Roman

Commencement: A Foundation Institute RP

I feel I must take a moment to pause and reflect on the journey that has brought me to this precipice, even as that same odyssey moves to tip me tumbling wholly over the edge. But for a shared dance and the eager passion of a kiss, I might have gone on in ignorance of things I am still not sure I truly want to know; but the knowing is now done, and there is no return from that horizon. The small mercy granted is that I have not been thrust alone into this knowing - though even that may be more of circumstance than design. I made a promise, but in truth, one I never intended to keep; I would throw myself headlong into this new truth without ever concerning another; I would seek this path alone, and find both its and my end alone as well. But it has not been left up to me - whether I am grateful or not I cannot say, but the terms of the journey were set and I had come too far, spent too much, to refuse them.

Tomorrow evening we will have departed this earth entirely, for planes that only a few weeks ago would have earned my derision for the suggestion of their existence. I am braving new frontiers; but, I believe - and I must believe - that I am braving them in the name of new frontiers of a different kind. I must keep my focus on that dance and that kiss, not allow myself to lose sight of the why, when faced with the what and the how. There are worse things to lose than an arm; worse things to run out of than money. I look to my erstwhile companions and at times do not recognise them anymore; I wonder if they feel the same about me. Mirrors remain difficult, and I still dare not broach my powers. I wonder if they have had more success in realigning the imagined self with the extant.

I do not think about the preparation for the doom, I do not think about getting drunk to dull the senses, I do not think about the returning nightmares, or waking up sweating and afraid, or writhing in phantom pain, ever-crushing ever-freezing. I do not think about the animals howling and how it sounds so much like the death throes of my peers. I do not think about praying to anything that might hear me. I do not think about how I will likely die before I ever see her again. I do not. I don’t. I don’t.

If someone finds this before I retrieve it, I am lost, and I won’t be found. My name was Gil Emory Galahad, has-been star of the silver screen. Please notify my parents.

G I L E M O R Y G A L A H A D
G I L E M O R Y G A L A H A D

_{Location: P.R.C.U. Campus - Administrative Building}

Human #5.038 A Lead

---

_{Interaction(s): N/A}

^{| P.R.C.U. Campus - The Academy's Final Day}

"Miranda!"

Gil roamed the upper corridors of the administrative building, roughly pushing doors open with his remaining hand as he pressed his stub to his belly. He hobbled along, casting a strange hunched shape along the hallways with stiff joints and aching muscles, the wine-induced haze lifting from his eyes and leaving behind an exhausted malaise. Any patience was simply gone.

He passed scarce faculty - for the most part, only the last lingering ex-students were still on the island, and the few remaining professors and staff busied themselves with gathering what resource they could. Academic papers, scholarly certifications, letters of recommendation; if it had the potential to prove useful in the coming search for gainful employment, it was snatched, folded, filed away into briefcases and bags and jacket pockets. If they weren't the "Miranda!" being called for they simply did not care, nor had the time, to find out what was needed.

The sharp, distinct features of Miranda Rivers appeared before him as she stepped into the corridor from the depths of her office. She took a second to recognize his beaten form, but when she did, her expression settled into one of deep weariness.
"Mr. Galahad. The days of the academy may have come to a close, but I'd still ask you to show respect for this institution."
Gil waved his hand dismissively, pushing Miranda's frown further down her brow.
"I need your help." He said, brusque and clipped.
"With the closure of P.R.C.U., my duties have ceased alongside it. Good day, Gil."

Miranda turned to re-enter her office and resume clearing out the last of her personal effects; she was stopped short by Gil's hand wrapping firmly around her arm. Her head whipped around, face full of fury, but her expression immediately softened when she saw the sheer bone-tired sorrow in his features. She recognized this desperation; she'd seen it in Jim over the last few weeks, as the tragedies had piled up and he'd futiley tried to save the university from its inevitable demise. It was the kind of desperation that would undo a man, right up until it left him a carcass, spent and empty.

"Maybe if you ask nicely." She said, finally relenting as Gil released his grip.

"Please."

---

I cancelled rent on the apartment in LA; something I should have done sooner, but I was preoccupied. I think a part of me believed - wanted to believe - that I'd return there. Put the last eighteen months behind me, soak in the smog-sun and sheen again. Sit on that couch facing the window and stare at the sunset while I wait for Arthur to call me. I feel so far from that person I can barely remember he existed at all - like I've wiped the slate clean, started over. Reborn.

Miranda did what she could, and admittedly, while small, it was enough. I knew then that I'd need every pound I could scrape together - and that lead me to the flat. Cutting out unnecessary expense. I'm to go back to England for the foreseeable, back home, if such a thing still remains for me. I am eager to see my parents; to return to some sense of nostalgic normality; to see Bristol and the coastline, Wales just a stone's throw across the water; but I am faced with growing trepidation, anxiety pushing in at the corners. They know so little - how do I walk through the doors as I am now? I've thrown away my career, I've abandoned my abilities - I am returning to them as literally less of the man who left. How do I bring these tragedies back to them?

Handwriting is still slow and difficult and messy. Sometimes I can barely read what I've written. There are so many things you take for granted. But this diary is helping, forcing practice. And it does me good to record, to ruminate - its own kind of meditation. When the doubt creeps in, when the disquiet threatens to overwhelm - it's good to have an account, a chronicle. Something that reorients me and provides direction. The journal helps.

That and the ring.

---

Gil leaned against the wall in what had been, until a few mere days ago, the chancellor's office. Now, it was an unattended mess, boxes and files strewn across the room and furniture haphazardly moved, removed, stored - someone had moved something from somewhere else and decided here was out-the-way enough for their needs, multiplied ten times over as PRCU closed out its final days. Miranda busied herself with reams of paper, pulling files and folders from drawers and cabinets, shuffling through pages and discarding some while neatly stacking others in a rapidly-filling box. Gil didn't know what she was looking for, or how she was determining what was important enough to keep versus what was tossable garbage. He didn't really care, either.

Miranda slowed down before finally taking a seat and looking to Gil; she gestured to the chair across the desk, inviting him to join her, but he remained defiantly standing. Miranda shook her head in a near-imperceptible micro-movement, before leaning back in her chair.
"So, what can I help you with? Resources are...limited. I don't know what you're hoping for, but I'll try my best."
Gil pushed himself off the wall with his good hand and took a couple steps toward the desk.
"I'm looking for another student. Ex-student. Alyssa Townsend. I've asked around, but seems she's already disappeared off-island. I need to find her."
"And you think I can help you...how?"
"Everyone else is gone or..." Gil trailed off. "Everyone else is gone. And with Jim's arrest, you're de facto 'in charge'. Plus, y'know...you're psychic."

Miranda sighed.
"There's nothing left to be 'in charge' of, anymore. And I'm not a walking GPS tracker, my telepathy doesn't work like that. It works like..."

Gil felt fingertips across the surface of his mind, prodding and poking, like leaving small dents in stretched-out clingfilm. Looking for give, for a way in; gentle and non-invasive, or as much as reading somebody's mind could be. He almost didn't think about it, and all of a sudden Miranda tenderly slipped through the barrier, fully enmeshing herself among Gil's thoughts as she nestled into his psyche.

