thejusticelounge | Mar. 30th, 2014

Mar. 30th, 2014

After a somewhat light inspection, Zee’s tokens for Kyle are passed along to him, a bundle of somehow still warm chocolate chip cookies, his sketchbook and gathered art supplies.

"Hey, maybe in a few years, all this…talking to you about celebrity gossip and watching you paint imaginary jacks in a cell… it’ll seem routine…" she tried to laugh taking a seat where he could see her, looking up at him with a crooked smile that only spread to the undamaged side of her face. The green bruise stretching along the side of her face still holding her emotions away.

"For the record, I’d probably quit scrabble before the game is even over and pout for the rest of the night. I’m that kind of sore loser, Kyle." she shook out her trashy entertainment magazine to the table of contents she’d grabbed from the recycling, it might’ve been several months old but it’d still be worth a laugh or two. Probably.

Zee was able to sit outside his cell; it wasn’t high security in terms of mega-hardcore-lockdown, not anything like a prison, really. But still there was a separation between him and Zee, a thin unbreakable bullet-proof sheet of plastic that they could comfortably talk through. No touching! quoth Arrested Development.

Maybe he should have asked for the tight security on the cell, given that Hoodie already appeared and guaranteed they could break out if needed. But Kyle didn’t bother. If his own willpower couldn’t keep himself locked in his cell, then…then he might as well stop calling himself a Green Lantern. At this point it was a matter of proving himself to himself.

So Zee came and Kyle magically got warm cookies and art supplies - watercolor Moleskein (partially used), watercolour kit and his pencil box - and she sat close to him. They couldn’t touch each other. Given the way the sickly green bruise mottled one side of Zee’s face, Kyle reconciled it was for the better. She didn’t fix it. In a dark, selfish way, Kyle was glad. Seeing her bruise bolstered his resolve against the thing residing inside him.

( take my breath away )

bossymarmalade

The Batman crouches atop the high parapet on St. Gabriel’s Roman Catholic Church, watching intently as a small group of shorn-headed people wander through the short patch of grass that serves as a yard for the building, within its black wrought-iron gates. They move in a seemingly erratic pattern, individuals breaking off from the group to disappear into the church or to the narrow historic graveyard along its side, only to rejoin moments later. He grunts when a new person enters the scene, from the open front gate. A nun in an elaborate wimple, white and winged.

Kate needs about ten drinks of mulled wine. Gotham is fucking cold—yes, her suit keeps her warm, but it’s a weird feeling, the way she can sense the air on her body like she’s nearly naked, while not freezing her ass off entirely, and it has the tendency to make California Kate psychosomatically freezing. She speaks softly into the comm. “That’s not the official habit for any of the orders near here. Keep an eye on her.”

Batman starts when her voice comes through the built-in comm of the cowl’s earpieces, dropping back from the ledge onto the flat surface. “Yeah, she looks like she’s about to start flying into the air any minute now. How’s it going on your side?” He tiks the lenses on the cowl to normal, blinking behind them as the enhanced vision switches off.

Kate snorts. “She might, considering how things have been going lately. Be careful.” She stretches a little, getting stiff in the knees from the weather and staying put for so long in it. “Absolutely fuck-all, Batman, sir. Which is either a sign that something’s gonna hit, or that everything is going to drop on your side.”

Another grunt. “Yeah, well — I’m still waiting for some of the locals to figure out that I’m not Batman Classic. Not even New Batman.” Ollie flicks at one of the pouches in the belt with his thumb, but misses the particular, fiddly little catch and skids his thumb sideways between two openings, twisting it for his troubles. “Batman Lite, maybe.” He gets the damn thing opened properly and attaches a tiny camera to where he’d been perched before moving to the side of the church without the graveyard, hooking a grapple so he can lower himself down the side. “Gonna get closer, maybe nab one’a these kids. If you hear unmanly shrieks over the comm, it means I need you pronto.”

( heavy is the head )

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Roy kisses the top of Mar’i’s forehead, when he enters the hospital room, moving his hand to curl around hers. “Hey, baby girl,” he murmurs. He holds a new plant in his other hand, and sets it next to the other succulents lining her bedside table.

Roy squeezes her hand, thumb rubbing against the inside of her palm. He picks up her hair brush, and gently combs her hair back, speaking quietly. “..gonna be moving you home, Mar’i. That’s good.. right?” He swallows, thickly, and moves his hand to lift her head off the pillow—careful of the wires and tubes—and brushes her hair down over her shoulders.

Parka lifts a cigarette to her mouth, standing on the roof of a building across from the hospital. She pulls a deep drag and holds the smoke, deep in her lungs.

Diana knocks on the door, peeking in, “Roy, hi. Am I interrupting?”

Roy rubs at his eyes for a brief moment, setting the brush down. “Nah,” he states, and looks over. “What’s up, Diana?”

Diana steps in, standing behind Roy, “I thought I should stop by and see how things are.” her hands clasp in front of her, “How both you and Mar’i are doing.”

( foreign objects )

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Despite it being the first time, Alfred was not, in fact, surprised to find Ramsey where he was—half buried under a large book in the large armchair in the library—but he was a.. bit taken aback at the tome the boy had chosen and was thumbing through: The Art of Making Bread.

He chuckled, a low dry sound, and moved over into sight with the tray he carried: tea, biscuits, and a small platter of apples, the remainders from that year’s haul. The butler set it down, on a small table near Ramsey, and scanned for Lian. Hiding in the stacks, more than likely. He proceeded to cut one of the apples, then another, as he stood next to the boy, and nearly chortled as he spoke next.

"Sating your appetite for knowledge, young Master Robinson?"

Ramsey stuck his entire hand between the entries on “challah” and “chapati,” marking the page and smiling up at the older man. The smell of the apples as Alfred cut them was tangy and sharp, and for some reason Ramsey’s mind went straight back to that awful place with bungalows and monsters who took mothers in the middle of the night. Unconsciously, his fingers on his free hand rubbed at the spot where his moon-scar had once been. The bread book had been no coincidence either—it had elicited the same memories.

"Mr. Bruce let me help him coo—bake bread over the summer," he responded helpfully, spreading the book out on the ottoman in front of him—a footrest to a man, a table to a child—-and flipped the pages until the loaves of bread Bruce had baked and he had delivered came into sight. "I saw this too…" he began again, flipping more pages until he found the thing he was looking for. Ramsey hoisted the book up, entirely too bulky in his tiny hands, and squinted at the page, reading in his best fourth grade voice.

( the staff of life )

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When David (the only other man besides Alfred trusted to chauffeur the Wayne Enterprises CEO) brought the car to the Gotham jail on Alfred’s instructions, he was already on his second cup of coffee that afternoon. Picking up Mrs. Spencer-Queen from where she’d been, at the courthouse (and raising hell from the expression on her face when she’d descended the steps), had been easy, but the ride had been long and by the time they arrive, an hour late, his nerves were skittering on the waves of caffeine.

Without being told, he moved from the driver’s door to open the door for Bruce. The man had been snuck through the back of the building by Geneviève—she meets David’s eyes with a grim nod—and he slid into the seat and immediately shucked his jacket, tossing it onto the seat in front of them.

He didn’t meet Kate’s eyes, his jaw tight, the bruises across his face healing still, and spoke, in a low voice.

"Kate."

"Bruce," said Kate, looking up from her phone. She was firmly ensconced in the seat of the limo, wrapped up tight in scarves and gloves and coat against the November chill. Her mood hadn’t improved too much since they’d left the courthouse, made their way through downtown traffic—the already congested roads even further packed with people leaving their offices on a lazy half-day before the holiday weekend.

As David shut the door, Kate looked, to be honest, like she was seriously considering spiking her coffee with some of the Glenfiddich from the mini bar. Hair artfully messy, eyes a bit wilder, and considering she hadn’t slept very well lately, she was in a state—

And even someone unobservant would notice her wince and faint bite of the lip, as she leaned over to gently—seemingly platonicly, were anyone looking—touch Bruce’s knee. “You’re going to tell me what you did for this, you know,” she said, cocking her head and shifting downwards (ow) to get a glimpse of his eyes. Maybe not here, but soon, was implied.

The timing was such that she knew it was him.

( let the world turn without you )

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I’m thankful I’m still breathing.

It had been about a decade since Ollie had last worn the Batsuit, and Bruce had made changes since then. In the component materials and technology, in the silhouette of the thing, and most of all — from what Ollie remembered — in the weight. It was far more armoured than it had been, and the extra weight as compared to his Green Arrow togs was nothing to shake a boxing-glove arrow at. But with the bruises forming across his chest from Hoodie’s fingers sinking into the chestplate and tearing it off, crumpling it up, Ollie wasn’t about to complain about that aspect of the suit.

Thankful for the people I’ve loved, even if they’re not in my life anymore.

In fact, he wasn’t about to complain about any of the tech capabilities that were available in the Cave. Just about anything you could hope for, or the equipment with which to make it. And in this particular case, Ollie was glad for the whimsical side to Bruce’s mission; it meant a stock of ready-machined bird shaped parts, some of which Ollie had fashioned a sonic broadcaster out of. Decades ago, Dinah had allowed the League to store a recording of her Canary cry, and considering that high-frequency sound had disrupted Talia’s spiders and non-human thugs before, Ollie figured it couldn’t hurt to carry the means to generate it. Plus he’d painted the little bird yellow.

Thankful that Kate’s all right and that I have her.

The chemical analysis of the Tea had never resolved some of the more esoteric components, but in essence it was an extraordinarily powerful hallucinogenic that amplified a person’s most deeply held paranoias. Plus, as Kate explained when she’d come out of it, the drug had the unpleasant aftereffect of leaving the taker with lucid memories of their delirious visions. Foxes and fathers, badgers and violence — that had been all Ollie’d gotten from her tight-lipped recounting of the experience, but from the way Kate had looked at him, with that particular wrinkle in her forehead and the downturned mouth, Ollie had left it alone for the time being. They both had too much work to do, and they knew that neither of them could afford the luxury of feeling bruised or scared or anything else that would keep them from what lay ahead.

They were already off-balance without Bruce, again. Ollie was only just starting to feel like something more than a cartoon character in the Bat’s ears. Kate was pushing herself to find some way to get him out of jail, and she likely wouldn’t stop even though she’d been badly beaten, was still disoriented.

Wayne Manor had that effect on people, he guessed.

I’m thankful for the kids, and that they’re all safe.

Mia was holding down Star City like a pro (Ollie sometimes amused himself on the chillier rooftop stakeouts imagining Speedy patrolling the streets with Kiki at her side), keeping him updated enough so he didn’t feel like he was neglecting his own burg. Ramsey and Lian still viewed the Manor as a vast wonderland and Alfred their fairy god-butler. Roy and Mar’i … well, things weren’t so good there. But they were both still alive and fighting, and that wasn’t anything to sneer at, not now.

I’m thankful that Bruce is out.

Because this was about Talia. This was about Damian. This was something Bruce should be here for. Not just because getting him thrown in the pokey was a clear sign that Talia’s plotting would work more smoothly with Bruce out of the way, but because … they needed him. Kate and Ollie needed him, the League did. The mantle of the Bat did.

