure... Entrusting his future to the whims of fate, man clutches to a flickering hope. Yet, within the Miniature Garden lies the key to all revelation. Beyond the well-trodden path lies the ultimate terminus. It matters not who you are; Death is the sole certainty awaiting all.” he finished with scorn.
Shokuhou Misaki was currently linked to Sogiita Gunha so she was overhearing the entire conversation.
“Are you okay, Leader?” asked Kamijou back at the hospital.
“Yeah…” she responded.
*“Really?” Mikoto breathed a white sigh. “It wasn’t the shock of seeing their school destroyed. Nor was it the fear of having those rioters attack. …They’re afraid of their own power. And after learning how exactly to use that power to survive, they’re not sure they can just switch it off and return to their normal lives. So their gears have ground to a halt.”
Tokiwadai Middle School was a prestigious esper development school.*
The young ladies registered there were Level 3 at the lowest and Level 5 at the highest.
Almost all of the students had a power that surpassed that of a blade or handgun if used properly, but something had become twisted.
Yes.
“A lot of them weren’t really sure why they were training their powers.”
Shokuhou breathed a white breath, wrapped her own arms around herself, and rubbed her thighs together.
Why are you studying?
How many people could give a proper answer to that question? Because my parents told me to, because my teachers taught me to, because that’s how the world works. Those would be most people’s answers. Even the students with a clear vision of their future would only have something vague like “for the entrance exams” or “for my future”.
Only a small handful would have specific puzzle pieces in mind, such as “I need to learn how to use this equation so I can build a rocket”.
The young ladies of Tokiwadai Middle School were the same.
What if the very gears that humans have…their actions, reactions, inactions were all the result of some transcendental entity hovering above.
Like God or The Devil watching over humanity’s reality sphere and ordering around his system like everyone was a pre-programmed NPC that had specific events occur to them to get them to develop in the way that they did and determined their genetic bloodline that composed their psyche?
Is there truly a free will?
It was said that in order for you to break out of the system of society that the working class was stuck in you had to climb to the top where the corrupt elites resided.
Imagine Breaker negated sparks, Aleister Crowley could see through the veil thanks to Holy Guardian Angel Aiwass, Great Demon Coronzon could always see the cogs.
Christian Rosencreutz could view the entire world through his Miniature Garden.
The rest of humanity was at the mercy of their own destinies.
A Guardian Angel wouldn't arrive to save a parent’s child from fate every single time.
"Okay, nice poetry, can we get back to fighting already?" asked the #7 impatiently.
"Seems I got carried away," the old man conceded with a nod. "The synchronicities of this world, akin to the astral configurations in astrology, serve as an example of synchronicity, according to Jung. It describes circumstances that appear meaningfully related yet lack a causal connection, much like the parallel relationship between celestial and terrestrial phenomena. Synchronicity experiences entail subjective encounters where coincidences between events in one's mind and the external world may lack a clear causal link but still harbor an unknown connection.”
"Ah," Sogiita chimed in, recalling his philosophy class discussions. "We talked about synchronicity back then. Jung thought it was a good thing for the mind, but said it could get dicey in psychosis. He cooked up this theory as a kind of mental link between those meaningful coincidences, calling it a noncausal principle. This term came about in the late 1920s, and then he teamed up with physicist Wolfgang Pauli to dive deeper. Their work, The Interpretation of Nature and the Psyche, dropped in 1952. They were big on this idea that these connections, even the ones that don't seem to have a cause, could still teach us a lot about how our minds and the world work."
“Mhm, you know more than you lead on, Gemstone.” pondered CRC.
“Oh this? My teachers say I'm not good at remembering speeches hahaha…” The #7 looked slightly nervous. “You know, analytical psychologists really push for folks to get what these experiences mean to boost their awareness instead of just feeding into superstitions. But funny thing is, when clients spill about their synchronicity experiences, they often feel like no one's really hearing them out, or getting where they're coming from. And hey, having a bunch of these meaningful coincidences flying around can sometimes ring the schizo bell. Delusions aren't healthy.”
Where was this conversation going?
"Delusion! Hah! That's a good one coming from you," CRC fired back.
"The real delusion is thinking humanity isn't worth a darn," Sogiita shot back, pulling out some info from Johansen and Osman. "Some scientists think coincidences are just random flukes, but counselors and psychoanalysts reckon there's more to it, like some deep-down stuff needing to come out. Unconscious material to be expressed."
Rosencreutz interjected, his expression reflecting a mix of confusion and concern. "Aleister Crowley's actions have left a lasting scar on this world and this city," he began, his voice weighted with solemnity. “The vacuum-like dichotomy between magic and science created by the use of that colossal psychotronic weapon, has damaged this world's memory almost irreparably.”
Psychotronic weapon?
The Archetype Controller?
He paused, his gaze piercing as he continued, "Jung's exploration of synchronicity as evidence of the paranormal paved the way for further inquiry, notably by Koestler and the subsequent embrace of these ideas by the New Age movement.”
Sogiita shrugged, "Some folks say synchronicity is impossible to test or prove, so it gets labeled as pseudoscience. Jung even acknowledged that these synchronicity events are basically just coincidences, statistically speaking. But hey, who's to say what's really going on without some solid scientific studies, right?"
"Dubious as his experiments may have been," CRC interrupted, "Jung believed in a connection between synchronicity and the paranormal, drawing parallels to the uncertainty principle and works by parapsychologist Joseph B. Rhine.” CRC posed a thought-provoking question, "How are we to recognize acausal combinations of events, since it is obviously impossible to examine all chance happenings for their causality? The answer lies in the fact that acausal events are most readily expected where a causal connection appears inconceivable upon closer reflection. It's impossible, with our current resources, to explain ESP or meaningful coincidences as mere phenomena of energy. This challenges the very notion of cause and effect, as these events occur simultaneously rather than in a linear cause-and-effect manner. Hence, I have coined the term 'synchronicity' to describe this phenomenon, placing it on equal footing with causality as a principle of explanation."
Getting closer to that Gemstone, CRC emphasized, "Esper abilities cannot be fully understood with science alone. They defy traditional cause-and-effect explanations, instead representing a convergence of factors that create a quantum phenomenon affecting both the micro and macro. Why were there the naturally gifted and the naturally ungifted?”
Why did some students get praised for their abilities while others needed to work harder?
Others among them would have worked every hour of their free time and not progressed anywhere in this city’s leveling curriculum.
Why did this city present such an unfair and unpredictable status quo of potential?
Why did hard work barely matter in a city of empirical evidence to record any possible progress?
Sogiita Gunha wasn't a normal Level 5 but he wasn't always this powerful. He went through the curriculum same as everyone but if the outside conditions for his Gemstone ability to manifest didn't form in the exact way that it did, in such an acausal form then would he even be here to challenge Christian Rosencreutz right now?
Everything just happened to fall right into place.
All those puzzle pieces that would lead to this moment here and now.
Was it all just talent? God picking a fool as his champion?
The #7 leaned back, absorbing CRC's words with a thoughtful expression. "So, what you're saying is, there's this whole other layer to reality that we can't quite wrap our heads around," he summarized, nodding slowly. "I mean, it's like trying to catch smoke with your bare hands—slippery and elusive."
He chuckled, shaking his head slightly. "Historic recurrence, synchronicities, all these things—they're like pieces of a puzzle scattered across this substantial reality. And sometimes, they just... click into place, right? It's like the universe has its own plan, and we're just along for the ride."
That bandana wearing boy's gaze drifted, lost in thought. "You know, CRC, it's funny," he remarked, a wry smile playing on his lips. "Here we are, with all our powers and potential, but at the end of the day, we're still grappling with the same questions as everyone else. Talent, destiny, divine intervention—maybe they're all just different sides of the same coin."
He shrugged, the weight of the philosophical musings settling over the broken city. "Who knows? Maybe God does have a sense of humor, after all.” that boy chuckled.
There was a deep silence between them.
Rosencreutz’ response was swift and resolute, his tone filled with certainty. "All this ‘universe has a plan’ banter is just a distraction from the inevitable," he declared, his eyes narrowing. "We can debate the nature of us being all-powerful yet struggling with mortal issues until the sun burns out, but it won't change the fact that our fate was sealed upon the knowledge Adam learned."
“To think so many trivialities have developed while this old man wasn’t watching. Heh heh. Then I should assume the thread of fate has again begun to weave its strange connections between myself and some unknown human.”
He rose forward, his movements purposeful. "It's time to put an end to this dance of platitudes," CRC continued, his voice cold and unwavering. "We'll settle this the only way that somewhat matters—through objective action in this grand play."
“Silence, preserved doll. Illusionists are meant to remain silent. That is all we magicians are: wielders of substanceless illusions. Opening your mouth serves only to break the illusion.”
With a flicker of resolve in his eyes, he locked gazes with the #7. "I am Hydra, Gemstone," he said, his voice carrying a hint of challenge. "Our battle ends now.” CRC opened both his palms and began shooting at their surroundings, the buildings, the pavement, the apartments, the rubble.
It probably wasn't random as it seemed to create a pattern.
“Huh are you getting senile old man?” asked the young Gemstone.
“What fun. I never imagined someone would bother diligently polishing their skills this far while knowing it is all essentially an illusion. Didn’t you ever feel silly going to the effort?”
Rosencreutz dropped to all fours, his rosy cross sword gripped tightly in his right hand.
He moved—
“Arrgh!” Sogiita yelled amidst the relentless and precise and precise strikes from that golden cross. “Old man?” he asked.
That magician didn't say anything.
That silver man’s movements became more beastly.
Faster.
Stronger.
Fiercer.
Something new was beginning to manifest.
With each strike of his higher dimensional blade that old man’s blows seemed infused with an otherworldly energy.
The wounds inflicted by his weapon burned with a venomous intensity, sending searing pain coursing through Sogiita's body.
That boy grimaced as the poison from that silver man’s strikes surged through his being, each wound feeling like it was ablaze with venomous fire.
"Damn... That burns…like a killer hornet’s sting," he muttered through clenched teeth, his voice strained with effort. Gritting, he fought to maintain his focus, despite the agony threatening to overwhelm him.
Was this another application of The Four Stages? Citrinitas? No, there was nothing yellow here, it was more like a dirty purple.
But it wasn't just the physical damage that posed a threat.
As the Rosy Cross leader leaped on all fours his movements took on an almost erratic quality, he was bouncing from one building to another with an animalistic agility.
With each jump, a shockwave rippled through the air, carrying with it a palpable sense of dread.
Something was spreading.
The air around them seemed to thicken with a toxic miasma. The #7 struggled to breathe, the noxious fumes clouding his senses.
Like a chaotic monster’s venomous poison breath.
The once-clear air now felt thick and suffocating.
Gasping for breath, the bandana boy struggled to maintain his focus amidst the swirling chaos.
His vision blurred, his movements sluggish as he fought against the oppressive atmosphere.
Blinded that heroic boy could only fire a flame arrow without his sight.
His fists striking out with all the strength he could muster. Igniting in that poisonous compressed air.
It seemed to be flammable like a dragon’s breath.
???
At the hospital, Shokuhou's voice carried a mix of surprise and relief. “He caused real damage.” she exclaimed.
Kamijou turned his attention to her, intrigued. “What happened?”
“It's hard to see clearly, but it looks like the #7 managed to blast off CRC's left arm,” she explained. “Though, I'd say it was more of a lucky shot. I can read he acted on pure instinct.”
Kamijou nodded, a hint of melancholy in his tone. “Yeah... the psychic link and all.”
Had the #7 Level 5 given up on the old man?
Back on the battlefield, Sogiita cursed under his breath. “Dammit... Sorry, old man,” he muttered. “I was aiming to hit your whole body to maximize the surface area, maybe break a few bones as a casualty. We can probably get your arm reattached at the hospital. Heaven Canceller has enough guts to even fix me.”
It was clear—he hadn't given up.
It was an accidental strike of his arm.
“As each ghastly head was severed from its serpentine form, dreadfully, two more writhed forth from the abyss.” a cryptic voice amidst the chaos spoke.
Wasn't it said that the Hydra’s lair was the lake of Lerna in the Argolid.
Lerna was reputed to be an entrance to the Underworld.
The abyss.
The Ungrund.
There is no limit to the depth of the Alcyonian Lake, and I know of nobody who by any contrivance has been able to reach the bottom of it since not even Nero, who had ropes made several stades long and fastened them together, tying lead to them, and omitting nothing that might help his experiment, was able to discover any limit to its depth. This, too, I heard. The water of the lake is, to all appearance, calm and quiet but, although it is such to look at, every swimmer who ventures to cross it is dragged down, sucked into the depths, and swept away.
The keeper of the gate to the Underworld that lay in the waters of Lerna was the Hydra.
The serpentine Lake Monster.
“Rosencreutz……?” The #7 muttered.
That magician chuckled ominously. "No, young Heracles, Hydra." he intoned, his voice echoing with a bizarre resonance. “The Lernaean Hydra's curse is upon you now.” as he said that he cut off a bit of his arm that was cuterarised with his golden blade and it began bleeding.
Anna Sprengel’s blood was said to create unknown miracles when spilled.
Christian Rosencreutz’ blood was so virulent that even its scent was deadly.
As Sogiita Gunha glanced at his severed arm lying on the ground, a creeping sense of horror enveloped him. "All of fate is a curse and that curse," he murmured, his words barely audible over the din of battle, "extends even to my severed limb.”
Christian Rosencreutz’ left arm grew back.
No.
Two new arms grew in its place.
The fate of chaoskampf? The hero battling the dragon?
The arm was fully functioning with no defects.
Although one of the arms appeared somewhat scaly and lanky like a serpent.
It had human anatomy but something was abnormal here.
He almost looked like a spider as he emerged from the poisonous fog as he remained on all fours.
“So short-stack. Are you ready to complete your final labor: Crossing the abyss!!!” He challenged that boy with his cross sword facing him.
"Boss, what's up? You look kinda stuck," Kamijou asked, his tone concerned.
Two students were sitting together in the waiting room at a hospital.
"—abyss, Hydra, curse, synchronicities, Historic recurrence." she replied, her words carrying a weight of unease.
"Huh? What? Can you give me the lowdown?" Kamijou prodded, his urgency evident.
"Can't quite wrap my head around it. But what I can tell you is that after CRC started talking about these esoteric concepts, he leveled up his power ability, managed to seriously hurt the #7 despite me cranking up all his stats for the win condition," the honey-blonde girl explained, frustration creeping into her voice.
"Can you beam all that stuff into my head, like a memory download? You're a psychological esper, right? My right hand won't mess with it, and we've done the telepathy thing before," Kamijou suggested.
"Memory download's not quite it, but I can send you a recording," she clarified.
"Got it," Kamijou muttered as he absorbed the info.
"You got any ideas to help the #7’s situation ability, Kamijou-san? We're kinda desperate here," she asked.
"I wish Index was still here, dammit.” he lamented, “But you know about magic, right?" he queried.
"Yeah, people converting their delusions into reality right?," she admitted.
"Well, magic's not just about delusions; it can be tied up to the whole world. Not sure if it's relevant, but based on Idol Theory, Rosencreutz might be pulling in 'energy’ from the Greek 'phase’ of Heracles for an edge," Kamijou theorized.
"Like a chessboard flip?" Shokuhou Misaki inquired, her brow furrowed with concern.
"No, more like... imagine you're playing checkers with a buddy, and you're totally crushing it because you're a checkers pro. Then suddenly, your buddy switches it up and challenges you to an arm wrestling match, and you lose because, well, arm wrestling isn't your forte," Kamijou Touma explained, trying to paint a vivid picture.
"So, by taking on the role of the Hydra from Greek myth, he's essentially forcing the #7 into the role of Heracles? But didn't Heracles defeat the Hydra?" Shokuhou sought clarification.
"Yeah, but..." Kamijou recalled the tale from the movies he'd seen. "Lichas gave Heracles a shirt soaked in the Hydra's poisonous blood from his arrows, which ends up killing him by tearing his flesh down to the bone," he elaborated.
"It was actually Nessus seeking vengeance and tricking Deianira into giving it to Heracles as a gift, delivered by Lichas without disclosing the tunic's lethal bloodstained secret from the Lernaean Hydra, but you're right," Shokuhou corrected gently. "So, Rosencreutz is harnessing the power of that legend to slowly poison the #7?"
"Not literal. I mean the poison is real but his slashes do significant harm now so it's more like shifting the paradigm in his favor…shifting his position.” The spiky-haired boy wasn't in the mood to explain Phases, “Earlier, he mentioned Sogiita spreading his 'virus' throughout the world. A virus isn't a poison in the traditional sense, but the Rosicrucians originally sought to create a universal cure for all illnesses. Now, CRC is spreading a literal poison, positioning himself as the ultimate predator and his opponents as prey rather than his savior role, the paradigm has been shifted." Kamijou concluded, his voice tinged with gravity.
“So he’s changed the environment to get the win condition? The #7’s durability doesn't matter in the face of the world being forced to go about a certain way because of Rosencreutz stage play?” The girl asked.
“Yeah…if things keep going this way…Sogiita will….goddamnit….” The spiky haired boy swore. “I can't let someone else die after all that's happened but I feel like if I go out there I really will kill him…” he muttered that last bit while clenching his right fist that began shaking uncontrollably.
The girl’s eyes seemed confused.
“What did you say?” The honey blonde middle schooler asked.
“Nothing, just mumbling to myself.” he spat out.
That boy and girl could never come to the right conclusion on their own without the aid of former Magic God Othinus by their side.
“Did you think I had challenged you with no hope of succeeding, you cesspool? The magic born on earth is bound by the directions based on the earth’s magnetic field and by the density and composition of the air which is determined by air pressure which is in turn influenced by gravity. That is inevitable when you are focused on the cardinal directions of north, south, east, and west or on the basic elements of fire, water, wind, and earth. But what you will find upon leaving the atmosphere is an unknown. Coronzon, are you sure there will be no malfunction in the magic giving you control of Avatar Lola? And before, my power was bound by the puny speck named earth which failed to become a black hole or even a sun, but once we enter outer space, just how far do you think that power will be released? I do not mind at all that I will lose the support of Academy City.”
Well the boy was half right.
“Let us test it out, you cuspidor. On one side, we have you using the planet and bound to an avatar. On the other, we have me exposed and freed from the planet. Now, who will be the star of this show?”
Christian Rosencreutz did not shoot at his surroundings for no reason.
The battlefield transformed into Rosencreutz's canvas, resembling the legendary battleground of Lerna where Heracles once clashed with the Hydra.
Yes.
He didn't unleash his powers randomly; every action was deliberate.
In the magical side of Idol Theory, mimicking an object, event, or person allowed one to tap into a fraction of its power.
And that even applied to locations that essentially worked as stage plays.
Idol Theory was so absolute that even the basic cross held a portion of the son of God’s power.
As Above, So Below.
As Below, So Above.
Macro to micro.
Micro to macro.
And the macrocosm and the microcosm are always linked.