_{^{Pain and fear; a cavalcade of doubts and anxieties. The biggest presence in Gil's mind was still Gil himself, but this was a far cry from the narcissism Miranda had felt in the man over a year ago, when they'd been introduced through a representative from W.H.A.T. Instead of a psyche revolving around himself, this was more...revulsion. A sea of Gils, every variant and iteration that had been, that was, that ever possibly could be, and every single one wearing expressions twisted by anger, disgust, terror, and in the midst, a singular Gil, robbed of an arm, frantically pushing and scraping through the crush, fleeing something that pressed against all sides. Stabs of agony flitted through Gil's mind intermittently, and Miranda's by proxy, from an arm no longer there.
But through it all, something burned painlessly with an intense heat that seared away all anguish, leaving only a serene calm. Everything in Gil desperately sought this peace, fought for it with all he had. Just out of sight...Miranda couldn't confirm, couldn't see it...}}

"Stay out." Gil said, hard and forceful, and Miranda was back in the office, sat across from him. Her mouth was dry, and she cleared her throat, putting her hands in her lap to hide the shake that had crept in. There was a long moment of silence.

"Anything. Any kind of lead. An address, a number, next of kin. Please."
"P.R.C.U. doesn't exist anymore; H.E.L.P. and H.I.T. can't safety net me on this. The governments of the world are watching us, and they're looking for a reason to put me number one for Interpol. I was lucky not to be escorted away right alongside Jim..." Miranda trailed off. Former spy, crisis negotiation agent, actual psychic mind-reader. Yes, there were a lot of officials looking for even the smallest excuse to lock her in a box and throw away the key. But the desperation in Gil's eyes rang true with her, reminded her of why the institution had been founded in the first place, as a safe haven for Hypes to help each live full, fulfilling lives, unafraid of what they are, or what the world might think of them. Coupled with the warm serenity she'd felt him fighting for...

One last gesture. Then she was cutting herself loose.

"I can't just hand you sensitive information like that. The last thing I need is being brought down by GDPR, of all things. I probably also can't tell you that we hold it in the servers, which are due to be purged remotely at midnight, or that they're in the basement, or that anyone who cares to watch them will have left the island by eight'o'clock."

Gil stood, nodding in understanding. Miranda smiled, her lips thin. It wasn't much, but it was the best she could do. She proffered her left hand to shake, and Gil took it.
"Now, I really need to finish gathering everything. I can be so forgetful. Quite often I forget to lock my office window on the first floor. Woe betide the day someone finds the spare Staff I.D. I keep in the top left drawer of my desk."
"Thank you, Miranda." Gil said, turning to leave.

"For what?" Miranda said, going back to the files and folders. "I couldn't help you. I just hope you find what you're looking for some other way."

Commencement: A Foundation Institute RP

L U C I L L E C A L D E R
L U C I L L E C A L D E R

_{Location: Northern Forest - Dundas Island}

Human #5.022: Search the sky for a while

---

_{Interaction(s): Alyssa, @Lord Wraith}

Alyssa had always been sensitive about Luce's heart.

Luce took pains to remind her it was no more or less vulnerable than any other organ, and even that it had, in fact, been the very first piece of Luce supplanted by her abilities, skewered in a very different forest a very long time ago. After Alyssa had banished the Chernobog - and one of their peers with it - the very first thing she'd done was rush to Luce, taking her injured body into her subtly strong arms and carrying her bodily from the ARC to receive medical attention Luce neither wanted nor needed, even despite Luce being very much able to leave the ruined hall under her own steam. Still, Luce couldn't say she was ungrateful or unmoved by Alyssa's continued, consistent affection and care over her, despite the obvious redundancies in such concern. It was just another example of the bond forged between the girls, a bond so heavily appreciated and needed in the wake of the attack. PRCU was closing and the island returning to the purview of national government and bureaucracy; when that news had landed, it had been Luce's turn to take her friend in her arms.

Now, though, Luce poked around the foliage and debris of the northern forest, and if it weren't for the fresh scar trailing diagonally down from the side of her throat down to below her heart, you might not know anything had happened at all. It was the last few days they had on the island before they'd be officially trespassing; while others spent their time finishing packing, or commiserating with their friends, or securing transport to whichever corner of the earth they were now forced to return to, Luce was following a trail, chasing a scent that faded further every second. It had been recent, a couple weeks at most, but as ever, magic didn't like to play by the rules. Sometimes even its own.

She swept some dead leaves and snapped twigs aside with the toe of her boot, carefully inspecting the ground. The forest was still around her; that's how she'd known she was in the right place to begin with, the trail leading her into a dead zone of activity and noise. It had been almost a toggle - crossed some invisible threshold, and the sounds of birds and rustling in the brush had fallen away in a near-instant, replaced only with wind through the trees. Sometimes, the breeze would carry an eerie, almost imperceptible whistle with it, and Luce would raise her head sharply and listen, only for the silence to return. She consciously suppressed the feeling of fear that crept up her spine and whispered in the back of her mind. The fear was how it started. The fear was what they wanted.

She edged forward, shuffling more foliage from before her and continuing her inspection. The scorch marks had to be around here somewhere, and from there she could follow the echoes back to the entryway. Wendigos didn't just happen; they arrived, which meant they had to come through from where they should be to where they shouldn't. Beasts weren't clever enough not to make a mess of it; rips like those were rarely ever just one-way.

“The moon in Ünterland is always red,” Alyssa began, appearing behind Luce as as she watched her friend look around the scene where the pair had fought the Wendigo. “A blood moon in Midyeden signals a Conjunction between the two planes.” Her eyes were elsewhere as she spoke, as though reciting her words from a long-forgotten verse. “The next lunar eclipse is not until New Year’s Eve. But there is another time that Limbo opens this time of year.” She continued, looking to the mid-September sky.

“The Hunter’s Moon.” Alyssa whispered. “When the harvest is ready, the Hunter’s Moon rises.” She paused, her eyes returning to Luce, finally focusing on her friend with a small smirk tugging at her lips. “Lucille Calder, I know you're not looking for a rogue conjunction point by yourself, especially without proper warding. Because that would be idiotic.” She teased, lightly. “Limbo would tear you apart, and whatever did land in Ünterland would be little more than a shell. What protects us here, abandons us there. The Council tolerates our help due to the dwindling number of Jäger left, but they still withhold much from us.”

“They withhold too much.” Luce said, not looking up from the forest floor as she continued to search. “They are happy to send us slaying, but unwilling to properly equip us to do so. Were it not for Ellara or your family, we’d have been slain ourselves long ago, and I think the Council would be all the gladder for it.” She looked over her shoulder, casting a conspiratorial eye. “Are you here to preach, or to help?”

“Help?” Alyssa asked in a confused tone. “Help with what? The Wendigo’s Conjunction will have been long gone by now; scars may remain, but they will be inert. The effects that Ünterland had on this forest mere weeks ago have already begun to dissipate. Without another Sheol stone, we can’t get into Limbo, and again, Lucille Calder, you do not possess the proper warding.”

Alyssa raised her left palm towards the other girl, displaying the rune that was tattooed there. Beneath her wrist was another marking, a number and small barcode etched into her wrist by a painful memory and a place she’d rather not return.
“With P.R.C.U. gone, the Council is all I have. I will not return to the Foundation Institute.” Alyssa stated defiantly. “You are therefore stuck with me and procedure. We should ask the Chosen to imbue their blood onto another stone.”

