The little girl replied even as Erthë regarded the ever-changing god with serene scrutiny, and her objection made the pale mare turn her steady gaze back upon her, calm and penetrating.
"Perhaps you are right" she said, acknowledging the possibility of her statement, "and perhaps not. It does not change the fact that he murdered countless, for no reason other than defending their homeland and their families. The future is not a singular entity brought forth from nothing, but an accumulation of events that are brought on by the actions of the past and present. I grieve for the past, dear, but what I truly fear for is the future of our people in this place, under his rule."
Her attention returned to Kaos when the demon spoke, responding to her words with dark jests and what she supposed amounted to a request for aid. Or was it a challenge, a threat? If they had been on the surface still, if she had been herself and slave to her raging emotions still, Erthë would no doubt have snapped back with rage and contempt, withholding her aid from the monstrous being simply because of what he had done to her. For the Moon, the Sun, the Earth and Time, and all their lost children she might have cried, turned her back on everything and let the void take the pieces of gods-bone and herself along with it.
But here, the rage did not reach her. Erthë felt separate from herself, removed from both past and present, half living or perhaps just half dead already, beyond saving... even if there had been anyone around that wanted her saved.
"I did not forget" she said to Kisamoa, as calm as she was serious. "I will never forget, nor will anyone else who saw what you really are. Do not think that your words could ever convince us to trust you again, Kisamoa the Deceiver, for we know what your words are worth. If you want our allegiance, you shall have to earn it through action, as we once earned the love of our gods in the past. Make no mistake, it is we who hold the real power in this Rift; you need us, more than we shall ever need you, else you would not have driven us from Helovia the way you did."
Turning to Kiada, the hybrid mare extended the divine items towards her; the bow and the fangs, the crocodile and the wolf, and sought to catch the girl's gaze with a serious, urgent expression in those mismatched eyes.
"Don't forget that, child, whatever you do. He needs you, and you are far stronger than you know. If ever there comes a time when your trust in him fades, remember this, and remember that nothing lasts forever. Gods have died before, and new gods have been born from their ashes... "
As she said this, Erthë threw a glance at Kisamoa, to gauge his reaction to her suggestion.
"I will help" she continued, addressing them both now, "but not for you, Deceiver. Never for you. I will help them, though I doubt they will know the difference, or thank me for it. I only hope that it is not too late..."
Bequeathing the precious items to Kiada, Erthë let go of them and took a step back, with a twinge of regret as she rested her eyes on the items one last time. That bow had been crafted for her dying mother, it had been by her side through the grief, through the long season that followed the black mare's departure... and those fangs had been the first gift she ever received from her Goddess. Both were rife with meaning and personal affection, and Erthë regretted having to part with either of them.
But it was done, and her mind was set. Without them on her person, she felt the perilous streams of this place begin to tug at her, threatening to whisk her away to elsewhere. She resisted as best she could, determined to see this through to the end, so that she would know exactly what she had done to the terrible world she had been brought to.
Had she delivered it from evil? Or doomed it to a deeper darkness, as she helped Kisamoa gain in strength?
Right or wrong, I can hardly tell
I'm on the wrong side of heaven and the righteous side of hell
Erthe responded to Kiada’s thoughts, explaining that she grieved for the past but worried for the future under his rule. She wanted to laugh, to tell the pale woman that she could have fled Helovia’s threshold if she so wanted to, that there was truly nothing that could have kept her here. There were options, people who came days and weeks after the Rift had opened in Helovia. She had time, but chose this, and in Kiada’s mind, the harpy had chosen to follow Kisamoa, at first for revenge, but now she felt as though she knew the god. And oh, it was so hard to enact revenge when you sympathized with the deceiver.
She listened as Kisamoa tried to explain to Erthe what they were doing down here and what they were searching for, and it seemed strained – almost painful – for him to utter that he wasn’t strong enough on his own to fix this. Her lips pressed into a tight line briefly as her head shifted from Kisamoa’s elongated, toothy form, to Erthe’s for her response. The pale woman responded to him in what sounded like a threat, and Kiada felt a strange mix of rage bubbling beneath her skin and laughter of the craziness this woman possessed. First, she attacked Kisamoa, then decides to help? The harpy was young, but even she saw the strangeness in this turn of events.