First: https://www.reddit.com/HFY/comments/14vo5lb/troublemakers_deaths_pity/
*previous:* https://www.reddit.com/HFY/comments/1crq34h/troublemakers_buried_secrets_bolster_the_weak/
......
Go'mon strutted around the command center, a cape of deep purple silk flowing about his shoulders as he wore his gilded armor. An ornate helmet underneath one arm, the faceplate forged into the visage of a snarling Rak'nal beast. He peered over the shoulders of drone pilots, observing the carnage on the streets in front of the mansion. His black scimitar hung at his belt, the palm of his war gauntlet resting on the hilt, eyebrow crests rising as he saw the expeditionary general's Buzzard explode.
"Casualty report on General Gra'vos?"
He stated to the small Geknosian woman who deftly piloted her drone closer to the wreckage to pull data from the onboard recorder. Her eyes sparkled, reflected in the screen as the data was streamed directly into her brain through a neural implant.
"Deceased, Just like you planned, his provided pleasure slave threw him from the craft and stole the det-sphere you clipped to his belt. You seem to know a lot about how these humans fight."
Go'mon touched the small grooves underneath the elastomer skin of his face where that parasite had shot him with a concealed gun. He laughed bloodily and purred.
"Failure is the greatest teacher in the universe, these parasites have taught me everything they know. Now we just need to see what their true fighting strength is."
"Understood sir, orders?"
"Get a view on the inner courtyard and report to the commanders of the second and third waves their positions and weaponry."
A young lieutenant called out.
"Sir! Twelve UHM-60 Blackhawks en-route to the enemy base! Advise!"
Go'mon stalked over, peering over the satellite observer's shoulder as he followed a chevron of twelve helicopters loaded down with ancient, obsolete human war-droids. He rapped the claws of his war gauntlet against the handle of his scimitar with a purr.
"Send orders to Commander Mar'tek to equip three of his Gallicks with anti-air weaponry, and orders for Commander Rak'don to equip his light attack craft with visual lock on missiles."
"Yes sir, relaying orders now."
Go'mon patted his subordinate on the shoulder hard enough to make them wince as he stepped back to gaze up at the massive map of Golgotha on the big screen. Small purple dots converging on a black dot that symbolized the human base of operations. He noticed that Mar'tek's forces were delayed, having only made it roughly halfway to their staging area. Walking over to the Comm's desk he asked.
"What's taking Commander Mar'tek so long to get into position?"
"A small group of human Saboteurs dropped a pair of buildings across the roadway, they're still clearing the rubble sir."
Go'mon nodded, picking idly at his metal teeth with the sharp point of his war gauntlet's index finger.
"Hm... I thought the parasite's response was oddly punctual, color me surprised they had the wherewithal to keep scouts. Move Mar'tek to the rear of the attack plan and tell Rak'don he's up next."
"Yessir!"
Go'mon chuckled haughtily, exiting the command room and returning to his field office. Setting his helmet on top of his desk he picked up the communication stick for sylva.
"Sylva, Would you kindly deal with that gate once you've landed?~"
There was a pause before.
"I'm too injured to follow that order sir."
Go'mon raised an eyebrow crest at the monotone voice that echoed back through the device.
"you've never refused a command before darling, would you kindly take care of the gate?"
The pause was longer this time, much longer this time. Then, a different, much younger voice came through, filled with fear, but also tainted with determination.
"Fuck you, Go'mon. These are our friends."
The sound of penny whistles and drums accompanied the words before the comms device popped in his gauntlet with the sound of a musket shot. Impossibly thick gray smoke pulsing from the speaker as he snarled and tossed it to the side.
"Bobby, Would you be a dear and retrieve your sister for me?"
The almost seven foot tall brute slowly nodded, eyes dull behind his ceramite mask as he stomped from the command center, bulky combat armor clattering and clunking with each step. Go'mon pressed his metal teeth together with a hiss. That damned warrior corrupted everything he touched with delusions of free will. Go'mon grabbed a fungal cigar from the box General Da'kos had given him as a thank you gift. The sweet, smoky flavor filling his maw as he lit it with the glowing hot blade of his gauntlet's thumb. He relaxed into his chair, flicking his cape out from beneath him as he enjoyed the cigar to relieve some momentary stress. His body suddenly flared with tingling power as the voice of Conquest growled in his ear.
"Kill that boy before he realises your plan. if he finds out your intentions he won't hold back."
Go'mon puffed the cigar and pulled it from his lips, letting it burst into purple flames and crumble away into cinders as he rose from his chair. He stepped out into the command center and commanded.
"Get me a buzzard to that battlefield, Order's from Conquest herself!"
There was a moment of silence as he let his aura roll over the command room, several of the comms officers immediately setting up a Buzzard for his departure.
...
Dust kicked off the ground as Drake's jump pack slowed his fall meters above the ground, He hit the ground and tore it from his back, whipping it into a group of soldiers and hitting it with a jet of pale flames.
The pack detonated in ball of orange fire that vaporized the soldiers, his cape fluttering in the backdraft before he whipped his sword from it's sheath, keen edges wreathed in pale flames as he took a Geknosian's arm off at the elbow as they tried to stuff a blaster pistol in his face. He snatched the blaster pistol from the air, using it to put a kinetic bolt into the faceplate of a powerarmored soldier with a Warhammer, Crumpling it inwards as he slid a foot back, another warhammer crashing into the ground where he'd just been standing. Another kinetic bolt tore off the soldier's pauldron as the hammer swung up at his face, making him reel back as another hammerhead caught him at the small of his back and knocked the air from his lungs. Another hammer slammed into his faceplate, forcing him to kick himself into a flip to land back on his feet. Ears ringing he deflected a Warhammer with his sword before putting another blaster bolt into the wielder's faceplate. But even as they fell back, another hammerblow hit the side of his helmet and smacked him down. Drake rolled out of the way as twenty millimeter high-explosive rounds shredded his assailants, allowing him to get to his feet as the war-bots formed a lethal semicircle, sending high explosive firepowerinto the rear column of the Geknosian assault at a blistering pace. Drake shook his head clear and vaulted over the back of one, hearing it's gun fall silent as he landed in it's cone of fire. Several flowing chops decimated a small squad of Geknosians as he tried to fight his way to the center of the column where the Gallicks hammered the gate with kinetic penetrators. The armored gate shuddering with each blow as Drake dodged war gauntlets and hammers, retaliating with fast slashes and blinding thrusts. Purple blood drenching him as his heart began to pound with battle lust.
He heard a mighty roar and crackle as one of the flying machines opened up with it's chin gun, harassing a gallick with 20mm High explosive rounds to get it's attention off the gates. It's shadow passing overhead with a Buzzard in pursuit as it slalomed low through the buildings to come back for another gun run. There was a ground shaking Boom! as something exploded beyond the rooftops, a Buzzard, smoking from one engine buzzing overhead and away from the battlefield. Drake quickly returned his focus to the battlefield, Smacking a Warhammer to the side with the blaster pistol before thrusting the blade right beneath the soldier's chin, twisting, and pulling free as a war-bot fell forward, a molten pit of slag glowing in it's back as he turned his head to face another column of armor and armored soldiers as they rounded onto the battlefield, a Buzzard painted the deepest, most royal purple he'd ever seen hovered low in front of them.
A geknosian in gold and purple armor fell from the open door, Cape of purple silk flowing behind them as they landed with one palm against the ground, Dark scimitar slashed out to the side as a crescent blade of purple energy was slung straight at Drake. Death's chosen slashed upward at the crescent, but it flowed around his blade, cutting across his chest and bringing with it a foul, draining weakness as a cold, familiar voice called out.
"That one's mine boys!~ all mine!~"
Drake hadn't recognized Go'mon in the ornate armor, but now there was no mistaking it. He tried to take a step forward but his legs buckled beneath him, sending him to his knees as a festering cold spread from the wounds made by the crescent blade that never touched his armor. He looked in confusion at his sword as the pale flames flickered out, then up just as Go'mons armored shin cracked into the side of his helmet, flinging him through a building as his mind reeled with confusion. He pulled himself from the rubble around him, stumbling to the side as a blade of purple energy sliced through the rubble he'd just been buried in without leaving a mark. He tossed the blaster pistol to the side, bringing the free hand to his mouth, intending to rip a ring off with his teeth. But as Go'mon slung another blade of purple energy with a cackle, He missed the ring, biting off his left index finger, ring and all as a boost of power burned the creeping cold away. He spit the severed digit to the ground as the ring still on it puffed into smoke.
"Feeling weak boy?!~ like your power's been drained?~"
Go'mon purred as he took a step forward, aura swelling with power as he held up the black sword.
"The blade of greed will do that if you let it touch you~"
Go'mon took an unfamiliar stance, Blade arched over his head and pointed down as he fell into a low, wide stance, one arm pushed forward as the blades on his war gauntlet's fingers glowed orange with heat. Drake fell into his peasants guard, gripping his sword in two hands as he glared at Go'mon. His gaze flickered off go'mon for a split second as he thought of everyone still in the mansion and the Geknosian chosen surged forward in a flash of purple light to run drake through before kicking him through the back wall of the building, Drake's power draining away like the blood pouring from the hole in his Lorica. He barely deflected Go'mons black blade as Conquest's chosen surged forward with a brutal slash, unable to focus for the split second required to dissipate a ring and refresh his power. Go'mons aura blooming with power with each blow of that black blade. Drake burst through a wall and into an empty street, tumbling ass over head as he desperately held onto his sword.
Angry red blood spilled from the hole in his armor as he got his elbows under him, a pair of golden boots clomping into view as Go'mon gloated, a softly flickering bloom of pale purple flames in his palm.
"All this power, and you don't even know how to properly control or wield it... Don't worry, you won't have it long~"
Drake manage to dissipate two of the remaining rings on his left hand, an intoxicating burst of power allowing him to launch himself back away from Go'mon as his wounds knitted closed, severed finger growing back with a crunching, fleshy noise. He could feel Go'mons grin behind the snarling visage of his helmet as he fell into a peasants guard, feeling far too weak for having removed five rings. The two stared at each other silently, one of the flying machines spinning to the ground before exploding into a fireball behind Go'mon. Drake fet a deathly calm fall over him as he twisted his sword up into a high guard.
He had to make it back to his people, no matter what. The thumb and pinkie ring on his right hand puffed into smoke as he felt those corvid like wings form at his back, a cold cage of festering ice around the burning sun of rage in his heart. Go'mon took a simple offensive guard, twirling the scimitar with obvious skill in a figure eight in front of him.
The two chosen launched themselves at each other, Drake wreathed in black smoke as Go'mon exploded with pale purple light; the pavement cracking beneath their feet with the violence of the action.
...
Martha tended to the mounting wounded in the infirmary as fast as she could, back splayed open as small gossamer arms allowed her to work on several wounded at once. Many of the ex-slave women helped, binding wounds with clean bandages and splinting broken limbs like they had back at the plantations. Hearing the large wooden doors of the ballroom infirmary slam open, she looked up as Destrier and Caz hauled in a pale remin and a Brutalized young woman. Keeping one hand holding a bundle of gauze against the bleeding wound she was attempting to close up, The young man looking up at her with fear, pain, and hope on his face as he helped hold the gauze down. Pointing to two empty beds she called out.
"Set them there! Where's Drake?! We could really use the walking embodiment of Death right now!"
Destrier hoarsely called back, setting Remin into a bed as the old man struggled to keep his eyes open.
"He's fighting his way towards us from the rear!"
Caz helped the battered young woman into a bed where she curled into the fetal position before the Markswoman swept back out of the infirmary, Huntress humming as she slammed a new flechette into the barrel. Martha continued tying off tattered blood vessels, trying to keep the young man from bleeding out as Cassius appeared next to her, shaking his hands dry after scrubbing them with antiseptic to help close up the gnarly gash in the stomach of the wounded man behind her. Martha's heart pounded in her throat as she finally managed to sew the wound closed before hitting the fighter with a sedative to ease his pain and knock him out. She wanted to cry but held in her tears as she turned around to focus on the same patient as Cassius, but even as she did, the young man placed a bloodied palm on her forearm. She felt a lone tear drip down her snout as she looked at the mans deathly stillness, eyes closed in quiet acceptance of his fate, a grim smile on his face.
Her legs felt weak beneath her as she leaned on Cassius, watching Destrier rush out of the infirmary out of the corner of her eye.
"we're going to need a miracle if we want to make it out of this alive..."
She whimpered as the din of battle echoed dully from outside. That was when a wounded man sat up, grunting as he held the bandages across his torso. She rushed over to stop him from tumbling out of bed when he simply fell through the floor, an odd superposition happening where he was there and not for a split second. But when it faded, there was a note left on the ground, scrawled in blood red, blotchy words.
"I'll be back, and I won't be alone."
Martha could only hope that was true as she turned to continue tending the wounded, Despair filling her heart as more wounded were brought in from the ramparts.
...
Halcyon held the gate, rifle spitting hatred from behind one of the wall's crenellations as one of his Hellions fell next to him, skull split open by gauss slug. Halcyon glanced down at the gate where Thomas and another hulking agri-droid held it against the wall, the gate rattling with each impact of a Gallick's kinetic penetrator, apples of sunlight spreading across the ground where they'd simply sailed straight through. The Geknosian reinforcements turning an already blistering hail of various projectiles and beams becoming an impassable force as several of their light cruisers fired on the helicopters that circled over the battlefield. Missiles streaking upwards and shredding the soft-skinned aircraft, forcing them to take evasive maneuvers and stop the pulse-pounding barrage of their rotary cannons. Halcyon's attention was drawn to the sky as an impossibly loud crash of steel on steel accompanied a streak of pale purple light and void black as they shot into the sky. The black streak getting slammed down by a brutal, unseen strike that made Halcyon's heart leap into his throat. What kind of monster could go toe to toe with Drake, and appear to be winning.
Halcyon, peaked past the cranellation he had his back against, a gauss slug taking his eye out and making him shout in pain as he jerked his head back. Ripping a bundle of gauze from his medi-pack, he rolled it out and bunched it up, pressing it against his vacant and shattered eye socket as a bout of lightheadedness turned the edges of his reduced vision dark.
One of his men crouched beside him flinching when chips of stone exploded from the crenellation they'd been taking cover behind, some sort of heavy weapon having been aimed at them as they darted for Halcyon. Halcyon looked into their eyes, face just as dismayed as he felt, their words barely audible over the din of battle.
"what do we do, sir...?"
Halcyon let out a sigh, shouting over the roar of gunfire.
"Pull back! secure the mansion!"
The fighters didn't need to be told twice as the ramparts were abandoned, leaping from the walls to sprint back to the mansion, The agri-bots forming a phalanx behind them to cover their retreat. But Halcyon couldn't help but feel this is exactly what the Geknosians wanted.
But even as the fighters swarmed into the Mansion, Two figures walked past them.
A hulking man in dark samurai armor wielding an lmg and a smaller woman with a flowing furred cloak and white mask, carrying an ornate rail rifle walked past them through the doors.
Halcyon watched in dismayed confusion as Caz and Destrier stepped out into the sunlight, a jump pack freshly mounted on Destriers back beside his kanabo. Another smaller figure appeared as if from thin air, Cassius spinning the weight at the end of a chain attached to a kama menacingly as the doors closed behind them, massive metal shutters sealing them out as the mansion was locked down. He couldn't help but smile grimly.
There was a reason they were Drake's friends, and it wasn't because they were the best fighters.
It was because when everyone else ran away, they ran towards the fight... regardless of their own safety.
......
Part 109: will be linked here upon release.