Luce sighed, frustrated but defeated. Alyssa was right; whatever hole the Wendigo had torn its way through had long since healed, if not been outright repaired; Ellara wasn’t one to be so careless and Luce couldn’t be sure fixing the Conjunction hadn’t been half the reason she’d even come to the island at all. She certainly hadn’t spent much time with Lorcán. Luce stood up, stretching out her knees and spine.

_{“Don’t take me for granted.”} Luce said quietly, before she turned to face Alyssa. “Stuck with you, I’ll give you that. I don’t care much for ‘procedure’, though. If procedure meant anything, we’d have been properly sworn in before we ever needed to return here. And now, it feels like we’re just back where we were post-Hyperion. Except…minus another safety net.”

She walked toward Alyssa, gesturing forth to lead them out the way she’d come in, her search an ultimately fruitless endeavor; it was just busywork to occupy Luce’s mind, more than something that might actually produce results. She just needed to feel like she was doing something, rather than submitting to the blackness that lurked ever-so-close behind her, forever nipping at her heels since the day she'd walked out of the woods, and her brothers hadn't.
“Alright. Let’s get out of here. But the Council isn't just going to give us a couple fresh stones because we asked nicely. Especially not for Hype drama. Maybe El can still bend some sympathetic ears without them needing to know about it.”

“Then we best be moving on. Ellara Van Abrams has returned to the Black Forest.”

Commencement: A Foundation Institute RP

There was no moonlight confidant to weave nightmares into soft slumber this time.

---

G I L E M O R Y G A L A H A D
G I L E M O R Y G A L A H A D

_{Location: The Beach - Dundas Island}

Human #5.011 Sinking, Burning

---

_{Interaction(s): Lorcán, @Lord Wraith}

Gil wasn't sure how he'd ended up here, on the beach, eerily reminiscent of but a few short weeks ago before everything had gotten fucked up. All he was sure of was the heat of the fire, the grittiness of the sand beneath his legs, and the feeling of the glass bottle in his remaining hand.

Ha, the left hand. The hand left. His right was a stump. Between crushing, laceration, and acute frostbite, it'd been shorn off by medical decree halfway up his forearm. No more watches! Gloves half price! And dressing himself was tricky now. H.E.L.P. had been none, but he'd been assured a prosthetic and further physical therapy to support it could be secured when he was back continent-side, provided his insurance was up to date. Provided his insurance was retained. With current hyperhuman sentiment reaching lows even beyond the wake of the Hyperion incident, there were those rallying and lobbying for further stripping away. He lifted the wine bottle to his lips with his left hand, the movement awkward and unfamiliar with his non-dominant arm, and pulled deeply of an earthy and spiced red.

He sat in sullen silence, physically present but mentally drifting. The options had been laid before them by the academy faculty, or at least what was left of it - Foundation or Fend For Yourself. Foundation or Figure It Out. Foundation or Fuck Off. Well, Gil would Fuck Off then. Having resigned only a few days ago - gods, another lifetime, how many had he lived through now in the last handful of short weeks? - he had no need for an 'acting degree' anymore, the value of such a 'degree' from either P.R.C.U. or the Foundation a dubious proposition at best regardless. What was left for him now? The others talked of 'moving on', of forging new futures and new lives for themselves. Lorcán and his picture-perfect engaged-to-be-engaged beau, the pair of them set apart from Blackjack by virtue of their absence of consequence, itself fuelled by their own absence at the dance, mentioned his safety net in Crestwood Hollow. Gods, just the name of the town ripped through Gil like a fresh spear, another reminder of a previous life long since torn away through both his own will and the forces of others acting upon him.

Gil himself had no real plan beyond finishing this bottle and starting another. There was the apartment in LA, rent quietly ticking over, and he supposed he'd return there to drink himself into oblivion or run out of money. Or run out of money by drinking himself into oblivion. And then he'd probably go back to England, back to mother and father. He'd probably end up an accountant like his dad. Bored out of his skull and mourning.

Katja was the only real surprise of the evening; Gil wasn't sure where she'd gone but she had been gone, and he'd considered her gone for good, possessed of the good sense to get away from the island before it became the inevitable death sentence, like it had become for so many others. He didn't look at her. Couldn't. Couldn't think about what she might have been able to do against the beast. Couldn't think about what had been done and lost in her place. Why had it been left to Cass the foolhardy, Torres the misguided, Rory the inept, Gil the inadequate? Instead of standing together as a team they'd each charged in alone, reckless and irresponsible, and they'd lost limbs and lives and entire persons as a result. Harper talked about 'Home', although Gil had no fucking idea what that concept was meant to stand for now, because it certainly didn't mean 'belonging' or 'safety' to him anymore, while Cleo - one of the few remnants of Eclipse, now among them as they sat not as teammates but survivors - and Banjo talked about the Foundation. He wasn't going to protest. If they, or anyone else, wanted to delude themselves into thinking that place would be any safer, go right ahead. Gil wasn't even convinced they weren't directly behind everything that had happened; their presence had been unwelcome and vaguely sinister from the start of the year, and now it seemed with PRCU's closure and seizure, the Alexandria Foundation stood poised to become the foremost - and indeed, only - authority on Hyperhumans across the globe. Even with Torres' untimely death, he couldn't imagine the upper leaders of the organisation to be unhappy with that outcome.

It was only when another pair arrived, both strangers to Gil, and mentioned Amma that he looked up. She held an ivory head of hair, and he held her hand with a fierce tenderness.

When she stepped forward to give him the ring, he initially, instinctively, raised his stump towards her; he faltered, awkward and inwardly cursing, before releasing the bottle and pushing his left hand out instead. She dropped a small ring into his waiting palm, and despite its small size it imparted a devastating weight upon him.

mend instead of sunder

Gil stood up suddenly, his own immediate fury surprising himself and overriding any feeling of drunkenness. Amma was all he had left. The only real connection left. What they'd shared at the dance...what he'd felt as they kissed...

He turned from the fire without a word, putting the shoreline behind him as he began to head back towards what remained of the PRCU ‘campus’.

Releasing his grip on Aurora, Lorcán’s eyes darted to Gil and he immediately gave chase.
“Dude, Gil!” Lorcán called as the pair rapidly departed earshot of the others. “Wait up! Where are you going?” He asked, desperately trying to get his friend’s attention, before finally taking hold of Gil’s right arm - right above where the rest of it used to be.

Gil reacted viscerally, yanking his stubbed arm from Lorcán’s heated grip with a violence unlike him; he whirled around, eyes ablaze. He pointed his stump in Lorcán’s face, accusatory, unavoidable.
“I’m going to find Alyssa. She sent that thing away, and condemned Amma to whatever Hell with it. She’s going to tell me what she did, and then she’s going to send me there too. Or I’ll find my own way. Or I’ll die trying. Or all damn three!”

He stepped back from Lorcán, disdain creeping in at the edges of his voice and corners of his mouth. “You leave with your bride-to-be. Crestwood Hollow’s supposed to be lovely this time of year. The rest of us didn’t make it out quite so tidily.”

Lorcán’s brow furled, the ambient temperature rising between the two. Something had changed in Gil; he had noticed it before the dance in the wake of the Trials, but now, the person who stood before him was a shell of the man that Lorcán had thought he knew. A broken soul, desperate for answers and resolutions.