Regardless, Erthe handed the spotted girl her bow and fangs, aiming to capture her own blue gaze. To which, Kiada obliged. Listening, ears perked forward to hear what the woman had to say. And then, she smiled before taking the objects. “Isn’t that life? In every great civilization there once was?” She responded before gently grabbing the bow and the fangs, turning to Kisamoa and aiming to capture his teal gaze. She understood what Erthe was trying to do, but she also understood the things that Kisamoa had done for her upon being here. He hadn’t exactly lied to her yet, and she held him to that standard, ready to take the gifts he had granted her and throw them back at him should he wrong her.
And as she handed the items to the young god, she waited to see what kind of strange effect these would have this time. She remembered the unnerving yellow eye that watched her, trying to see if these would spark something different, perhaps more interesting. She turned to Erthe, then, and offered her a genuine smile. “Thank you.” She murmured, turning back to her spot beside Kisamoa.
You'll remember me when the west wind moves upon the fields of barley
You can tell the sun in his jealous sky when we walked in fields of gold
If Isopia's words had been spoken to her in a vacuum, perhaps they would have brought comfort and solace to the girl's rapidly beating and shrinking heart. Born with the ability to understand the sentiments and emotions of others even if she couldn't always feel them, Otem found herself precariously balanced on the edge of a precipice, with only Isopia's presence holding her aloft. Her mother, brought back from the dead to speak to her one more time, turns her attention away too soon. In the wake of Isopia's brief goodbye Otem is left cold and numb, forced to hear words meant for others. Forced to hear her mother ask Zero to follow her into the dark.
Zero, and only Zero.
Petulant screams of am I not good enough for you? dry up on Otem's tongue even as chaos and fury continue to whirl around her like flirtatious lovers. The earthen child's shoulders begin to shake and her knees suddenly feel weak. She wants to scream prophetic words at her mother, poetic phrases that will bite into Isopia's heart and make her feel something, the way that the demigoddess' words have made Otem feel. But nothing comes to mind. She is an empty and disappointing shell, capable of nothing and inspiring meaning to know one.
Before her Volterra roars and shifts into his most impressive form, but still Otem stands numb. Pain seems to be something imaginary, like the ghosts you think are in the darkness, and so the girl can hardly be bothered to even flinch as the spectral unicorn comes hurtling her way. Either she will die or be maimed, or her father will protect her. Either options seems likely and acceptable.
What's the point of living anyways?
What's the point in any of it?
Castiella is suddenly at her side, asking if she's okay. Blankly she turns to her pink comrade, bi-coloured eyes nearly uncomprehending. Why do you care? She wants to ask. We aren't friends ... we... but the thought is blown away by the screams of someone near by. Still, Otem can't shake the feeling that it's bizarre that Castiella takes the time to ask about Otem's state. She is blanketed by thoughts of worthlessness brought on by Isopia's emotionlessness, and can't comprehend the girls' concern for her.
She isn't worth caring about, after all.
Annoyed by her bonded's suddenly lapse into such a pathetic state, Pandora hoots and nips hard against Otem's shoulder tryin to provoke a response of any kind that isn't saturated by self-pity. "Ow!" Otem bleets, just in time to see a phantom shape charge in her direction. Scrambling to the side Otem is shoved unceremoniously to the ground. A wound opens on her shoulder as she strikes a rock near the water. Swallowing a scream the tribrid scurries back from the water's surface, not wanting to disappear into its depths the way that Kisamoa and the others had.
Looking around Otem is brought horrifically back to the present. Wraiths and ghouls and ghosts of every sort trample through the quiet. Many try to flew and are merely chased down. Isopia has become nothing but a hardened statue and Kaos is still no where to be found. "KISAMOA!" Otems screams, her red and gold eyes peering into the water, as if enough concentration and force of will could make the deity appear again. The word leaves the child breathless for a long moment. Blood pumps in her ears as her heart thuds hollowly in her chest. She did not call out for her mother...she did not even call out for her father. She called out for Kisamoa, he of the Rift. He of the future. Hope and need flare brightly in her small body, and her eyes shine with expectation.