Just over 9 years ago, my father died. I am now 21, but I was 12 at the time.
More so now than ever, I'm trying to learn to grow into adulthood with a healthy relationship of the grief of my childhood. Really, I'm struggling.
I remember nothing between 8 and 12 other than suffering. I lost two grandparents (the other two had already passed long before), an auntie and uncle, and a cousin in law. Growing up, my life felt defined by death.
My father had a brain tumour, diagnosed around the time I was born. My parents divorced when I was 8, my father moved into his own flat, and things got progressively worse following it.
My father was a proud man, a refugee from Hungary who worked his way to a job in tech. He was extremely loving, and held strong moral principles. Seeing this made fade over time crushed me.
I watched my father die over a number of years, of which I hold countless, horrible, memories. I remember hugging him, feeling little but bone and saying; 'Dad, you need to eat!'. I remember him arguing with my mothrt when she used to buy him food and clean his flat, she cared deeply about him and did all she could. He just didn't want it, I think he had given up. I remember watching the news with him once, and he said 'the thing about the news is, it's only designed to be watched for 15 minutes at a time, that's why they repeat themselves'. Now, every time I watch the news I can't help but wreath in pain at the fact that sitting in that flat, dying, alone, watching the same thing over, and over again was his reality. I remember looking at care homes for him with mother and, when she was asked by the staff whether he was terminal, she simply stated 'yes, he will sadly die'. I remember the period leading up to his death. He had fallen in his flat, and, if it weren't for my Mum demanding that the staff let us in, he would have died there alone. I remember seeing him fallen. I remember the care home that treated him horribly, sometimes we'd visit and he'd be lying on the floor in only his t-shirt. Worst of all, I remember seeing him on the brink of death at the hospital in his final days. I remember the drive to hospital the night he died. I will never forget what seeing my father about to die felt like.
Part of me doesn't even know why I have just typed out my most traumatic memories of my father's life on Reddit. I know I have been wanting to post for awhile, I guess I just found it too difficult.
Honestly, I am simply in pain. It hurts so badly. I cannot shake the memories. They feel like they define me, like I will never be able to escape the feeling of death that follows me around.
For those who have gotten this far, thank you for taking the time to read this. If you have any advice, please let me know. I'm struggling.

New to the group so forgive me Im behind on the how to deal the narcissistic parent/I should be tougher about this. But normally I am very good at maintaining my emotional distance from my mom and putting up those boundaries with her. Yesterday I found her guilting me that I wasn’t able to say Happy Mother’s Day to her (I work with herun a family business with her so I was forced to see her that morning) I just can’t even muster the feeling to say it when I genuinely don’t feel she is a mother to me especially not a good one. I didn’t react when she started going on about how she basically “doesn’t have any children, I guess.” I’m not quite sure what I’m supposed to say to that as I am now 27 and really have tired myself out of engaging with her this way the last 3 years since my father(the good parent) passed away. I could tell she was hurt, I struggle to ignore the human side of her. It made me feel guilty and icky, I didn’t get her a card because it just feels disingenuous. I handed her a gift bag with a decorative wreath and left it at that. But the emotional side of things, I just can’t fake. Doesn’t make me feel any less guilty. I hate Mother’s Day, it makes me feel so jumbled up inside. Seeing the genuine appreciation and admiration that some people feel for their moms while I feel none of those things make me sad. I am resentful and checked out. Part of me is thinks”well if your kid doesn’t feel comfortable celebrating you for being a mother what does that say about the kind or mom you are?” I still feel crappy about it nonetheless, anyone feel similar yesterday?

question was happiness and joy in a christmas carol
In the novel a christmas carol we can see that Dickens wanted to present christmas as a joyful charitable time. We first see this through the character Fred when he says " have always thought of christmas as a good time, a kind forgiving charitable time" this quote shows that Fred is a kind hearted man which contrasts to scrooges selfish miserable behaviour when he doesn't donate to the charity men. In addition to this the word "charitable" also portrays Fred's giving nature and how he wants to help the poor. This idea of helping the poor also links to Dickens views and how he believes everyone should be able to have a joyful time at christmas no matter the social class.
Furthermore we can see how Dickens presents idea of joy and happiness through the ghost of christmas present. This ghost is described as a "jolly giant who bore a glowing torch" the "glowing torch" can be seen as a symbol for happiness and how the ghost of christmas present represents positivity and joy. In addition to this the ghost of christmas past is also described as a "jolly giant" who wears a holly wreath. It can be seen that this ghost is compared to santa and that Dickens wanted to use this ghost to spread christmas joy and represent good will. The ghost of christmas presents joy is used to transform scrooge which further links to Dickens idea that happiness and joy can transform people.
Additionally Dickens presents the cratchits as a jovial family even though they are a victim of poverty. Large family's like the cratchits were common in the 19th century so Dickens made the cratchits to be an accurate representation of this. He also focuses on the family's unity to convey the idea that poverty is not a barrier to happiness. We can further see this when Tiny Tim says "God bless everyone" this shows Tiny Tim wants to spread happiness to everyone- even to those who are selfish like scrooge.
Lastly we see ideas of happiness and joy in a christmas carol though the character fezziwig. Fezziwig is presented as a "jolly fat man" in this novel who is used to contrast scrooges behaviour. Scrooge was happiest when he was working for fezziwig which is shown when scrooge sees the "bright face of his former self" furthermore fezziwig treats his employees with kindness by letting them have christmas off "no work tonight it's christmas eve" this quote shows how fezziwig embraces the joys of christmas unlike scrooge who sees it as "an excuse to pickpocket a man every 25th"

[F4A] Autumn Spirit Takes You on a Date

This is the first of a little series about four seasonal spirits interacting with a special human who can see them and converse with them. As the children of Mother Earth herself, they decided to find a lonely human child to befriend. They chose the listener many years ago when they were only a small child. No one else can see the spirits but the listener.
free to monetize! to credit, just link my YT channel (found in my profile)! Thanks! :D free to genderbend!
Location/Ambience: autumn town ambience, light traffic, bike sounds, people talking, cafe ambience, footsteps, leaves rustling Listener: stressed young worker, has known the spirit since childhood Voice: Talkative, bright, playful, slightly flirty, innocent, energetic Theme: de-stressing, slight comfort, wanting what’s best for you, childhood roots
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(door opens and shuts, town ambience starts, breeze blows)
Ah! There you are! Finally! How can you even breathe in that musty dusty building? I feel like the gates of Hades just spat someone out at me!
Not THAT warm in there? Look at you, you’re all sweaty and your cheeks are… all rosy and red.
Shrug, then snicker
Maybe it was because YOU were in there for too long… giggle What were you trying to do, cook everyone?
Flirty laugh
Hahaha, don’t deny it. But anyway, I’ve got you outside now, so you’d better enjoy this breeze! I’ve arranged it just for you.
You’re welcome. Only the best for you, dear.
I’ve prepared the perfect autumn day for you - just how you like it! Crisp, cool air, bright blue sky, golden setting sun… C’mon, let’s head down to the park! All the leaves are really coming down and the girls club is selling cookies! You can buy some for me!
I - well, no, you’re right, I can’t exactly eat because I’m a spirit… but we can pretend! Remember, just like old times! We used to play in the leaf piles, and your mom would call you inside for cookies, but, everytime, you came back out with some for me?
I pretended for five whole years before you realized that I couldn’t actually eat. Haha. I always returned the cookies you gave me when you weren’t looking. You never noticed till five whole years later!
Hearty laugh
Mhm. haha.
So anyway, tell me - how was work today? Apart from making you all stiff and stuffy?
…(pause)
Ugh… same old story… what a witch that lady is.
…
She WHAT?! Sorry… repeat that??? She SAID that to you?!
Frustrated sigh
Seriously… one of these days I’m going to send a flock of migrating birds to poop all over her car - or make her slip on some wet leaves… or blow a gust of wind so hard that her ugly dress flies off -
What? No, she deserves it! Anybody with the nerve to be that rude to you OUGHT to have a terrible life!
Well… anyway… go on…
…(pause)
Mhhm. Oh, that guy's terrible too…
…
Wait wait wait why did you agree to take on more work like that? He already made you do the -
Frustrated sigh
You… I have to ask. Why are you still working for these people? They’ve got to be the sneakiest, most uncaring, manipulative group of -
...
Yeah yeah, nice benefits, promised vacation time, discounts... and it keeps you paying rent… and food on your table… but… I’ve been listening to your heart more deeply since I returned a few weeks ago… and… you haven’t been the same. I thought maybe you were sick at first, but your body is technically fine. On the other hand… your heart - your mind, your feelings, your soul…
I’m just… worried about you. It just doesn’t seem like you’ve been enjoying my gifts as much lately. At first I thought I’d done something wrong, but I noticed it’s all because of your job… and those people…
Pause, then flustered sounds as the subject is changed
OH WELL YOU KNOW ANYWAY… I know just what you need! We need to go back to the basics! I think you just need to have some fun! Since you’re older now, you’re doing all these grown up things… but it seems like the grown up things are getting in the way.
You used to rake up the leaves all afternoon and we’d kick them up into the air, jump in them and roll around in them. We used to lay in the field and watch the geese migrating - oh and remember when we saw the cedar waxwings? You were so excited because you’d never seen them before!
It was so magical… Remember going pumpkin picking with your family? You insisted on taking me with you, even though I didn’t want your family to think you were weird for “talking to yourself” the whole time. You claimed you had an “imaginary friend,” and that really made my day.
We used to sit out in the cold nighttime and watch the harvest moon rise. You told me all about school, your friends, teachers, and how much you hated that one teacher… What was her name? Mrs. Bentley? Haha. Yeah. Finally free from her!
Sad pause
But now there’s others… might be worse than her…
But anyway… we had so much fun back then!! I remember watching football for the first time, too. It still doesn't quite make much sense to me -
…
What? No, the game itself makes sense, but… you humans… sometimes you scare me with how much you rave about it. Haha.
Do you have anything else in particular you remember that made you happy? You and me together?
…
Mhhm! I remember that! The apple cider at your school event! I added some autumn magic… and boy, nobody could get enough of it! Your best friend had the biggest smile!! She’s still hooked on it, isn't she?
…
You… haven’t heard from her? Oh… I thought you both were so close.
…
But… if you haven’t spoken to her in three years, then, how…? Oh, the internet. You should message her and see how she’s doing!
…
She’s married now?! WOW! Well how does that stop you from saying hi?
…
Oh… I… well… you humans are really weird that way… with your social rules and things… I feel like if you love someone, you should be able to talk to them…
…(pause, the listener moves on talking about how they got lost in a hurricane)
Oh! Wait yeah! I remember that too! That was a really scary night for me… When Mother sent the hurricane… and you tried to run away from home right in the middle of it! I could have strangled your parents for making you that angry… and I could have strangled you too…
…
For what? For being so reckless of course! Hurricanes… are something I can’t stop, you know. The only thing I could manage was to blow the tree down over the bridge... instead of on top of you.
…
(Quietly) I… I know. I don’t LIKE being destructive… I would stop the hurricanes if I could. But Mother is stronger.
…
Thank you… I wish I could apologize to all the people... It’s just that… Mother… she’s in pain… she can’t help it either.
…
Yes! I saw that you convinced your neighbors to quit spraying all that poison on their yards! I was so excited when Summer told me! Summer might not like me very much, but she was really happy to find out we have yet another safe location for bees, fireflies, squirrels, bats, birds, mice, rabbits - you have no idea how much it helps us… and Mother.
We need more trees, more complete forests! I still don’t get how you humans - well, not YOU, but the others… how they can’t see what they are doing to Mother… and themselves...
BUT ANYWAY! I’m not supposed to be here rambling on about all of the world’s problems! I’m supposed to be making you happy again! Let’s see… What do we want to do…
Leaf pile? Pumpkin picking? Collecting acorns? Make a leaf wreath? Make some magic apple cider again? Bake some cookies? Hay ride? Or maybe you need some pumpkin spice -
…
What do you mean? Those aren’t childish! Don’t laugh! Actually no, you NEED to laugh…
Quiet chuckle
Ahh… you… well, what sort of things do grown-up humans prefer to do to make them happy?
…
Seriously? Uh… well… Out of that list of very boring and… self-destructive activities… the date sounds the nicest.
Gasp
I’ve got it! We’ll go on a date - you and me - and we’ll do all the fun things I just listed! There IS a full moon tonight, so we can finish our date off by watching it rise over town. It’s decided.
…
Nope, I don’t care about whatever “grown up homework” you have to do! Work is for work, not for home, and last time I checked, you're not on the clock!
Ah ah, don’t test me! YOU need some relaxation time, and that requires indulging in what Mother Nature has to give you this season. I’ll be your guide - c'mon, who better than to go on an autumn date than the Spirit of Autumn herself?
Oh look, there’s the perfect start - an apple cider stand. Perfect! let's go add some magic to it! Hurry up!
(running footsteps, then fade out)
(END)