“Like I knew what was going to happen that dance. You think I wanted to miss the fight, to be absent while friends were injured and others died? Had I known what was coming, I would have been there, and I would have made sure you weren’t.” Lorcán explained, minding his tone though an edge was still there. He was tired, his emotions were raw, and he was already blaming himself. One of Blackjack’s powerhouses - perhaps next to Amma herself - and the natural enemy of ice. Lorcán was more than aware that his presence could have tipped the tides in their favour.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there Gil; I’m sorry about your injuries; but if you’ve got a plan, let me help. Anything you need from me, it’s yours. But don’t storm the gates of Hell alone, because I...” He paused, gesturing back to the team. “We can’t lose anymore of our own, and you’re one of us now, whether you like it or not.”

“Now? I’m one of the team, now?” Gil scoffed. “Not when I joined Blackjack a year ago? Not when the Foundation came in to undermine the academy? Not when the Trials were sabotaged and we nearly died? But since I’ve watched half the senior year get slaughtered, Amma get dragged off the face of the earth, and lost my arm, now I’m ‘one of us’? Well, I didn’t know there were such prestigious entry requirements. Next time I’ll make sure my application gets lost in the mail.”

He breathed deep. He was drunk, and that wasn’t helping, but the simmering anger it fed off was very real.
“Do what you want, Lorcán. I can’t blame you for wanting to put everything that’s happened on this fucking island far behind you. Move to the other side of the continent, pretend it never existed in the first place. Find a job. Buy a ring. Settle down and raise a bunch of ginger hype kids. I wish it was that easy. Fuck, a couple of weeks ago it was that easy! Coast out the year, lay a few birds, sign some fucking yearbooks! Then a quick flight back to LA and my career was back on track. Now everything’s fucked. Robbed of its meaning. Amma…I don’t know how we connected but we did, christ I’ve never felt anything like it. I’ll do anything to feel it again. I’d die, if I can feel it again. So follow me if you want; but you said it yourself. We can’t lose anymore of our own.”

He stopped. His eyes were red and watery, but he refused to let a single tear fall. He just stared defiantly back at Lorcán, arms at his sides. The wine bottle hung loosely in his fingers, last remnants sloshing inside.

“You know that’s not what I meant.” Lorcán replied in a defeated tone, “I just…” He paused, his lower lip quivering slightly in the darkness.

“I had an unconventional friendship with Amma, but she was someone I called a friend.” He began. “If it wasn’t for Amma, like, I wouldn’t be standing here today, and it kills me I wasn’t there to return the favour. So yeah, I’d get it if you totally hated me, I’d get it if you never wanted to see me or this place ever again, but I owe her. I owe her more than anyone. If there’s a chance she’s alive, we- no, I need to see this out.”

Lorcán looked at his feet, sheepishly dragging his flip-flop clad feet through the loose sand.
“You’re one of my closest friends, Gil. I can’t begin to understand what you’re feeling, but I don’t want to lose you too.”

Gil moved to cock his head and put his hands on his hips, only to stumble when his right hand didn’t meet his pelvis - just the space where it used to be. He rubbed his eyes with his left instead, unconsciously holding his stub behind his back, out of sight.
“Then…I’ll call you. When I’ve found Alyssa, and she shows me how to go after Amma, I’ll call you. And then you can decide whether you really want to follow me or not.”
He tucked the wine under his armpit and held out his left arm, proffering his remaining hand to shake in agreement.

Lorcán extended a hand to complete the gesture, instinctually putting forth his right before doing a quick shuffle to his left. It was awkward and felt unintuitive to shake with his left, but they sealed the deal. The darkness hid the slight relief that appeared on Lorcán’s face after Gil agreed, and he hoped that meant the pair would stay in contact, and their friendship would persist.

Some of Gil’s words lingered in Lorcán’s head as he turned to walk back to the campfire, giving his friend one last look before he did.

Find a job. Buy a ring.

Ultimate One Universe: Emergence

---

Jasper and Marty stood on the observation side of the observation window as Jubilee sat in bed and sipped on a blood pack through the de-needled IV tube. To an outside observer, the whole situation was a farcical sight. The pair were in spare scrubs, their suits taken, first for trace evidence, and then for laundering, covered in blood from desperately trying to restrain a frenzied Jubilee as they were, and now they were in a near-daze watching the teenage girl sucking viscous red liquid through plastic piping that stretched and corkscrewed and looped on itself like a silly straw, with no small amount of enthusiasm. She looked like a kid with a capri-sun. The arm that held the blood pack had a thick leather strap wrapped and bolted around the forearm, which in turn was secured to a chain that trailed to the floor. The chain rattled as Jubilee shifted around, squeezing corners of the pack to pull the last of her dinner out.

Jasper turned away, walking across the small room away from the window to sit in a fold-out chair that had been put against the wall. Marty turned around and leaned against the wall. The men looked at each other in silence for a long while, before Jasper just rubbed his eyes. He should have been in bed six hours ago - or at least half-asleep on the couch in front of the television, a drained glass of whiskey threatening to tumble out of his slack hand.
"Are you sure that's okay?" Marty asked, turning his head to glance at Jubilee again in his periphery before looking back to Jasper. Jasper just looked back with a nonplussed expression.
"What?"
"The blood pack. Are you sure that's okay? It's meant to be a donation."
"Oh it's being donated alright." Jasper said, pushing his head back and leaning it against the wall behind him, closing his eyes in search of a brief respite.
"I mean, is it safe?"

Jasper frowned, and lifted his head again to look at Marty with a furrowed brow.
"It's a blood pack. No one's getting hurt. You'd prefer the alternative?"
Marty shook his head, going slightly pale as he thought about that orderly's torn-apart corpse again. He looked back through the window as Jubilee balled up the empty blood pack and wrapped it in its own tubing before tossing it across the room into the bin. It fell in with a smooth entry and the girl gave herself a short subtle fist-pump for the shot.
"Aren't we encouraging it, though? Shouldn't we lock her up? Put her in a cell?"
"Christ, Marty, she's just a kid."
"She's a vampire!" Marty said, wheeling around to look Jasper in the eye.
"Well I don't have a fucking protocol leaflet on VAMPIRES, Marty, do you?!"

Jasper was stood up, his face reddened and voice raised, the distance between him and the junior agent swiftly covered. Sitwell was a tall man, and he loomed over Marty, who cowed beneath him.
"No, sir. Sorry." He answered. His voice sounded small. Behind them, Jubilee listened through the glass. Jasper could see her ears twitching. It apparently didn't matter that the observation room was supposed to be sound-proofed.
"No. I didn't think so." Jasper said, his voice returned to its usual measured, even tone. He stepped back. They were dealing with a complete unknown, but he had to remain in control; Marty's concerns were but a small example of a greater evil that Jasper knew lurked within SHIELD. He'd already personally destroyed of all pending biological samples from the girl.

He walked to the door, leaving Marty behind.
"I need to talk to Nick. Until then, you do nothing. You say nothing. Your only job is to make sure she's looked after, and looked after well. Whatever you think - whatever you feel - she's still just a girl, and she still needs our help. And that's a damn order."

Ultimate One Universe: Emergence

@Sep, @DocTachyon, @Master Bruce was there an agreed current Director of SHIELD? Nick Fury or not there yet? Someone else?