Perhaps she was not quite as set on death as she had thought.
Let it go, just let it be, you be you, and I'll be me
Still breathing hard and ragged, Iskra looked up in time to see his mother, his real mother, break through the shell of death to apologize. It wasn't meant for him, but he heard it all the same, and he crumpled beneath the weight of everything it meant. She wasn't just sorry for this, something more beyond her control than ever before - no, Iskra was certain, she was sorry for all of it.
"I forgive you," he choked out the strangled whisper as tear-stained eyes witnessed her flaming retreat, in both a physical and spiritual sense. He lost his mother again, and instead the monster imitating her, the one drug up by Kisamoa, stood and crafted electric beings. Iskra shook, a quiet rage building up that Kaos had done this. As if the hell that was his realm wasn't enough to endure, he had to pick apart their old wounds, tease them with a false promise of reunion that he befouled. Iskra had lost his mother once already, must he truly lose her twice? Must he actually fight with her again?
Gods, what deed had he committed to deserve such punishment?
Ampere rushed him, and Iskra scrambled back, a loud cry squeaking from his throat as he was subjugated to her undeserved wrath once more. This time though, while every fibre of his being felt beaten to a pulp (every little bit of physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual aspect of Iskra was blended into mush), Iskra also knew that this wasn't here. This wasn't just a shell of his mother, one she filled with alcohol and regret, this was literally her ghost. However real or true it seemed, he had just glimpsed her honest self, and he wouldn't let himself be fooled by anything less anymore. So Iskra had something to hold onto, a rope entwined with truth and righteous hatred for Kaos' creations.
Iskra was pissed.
As Ampere bore down upon him he retreated, and he was till mid-ugly cry about all of it, but he also heeded Melita's prior advice and fought back. Maybe he was inexperienced, but he was ruthless. Heat blasted from his wings towards his mother, trying to offset her balance, her approach, while simultaneously sending his Warhammer towards her. The great, sparking, gavel of Iskra's justice swung hard at Ampere's front legs. Unsettle her - that was his plan - so that she'd be forced to crash into him and he'd be waiting, Gaucho's teeth already bared and ready to bite sense into his lover's being, however much blood that required.
What Iskra hadn't prepared himself for was Ampere's quiet magical attack. That she was literally attempting to stab him in the back was all too perfect symbology of their living relationship, though he'd admire those aspects at another time. For now he had only Castiel's bugle of warning, and the gangly bulk of Squishy trying to mount him, the lumbering golem doing his best to protect the little brother that he'd been promised to serve. His mother's knife dashed a red score across his side, but was interrupted from delving too deep as a rocky hand swept it to the side.
Holding onto something we don't need
All this delusion in our heads
Is gonna bring us to our knees
It was true—he had killed many of the Helovians, and for reasons he might not otherwise have killed for, but there was one thing he wondered if they truly considered: he could change.
He had, already. He'd been born in the fires of vengeance, a single purpose seared into his divine soul: bring life back to the Rift. With nothing but fury and corruption and greed in his body, he had not had it in him to care.
Bit by bit, he was learning, yet it was Erthë who was so eager to put him back in the mold of what he'd been. It was she who clung to his past actions as if they gave her meaning in his beautiful world, as if she was nothing without her hate.
His eyes remained focused on what happened, flitting from one mare to the other, but he did not speak again. There was no point in it. Erthë had already made up her mind, and if she chose not to give the items to him, he didn't have time for anything save violence. Spikes and spines bristled down his neck and spine, and the blade hummed a little faster through the air. Restless breaths turned to black smoke when they passed his slitted nostrils.
Finally, she gave the bow and the fangs to Kiada, who took them and, without hesitation, held them out to him.
No!