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Synopsis:
Juliette Contzen is a lazy, good-for-nothing princess. Overshadowed by her siblings, she's left with little to do but nap, read … and occasionally cut the falling raindrops with her sword. Spotted one day by an astonished adventurer, he insists on grading Juliette's swordsmanship, then promptly has a mental breakdown at the result.
Soon after, Juliette is given the news that her kingdom is on the brink of bankruptcy. At threat of being married off, the lazy princess vows to do whatever it takes to maintain her current lifestyle, and taking matters into her own hands, escapes in the middle of the night in order to restore her kingdom's finances.
Tags: Comedy, Adventure, Action, Fantasy, Copious Ohohohohos.
Chapter 237: A Reverie For The Soul
Words failed me.
As a princess, pitchforks symbolised the weapon of the peasantry.
They were instruments more lethal than any blade or knife in the dark. For they represented the final curtain. The ending act of my kingdom, lifted as the banner and weapon of revolt amidst a fanfare of blood and flames.
As great as the shadows cast by the lances of our enemies, none were as black a void as ordinary tools cast by a mob rallying to the cry of revolution.
That’s why–
As I watched a literal farmer bend his knees, not to reach the ground in prostration, but to leap towards me like a warrior with a trident, all I could do was tremble with horror.
It was the most gruesome of sights.
Neither a battlefield strewn with the corpses of the deceased, nor a tarte aux pommes baked without a generous layer of pecan nuts could instil in me the trepidation I felt, touching my very bones.
Indeed … to be attacked by a farmer with a pitchfork was one thing, but to be attacked by only a single one was an utter humiliation!
In all my darkest dreams, no sight of my family’s throne being emptied involved anything less than the entire populace of my kingdom’s peasantry rising against us!
And yet … all I saw before me was a single dishevelled farmer, wielding a pitchfork blunted by soil, barely fit to ward away the foxes which trespassed upon his land!
Where was the raucous shouting?
The complaints heard high into the heavens?
The frenzied bloodlust of an uncontrollable crowd?
There was no legion of witnesses to my end! No loyalists turning away in fright! No servants stealing away with the last of our ornamental cutlery!
This! This was a disgrace!
I was Juliette Contzen, 3rd Princess to the Kingdom of Tirea … and I refused to contemplate being struck by anything less than an entire mob!
That’s why–
“Absolutely not!!”
Starlight Grace burned with righteous ire as it met a pitchfork swung to meet the side of my head.
Insults upon insults. Not only did this man deem it appropriate to attack me without a riot in the backdrop, but he didn’t even have the heart to impale me!
A lazy and slovenly swing. The very image of a farmer chewing a sprig of wheat while batting insects from the leaves. Did he not know the fate of all those who failed to murder us at the first attempt? When it came to attacking royalty, the rules were clear!
One chance only! No practice rounds!
Thus, the hazy eyes of the farmer widened against the sight of Starlight Grace’s burning light.
“How–”
He mouthed a word of surprise. But there could be no complaints. Especially as every error made was a lesson. And the mistake of offering anything half-heartedly to royalty was the greatest he’ll ever learn. Whether it was their tears or their ire, I expected to ignore nothing but the best.
Sensing his peril, the drunkard twisted his pitchfork, seeking to catch my sword within the metal prongs. I opted to strike at the feeble wooden shaft instead.
Indeed, a pitchfork was no weapon of war!
It was a farming tool. And against the ruthless edge of my sword, it could do nothing but shatter the moment my sword … hmmmmm?
I blinked.
As expected, Starlight Grace burned bright in my hand as it struck the wooden shaft.
Less expected, however, was the lack of any splintering.
Instead of two pieces of a broken pitchfork dropping to the ground, I was met by the feeling of a thousand condensed pillows where the sword had struck … followed by the sight of ripples.
The wooden shaft shook like a tiny pond barely reacting to the skimming of a falling leaf.
And then–
Tendrils of smoke began to creep from it, twisting as it clawed at my sword’s blade.
I removed Starlight Grace at once, horrified by the sight.
How … How dare this man!
Nothing was allowed to touch my sword! Not even when I stabbed it!
Paying no heed to my distaste, the side of those prongs went to make a bump upon my delicate head. A clumsy challenge matching his proficiency. Unable to envisage himself as more than the untrained farmer he was, he allowed his dawdling sweep to pass over my ducking head.
But that did not make him undangerous.
With the grace of a brick, he wrenched his pitchfork overhead before crudely bringing it down. As I hopped away to shield my hair, the pitchfork swiped down with enough vigour to send a plume of dust around us. A moment later, he was several paces away, facing me with a poise filled with caution.
No longer assuming the stance of a farmer holding a pitchfork in anger for the first time, he narrowed his cloudy eyes, doing what he could to see through the haze.
The casual disregard vanished, replaced with his knees lowered and ready, his hands clutching the shaft much like a soldier guarding with a spear.
It wasn’t enough.
After all–
This man … had clearly been utterly duped!
I was aghast.
Why, not only did he manage to allow his soul to be slowly drained by a random devil … but he didn’t even gain any power from it!
Far from being empowered by the hells themselves, he was fighting like … yes, a farmer!
Even with my lack of training, I could tell he knew as much about fighting techniques as I did!
What did he hope to do by blithely swinging his pitchfork? Accidentally whack someone who knew what they were doing into his foes?
I despaired for the lost potential. To be sucked into some bizarre inner world clearly had some novelty value … but only if he used it correctly!
Why, if he learned how to shape the corridors of the Royal Villa, it’d be positively lovely!
Not for me, of course. But for those who didn’t have access to the real thing. I was certain commoners and nobility alike would pay even for a mock experience. We would earn the income without needing to clean after their soles.
The possibilities were endless!
“The young baroness never warned me you were a swordswoman,” he said, his eyes narrowed. “In fact, from the way she spoke about you, I figured you were just a regular princess.”
“There are no such things as regular princesses. We all have our talents. Mine happens to be all of them.”
The drunkard gave a smile.
It’d lost its lazy edge, instead becoming as hard as the grip around his pitchfork. The sudden seriousness and accompanying ignorance regarding his own strength only caused me to groan inside.
“Gotta admit. Wasn’t expecting this. Amidst all my travels, I never once heard about a Contzen being skilled for anything other than vileness.”
My mouth widened at the only attack he’d successfully struck.
“H-How dare you … ! What is this slander?! Who would dare speak ill of my family?! I … I will have them deported! Regardless of which country they’re in!”
“You’ll need to deport a lot of folk, then. All the streets, bars and alleys across the continent know the wickedness of royalty. Your family is no exception, I’m afraid. It’s said the halls of your castles are paved with the tears of those who serve you, such is their misery.”
I was horrified.
That … That was clearly a lie!
Why, if I could use the tears of my servants as paving material, this entire kingdom would be fully urbanised by now! That clearly wasn’t the case!
“I ask that you not listen to the deceit of those who envy my kingdom. Indeed, you need only listen to the sounds of joy coming from those who reside in it. Although I suppose that’s difficult while flailing a pitchfork like a feather duster. Is the reason you grow crops here and not outside because you’ve forgotten how to use it?”
The man chuckled. And for a moment, it seemed that a hint of genuine amusement managed to find its way back into his voice.
“I might not use it as intended, but I use it well. That you can strike back is impressive. I’ve downed foes wreathed in flames, the likes of which would never even enter your nightmares. And most of them fell before their claws were even raised.”
Oh, I had no doubt he had.
Wielding a pitchfork as he did, I expect even fiends from the abyss were easy to dispatch while laughing on the floor.
He would not receive such joviality from me.
Indeed … I recognised him for what he was. A truly devastating foe. Perhaps not to the majority of people with functional eyes. But certainly to a princess.
I had the most to lose.
Why, to be defeated by a wayward swing of a pitchfork was the most humiliating way to go! My ghost would be shunned by my family!
No, I could afford no complacency. Especially when even victory wouldn’t come without loss.
To have it noted that a drunkard with a pitchfork counted amongst my victories was appalling. Such an entry would be the thickest blot in a page already speckled with far too many lowly foes.
… Fortunately, I was more than a beautiful princess!
I was a beautiful princess with retainers!
And this meant … I could simply have Coppelia defeat him instead!
“Ohohoho …” I stood up straight, barely covering my lips as I smiled. “Is that so? Then allow me to repay the thought. I, too, am impressed.”
“I’ll take that as a fine compliment.”
“Don’t. I wasn’t referring to your skills with a pitchfork. But by your lack of awareness.”
The drunkard blinked at me.
Then, he swiftly changed his footing, turning to glance at the barn where he’d allowed his back to turn.
Ohhohoho! Too late!
Because behind him, my loyal handmaiden was already–
“This. Is. So. Amazing!”
Yes!
She was already watching from a gap in the barn door, not at all striking the man’s unprotected back!
To my grief, Coppelia was busy shaking the shoulders of the maid beside her, whose wide eyes were either derived from my handmaiden’s excitement or from her failure to rush to my assistance.
“Isn’t this great?! Look! We get threatened and now the princess is the one to protect us! It never happens this way! Doesn’t sitting back feel amazing?”
The drunkard closely studied the two retainers squeezed in the barn doorway.
And then–
He completely turned away from them, his focus on me once more.
“O-Ohoho … oho … i-indeed, notice now the futility of your actions! Why, despite there now being two of them, none of my retinue feels the need to immediately throw themselves at you as a distrac–”
Suddenly, the drunkard threw his pitchfork.
My horror was complete.
Leaving any semblance of civility to die a swift and ignominious death, he offered no warning before sending his farming instrument towards me.
It was all I could do to judge each muddy prong with the wide eyes it deserved as the thing swept past the side of my face. There was no bump awaiting the end of that throw. Only a hole as large as the crater which promptly appeared behind me, sending a small explosion of corn and soil into the sky.
My mouth widened in disbelief.
“E-Excuse me?! What was that?! You do not attack me in the middle of my sentences! That … That is a cardinal sin!”
The drunkard paused for a moment, his body still in the completed motion of a throw.
“Yeah, sorry about that.”
“As … As you very well should be! I do not meticulously comb my hair in the small hours of the night while kept up by the sounds of dancing mice just so that my only joy is destroyed by a drunkard’s lack of chivalry! How dare you! That throw was clearly meant to murder me! … Do you not have orders to capture me like the princess I am?!”
“Sure I do. But you’re not a princess waiting to be captured. Least not while you’re still standing.”
The drunkard leaned over the cart beside him, before promptly retrieving his next weapon.
It was … a shovel.
“No,” I declared at once. “Absolutely no.”
He held the shovel much like he held the pitchfork–without any intention of using it to farm.
I was aghast.
Was I truly supposed to defeat a farmer with a shovel?!
“If it makes you feel better, I rate myself more with a shovel than a pitchfork.”
“Wonderful. Then I suggest you impress me by digging an exit. That is a farming tool, not a weapon. I expressly forbid you from throwing it, utilising it as a spear or otherwise adopting it for any purpose other than its intended function.”
The man offered a shrug.
“You asked for it.”
He slightly raised the shovel … before striking it into the soil.
For a moment, nothing happened.
And then–
Crack.
A fracture appeared in the shape of a lightning bolt.
It lasted just as long.
Crraaaaaaccccccck.
All of a sudden, the very ground broke.
A groan filled the stale air. The weeping of a broken soul as a thin layer of dirt and weeds abruptly gave way to swaths of endless void where neither light nor warmth could reach … including beneath the feet of a stunned princess.
A chasm began to open like a leviathan’s maw to swallow me whole.
Why … I was delighted!
So this man could alter his little dream world, after all!
How wonderful!
This alone increased his worth significantly over every other farmer to have inadvertently signed away his soul to an infernal contract!
If he could split the ground asunder, then I saw no reason why he couldn’t also remove all of it as well!
Naturally, interior redecoration was never a fast process. Especially so given that the ground was only parting at the pace of two divorcing snails. But I was patient … and so was everyone who would shortly be visiting a purpose designed version of the Royal Villa where no matter where the dignitaries vomited, the carpets would always remain clean!
Indeed, there was much to consider. Ticket prices being one of them. But also skipping away from the hole opening up beneath me.
“Apologies for this,” said the drunkard as he leaped towards me, shovel outstretched. “But trust me, this will hurt me more than–”
“[Spring Breeze].”
Poomph.
Faced with the man’s nauseous breath, I sent a delicate puff of wind directly into his face, propelling both him and myself away. A moment later, I ended up skipping as my feet landed amidst the waist-high corn, performing a perfect hopscotch as I came to a stop.
Somewhere, I heard the sound of applause.
Just as pertinently, I heard the gasping of a drunkard who’d experienced the odour of his own breath sent back towards him. He’d landed far less neatly. Sitting up from the ground, he wore an expression of shock as he peered over the chasm which had failed to consume me.
He gingerly touched his stubble. And then he gulped.
“You … You shouldn’t have been able to do that,” he said, his disbelief carrying clearly over the gap. “That technique … everything, everything should be limited here …”
I gave a flick of my hair, indulging in the cheering of my watching retainers. Yes, even if it was just Coppelia. I hoped Renise was learning.
“Hm? And why is that, exactly?”
“Girl … this is my soul. You should have no power here. My [Soulscape] does more than empower me. It enfeebles all who I draw into it. This … This isn’t right.”
In response, I offered the most cursory of smiles.
“Oh? … Is that what you think?”
“What?”
“What meaning does your soul have to me? It doesn’t matter how deep into the depths of your, frankly, subpar quasi-plane of existence you invite me. Nor does it matter how high you cloud its edges. I still sense my kingdom all around me, just as I do a countryside farmstead overtaken by a baroness soon to repair it with her own hands. And here in my kingdom, I do not recognise any jurisdiction other than my own. My authority is absolute.”
The man blinked at me, as though wishing the haze away.
He could have been wearing a blindfold. I had little doubt he could see the natural radiance from my silhouette as clearly as I could the beads of sweat rolling past his brow.
Slowly, the man rose to his feet.
The shovel he left alone, discarded by his side. And then he did something I could not have expected.
“Heh …”
He laughed.
“Hah … hahah …”
A hollow laugh devoid of feeling. Like something expelled by instinct. A spasming of the diaphragm.
But a laugh nonetheless.
“My instincts were right,” he said, his lazy smile returning with abandon. “You … You’re dangerous. You might just be able to defeat me. Even here.”
Suddenly, he took a deep breath and squeezed his eyes shut. The wrinkles on his forehead quivered with the force of putting his mind to work on something while hindered by a cloud of drunkenness.
A moment later–
Fwoooof.
He decided to meet my earlier request.
Breaking out into a heavy sweat, he raised his palms as a … yes, an ominous dark orb of ultimate power appeared between them, burning darker than a thousand blackened hearthfires squeezed together.
“Not wholly sure if this is right,” he said, his eyes wincing even as he opened them again. “But just for you, I’ll do this. May as well take this seriously. A big part of me hopes you defeat me. But I don’t think you can, even if you struck me with that sword again and again. Whatever you might think, this is more than my soul. This is my battlefield. And only I choose when I fall.”
I blinked.
The orb shuddered as it grew, licking its surroundings with lashes of undiluted power.
Despite its black colouring, it was the most beautiful thing here. A spot of imagination in a world of faded bleakness.
And so–I nodded in satisfaction.
Naturally, I doubted its effects. I trusted more in the lethality of his farming tools than whatever he thought advanced magic was. But that didn’t matter.
After all, to outside appearances, it seemed very much like a spawn of destruction in his hands.
And that … was wonderful!
A drunkard with a pitchfork/shovel?
Beneath me.
But laughter followed by suspect orbs of doom?
Why, that was a megalomaniac at the height of his power!
Indeed … I could work with that!
My smile blossomed on my face. The only source of colour amidst a backdrop of monochrome memories.
But that could be changed.
“A shame you’ve prepared a truly dull battlefield, then,” I said, lifting Starlight Grace … but not towards my invigorated foe. “Let us amend that, shall we?”
“What?”
I offered an angelic smile.
And then I peered around myself. At a canvas without an easel. Most would deem it unsalvageable.
But most were not me.
Thus … I flicked at a nearby leaf with the tip of my sword.
It twisted. A swirl of watercolour which sought to return to its dull shape. I didn’t allow it.
Instead, I flicked at it again.
And again. And again. And again.
“Your soul may be wounded,” I said, idly taking a few steps into the field. “But no more than mine at the sight of such amateurism. So rejoice. I shall reward your first steps into the world of creativity with a reference to take with you long into the future.”
A moment later, I allowed my sword to sweep around me … just as I would if I were in the corner of my atelier, surrounded by a dozen palettes and a thousand more possibilities.
And then–
I began to paint.
“May you use it in your days of bleakness, when inspiration is as dry as the schemes of my kingdom’s nobility. By the palette's grace, let shadows and light be cast into permanence. Painting Form, 5th Stance … [Revision Reverie]!”
My arm brushed aside entire swathes of colours.
I pirouetted upon my heels, the sword in my hand twirling as much like a brush in my hand as it was a baton held by a conductor.
All the colours followed like ribbons in my wake, forming a palette in every direction.
A shade of leafy green here. A blot of barren soil there. A touch of a pale sky hanging overhead.
And then–
I swept around … and around … and around …
Trails of different shades merged as I spun, dancing from spot to spot as I directed the colours to my heart’s desire … until the very landscape of a broken soul began to change.
“Ohhohohhhohoohoohohohooohoho!!”
Here it was!
Nurtured through Father’s insufferability when he refused to burn or throw away all my works I deemed below standard, here were the results of my labour!
[Revision Reverie]!
The ability to repair any work, no matter how much I wished to do otherwise!
For when the alternative was to have a bad piece forever kept upon the walls to be ruthlessly judged, to make it serviceable before the eyes of high society was a matter of life and death!
A field of faded colours and lack of detail?
Pedestrian.
Because if I could fix a wobbly chin … then I could fix anything!
“Ohhohohohoohohohooohohohhhoohohohohohoho!!”
Thus–I went to work!
Shrubs rose from the dull grass, teeming with matched couplets of yellow lilies and white gardenias!
Barren soil lifted to become the warming trunks of deciduous trees!
Dashes of pale colour flourished to become a spring blue dotted with clouds as fluffy as the coats of jumping lambs!
I danced without pause, willing the entire world to change around me, until what was an endless expanse of lifeless crops became a garden filled with movement, and a uniform backdrop of faded colours became sharp and distinct, brimming with motion and vigour.
But I didn’t stop there.
With a smile in search of perfection, I gracefully skipped towards the barn, life and song trailing behind me as nightingales in my wake.
And there, I used its red to its fullest.
Peonies growing as bouquets amidst the fresh grass.
Ladybugs fluttering against snow white petals.
Red currants dotting the hedges.
And … the pièce de résistance …
Apples for the trees!
I took in a deep breath as I finally ceased, the last swirl of paint dribbling into a bundle of carnations.
And then–I nodded.
It wasn’t my orchard, of course. But it was certainly a garden. And by my design was grander than any which could be found under the sun, real or otherwise.
“Ah … ah … ahhh …”
I turned around.
There, fallen upon the ground, was a drunkard on his knees.
The haze had cleared from his eyes.
Suddenly, they were bright and blue, boasting memories as vivid as the garden now blooming around him. Gone were the lines of self-reproach on his face. The dirt caked into his skin fell as tears washed them away, and what remained was a man in the prime of his life.
Not a single blemish could be seen.
“Ohohohoho … welcome to my garden,” I said, gesturing as I spun around, my bright smile the light to lift the colours even more anew. “Would you like a brief tour?”
The man looked up at me.
And then he blinked, his eyes taking me in for the very first time.
“That’s … fine … I think … I think I can see everything … from here …”
He let out a youthful smile, devoid of the mistakes of the past.
The next moment–
A white light filled my eyes.
Even then, the apples from the trees continued to brightly shine … all the way until they were replaced by a sweeter sight instead.
A baroness peering at me in utter shock, sitting across from me at a tea table.
“Aahhahahahhahahahaaahhahahahahahaaaha~”
And also Coppelia rolling on the hard, muddy ground in raucous laughter, smacking the ground as she did so.
Yes, that I could do without.
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Resolve of Six Rivers (Six Rocks, Chapter 46)
"I have to be."
Humboldt County California, home to the mighty Coastal Redwoods, where the Smith, Van Druzen, Mad, Eel, Klamath and Trinity Rivers all find the Pacific Ocean. It was in a small patch of trees following the Mad River, that David Sinclair met the love of his life Cassandra, and together they built their home and family where they met. David worked as a truck driver for a local mill, Cassandra waited tables at a restaurant in Arcata, and on August 3rd, 1978, their first son, Michael, was born.
As the years passed and Michael grew, things began to get harder. As the lumber and paper mills closed, David had to find work further and further away. A few days before Michael turned 10, he awoke to the sound of crying. It was past midnight when he crept into the living room to see his father sitting in his favorite chair, illuminated by a single lamp, tears streaming down his face, and a single piece of paper in his hand.
"Dad?" Michael asked. "What's wrong?"
David looked up at his son, embarrassed to be caught in his weakness.
"Nothing Mikey," his father lied, "go back to bed."
Michael looked at the paper in his father's hand.
"What does 'Laid off' mean?" Michael asked.
"It means I have to find work somewhere else." David replied.
"Are you going to be okay?" Michael asked.
Behind his father's sad eyes, Michael saw something he would carry with himself, a determination to find a solution and a course of action by any means necessary. The absolute defiance to resignation carried its meaning through his father's short reply.
"I have to be."
/////
Michael charged the ramp with maybe a dozen screaming humans in tow. Not the most ideal situation if they encountered resistance, but it would do for now. He could see bright white lights in the ceiling as he advanced and adjusted his profile back into a crouch to make himself a smaller target for any Scorpid who waited inside, eager for an easy kill. What greeted him wasn't enemy fire, but the terrified faces of hundreds of people confined in transparent cells.
Eureka.
Michael held up his off hand signaling for a halt, and slowly began to scan the interior of the cargo bay for Scorpids, advancing slowly and trying not to pay attention to the chorus of voices begging and pleading to be freed. He couldn't help them if he was dead or incapacitated, and he had been in situations before where the enemy used frantic people to hide their movements. The small company that had followed him in would never be confused for soldiers, they had little to no disapline, but where their lack of martial conduct was apparent, their ingenuity and creativity shown bright.
"Hey mister?" One of them asked from behind.
"Michael, and you?" Michael replied.
"Cindy." She said. "How we gonna get 'em out."
"Did you come alone Cindy?" Michael asked finishing his scan of the cargo hold.
"No, she didn't," another voice replied. "I'm Kevin, her brother and our dad's here too."
"Got any spicy play-dough?" Michael asked with a devilish grin.
A man behind them smiled back and unshouldered the backpack he had carried with him, setting it very carefully on the deck. Opening the bag he picked up a large plastic container with an orange label.
"Don't leave home without it." He said slyly. "I'm Richard by the way."
"Do your friends call you big dick?" Michael asked snarkally, taking the offered container of tannerite.
"Richard" he replied with a knowing smile.
Michael placed the tannerite next to the nearest enclosure and stepped a few paces back.
"All of you, get back and find cover." He said as he motioned people down the ramp.
"You have the honor, Richard" Michael said before placing his hands over his ears and turning his face away.
Richard lined up on the orange label of the container, took a breath and eased it back out before squeezing the trigger. One sharp report from his AK-47, one massive reply as the explosive erupted in smoke and shards of transparent material that ricocheted throughout the cargo bay.
"Just like mama used to make." Richard said casually.
Michael carefully made his way to the large hole Robert had just created and began lifting people to their feet and indicating the ramp. There was no need for words, and they couldn't hear them anyway. The beds that they had been sleeping on caught most of the damage, but there were still a few scrapes and cuts.
"Get them to the treeline for now," Michael said, "when they're all out head for the interstate."
"And what about you?" Richard asked.
"Got anymore automatic stump remover?" Michael asked, heading deeper in the hold "chances are there are a few more cells to clear."
"Just add lead." Richard said retrieving his bag. "Haven't heard that shit since '89. My dad used to call it that when he was working the Trinity Forest."
"My dad drove the logs to the mill." Michael replied. "Willow Creek?"
"Weaverville." Richard corrected. "You?"
"Arcata." Michael replied. "Quit school to join the army when work dried up for my folks. Only went back to attend Humboldt, moved to Six Rocks afterward." He finished Indicating another cell just beyond the first.
"That's the way of things." Richard replied, placing another charge. "Why's this one's dark?"
Michael banged on the cell wall. "We're going to get you out, find cover!"
Michael and Richard ran back a safe distance and found cover.
"After you." Richard said extending his hand to the tannerite.
"So kind." Michael said mockingly before placing a shot right through the crosshairs on the orange label.
Sarah thought she was imagining things when she heard the human voice, but when someone says take cover you damn well take cover. She could hear the blast and the acrid smoke burned her nose. As she opened her eyes light flowed through the barrier that had been left dark for so long and a silhouette shined through wreathed by light from outside. Sarah threw herself at the outstretched arm reaching through the breech.
"Thank you Michael!" Sarah prayed aloud.
"Do you know her?" Richard asked.
"Gettret's gonna kill me." Michael replied. "Can you escort her outside?"
Richard picked Sarah up and began to leave as several more people rushed toward him and others were leaving the cargo hold. "
"You going to be okay from here on?" Richard asked.
Michael waved at the few people who had entered the cargo bay to come toward him and watched as the hundred or so people freed before were ushered out of the ship. He thought about Gettret for a moment and wondered if she was okay, but pushed the thought aside to what needed to be done. She was fine, somewhere beyond the ship, and he would see her after this was over. He looked back at Richard and smiled out of the corner of his mouth. Michael said the same four words his father had said to him before moving to a corridor past Sarah's cell, and climbing the stairway beyond.
"I have to be."