Having Bruce back would give them the edge they’d need to take down Talia’s plans, and that would give everybody something to be thankful for.

[gotham overdoses]

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Hoodie moves when the scent is gone. He doesn’t linger where Kyle is, now that the magician had removed what he’d needed. There was no point. He leaves the knucklebones scattered across the floor, not bothering to pick them up as he shifts across space and time, buoyed by the power that is growing. The scent still lingers, there is still hope, and the promise of revenge whets his appetite.

Hoodie is, while the Magician and her Lantern mend what has been broken, across in San Franscisco, speaking to Diana, daughter of Hippolyta. Hoodie is, while the populace grows more and more content in their feasting—their FEASTING— tearing the sheet of metal from the armor he’d been denied access to, and when it peels back, like the soft skin of a grape, the hunt is on again and Hoodie—He—

Hoodie is, while the Magician and her Lantern mend what has been broken, across in San Franscisco, speaking to Diana, daughter of Hippolyta. Hoodie is, while the populace grows more and more content in their feasting—their FEASTING— tearing the sheet of metal from the armor he’d been denied access to, and when it peels back, like the soft skin of a grape, the hunt is on again and Hoodie—He—

Hoodie races across space and time on the currents of pure human energy bubbling under his fingers, his teeth bared and straining. Straining, because the boy has left. He can smell him.

Hoodie removes the fruit stolen from his uncle’s garden from within the pockets of his sweatshirt—that is where his hands have travelled, everytime— and leaves it upon the plate and waits. Waits.

Damian has snuck out of his prison for the second time this day. He glares up at the gray sky as if its caused him some great grievance, while he cracks the pomegranate open with his small fingers. The movements are precise, powerful. The boy picks out a few of the precious, staining seeds and places them on his tongue. Without a moment’s haste, he crushes them between his back teeth, not yet graced with twelve-year molars. The pomegranate was an appeasement, it seemed, for the longevity of his stay. The boy accepts it without hesitation.

( six seeds )

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Kyle lands and folds his arms, grinning beatifically at Nightwing and Green Arrow as they turn away and head down the tunnel. When they’re gone from sight Kyle tilts his head, looking at Talia. “Well?” he starts brusquely, but his cockiness falters under her gaze and he swallows a bit, dropping his arms to his side and shifting from one foot to the next. The Lantern then steadies his weight, releasing her from the straps and tipping her into his arms. He flies up into the air - a hero saving the damsel in distress. “Well then Ms al Ghul.”

Talia doesn’t mind the role at all, it seems: she moves an arm around his neck, and nods. “Star City,” she says, simply.

"Why there?" he asks immediately, but quickly changes his course, changing direction to head towards Star City.

Talia smiles. “There’s a restaurant there that makes a wonderful crème brûlée.”

"Naw, I know where you want to go," Kyle says suddenly, hands tightening around Talia, fingers digging into her soft curves. She can feel him grinning against her ear when he whispers. "The crème brûlée’s for dessert, but shouldn’t we have a nice dinner first?"

The woman’s laughter is thick, saccharine sweet, a Turkish delight bit in half and thrown out for the enjoyment of waste. She slides her lips against his jaw, and she purrs, a hand curling against the back of his head, sinking into the dark brown hairs there.

"What did you have in mind?"

( rosewater in the centre )

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Zee drops her hand from Roy, “Alright, someone wanna make the call to get us in?”

Mari stares up at the iron-wrought gate. She looks at Dick, then nods at the security pass. “You or me?” Poppy makes a soft noise and she tucks the little lizard closer, cooing softly. “Don’t worry, I’ll take you to your favorite little girl in just a second.”

"No need." Batman appears out of the shadowy trees behind them. "What are you all doing here?"

Roy huffs when Zee drops his hand and smooches an air kiss at her too. “Hey, I thought it was pleasaa-aanaana, hey.”

Dick smiles and steps forward. “We’re here to help look for Ramsey.”

Zee narrows her eyes at Batman, before noticing the jaw doesn’t quite match up, “Weird.”

"Whoa only hours out of jail and you’re already in—" Kyle cocks his head to one side, as if listening to something. "Oh. You’re not - oh." He looks kinda grossed out. "No beard, huh." Ollie doesn’t respond for a moment, then punches Kyle square in the jaw. “He stays out here,” he says brusquely. “The rest of you can come in.”

Zee arm is almost yanked back by Ollie’s slug at Kyle, “God DAMMIT, seriously? Seriously!?”

Dick rubs his eyes and sighs. “We can’t just leave him out here.”

Mari starts rubbing her head again, because oh X’Hal. Roy looks to Ollie. “He says it’s outta him.”

Kyle sprawls on the ground. “Hey!” he starts to protest, then he considers and remains in place where he is. “Yeah, okay fine. It’s fine Zee, I’ll wait here, I’ll - I’ll keep watch.”

Ollie points at Kyle. “Cause any more trouble, and I’ll be back out here to take you down myself.” He snaps at the others, “Kyle’s been compromised enough times in recent memory to make him more of a risk than I’m willing to take with my /wife’s son/.”

Zee stretches her arms out, “You think I’m that fucking irresponsible? Oh my god, come on.”

"You guys know everything I know anyway," Kyle says helpfully to Dick and then the ache sets in on his jaw; damn that Arrow arm. His ring starts to compensate. "So g’on, I don’t need to be around the kids - the - the kid. Around Lian." He looks ashamed suddenly and then gives Zee a kiss on her forehead and abruptly steps away from the group, looking around the road as if metas are going to jump out of the bushes.

Zee frowns sharply as Kyle kisses her forehead, “I hate this fucking house.” she whispers harshly.

( i fell for you like a child )

bossymarmalade

the crack between worlds appears

Ollie had been to hell before.

The last time it’d had to do with the League (of course), and it was just as you’d expect from the popular Western conceptions of the place — lots of red, lots of fire, lots of unpleasant nightmarish scenery of eternal torment. He knew what to expect. It was nothing that would keep him from going in there again to get Ramsey out, not in the goddamn slightest, and he didn’t even pause before leaping through that gateway into the most damned of dimensions.

But that fissure of light closed up like an unforgiving mouth behind Ollie when he tumbled through, and there were no demons or hellfire awaiting. It stayed light. It got brighter and whiter, in fact, the same effect as when the image of the pomegranate tree had blared behind Ollie’s eyelids. For a moment he started to panic that he’d be robbed of his eyesight for this mission, but then images began to resolve once more. Shifting along the spectrum from blobby to blocky to actual recognizable shapes. Furniture. Old-fashioned, expensive furniture, meant for a bedroom. His bedroom. The one at the Queen Estate, thirty years ago. Ollie realized with a catapulting feeling in his chest that hell was different for him, this time around. It wasn’t a place. It was a state of being.

It was being a child again.

( just can't remember who to send it to )

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Dun. Beige. Ecru. Taupe. Eggshell. Putty.

Off.

Kyle has Poppy on the large oak table in the kitchen of Wayne Manor, swaddled in a fleece blanket - it’s a child blanket that Mister Pennyworth gave him, Kyle notes idly, uninterested - staring with her lizard eyes as he leans his chin on the wood and stares back at her. She blinks one eye lazily, the inside-lid clicking sideways, then retracting.

Neutral movements.

When Kyle had given Poppy to Mar’i, the lizard’s skin emanated all sort of colors - not reds or greens, blues or violets, though. Those were Lantern emotional spectrum colors. No instead, Poppy rippled in colors that Kyle remembered thinking Mar’i would enjoy: chartreuse and puce, vermilion, teal and lavender.

Poppy chirps, like a mix of a baby crocodile and a zebra. And like something (someone?) else, that Kyle can’t quite place right now.

He contacts Oa, and Salaak asks, “Why on Oa do you care about the originating planet of one animal species?” Kyle responds: “Aren’t we Green Lanterns supposed to take care of everything in the universe, right down to the smallest creature, Salaak?” Exasperated, the Slyggian snaps back, “That is not what I mean, Lantern Rayner. I did not think you — never mind. I shall transmit the file archive to your ring. Do not contact me about this again, Salaak out.”

Here is the information Kyle gets: The planetoid was classified in its galaxy as V223s.ddfd463*6^^, loosely translated. It was an agricultural planetoid, used by the surrounding planets as a resource and food source. It was also a hotspot for the Nyrellian pirates, who habitually raided and stole creatures and plants to be sold in the galaxy black market. Kyle already knew that part; he’d encountered a crashed Nyrellian ship on V223s.ddfd463*6^^. The planetoid was close to complete destruction (interplanetary civil war, yadda yadda) and Kyle had been assigned on rescue detail, just in case he found any lifeforms worth saving.

Two Nyrellians clung to life in their crashed ship; but Kyle left them and instead salvaged only one thing before the entire planet imploded: a cramped cage with a small, mewling lizard. The last survivor of her planet, on the brink of being stolen for some tyrant’s exotic pet collection or worse.

"C’mon, Poppy," Kyle coaxes, and Poppy responds with a little throaty chirrup. "I know you miss home. I’ll bet Vehtwothreeess-dot-defedfoursixthreeixiehathat was full of little spitfires just like you, little cacti too, huh?” He pushes over a potted cactus to entreat the lizard. The GLC file gave a very cursory list of life-forms that cultivated on V223s.ddfd463*6^^, and some of the plants looked rather succulent. Poppy crawls out of her swaddle and boards the cacti, but her color doesn’t change. No russet, no emerald or coral or sage. Just…dull.

Kyle sighs, on the brink of sending Mar’i another text about Poppy, if only to say there’s been no change. He knows Mar’i’s busy with the rest of the League, handling Talia and now Cheshire, but. Truth is he kind of also wants an ETA as well; and Poppy’s lack of status is a good excuse.

Poppy raises her head to look at him, trills, and bursts into flame.

"Dios mio!" Kyle exclaims in a panic, hands flared in shock as he stares at Poppy. She’s trilling, or screaming - something, Kyle can’t tell but it’s enough to make Titus in some distant room start to howl. He hastily constructs a fire blanket and grabs for the twitching lizard, trying to tamp the flames; instead his hands crush though her crumbly fiery skin and body, as if it’s made of hard ash. "Ohmigod," Kyle breathes in horror, opening the blanket and finding the remains of Poppy: brown clumps of dust that smear greasily into the blanket. Kyle is already imagining the many ways that Mar’i will either rip off his head, never speak to him again, or perhaps both. No wait what is he thinking. Definitely both —

—- except. tok

The flat of his thumb rolls against something hard in the blanket; exhaling a shaky breath, Kyle pushes through the ashes, eventually revealing a hard stone. No - it’s not a stone - it’s an egg. The shell is colored, bright swirls of grass and sky, peach and plum, blood and sun that shift constantly in reply to Kyle’s fingers.

He forgets to breathe for a moment as he hears the chirrup noise again - once, twice. Except it doesn’t come from Poppy or the mysterious egg she’s left behind. And this time, it’s accompanied by a distinct scent of fall apples in the air.

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They hadn’t let Kate see Talia, when Diana had put the lasso on her, had gently sent her to go get something or other which didn’t actually matter. (This was, perhaps, just as well, because when she did find out Talia’s reasoning, there would be hell to pay.) It wasn’t something she was prepared to fight against, anyhow; Kate was saving her fight for something far bigger.