He ignored the burning pain of Vjanta's resistance, and reached out. Where the bow touched him, iridescent scales formed, black blood oozing around their singed edges—the bone disappeared somewhere beneath the almost-cloak of tiger stripes, fused into the mess like a spine over his own, bleeding shimmering scales. The teeth lodged themselves in his mouth, glowing faintly green, and for a moment his eyes blinked with bright orange instead of teal. Then, it was gone, but the edges of his hair—where he still had hair—turned bloody red.
Three of the four presences within intensified. Struggled. Kisamoa pressed his eyes shut, bared his teeth; his face twisted, but on such grotesque features, would one still recognize pain?
It was unbalanced. Uneven.
But it was all he fucking had.
"Thank you," he said to Kiada after a few, tense moments, his limber neck uncurling from its contorted position. His jaws were full of jagged, rugged teeth, but the tip of his elongated muzzle was strangely soft as it pressed against Kiada's wounded shoulder.
"A word of warning: you have both stepped where you should not. It might be ..unpleasant, returning to the surface. Would you rather drift around here, be my guest. I'm going now. Hold on if you want to come with me." He eyed Erthë for a moment, her broken wing, her clouded mind—had they had more time, he would've explored ways to fix at least the wing, but as it was, he had a lot more at stake.
If they chose to go with him, he wrapped his serpentine body around them, his thick, black blood burning with the conflict raging within.
Then, he bit down on the sword again, and the demon dragged them up the surface.
HOLDING HANDS WHILE THE WALLS COME TUMBLING DOWN
The void yawned wider and wider, as the whole of the river swung out into the aether—tethered only by the shadow-veiled east, with the foaming, milk-white river between it and the crowd.
Perhaps, it would've happened so much faster, hadn't it been for those who fought. In a land both starved and saturated with magic they created resonance, harmony, a thin, fragile binding to cause the land to pause in its self-defensive shedding. It was devastated, distraught, so angry that its Champion had driven it to this measure—to cast away something so precious, so old, because Kaos dabbled in powers he had no control over.
It didn't matter what he found in the vaults, he wouldn't be strong enough to turn the tide on what he had unleashed.
But they—wielding corruption, wielding song, wielding little but their bodies and their hearts and souls and minds—gave the land pause. Gave it enough time to let its dark child out of the Scint's depths.
Gave everyone a chance.
"KISAMOA!" someone screamed, full of hope and need, and they moved towards the cry. I am coming the deity of the darkness thought, his mind so carefully shielded from the implications of what was going on.
Kisamoa resurfaced, not with a glorious surge, not with a triumphant cry, but with his own blood dripping down his jaws as the bone-sword cut into his mouth. He simply rose from the white depths of the river, stood blinking for a moment as the ghosts and echoes bounded about.
The bonelights, they were gone, most of them, stolen by the ferocious current.
The earth quaked again, violently; Kisamoa bared his teeth. "RUN!" he yelled, dropping the sword, its demon holding on to it—the gap between the Rainforest Cliffs and the Scint was too wide, impossible to leap, so it was only the other direction left to go.
WHEN THEY DO, I'LL BE RIGHT BEHIND YOU
The river froze.
Thin sheets of milky water rushed over the coating of hoary ice, and the ghosts seemed to loose momentum in the suddenly frigid air. Kaos stood frozen in the river, muttering and mumbling under his breath—the veil of shadows to the east pulled back. A way out. A means of escape.
He hoped they ran.
Those who did not, or those who were too slow, would find themselves swept forward by dark wings, into the safety of the uncloaked East.
AFTERMATH
When, at last, all had crossed—or those intent on dying had chosen to stay—Kisamoa let go of the raging river, and flung himself across the distance as the world ripped apart. The ground lurched, sickeningly, and in a vertigo-inducing movement the void closed. The Scint was gone, the edges of East and the Cliffs meeting nearly seamlessly, with but a thin, black scar to remember the River of Souls by.
Kisamoa stood next to the fracture, staring dispassionately at the vein of darkness, too stunned to yet take in the magnitude of what he had done.
This will remain open a long while, to let people catch up and get their exits.