First Previous Next
"I have to be."
Humboldt County California, home to the mighty Coastal Redwoods, where the Smith, Van Druzen, Mad, Eel, Klamath and Trinity Rivers all find the Pacific Ocean. It was in a small patch of trees following the Mad River, that David Sinclair met the love of his life Cassandra, and together they built their home and family where they met. David worked as a truck driver for a local mill, Cassandra waited tables at a restaurant in Arcata, and on August 3rd, 1978, their first son, Michael, was born.
As the years passed and Michael grew, things began to get harder. As the lumber and paper mills closed, David had to find work further and further away. A few days before Michael turned 10, he awoke to the sound of crying. It was past midnight when he crept into the living room to see his father sitting in his favorite chair, illuminated by a single lamp, tears streaming down his face, and a single piece of paper in his hand.
"Dad?" Michael asked. "What's wrong?"
David looked up at his son, embarrassed to be caught in his weakness.
"Nothing Mikey," his father lied, "go back to bed."
Michael looked at the paper in his father's hand.
"What does 'Laid off' mean?" Michael asked.
"It means I have to find work somewhere else." David replied.
"Are you going to be okay?" Michael asked.
Behind his father's sad eyes, Michael saw something he would carry with himself, a determination to find a solution and a course of action by any means necessary. The absolute defiance to resignation carried its meaning through his father's short reply.
"I have to be."
/////
Michael charged the ramp with maybe a dozen screaming humans in tow. Not the most ideal situation if they encountered resistance, but it would do for now. He could see bright white lights in the ceiling as he advanced and adjusted his profile back into a crouch to make himself a smaller target for any Scorpid who waited inside, eager for an easy kill. What greeted him wasn't enemy fire, but the terrified faces of hundreds of people confined in transparent cells.
Eureka.
Michael held up his off hand signaling for a halt, and slowly began to scan the interior of the cargo bay for Scorpids, advancing slowly and trying not to pay attention to the chorus of voices begging and pleading to be freed. He couldn't help them if he was dead or incapacitated, and he had been in situations before where the enemy used frantic people to hide their movements. The small company that had followed him in would never be confused for soldiers, they had little to no disapline, but where their lack of martial conduct was apparent, their ingenuity and creativity shown bright.
"Hey mister?" One of them asked from behind.
"Michael, and you?" Michael replied.
"Cindy." She said. "How we gonna get 'em out."
"Did you come alone Cindy?" Michael asked finishing his scan of the cargo hold.
"No, she didn't," another voice replied. "I'm Kevin, her brother and our dad's here too."
"Got any spicy play-dough?" Michael asked with a devilish grin.
A man behind them smiled back and unshouldered the backpack he had carried with him, setting it very carefully on the deck. Opening the bag he picked up a large plastic container with an orange label.
"Don't leave home without it." He said slyly. "I'm Richard by the way."
"Do your friends call you big dick?" Michael asked snarkally, taking the offered container of tannerite.
"Richard" he replied with a knowing smile.
Michael placed the tannerite next to the nearest enclosure and stepped a few paces back.
"All of you, get back and find cover." He said as he motioned people down the ramp.
"You have the honor, Richard" Michael said before placing his hands over his ears and turning his face away.
Richard lined up on the orange label of the container, took a breath and eased it back out before squeezing the trigger. One sharp report from his AK-47, one massive reply as the explosive erupted in smoke and shards of transparent material that ricocheted throughout the cargo bay.
"Just like mama used to make." Richard said casually.
Michael carefully made his way to the large hole Robert had just created and began lifting people to their feet and indicating the ramp. There was no need for words, and they couldn't hear them anyway. The beds that they had been sleeping on caught most of the damage, but there were still a few scrapes and cuts.
"Get them to the treeline for now," Michael said, "when they're all out head for the interstate."
"And what about you?" Richard asked.
"Got anymore automatic stump remover?" Michael asked, heading deeper in the hold "chances are there are a few more cells to clear."
"Just add lead." Richard said retrieving his bag. "Haven't heard that shit since '89. My dad used to call it that when he was working the Trinity Forest."
"My dad drove the logs to the mill." Michael replied. "Willow Creek?"
"Weaverville." Richard corrected. "You?"
"Arcata." Michael replied. "Quit school to join the army when work dried up for my folks. Only went back to attend Humboldt, moved to Six Rocks afterward." He finished Indicating another cell just beyond the first.
"That's the way of things." Richard replied, placing another charge. "Why's this one's dark?"
Michael banged on the cell wall. "We're going to get you out, find cover!"
Michael and Richard ran back a safe distance and found cover.
"After you." Richard said extending his hand to the tannerite.
"So kind." Michael said mockingly before placing a shot right through the crosshairs on the orange label.
Sarah thought she was imagining things when she heard the human voice, but when someone says take cover you damn well take cover. She could hear the blast and the acrid smoke burned her nose. As she opened her eyes light flowed through the barrier that had been left dark for so long and a silhouette shined through wreathed by light from outside. Sarah threw herself at the outstretched arm reaching through the breech.
"Thank you Michael!" Sarah prayed aloud.
"Do you know her?" Richard asked.
"Gettret's gonna kill me." Michael replied. "Can you escort her outside?"
Richard picked Sarah up and began to leave as several more people rushed toward him and others were leaving the cargo hold. "
"You going to be okay from here on?" Richard asked.
Michael waved at the few people who had entered the cargo bay to come toward him and watched as the hundred or so people freed before were ushered out of the ship. He thought about Gettret for a moment and wondered if she was okay, but pushed the thought aside to what needed to be done. She was fine, somewhere beyond the ship, and he would see her after this was over. He looked back at Richard and smiled out of the corner of his mouth. Michael said the same four words his father had said to him before moving to a corridor past Sarah's cell, and climbing the stairway beyond.
"I have to be."

Date: 05/09/2024

Reading time: 6 minutes, 1290 words

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The Amits had taken their time. They knew that victory was assured, and so had set about feasting. But eventually they had worked up enough of an appetite to make the final push.
Once more they rushed through a storm of bullets. They disintegrated as the twelve-pounder discharged a cluster of grapeshot, faltered, then charged again. Claws ripped at the broken stone, reaching and grasping. A man was seized by his locks of hair and pulled through the gap; his screams cut short as his body toppled backwards, missing its head. Bayonets jostled and found their mark in pale flesh as pistols rang out in the tight confines and set Rene’s ears ringing.
“Get back!” shouted the engineers, “You’ve done your best! We’ll take it from here!”
The wall of detritus had begun to buckle beneath the weight of the enemy. The engineers brought out the red plunger and ran the wire to the final batch of charges. These were strapped to every major column and support in the room. They were to be buried alive, to deny the enemy their final victory.
The first Amit clawed its head through. It was impaled on half a dozen blades and hurled back. Then the second burst in and bathed a man head to toe in its corrosive juices, melting him down to bare red musculature in seconds. The monsters scrambled into the breach with reckless abandon, and the slaughter began.
The engineer was killed, brained by an axe before he could blow the charges. Crawling across the floor, battered and bruised by the trampling feet of the melee, Rene found the box and pried it from his dead hands. With a final whimper he closed his eyes and depressed the plunger.
Sometime later Rene awoke with a throbbing head. Absently he wondered if the afterlife was supposed to hurt this much, but then he felt a cold film of cave water touch the side of his face, and reluctantly accepted the fact that he was alive.
The chamber was gone. All about him were strewn great slabs of ceiling, under which various limbs protruded. Beside him, Prota had been buried beneath wreckage, her pendant flung clear. Absently he reached over and pocketed it.
His pants were wet; water was streaming through from somewhere. Through a gap in the huge slump of debris at the entrance he made out shadows moving against the torchlight, and heard sounds of them doing unspeakable things.
He dragged himself upright and cried out a second time in misery and pain. Immediately he regretted that action, as a milky white eye came up to the gap and looked about hungrily. It spotted him and tapped its feet against the stone in excitement. A horde of scuttling figures flitted into view. There was a scuffling sound as they began to dig at the obstruction. He groaned, and looked about him for a weapon, anything with which to end his life quickly and in relatively less anguish. Then he saw it.
The chamber had collapsed, and in doing so a broken pillar several tons heavy had knocked against the impenetrable eastern wall, the one that Admiral Prota’s workmen had been chipping carefully at for a year. It had smashed through the obstruction, and now its great bulk held up the fragile archway. More importantly, an opening had appeared. One that looked just the right size for a child to crawl through. Cave water streamed from the rent, lapping at the bodies of the slain. Behind him the Amit shuddered with delight, spitting torrents of acid against the stone in order to get through to him faster.
He went into the crawlspace and found it was a tight fit. He tried flattening his belly. When that didn’t work, he removed the tattered remnants of his sealant suit, and barely managed to squeeze inside.
He emerged into a cool tunnel. Motes of dust millennia old swirled placidly in the still air, lit by glowing phosphorescent mushrooms that lined the damp walls. Water wet his toes as he stumbled painfully along.
The floor was even and polished to a mirror sheen. Across the chamber was an odd doorway, ovoid in shape. He went over to it, searched in vain for a doorknob, then chuckled and gave up. He felt an absence of fear and knew that his lifting spirits had something to do with this place being exposed to the outside atmosphere. He had at best a few hours left to live. He shrugged and peered about him in the murk.
These tunnels sloped down below the open eastern section. If he could reach a ventilation shaft, there was a chance he could live. Assuming of course that he found a mask sometime soon. He had lost his at some point in the brawl. Thankfully he still had the compass. He took it out but watched in disbelief as the needle began to spin like a top. Cleary whatever magnetic anomaly that had plagued the expedition had returned with a vengeance. Shaking his head, uncertain now of everything, Rene wandered aimlessly, a pale and bloodied specter haunting the alien hallways.
Graceful alcoves surrounded him, with effigies sheltered beneath them and primitive paintings upon their curved surfaces. He looked at the closest one. Though the style was surreal and the language foreign, he understood the symbols well enough.
For they were those of ancient scripture.
The war in heaven. Two great armadas clashed in the depths of the void, lances of searing red heat and spheres of anti-matter dancing between their silver prows. The battle raged the length of an entire wall, a lurid display of mythical carnage. He saw a thousand worlds set alight by the conflagration, whole systems burning like tinder, fuel to the madness and the pain.
In its wake, emptiness. The next alcove showed a galaxy bereft of life, the charred husks of planets circling their dying suns, drained of energy in the apocalyptic conflict.
He saw the Fleet emerge, three small ships, together containing all that remained from the great dying: the ancestor--gods of the primordial dawn. They searched long and hard, travelling from one blasted hellscape to the next in search of lasting refuge.
And so at long last they found Arachnea, a virgin planet untouched by strife. They came to sow life in its bleak hollows, to make a home for their children, a peaceful place far from the ravages of a war so ancient they themselves had forgotten its cause. Then they set their Divine Engines to work. The Amit had carved effigies of these machines out of lumps of azure marble. Rene touched their smooth flanks, admiring at the workmanship. They were shaped like squat little men, with massive hands and domelike heads. Where they had walked, the earth had moved aside for them. They carved the channels with their feet, flattened the hills with blows from their fists. They dredged up fountains of molten lava and shaped them into a thousand bejeweled islands. They wove giant webs of glass as strong as the pillars of the earth and stretched them out across the sky to shield the world from the jealous eyes of the twin suns, Raelu and Sardec.
It was in the course of their work the Divine Engines shattered a mountain and unearthed the Amit, the first true inhabitants of Arachnea. They had arrived centuries before the ancestor—gods. The painting showed the Amit stumbling out of a rent in their tunnels, hands held up against the sunlight that no longer scorched their pale, waxen skin. The first thing they saw in their brave new world was a towering behemoth of burnished metal, wreathed in fire and smoke. In terror they had fallen to their knees before it, begging for their lives.
Rene nodded. All of this was familiar. He walked over to the next depiction, expecting to see the ancestor--gods recoiling in disgust, then swiftly recovering and obliterating the insectoid creatures with deadly rays of light, driving them scuttling back into their foul hollows beneath the earth. For it was written that the Amits were the offspring of vague, unholy sorceries, and could only know evil. Indeed, the war in heaven had been fought over similar themes. They could not be suffered to live. But what he saw instead shook him to his very core.
The ancestors came down from their mighty steeds, lifted the Amit to their feet, and embraced them. Quickly Rene ran through the rest of the alcoves, mind raging against the truths he now saw before him. From then on, the work deviated from scripture so much so that he could only piece together their meaning with difficulty.
The ancestor--gods debated among themselves as to what to do with the Amits. This was not the first time they had come across life other than their own, and it was clear that this time they were cautious in their approach. Some advocated for bringing the race to total extinction, but most agreed that best way forward was a peaceful coexistence, reasoning that they had much to learn from the Amits, who had survived the conditions of Arachnea for millennia without the need for terraforming. The ancestor--gods felt guilt over stealing Arachnea from its original inhabitants and wished to make amends. And so a bargain was struck between the races.
The Amits would allow the ancestor--gods to make changes to the world. To correct the tilt of its wayward axis, to vent huge plumes of inert gases from the hot womb of the earth and to seed life forms from long-dead Terra. In return, Man would change the Amit as well. They would grant them strength and cunning, broods beyond number, and bodies hardened against pain and suffering so they too could be as the gods were.
The plan proceeded towards fruition. Both sides were content as the final pieces of the great work fell into place. But unknown to Man and Amit alike, the specter of war had never really left the Fleet. It had hidden away in dark holds within the hearts of men, and there it had whispered of want and of desire, of the beauty of the virgin world and the lust to claim it.
Some of the ancestor--gods resented their share in the great work. They chafed at the fact that they, the superior beings, had to deal with their vassal Amits like equals, exchanging their powers for the mere right to live on the planet that they had rightfully settled.
And so they began to snuff out the Amit in their millions, burning them out of their homes with heat rays that swept clean entire colonies.
Soon two sides were at each other’s throats. The honorable ancestors who had kept to their word fought a bitter war against their prideful kin amidst the ruin of their unfinished works. In the skies at night, the Amit watched as the madness unfolded, as stars appeared and vanished overnight, and great balls of flame came bursting down through the void to crash into the broken earth. At last, as their weapons lay spent and broken, they then turned the Divine Engines against one another. Once the instruments of peace and creation, they soon tore the landscape apart with the fury of their duels, trading blows that sent impacts shuddering deep into the scorched earth.
The Amit were afraid, and betook themselves to the deep places, where the wrath of the gods could not find them. But this was to be their doom. Eventually the changes wrought in the bodies of the Amit made them strong and durable enough the endure the apocalyptic conditions of the surface. But as the ancestor--gods fought and died on the surface in cataclysmic struggle, their magic died with them. The Amit themselves became trapped, betrayed by their own changing flesh. They became unable to revert to their previous forms, and so were forevermore consigned to lives of darkness in their lairs beneath the earth.
Now, Arachnea was unsuitable for both man and Amit alike. The ancestor--gods had become madmen, so overtaken by their hatred for each other that they had cast themselves back into a dark age from which there would be no return.
The Amits emerged into the gloomy wreckage of their planet and starved. Until, that is, they came upon the remnants of a battleground. Huge forces of men had clashed and died, leaving their bodies to rot upon the cold ground. In their desperate hunger, the Amits began to eat.
And they found the meat of the gods to be good. That war, a holy act most strange and terrible, had filled their bellies with meat, this they understood. That gods themselves judged war to be a just course of action was evident. And since all that remained of the gods were a race of thieves and murderers, it was judged that to make war upon them was both just and good.
Rene came to the last alcove. It depicted the final resting place of the Divine Engines, whom the Amit had buried beneath the mountains out of fear, sealing them away from the surface so that they would never again walk the earth.
A great square plaque of shining steel and copper was laid into the stone. To the Amit it was only a mark of some kind, a symbol whose meaning was long forgotten, but Rene felt an odd connection to it. He traced its edges with a blood-stained hand, and realized it was not a square, but a rectangle, and one whose dimensions he faintly recognized.
He took out Prota’s pendant and pressed it into the crevice.
There was a hiss of pneumatics as the great square door to his side gave way. Light fixtures hummed into life through powers unknown. He stepped gingerly into the soft glow.
“Greetings Ensign,” came a disembodied female voice, “Welcome to the Topographical Oversight and Reconstruction Unit (T.O.R.U.). What are your commands?”
A Divine Engine. The Amit had found it and built an entire civilization around it. This behemoth, this secret mountain of metal was what his compass had been steering towards all this time. A giddy sensation flowed through him. In his stupor he passed his hands in front of his face, examining the lines of his palms and the action of his fingers.
A nimbus of light played over him, reading his gestures.
“Command noted. Activating neural pairing.”
The door closed shut with a creak behind him. Steel pinions reached out and wire nodules grasped him, ran painlessly through his eye sockets and into his brain. All at once he could feel the machine coming to life after its long dormancy, reactors coils thrumming with an ancient power that would not be denied.
He straightened his back.
The outpost fell away from him in a cloud of dust and rubble. He strode forward, kilometers tall, a shining colossus of star-metal. He glanced down, saw the multitudes of the Amit streaming about the shattered mound. He watched them for a moment, saw them waving their arms in speechless terror at the sudden apparition.
For the first time, he pitied them. They were unaware of their own savagery, of their own hideousness, even. They did not know the doom that awaited them, of the lengths the Fleet was prepared to go in order to secure its final victory.
But there was nothing that could be done. Mankind could no more change themselves than could the Amit. Rene felt the weight of history bearing down upon his shoulders. Though a different world and a separate time, the same inexorable force drove them towards the same tired conclusion.
But perhaps the sooner it was over, the better. He lifted his foot and brought it down. Once, twice, three times until nothing was left moving below. Then he swung away, the ground quaking beneath him.
So, it was through humanity that the Amits had come to know of war? Well then, today he would show them that they had much left to learn. He turned northward, a god astride the earth, and lumbered towards Mound Euler.
Link to 1st chapter here: 1st chapter on HFY
Link for all the chapters available here: Engines of Arachnea on Royal Road