Which was why she wasn’t particularly surprised at the shimmer of light that suddenly drew her eye, as she paced the upstairs room, tried not to peel the wallpaper off strip by strip. There was only a half-second of hesitation before she stepped forward, and that only because Kate wanted to be sure that where she was going was where she would get Ramsey, refused to have time wasted. She was afraid, yes, but the fear was tempered by determination and overwhelmed by love.

Kate stepped in

and landed, tripping awkwardly, in the dust, before she could Hell, it seemed, was a combination of many things. Of Mordor and Annuvin and the Black City and the planet Camazotz and the Labyrinth and half-remembered images of Soviets attacking Afghanistan on the nightly news and the rumble of an adult conversation heard from upstairs that could turn into an explosion of violence or simply leave her hanging in terror. It kept shifting, twisting, never letting her get a straight-on sense of it, a terrible brew of all the things that the child Kate had pictured as…well. Hell.

In other words, it was both entirely like and utterly unlike what she expected.

Kate wondered, vaguely, if Hell appeared as different things for different people; wondered if she had already been close enough to hell anyhow.

She stood up, dusted off her knees, surveyed the landscape as best she could, before she cleared her throat and called out, “Ramsey? Aferrarse, dulcito.” Even if he couldn’t hear her, hopefully someone else had followed her in. She knew one thing was for certain, and that was that she couldn’t do this alone.

Kate started to move forward, jaw setting firm in its socket, continuing to call out. (It was worth a shot.) “You have no power over me,” she murmured to herself, and laughed half-hysterically, heading towards the Goblin City.

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the crack between worlds appears

둥지에서 떨어지는 아기 새

and falling and falling and falling and that place between dreaming and nightmaring what’s that called what’s that called

and once your grandfather took you by the hand and said 자두 꽃 he said 자두 꽃 once in an alley a man took my parents away from me to hell you asked he shook his head and said there is no hell you don’t believe in hell

and belief is different from knowledge because you can know something without believing in it

and why would you believe your mother came from hell your planet was in hell you spent a year running across hell-planet itself watching your hell-aunt stare down at you from her throne and when do i get a throne mommy

and he says with his golden eyes i will you give you a throne and you take his hand and you run from your fear because if you don’t believe it it doesn’t matter if you know it

( one chance out between two worlds )

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the crack between worlds appears

Steph had been dressing for a run (okay, careful jog on Bai’s orders because the walking cast/boot/torture device was off finally) when she felt something in the vein of cool, foreign breath ghost at the back of her neck. She twisted around and punched light. Her fist went through and she could feel that same cold rush of air, though it only chilled up to her wrist, like sticking your hand in a bucket of cold water. It sent goosebumps up her arm and she heard the light calling out her name.

Instinct didn’t give her a choice. Steph grabbed her utility belt off the back of her closet and leapt through the fissure between worlds. For a long moment, she felt weightless and still, frozen in her mid-jump position as an endless nothingness expanded beyond her endlessly on all sides. She simultaneously couldn’t breath and felt no need to. In three heartbeats, the nothingness seemed to shiver and ripple, then morph into somethingness. All at once, that whole gravity happened again and Steph landed flat on her ass with a yelp.

"Beautiful," she said sarcastically to no one really as she stood and rubbed her sore backside.
Wherever she was, it looked like The Walking Dead and Lord of the Rings had a baby. She was in what looked like a dilapidated town surrounded by a thick curtain of trees. The eery silence left Steph wanting her Batgirl suit more than her yoga pants and One Direction t-shirt. She heard a door squeak and saw a figure duck into an old building with a large hole blown through.
“Hello … ?” she called out, pulling out her bo staff.

( oh father )

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the crack between worlds appears

Hell wasn’t really a place Dick knew about too well. He knew about it, of course, knew all the different versions and myths surrounding it. He knew what the Greek underworld should look like, what he should have to cross to enter it, what he would face to get there. Yet, when he stepped through the fissure following Bruce, Hell was nothing like the Hades he’d seen and read about in stories.

The Hell he’d walked into was Blüdhaven.

That seemed pretty rude and unfair. Sure, Blüdhaven wasn’t the best of cities, but it wasn’t Hell. Dick looked around. He was on an apartment rooftop in what appeared to be the East side of the ‘Haven, but the geography was a bit wrong. From where he stood, he shouldn’t have been able to see Gotham across the bay, but there it was off in the distance. He’d recognize that skyline anywhere. All of Blüdhaven seemed a bit off, as if it was missing some buildings. Off in the distance, he could hear trumpets playing, something big and dramatic and patriotic he couldn’t quite make out. Blüdhaven didn’t have many parades.

Well, any parades, really.

( try to make it )

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Hell-hound howls—the sound doesn’t curdle so much as it thins the blood, makes it run quicker. Platelets depleting, hemoglobin it, one head lifts to sniff at the wind. Someone was here. Someone alive. Hell-hound takes off at a loping, galloping run, hooved feet beating against the ground with a staccato tempo. Clip-clip-space. Clip-clip-space.

Bruce turns his head when he hears the howling, stopping dead in his tracks. He tilts his head, listening, attempting to gauge the distance. How much time they have.

μαινάδ turns her head at the sound, still running full-force, and abruptly she stops, staring off into the dark, snow-hidden woods. « Uh-oh. >> she murmurs, then her face breaks into a wide, too-wide grin and she’s running again, her cackling laugh echoing as she stumbles and hops down a snowy path, her leopards and Diana all hot on her trail.

Ollie tenses up at the sound. It’s not lions prowling in the hot dark, not quite, but there’s something in the thrill of horror up his spine that’s similar. “We don’t have any w-w-weapons,” he says, scrubbing his long blond bangs from his forehead as he looks up at Bruce.

Bruce's voice is low, his eyes narrowed as he continues to listen. “I do,” he growls. Dick pulls out his eskrima sticks, spinning them in his hands as he braces himself.

Hell-hound continues to run, three heads turning in opposite directions as they breathe in the frozen air, filtering the smell of the—oh. Oh. Alive. ALIVE. Hell-hound ‘s three heads lift and howl together: a harmony of bass, baritone, tenor keening screams fill the air.

Bruce exhales, and reaches down, to lift Ollie off his feet. He takes off at a full run.

( waiting to finally be caught )

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It felt impossible.

The doorway opened in the kitchen of Wayne Manor, beckoning him - and Kyle refused to go in. In all of Kyle’s wanderings through the entire universe, it was one place he’d never imagined needing to go. Yet - little Catholic boy - the idea of it was stuck to him, always present, like something constantly scraping in the back of his throat:

Hell.

It conjured up fantastical images from (who else?) good old Hieronymous Bosch, favored artist for over-imaginative kids. Kid-Kyle pored over countless large-scale prints from library books and later online, giggling with friends (only a couple; not everyone shared Kyle’s macabre, fantastical obsession) over the howling naked white people twisted in soft yellow-ochre torment.

( down once more )

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It feels like they’ve been walking for days.

Bruce estimates this to be true by the sheer nature of fatigue in his limbs, by the time they reach the next in a series of corridors. Staircase after staircase, the sunless horizon giving him no measure of days or the passage of time, Bruce swallows deeply, his mouth chapped, and turns to look at Dick.

Bruce looks back at where Diana and Ollie are bringing up the rear, and speaks in a low tone. “..alright?”

Demon watches them, unseen and undetected by both.

Dick stares ahead with an almost too-fervent determination, and when he looks at Bruce, his eyes are a little too wide. The brooch his mother gave him is still clenched tight in his hand and it’s that feeling of it that’s keeping him steady. He nods. “I’m all right.” He reaches out with his other hand, rubbing the back of his knuckles against Bruce’s shoulder. “You?”

Bruce moves his own hand out, to wrap over the top of Dick’s shoulder, squeezing the muscles there before dropping his hand. He exhales, and rather than respond with a normal, communicative answer, he states: “There’s something we’re missing.”

Bruce looks around the castle they are in, and he isn’t sure what floor they’re on, as the windows are too high, too narrow, and the sky outside doesn’t change for the altitude. He exhales again, and it seems like he is doing that more than inhaling, and clenches his jaw as he attempts to steady the impulsive urge to exit, determine where they are.

Dick nods, rocking toward him a little at the contact. “She said we couldn’t find him alone. Or, I couldn’t find him alone, but maybe we meant all of us. Maybe that’s what….” He brings his fist up slightly to finish his statement. “It’d just be nice to have a clue about what exactly we’re missing.”

( deep and crisp )

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When he had been a child, and had devoured every book his father had owned on Greek mythology, Bruce had always imagined Hell to be hot, and Elysium to be golden-white, shimmering like the inlaid gold of his mother’s ark, his father’s cross.

He was surprised to find that the dewy grass was a dark, verdant green; it was soft under his hands. Bruce was also surprised, upon opening his eyes, that those hands were small, smooth. Child-sized. No knife and bullet scars, the jagged teeth of a near-loss of a finger laced the tops of his hands. Untouched. Undamaged.

A willow tree. Above him, it swayed, gently, the tips of long tendrils brushing his forehead, reminding Bruce too much of his mother’s kiss when he was ill, or just too sleepy to wake up. He lifted himself to his feet and looked around, where he was.

There was a pool, to the side of him, and while Bruce knew he would not drink from it, he moved over on hands and knees—Alfred hated trying to get grass stains from his shirts and shorts—and peered down into the water.

Staring up at him, was his eight-year old self.

Interesting.

Rising up, unsteadily—his legs felt weak and unused—he looked across the pond and spotted the girl on the other side, asleep as he had been. He made his way over.

The girl had been sleeping much longer than Bruce, that much was clear. No older than three or four, her tiny body was clothed in a tremendously, almost comically, puffed white dress, layers and layers of tulle filling the space between where the dress’ hem ended and the short, stout orange limbs poked out. The fabric itself was iridescent, catching the too-bright sunlight and sending it off in little flickers of rainbow purples and blues. A hint of pink. A shock of yellow.

Someone, somewhere, had attempted to tame her long, dark hair into two loose buns atop either side of her head, but somewhere in her sleeping, the little girl had rolled over and around, and the right bun had spilled down the aubergine locks in thick, spiraling curls. They were too long, too thick, much more hair than one would expect from a child her age, but the strands themselves were testaments to her heritage, her background. A little girl whose mother had tumbling, too-long locks. A little girl who came from womb with all her hair already twisting and curling around her little pinkened ears, her little bloodied face.

Her cheeks weren’t bloodied now, though. They were round and apple-bright, pushing her little moon-eyes up even more, and they curved down to the fatness of her lips, the roundness of her tiny chin. And there was wetness there, on her cheeks, on her lips. A child who slept with her mouth open; a child who cried often.

As Bruce approached, without waking, the little girl—Mar’i Grayson, age three-and-a-half—murmured: “엄마…”

Instantly the word translated in Bruce’s head. Mommy. Mom. The cadence and the language registered for Bruce as only one person—Mar’i—and, yes, as he looked down at her, it was obvious, despite her age, her Tamaranean heritage. She was darker as a child than she was as an adult.

