Legend of Ransera

Posted: **Mon Nov 11, 2024 3:05 pm**

"The very same..." Arry-Aurin answered with a grim snigger. "Or at least an echo of Arry. I have all his memories... I feel as though I was him, but I might just be a reprint. Can a soul be relocated? Fuck if I know." Finn would hear other familiar motifs in this Symphony. This version of his diamond in the rough remained an uncut gem. He'd never trained in his Craft, and had used it recklessly or it had used him. The guilt in this strange Symphony derived, in no small part, from actions taken in the heat of passionate moments where his power exceeded his comprehension. He hadn't meant to cause the death of the smith, nor to commandeer Aurin's body. Or rather, he had meant for those things to happen, but not while he was in his rational mind. They had been fiery whims that might have burnt out in a matter of moments, if the gravity of his preternatural power didn't render them painfully permanent. In the murky depths of this complex Symphony, Finn could not but recognise how easy it would have been for his own Arry to have turned an inexorable corner and how pivotal Finn himself had been in averting this Destiny, or one like it.

But there was no time to dwell further on the intricacies of this grim reality, when things started happening very quickly. Phædreon appeared, eyes widening at the sound of gunfire. He winced, expecting to be struck, but suddenly Finn was before him and he was unharmed. Arkænyn roared at the sound of the pistol firing, already poised to attack at a moment's notice, he bolted up to his full height and gripped both hands together as the hilt of a massive claymore appeared in his grasp, even as he lunged forward, pinning Arry-Aurin against the metallic throne with its blade to his bare, pale throat. His eyes were crazed, teeth gritted as he found himself in checkmate.

"I didn't..." He choked out the beginning of a sentiment, wanting to explain that this had been another mistake... another reflexive attack, even now that he'd lost the mighty power he'd once wielded in another body. Arkænyn was not so quick to lash out, though he seemed ready to strike if the red-head made the slightest gesture of aggression.

"Shit!" Phædreon quickly knelt at Finn's side and inspected the area of impact. "Are you all right? Your clothes are warded, aren't they?" He didn't see blood straight away, but that didn't mean it wasn't pooling somewhere out of sight beneath the human's form. With any luck, the bullet had struck an area that would resist the full brunt of the impact.

Posted: **Mon Nov 11, 2024 4:05 pm**

"M'fine," he finally managed, although it took some time and some doing. He didn't know if that was true, though. His Sentinel weeds were warded, truly, and he didn't seem to be bleeding, but he wasn't sure he could move his arm just then. All that practice had worked, apparently. Taking a bullet to the shoulder was less dangerous than in the gut, but it wasn't nothing.

From his knees, he struggled to his feet, using Phædreon as a bit of a ladder.

Finding that Arkænyn had only pinned him was a blessing, but he didn't call him off. Finn stood straight as he was able, soothing his own pain so he could lead properly. He was still careful of his shoulder, however.

"Take us where we need to go, Phædreon," he said quietly. And, in case he complied before Finn got the chance, he looked cooly at the face of his husband's former lover, the Mesmeric ghost of a version of his husband overwriting or intertwined with what lay beneath.

Inhale, exhale. Slow, careful.

"I know of no Aurin or Arry who didn't have a shit childhood, a fraught youth. I befriended a prince who became the god of justice and I can tell you that the world is not fair. I don't know if you want a path to redemption or just someone to witness your pain. You have apparently elected fellating a firearm as your final solution; very well, both of you have been better men and worse. The choice is yours."

Of course, a part of him wanted to stay, to nurse that spark of his beloved back into a fire he could be proud of, to hold him while he released his pain, but he could not. That was just another choice whereby Finn could lose himself, possibly endangering his compatriots, and certainly abandoning the actual man he had made vows before his God to.

No, they needed to go.

Now.

Posted: **Tue Nov 19, 2024 5:56 pm**

Arkænyn was relieved to hear Finn's voice behind him dismissing Phædreon's concerns and the Time Mage was only too happy help the human to his feet.

"Yes, yes. I apologise for the..." He glanced around them, taking in the surroundings for the first time since appearing, "...delay in finding you, but I did locate our quarry in the interim. I shall conduct us there straight away." As Phædreon began to incant, Arry-Aurin gazed at him in terror- a cornered animal with an instinct to survive in spite of everything. In his Symphony, Finn would feel that, had he access to his whilom Rune of Mesmer, he might have lashed out with such a fury as to put all his other regrets to shame. Every one of the travellers would have been imperiled, had his magic transferred into this form with his soul, but this Aurin had been stripped of his Runes and this Arry was powerless beneath Arkænyn's blade.

As the temporal portal expanded from the ætheric weavings of the chronomancer, Aurin's face and Arry's Symphony expressed their strongest emotion at its zenith: Regret. There was no path that would undo what had been done, and he knew it. Whoever and whatever he had become was a loathsome betrayer of his former selves.

"Then, at least, I have been seen for what I was... one last time." He rasped, and tipped his head back to tighten the skin against the Platinum Elf's blade. Arkænyn tightened his grip on the claymore, but Phædreon called out:

"Come, boys, and stay close this time. We must go forward in time for you to get... the full effect." And, with that, Arkænyn took the Zaichæri Oberst's pistol and tucked it into his belt, before backing away and joining the others. And then they were absorbed into the portal. It was like their first journey in reverse, but far far faster. Perhaps this was just their perception, but it might have been that Phædreon had charted this course before and there was less guesswork involved. They didn't really have time to process the forward churning of vignettes of different timelines before they were deposited in a new place and a different time.