1. History of Christmas Traditions:
   
   • Research the historical origins of Christmas traditions such as gift-giving, decorating trees, and feasting. Explore how these customs have evolved over time.
2. Christmas Carols and Their Stories:
   
   • Dive into the stories behind classic Christmas carols. Explore the origins, lyrics, and cultural significance of popular songs associated with Christmas.
3. Culinary Traditions:
   
   • Investigate the diverse culinary traditions associated with Christmas around the world. Explore traditional festive dishes, desserts, and how different cultures celebrate through food.
4. Christmas Symbols and Decorations:
   
   • Research the symbolic meaning behind Christmas decorations such as ornaments, lights, and wreaths. Explore how these symbols contribute to the overall festive atmosphere.
5. Cultural Variations in Christmas Celebrations:
   
   • Explore how Christmas is celebrated in different cultures. Investigate unique customs, rituals, and festivities associated with Christmas around the world.
6. Christmas in Art and Literature:
   
   • Examine how Christmas is portrayed in art and literature. Explore famous Christmas-themed paintings, stories, and poems, and analyze the cultural impact of these works.
7. Modern Christmas Traditions:
   
   • Investigate contemporary Christmas traditions and how they may differ from historical practices. Explore new trends, activities, and ways people celebrate in the modern era.
8. Christmas Traditions in Education:
   
   • Research how Christmas is incorporated into educational settings. Explore lessons, activities, and programs designed to teach the cultural, historical, and religious aspects of Christmas.
9. Christmas Festivals and Events:
   
   • Explore public Christmas events, festivals, and parades. Investigate how communities come together to celebrate Christmas on a larger scale and the various activities organized during these events.
10. Christmas and Charity:
    
    • Examine the role of charity and giving during Christmas. Research how different cultures and communities engage in charitable activities during the holiday season and the impact of these efforts.

tl;dr: The analysis interprets "Don't Carry It All" by The Decemberists as a song about a small community experiencing cycles of harvest, birth, and death. The lyrics suggest hidden secrets and multiple layers of meaning. The writer speculates that the deceased boy being mourned might be a bastard son, conceived out of wedlock during the previous spring's turning of the season. The song reflects themes of communal togetherness during times of work and grief, with metaphors tied to nature and the cycle of seasons. Ultimately, it's portrayed as a complex and richly symbolic piece that invites repeated listening and interpretation. The writer expresses a deep appreciation for the song's depth and invites discussion on similar works by The Decemberists. (Summary written by ChatGPT ;)

Intro

There are secrets hidden in this one, I think. For one, what exactly is it that “nobody knows”? I have one possible answer, and I thought I’d share. I think the boy whose death the townsfolk gather to mourn is a bastard son (a child born of unmarried parents).
Let me explain why I think this. I’ve copied the lyrics below and labeled them for easy reference. For instance, (1) refers to the whole intro section, and (1a) refers to the first line, 'here we come to a turning of the season’.

Lyrics

Intro

(1) a. Here we come to a turning of the season
b. Witness to the arc towards the sun
c. The neighbor's blessed burden within reason
d. Becomes a burden borne of all in one

Chorus

(2) a. And nobody, nobody knows
b. Let the yoke fall from our shoulders
c. Don't carry it all, don't carry it all
d. We are all our hands in holders
e. Beneath this bold and brilliant sun
f. This I swear to all

Verse 1

(3) a. A monument to build beneath the arbors
b. Upon a plinth that towers towards the trees
c. Let every vessel pitching hard to starboard
d. Lay it's head on summer's freckled knees

Repeat (2), the chorus.
Verse 2

(4) a. There a wreath of trillium and ivy
b. Laid upon the body of the boy
c. Lazy will the loam come from it's hiding
d. Return his quiet certitude to the soil

Outro

(5) a. So raise a glass to turnings of the season
b. And watch it as it arcs towards the sun
c. And you must bear your neighbor's burden within reason
d. And your labors will be borne when all is done

Repeat the chorus, (2), again.

Analysis

Setting the scene

In (1) the scene is set. The ‘turning of the season’ in (1a) is the turn from spring to summer, and with summer comes the harvest, a time of toil. The ‘arc towards the sun’ in (1b), then, is the corn or wheat in the fields, bending in the wind. (Side note: “witness to the arc towards the sun” is one of my favorite lines in the song. Whenever I hear it, I feel like I’m in a field on a clear day, watching the golden wheat sway—a scene familiar from my adolescence in the midwest). It is not lonely individuals in these fields, however. From (1c) and (1d) we know that to reap the bounty of the earth, which is the ‘neighbor’s blessed burden’, is to come together as a community. So harvest is a time of togetherness.
In this context, the first line of the chorus, (2a), might be rephrased as ‘there is nobody that nobody knows’. In other words everyone knows everyone. This is the hallmark of a small town or village. In (2b), letting the ‘yoke fall from our shoulders’ means that we relieve ourselves the burden of the hard work, and we do this, as related in (2d)-(2e), by relying on our community. Here, the ‘holders’ of (2d) are containers for grain or corn. More simply put, those of the village are all working together to harvest the crop. This is all done in the light of the ‘bold and brilliant sun’ in (2e). This is, of course, literally a description of working under the summer sun. But it is also metaphorical: to work under the sun is to have no secrets. As is common in such small towns, in which everyone knows everyone, everyone knows everything about everyone. (These images of fields and community bring Midsommar to mind for me. That is the community I picture for this song, though the differences are stark)
After the work is done, it will be soon a time of rest, as related in (3c)-(3d). But not yet. In (3a), there is a ‘monument’ to be built. Like the harvest, this too is not the work of one individual, but requires the community. For some, the monument means the end of their work, so as related in (3c)-(3d), they may finally lay their heads on ‘freckled knees’. For others though, a ‘vessel pitching hard to starboard’ (i.e., a bountiful harvest) means it is time for trade. Ships (‘vessels’) so loaded with trade goods that they are ‘pitching hard to starboard’ have come to the community’s shores (their ‘summer’s freckled knees), and the product must be bartered for.
Here the chorus in (2) repeats. It has mostly the same interpretation as before, with calm, happy air, though having our ‘hands in holders’ in (2d) now means that we are standing hand in hand, in celebration. But when we get to (4), the second verse, the mood turns somber. It seems that a boy has died. Fittingly, he will be returned to the soil, from which the crops were grown. In this context, (2d) can be reinterpreted: having our ‘hands in holders’ in (2d) now means that we are standing in solidarity against the pain. (3a) and (3b) may similarly be reinterpreted. The ‘monument’ in (3a) built on a ‘plinth’ in (3b) may be a gravestone, built for the boy. So what was a happy time, is now a solemn one. (Side note: I love (4c), ‘lazy will the loam come from its hiding’. The imagery of the rest of the song is so light and dry, so this line about the dark and damp hits hard)

The core of my argument

The outro, (5), which resembles (1), is the key to my argument. We have come again to a turning of the seasons, in (5a) and so from summer it has turned to fall. In the context of the funeral in (4), we are primed to read (5c) and (5d) as depicting each neighbor sharing in their ‘neighbor’s burden’:, i.e., helping each other grieve and overcome the pain of the child’s death. But there is a more literal reading here. To ‘bear’, in (5c), is to bear a child: to birth. Bearing a ‘neighbor’s burden’, then, is carrying their child (‘carrying’ in the sense of pregnancy). Where the ‘labors’ in (5d) at first glance seemed to refer to the hard work of the harvest, we now see that these labors are the labors of childbirth, after which the child will be ‘borne’. (Side note: so many of these lines have more than one meaning, which is why listening to it is such a joy: I find something new every time)
This reading of ‘bear your neighbor’s burden’ triggers a reinterpretation of the chorus, which repeats again now, at the end of the song. And now we are poised to answer the question we began with: What it is that ‘nobody knows’ in (2a) is that the child to be born the next year (at the turning of the seasons from spring to summer) is a bastard son. The mother and father must be worried: will the child have the blue eyes that will give our infidelity away? But for now, nobody knows.
We are also triggered to reinterpret the death of the boy in (4). Is this just any child? It might be, but also notice that the time from the start of autumn (when you must ‘bear your neighbor’s burden’) to the end of spring (‘the turning of the season’ from spring to summer) is 9 months: the exact time required to bear a child. With this context, the “neighbor’s blessed burden” becoming “a burden borne of all in one” is the community coming together to celebrate the birth of the child. (As they say, it takes a village)
Upon re-listening, when we hear (4), we might consider that it is this child’s death (or a child like this one, conceived outside a marriage in the previous spring). This child is stillborn, or did not survive long after birth. For the community, this is bitter and heartbreaking. But for the mother of the bastard son, the feelings are more complex. Though she lost her child, the guilt of adultery and the worry of discovery has been lifted. Now to be ‘beneath the bold and brilliant sun’ in (2e) is ironic: there were secrets here, though they died with the boy.

Overall thoughts

This is a song about a community coming together for harvest, birth, and death, over and over. And I think, like the cycle of the seasons, this is a song that is made to be listened to again and again.
Of the Decemberists’ songs I’ve listened to, this is my favorite. I suspect that this song is a momentary stroke of genius, and that the other music is not the same. But my knowledge of their music is limited. Are any of their other songs like this? If so, what are they about?
And surely there are things that I’ve missed: songs, like poems, can be open to multiple interpretations. I’m more than happy to hear your thoughts.

https://www.academia.edu/118736225
Many linguists think that IE adj. in -no- and -mo- all came from *-mno-, derived from nouns in *-m(o)n-. One collection of related ideas (Nikolaev 2021) is, in part:
​

1. IIr. nouns in -man- show *CmnV > CmV / CnV by regular sound change (drāghmán- ‘length’, ins. drāghmā́)

​

1. whether -m- or -n- appears does not have clear cause (Nikolaev argues against a labial in the root being responsible)

​

1. when a m(V)n-stem is the second part of a compound, it becomes mo-stems (kárman- ‘work’, vīrá-karma- ‘whose deeds are manly’)

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1. several of these are seen outside IIr., though not clear in some branches (G. spérma > áspermos ‘seedless’)

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1. it is not regular for the 1st part of a compound to show the same n-loss, but analogy caused it in both (G. akmó-theton ‘anvil post’)

​

1. other n-stem words show the same, even when not mVn-, likely analogy or a related sound change (Skt. ukṣán- > mahokṣa- ‘large bull’)

​

1. these changes depend on tone: *Cmnó > Cmá / Cná, *Cmno > *Cṃno > Cana (*wésṃno- > Skt. vásana- ‘clothes’, G. éanos)

​
There are problems with most parts. Though many apparent counterexamples could be due to analogy, they add up. On the whole, the existence of nouns in -o-, -on-, -mon-, -non-, -mo-, -no-, etc., seems likely to be produced by original o-stems that produced derivatives that were n-stems; some happened to contain *-mo-, thus make *-mon-, not the other way around. Just like any other noun, mon-stems might have formed derivatives in *-mno- (a few likely examples below), but saying they are the source of so many words in -no- and -mo- is not reasonable, especially with little evidence and no set of regular changes that can account for all data. Also, -to-, -ton-, -ko-, -kon-, etc., do not seem likely to be produced by original *-T-m(o)n-. That this is both clear and not claimed by proponents of *-mon- > -mo- / -no- removes any theoretical need.
​
Nikolaev’s examples contain *-imno- > -na- (*praHimán- > Skt. premán- ‘love / affection’, ins. preṇā́), though if *ymno counted *y as a C, it would not matter much. However, since he also has *bhuHmn- > bhū́man- ‘world’, ins. bhūnā́, the timing makes it less likely that these happened at a stage that could be interpreted as *praHimán- = *praHymán-. Also, adj. in -no- and -mo- appear after V’s, both -ino- and -imo exist with no special meaning, and all could come from *-imHo- / *-iHmo- (L. maritimus, opīmus, etc.) with optional *mH > *nH (remember that supposed *Cmno > Cmá / Cná is also not regular, and there is no way to avoid this). Some examples of IE words with -(i)no-:
​
PIE *peyH1- (Skt. páyate ‘swell’, pī́van- ‘fat’) supposedly created *poH1mo- > L. pōmum ‘fruit’, but instead *poH1imo- is needed, since cognates show both *o: and *o(:)i (the god(esse)s Pōmōna, Pōmōnus,Vestinian Poimun- (Poimunien ‘in Pomonium?’), Umbrian *Pōimōno- > Puemune). This is not likely a result of only this word happening to have an uncommon suffix *-imo-, but that *poH1imo- / *poH1mo- shows that the loss of *-i- was happening at the same time as the loss of *H, leading to either *-oi- or *-oH-. Others in Note (1).
​
Other objections to each part (keeping in mind that each is not meant to be certain or prove the whole theory wrong by itself):
​

1. *Cmno > *Cṃno > Cana does not apply in compounds (*vīrá-karmna- > vīrá-karma-), though this could be due to *vīrá-karmná-, etc., and later simplification

​

1. if words like G. áspermos came from a sound change, why would G. have other -Cmno-?; if G. dáknō ‘bite’, dagómenos ‘weak’, dágmnos ‘pitiable’ < *dánk-m(e)nos ‘worn down’ were due to analogy, *-Cmno- > -Cmo- would have to be very early and its presence in many IE would suggest it was of PIE date or immediately after breakup, if regular (this contradicts several other points, also see below)

​

1. there are just as many good old-looking examples of n vs. 0 in both parts of compounds; why is one regular and the other not?

