Voidrunner's · Record

I always saw the link. Between the Threll and the Arquellians. I saw it, but I didn't know how to interpret it. Nor did I know how to interpret the simialarities between Adrina and myself.

I know now.

And the knowledge...chills me.

Children of time. Of course the Threll and Arquellians wander in and out of time. I am the Child of Time and they are my children. They are more convoluted than I will ever be. I'm not stupid, but I'm straightforward. Direct. I don't think like this.

Adrina is my grandchild. An incarnation of her anyway. I found it interesting that Chrys had such a similar name to Chrystonia and I have that answer too. And Shara Quorino. I wonder what would have happened had I given her the Empire when I had the chance? And Rebekkah Draven.

Cecil is not Longydeorn, the bar is his, and Longydeorn probably helped set it up so that the Obsidian Order could let out some great and terrible enemy. Misquali is definately Obsidian, but I never liked her anyway, for all she was my blood.

My blood. How I sneer to say it. Father was right. Nothing good can come of the Emporer's blood. But how could any of this have been prevented? There were already Arquellians well before I met father, there were already Threll. All of it had already happened, or was going to happen, and if it didn't happen, paradox.

"I'll always help a threll." My blessed children. How those words mock me now. I will laugh and laugh if Lysander proves to be the worthiest of them all, oh yes I will. Only he tried to kill Caleb, and Longydeorn saved him, once. And now Caleb is in their hands, and likely dead. Likely dead, maybe forever, because I did not see in time, because I have never been good at unravelling intrigue. No, I just try to do the right thing and end up playing into everyone else's hands. This is a dangerous line of thought. I've seen the alternative in action too, in all her cunning, evil glory. I don't want to be that either.

The problem is, having figured out a vast part of what's going on, we're having trouble acting on it. Our latest action seems feeble and unhelpful. It at least has a chance of destroying Misquali.

Everything looks so bleak right now, as if I were wearing this psi collar all the time, even though I've taken it off and shoved it back on my belt. Nothing I do seems to do anything but come back to bite, not just me, but everything and everyone. Why would the Universe want me for its last Voidrunner? I can't seem to get anything straight.

More over, the Veil of Ta'ree is outside of space and time, so even though we resolved the war between Dragon and Phoenix here -- at least I thought we did -- it still rages outside of this place.

Maybe its just...meant to.

Maybe even the great icon of the people cannot win them all. Maybe eventually a foe comes along too great even for a hero, and that hero falls, and something horrible happens, and everything changes, and things go on anyway as things do, because no sentient race can manage without threats and challenges, again and again. Well. I can't fall. I continue. Unless everything falls. If reality is destroyed I suppose I won't continue, but I somehow doubt they're working this hard just to annihilate themselves. If they were fucking nihilists they could have just let Comstar wipe them out so long ago.

Though this helps me sort it out. I'd been irritated with Dad for starting Comstar and wiping out the Threll -- but now it really, really, really starts to make some sense. Though Longydeorn helped him with that. What game is he playing?? What game was he playing? I ought to be more grossed out that I bedded a member of my blood race before I knew back in Pallindale, but all I can ever do is wonder if it was some vast manipulation or if he really loved me. Have I spent over 4,000 years feeling torturously guilty over Longydeorn's broken heart to have him be...

No. He's better than that.

Whatever else I come to believe, I'm going to believe that, and if it stabs me in the heart later well...I'll just make more of me I suppose.

Really, I can't afford to feel anything at all. If I stop and think about Caleb I'll break down, if I stop and wonder about Longydeorn I'll falter, if I consider Dad too much I'll begin banging my head against a wall because he was so right, all along, and it was too late, all along. I feel so vastly swamped up in the futility of it all.

I woke up on Nostalgia's homeworld, and got to do something about his problem. He had covered me in some sort of goo to keep me from dividing, for which I was immensely thankful. I don't remember it being this hard to not die before. I didn't die all the way up till Rix, before. Now it seems as though the entire Universe hungers to split me again and again and again.

No matter. We went through the sewar systems and past the guards, to a great sphere where the rest of Nostalgia's kind were being kept. He kept his humanesque form clear up till the end, and I saw how painful the transition is for him. I felt a great kinship with him now, like he'd dropped some guard. We had to communicate with our mouths, not our minds, and somehow this drew us closer. We went through the sewage system, which was a hard and disgusting challenge. Once again I am given to be thankful for my immunities. He said he respected me, and that was good to hear. I don't want to be a burden to anyone. So hearing he respects me makes his teasing all the more ok.

He was so badly hurt. We freed his kind and the Voidrunners. I watched them streak out to the sky. Towards their masters, he called it, but I don't like the term. I'm not Nostalgia's Master. He is my Friend. I am his friend. It is a bond deeper than friendship, which is why I capitolized his. In truth I need him far more than I think he needs me, and I am thankful for him every day. He restored a part of me, restored me to myself, gave me back what I'd thought forever lost, and what I'd feared to once again take hold of.

I want to write Nostalgia a poem.

But there is no time for poetry. When Caleb and I returned to the words we found that Onuwen and Adrina had killed Nico in my absense. And had proceeded to the forest world, where Adrina has learned how the taint upon magic might come to be cleansed. It needs a receptacle though, and the venue has been chosen.

The Tesseract.

The winds of change are blowing. I feel it. We all feel it. Caleb and I cling closely to one another. I feel like I should say something to Aeshric, but what to say? Like thinking on a cousin distant, and he does not acknowledge the blood kinship. I cannot reach my father. Therin is lost to me. Longydeorn cannot be reached either, and we said our goodbyes long ago. Cecil took Nedly, as Nedly will always be taken from me, now and forever, world without end, because I cannot protect her. I must cherish what I've had with her. And cherish what I have. Cherish Caleb. Forever Caleb. My one steadiness, my one strength, my one true love, the one person I can be myself around, no matter how silly or foolish, my dark moments, my bright moments, my smart moments and my stupid ones, my temper and my calm, everything. And he's my rock through it all.

Caleb and Nostalgia, my anchors. He's asleep beside me right now, Caleb.

The winds of change. Please don't blow my anchors away. Not so soon. Not now. Nostalgia, where are you?

He's back for REAL. That first one we picked up was just...some sort of clone thing. We found the real one in the Arena, trapped by the auror. That damn eye creature just pisses me off. It survived Arcadia's destruction.

In any event, we with some difficulty pulled him free, and the REAL Caleb is just fine . Neither of us wants to leave the other for a second at the moment.

And I had to go through psychoanalysis to get through the gate back to the primaterial. Maybe I really am just a murderer at heart who uses the moral code to make the murdering bits better. I can agree I should stop and think about it first. But my tattoos certainly never itched in response. Wouldn't they, had it been so bad? How can people tell me "oh, the cycle of birth and death and life goes on and you shouldn't involve yourself if it doesn't directly involve you and you don't understand it," but then turn around and tell me --

I don't know. You have to defend the weak, but I'll try to be a little more -- damaging vs. murdering.

We're stuck on the Forest Planet awaiting a ride. If it weren't fairly dangerous here I'd be dragging Caleb off into the bushes, but it is so I wanna get a look at what this symbol is instead...