Ultimate One Universe: Emergence

@Roman That is not where I thought your story was going to go I love it haha

@Half Pint

I'm more surprised it's gone anywhere tbh

Ultimate One Universe: Emergence

---

Jubilee's breath was fast and shallow. She could hear her heartbeat pounding in her ears, a fluid rushing sound pump pump behind her eyeballs. She was used to anxiety and panic, used to the fear of walking dark streets in the city, doubly-vulnerable as a woman and a mutant, not even able to rely on the gifts afforded to her by the latter to defend herself. But this was different; it didn't come with dread or angst, felt entirely removed from any identifiable emotion whatsoever. Instead, the pounding and dizziness and general full-body shakiness was accompanied by a far more primal feeling: hunger. Was this the serum withdrawal that her recent self-appointed caretakers had alluded to? The thought almost excited her - the potential that this was a triumphant resurgence of her genetic birth-right, long-neglected.

Hunger, though, by gods. She hadn't been joking when she'd asked Agent Sitwell for dinner, but that had been maybe half-an-hour ago and she'd not seen anyone yet. She was getting antsy. Her fingers curled and uncurled, her stomach growling. Eventually she got up from bed entirely, pacing the room back and forth. Had she seen a vending machine on the way in? Was the canteen far from here? Was it signposted, or one of those 'you just have to know how to get around' deals? Was there a tram system or was this particular SHIELD base built with the thirty-minute city philosophy in mind?

Anyway. Food, please, and quickly, and something meaty. Not unusual - she wasn't a vegetarian or anything, though her friends were increasingly moving towards veganism - but to this extent? It had her almost concerned. A subconscious craving brought on by low iron, maybe? All the blood taken for testing over the last couple days catching up to her? She didn't feel woozy or lethargic or fatigued, just a bit lightheaded in the face of the yawning pit deep within her stomach. But there was something darker about this particular yearning, something primal and wicked. It pulsed in her head with each heartbeat, a red haze moving softly but inexorably across her mind. It frightened her, but also felt...good. A comfortable loss of control, like something had switched on 'cruise control' in her brain and she could just sit back and coast.

Footsteps echoed down the corridor toward her room; she could smell the food from here, even through the wall that separated them. She didn't take the time to ponder on why or how that might be, instead all-but-overtaken by the hunger that now hoped to finally be sated. The few short seconds for the orderly to enter her room, laden with a silver tray, felt like an eternity, but finally, finally, her meal was here. The tray was laid carefully down onto the bed-side table and the orderly smiled politely as Jubilee descended with barely-restrained ferality upon the food.

Those first few moments could only be described as a 'frenzy', and the orderly busied himself with tidying and busywork, at the same time watching the savage performance with a sense of morbid curiosity in his peripheral vision. The opening pace, that initial burst, was frightening and inhuman in its barbarity, but as she made her way through the meal the tempo of her tearing and chewing and swallowing slowed, becoming something close to contemplative, before ceasing completely.

Jubilee sat straight. She poked around inside her mouth with her tongue, worming ragged scraps of meat from the crevices of her teeth. It tasted...bland. She sniffed the slab of flesh on the plate before her, and then her own hands where she'd forgone cutlery entirely in favour of ripping and shredding with digits and denticle alike. It didn't...there wasn't any scent to it. But she could feel the heat coming off the surface, see the butter and herbs and salt that had been used to dress and season. She nibbled carefully, swirling it around her mouth, spreading the morsel over the surface of her tongue. It was just plain. Boring. Tasteless. More than that, unsatisfying. With half a steak swallowed she felt no more sated than she had before beginning to eat.

She turned her head, looking at the orderly, who couldn't find the words to describe Jubilee's vivid crimson eyes or vicious, needled fangs. She'd caught that aroma again, potent and intoxicating and irresistible.

- - -

Down the hall, Jasper was leaning back in his chair, his left half illuminated by the computer’s screensaver while he stared at a portable whiteboard he’d rolled in while he tapped his lips with a marker. On it was written the scant few symptoms they'd been able to observe in Jubilee since picking her up yesterday.

S E I Z U R E

P A L L O R

U V S E N S I T I V I T Y

Marty walked in holding two steaming mugs of coffee, handing Jasper one while he brought the other to his lips and took a couple cautious sips.
"You know there's no lid on that." Marty said, gesturing with his mug to the marker Jasper held to his face between two fingers. Jasper paused his tapping and looked down at the marker, which was indeed lidless; he ran his tongue across his lower lip and tasted the distinct flavour of ink, swearing as Marty handed him a napkin to wipe off as much as he could.

"What's this?" Marty asked, looking at the whiteboard as the pair supped their coffees.
"You got a differential diagnosis on sunburn?" Jasper asked by way of a reply, not looking away from the board.
"Going full 'House' in here, huh?"
Jasper shot a look upwards at his upright colleague.
"We got nothin', Marty. She's not had another seizure since the first, the paleness is endemic to regular treatment, and the only other thing we have is 'burns easily'. What am I supposed to say? 'Patient may be a ginger with dyed hair'?"
Jasper stood up, tossing the marker onto the desk and rubbing his eyes. The coffee, while appreciated, was doing little to stem the tiredness that had taken root in his bones.
"I'm sorry, but there's just not enough here to keep her in. We can support her riding out the serum withdrawal, maybe prescribe her a bottle of SPF500. After that, we'll have to release her."

Marty nodded, but Jasper could see the disappointment in his face, and honestly Sitwell felt it himself. Nothing more frustrating than an unsolved mystery, and if she had another seizure she'd be at the mercy of the public health system. The girl didn't strike Jasper as one in possession of premium health insurance. He hooked his blazer off the back of the chair and threw it over his shoulder.
"I'm going home. I'll check in with her tomorrow when I arrive but other than that, she's all yo-"

He was interrupted by a scream echoing down the hallway that turned his blood to ice. He and Marty looked to each other before sprinting out the room and down the corridor; they skidded against the floor around the corner, barreling down toward Jubilee's room. When they burst through the door, the pair froze at the carnage before them.

Jubilee was crouched over the body of the orderly, her mouth bloodied as she tore and supped and licked in a frenzy at what was left of the poor man's throat. The man himself was pallid and his eyes shifted wildly around the room and over the agents as the last light left them, the blood pumping from his savaged neck in weaker and weaker pulses before finally stilling, his limbs going slack. Jubilee just continued to sup, burying her mouth in the wound.

She finally noticed them, looking up from her prize carcass. Her eyes were a deep and intense scarlet, and as she hissed at them like an animal she bared terrible, jagged fangs that sprouted from her jaw.

"Jesus Christ! She's a fucking vampire!"
Jasper stepped backwards slowly, trying not to pay attention to Marty's yell.
_{"Marty...c-call security...we need to contain this mess."} He whispered, careful not to interrupt Jubilee's...feed.

Commencement: A Foundation Institute RP

L U C I L L E C A L D E R
L U C I L L E C A L D E R

_{Location: Augmented Reality Center - P.R.C.U. Campus}

Dance Monkey #4.084: Trophy Kill

---

_{Interaction(s): Alyssa, @Lord Wraith}

Alyssa was somewhere in the crowd when it started; Luce felt only familiar, almost nostalgic surges of fear and adrenaline rushing through her as the beast arrived and swiftly began clawing its way through the few foolish enough to stand against it. Luce knew, almost immediately, that she was also foolish enough to stand against it, and just hoped Alyssa would be there to back her up as usual. She hurriedly studied the creature; despite its fangs and claws, its stone-like skin, the powerful set of wings and tail to match, this thing was far too big - and, more to the point as it demonstrated its clear command over language - too smart to be an actual gargoyle. No, what she quickly realized as it exchanged words and blows with Torres and Blackjack, was that this thing before them had, at one point, been Robert Arkwright. She cursed inwardly. Robert had been a noble and intelligent man, well-respected despite his appearance. How many more would be twisted, corrupted, forced against once-brethren?