​

1. there is no reason to think words like Skt. mahokṣa- require a sound change (ukṣán- > *maha-ukṣán- could exist, so there is no preference for the existence of intermediate *maha-ukṣná- > mahokṣa- instead of a rule of grammar changing stems directly); u-, i-, and C-stems often become o-stems in compounds, and o- > i- or yo-stems; whatever the cause, 5 or more sound changes make less sense than suffixes that replace the ending, rather than change it (and analogy might have extended this alternation, even if some were really produced by a sound change to begin with)

​

1. there is no evidence that Skt. vásana- ‘clothes’, G. éanos, etc., came from *wésṃno- instead of *wésano-. Though PIE *a is seen as rare or conditioned, many suffixes could be reconstructed with *-(a)no-, with *-a- often lost (like i/0 and u/0 above):

​
*dH2p-ano-? > G. dapánē ‘expense’
*dH2p-no-? > L. damnum ‘expense/loss/harm’ (not *dapumnum if from *-mno-)
​
L. daps ‘(sacrificial) feast’, *dapno- > ON tafn ‘sacrifice / sacrificial animal’, Arm. tawn ‘feast / festival’ (likely the same as above, also no evidence for *-m-)
​
*weranaH2- > Arm. geran ‘timbebeam/log’
*wernaH2 > OIr. fern ‘alder’, Alb. verrë ‘white poplar’
*werno(s)- > G. érnos ‘young sprout’
​
The most important problem is that comparative evidence shows that *Cmn did not become Cm / Cn at all, at least not directly. If Nikolaev’s stages were real, the changes in *g^h(e)i- > Skt. hinóti ‘urge on / throw’, Arm. jgem ‘throw’, *g^heimon- > Skt. hemán- ‘eagerness’, Av. zaēman- ‘active / awake’, zaēni- ‘eager’, zaēna- ‘*swift / *thrown > *arrow > weapon’, etc., would require *g^heimn-í- = *g^heymn-í- > *g^heyn-í- > zaēni-. However, the words cognate to zaēna-, including loans, show -u- and *-w- in *dzainu > TB tsain ‘arrow’, pl. tsainwa, Arm. zēn ‘weapon/armoharness’, gen. zinu, NP zin ‘saddle’, Kh. *hēwna > *hīwn > hún ‘saddle’. Instead of *-w- appearing from nowhere, *mn > *wn makes the most sense, and fits other optional changes (Celtic *k^Hatu-welH2mon- ‘warleader’ > *-welxǝwon- > British Catuvellauni, Cassivellaunus ‘name of a warleader’, W. Caswallawn / Cadwallawn, Vellaunus ‘a god’, *akamn- ‘stone’ >> L. acaunamarga ‘red marl’, Arm. (2)). If there were, instead, a u-stem *g^heymn-ú- >*zaēnu- with exactly the same meaning as zaēna-, it seems unlikely it would happen to be the only one borrowed into Arm. and TB both, and be unrelated to supposed metathesis in *hēnw- > *hīwn > hún. Loans often show features lost in the donor languages (and Kh. is a Dardic language, a group that retains many archaic features, and is at the periphery, another type that commonly shows otherwise lost features). Another loan from IIr. might be the source of *zaymna > *zaymma > *zymama > Aramaic zǝmāmā ‘reins’, Arabic zimām.
​
If a u-stem existed here, it would also not be able to account for the same type of change in a word that only sounded the same, with no reason for a u-stem: *g^heimon- ‘winter’ > G. kheimṓn, Av. zaēn-, etc. If IIr. words with -(m/w)-n- are needed in both words pronounced *g^heimon-, a sound change *m > m / *w̃ > w / ũ near n would be the best solution (reasonably, it would be optional based on the data):
​
*g^heimon-to- > Skt. hemantá-s, *haywanta- > A. haywaán ‘winter’, pl. haywandá, *hyamanda > *yOmOnO > Kh. yomùn, *yawanō > Sh. yṓno
​
*g^himno- > Skt. himá-s ‘cold / frost / snow’, Kh. hím ‘snow’, Pashayi hīm, *híṽ > *híw̃ > Ba. hiũ, Id. hī̃, Sh. hín, Gurezi hinn, Savi hina, Pj. himma
​
*dwi-g^himno- ‘2 winters (old)’ > L. bīmus ‘two years (old)’, *dvi-zivn > Wg. düzun-zālǝ ‘heifer in its 3rd year’ (Skt. śatá-hima- ‘100 years old’)
​
It is easy to see that m and w alternated when separated from n, thus *mn > *mn / *ṽn > nn / mm / etc. (including many cases where *C disappeared and created long V, *himn > *himm > hīm (as in himma where non-final)) should be clear. Turner reconstructs many of these words with *-mn- (even when cognates in Skt. have -m-) or plain *-n-, seeing -n(n)- as analogy (and/or << snih-) but no reasonable analogy could produce all the other variants (or is needed, based on hemantá- ~ haywandá, etc., when no analogy with a word with *-w- is possible). No fully regular set of changes can describe all data, but the basic alternations are clear if unpredictable. Knowing that *-mn- / *-ṽn- existed when seen between V’s shows that this should be expected for *-Cmn- as well, with the outcomes -Cn- / -Cm- matching *-mn- / *-ṽn- > -mm- / -nn- (both apparently optional). Just as much of the variation is clearest in Dardic, it also has many other examples of m / v from all types of *P (3).
​
​
The need for nasalized *ṽ in these stages (Whalen 2023) is also seen in words in which *m- > v- in some, but sometimes also -r- vs. -n- in the same, requiring *m-r > *ṽ-r > *v-r̃ / *v-n :
​
IIr. *mṛgá- ‘game, horned (deer), (large) bird’ > B. mirig ‘deer’, Ba. múgur ‘billy goat’, Kh. mùru ‘female ibex’, Iran. *mǝrǝγa- ‘bird’ > Ps. mǝrγǝ´ / murγǝ´ / marγǝ´
​
IIr. *mṛg-iska- ‘small bird’ > Iran. *mǝrǝγiška- > Mz. mička ‘sparrow’, NP Arak malič, Hamadan milič, Mj. braγiko
IIr. *mṛg-iska- ‘small bird’ > Iran. *mǝrǝǰiška- > *ṽǝrǝǰiška- > *vǝrǝčšika- > Ni. girišig
*ṽǝrǝǰiška- > *vǝr̃ǝǰiška- > *vǝnǝǰiška- > MP vinǰišk, NP NP gunǰišk, Bl. jinjišk
*ṽǝrǝǰī > *vinji > OKho. biṃji- >> TB *wiñcä- > wiñcaññe ‘of sparrows’
​
Though these words are kept separate by others, vinǰ- / virǰ- / *mirǰ- / mirg- in ‘sparrow’ when mirg- ‘bird’ exists makes these stages needed Having 3 (at least) separate words that are so similar, with vinj- having no clear origin, seems pointless. Note that *-gi- > -ǰi- is the regular outcome, but as shown by *gWemtu- > Skt. gántu- ‘course/way’, Av. jantu-, analogy could restore or retain K based on cognates (when the relation was clear, thus when *m- > v- no restoration from mirg- ‘bird’).
​
Notes
(1) Ex. of -i- vs. -0-, showing that -ino- was older than -no-, thus not caused by *-Cmno-:
​
*peyH1- > Skt. páyate ‘swell’, pī́van- ‘fat’
*poH1imo- > *poH1mo- > L. pōmum ‘fruit’
*poH1imo:n ‘God / Goddess of Fruits’ > Vestinian Poimun-, Umbrian *Pōimōno- > Puemune
*poH1mo:n > L. Pōmōna
​
*k^oH3no-s > G. kônos ‘(pine-)cone / spinning top? / bullroarer?’, Skt. śāna-s / śāṇa-s ‘whetstone’
*k^oH3inaH2 > *xaino: > ON hein, OE hán ‘whetstone’
​
*staH2- ‘stand’ >> *staH2-ino- > ON steinn, E. stone, Slavic *staina: > *ste:na: ‘cliff / rock / block’ > R. stená
(meaning ‘hard / strong’ like *staH2ro- > ON stórr ‘big’, Li. storas ‘thick’)
​
*H1ek^w-iHno- > L. equīnus ‘of horses’
*-in- > Sanskrit aśvin-
*-ino- > OPr aswinan ‘mare's milk’
*-eino- > Li. ašvíenis ‘stallion’
​
*melH2iHno- > *meHliHno- > Li. mė́lynas ‘blue’
*melH2inHo- > *melH2no- > G. melanós ‘blue-black’
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*leukinHo- > Arm. lusin ‘moon’, *leukiHno- > *leukisno- > *leuksno- > L. lūna
(note that Arm. lusin from *leukisno- is also possible)
​
*H3opinHo- > H. happina- ‘rich’
*H3opni- > L. omnis ‘every/whole’
​
*gWlH2ino- > Arm. kałin ‘acorn / hazel nut’
*gWlH2no- > G. bálanos ‘acorn / oak / barnacle’
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*pltH2ino- > *hlahin > Arm. layn ‘wide/broad/large’
*pltH2no- > *hlitanos > OIr. lethan ‘wide’, G. plátanos ‘plane tree’
​
*wedino- > Arm. getin ‘ground/soil’
*wedn- > G. édaphos ‘ground/soil / bottom/base’
​
*skandulHo- > *sxantułxo- > Arm. pl. sanduł-k` / sandux-k` ‘laddestairs’
*skandulo- > *skandlo- > L. pl. scālae ‘ladder / flight of steps’
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*grH2unHo- = *grxunxo- > *gurRunRo > *kurrunko > Arm. kṙunk ‘crane’
*gerH2no- > G. géranos
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*H(a)mburHo- > Arm. ambuṙ-k` ‘storm’
*H(a)mbro- > G. ómbros ‘rain(storm)’, Arm. amprop ‘thunder(bolt)’
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*pteturo- > *fteturo > *fetturo > Arm. p`etur ‘feather’
*ptetro- > G. pterón, Skt. pátra- / páttra-, pátatra- ‘wing/feather’
​
G. aírinos ‘of ryegrass/darnel’, Lt. airene ‘ryegrass/darnel’
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L. geminī ‘twins’, *yamuna- > Ni. iämüṇa ‘twin’
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*Hak^iHnaH- > Cz. osina ‘awn’
*Hak^(a)ni- > Skt. aśáni- ‘thunderbolt / arrow tip’, Li. ašnìs ‘edge/blade’
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*slaHg-isno- > Skt. ślakṣṇá- ‘smooth/slippery/soft’
*slaHg-inHo- > *srakina > *srikana > Ni. sirikana ‘smooth/slippery’, Kv. salkáň
​
*bhrHg^ó- ‘birch’, *bhrHg^isno- > *frākhisno- in L. frāxinus / *fārk(s)nos > farnus ‘ash’
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*HrikinHo- > L. ricinus ‘large vermin of sheep/dogs / tick’
*Hrikinso- > *Hriknso- > *Hrik(n)so- > *ri(n)ksa- > Os. liskä, Skt. likṣā́, A. liiṇṭṣií ‘nit’
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(2) mn / wn in Arm.; though Martirosyan says that *-mo:n > *-mun > *-mn > -wn is regular, otherwise *-mon- > -mun-, there are many examples of optionality, both *mn > wn and *wn > m(n) (not counting *-nn > -mn in atamn, etc., if really later than *-mn > -wn):
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Iran. *pari-štaH-man- >> Arm. paštawn ‘worship / service’, pl. paštamun-k‘
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gełgełem ‘sing beautifully / warble / quiver / vibrate’, geławn ‘song’
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*g^heluHno- > G. khelū́nē ‘upper lip’, *g^helumn ‘*ceiling > *dome > *shell’ > G. khélumna ‘tortoise / lyre’, Arm. *jelumn > *jeluwn > jełun ‘palate/ceiling’, gen. *jelwans > jełuan, ins. *jelman-bhi > jełmamb
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*Hnomn ‘name’ > *anuwn / *anumn > Arm. anun, EArm. anum (or dissim. *n-n > n-m later?)
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*H3oid- > G. oîdos, Arm. aytumn ‘swelling’
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*welwu()mn- > L. volūmen ‘roll (of writing) / whirl / wreath’, G. eílūma ‘wrapper’, Arm. gelumn
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? > xet’em ‘bite/push/shove’, xet’umn ‘bite of conscience’
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*H1leudh- ‘come / go (up)’ > G. eleúthō ‘bring’, Arm. eluzumn ‘sprout’ (compare elust ‘growing of plants’)
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*g^hiyom- > G. khiṓn ‘snow’, *jiyun > Arm. jiwn, Av. zyam- ‘winter’
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*jiwn-hayt’ > *jimnayt’ > EArm. Xotorǰur jimEt’ ‘snowblind’ (hayim ‘watch / look at’ >> *hayti- ‘vision’)
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(3) a few out of many ex. of IIr. (often Dardic) w > m, m > w, many m from P between V’s, so nasalization must have been optional late
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Skt. náva- ‘young / new’, A. náaw, Ti. nam, Dm. nõwã, Ks. *nõra > nõ.a, Kh. nóγ ‘new’
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Skt. náva ‘9’, Dm. noo, A. núu, Ti. nom, D. no, Sa. no, Kv. nu, Kt. nu, Ni. nu, Kh. nyòf
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*Hnomn ‘name’ > Dk. nóom, naam-, A. nóo, nóow-, Km. nām \ nāv, Rom. anav \ nav
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G plé(w)ō ‘float/sail’, Rom. plemel ‘float/swim’, Skt. prav- ‘swim’
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Skt. lopāśá-s > *lovāśá- \ *lovāyá- > Kh. ḷòw, Dk. láač \ ló(o)i ‘fox’, fem. *lovāyī > *lomhāyī > A. luuméei, Pl. lhooméi
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PIE *g^hew- ‘pour’ > G. khéō ‘pour’, Skt. juhóti ‘pour a libation / sacrifice’, *goü- > B. goi- / gom- ‘sacrifice’
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IE? *kswiP-to- > Av. xšvipta-, *xšvufta- > Ps. šaudǝ ‘milk’, šómle ‘buttermilk’
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Turner, R. L. (Ralph Lilley), Sir (1962-1966) A comparative dictionary of Indo-Aryan languages. London: Oxford University Press. Includes three supplements, published 1969-1985.
https://dsal.uchicago.edu/dictionaries/soas/
https://dsal.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/app/soas_query.py?qs=him%C3%A1&searchhws=yes&matchtype=exact
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Martirosyan, Hrach (2009) Etymological Dictionary of the Armenian Inherited Lexicon
https://www.academia.edu/46614724
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Nikolaev, Alexander (2021) YAv. Spitiiura and the compositional form of PIE *u̯r̥h₁-en- 'lamb' in Indo-Iranian
https://www.academia.edu/49130944
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Whalen, Sean (2023) Indo-Iranian Nasal Sonorants (r > n, y > ñ, w > m)
https://www.academia.edu/106688624
​

'Twas right before tip-off, and all through the City, Not a bad vibe was present, not even for Giddey.
The white and blue shirts were draped on the chairs, in hopes that a victory soon would be there.
The players were nestled all snug in their Lockers, While “what a pro wants” took away future Ad offers.
And Sam with his draft picks, and I in my cap, had just settled our brains for a nice pre-game nap.
When out on the court there arose such a clatter, I sprang from my seat to see what was the matter!
Away to the courtside, I flew like a flash, Tore open my wallet and threw out my cash.
The moon on the hardwood of the freshly waxed floor, Gave the lustre of midday to the fans all glaore.
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear but the Thunder's starting lineup, and a cup full of beer!
With a strapping young point guard, who’s the father of the day, I knew in a moment it must be SGA!
More rapid than ‘naders his teammates they came, and he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name!
"Now, Dort! Now, Giddey! Now, JDub and Wiggins! On, Jwill on, Hayward! On, Wallace and Holmgren! Let’s set this shit off, our future is golden!”
As fans that before the wild Pellicans flew, when met with an obstacle we sent them home too.
So to the tippity top of the Paycom they climbed, With a sleigh full of fans who had all season pined!
And then, some small giggling, I heard from Lu Dort, as the whimpers of Ingram came from under the court.
I smiled in my heart, and was turning around, when down from the plane, coach Diagnault came with a bound!
He was dressed all in blue, from his head to his shoe, and his staff were all laced out, lookin’ sick as hell too.
A bundle of plays he had flung on his back, he looked like a CoTY, ready to attack.
His teeth how they shined! His resolve how scary! His eyes were like lasers, his foes looked like fairies! His poker face stays ready you know, there’s no beard on his chin, but he was white as snow.
The head of a whistle he held tight in his teeth, and the refs encircled his head like a know-nothing wreath.
He had a broad team, which made all coaches jelly, That shook them to their cores when their teams played smelly.
He was confident coach, a right jolly elf, and I cried when I saw him, and then shat myself!
A wink of his eye and a twist of his pen, the e’r humble leader is primed to sweep ‘em again.
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work, and drew all the plays, then turned with a jerk. And laying his finger aside of his nose, And giving a nod, up the tunnel he rose!
He sprang to his team, to his players gave a bark, And away they all flew ‘cause there’s no one like Mark!
But I heard him exclaim, ‘ere he drove out of sight, "Happy game one to all, and to all a good-night!” — Thanks for reading:)

For context the Forge World Columnus sits in the path of a massive Ork Weirdwaagh led by the powerful Ork Psyker Zagdakka. The Raven Guard have engaged the Waagh and have been harassing it to give the Forge World time to prepare its defences. When Clan Raukaan of the Iron Hands, led by Captain Kristos: a powerful and accomplished Iron Hands warleader renowned for his embrace of logic arrive to bolster the defences victory seems assured. However, as the Orks assault the fortress factory of Urdi the Iron Hands refuse to reinforce the defenders.
This excerpt is shown through an Iron Hands marine accessing a bank of data that allows him to relive the battle which is why there's a part mentioning some data being restricted. I think this excerpt is very interesting for showing a major incident within the Iron Hands when they were at their lowest point in-lore.