Settling on the ground, Bruce reached out a hand and gently touched the girl’s shoulder.
“Mar’i,” he began, his voice crackling. Bruce stopped, frowned, and cleared his throat. Too high. Too.. soft. He tried again, and pushed his hand against the soft roundness of her shoulder.

"Mar’i, wake up.”

Ever the fitful sleeper, Mar’i slapped lazily at Bruce’s hand, the chubby fingers on her own pushing, then gripping his. Her entire hand wrapped around three of his fingers, and the size difference was still astounding, even in a place like this. She snuggled her cheek against the cool grass, nose scrunching up momentarily before it relaxed again and her mouth went even more slack.

At Bruce’s second call, she pinched her entire face up, letting out a high, keening whine. ”아니…” But, just like a child being awoken by her parents, Mar’i raised her head up, eyes swollen from sleep, and rubbed at her cheeks, looking up at Bruce. If she had visible pupils, they would’ve contracted as she stared up at the older boy.

She sat up, tulle settling down around her knees like the base to some exotic cupcake, and the little girl asked, voice bird-chirping: “Where is Mommy?”

bossymarmalade

Kyle comes in through Zee’s bathroom window. No kidding; he comes actually lets himself in through the front door, buzzing up and in plainclothes like a normal person.

"Zee?" he calls and stands inside her foyer by her front door.

"I’m in the living room." she calls, curled under her blanket sitting in her reading chair. On her lap sits a thick stack of papers she’s been sifting through, clicking her pen again and again as she reads over it all.

Kyle meanders in, hovering at the entrance of the living room for a bit and looking at Zee’s back profile for a long time, before he comes around to face her. He offers up a trio of gerbera daisies for her. “Hi nena. I’m sorry I left you.”

Zee clicks her pen once more before finally looking up at him, “Hi.” she sets aside her papers and pen, looking at the bright flowers like the ones Ollie said he liked so much, “Those are nice.”

Kyle settles on the armrest of the couch beside Zee, putting the flowers on the side-table. “They’re for you…” he presses his lips together and slowly breathes out through his nose. “Zee, c’mon, please.” Kyle’s curious to see what she’s working on, but he doesn’t ask, not yet.

Zee kicks off the blanket, reaching for the flowers as she stands, “What? You want me to kiss you and say it’s all better?” she shakes her head, taking the flowers over to the kitchen sink, grabbing a vase from a cabinet overhead. “These are from Earth right? I don’t want any weird moon rocks floating around when I’m not here…”

"They’re from that flower guy down the street," Kyle answers first, still sitting. Then he gets up and follows Zee into the kitchen, watching her fling open the sink faucet and cram the vase under it. "And no I don’t wanna kiss and make up right now. What I want is to talk and for you to forgive me. Whadda you want, Zee?"

( our worlds at war )

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When she woke up, Steph snuck out of bed and to Bai’s kitchen. She came back to bed and left a mug of cocoa by the bed, pressing a kiss into Bai’s hair before going to take a quick shower.

The cocoa was a sweet memory on Bai’s lips by the time she zipped into the shower with her girlfriend, kissing her soundly and wrapping her long, lanky arms around Steph. “Thank you for taking such good care of me,” Bai murmured, licking water from Steph’s shoulder as the warm spray doused them both. “Nobody’s ever done for me like you do, Stephie.”

It didn’t occur to Bai to feel guilty about this, or like she should reciprocate more, or that she was now in debt to Steph, or anything like that. As far as speedster logic worked, she figured that Stephanie made these gestures and overtures because she wanted to, because she loved Bai and was a nurturing person at heart. Bai knew that Steph wasn’t the type to keep some kind of secret scorecard. She wasn’t like that as a friend, and she sure wasn’t like that as a girlfriend.

"You’re —" Bai wrapped her thin fingers up in Steph’s dark-gold, sodden hair, twirling it madly until it was like streamers all around her head. "Stephie, you’re my family here. More than Wally. More than Grampa, even, and Jay and Joan. Ever since Max got taken away into Speed Force, the only other people I got really close with all went away, too. Kon and Tim and Cassie. But now that I have you I kind of…" Bai looked wondrous at the realization. "Missing them doesn’t hurt as much, because I have you."

It had been a long time since Steph had flinched at the sudden feeling of someone materializing around her. Instead, she let her eyes fall closed and lean into the tender touch as the spray of hot water enveloped them. Her own arms looped loosely around Bai’s tiny, slippery hips, hugging her close. “I love you, silly. I like taking care of you,” she replied matter of factly, smiling warmly at the tan beauty in her arms.

The gravity of what Bai was telling her was not lost on Steph. She knew family didn’t come lightly to Bai, especially considering how sporadically she’d come across and lost it over the years (both in this time and the future). So her admitting all of this right now, in a tiny apartment shower, steam and water drowning out everything but the two of them in their barely awake state, made the sentiment all the more intimate. Steph didn’t quite know what to do with that level of trust. The idea of it, at least, made her heart beat a little faster.

( melting down sweet )

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[Ring Txt] roger that mamacita
[Ring Txt] be there in five

[Txt] That’s what I like to hear

"Wh-wait. You called me here to help you decorate?” Kyle holds her aloft in her high-ceiling’d apartment while she decides between a star or an angel for the top of the tree. ”Not that I mind, I thought…”

Zee swings her legs as she continues to swap out star- angel, angel- star…angel…star? “Of course I called you to help decorate, Kyle!”

She smiles down to him, settling on the star on top of the tree. “I’d like to think this is somewhat your home too, and you’re supposed to decorate with your family.” she pauses straightening the star once more, “Maybe you’ll get a little reward out of your assistance too.”
"Family…" Kyle echoes in a murmur, initially confused until he remembers - their talk in the Manor when they were on the search for Ramsey. His arm loops a little tighter around Zee’s waist, and he nuzzles into the back of her hair inhaling the sweet, intoxicating scent of Zee.

"The angel, definitely," he says eventually, reaching up to take the star away from her. "She looks ready to lay down some Christmas Justice - perfect for a Gotham…a Gotham home, don’tcha think."

"She does look pretty fierce." she agrees, swapping out the star and resting the angel on top per Kyle’s suggestion, "Then you can take the star to your place if you guys haven’t decorated a tree there. It seems more Coast City cool anyway."

Sliding down onto the floor, but keeping close she leans in, “Christmas hasn’t really ever been a big holiday for me, I don’t have any seasonal traditions other than maybe appearing on holiday variety shows. But this year…I don’t know. You tell me.”

( fa la la la la )

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Ollie’d left some of the questions unasked. “Are you okay” was the big one, followed closely by “Is Ramsey okay”, but there was also the whopping big Where was your heart’s desire, where did Dionysus’s relocation spell zap you to, was it LA or Star or Gotham or somewhere you still keep secret because it’s too raw to tell?

But those questions, all of them, could wait because Kate had done what she’d sworn and gotten Ramsey out. Although when Ollie made it back from Star City to the Manor (it was unspoken, that they’d all converge back at the Manor) to deliver the child, a miserable little bundle of wan brown feathers deposited into his mama’s arms, the look on Kate’s face wasn’t anywhere near triumph or joy. It was hardly even satisfaction that they’d succeeded.

Ollie watched his wife cradle their child, stroke and kiss his cold hair and try to rub warmth into his little round limbs, and all he could see on her face was a drawn, terrible mix of anger and heartbreak.

And looking down at Ramsey, a tiny morsel of a person heaped under thick eiderdowns in one of the cosier rooms of the Manor — Alfred hovered at a respectful distance, appearing like magic to bring hot tea or stoke the fire, anything to keep mother and child comfortable — Ollie could see why Kate didn’t feel like what they’d accomplished was that much of a win.

It wasn’t until the exhaustion had overwhelmed the trauma in the boy’s small body and blanketed him in a deep, unmoving sleep that Ollie was able to take Kate out of the room for a minute, put his arms around her, hold her against him for a while. “Ollie,” Kate said after he’d warmed her enough, thawed through some of her numbness, “what if he was down there for too long? What if it’s too much for him?” The unused, shattered tenor of her voice made her still-unspoken fears visible through the cracks: he’s already been through so much, I wanted a good life for him, not one like mine, what if I’ve failed him (again) and he stops trusting that his mama will be there for him.

"Let him sleep," Ollie murmured against Kate’s roughened hair, between kisses. "Let him get some rest and then we’ll figure things out. You got him back, Katie, that’s what’s important." He lets another length of time stretch, and before it starts to feel too comfortable, Ollie tells her, "We have to find Bruce, wherever he might have turned up. They … I think him and Talia might have lost their child. One of their children." It was ugly enough that even Ollie, never lost for words, had trouble articulating what he’d seen of the deal being made. For the unborn one or … or Damian.

( don't look at me looking back at you )

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--all is bright

—because she was there, arms and fire surrounding him, and he thought he’d never be able to see past her.

He’d grown up beneath the unforgiving rays of the desert sun. But when the Lantern burst into a supernova of white light, the world was illuminated more clearly than he’d ever beheld.

Dagger between her ribs. She’d live. She’d only love him more deeply for it.

--roasting on an open fire

—in the little house where they pasted bread with jam while he hungered for blood on snow.

He looked up, far up. “Are we leaving soon?”

The Archer didn’t answer him. But his eyes said Do we really need to?

--to lay before the king

—and there was no other recourse. There was gunfire, and shrapnel, and the solid crush of iron against his father’s masked skull. His arm trembled with the impact as the skillet clattered to the floor.

At his small feet: the Dark Knight, fallen at last. He dragged the unconscious form to the plane, and he felt no sense of triumph.

( and every minute colder )

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Roy texts Kyle and Zee and, well, being a huge gossip, everyone he knows:

[TXT] yo damian just wandered in from the snow

[TXT] like the abominable snowman

[TXT] abdominal?

Kyle is watching backstage after Zee’s show and he looks at Roy’s text and blinks. [Ring Txt] cool?

Kyle [Ring Txt] I think it’s taun taun

Zee busies herself cleaning off her stage makeup when her phone buzzes against her vanity. With a tap the message blinks out from Roy and she sighs, eyes closing and brows pinching, “Did you get that too?” she asks Kyle.

Kyle nods and shrugs. “Damian is…Damian Wayne, right? Robin?” Kyle notices Zee’s frown in her dressing room mirror and comes over, thinking of the text she sent him when he was in space. “I’m…supposed to know him, aren’t I. I’m sure it’ll be okay, Zee.”

Zee cups her hands against her temples, nodding, “You’re supposed to.” her hands shaking against her skull, “But it will not be okay.” the worst she could do would be to hobble together Kyle’s relationship with Damian by the poorly kept scrapbook of personal memories she held of the two. The worst she could do would be to erase Damian’s own memories of Kyle to make it even. The very worst she could do would be to let it go on as it existed now. Maybe she wasn’t as good as she liked to believe maybe the fibers of a boy still remained strung in Kyle’s mind, but a connection was needed to tighten the bonds, but she knew and feared that was very impossible.

( a missing square )

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Rayner, you’re so weird.

Ah - hrm. Yeah, heh. *scratches the back of his neck and stares at the kid* Did you make any of these snowmen, Robin? Er - snowpeople?