"'Lyssa!" She yelled, hoping her cry could be heard over the general pandemonium the ARC was quickly descending into. "Alyssa! Sound off!"
From across what used to be the dance-floor behind some overturned tables came the reply and a freckled hand thrown into the air.
"Over here!"

Luce was across in a flash, ducking and tumbling around the beast as she collapsed to her friend's side, the pair of them braced against the meager cover Alyssa had managed to secure.
"Don't suppose you brought any weapons with you to this dance?" Luce said, words breaking through ragged panting as her suped-up endocrine system continued to flush her body with adrenaline. Her hands shook and her eyes were wild and you could see her breath practically fogging in the air, thick and hot and feral.

"Lucille Calder, you know I did not!" Alyssa replied. "Usually I am weapon enough!"
Luce peeked over the top edge of the table as Rory and Gil made separate but equally ill-fated stands. She held herself back from crying out when Rory's leg snapped, but the maiming inflicted upon Gil and his clones made even Luce's hardened stomach turn somersaults in her belly.
"Fuck! Fuck!" Was all Luce could manage, her brain oscillating between panic-response catatonic and power-fueled savagery.

“Pardon the intrusion, ladies, but this might be of some help,” A familiar drawl interrupted as the pair found none other than the Chancellor sliding in beside them, holding his signature weapon out towards Luce. ”I’ll get to Tyler and Barnes, you two are used to fighting this sort of thing aren’t y’all?”
“That is a matter of perspective.” Alyssa replied. “At first when I heard the wing beats, I assumed it was a wyvern. We are used to fighting wyrms and wyverns - do you perhaps have one of those you might require the assistance of some honorary Jäger to dispatch?” She asked, her voice full of humourless mirth.
“‘Fraid not, ladies. Can’t ask y’all to put your lives in danger, but I’m afraid our boy ate the wrong Wheaties and he’s going to continue to wipe the floor with whelps who’ve never seen combat outside of a controlled environment. Comms are cooked; got no way to call in the cavalry 'til I make it to the next building over.”
“No alarms from the grid?” Alyssa asked with surprise.
“H.E.L.P. is so depleted these days, it’s unlikely there’s anyone to even respond to it. Torres’ phone though - it has a button to call in the big guns. If one of you can get it and unlock it, we might yet live.” Jim added before Alyssa slowly nodded. She looked to Luce, sharing a knowing look before motioning to her clutch.

She may not have brought weapons, but she wasn’t unprepared.

”It’s not my life I’m worried about!” Luce hissed, accepting Jim’s gun and feeling the cold weight of the sizeable revolver in her hands. She flicked open the cylinder and gave it a quick spin, assuring herself of the gun’s good condition before flicking the bullets back into place. Six shots. She’d have to make them count.
”Just make sure they splint it all properly when they’re re-aligning everything.” She said to Jim. ”And have the good morphine ready.”
She gave Alyssa’s hand a squeeze, returning her gaze before disappearing around the edge of the table.

Watching as Luce disappeared, Alyssa cracked her neck before standing. If ever there was a ‘David and Goliath’ moment in her life, it was now. The creature was quite literally calling out taunts against the army of students, and with Luce ready, it was time for Alyssa to do her part.

“Do you have any more insects to throw at me or are we quite done with this game?”
“Bigger than you.” She replied defiantly before walking forward beneath the flickering lights that illuminated her head and its fiery adornments, stepping forth while summoning her bio-metal to form into a blade around her hand. With an expert twist of her wrist, Alyssa quickly cut the train from the floor-length dress she had been wearing; tearing a slit in the side, she kicked her heels to the side, a swirling form of liquid metal wrapping itself in her opposite hand.

“Pardon?” The gargoyle asked with a sneer.
“Bigger than you. I have felled bigger than you.”
“I find that unlikely.”
“I assumed you would - which is why I wanted your attention on me, and not Lucille Calder.”

“No!” The Chernobog roared, turning to pounce on Haven only to be blocked by a purple shield of energy.
“Together!” Alyssa yelled, darting around the shield. She lunged with her blade, catching the Chernobog off-guard before turning, as the mercury-like metal instinctively formed a shield that caught an incoming claw. A retaliation threatened to draw blood as Alyssa rolled between its legs, aiming for where the Achilles tendon ought to be; but she neglected to account for the Chernobog’s tail, which now slammed down in front of her, prompting her to tumble deftly to the side before a powerful flap of its leathery wings sent her reeling away. Her powers protected her, retracting her blade before covering her body in a metallic shell as her nails extended and regained grip against the icy floor.

Luce meanwhile used Alyssa’s distraction to bolt for Torres’ crumpled form, desperately seeking the phone to call in some heavy-hitters. With Chernobog scrambling after her partner she had a clear run from her position to where Teresa lay, wounded and wheezing against the wall, and after a few faltering steps she took it, weaving through the fleeing crowd, keeping one eye on her target and the other on Chernobog and Alyssa’s dancing figures. Every time a claw clashed against the redhead’s metal or she tumbled through a tail-swipe, Luce’s heart skipped a beat, terrified for her friend but horror-stricken more by what it might mean if they failed.

Luce flinched as she watched the jagged tail slam down mere inches away from Alyssa; she felt the back-draft of the gust from the wings and Alyssa skidded away, scrambling on the frosted floor to gain purchase once more and return to her assault. But she was slow - tired, on compromised footing, and the beast was too big and so, so frighteningly fast. Luce saw it happening before Alyssa did and nothing in the world could have stopped her taking her next course of action, movement so instinctual and automatic Luce barely registered she’d even done it before the claw meant for Alyssa instead slammed into her, raking across her torso and sending Luce flying across the hall. She hit the wall hard, wood splintering from the impact and brick crumbling; there were a few long seconds as the dust billowed out and obscured whatever injury had been inflicted on the girl.

Gunshots rang out from the crater. Two, three, four, great bursts of light and sound as the muzzle-flash repeated itself. Luce stepped forward, grimacing but upright. Her right arm, initially wielding the pistol, was bent back unnaturally far at the elbow, her ulna burst forth from the wrist and now she fired the revolver with her left instead; the fingers there were sporting their own splinters of wood and fragments of bone poking out, yet squeezed that trigger again and again all the same. The gash from his claws came down diagonally across her torso, and if you looked closely you could see her heart, exposed and rent open, but still beating weakly; her liver was picking up the rest of the slack. She was shaky on her bruised and scratched but still-intact legs, practically vibrating from the adrenaline crashing through her veins, and she pulled raggedy, spittled breaths through a hole in her throat. Her vocal cords were traumatised from the blow, but hell if that meant Luce couldn’t yell at Chernobog at the top of her over-clocked lungs, making a sound like she was underwater.

”Why…can’t you just…fucking leave us alone?!”

Commencement: A Foundation Institute RP

G I L E M O R Y G A L A H A D
G I L E M O R Y G A L A H A D

_{Location: Augmented Reality Center - P.R.C.U. Campus}

Dance Monkey #4.079: Heads Will Roll

---

_{Interaction(s): N/A}

Gil froze up as the monster broke through the ARC ceiling and quickly began to decimate the scene. Why did this keep happening? Why were they continually targeted over and over and over again? Who the fuck was Daedalus, and why couldn't he just fucking die and stay dead?!