Having harried these orks for every metre they took towards Urdri, Stenn knew that this was no ordinary invasion.
He had heard in dispatches of the psychic energies that flowed through their Gargants – weapon grids, shields and piercing uncanny augurs – and that brought their lumpen drop ships to ground still. He had heard too of the court of warpheads with which the self-styled warpboss, Zagdakka, surrounded himself, and had lost two squads of his most experienced Scouts in a failed attempt at thinning their numbers. He saw now with his own eyes the weird energy that flowed through these greenskins in their battle-madness like some manner of psychic connective tissue, the brawn and sinew of some gestalt ork that drove them unto death with a single, overriding will.
The fire discipline of the Raven Guard and their mortal allies slaughtered greenskins every minute by the hundred, but they didn’t seem to care, hurling themselves recklessly against the Imperial guns as though possessed. Not that the blasted Iron Hands would allow for the slightest deviation from their precious calculus. Stenn sneered, his pistol emitting a final hiss as coolant jets sprayed from the weapon’s muzzle and the vents locked. He thumbed off the safety and selected rapid fire. He could teach the Iron Hands a thing or two about logic.
‘Kristos, you honourless shell, I’m talking to you.’ He raged into the vox as he seared the heaving mass of orks with plasma. Too soon, heat warnings blinked red on the pistol’s side and he was forced to flick back to vent. ‘I need reinforcements and I need them now. Now, Kristos! I want a creeping artillery barrage walking outwards from the outer wall over the southern highway and I want aeronautica backup. Kristos!’
‘Captain,’ shouted Yavid. His company standard-bearer was on one knee behind the low wall and blazing into the horde with tight semi-automatic bursts of his pistol. He jerked his beaked helm towards the wrecked loading yard to the northeast of haulage depot 764. Stenn looked to where his brother pointed.
A squad of Iron Hands Centurions, almost as well camouflaged as the Raven Guard themselves in their huge black warsuits and perfect stillness. Their hurricane bolters were unloaded and pointed at the ground or at walls, whichever direction they had happened to be facing when the strange malaise of inaction had taken them.
Stenn regarded them with fury. The few Iron Hands he had seen had been that way, ever since the unexpected psychic onslaught had levelled the south wall outright. At first he had wondered if it was a secondary effect of Zagdakka’s powers, but the Raven Guard and their mortal allies were unaffected. Yavid had a replacement eye as well as a bionic arm and he remained functional, as did the crew interfaces of their vehicles. As did the damned skitarii.
‘Kristos!’ he roared down the vox again, knowing he wasn’t going to be answered, but determined that his last words be heard just the same, even if it were only by a comatose machine. ‘And he had the nerve to tell me that the Raven Guard dragged his primarch down,’ he growled to Yavid. ‘Corvia, but I hate them. You hear that, Kristos? You think it was coincidence that found us both in the vicinity of this world? We too heard Dawnbreak’s mortis cry. The second one, the one they sent after you abandoned their world to the eldar!’
An ork ran at him. He tore its head from its shoulders with a slash of lightning claw, then incinerated two more with precise blasts from his pistol. With the meaty clash of butcher’s work, the bangs of bolter-fire diminished as orks thundered into the thin line of Space Marines. The Rhinos’ storm bolters flashed; the thudding reports dissolved into the meat of chainblades and knives and primal screams. Assault Marines leapt into the air on bursts of thrust, flung back to earth as though on elastic cords to send orks flying. Lightning claws sizzled and cracked. He was aware of men fleeing, skitarii jerking as they were cut down, but the melee had swallowed him whole.
All the feints and tricks and stratagems that had delayed the Weirdwaaagh thus far were done. Now it came down to the strength of his arm, the artifice of his armour – kill orks until there were no orks left and pray to the Throne that enough men survived to hold this line when it was done.
It was what failure looked like.

...

The Centurions moved!
There they were, silent as the blown-out repair shops through which they came, ghosts of the machine bound forever to a doomed cycle of destruction and repair. The firepower of the Centurions alone would have ripped a hole into the ork horde as wide as the gates of the Ravenspire, but six full squads of Tactical Marines also moved up through the rubble behind them. They spread out, taking fire-positions just beyond the chokepoint where Stenn’s efforts held the orks at bay.
What were they waiting for?
He saw a pair of hellfire Dreadnoughts lumbering into position either side of the smaller Centurions, and then heard the weary collapse of a pockmarked stretch of rockcrete as the glacis plate of a Redeemer pattern Land Raider drove through it. Its sponson flamestorm cannons traversed to track the flows of the ork horde, liquid promethium dribbling to the rubble floor. Stenn cursed as he punched his lightning claw through a charging ork’s ribs. Never expect an Iron Hand to commit until he was good and ready.
‘What are you waiting for?’ He shot an ork in the face as it made to barrel towards Yavid, and found himself in the sights of the nearest Iron Hands squad.
They had bolters locked and aimed, but for some reason held their fire. Their eye slits shone an ephemeral white, but they could have been decoy suits for all the urgency they showed. ‘Shoot, curse you!’

[Zagdakka's psychic powers begin to assault the Space Marines]

An ectoplasmic limb twice the girth of an armoured Space Marine manifested from the random snaps of energy and smacked down on a Raven Guard that had been about to deliver the kill shot to the ork at his feet. Stenn strained as his own adversary’s brute strength slowly pushed him towards his knees. The ork gave a roar of surprise as another great fist snatched it away and hurled it through a rockcrete wall. Stenn too cried out as, for the first few seconds of flight, the ork’s grip on his arms took him with it. He hit the ground like a grenade dropped from a Land Speeder, and clattered through wreckage until his helmet smashed into the keystone at the base of an ablutorial block and he was lumped bodily against the wall. He groaned.
Gauntlet fingers crunched through the rubble as he drew his hands under him and began to push. Then he looked up. He swore as the confusion of contradictory threat markers suddenly parted around the black shape of the Rhino that was somersaulting towards him. He dropped back to the ground, body flat, feeling the tremendous shift in air pressure as the tank turned overhead and smashed through the ablutorial wall like a rock launched from a trebuchet.
‘Kristos,’ he coughed. His helm’s respirator seals were damaged and blast debris from the demolished building was making his breath catch. ‘Engage, damn it.’
Screams penetrated the death haze. Urgent signals through vox and data-link lent it a crackling, chopped-up dimension: red lit, threat markers circling with malign intent. He discharged his pistol, full charge, then screamed aloud as something grabbed his ankle and dragged him through what was left of the ablutorial. He bumped and slid over broken tiling and then put another wild shot through a standing column as he was turned upside down and pulled into the air.
A greenish coalescence had him by the leg. A flurry of short-lived plasmic tendrils burst from his pistol, and through the force that held him as though it were a hallucination. He fired until the weapon emitted shrill overheat tones and then he fired once more.
The pistol exploded in his hand, a newborn star about half a metre across that turned his arm to a crisp and buckled his plastron with the ferocity of its birth. Yelling in delirious fury as bio-implants flooded his bloodstream with clotting factors and powerful neuralgics, he activated his jump pack. It roared, shuddered madly for several seconds, then burned out, having moved him nowhere. The force around his ankle hardened into the clear form of a fist as it dragged him over the battleground until he hung upside down in front of an enormous greenskin wreathed in psychic flame.
The ork regarded him quizzically through a pair of green-tinted goggles. It was encased in war plate of white bone, arcane sigils of alien design daubed in pink using, or so Stenn’s Scouts had reported, the mashed brains of its human captives. Its helmet was made of scrap metal and buckled tightly under its chin, a single massive spike coiled with razor wire rising from the crown like some breed of antenna. Green energy spat from the coils and swirled in the lenses of its goggles. It watched him writhe as it would a worm on its claw.
Stenn gave a grunt of pain as psychic fingers tightened around him and squeezed. ‘Damn you >> RESTRICTED DATA >> Just kill me yourself.’
His armour cracked like a sea-crustacean’s shell, blood spurting from ruptured seals as his body was crushed. He screamed, genhanced anatomy fighting a battle with pain that had been stacked well against it from the outset. ‘Emperor forgive you!’
With every scrap of conscious thought locked away in hardened centres of his brain structure he cursed the Iron Hands. He cursed the casual brutality, the bare calculation of risk versus reward. His last thoughts before those final redoubts succumbed to braindeath were not of the pain, nor of his brother Raven Guard that fell to the mind-blasts of the warpboss’ retinue, nor even of the Iron Hands themselves as they finally descended on the fray.
With the enemy leaders bottled up with the last of the Raven Guard, the Iron Hands opened fire. Tactical Marines, Centurions, Land Raiders, each warrior a cog in a war machine that sprayed fire to a perfectly choreographed maelstrom that consumed Warpboss Zagdakka, his retinue, the Raven Guard, and Stenn himself.

It's been a weird time for me in the past two years. My mom died, then 6 months later my sister died. Then in January, my dad died. Their passing has awakened memories of childhood that I had blocked. Dark, ugly memories of so many traumatizing events. I am completely alone now and struggle with the resentment I carry for the many ways I was terrorized, physically and sexually abused, humiliated, shunned, ignored, brainwashed, belittled, ostracized, criticized, and bullied by my mother.
I can see that the world is open to me in a way it never was before since she is no longer here to hurt me. And yet, I still struggle with a lifetime of conditioned fear. I'm paranoid that she is in the spirit world watching and disapproving of my choices still. I don't even believe in life after death but she brainwashed me from infancy to where I never knew anything else so I still default to that fear.
When my mom died, I grieved her loss but also grieved for the fact that she never once acknowledged or apologized for her treatment of me. She was highly controlling, demanding complete obedience from me as a little girl. She was never consistent, which put me in a constant state of fight or flight mentality. The whole family walked on eggshells around her because the simplest thing could trigger a terrifying outburst from her, for which I would be blamed. I am now very conditioned to read the tiniest shifts in a person's demeanor as a result, and often feel I am responsible for calming things down. Relationships with others fail because I am so distrustful and hide myself. I have struggled with self-loathing throughout my life.
The hundreds of ways she harmed me are too much to write. And those are the things I do remember. I know I blocked out a lot more. It comes back in bits sometimes.
Today, ugly memories came to the surface and I spoke some of them out loud, as if I was telling someone else. I was horrified at what I was saying about the things she did. She had no boundaries whatsoever. She was devoutly religious and demanded that I obey her beliefs. So I also struggle with having a spiritual practice without being triggered.
The past few days, I have been working to depersonalize my parents house in anticipation of selling it. I regularly come across things that remind me of being a child and it can knock me into spells of crying. But taking down all her dated, cheesy decor, putting it in the back of the truck and taking it to the dump today felt good. I hurled those dusty fake plants and dried flower wreaths into the garbage chute as hard as I could. I thought about how much money she and dad spent on themselves over the years. I thought about how much money they freely gave to my brother and sister and their kids while forcing me to incur debt to pay for college. They were never concerned with my education or future and didn't bother coming to my graduation. I had to move a state away for 20 years to escape her nonstop intrusion into my adult life.
So here I am. I found this group today and, reading others posts, I know that I am among survivors who have braved a treacherous life on their own. Our scars are there but we're not alone. Hopefully we can jointly find healing together and move into a life we truly want and deserve.
​

It had been six years since I last saw Joseph. He left with a knapsack and a dusty set of shoes, some torn trousers and a wry smile. I remember saying to him, “so long, old fellow.” “Until we meet again,” he had said back. Well, today, I saw him coming down the mountain. I don’t know how he got up there; the last time I saw him walking away, he was headed in the opposite direction. But I cast aside that puzzlement and with joy, went on to meet him. 

And so we went on, down by the apple orchard around Brooke’s Lane, the dirt road down past the bend, and we plucked a few red ones and sat in the grass, ate and talked. He had gone up, past the Elven land where the brightness of the dawn was so clear that the morning shone as if a diamond lay in the heavens. And he had gone past that land, beyond to the realm of Goldor-Nu’um, where he had met a princess of sorts. One with a penchant for bestowing wishes, or so he said, with a wry smile. He had met her in a similar orchard as the very one we were I, he said, only that one was filled with magical spiders. The kind that wove nets around the fruit to shade them from the sun. And that fruit was so poisonous that it could kill you immediately if you ate it. She was there because her betrothed was sick after having eaten some of that fruit, and she was in the process of healing him. But she was missing an ingredient, so she sent for Joseph to head down South for a branch of a particular sort, whose joints were supposed to have a sort of resin in them that would be a cure for her betrothed. So he went. Halfway there he encountered a lion, who stood in his path and asked him a riddle. The lion asked, “how many days lie between the first day and the last, if a man knows who he is?” And Joseph answered: one. The entire life is one day, and all things that happen between that day and this last one are transmutations of the emotional principle invested in his experience of birth.” And the lion turned into a giant butterfly and wavered up and over the breeze, to some far off canyon. Then Joseph had to cross a river, but there was no causeway. So he simply waded into the current and got deeper and deeper into the water, until his neck and head were the only things protruding. But as he lost his footing, there in the middle of the river, an Eagle swooped down and lifted him out of the water with its talons, and deposited him safely on the other shore. “Why did you save me?” asked Joseph. Because you would have done the same, said Torah, the Eagle. “That is true,” replied Joseph. And he pulled himself to his feet and looked around him. To his surprise, he was before the branch that had the necessary sap. So he plucked it from the bough, but the tree objected. Immediately, roots sprung up from the ground, and ensured his feet. “Why do you take of my serum?” inquired the Bansai tree. “Because the princess in the far grove needs it to heal her betrothed, and I have traveled far to get it.” “Who are you to her?” the tree inquired further. “Nobody, just a chance acquaintance.” “Interesting. So you would not have known her had you not endeavored on your quest?” “That is correct.” “Then go, take of my branch and my sap, and let this remind you of what a good deed does, in time.” So Joseph took the branch, and immediately the sap stuck to his skin and he fell into a deep sleep, and forgot everything about his quest. When he awake, it was midnight, and the Night sky and all that glimmered there shone down upon him. And he knew not where he was, nor where he was going. Not how he had gotten there, nor what his purpose was. And he let his mind wander through the Nighttime, until the Eastern sky began to grey. When the morning zephyrs began to stir, he felt the branch beneath his back, for he was lying on the ground. And he gradually remembered his quest. He was struck with the immediacy of the need to get back, and he began to shuffle through that glade, on toward the sun. And to his surprise, the sun had risen at the exact moment he broke free of that glade, and turned back onto a dirt path. And there, shortly down the road, was the orchard with the princess and the poisonous spiders, and there was the Eagle and the Lion. And there on the ground, was the betrothed. His breaths rose and fell with quiet strength, but the princess turned from him and with exhasperated delight plucked the branch from Joseph’s hands. And she snapped it open in two and dabbed the sap onto the closed eyelids of the man who lay at her feet, and he woke. With each piece of twig on either side of him, he rolled onto his side and coughed up a fish. The fish, surprisingly, was alive itself, but upon touching the ground it immediately turned into water and sunk into the ground, where a lily grew. The man plucked the lily and handed it to the Princess, who turned to Joseph and put it in his hand. Joseph looked down at the lily and smiled, but knew not why. With a deep breath of his own, he put it into his lapel, and one of the petals fell off. Then the princess said, “because you have been brave, your reward is that every petal that falls from the head of that lily will grant you one wish. You may wish now for the petal that has fallen.” And Joseph, with surprise, looked up at the daytime moon, there in the pale evening sky and said in a thoughtful murmur, “I wish that I had been here earlier, so that I could have helped sooner.” And immediately he found himself at the edge of the orchard, with the Princess in sight, and remembered everything. Not knowing precisely what had happened, he nonetheless walked toward the Princess and completed the same conversation. Left on his quest, and each time, more expediently completed his task. From the orchard, to the Lion, to the river and the Eagle, to the Tree, he repeated his actions. The only difference being that the betrothed grew younger each time, and Joseph grew older. He had found a purpose in saving the betrothed for the Princess, but he never knew who they were, until one day, if it can be called such, he met the Princess and instead of wishing for the opportunity to save her betrothed sooner, he asked to know who the Princess was. And she said, “I am your daughter.” “Not your actual daughter but the one you have created. I am the center of all that you know, and all that you do, and all that you have wrought in and of yourself. By saving my marriage, you have secured your future. But you had to learn this fact by doing these things.” “My betrothed is my future, and this man is you, who you saved by saving me.” “Now you have your life. The first part of it was realizing why you are here. You have done that in knowing me. The second part is doing what you can do, secure in the knowledge that you are the cause of your own life. All things begin and end with you, which you knew when you answered the Lion’s riddle. But you had to experience it, beyond knowing it. All things are their own consummation. Now go, and know yourself in your doings for the rest of your days.” So then Joseph left the Princess and her betrothed, the fish which was coughed up being the almost-death Joseph had suffered in the river had he not been saved by the Eagle. The Eagle was the embodiment of the self-saving principle that reciprocated his deliverance of the betrothed. And Joseph walked down the mountain, where he found himself, and saw me there, sitting by the stream, casting nuts and stones into the water. He saw me and he knew six years had gone by, judging by his worn palms and the days that had passed. In his knapsack was a bushel of tried lilies, and in his eyes was the gleam of wisdom. 

And there in the fire which swallowed the lily petals a wreath of blue flame began to grow, and all the other fire was drawn to it and quenched within its circle. Until the house was gone, and the fire was gone, and all that was left there on the ground was the Princess, only I didn’t recognize her. She was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, and as I approached her I felt the grass and the ash crinkle beneath my feet. She was wearing a sooty, blue dress, and a petticoat of white lace. And her honey-colored hair was spread out before her. And as I stooped to get a better look at her face, she turned, and a fish came out of her mouth. She gasped for breath and sat upright, and she looked at me, and she cried out to me, “Jonah!” And I said, “Yes?” And she said, “Darling, I’ve been waiting all my life for you. Here in this house, and in a far glade, where death came upon you. You have been waiting just as long to see me. I know, I knew Joseph.” And I said, “Joseph, but of course! You’re the Princess he met!” “Yes, he rescued my beloved, and you are him!” “But how could that be? Your beloved was with you in glade. He ate the spider apples, and regained his life when Joseph brought the broken branch to you.” And she said, “”Yes, and you are that broken branch! This, is the broken branch. He was, too, the broken branch, and the sap was all this effort. The transmutation of the entire process. He gave his life for you, so that you could find me, and now your fates are exchanged. A perfect ransom, youth for old age, a single redemptive act of courage, spread across a life time. And for me.” And Jonah shifted uncomfortably. “Why you?” “Because I am yours. The perfect complement to your life’s work. I am between you and Joseph, and between that orchard where you shared your story and the one far away where he met me. He is that part of you that longs, and you are that part of him that sent him. You are both this man that you are, where before you lay on the ground having eaten the fruit of ignorance, kept in the dark by the web of spiders. It was through seeking me out, here in this house, and far beyond, where he traveled, that I waited for you to come to life. And now we have traded places as well. You saw the fish that came out of my mouth; that, too was you.