Damian indicates a squat arrangement of snow that vaguely resembles some kind of four-legged creature. Sculpting doesn’t appear to be his forte. “It’s Titus, of course,” he explains, confidence faltering slightly when one of the “ears” slides off at that moment. “I haven’t quite finished it yet.”

His attention shifts to Rayner himself as he realizes the name by which he was addressed. He shoots the Lantern a concerned look, eyes darting around the field. “Is someone else here?” he asks, scanning for anyone who might not know their civilian identities. “Or are you on a mission? I’ll join you,” he declares at once, stealing a branch-arm from a snowman to wield as a staff.

Kyle looks alarmed; and ridiculously, he glances around as if expecting that Zee would suddenly materialize and float him away from this situation. He’d come to the cabin for the party, and had managed to successfully skirt around the kid for a long while. Even with Steph’s enthusiastic discussion of Damian Wayne and how happy Kyle will be, and Mar’i’s more sedate but no less intense mention of the child to Kyle.

It was really only then that Kyle realized no one else knew about what he’d asked Zee to do.

( puzzle pieces )

bossymarmalade

It was hard to concentrate on his work, getting some sketches for the city. Kyle kept turning over in his head what Damian said to him at the cabin and those large, resolute grey eyes staring up at Kyle. Sometimes those eyes morphed into larger blue ones, fringed with remorseful tears. Zee’s face, when she explained what Damian had meant to him.

Kyle didn’t know why he couldn’t let it go. Maybe it was because there was something reminiscent of Parallax, tied up in all this. Being taken over by some evil thing, having it control him and then painfully ripped out - Kyle hated that, and he was angry. The monster had won, and taken Kyle’s memories of Damian Wayne as its prize. It took a while to realize it, but Kyle wanted those memories back. They were his.

( ”Bananas and tonic water,” that Dionysus-creature told Kyle, before it disappeared.)

So there was Kyle in Coast City at 1am in the morning, in the kitchen with a glass of thickly blended bananas and tonic water, his Waynetech tablet connected to Roy’s laptop. He spooned some of the thick drink into his mouth, looking at the array of items on the table.

( the tendrils of his past )

bossymarmalade

what happened when kyle went to biot

The pulsing begins at exactly 1:16 am Earth Pacific Time, which in Galactic Standard translates to approximately 26823.97.01 galorfs. Or 6.08 Vlurs’ian ticks. Day 68,651,665 of the thirty-seventh glorious Anturian Life-Cycle. The time changes across the vast and ever-expanding universe, of course, but the meaning, the fate-shattering, world-destroying meaning of the pulsing is utterly singular.

It will never be clear what starts the pulsing. Eons in the future, historians from the planet Jio-Rugg will speculate it was the sudden and strong influx of emotion from the owner of the time, staring out her San Francisco apartment window moments after arriving back from a holiday trip. When Jio-Rugg’s vast libraries are pillaged, the invading Krik’Uht clans will declare it was the alignment of key galaxies in a pattern that would never again happen in all of universal existence.

But regardless of reason, at 1:15:59 am on a crisp Monday morning, Mar’i (Gray)Son folds her arms over her stomach, listens to the hospital’s confirmation message on her answering machine, and stares down at her hands. And at 1:16, the pulsing overwhelms the room like lake water flooding into a sinking car.

( into a fire )

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The nurse slips the plastic band around her wrist and only a few minutes later, Mar’i’s in the prep room, being hooked up to IVs and listening to Dr. Adebayo explain why the surgical team why the young woman they’re about to operate on needs to keep her metal bracelet on throughout the surgery. It’s all fancy medicine terminology Mar’i doesn’t understand—neat and precise fabrications that hide the fact that dark-haired “Mary” is actually a half-alien wearing a power dampener to conceal and protect her identity. Roy’s hovering, because this is as far as they’ll let him go, and there’s a man outside in the waiting room who looks suspiciously like the WayneTech employee that sometimes delivers Mar’i’s updated comms.

And despite all this—despite watching Lian and Poppy sleepily stare up at the old television mounted in one of the room’s corners, despite watching Roy side-eye every needle-prick and blood pressure check, despite the way Dr. Adebayo says the words ‘uterine’ and ‘invasive’—the only thing Mar’i notices is a spot of missing paint in the far corner of the cabinets.

As much as my League insurance is gonna pay for this shit, Mar’i thinks, you’d think the hospital could paint its damn cabinetry properly.

Adebayo mutters something to Roy and he nods, too tight-lipped around the edges as he presses his mouth to her forehead and callused fingertips to her hairline.

“…we’ll be waiting,” he says quietly, before leaning down for a quick kiss that lingers into something longer, something a little more fear-laced that either of them are willing to admit.

And just like that, she’s being rolled out of the room towards the OR, and Dr. Adebayo is…Mar’i looks down, and the doctor is holding her hand, although it’s half-disguised by the way she’s adjusting her surgical scrubs and guiding the bed. There’s no more chip in the paint to stare at, so Mar’i stares at Dr. Adebayo.

She tries to imagine it is her mother holding her hand instead, her mother asking if she’s comfortable and monitoring the anesthesiologist as he lowers the mask down over her face. Her mother listening as he asks her to breathe deeply and her mother watching her daughter’s chest rise with a too-deep breath like the young woman is trying to inhale a new life into herself and—

---

Greetings and gifts of the light, X’Hal, living goddess, blood and queen of Vega-hr’ak

I don’t quite know how to pour words over the sage like he does, but I will try for both of them to clear this air for the future.

Dendrophylax lindenii was transported across the wind, and so was I. This past year has been the worst of my life. I pray everything I left behind is still blooming, X’Hal, and will continue to bloom long and prosperous. It is not my father’s new year yet, nor my mother’s, but I belong to this planet, so I will pray for it to begin a new year without decay or disease.

I know this is a prayer that can’t be answered, X’Hal, you are not a goddess of miracles, but I will pray for it anyway.

This was the worst year of my life; it was the best year of my life.

You are not a goddess of miracles, X’Hal, but you are a goddess of love, and of ferocity. So I will pray for love, for the ferocity to protect my newfound loves, for your blessing in keeping them safe and happy at any and all costs. I often wonder why botanists stay so frustrated about the ghost orchid and its inability to blossom in captivity for more than a couple of years. Don’t they understand that to blossom, against all odds, even if it will be stomped upon, ripped, burned, abandoned and replaced, don’t they understand that is better than never again opening up white petals?

Goddess, clear this air and bring only sun in for them. They are all plants I will claim and nuture, in your all-mother memory, because I blossomed again after my roots were ripped away. Keep them bright in the sun, far from the dark, for they have escaped it too many times to fall into it again. Keep them warm when the world is cold.

Bless me with the words to some day explain this to them, and the touch to do so until then. Bless the kahira I will plant for them to grow tall and beautiful in their image. Bless this house, and their houses, and all the houses we will all inhabit, together or apart.

And if I can make one selfish request, X’Hal, because you are not a goddess of humility like those of the humans and I think you’ll understand. If I must leave again, if that is my destiny, just give me the year. Just let me have them for another year. Let me hold them for 365 nights until 365 days of sun have shone on their faces.

bossymarmalade

His inquiries are refused by Father, which comes as little surprise. Discussions regarding Mother were infrequent and stilted already, and now that she’d been responsible for whatever havoc had ensued upon the League’s dealings with the Underworld, he could hardly expect Father to provide him with the information he requested.

No matter. It entails a few consecutive nights of digging through files on the central computer, perusing the portion of the database permitted for his level of clearance, but he finally locates what he thinks he’s seeking. Schematics for the safehouse in downtown Gotham where Jason Todd once lived were accessed eight days ago. He dresses himself in his full Robin regalia, the braided leather scabbard holding his scimitar strapped across his back, and leaves the cave on his bike.

When he’s in the same room as her again, having disabled the electric field surrounding the small home and used the oxygen filter in his belt to make it through the motion-sensored puffs of knockout gas, he makes no noise at first. He’s content to gaze upon her, lain there in a nest of cotton sheets, resting with what might be mistaken as tranquility by anyone who didn’t know her as well as her son did.

It smells stale and dusty in the safehouse, as if all the linens had just been pulled out of months left in a storage closet. Mother doesn’t belong here in such a place, not with the deep resplendence of her rich hair and skin against those colorless bedsheets. Damian moves to her side, fingers extended toward one brunette strand that flows like a ribbon across the pillow, but his touch never connects.

( umbilical )

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Roy:You're a fucking asshole.

Ollie:Yeah? What makes you say that?

Roy:your fucking questions.

Ollie:I don't get why that makes me an asshole.

Roy:They were the most douchebag questions on there.

Ollie:I don't think the meme was designed that way. It had questions, not good questions and douchebag questions. Just plain ol' questions.

Roy:Whatever.

Ollie:I don't understand what you're so bent outta shape for. I mean, it's a subject that's of overwhelming importance to you, isn't it?
Ollie:Who's fucking who and how?

Roy:Hope you enjoyed 48.

Ollie:...she would have liked you.

Roy:Yeah. I'm sure she would've. -heavily sarcastic-

Ollie:She liked people who spoke their minds.

Roy:Fuck off, Ollie.
Roy:I'm straight. It's normal. And you can get back to that too.

( unvarnish )

bossymarmalade

MISSION OBJECTIVE: Investigate an object crashed on the south side of Cape Horn, Chile. Object originates from outer space. Use precaution. Rendezvous with other League members at crash site and do not engage unless absolutely necessary.

Upon arrival, the weather is cold and stormy. Everything is covered in snow and ice. The area is uninhabited by anything except clutches of penguins. There is a very large crater carved out towards the coast, and within the crater lies what looks like the remains of the robot alien species known as Manhunters.

The gigantic 90ft-tall robot is clearly inoperative and it looks badly beaten. There is something squirming within its husk.

Your teammates arrive soon…

( used-to-be )

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Kyle is on the verge of saying something flirty and incredibly clever when the roof crashes in and there’s some flying evil-looking dude floating outside. He charges up and uses his skillful hand-blasts, aimed towards Zee and Kyle. Kyle throws up a shield at the last minute, but the force of the unexpected attack sends the both of them shooting through multiple walls of the condo, crashing through a window and catapulting outside towards the beach.

Zee tumbles, everything happening too fast and too unexpectedly for her to even have time to react to it all. It’s not till she hits the wet sand that it anything seems to register. “Kyle? Who was that?” she wheezes, the air knocked out of her.

Kyle is dazed, but he shakes his head like a dog and recovers quickly. “I don’t know, but I’m gonna find out.” Kyle looks at her for a moment, not sure if he should tell her to stay put or come along. He leaves Zee to decide, flying up and over the crest of the condo. There’s another large flash of light and a crashing sound, and Kyle comes sailing back down to the beach like a lobbed baseball. This time when he lands, it’s with enough force to send sand flying six feet into the air. The meta-man follows, and leers at Zee as he hovers in the air. “Hello, totty. Looks like your boyfriend’s down for the count. You wanna tango with me?” His hands start to charge up again.