It was all a blur, events happening in such quick succession Gil could barely keep track. Cassander flew in first, unleashing a blast that had Gil covering his eyes and being blinded by pure white regardless; yet when the haze cleared and vision returned, the beast stood as if assaulted by nothing more than a light breeze, Cass hanging helpless and impotent by the throat in the clutches of one of its powerful claws. Gil could only stare, transfixed, convinced he was watching an execution unfold before him - a strange morbid tension stilling the air, like the collective held breath of the crowd in the seconds preceding the dropping of the noose - before Torres broke the spell, her strong voice and will pushing through the screams to rescue Cassander at her own sacrifice. She sailed through the air, discarded by the beast as easily as balled-up paper; the blood that burst forth from the initial blow stained students and floor alike, while more seeped from her crumpled form against the wall, pooling around her.

Rory appeared behind them, his face full of intensity and mettle that Gil hadn't seen in him before; this was a Rory far-flung from the usual thoughtful-and-slightly-thick - this Rory was a leader, a man to stand behind, a man to honor and be honored by through the heeding of his words. And his words came, laced thick with gravitas that seized Gil's attention and brought him headlong into the very real threat that loomed over them. The plan was so profoundly brilliant in its simplicity - Rory unleashing Amma's wrath so that Amma herself didn't have to - that for a brief, blissful window, Gil thought they might have a chance.

And then there was wind, and ice, and the beast was upon them and Rory was screaming on the floor clutching his leg. It was all happening again, just like the trials, and they seemed even more powerless to stop it this time.

From there the only thing Gil's mind could focus on was doing absolutely anything he could to ensure the towering creature didn't get within an inch of Amma. A strange little voice in the back of his head told him that this was so much more straightforward than the trials, his path of action so much clearer; defending Amma was all he had now. He could still feel wisps of her within him from their shared kiss, a connection there forged deeper than anything he'd ever experienced in his life. He knew aspects of her he didn't even know about himself, secrets she had no reason to tell that were unjustly plucked and placed in Gil's core all the same. He stepped forward and threw his arm across her, not a single inkling of an idea of what he'd do against this monster forming in his head but every atom screaming it doesn't matter; he had to buy her even just a scant few seconds.

"No one is coming with you." He said, stepping into the space between the beast and the rest of the students, his voice shaky and uncertain but carrying strength of conviction all the same. He clenched his fists to still his hands and cool his head, preparing himself for a difficult death.
²"Her name isn't Tiamat."
³"And it's not Ummu-Hubur."

Gils one through three glared defiantly with three pairs of eyes and one common purpose. Gil stood flanked by himself, suddenly summoning a deep truth even he wasn't quite sure how he knew, but was grateful for nonetheless.
¹"It's Ammaranthe. And she's exactly where she belongs."

Commencement: A Foundation Institute RP

G I L G A L A H A D // A M M A C A H O R S
G I L G A L A H A D // A M M A C A H O R S

_{Location: Augmented Reality Center - P.R.C.U. Campus}

Dance Monkey #4.072: Harpe

---

_{Interaction(s): Amma, @Rockette}

Gil was drinking and eating, eating and drinking, truly showcasing the great British past-time of binge-boozing, all while watching Amma on the dancefloor with a mix of mourning and yearning. He barely registered Banjo’s appearance before him until the Aussie’s accent broke through the noise; Gil’s attention snapped to him fiercely, as in the same moment Banjo snatched away his food and drink, swallowing both in equal measure just to definitively deny it to Gil. He opened his mouth to protest, but Banjo was quicker than Gil’s alcohol-soaked brain.

"You're not gonna like this, but remember it's me. And I'm equally likely to dack you in front of everybody as I am to give you the boot in the arse you so sorely bloody need. So be thankful I'm goin' with this route."

And with that, Banjo’s bad leg was on Gil’s good backside and giving him a swift and measured kick away from the booze and onto the dancefloor, carefully-aimed to put him right in the path of the woman he’d been watching most of the evening.

The tempo of the music dipped almost on cue; the DJ cutting away the pounding tunes, shifting to a slower, more intimate soundtrack. Unconsciously, Gil found himself drawn to Amma’s nearby form, and if she had any reservations she kept them to herself. The two were quickly entwined, one of Gil’s hands on the small of Amma’s back and the other gently lacing fingers together with her as he lead them in a simple but elegant swaying movement, old muscle memory coming back as he carefully guided their feet one way, then the other, then back again.

She was only slightly out of breath when they met, her previous display of power slowly dispersing as delicate waves of scarlet through her palms traveled down her arms and waist, hissing into tendrils that fled onto the dancefloor the moment his touch settled on her spine. Amma observed other couples, the movements in some awkward and others fluid, and had realized that such a mundane and simplistic motion held reservations through so many as pairs came and went on the intimate plucking of string instruments and quaint melodies. Her opposite hand settled over his shoulder with a flutter, allowing Gil to lead them (she had never formally danced before, but he led her with a finesse that bespoke of experience). With the quiet that fell upon them, Amma permitted herself a reprieve to study the man who so effortlessly drew her attention through the crowd, a sort of helpless and immediate draw that was sired on an unconscious level that levied her usual hesitations.

Here, and even before when he flitted on the edges of the dancefloor, watching her, Gil beheld a dour expression, content to ply and drown himself in food and drink, his movements elegant but weighted with an emotion Amma couldn’t place, for it was her sincerity often muddied by a surge of hopelessness felt and undone, and credit it to her lightness of foot at the glitz and glam that adorned her surroundings, or perhaps to her powers still coiling betwixt flesh and bone. Still, she made a subtle gesture with her hair tossed back to expose gilded shoulders as he guided them to and fro.

“You seem awfully moody for someone who helped pull all this off.” Not quite a whisper, but just an octave higher, her accent threaded through her playful words offered by a slight cant of her head.

Gil was too drunk to be anything but surly, even as he shivered skin-to-skin with Amma and swam in great gulping breaths of her perfume.
“A fake sheen over a fake recreation of a fake life. Of my fake life. I’m thrilled.”

“Oh yes, the scowl is most becoming.” Amma quipped back and leaned in just so, close but yet far, vague in her words as she often was, with lazy spools of warmth coiling through her limbs as she drew her index finger across his shoulder, a delicate dance of her gestures against the purple threads of his suit jacket. “Must be all of that acting you do.”

“Did.” Gil said, off-handedly, and Amma raised but a single eyebrow. “I quit. Don’t know what I’m going to do after the academy but…it’s not going to be that anymore.”

“Just like that, huh.” She responded immediately, her accent slipping off into a whisper, a touch of understanding, to face the uncertainty of what came after. Amma couldn't even begin to comprehend that shadow of a thought that came and went. For her, the concept of a future was a bleak promise of destructive retribution.

“Is that the reason for your sullen face then?”

“Just like that.” Gil said, almost wistful. The faintest trace of a smile flashed across his lips. “I suppose I’m just…ready to put all this behind me. Permanently. This ‘theme’ was thought up by a very much mask-on Gil. I know it’s only been a week, but he feels like a lifetime away.”

Amma went quiet at that, her eyes dropping at the flutter of her lashes, lulled by the music that guided their swaying, a whirl of thoughts ringing between her ears before she said: “I… sort of get that. In that, things feel a lifetime away.” She rolled her lips together, teeth against her pout, before a smile broke across there, a darling glimmer that fought against the eclipsing mask she, too, wore as the ill-sought harbinger. “To cast away the role made for you by you. I suppose that makes you free.” A word foreign to her likeness that caused a slight flex through her arms, her fingers laced together with his own tightening just a fraction, squeezing slightly before she relaxed.