Arkænyn gasped audibly as they stood on a hard surface before the Palatium Furiarum in some version of the Luxium, but the sulphurous smoke-laden air was hazy from the erupting volcano that hurled flaming debris onto the Luxian streets, setting all ablaze that wasn't crushed to ash already. It must have been magic that protected the palace sitting at Sorokyn's base from the full brunt of the volcano's fury, and soon they would see some of the falling ash was offset by an otherwise invisible barrier of sorts.

"What-..." Arkænyn began to pose the obvious question, but Phædreon cut him short to say.

"The subject of your vengeance awaits within."

► Show Spoiler

Posted: **Tue Nov 19, 2024 7:17 pm**

Finn stiffened at what he felt from Aurin-Arry, but relaxed when he found him powerless to do what the Aurin or Arry he knew could have in a similar situation. He didn't call Arkænyn off of him; he didn't need to as Phædreon called him over. Finn was injured, but he straightened and moved in close on the time mage, personal space be damned. When Arkænyn was within reach, he pulled him close so their arms encircled Phædreon like the statue of Suion's Graces he had seen in a travelogue about Sol'Valen.

He didn't know if it would be a blessing or a curse, galvanize him to do something positive or deep dive into death; Finn poured a single, tight melody into Aurin-Arry, the pared down version of how he felt for his husband, hot and bright, without all the nuance and ornamentation, but True. He released it with the breath before he felt Phædreon move them.

Finn was putting Arry's laundry up on the line, moving gingerly. His knee hadn't worked right since the war and his injuries. Then, another day, he came home to find Arry fucking the pretty new baker from town in their marriage bed. Arkænyn had no shame. Finn's heart broke.

Finn was an actor on a giant island nation. Arkænyn was a musician covered in tattoos, none of them magical. They had never met. Arvælyn was an actor, too. Perhaps they could meet. Suddenly he wanted to, though he didn't know who Arvælyn was. He didn't know who Finn was.

Finn, Arvælyn, Arkænyn, and even Phædreon didn't exist outside the minds of a pair of old friends.

Finn coughed carefully. It hurt.

He concentrated and three orbs appeared, wards around each of their heads to keep ash out of their eyes and their mouths.

"She's here?" he asked, causing himself to cough again. He couldn't get the fuck that he wanted to say out.

He did what he rarely did, and worked his Mesmer upon himself. Pain became a thing that he could compartmentalize. He was careful in his movements, but the pain itself didn't cause him to seize up.

"I'm fine. Let's go. Phædreon, you are our only defense against chronomancy. That must be your priority. Protect us from that and keep her from leaping away again." His eyes turned to Arkænyn. "Amatus. Are you ready for this?"

It was a magic word, a dangerous word, but he said it because it was true. Perhaps it would no longer be true when they returned home, when they recovered from the resonances of other times, other places, and other selves. If not, they would figure it out. Nothing was ever simple.

But this had to be.

Posted: **Thu Nov 21, 2024 11:18 am**

Finn would only feel a momentary mental gasp in answer to his influence- a bittersweet twisting of the heart of this familiar stranger, before he was pulled outside time and space and cut off from that world of Zaichaer Ascendant. He saw glimpses of other worlds and other versions of other selves. Perhaps Phædreon's mercurial mind would come into clearer focus as Finn's own perceptions of reality began to blur with this knowledge. It was for this that Phædreon had urged them to prepare in advance: The mental stamina to bear witness to courses not taken; to ruined selves and happier ones. Facing the knowledge of the power of perception and the fickleness of gods so alien to their reckoning as to be incomprehensible.

► Show Spoiler

But then they were in the Luxium, or some version of it, as fire rained down from the skies, melting sand to glass and littering the unpeopled streets with ash. If there were still people alive in the city, none were to be seen- Only smouldering skeletons, black with ash. If there were screams in the distance, they could not be heard over the roar of Sorokyn and the crash of her fiery spittle smashing the odd domus to dust.

Arkænyn snarled, looking around in horror and disbelief at the devastation, while Phædreon seemed impassively somber. His eyes said that he had seen worse. Sensing Arkænyn's dumbfoundedness, he nudged the prince with his shoulder to break him from his daze as he trudged toward the steps of the palace, still somehow protected from the brunt of Sorokyn's wrath.

At being called 'amatus', Arkænyn's jaw tightened.

"Please... don't call me that. I..." He shook his head, and bounded ahead of Phædreon, wanting for a bit of space in this impossible moment, and only able to find it in the gap between his soulmate from another world and the mother who'd tried to kill him from his own reality.

Their journey took them on a straight path through the unattended gates through the empty entry hall and into the imperial presence chamber. They would hear the quiet chanting of arcane incantations in the familiar rasp of Arkænyn's baritone uttered in unison by twin versions of the Platinum Prince, projecting formidable ætheric energy through pillars on either side of the throne room to fortify the palace against the falling fires from above. Kneeling at the foot of the throne daïs was another princely figure, their face obscured by their golden hair glinting in the light from the chandeliers above. And high upon the Radiant Throne she sat: Thalya IV Imperatrix: Regina Derelicta, herself.

Her gaze fell to the approaching travellers, seeming to need a moment to focus and longer still to recognise. Despite a third version of her son being present it was upon Finn she focused.

"I know you..." She muttered, "...have touched your mind." She sighed, "You are too late to stop me." Her eyes fell, then, upon Arkænyn... her own, true Arkænyn, and she sighed grimly.

"I wish you had."

► Show Spoiler

Legend of Ransera

Take Your Time Now

Re: Take Your Time Now

Re: Take Your Time Now

Re: Take Your Time Now

Re: Take Your Time Now

Re: Take Your Time Now