In the short stretch of time Kyle is gone, Zee starts to gather herself up. Her costume and hair shifting back in place just before Kyle’s second crash landing. She stands up, stance defensive while she covering her eyes from the onslaught of sand that rains down from Kyle. “I’ll keep you occupied for now.” she hisses, fingers pointed to the ground she casts sharply, “Mrotsdnas.” the sand surrounding her violently whipping up around her, shielding the meta’s view of Zee and Kyle. As soon as the block is in place Zee runs to where she saw Kyle crash, “Wake up wake up wake up.” she whines, half to herself and half to Kyle. This all feels like an unexpected nightmare.

( claiming on behalf of )

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Kate dozes off on a QT breakroom sofa.

Ramsey sits beside his mother, playing what is surely the seven-hundredth game of Zelda today.

Kate stirs a little, and as she wakes, realizes she’s started to drool. It’s a good thing she sorta technically owns these sofas now. “Ugh, Ram, how long was I asleep, honey?”

Ramsey glances over at his mother, then at the clock on the wall behind her. “Couple’a hours,” he mumbles, clicking a button that causes an oversized sword to start causing damage before he actually looks back over at the screen.

"Oh geez. Oh my god," says Kate. "You could have woke me up so we could go home, it would have been okay." She gathers, somehow, that Ramsey is either okay with sitting there playing with his 3DS or doesn’t care enough about where he is yet. She’d thought the latter was getting better, what with him wanting to be in LA, but…she doesn’t know. What needs to happen, really, is she needs to be able to ask. As Ollie said, Ram is clearly her son, and he’s reacting almost exactly as she has—and had, at his age.

Ramsey shrugs, frowning at the little blinking ‘charge battery’ light. “It’s okay, I didn’t want chili for dinner anyway.” He breaks a few pots, gathering up all the coins, and asks, without looking at her: “Did you and Pa and Mr. Bruce break up?”

Kate is startled, then clears her throat, gently. “You better save that, dulcito. And no, actually, we didn’t break up at all. Did someone say something?”

Ramsey looks up at her, for a long moment, then nods. “Okay, that’s good. I didn’t know.” He saves the game, shutting his console with a satisfying click. “Do you think we could have pozole from somewhere instead of chili?”

Ramsey shakes his head. “No, but Pa moved back home.”

( schism )

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The human understanding of the universe is infantile, at best.

At its worst, it is prideful, ignorant. It believes itself to be the center of the universe. The crux of existence.

But, like infants, there is always truth underlying the exaggerations. A fever for the scream. A fear behind the laugh.

The truth is this:
Long before your sun existed, long before any star your human eyes observe in the dark night burned, there was a seed.

This seed became a plant. This plant became a tree. And this tree became a mother.

Of course, the tree was no more female than she was a tree, but these are the words that best fit your language, your understanding. It is infantile, at best.

The universe was an infant itself, and like you, it held beautiful potential. It was ready to grow—to expand. And the mother was swelling as well, swelling with life and hope she wished to share with the infant universe. She released a shimmering color from her roots, to match the sky as it filled with light. She was not the only one. Beings, deities, creators, and entities were all contributing power to the universe, sending out star systems and hand-sculpting species, releasing concepts and contagions out to fill the new void. The universe filled with galaxies and those galaxies filled with stars, and the vast expanse of space became ruled by whatever creation reached it first.

The deities of color reached many stars and their planets, sending emotions across their vast and barren surfaces, planting hope and rage and will into the soil alongside the seeds. But the universe is more than just those many thousands of sectors. It is expanding, growing, grown beyond any range of human comprehension.

The mother tree allowed her light-child to roam free in the new universe. And it found a place to call its own. There, it prospered, and the fledgling space around it reflected bright in its glorious crystal.

But the mother tree was not happy. Granted, the mother tree could not feel because she was neither a she, nor a tree, nor a being whose emotional state was intrinsically tied to morality such as yours is. Instead, the mother tree realized that she had created an imbalance in the young universe, and it was agreed among all other originals that she must balance the scales. There could be no light without dark, no good without evil.

So she quickly produced a calamity, a dark shimmering mass that was supposed to resemble the universe before light had awoken. It was malformed, disgusting. It could not speak, nor stand—it was a parasite.

The crystal-child realized far too late what its mother had done, long after the darkness took galaxies and stars for its own. It tried to wage war—to protect the fledgling worlds—but it failed. It failed again and again, and during the long battle the universe was still growing and expanding, creating new stars for fighting over, new worlds for the darkness to control.

It was not enough to take the outskirts back into the dark, though. The dark-child reached further and further, into places where other creations lived, embodiments and entities that were filled with light and power it could consume.

Earth is not the center of the universe. It is a child, just like its star, just like its system. But it is true that Earth is crucial—Earth is essential. For whatever reason, for whatever destiny, Earth is the crux of galactic power. It is where power flees when its original home is taken. The universe’s understanding of its own reasoning for this phenomenon is infantile, at best.

But the outskirts—the expanding rims and rifts—they are no longer enough. For a long time, longer than you will be able to comprehend, they have not been enough. And now, now it is reaching into your light, into your understanding of the universe. Into sectors you can name and locate and fly to within your own small lifespans.

We will try to protect you, but without your help, we will fail, as we have an innumerable number of times before. We would bring you into the light, not take it from you, but we are not strong enough.

For there is the irony of existence: there is no true balance.

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Titans/Justice League mission alert: Waimea Canyon, Kauai, Hawaii. Coordinates as follows. Partial remains of an unidentified Psion (alien, Vega System) space ship has crash landed.

WARNING: LIFEFORMS STILL ABOARD. USE CAUTION.
Zee arrives at the Canyon with her usual flair, a quick crack sounding through the air around her new position. The crash site resting nearby.

Cupping her hands over her eyes like a visor, she survey’s the crash from a distance. Otherworldly things have never been her area of expertise. Had there been a magical related crash though she’d be all over it.

"Well I don’t see anything moving now…" Zee mumbles, in no particular hurry to poke at the ruins of what she imagines to be a hive of alien like creatures waiting to swarm her.

"Hey Zee!" Mia called as she beamed down to the crash site. She made her way over towards the other woman with her bow in hand. Just in case something jumped out. Even though all seemed calm at the moment, that could change quickly.

She looked at the wreckage of whatever it was that had landed. “Soo. What are we supposed to do?” She asked glancing over at Zatanna.

Inside the ship, a Psion returns to consciousness. He is injured, but he can still move.

( 321 contact )

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Roy opens up the front door to Mar’i’s apartment with his key, several plastic bags over his wrists, three boxes of Krispy Kreme in his hands as he toes the door open.

Mari glances over her shoulder from the couch. There’s a college basketball game on her TV, but Mar’i seems more interested in the updates on her League comm. “Watch out for Pop—” she begins, but the lizard is already gliding towards him before she can finish, scrambling up onto his head like a crown.

Roy sets the donuts down on the counter even as Mar’i begins to speak, and he exhales, smiling quickly as Poppy clambers down for a kiss. He kisses the top of her head and removes a donut, placing it on the box for her. He walks over to Mar’i, and kisses the top of her head, sitting down next to her. “How are you feeling?”

Mari watches him for a moment. “I’m fine.” She glances back at the comms, then up at the TV. “I’m okay,” she amends, before looking back at Roy. “I’m sorry.”

Roy swallows, and bounces his knee a bit, exhaling. “Kyle texted me.” He reaches out and sets a hand over her knee, squeezing.

Mari nods her head. “That’s what I’m sorry about.”

Roy ’s face twists in a dark pantomime of his normal expression and he moves closer to her, on the couch, both his hands moving to curl around his elbows. “..why.”

( and prepare for what is to come )

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[TXT] they took Mar'i away

It was a relief when the Guardians alerted Kyle to investigate activity in a distant corner of the sector. He moved on automatic - first, find Zee and tell her that he was heading off-planet. Zee was having lunch with her manager, so that was easy enough. That was simple and familiar and routine, which he took solace in because it seemed like everything else was currently up-ended in his life—

His home destroyed
The Guardians were acting weird - well, weirder than usual
Jenny…(if it wasn’t for her busy with Justice League business, he’d have been tempted to ask Jenny to come along with him right now)
He messed up royally with two people he considered close friends.
The latter was most recently weighing on his mind, when the Guardians issued the Green Lantern orders. And Kyle obeyed. He had to admit, sometimes it was kinda nice to just be told what to do by All-Powerful, All-Knowing Beings. No thinking, just doing.

And thankfully the mission was monotonous and process-heavy. Kyle didn’t mind. He was being productive, and he was alone. Christ, Kyle hadn’t even told Zee what he did to Roy and Mar’i. He figured she’d try to be understanding; and Kyle knew his actions didn’t warrant that.

So it was six hours of rote busywork until Kyle headed home. Cresting over the moon, he slowed as his ring detected an anomaly orbiting over the Earth; but he couldn’t see anything. Kyle constructed anti-cloaking radar goggles over his crabmask, scanning until he spotted a sleek space ship. It was a craft built for travel and not much else. Tamaranean design, his ring coolly informed him; and Kyle could make out a militaristic crest imprinted on the back. For some reason Kyle’s first thought was of Koriand’r, not Mar’i. But then a trio of light-blips shot out from Earth - San Francisco, his ring coolly responded (cripes, even his ring seemed disappointed with him) - and the blips headed into the ship itself. Transport beams. Reacting on instinct, Kyle flew towards the space craft; but the ship ignored the Lantern as it gracefully turned and set a course away from Earth. Before he could construct anything or even hail the Tamarans, it hit lightspeed and disappeared from the galaxy. Kyle stopped short, hovering in confusion. Why would a Tamaranean ship come all the way to this sector, only to disappear moments later?

That was when he got Roy’s text.

Reading it, Kyle felt his heart flip. He messaged back.

[Ring Txt] I saw the ship. Oh jesus, Roy.

[Ring Txt] I’ll find out what’s going on.

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She realized it was a terrible decision the moment they materialized onto the cruiser. Not because she could’ve gotten away—three sun-pumped Tamaraneans with modified blasters would’ve had her and Roy in bits before they could’ve gotten to the elevator, and that was a fact that she was trying not to think about too deeply—but because Mar’i had possibly just set up her own biggest lie. She had told Roy she was going to come back to him, but as the head of the guard twisted her arm and forced her to move forward, Mar’i realized that she should’ve told him it was Queensguard that had come for her, not the usual draft paper-serving goons. That the head of Queensguard was usually charged with far more important things than dragging warriors away from their families.

"So," she began, in the thick Tamaranean dialect that was reserved for royalty, "she sent three of you for one me?"
"Shut up or I’ll shut you up, mongrel,” the impetuous one snarled, and mentally Mar’i began calculating if she could steal his blaster or at least break something he needed to function.

But the head of the guard turned then, and looked her right in the eyes. Mar’i swallowed, throat cotton-dry, and stared at him. Tamaraneans abhorred cowardice and weakness. The moment she showed either, Mar’i knew, her usefulness as a warrior, and thus her safety, would be null and void.

( played )

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[Ring Txt] I was waiting to tell you in person. I’m on my way.

Roy reclined after reading the message. Adebayo had been in and out of his room since last night. The diagnosis was a simple one: concussion, laceration, aching bones. The script she had given, less so: the woman had done the verbal version of a solid ass whooping. Villains of the world didn’t need to devise masterplans or crazy devices if he was going to let a lack of sleep and unfocused mind do him in. Long story short, Roy could be his own worst enemy.