“Free, ha!” Gil broke a true smile now, and the hand on Amma’s back moved to wrap around her waist and pull her closer still. “Yes, that’s right. Free to cock up my life all on my own.”
They swayed softly, Gil no longer able to maintain his misery in the face of Amma’s gentle words and tender gestures.
“You look beautiful this evening, by the way.”

“Mm, so you did notice behind all that doom and gloom.” Amma lanced back swiftly, unable to deny the flush that flamed through her figure, weighted as coals ignited in every movement made and felt. “You clean up well,” she mused aloud, her palm against his shoulder feathering up to his neck, the pulse beneath her gestures leaping at her touch.

“I'm glad you found me when you did; I've had to turn down quite a few people this evening. Something in the air has them feeling brave.” She laughed, something of a teasing flair, a dance not only in their bodies so close with naught a fragment of space betwixt them but a soft challenge in the gaze that found his eyes and held there.

“I’m sullen, not blind.” Gil teased back. “Had I known you were saving a space, though…well, I probably wouldn’t have needed Banjo’s ‘encouragement’ to dance.”
They held each other's eyes for a few long moments as the music swelled around them.
“Saving anything else for me?”

“Actually…” She breathed, distracted at the moment, her nails delicately plucking at the small arrangement of flowers still pinned to her dress. White petals now lay with remnants of glittering red fragments, such a superficial adornment that she held in her inked hand before she pinned it to the lapel of his purple jacket. Her head canted to one side as she studied the placement as she had seen done on others.

“A custom, I guess- as was explained to me by the girls.”

Gil watched as Amma’s intricately-woven fingers delicately pinned the boutonnière to his lapel; he silently cursed himself for leaving behind the corsage Aurora had thoughtfully sent to Lorcán’s dorm room. He had been too wrapped up in himself to consider it might have made an intimate gesture for Amma.
“Stupid…I didn’t think about it. Aurora even had some sent over, but I was more worried about getting blotto. But thank you…it’s gorgeous.”

He held his hand over the pinned flower for a few moments and then proffered his other face-up to Amma; suddenly, with a slight shimmering haze, a copy appeared cradled in his open hand. Carefully, he plucked it from his palm with two fingers and affixed it to her dress, mirroring the positioning as close he could.
“Hand-crafted with my very own hazies. Hopefully better than nothing.”

Amma was silent in the intimate exchange, the performance of his powers so streamlined compared to her own as he pinned an exact copy to her dress, watching the careful gestures, the two of them standing still in a swaying crowd. She had not considered nor expected to receive such a sentiment, despite what had been mentioned in the purposes of corsages and boutonnières; a faint shimmer hovered there, the perfect replica more symbolic than she realized. Her fingers came up to trace over the white petals and line of her dress, the fabric cool against her touch before she reached forward to curl her fingers against his jaw, soft and delicate, nearly unfelt before Amma leaned up to ghost her lips against his cheek in a kiss that spun into a whisper against his skin.

“Thank you, Gil.”

The hand that stilled over her collarbone where it had pinned the flower moved easily, smoothly upwards across her neck, thumb tracing her clavicle and the veins beneath her pale skin before resting on her chin and gently tilting her face towards his. When their lips met, he pulled her in tightly. Something like a spark emanated: a crackle of red across the outline of their shared figure, shadowed and crimson lightning that converged on the replicated flower.

The way her powers bloomed and swelled elicited a gasp that hung somewhere in her throat, reminiscent of a stuttered breath as electric coils snapped and dragged over her arms, posturing in the lingering remains of black and silver that feathered from her grasp as Amma slid her hands up and over his shoulders and pulled Gil even tighter against her. She felt the siring of warmth at her front, faint lines that pulsated over and over, in tandem with her heart that bound the two of them in the fated tendrils of red and something within that melded entirely with his own, a shared breath as she drew back, eyes aglow and lost and hazed before she kissed him again with renewed intensity.

A colliding manifest of wrath, sorrow, and loss, a melding of two halves wrapt in desire, she felt and tasted the bitterness of uncertainty, the lines of fate swollen with the want and need of connection and purpose. A heaviness that shifted there through their kiss. It melded and coiled with the vibrations felt through the world as Amma relinquished pieces of herself that no one had ever known- a singular construct that yawned as a bridge between a unified soul.

In that kiss Gil felt a presence unlike any experienced before, a mix of self and other, simultaneously alien and instinctual. Wrath, not his but powerful and consuming, was an ever-present specter, but in this moment it was tempered with grief - and then all scurried regardless to dark corners to be replaced by exploding passion and excitement and desire, a fever that burst and bloomed like firework flower-heads in their bellies. This was a mingling deeper than the heat of their breaths, and lips against partner, and hands pulling skin and cloth taut into one another; emotions and scattered thoughts were interwoven and shared, randomly selected and extricated effortlessly from closely-guarded cages. It was frightening, exhilarating, intoxicating. Gil broke away, searching in Amma’s eyes for a hint of what he’d felt, confirmation she’d experienced the same.

Shared breath heated and fanned and plumed between lips and lungs and teeth, heavy and intoxicated by more than just spirits and wine, shored with obsidian and crimson lightning that struck and writhed and finally withered away into a spectacle of ribbon-like silver that reflected back in half-lidded eyes of blue that searched and carved a path through steel and heat and desire. Amma inhaled sharp and quick- words that floundered and failed and retreated from tender lips as she shuddered from the remnants of powers still quaking through her frame before it pooled low into her belly as an abyss of hunger that could barely be sated, an overwhelming swell of connection that anchored her to Gil in more ways than one, a now intertwined surge of knowing him as he was, as he had been, and what he could be through hazy shadows. Amma leaned in, foreheads touching, a familiar gesture known to them as the only answer he needed that she had felt the same.

As the music changed and the pace quickened the words petered out and all that was left was hasted, passionate movement as Amma and Gil separated and began to truly dance in earnest. The crowd around them melted away into a blur of faces and cloth and all Gil could feel was the hard wood beaten rhythmically beneath his shoes and the warmth of Amma’s body close by, weaving out her own pulsing pattern. The music alchemized with the alcohol in Gil’s belly and synthesized some manner of elixir, that spread throughout him and swept him away from his surroundings; forced out of his own head and only able to focus on his body and the rhythm pounding through, the weight of his misery lifted until all he was doing was dancing.

Her earlier performance had been a summons, a deliberate show of power and ability that aligned eyes upon her figure undone through the carefully laid intentions in her smiling graces. Amma now danced with a carefree flare, lightened in the moment and yet weighted by that fluttering connection betwixt them. The silken line of her skirts fell around her legs with every twirl, the thrum of music measured out in every sway and then left abandoned when it swept up and over in a thrumming beat with every other snap of her heels. She brought herself closer to Gil and then she would sway back, almost playful in the breadth she would allow with roaming hands that fell over his shoulders, some instances where she would perch on his chest and lean in so close that tendrils of midnight hair would brush against him. Amma’s smile was one of a veil being lifted, a shedding of a mask of sorts that glistened gold, encouraged by the wine that she still tasted on her tongue, the taste of him in every breath she took, and the commanding presence she afforded as everyone and everything fell away into blissful nothings of red and black.