KAOS returned and froze the river, enabling people to run across it and into the East. A thread will be made there.
HIS ITEMS:
Tiger God Hide Armor (shape of a cloak)
Tiger God Bone Sword (wielded by a shadow demon)
Crocodile God Spine Bow (masquerading as a spine on Kis)
Wolf God Fangs (glowing in his mouth)
Anyone who interacted with ghosts can add glowing markings and/or scars! Please post in Account Updates if you do, so we can add them to your records!
And finally, the Rift chose to hand out some rewards, and some, well.. not quite rewards.
CASTIELLA: Magic Offensive: Can create chains of electricity. Chains cause minor burns upon victims, and mirrors the burns onto her.
CLEMENTINE: Item Vanity: Tambourine with a solar flower pattern on it. It has a soothing effect on those who hears it.
EREBOS: Magic Offensive: Can summon and wield dark blades wreathed in fire.
ERTHË: For stepping into the river, you constantly hear the murmurs of the dead around you. Item Vanity: A small, frosted charm. It grows hot when blood relatives are near her.
ISKRA: Your sparks are no longer sulfurous. Item Vanity: A small bonelight, made from a pristine bone with an undying solar flower atop it.
KIADA: For stepping into the river, you develop a spectral lung condition. No matter what you do, it feels like you're always drowning.
LENA: Magic Defensive: Ability to create a shield from song.
MAUNA: Magic Offensive: Can cause eruptions of magma.
OTEM: Item Vanity: An oak leaf charm. When asked things, it answers, sometimes in Isopia's voice, and sometimes as something very rude and cheeky. Item Vanity: A small bonelight, made from a pristine bone with an undying solar flower atop it.
PATRICK: Magic Offensive: Can move animate and inanimate objects/beings/matter from one location to another with his mind. The targets occasionally shrink or become larger when moved.
VOLTERRA: Vanity Magic The ground around him either quivers or erupts into butterflies when he's angry.
VULKÁN: Item Offensive: A black sword seeping lava.
ZÉKLÉ: Mutation Zekle now has gills. Item Vanity: A small, metal feather charm engraved with a blue tribal lightning. It occasionally emits harmless sparks.
The harpy eyed Kisamoa briefly as she went to hand the god items to him, watching as he said thank you with an emphasis on her. It felt right in her chest, but part of her worried for him. Would it be enough to actually change what was happening above? Would there be anything left? A sinking feeling began to grow in her stomach at the thought of Khairi, flying aimlessly in search for his bonded that had somehow managed to live – so far – through the strange waters of the underworld. She was brought back to a sudden reality as his muzzle, aligned with jagged and sharp teeth, touched her glowing X on her chest in a softness that almost took her aback.
Yet she listened, white rimmed ears tipping forward to hear his warning. That things would be different upon re-entry, and she nodded slowly as though she understood – hoping that hers wouldn’t be terrible. There was no way to know for certain, however, until she made it to the surface. Kiada maneuvered herself a bit closer to him as he wrapped his snake-like body around her and suddenly they were rising through the world she had fallen into.
When they emerged, Khairi screeched what sounded like a blood curdling growl as Kiada’s body reached the surface. He circled over her, having found her after so long without any sign of the spotted girl. When she reached the surface, she stood on shaky legs, eyes looking immediately for Khairi, then Kisamoa, then to the others still surviving on the sidelines. And she inhaled sharply in an attempt to get ready to call to them that they needed to go, when simultaneously Kisamoa’s call to ‘run’ paired up with a gurgled feeling deep within Kiada’s throat as she tried to breathe. It felt as though water was constantly running down her throat, and she shook her head violently trying to rid herself of the feeling, but it wouldn’t go.
The surface beneath her froze, and she finally realized that she needed to run despite the fact she felt as though she could hardly breathe. She picked up her dark inky hooves, and took off in the direction of the others with Khairi flying in tow, uncertain where she was running to, but running nonetheless. Then, she looked back to Kisamoa as he began to close the river, and part of her was thankful for it, but for now she needed to figure out how to remedy the feeling that she was drowning in her own skin.
Scint River