But that wasn’t anything new.

Staring at the pudding cup, untouched and unopen, in front of him, Roy wondered.
Kyle arrived quickly, heading into the MedBay. Roy was still in the same bed, although now there was a bandage on his head, and Roy was half-sitting up, bolstered by a small army of pillows. Kyle approached, sketching out a construct stool for himself at Roy’s bedside.

( on the move )

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The so-called “Angels of Mercy” (a poor translation, Mar’i thought) were the worst part of fighting Branx warriors. The skinner from Rashashoon had speculated while sharpening his blade that their tough hides would prove the most formidable during the battle.

Mar’i had no problem cracking through their hides, but the reincarnating spirits that had passed down through their people for generations were proving harder to crack. Generations of warrior’s souls in a single being meant smarter, faster, stronger fighters.

And that meant staying on her toes. She took two slices to the back before this sunk in, and once the female Psion—she had a name, Mar’i knew, but the disgust of working with one of species who had tortured her mother was too strong to use it—had figured out the formation they were using, they were on the rebound.

( knight )

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Goriam does not enjoy the crying of females. Thokos makes the same complaint when the old Karnan wails for her dead child, but his hatred is based off fanciful ideas of strength and power.

Goriam does not enjoy the crying of females because she remembers the sound of her own cries in the dark.

The egg sac that contained Goriam, as well as her sister Gorius, along with six other females, four males, and 2 asexed, incubated for exactly 39.521 day-units. It was kept at precisely the right temperature for optimum male production, and, like all other Psion egg sacs, was kept cozy in a secure heat-room.

Goriam’s brothers saw the outside world moments after their hatching, when they were whisked away to the shelters of science and learning that would train them to be the scientists so revered, so feared, by the universe. It was a suitable fate for beings born without empathy.

The ones with empathy, however, the females and their siblings, would find themselves trapped in the same reproduction factories for the rest of their lives.

( pawn )

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Kyle kisses Zee softly, morning light illuminating her face and pillow as she lays in bed. ”I love you. I have to go. We’ll be back soon.”

"I love you too." Zee replies, eyes blinking slowly in the sunlight. It’s an automated response by now. But as Kyle’s following words hit her half awake brain she jolts upward, arms wrapping around his neck as if to hold him back.

"I know you have to go, but since you said you don’t know how long you’ll be gone this time I might have something for you." she noses against him anxiously, her heart beating fast as if their moments together were already numbered by Kyle’s looming departure. "You don’t have to take it though. If you don’t want to. I’ll understand."

Kyle gathers Zee half off the bed even as she rises up to meet him, instinctively to cupping at her familiar curves to support her. He can feel her heart beating, accelerating his own; and Kyle pushes his nose against her shoulder, into her sweet-smelling hair.

"I - you - what?" He halfway registers as she speaks. The coffee he’d consumed a few minutes earlier had yet to kick in; and stupidly, selfishly, Kyle realizes with regret that he won’t be enjoying any more coffee, not for a long while.

( on the way up )

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Honestly, Kyle didn’t like it.

He was the Torchbearer, then he was the Guardian of the Universe and now he was an Honor Guard - all of these titles were, Kyle thought secretly, painfully bombastic. Kyle knew some members of the Justice League didn’t much care for the Green Lantern Corps. Okay who was he kidding, a lot of them downright resented the GLC. Spacepigs. Militaristic interstellar tyrants. Arrogant greenheads. Blue know-it-alls and their gang of brainless green thugs. Kyle had heard it all.

( lone green machine )

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“Where,” Komand’r snarls, punctuating each one with a snap of her teeth, “Is. She?”

The Citadelian glances up at her from his position below the throne. He is not particularly fearful, Komand’r knows, but she doesn’t need him to fear her, not just yet. ”She has not appeared in any of my quadrants, nor those of my soldiers. In fact, we haven’t seen her for days.”

Komand’r clacks her teeth again, looking out a nearby window at the wide expanse of Vegan space before her. ”She would not go far,” she murmurs, tapping her chin. ”Not from our people.”

“Ours?” the Citadelian sneers.

The queen snaps her fingers once, and instantly Queensguard are hauling him back to his feet and forcing him out of the room. Komand’r stands, once he is gone, letting the sleek gown fall from her broad shoulders.

( queen )

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She was so beautiful, so perfect, an artist’s dream reflected back to him in angles and aspects Kyle had never envisioned. His own imagination seemed to fall miserably short compared to the vast, endless perspectives possessed by The Leader. In her voice and carriage, and her majestic comportment. Kyle couldn’t take his eyes off of her.

And yet, something didn’t feel right. Chalk it up to an uncomfortable scratching habit he’d developed, his wide fingers compulsively rolling aside Zee’s copper pendant to scratch at his skin underneath. Maybe he was allergic to copper, Kyle idly mused. Maybe the clasp of the pendant kept catching in his chest hair…but ah well. Kyle didn’t stop to worry about whether The Leader found his endless scratching rude; for all she knew, this was just a polite Earth gesture.

And that was another thing: Kyle was used to the Guardians being mysterious. But this seemingly-immediate acceptance of The Leader and her race as, well, leaders - just felt off. The Guardians were control-freaks! Hell - they were so controlling that The Controllers schismed away from the Oans to get away. And Ambassador or no, Kyle knew nothing about these gliding crystal entities - where they came from, what their motives were: nada. And as gorgeous as they were, he was not that easily swept away by pure, unadulterated beauty. Kyle always had a preference for imperfections; it was what made things endearing, adding personality. And this Leader…she had no imperfections. She was flawless.

Still, as the ship arrived in the Vegan System, Kyle followed her around obediently, observing every perfect word, every impeccable gesture. Despite his misgivings, he would have agreed to any of her suggestions and thoughts on negotiating with the Tamaranean Queen. She seemed so wise and benevolent, she seemed to know and see everything.

Fortunately, when they arrived on the ship’s bridge, Kyle saw Carol.

( the ferris wheelhouse )

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You are buttoning up your Robin tunic in the cave when it appears, in a flash of violet light.

The raptor-like being drags a heavy chain through the dark floors, sniffing and growling at the air as it skitters towards you. You feel a heavy, overpowering love in your chest, one that feels easily within the verge of obsession. It crawls up your chest, pinning you against a glass case as it sniffs you, then attempts a strange caricature of a smile.

«Hatchling! Hatchling!» it half-coos, half-hisses in your mind, voice jittery and curling. «Hatchling, your black heart is good, good for us yes, Predator will stay here until the darkness has passed, the one called Ferris may come looking, but she is our love, that is fine, we love her.»

In the first second, he thinks Mar’i Grayson has materialized in the cave, the violet of her hair having grown wild during the days of war until her mane overwhelmed her entirely. He doesn’t mind it.

( the power of love )

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You are fighting a dragon in Skyrim in your mother’s apartment when it appears, in a flash of red light.

The bull-like entity charges through your home, down your halls, into your room, and pins you against the wall in a flurry of red-hot rage. Its breath billows down your neck as your head goes fuzzy with fury.

«CALF» it roars inside your mind. «CALF, YOU ARE FULL OF ANGER, YOU WILL BE MY HOST UNTIL THE DARKNESS HAS PASSED. I AM THE BUTCHER.»
Ramsey didn’t know why one of his family members had installed the train mod, but watching a massive train descend from the sky and pummel the dragon was more than entertaining. He approached the body, in game, about to scavenge for items, when he felt it shake the apartment with the sheer force it used to materialize through the walls and down the halls.

Super-strength was no good against an emotional entity—particularly not one like The Butcher, who was comprised entirely of hate and anger, abstract concepts turned to burning crimson reality. He squealed as it pinned him between its tusks, forcing his little body up against the Superman blue walls he had his mother paint a few years prior. Try as he might, Ramsey could not stop the being, not even with a concentrated blast of his secondary powers.

If anything, The Butcher only grew as he did so. Its snarling laugh tore through the little boy’s skull, resounding off the bone with images of the people who would hate Ramsey for everything he was, everything he would grow up to be. Ramsey’s own rage was burning up his throat like stomach acid, and he couldn’t seem to quell it back down.

"S-stop," he groaned, pushing at the beast’s head, careful of the sharp fangs that protruded forward. "Please l-leave me—"

The Butcher opened its mouth now, and laughed. The force of the action sent hot blood from its core splashing against the boy’s face, and Ramsey gagged and squirmed even harder against the disgusting warmth.

«NO» it replied, lips curling ferally as it dropped the boy. «NO, RAMSEY, I THINK I WILL STAY»

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Although the Changralynians had successfully tamed and terraformed the mountains of their planet into tall, peaceful cities, they had left the vast majority of the land untouched. And for good reason. The entirety of the lower lands, from the thick, wooded marshes to the overgrown plains, including even the distant, deserts closest to the Vegan sun were crawling with deadly, hallucinatory plant life.

The lower tribes who had left Sharll’s peaceful walls and descended below to live out their lives were in constant exposure to these dangers. In response, they had developed strategies for telling reality from hallucination—strategies they passed down from one generation to the next.

When the regiment moved through their camps, Goriam had milked them for information, trading her knives and technologies for information. She dined with them for nearly five hours before she could ascertain anything of use to the troops.

"Little one," she had told Mar’i as she unbraided the younger woman’s hair and picked out the bits of bone and entrails that had become lodged in the soft, burning tresses, "in the fake you cannot read, you cannot count. You will be able to differentiate what is real and what is not from whether or not you can do these things.”

( checkmate )

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Your children are arguing at the breakfast table when it appears, in a flash of blue light.

The bird-like being spreads its wide wings out after it materializes, and you and your family are filled with a blossoming sense of hope. It seems happy to see your children, and speaks to them directly, not to your nor your wife.

«Dearest chicks» it chirps in a calm voice. «I am Adara, I am hope. Please allow me to stay with you until the calamity has passed.» It glances at you only momentarily, round triple-eyes twinkling in vague recognition.

- - -

As usual breakfast, along with every other meal and everything else, is a boisterous occasion in the Park-West household. Especially when the kids don’t have to head off to school and neither Linda or Wally have work. So when a giant blue entity appears in the dining room it’s strange but not as strange as the quite that follows it.

It speaks to Jai and Irey who look at each other before rushing the blue bird-like thing interestedly.

"You’re hope? What does that even mean?"

"Your wings are pretty!"

"Can I touch you?"

“Dad! Can it stay with us?”

Both kids turned to look at their parents with pleading looks.

"Uh…" Wally said looking over at Linda. "It’s a Blue Lantern entity I think." He explained glancing towards Adara momentarily for confirmation,

"And Blue is good?"

"Uh-duh mom!"

But Jai fell silent under his mother’s gaze, so Wally continued for him. “Well, hope is good…”

"Please mom!" Irey pleaded bouncing a little, almost too fast for anyone to notice — save for her dad of course — "We’re not even doing anything today!"

"Oh alright." She said in an amused tone and Wally was pretty sure there wasn’t a chance of her saying no in the first place. "Just stay inside!" She called over the happy cheers of her children as the rushed off with the blue bird entity to show it around their house.

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The change was so subtle that the Green Lantern Corps on Oa didn’t notice anything, no build-up, no strange anomalies. The Lanterns assigned to sectors across the universe noticed it even less. Besides, they all trusted the Guardians to detect any invasion on Oa or anything strange with the Central Battery. After all, that was what being all-knowing and all-powerful was all about, wasn’t it? They trusted their Guardians to know.

The Guardians did know…but they chose not to say anything. The GLC remained ignorant, thinking they were safe and sensing nothing.

( the might of will )

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selina

"I waited for you for hours."

Ollie looks up from the jewellery case and blinks at the woman addressing him, diamond and ruby sparkles still in his eyes. The bright shine clears after a couple of seconds and shadowy, shifty violet-greys slink in, and Ollie smells orchids and gin when he says, “…Selina.”

That’s as far as he gets. She slaps him hard, openhanded, the sound of the smack resounding through the shop. All the clerks and guards are bored by high-society drama, though, and when Ollie doesn’t seem to be reacting with outrage, they keep their attention firmly on their own tasks.

"For hours," Selina hisses, the words making plump bows of her dark lips, and Ollie frowns at the level of volume she’s employing. "I got sidetracked," he offers, matching her pitch, and at the tiny impatient toss of her head that sets her silver-threaded curls to bobbing, Ollie follows the direction of the movement to see two men standing at the watch case, both of whom are wearing watches that cost considerably less than anything in this store. He takes a breath and settles his hand in the small of Selina’s back, resting on the swell of her ass, and uses his best cozzening tone to say, "How about you let me take you to lunch, and I’ll see about making it up to you."

( just one way down )

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"I’m sorry Ambassador Green Lantern, but you cannot do that."

"Watch me." Kyle replied, his easy tone masking a surge of emotions so strong they were making his entire being tremble.

The Leader - this ‘Aell’aj’nah’zeah’ - spoke evenly and sadly, clasping her hands in front of her. ”Then I am disappointed. The Green Lantern Corps has let down the cause for peace. You no longer care about good triumphing over evil. Is that what you’re saying, my dear Green Ambassador?”

"Whatever you say, lady." Kyle stepped into the crystalline shuttle pod, powering it with his own will as The Leader authorized the pod to leave her mothership. The Green Lantern was leaving no matter what; and in good faith, The Leader had no intention of stopping him.

( interstellar ambassadorship )

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Lianzilla makes Zee dance close to Ion. “Willy likes you,” she observes coyly and then giggles. Lian has no issue with humanoid/non-humanoid relations.

Zee mostly shuffles about as she’s not very sure of dancing with a whale, but she puts on a good show for Damian and Lian at least. “You think?” she asks, looking to the whale entity with a small smile, “Maybe it’s because I like Kyle so much. We have that in common I think.”

Damian Wayne gets close to Ion’s mouth when it sings the long notes and wonders if he could live in there like Pinocchio

Ion proceeds to swallow Damian and allows the boy to float around in its totally harmless transparent stomach-sac.

Lianzilla eyes light up. “Willy!! Willy, can we all ride inside you and go save Marmee??”

Damian Wayne yelps in a very un-stoic manner but quickly realizes no harm has come to him and stands with hands astride his hips within the whale, declaring himself King of the Whale Stomach

Zee eyes widen at Ion SWALLOWING Damian, but he doesn’t seem to be in any distress, and Ion hasn’t seemed to have any cause for eating humans prior to this, “You alright in there Damian?” she asks anyway. Bruce would kill her if he was digested by a space whale.

( and walked out of my life )

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You are inside your pocket dimension when it appears, in a flash of indigo light.

The squid-like entity shuttles slowly through the air, clearly meaning you no harm as it examines your place of residence. As it turns the closest thing it has to an eye towards you, you feel an overwhelming sense of comfort and compassion.

«Many salutations, paralarva» it says, rather formally, «The one bearing the honor of being Proselyte has come seeking shelter from the oncoming darkness. The one bearing the honor of being Proselyte senses compassion here, and wishes to partake in it, if that is agreeable to the one bearing the honor to be…» Proselyte shrinks in size and comes close to your face, staring into your eyes, «…you.»

In her time adventuring with Uncle Hal (when he was the Spectre) and travelling into suns, being kidnapped by demons, and flying on magic carpets with her interdimensional nanny, Helen Jordan has seen quite a lot of Very Odd Things.

This is very high on the list.

"Hello, Prosle — Prosilalyte," Helen says, copying the formal tone but mangling the indigo creature’s name along the closest lines of something she recognizes, which is how the spirit of the Indigo Lanterns gets its name crossed with ‘Pedialyte’. "I am Helen Jordan, and I’m happy to give you shelter, since you seem…" The little girl puts her hand cautiously on one of the creature’s gently waving tentacles, shutting her eyes long enough to feel the radiating waves of care and compassion coming from it. "Honourable," she finishes, and moves closer to hug Proselyte.

"But I think it might be better for us to go somewhere else," Helen frowns, from her place snuggled against Proselyte’s tentacles and carefully avoiding its eye. "Prosilalyte, do you know how to get to the Watchtower? Where there’s Green Lanterns?"

bossymarmalade

WATCHTOWER REPORT FILE NO. 056582-DZ
——————————————————————————

STATUS: OPEN

——————————————————————————

PRIORITY: ALPHA-RED

——————————————————————————

THREAT OF DANGER: IMMINENT

ACTION ADVISED: ALL AVAILABLE RESOURCES TO PREPARE FOR POTENTIAL INVASION AND ATTACK FROM NON-EARTH FORCES

——————————————————————————

SUMMARY:

( pto )

bossymarmalade

The infant Black Mercy instantly begins secretion once it is left alone in the Arboretum containment unit.

Its mother has informed it of the great need — of its noble sacrifice.

The current all-mother is not the first, for like a hive of bees, there is a queen who must eventually pass, as all things do.

Regardless of generation, memory is absorbed into the roots of each Black Mercy from seed to sapling. The memory of light, the memory of dark, the memory of the imbalance a once-proud Mother had tried to correct.

But sometimes the best, the fastest, solutions were not the most beautiful.

The firstborn of the first all-mother — its aunt-uncle by all means — is already inside their minds, hardening and brightening and reflecting all things seemingly good and bright. And yet, all the while, it is only a two-way mirror. The reflection is bright and magnificent, but behind many things lurk and pass, all of them white shadows bearing horrors and loss.

In a few hours, the boy-child will latch the infant onto himself and use its latent abilities to unleash his own inner fears. But for now, the Black Mercy secretes.

The black goo is viscous and clings to anything and everything as it sinks to the bottom of the thin layer of soil. It attempts, for the millionth time of its kind, to form something that looks trustworthy, looks safe, to no avail. It cannot form the mouth it needs to explain, nor the hands it needs to show.

And so the dark liquid waits until the boy-child breaks open the glass in his hysteria, and it slips out, unseen. Liquids expand to fill their containers, and so it multiplies and ripples, dividing itself evenly for all those recent lights burning bright. Around it, the glittering flicker of crystals tinkle and shine. It is very nearly too late for them all.

The liquid seeks out those new Lantern lights — there is no time to warn others, no time for pleasantries.

The liquid must stop it all now, and show them the truth.

As a Lantern, you have remained off-planet to fight. You cannot return to Earth until this duty is done. You want to hopefully – compassionately – lovingly – angrily – willfully - frightfully - defeat the evil darkness that threatens to completely destroy your home.

But is all evil truly dark?

Wherever you are at the time – in outer space, in the Watchtower, seeking the rogue Yellow Lantern Damian – a blackness that you did not trust and did not understand has seeped into your deeper consciousness. The blackness physically forces itself inside your body. You now fight a battle on two planes; and it is the fight within that will affect the battle to save your home, your universe.

This blackness is not evil. It is an unformed balm, sent forth too hastily by Mother Mercy to return balance. It is not designed to hurt, but to heal. And with your newfound Lantern abilities, it has found the right soil to take root.

( voices of the rainbow )

bossymarmalade

K: *dozes off again*

O: *pets her hair, kissing her shoulder and down her arm*

K: *shifts up and over to kiss him because it was ALL A PLOY*

O: *makes a pleased sound of surprise (because the ploy WORKED!!) and sweeps her properly into his arms* You were playing possum, you naughty mongoose!

K: Occasionally it works on you. Occasionally. *straddles him, sitting on his lap*

O: Mmmmm. Because I know your ways well, by now, don’t I? *holds her ribcage, then her waist, then gradually relocates his hands to curve around and under her ass*

K: *stretches upwards and leans in to brush a kiss against the top of his ear* Are you still upset with Bruce?

O: *gives a short laugh, tilting his head for the kiss even though there’s a sharpness to the sound* Bruce ain’t the only one I’m upset with.

K: *murmurs against his ear, firm about it even though she’s moving sensually as hell* Tell me.

O: *hauling her in closer, so she can feel him getting hard* I’m pissed at you too. You could’ve told me. /One/ of you coulda fucking told me.

K: *shifts slowly, with a deliberate roll of her hips* Could have, sure.

O: *holds her hips still, pulling back slightly to look at her* Why didn’t you? Is it because it was Talia? *he tries to keep his voice neutral, but that’s not his forte and the frustration and hurt come through, bitter-sour bottom notes*

K: *settles her gaze on him* Because I don’t like who you are when you’re around her.

O: *sets his jaw for a moment, eyes flaring* …and who’s that.

( slither )

bossymarmalade

Zee brushes her phone off of her lap, kicking her legs out to smack her heels against the ground. In a snap she snatches back up her phone texting Ollie, [Txt] You suck you suck you suck.

"I know," Ollie says from the end of the hallway, his phone in his hand. He walks over to where Zee’s sitting against the wall and slumps down next to her, stretching his legs out and folding his hands over his stomach. "I know. I shouldn’t … it wasn’t just you, in that room. Or either time. We were all part of it, in the end, no matter what side we voted for."

Zee leans against Ollie’s shoulder, “It’s not even just that. It’s that on top of you picking at Kyle, on top of everything, Ollie. You make it really hard to be your friend some days. Are you mad at me or something? Or…what I don’t get it.”

Oliver leans his cheek against Zee’s glossy, dark hair, remorse prickling at his chest. “No. No, I’m not mad at you even a little, sugarbee. I’m just … I dunno. It’s bad habits, y’know? I get like this when I’m antsy. Or when something’s going on that I can’t fix, or help with, or make better. I vent my frustration like this, lashing out at people I love.” He sighs. “It’s shitty. And you didn’t deserve any of it, and I’m sorry.”

Roy looks up at the mirror, turning his head this way and that, making sure he’s gotten all the angles of his beard, before he rinses his face thoroughly, and applies a post-shave balm, to prevent ingrown hairs.

Kyle looks at Roy’s profile, keeping one hand tucked by his elbow and he rubs his own face, along imaginary goatee lines. “Heyyyy going for the usual, huh? Lookin’ good, vato.” His focus skates from Roy’s chin and up to a scar curving along his scalp. “How’s Mar’i doing anyway? I sent her a couple texts, but I got radio silence.”

Roy shrugs. “She’s good. Busy. Springs gearing up so she’s gearing up, too..” His grin becomes soft around the edges. “She’s like that goddess, you know? The one that has flowers spring up under her feet?”

( everybody knows the deal is rotten )

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